Pulp Pulpit
Paul Romine chatted with geeksagogo.com about his pulp-themed RPG 'Fists and.45s!'
Could you describe the basic premise of the game?
It's a time between the wars, the world is in economic collapse, evil leaders are preparing their plans for world domination, yet there is hope, hope found in the pages of the pulps. You are that hope! With your keen sense of justice and adventure, you embark on a trek to right wrongs, solve ancient mysteries and retrieve mystical artifacts before they fall into the hands of the Nazis, cultists, or the mob.
Who comprises the production team behind the game?
The production team is pretty much a one-man operation, while my lovely wife was used as a proofreader and sounding board.
Could you describe the mechanics?
The mechanics are simple, if someone is familiar with Dungeons and Dragons v3 they will be very familiar with how it plays out. Most actions are resolved by adding the characters Stat and Skill together then rolling a d10. The dice is exploding, so if a 10 is rolled you roll again and add to the total, which can allow for some truly amazing outcomes. In addition to that basic mechanic, a "luck" mechanic has been added that further improves rolls, alters scenes, or saves the characters life.
How did production of the game start?
I've played a few "pulp genre" games (purchased and read even more) and it seemed some tried to make things more difficult than it needed to be. Almost 20 years ago I was neck deep in R. Talsorian's c, both as a player and their webmaster. I loved the simplicity of it's Interlock system, but it was too deadly to use "as-is" for a pulp game, so it started morphing into a whole new system. Games like Adventure! from White Wolf and D&D 3.0 were also influential in shaping how the system was formed. Unfortunately life got into he way and the game was put onto the back burner until early 2017 when I finally finished the project.
What is the appeal of the genre?
It's a gonzo, anything can happen, larger than life genre, that time period was a time of fascinating discoveries and inventions, adventurers were traipsing through the jungles looking for lost civilizations fighting the dangers that lurked in the darkness. While at the same time, people in general were losing hope. the economy was in shambles, the entire bread basket was baking under a seven-year drought. people were looking for escape and they found it in the pulps.
And the best part is, the good guys win... we need more of that.
