This entry is part 1 in the series House Rules from The Adventurer's Club

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This is the first of a four-part* series outlining the house rules that Blair Ramage and I have adopted over the years for the Adventurer’s Club campaign, a Pulp-genre campaign run using Pulp Hero, which is a Pulp-genre variation on the Hero System. There are four major chunks of rules, that have developed at four different times in response to particular circumstances within individual adventures, but which had potential ramifications beyond that one adventure. (*I’ll add further parts if we add more House Rules).

(I should also point readers to another article here at Campaign Mastery with some added House Rules for this campaign, Bluffing in the Hero System).

Some of these rules will be adaptable to other game systems, or to other varieties of Hero System campaign. So even if you aren’t interested in the Pulp Genre per se, these articles should be given some attention. Furthermore, they are strongly illustrative at times of the priorities and thinking that Blair and I outlined in Reinventing Pulp for Role-playing, in particular the way that the rules should support, reinforce, and reflect the genre of the campaign, which is a lesson that applies to all RPGs.

Part One deals with general rules. Part Two handles some tables we developed for handling Wind Chill effects. Part Three will cover Everyman Skills for Pulp, and Part Four will wrap the series up – at least for now – with some House Rules for healing in-game injuries.

These won’t have the same level of depth of most of my articles; they will be relatively quick-and-dirty.

The story behind the story

This is not the article that was supposed to be published today, which is taking a lot longer to finish than expected, and could not be split. Fortunately, this draws heavily on work already done for the Adventurer’s Club campaign, and on discussions with my co-GM of that campaign and with the players who have participated in it over the years, so it won’t take very long to knock these out.

At the same time, it’s very appropriate: the first Saturday of August is the 10th Anniversary of the campaign – and yes, we do have something special planned:

There’s a Demon Prince, Balthazar, who’s cottoned on to the notion of making smaller promises and fulfilling them explicitly while serving both sides of a conflict, progressively increasing the dependence of both factions on his services, in return for souls being sacrificed to him. He started with a Tong War in China, becoming one of the leading figures in their underworld scene. He gained quite a reputation, which led to his Tong being contracted to assassinate M by the Chinese Government and make it look like it had been done by the Japanese to reinforce the alliance between China and their European allies. The Chinese were well aware of the growing pro-war faction in pre-WWII Japan and were concerned that their allies would give only token support when the time came. The demon and his tong took advantage of the opportunity to seize control of a couple of other Tongs that were based in London while carrying out the assignment personally, because it gave him an “in” with the Chinese Government which he could exploit during the war years, making the entire nation dependant upon him.

The PCs were then summoned to London to investigate, and eventually uncovered the plot, dealing along the way with Anglican-Catholic politics, a smuggling operation run by one of the PC’s arch enemies, and domestic British politics of the exotic variety, and receiving a helping hand from one of their enemies, along the way. Crucially, one of them witnessed the murder of the leader of the rival Tong, and heard that leader complain that he was promised protection by someone who’s name he did not recognize, but which was later revealed to be another guise of the Demon.

In a pitched confrontation at the London Air Terminal, they battled the Ninja-like Tong and the Demon, defFFeating the former and giving their enemy (and, more importantly, one of the Demon’s enemies) the opportunity to drive him off. With their unexpected ally holding open the portal, and Father O’malley knowing of a compact – a treaty, really – which Balthazar had violated, and which would require Lucifer to punish Balthazar – the PCs have made the decision to pursue the Demon into Hell itself…!

Blair-atgms

Credit where credit is due

While Blair and I collaborated on the House Rules and the principles on which they are based, these articles are being written by me alone. That said, the discussion will often mirror discussions that Blair and I have had on the subject over the years, so he should at least receive some credit as a collaborator on this article.

Click the icon to download the House Rules as a PDF

“The Adventurer’s Club” Pulp Campaign House Rules

  1. PCs are now built on 175 pts + a maximum of 50 points from disadvantages.
  2. Primary Characteristics have a maximum of 25. All scores over 20 must be justified, but all characters can automatically justify having 1 stat over 20.
  3. All characters are required to have a combat technique which is justified by their backgrounds. All characters can automatically justify cinematic brawling or dirty infighting.
  4. “Package Deals” from the Pulp Handbook are now unrestricted – you can have 1, 2, 3, or even 4 if you can afford them and your background justifies them.
  5. A Pulp Character “Package” is merely an indication of what a character should buy, and the absence of any item from a given package must be justified. Any discount in price resulting from a Pulp Package should be explicitly shown on the character sheet either in the form of a footnote:

    1* AK: Borneo
    * discounted by 1 by explorer package

    Or as an additional disadvantage (which increases the 50-point limit):

    5 AK discounts from Explorer Package

    Most Package deals do not offer any discounts in price.

  6. Each character should have at least one “shtick” which is unique to them and may not be poached by others.
  7. Characters are required to purchase at least one weapon, which will normally be available to them.
  8. Paranormal abilities are to be extremely restricted by the referees on a case-by-case basis. No more than 1 per character is permitted and even then must be justified using the guidelines from the Pulp sourcebook.
  9. Characters are not required to purchase any vehicles using character points which are commercially available as of the current campaign date (late 1933). Instead, characters should purchase an appropriate amount of wealth and the vehicle should be purchased as property using that wealth. They should also purchase the crew as Contacts with loyalty to the PC. This means that should circumstances warrant, the vehicle in question can be lost in the course of a scenario but should this occur there will be a subsequent opportunity to replace the vehicle with wealth.

    Vehicles which fall outside this parameter must be built with, and purchased using, character points, and the character should be able to justify all aspects of the acquisition (contacts, etc). The acquisition of the vehicle will take place IN-GAME and cannot be backdated. Such vehicles may be modified in design by the referees and will NOT be as good as any subsequent commercially-available model; at best, they will excel beyond the commercially-available vehicles in 1 characteristic or attribute and will usually be deficient in one or more other characteristics as logic dictates.

    For example, an aircraft designed for transatlantic flight would be 2-man with limited passenger and cargo capacity and would be built by taking a freight aircraft and filling the freight compartments with additional fuel tanks, (or perhaps it’s an Airship, which takes 4-5 times as long as an aircraft to make the trip). It would have an average speed no greater than currently commercial vehicles of its type.

    More exotic vehicles may become available in the course of scenarios; the characters will not be permitted by the authorities to retain these unless the character purchases them with character points.

    Note that since these vehicles may not always be suited to the circumstances of the required travel, any such purchase will represent “dead points” much of the time.

  10. Characters can have no more than 2 overall combat levels and no more than 4 specific combat levels related to their “shtick”. Characters can have no more than 4 combat skill levels in total, regardless of type. OCVs are therefore established as a maximum of 8 (12 with combat levels).
  11. Luck should be rerolled at the start of every game session. It is up to the player with the luck to determine if and when one of his points of luck should be expended; no benefit is derived from unspent luck points. Characters who roll two points of luck may choose to use them in one two-point expenditure (see below) or divide them into two one-point expenditures. Characters who roll three points of luck may choose to use them in one three-point expenditure, divide them into one Two-point expenditure and one One-point expenditure, or may divide them into three one-point expenditure. With GM permission, and when such expenditure clearly benefits the character with the luck, the benefits of one application of luck may be felt by a character other than the character with the luck.
  • One point of luck:
    • Permits a character to make a 2d6+1 roll in an area outside of their shtick when a 3d6 roll is required once per adventure.
    • Permits a character to make a 1d6+2 roll within their shtick when a 3d6 roll is required once per adventure.
    • Permits a character to re-roll a single failed roll within their shtick per adventure.
    • Permits the referees to drop a single hint (possibly obscure) when the characters are puzzled, lost, or confused, within the character’s shtick.
  • Two points of luck:
    • Permits a character to make a 1d6+2 roll in an area outside their shtick when a 3d6 roll is required.
    • Permits a character to automatically roll a “4” on a 3d6 roll within their shtick.
    • Permits a character to re-roll a single failed roll outside of their shtick.
    • Permits the referee to drop a single hint or clue (possibly obscure) when the characters are puzzled, lost, or confused, outside of the character’s shtick.
  • 3 points of luck:
    • Permits a character to automatically roll a “4” on a 3d6 roll outside their shtick.
    • Permits a character to automatically achieve a critical hit on a single attack that otherwise succeeds unaided, doubling the resulting damage of that ONE attack.
    • Permits the referees to provide a deus-ex-machina to help the characters get out of trouble, though this may not show up immediately.
  1. All characters should have a 0-point perq, “membership of adventurer’s club”. The cost is 0 because the club membership will be used to get characters into scenarios (i.e. trouble) at least as often as the membership
    assists the party.
Click the icon to download the Strength Table as a PDF

Bonus Content

Not strictly House Rules, I put this table together as a useful reference. What are House Rules are that, under certain circumstances (limited traction, pushing at an angle, whatever) we may rule that a character can’t employ his full STR. The table accommodates this by providing lift values for full strength as well as 3/4, 1/2, and 1/4 Lift. If you need to actually get the effective STR value of the character, select the appropriate lift value from the table for the character’s normal STR, then locate the first STR score that is equal to or higher than that value.

Example: A character with STR 18 can only use 3/4 of his usual STR for whatever reason. What is his effective STR?

  1. Locate STR 18 on the table (second column).
  2. Find the 3/4 Lift entry and read off 227.25kg.
  3. Find the first entry that has a main lift equal to or higher than 227.25kg.
  4. Read off the effective STR. The character has an effective STR of 16.

The table extends into the negative STR values because a lot of animals that might be encountered have sub-zero STR levels. A house-cat, for example, might have a STR of -40. I can imagine one picking a 100g packet of sweets up in its teeth, but I think it would struggle with the weight of a can of soft drink, even if it was in the form of a piece of meat. It might be able to drag it, though.

It extends well beyond what a PC can do because we wanted to be able to adjudge how much STR a car might have, or a piece of heavy machinery.

The other thing that the partial STR numbers have been used for from time to time, is “the weight in excess of the amount that a character can lift that he can drag along the ground.”

A brief discussion of selected House Rules entries

There are a few notes worth making about these House Rules.

Power Level: Rule 1

Typical adults are built on 100 character points plus up to 50 from disadvantages, so this establishes the PCs as better than normal human. They are Pulp Heroes.

The number started at 125, plus one package (refer rule 4 discussion below) plus a free weapon skill, plus a suitable weapon, plus a free combat technique (refer rule 3 discussion), and a maximum of 25 points from disadvantages. These values were changed a number of times to hone in on the desired character levels, but with caution – we wanted to rise up to the desired number, not overshoot it and have characters deciding what skills or stats to cut.

Since characters were adventuring and earning XP anyway, which (in the Hero System) get spent improving the character, these power-ups were easily absorbed without radical shifts in the continuity of the campaign.

Stat Maxima: Rule 2

Fairly strict rules that stop characters from having one ridiculous stat and little-to-nothing in the others.

Not stated is that our NPC villains are permitted to go as high as a score of 30 in one stat, and to have a second as high as 25, but otherwise have to follow these same rules. This is fair because it is intended for situations in which one villain is opposed by, and is a match for, several PCs.

In very rare circumstances, where we can justify it, we may permit a villain to exceed even these values – but we haven’t yet. We also have a number of NPCs allied to the PCs who are built to the higher scale, or who have been permitted multiple stats over 20, simply because they are supposed to be more effective than the PCs were/are through years of experience, and because these rarely show up to help the characters in battle. And, when they do, we boost the enemy in power or in numbers.

Combat Technique: Rule 3

There’s nothing worse than a PC who can’t participate in a fight, especially in a pulp campaign.

Package Deals: Rules 4 & 5

When I started co-GMing the campaign, I pointed out that since the packages on offer in the Pulp Hero rules were not all the same price, it was unfair and unbalancing to give characters a free one. Instead, we boosted the number of build points available for character generation and simply required characters to buy a pulp character “Package” – but they had to pay for it.

There was little or no change for most of the PCs. One or two got some more points to spend, and one or two had to spend some of their accumulated XP to cover the higher cost.

We’ve used the same principle more and more frequently – the only freebie we now give away is the weapon. Everything else has to be paid for – but some things are mandatory.

Over time, we found that to construct certain characters we needed to permit multiple packages to be bought, and also that we needed to add a little more flexibility to the package contents. We very deliberately made these opportunities available to the PCs as well.

Character Individuality: Rule 6

This is a rule that I introduced many years ago into my superhero campaign (of which Blair is a player), and which he wholeheartedly adopted for his campaign.

Paranormal Abilities: Rule 8

I started out as a player in the Adventurer’s Club campaign, joining after the first couple of adventures. My character was a hypnotist. Using the standard rules and restrictions, I was able to get truly ridiculous levels of hypnotic ability (30d6 Mind Control) at a ridiculously low price. As a player, I was careful not to abuse this – on no occasion did I ever use more than 12 dice of it in-play – but it made both Blair and Myself uncomfortable. As soon as I offered to retire the character and join Blair as co-GM, I proposed that this rule be put in place.

Vehicles: Rule 9

This is a combination of a couple of ideas from my Superhero campaign with the existing situation within the Adventurer’s Club when I started to co-GM. One of our players was a Merchant Captain who wanted to have his own ship, so Blair let him buy one. Another was a Pilot who wanted his own plane, ditto. Both these were purchased using character points.

When I joined as co-GM, I pointed out that this was both restrictive and against the rules of Pulp Hero, which stated that everything should be bought with money, something that Blair had decided could give an unfair advantage – characters got the advantages of wealth AND a vehicle AND a home and whatever else they could justify? For a measly couple of points? That might be fine in terms of an ordinary off-the-shelf vehicle and dwelling, but the rules were vague and unhelpful when it came to characters wanting to trick out their vehicles. You could get the Batmobile just as easily as a 1930s Ford.

The answer described was based on the solution that I had been employing in my superhero campaign since about 1983. It made perfect sense – if you wanted something off-the-shelf, and could afford it, you bought it with wealth – but we were free to blow it up, crash it, or whatever. If you paid for one with points, we could still do all those things if the plot and/or circumstances warranted, but we had to either give the points back or replace the item in question.

The last paragraph relates directly to an adventure that we were plotting at the time which involved a Zeppelin that could travel at Supersonic Speeds (but had a very deliberate tendency to explode – it was a different sort of “cruise missile”). We were anticipating the possibility that the PCs might capture it rather than destroying it.

Luck: Rule 11

Luck is a really hard paranormal ability in the Hero System for a GM because its capabilities and effects are only loosely defined. Ian Gray and I had spent quite a lot of effort on describing and defining this power in rewriting the rules used by my superhero campaigns without being completely satisfied by any of our proposals to that point in time.

One of those alternatives, which didn’t work with the option of buying unlimited levels of the power, but which worked perfectly in a more fiscally-restrained campaign, was modified by Blair and I to create rule 11, which specified exactly what it could – and more importantly, what it could not – do.

Membership: Rule 12

Blair and I had spent quite a lot of time fleshing out the Club for which the Campaign was named – its location, its history, its staff, its resources, and so on. We thought it only appropriate that this be reflected on the PCs character sheets.

The impact of Genre

Our guiding principle throughout the creation of these House Rules was “what did we want the PCs to be able to do?”

A necessary corollary to that question is, “Well, what is Genre-appropriate for the PCs to be able to do?”

Every house rule that has been listed above was formulated with those two questions – and their answers – in mind.

The truth of House Rules

House Rules should exist to facilitate the adventures that you want to run, and to impart to both those adventures and the game system that backs them, the style, flavor and implications of the genre to which the campaign is to belong. They can fix broken rules, remove undesirable choices, and open up new options and possibilities. If they do these things without slowing play, there are no excuses – the rest is up to you.



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