A Review of Wildly Heroic Action Pulp, Issue #1
by Michael K. Eidson
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Product:
Wildly Heroic Action Pulp (WHAP!), Issue #1
Product Type:
Pulp Role Playing Game GM Adventures
Gaming System:
Tom's Adventure Gaming (TAG)
Authors:
Tom K. Loney, Mike Larsen
Editor:
Lad Hannes
Publisher:
Peryton Publishing
Publication Year:
2008
Review Date:
October 12, 2008
Do you ever tire of playing fantasy role playing games set in medieval settings, playing the standard warrior/wizard/thief/priest/druid types? No? Me neither. But occasionally it's fun to do something else, maybe some science fiction or cyberpunk games. Or maybe, just maybe, you could try some pulp fiction gaming. Don't know of many pulp fiction games out there, you say? Well, an addition to the genre is Peryton Publishing's Wildly Heroic Action Pulp (WHAP!), Issue #1.
While I see no indication inside the front cover of any plans to publish future issues of WHAP! on any regular basis, the presence of the phrase Issue #1 would indicate of itself that there are future issues planned. So hopefully this won't be a one-shot endeavor. But let's not get ahead of ourselves. Let's discuss what you will find in Issue #1.
WHAP! #1 is 70 pages devoted to pulp adventure role playing. It's written by Tom K. Loney and Mike Larsen, edited by Lad Hannes. Front cover art is by Regis Moulon. Interior art is by Regis Moulon, Steve Crompton (yes, that Steve Crompton), and "various others." Credit is also given to Edmund Wilfong, Christina Lea, and Ken St. Andre (yes, that Ken St. Andre); apparently these people gave some "special help" to the creation of WHAP! #1.
The booklet begins with a brief editorial and a few definitions. Following this are descriptions of various pulp genres, giving the GM some background on what sort of scenarios to expect in this and future issues. Later in the booklet there's a listing of historical events from the "modern age" to help the GM create a proper mood and setting for pulp adventuring. It's entertaining stuff even if one weren't thinking of playing the game.
The rules presented in WHAP! #1 leave much to be desired. It states on the cover, "No Other Rules Needed!" I beg to differ. If you have played other TAG games, then, OK, you don't need other rules. But if WHAP! #1 is your introduction to TAG, you may struggle to understand the game mechanics. I won't dwell on such faults. Suffice it to say that newbie TAG GMs might have to fill in some of the blanks or make their own interpretations of the rules. Or they can buy a copy of the basic TAG rules separately for a slight fee.
So what do the rules cover? You get brief descriptions of eight character classes appropriate for pulp adventuring, such as the Scrapper, the Gumshoe, the Flatfoot, and the Professor. There's also the Medium, for those that like a touch of the supernatural, or the Gimmick, for those that want to rely heavily on devices. Each class receives a few different abilities (also referred to as skills or perks). There is some detail about what each character class earns as levels of experience are gained, but not all of the character classes address this topic, and no where else in the rules are the specifics spelled out clearly.
Game specifics are listed for over 30 weapons, including natural weapons for unarmed combat (e.g., head butt), explosive weapons (e.g., dynamite stick), hand-held melee weapons (e.g., club, hatchet, shovel), long range hand-held missile weapons (e.g., bow and arrow, pistol, shotgun, machine gun), and larger long range missile weapons (e.g., cannons). Damage for these weapons is listed as an amount of dice and possibly a bonus. The bonus might be a fixed amount or it might be additional dice. While the rules don't give examples, you apply the ASTRO dice rule to the base damage dice and separately to any bonus dice.
For example, if a weapon's damage is listed as 4D+2D, you roll four dice as the base damage and two dice as bonus damage. If the four dice roll the same number, you get to add and reroll those four dice. If the two bonus dice roll the same number, you get to add and reroll the two bonus dice. This is actually better than having a straight 6D weapon, because in that case you'd have to roll the same number on all six dice to get a reroll under the ASTRO dice rule. This is a great idea that builds in some variability for weapons that would otherwise be practically identical in game play. This is a feature of all TAG games, but since it's easily missed while reading WHAP!, I thought I'd mention it.
Since WHAP! includes the use of weapons like grenades or dynamite sticks that can cause damage to an area or structures, the rules include a section regarding explosions and structural damage. There's a section of rules addressing illness and poison, and the obligatory rules about recovering lost health. The rules also describe various modes of land and air travel as well as the effects of heat, cold, and weather on a person. These are all the sorts of rules a GM would want to know for running a pulp fiction adventure.
Included in the rules portion of the booklet are descriptions of just over a dozen supernatural/psychic abilities defined over five spheres. The first sphere represents the innate abilities that everyone has, so it's the second sphere where characters with special psychic abilities start out. Sadly, it's not clear as to how a Medium character gains access to the abilities in spheres three to five.
WHAP! also provides an option to the defined list of powers; instead of (or in addition to) accessing the specific powers of the spheres, a character may learn spirit channeling or ritual magick. Neither of these latter two types of supernatural abilities are an exact science; the GM and player must work out the details of how these abilities work based on a few guidelines. Some gaming groups might appreciate this flexibility, others might be intimidated by it. If you don't want that kind of flexibility, stick to learning the powers of the spheres.
The last thing I'll mention about the rules is the level advancement table. It's there. Earn so many XPs, and you can brag about attaining a certain Experience Level. What does gaining an Experience Level mean for your character? As mentioned above, some of the character class descriptions give you some information about that. Otherwise the details are scant, which is OK if you're playing a one-shot game and not planning on a lengthy campaign.
Now on to the scenarios. There are three scenarios in WHAP! #1, with more obviously planned in future issues. This is made blatantly obvious by the fact that scenario 1, The Black Lotus Affair, is a cliffhanger. What do you expect from a pulp adventure? Supposedly the scenario will be continued in WHAP! #2.
This first installment of The Black Lotus Affair consists of five parts, some of which are subdivided further into scenes. The player characters go to work for the Society for Extra Weird Affairs (SEWA). They are sent to find the legendary Black Lotus flower and to determine the fate of the expedition that went looking for it earlier. This scenario will allow the GM to get started in the pulp genre and give the players a sense of what pulp is about without getting heavy into combat until later in the scenario. There are places to go, sights to see, and personalities with which to deal. There's more here than just finding and picking a flower. The fun is in getting to the flower. The GM won't want to rush the characters to the location of the flower, but build up the pulp mood by focusing on the personalities of the people met along the way and the effects of travel and weather on the characters as they make their way to where the Black Lotus awaits them.
Greenback Mine is the second scenario in WHAP! #1. I must tell you now that I played in this scenario with Tom running it, so I might be biased because of that. Tom is an experienced GM, and he is able to change up the game from what's written when the player characters go off script. It's always interesting to read the script of a scenario after one has played through it. Few experienced GMs will force the script of a scenario on their players when the script doesn't suit the needs of the gaming group. But the script for Greenback Mine is on target with what I experienced as a player in the game. This may be partly because Tom added some text to the script after our game. Maybe? If so, that's cool. Nothing like play testing a game to improve it.
This second WHAP! scenario is a Western adventure divided into eight scenes. The brief introduction before scene one aids the GM in determining reasons for the characters to be in the same town without already knowing each other. The GM can play up the introductory part of the scenario for as long as desired, to help get the players in the western mood and comfortable with their characters. At some point the GM will move to scene one, and things heat up from there.
Playing Greenback Mine might have been the first time I've played a western role playing game. I must say that it was incredible fun. If you have ever watched a western on TV, you've got some idea of what to expect from a western rpg adventure. There are armed bandits, dynamite explosions, a posse pursuing the bad guys, and shoot-outs. Player characters can accompany the posse or set off on their own to track down the bad guys. Some player characters might be captured by the bad guys, but they should have a chance to figure out how to escape. Throw in a bit of mystery, and you've got a recipe for a fun one-shot western adventure. Unlike The Black Lotus Affair, this adventure is neatly wrapped up in Issue #1; no cliffhangers on this one.
The Ring of Simon Bonaficious is the third scenario in Issue #1. It's broken into three acts (not five, as some of the scene headings would have you believe), and each act is further divided into scenes, for a total of 13 scenes. Hmm. I wonder if that's a sign of what type of adventure this is. I've heard spooky things about the number 13.
The player characters are called to work for SEWA, looking for, you guessed it, the Ring of Simon Bonaficious. Or is it a necklace? Or is it some other ring entirely? The players get fed some hazy information and they have to make of it what they will. Fortunately the SEWA officers know where to send the characters to start their search, and so the characters, armed with some new experimental SEWA equipment, set off for distant locations, traveling by unconventional means in the company of unconventional characters, including an intelligent horse. No, the horse doesn't talk.
Before long, the characters are meeting and seeing creatures of an otherworldly nature. Of course, the motivations of otherworldly creatures are never clear. By now, the characters should have an idea of what sorts of perils lie ahead for them. Hopefully the group includes a Medium character. But all characters should have a chance to exercise their skills before they find the artifact for which they search. Wait, is this the correct artifact?
Clearly the characters you'd play in Greenback Mine aren't the kinds of characters you'd play in The Black Lotus Affair. On the other hand, the characters you'd play in The Black Lotus Affair could theoretically also be used in The Ring of Simon Bonaficious. So why should Lotus come before Ring when Lotus is a cliffhanger? Wouldn't it be better to present Ring first, encouraging reuse of those characters in Lotus, and let the characters continue the Lotus adventure in WHAP! #2? Well, I believe that Ring is also meant to be a cliffhanger. It doesn't explicitly state that it's to be continued, but it ends abruptly with unanswered questions. So I expect a follow-up to it in some later issue of WHAP!. This means you might want to use a different set of characters for each of the scenarios in WHAP! #1.
The question about what characters to use for each adventure is not only one of whether you want to reuse characters from one adventure in the next. The average attribute for generated characters is slightly higher than 14. There are occasions where players are required to make SRs at target numbers of 30, 40, and higher. Now the WHAP! version of the rules doesn't describe how to roll a SR, so you have to know that from reading the TAG rules from some other source. But the idea is to roll two dice, applying the ASTRO dice rule where applicable, and rolling higher than the target number minus your attribute value. Even with applying the ASTRO dice rule, the statistics show that on average a newly generated character isn't going to be making lots of SRs with target numbers much higher than 25.
So parties of player characters will want to be well rounded, with some one in the party having a decently high score in each of the important attributes. Which attributes are important? The players won't know ahead of time, so they need to cover them all.
If the GM wants to give the characters a better chance at surviving the scenarios, there are eight pre-generated characters in the back of WHAP! #1. Some of the attributes of some of these characters are lower than 14, but most of them are 14 or higher, and one is as high as 44. You're unlikely to get many attributes higher than 20 with a newly generated character. Of course, if a player is lucky enough to roll four of the same number on their initial roll for an attribute, the ASTRO dice rule allows them to take that score and add to it the result of another roll of 4D6. That could give a player a higher than normal attribute. But the chances of rolling four dice and all of them showing the same value isn't even 1 in 200. So it's not impossible, but it isn't too darn likely. If a player generates a new character and isn't happy with it, the GM might consider allowing the player to either roll another character or to use one of the pre-generated characters.
There's (at least) one strange thing with the pre-generated characters. Each of them has an Ag attribute, which isn't listed as an attribute in the character generation rules. Every pre-generated character except one has an Ag value of 28. OK. The strangest thing is that Ag is shown on the character sheets for the pre-generated characters as being a part of the formula for the Defense rating, contrary to the formula in the rules. So to be fair, you should subtract out the value of the Ag attribute from the Defense ratings of all the pre-generated characters. Or not. Whatever.
There are two blank pages at the end of the booklet. These would have been pages 71 and 72 if used. I think Peryton Publishing missed out on an excellent opportunity here; they could have used those two pages to advertise their other products and, more importantly, give us their plans for future WHAP! issues. As a reader of this review, however, you now know where you can go to check on the status of current and upcoming Peryton products. The URL is at the top of this page, and right here, too: Peryton Publishing.
So there you have it. If you've not tried pulp adventure gaming, here's your chance. Be prepared for poorly edited text and incomplete rules, but the first problem can be overlooked and the second one overcome easily enough. Also be prepared to use a different set of characters for each adventure in issue #1 and to wait for the conclusions of a couple of the adventures in some later issue. I trust that this review has given you a good idea of whether you want to take a chance with the pulp adventure genre; if so, my job is done. If not, be careful that you aren't visited by half a dozen Dun Sphinxes in the night. Did I say Dun Sphinxes? Mwa ha ha!
About The Reviewer: Michael is the manager of Eposic Diversions LLC and chief editor for the Eposic web site. He has been interested in reading since before he first read Harold and the Purple Crayon, which he considers a classic. His first role playing experience was in 1976 with Tunnels and Trolls, a game of which he is still a fan to this day. He can be found on the wall in Trollhalla, where he sometimes offers his services as a web developer. Today his leisure reading interests are primarily science fiction, fantasy, and horror. His real job carries the title of Senior Software Engineer and he works for a Fortune 500 R&D IT company. He currently lives in Windermere, Florida, about five minutes from Disney World, with his wife Mary and their dog Rusty.
Legalese: The above review is the opinion of the individual reviewer and does not necessarily reflect the views of Eposic Diversions LLC. This review is Copyright ©2008 by Michael K. Eidson. Online rights have been licensed by Eposic Diversions LLC. Please respect these rights and do not further distribute this review or any significant portion of it without permission from the rights holder. If you quote from this review, please give credit to the author. If your quote is on the web, a link back to the full review is appreciated.
Copyright © 2008 by Michael K. Eidson, except as otherwise noted.
