Pulp AAR: The Escape!

The second and final game of last weekend, the Professor and co try to evade the Constabulary, who pursue in their battered old truck.

We played a 'rolling road' game, where the terrain moved back 12" each turn and was randomly regenerated. Tweaking Pulp Alley, the 'plot points' represented our heroes' escape, collecting 3 would be enough to escape completely. The points were randomly distributed on the square foot of road each turn along with a random hazard which was a peril (people, donkey carts, (!?), rocks). The road could also veer, determined by the person with initiative.

The vans were represented with the stats and skills of 'sidekick' characters and could take five hit points before they were damaged beyond use. Each van could move 3" in a combination of forwards or sideways (so could move up the board or sacrifice speed for manoeuvrability. There was also a 'floor it' 6" move with no shooting or plot points allowed. All shooting and collecting plot points/challenges was done as per the rules.

Turn one, the constabulary start as they mean to go on with a cheeky shunt...

Crunch!

Whoa! Out of nowhere a local cart appears and their pursuers shunt them again, forcing our heroes to swerve sharply and career around it. A close one, that.

Screech!!!

With two plot points collected, our heroes fail to collect the third that could be vital their escape, while their vehicle is starting to get battered.

With a cough, a splurt and a bang! our heroes' van gives out and skids to a halt. Detective Adolfo rushes out to take our heroes into custody. Time for the Prof to pay a hefty fine and perhaps pull some strings to get out of this one! India will have to wait.

Cripes

Conclusions

Some fairly simple modifications made a workable game with a different challenge - something of a race against time to collect the plot points before the vehicle gave out! The 12" rolling road took some getting used to, with hazards fast approaching. Pulp Alley took the modifications well to make the game work while retaining all of the key systems.

Next time, I'd be tempted to drop the vehicles to weaker 'allies' rather than sidekicks as they were offensively powerful. Well, the Constabulary were, as evidenced by the result. That and/or giving the vehicles 10 hit points to spin the game out longer. But it was a fun diversion for an hour!