Pulp Alley AAR: On the Trail of the Professor (part 2)

The adventure continues from part 1:

Michaels, still wounded from his exchange with Detective Adolfo, gets into a firefight with Captain Usman of the Constabulary. He pauses to pop open the battered briefcase: Lo and behold - the Professor's papers! He wouldn't go far without them and surely must be close by.



Over in the busy market, Pilot Renshaw dashes over to Abdul the rug merchant, gesticulating wildly. Could he know where the professor is? But without a word of Arabic, he just can't make himself understood. Victoria, holding her own against the Constabulary's finest, knocks Constable Atso down with a single blow.

Victoria nimbly melts away into the crowd, but Atso shrugs off the blow and staggers to his feet - he isn't knocked out that easily!

But before our dashing heroine can speak to the gate guard, Usman throws open the gates and barges her out of the way. The gate guard is flabbergasted by the sudden appearance of the Captain of the Constabulary. Waving his pistol angrily, Usman demands to know where the Professor is. Before Victoria can intervene, the guard tells Usman he thought he saw him just an hour ago - the trail is still warm.

Renshaw, having none of the luck today, is charged by an angry Atso who pummels him to the ground. The Constabulary seize the initiative and have a chance to quiz canny old Abdul.

With Usman having disappeared, Michaels, tries to circle around Adolfo while his back is turned, clutching the briefcase closely...

...before noticing rustling in a copse at the edge of town. Heading over to investigate, he finds a local porter, bleeding heavily.

Continuing the search, Usman manhandles the gate guard away. Seeing the opportunity to find her father slip away, Victoria takes aim at the Captain, but can't draw a bead through the shocked crowds. Pausing to recover her breath, she sets off in pursuit. Meanwhile, our adventurers boat captain, Jenkins, charges Adolfo, who is still in a commanding position on the rooftop. But hardened Adolfo dives out of the way, leaving Jenkins sprawling.

Time is running out and the Professor is still nowhere to be seen. In a last ditch attempt to get solid information, Victoria abandons her pursuit of Usman and doubles back, heading for slow-witted Atso and the baffled trader Abdul. Taking aim, she fires on Atso, who scrambles for cover.

Converging on Abdul, Edo harangues him, threatnening and waving his nightstick, but Victoria pushes him aside and smiles sweetly. Taking Abdul by the arm, she regales him with her tale in fluent Arabic. 

Always happy to ignore the Constabulary and honoured to help a lady in distress, Abdul smirks and turns, arm outstretched, to reveal the Professor, lurking away from curious eyes. Success!

Our heroes find Professor Hemmingway, but the Constabulary are hot on their heels.

Next up: Can our heroes, now (almost) all reunited, escape the clutches of the Constabulary?

Closing thoughts

Another mighty fun game of Pulp Alley. The streamlined core system is great fun and the dual use cards for both random events, perils, encounters and to drive the plot really work well. Best of all, it doesn't need an umpire, it gives you the toolkit to throw together a scenario quickly and easily.  As a fun, light game full of twists and turns in 90 minutes and which gives plenty of fodder to make a ripping yarn, I'd highly recommend it.

Pulp Alley AAR: On the Trail of the Professor (part 1)

Setting the scene

We rejoin our daring adventurers after a disastrous chain of events: en route to India, their airplane crashed in the Egyptian desert, two days from civilisation. Beset by less than friendly local tribesmen. Sq Ldr Michaels and his old RAF buddy, pilot Renshaw swallowed by a sandstorm. Singh captured and Professor Hemmingway escaping by a whisker on a donkey.

Renshaw surveys the bustling marketplace

We rejoin Michaels and Renshaw, who weathered the storm and salvaged enough supplies from the crashed plane to make it to the nearest town. A minor and utterly unmemorable port on the banks of the Red Sea. Here they happen upon no other than Victoria Hemmingway, travelling a more leisurely route to the East on Captain Jenkins's steamer. What a place to stop off for fuel and supplies!


Someone must have seen him!

In town, they start asking after the Prof. You know, pale well dressed gentleman, glasses, about so tall? You can't miss a man like him in a town like this. On top of that, it just so happens that the regional chief of constabulary, Usman, has been trying to collar the professor for some years over a trifling issue over a few antiquities that may have been taken from Egypt without the proper signature on the official paperwork. The constabulary are also combing the town for our beloved Prof.


Two locals languidly making repairs

The Scenario

Gharak and I used a manhunt scenario from the forthcoming Pulp Alley Perilous Island expansion. Our daredevil adventurers must find the Professor before the Constabulary and high-tail it out of town!

The (invented, rather than rolled) plot points were:
-A recognisable briefcase
-The dying porter
-An officious gate guard
-Abdul, peddler of rumours and rugs
-A stolen donkey

After successfully completeing a plot point, each league can place a card representing the Professor into the deck, giving a chance to find him from the next plot point.
Opening Gambits

With both leagues scattered across town in the search, things literally start with bang for Michaels as Usman's sidekick, Detective Adolfo opens up on him from a nearby rooftop. Lightly wounded, he dives for cover and trades shots back to no effect.

Meanwhile, Victoria starts to search the market area, before two more of the constabulary pot her and head off to intercept. Eager to capture the foreigners at the behest of Usman, the Constabulary break out into fire even in the busy marketplace, with little regard for the citizens going about their business. After wounding Detective Chigaru with counter-fire, Victoria approaches to finish him off, before hearing the dreaded 'click' of the hammer on an empty chamber. Curses!

In a quieter part of town, Constable Ebo bumbles through the dockside, happening on an untethered and very dusty-looking donkey. Very suspicious! Reports suggested the Professor ridden into town on just such a beast. As he reaches out to search the load, the ill-tempered mule kicks out, sending Ebo flying. Picking himself up, Ebo manages to grab the load and rifle through, finding an old leather glasses case marked "B. Hemmingway". Meanwhile, in the background Michaels has made retreated to higher ground, coming across a very battered and very familiar briefcase...

The hapless Ebo and the ill-tempered mule

With neither side claiming a clear advantage, there are countless more thrills to be had in part two...

End note: do you like the vintage-effect photos? I've been playing with the options and it seems fitting for pulpy AARs but I've tried to tone it down to show off the minis and terrain too!

Pulp Adventures AAR: Where in the World.. Part Two!

Ive not had chance to post the second Pulp game my brother and I played back in April. I hope you've been looking forward to how it ends.

As we left it, Professor Hemmingway and stalwart companion Mr Singh have survived their crashed plane, collected what equipment they could and escaped both unhappy locals and a vicious sandstorm. Unfortunately, their third companion and pilot had to be left behind!

As it turns out, what appeared to be an uninteresting crevice opens out into a hidden cave system. Ever curious, our heroes head out to explore, after pausing to lick their wounds and take some tea of course. Here they are at the top, while shadowy figures patrol a large cavern below.

As they work their way down the rocky paths, they discover some small, hardy-looking ponies (yes, ponies. Though they might look like dogs, they are ponies, honest). These might come in useful. Our heroes take no chances and open fire on the locals. But the numbers of enemies could well take their toll.

Locals close in, as the camerawork takes turns all vintage.

As our heroes fight off the angry locals, bad luck heaps upon bad luck, with a very peeved-looking tribal heavy emerging from his tent (perhaps the shooting woke him up), backed up by two bodyguards. Singh takes aim and fires, emptying his pistol. The heavy hesitates, buying our heroes a few seconds, but then recovers from a full panic. Damnation! The Professor makes a dash for the ponies, hoping Singh is close behind.

Urging his mighty(?) steed on, the Prof flees towards the entrance. Meanwhile, Singh falls under the weight of the tribal horde. This appears to be a theme for Singh. These most recent travels have not started well.

A few lessons from this game. The heroes were well underpowered, coming into the second scenario two men down. Also, the Prof isn't much of a combat character, being about as much use as a chocolate teapot when the firing starts in earnest. I the we'll have to tweak the satlines and write in some more mid-level combat characters. We're finding that Level 3 combat heroes are too powerful, but Level 2 non-combat characters are a bit weak (we use the .45 Adventure second edition rules, including character design).

It should also be noted that we had a poor draw of encounter cards, with what I'm told was all three antagonist cards coming out in the first four draws. Though we use a pre-set encounter deck, perhaps we need to tweak things on the fly if this happens again. And the final lesson - My brother needs to mention that he's written horses into the encounters - I've had to dig some spares out to add to the painting pile.

I mentioned an ending, but unfortunately, that's as far as we've got. Things are looking decidedly bad for our heroes at the moment, an escape will have to be planned before the next instalment in June sometime. If we survive this we might one day make it to India!

Pulp Adventures AAR: Where in the World are we?!

A big gaming weekend for me, not only did we have Salute, later that evening my brother and I managed two short Pulp games, a continuation of our recent adventure.

We left our adventurers having failed to identify their current nemesis and return the missing artefacts. So, our old friend the Director of Antiquities had a new errand for the party - which happened to be in rural India, jewel in the Empire's crown! The Professor readily agreed, having spent some of his earlier years of military service there he was keen to investigate this most mysterious of countries further.

After pausing in Egypt to refuel, the plan had engine difficulties from the scorching heat over Arabia, leading to a less than comfortable landing. Lost, battered and carrying limited supplies, to make matters worse a vicious sandstorm looked to be closing in!

Our adventurers regain their senses around their wrecked plane.

After much searching, the Professor finds our heroes' weapons, as some unfriendly-looking locals close in...

Sdn Ldr Michaels spots something sticking out of the sands and rushes to investigate. Felling one local with his gun, he hauls what turns out to be their badly wounded pilot towards safety. But the sandstorm is now closing in fast - will they make it in time?

As winds rage and the vicious sandstorm swirls, the Professor and Mr Singh desperately flee for the cover of what looks to be a cave. Michaels and the wounded pilot are too far behind to make it - lets hope they were able to find some shelter and fend for themselves...

This first game was great, short and snappy, with a few objectives and a little impending doom before our heroes' narrow (and partial!) escape. The green gems were our encounters, containing kit that had survived the crash and other events. The sandstorm moved to cover an extra D10 + turn number of square inches each turn. We were wrapped in under an hour.

I should close with a huge thanks to my brother for the terrain - impressive work to scratch-build this in six weeks while doing father duties for his 3-month old! The 2' x 2' mat is a new purchase from Zuzzy in the US, and lovely it painted up too.

Part two to come soon!

Pulp Adventures AAR: Episode Three 'Showdown in Smuggler's Wood'

The third of my recent Pulp games was a showdown at the aptly-named Smuggler's Wood. The Adventuring party used information gained from the fleeing Mr Byrne to confront the O'Leary gang at the moment of the deal with the buyer of the missing artefacts.

The Professor sent his Daughter Victoria, with the Law in tow to confront the O'Learys, identify the buyer and retrieve the rest of the artefacts for the British Museum. Patrolling goons with wolfhounds stand in the way of the gang leaders, hiding in the back if their Talbot van.

As a gunfight erupts across the wood, Mr Singh surveys the carnage. The Gang's getaway is hindered by the fact they left their fuel on the top of this cliff, to be found by Mr Singh. Sometimes, randomising encounters using an encounter deck can create odd events - we blamed he particularly idiotic mooks of the O'Leary gang!

Pulp Adventures AAR: Showdown Part Two

The conclusion of this adventure: the heroes don't come off well in the firefight, as Mr Singh falls, the remainder beat a hasty retreat.
The buyer remains a mystery, with only a handful of artefacts recovered and the O'Learys mostly having made an escape, our taskmaster Mr Chuffington is less than satisfied.

Next Adventure: India! (not for a few months, I've painting to do first)

Pulp Adventures AAR: Episode Two 'The Chase'

Our second Pulp Adventure for February, the Professor and Mr Singh spot the shifty Mr Byrne fleeing the O'Leary gang Warehouse and give chase. 

Setup: the Red gems denote six markers that Mr Byrne must collect to make his getaway. The Prof and crew need to pursue, spot and disable him ask in order to ask probing questions about the missing artefacts.

After a few turns: Mr Byrne disappears out of sight and leaving two trails to pursue. The Prof tries an alternate route to head him off while Mr Singh stays hot on his heels. The scenario required the heroes to collect the two trails of numbered markers in order or risk their quarry's escape!  

Pulp Adventures AAR: 'The Chase' Part Two

Byrne throws a firebomb (the cad!) forcing the Professor to find another route. Singh and a local friendly bobby continue the chase. But time is running out for our desperate fugitive!

The finale: Byrne runs out of avenues and after a firefight he critically fumbles his defence roll, tripping over. Our heroes close in to ask some awkward questions.

Pulp Adventures AAR: Episode One 'Investigation at the Docks'

Got a good Pulp scenario played with my brother between the necessary feeds and changes of my 6-week old niece. 

1930's London and Mr Chuffington, Director of Antiquities asked his old friend Professor Hemmingway to investigate the disappearance of artefacts en route to the British Museum. The Prof's investigations led to a warehouse in London's Docklands, guarded by particularly suspicious Irish goons...

The Prof, with the stalwart Mr Singh and dependable butler Hawkins enter from the main warehouse entrance, while two of London's curiousest (and finest) Plod enter from a side door. The blue numbered markers (from Litko) represent encounters around the warehouse - people, events or perhaps the missing artefacts.

After a fistfight developed into a firefight, one copper falls, while the remaining one whittles down the Paddies with his revolver. Meanwhile, the Professor and Hawkins rummage through crates as Mr Singh clubs down the goon on the lower level. 

Pulp Adventures AAR: 'Investigation at the Docks' Part Two

The Professor and crew investigate the upper level, while tommy gun-wielding o'Rourke, our 'head goon', dives (or slips) towards cover from the Professor's shooting. This being after o'Rourke emptied his gun, impressively missing everything in a Stormtrooper-esque manner.

The conclusion - Professor and friends retreat, relatively unscathed with some examples of the missing artefacts as proof they were on the right trail. Meanwhile, the remaining artefacts are disposed of into the Thames by o'Rourke's goons. To be continued...
Rules were .45 Adventure V2. Miniatures painted by me and my brother. All terrain built by my brother - a scratch-built and fantastically modular set, built to fit 3cm x 3cm x 3cm dimensions. You can see more halfway down here. With the right 'set-dressing', these pieces can make any adventures spring to life.