Heroes & PC/Hero Archetypes

Books about Heroes & Heroic Archetypes

There will be some additional relevant entries in the Writer’s Tools section and elsewhere. Prices and Availability were correct at the time of compilation but may have changed since.

001. Writer’s Guide to Character Traits, 2nd Edition – Linda N. Edelstein, PH.D

A great characterization reference that Mike has recommended on multiple past occasions (we thought we would get it out of the way right off the bat). This is a book that helps you define the way the character thinks, and what impact that’s had on his life – or vice-versa – in an extremely readable format.
http://amzn.to/1MybbF1

002. The Great Pulp Heroes – Don Hutchison

Describes in greater detail a number of the most famous pulp heroes. If you want archetypes, inspiration, or figures for the PCs to look up to, re-badging and reinventing these is a great place to start.
http://amzn.to/1KWSv0o

003. Yesterday’s Faces Volume 1: Glory Figures – Robert Sampson

The ‘Yesterday’s Faces’ series covers a very wide range of characters, broken down into sub-genres dealing with different character types. NB: Volume 3 deals with villains, but we’ve included it here to keep the series in one place.
http://amzn.to/1GKIdpq

004. Yesterday’s Faces Volume 2: Strange Days – Robert Sampson

More than 50 characters in four categories: Scientific Detectives, Occult & Psychic Investigators, Jungle Men, and adventurers in Interplanetary Romance. While some are well known to this day, others are obscure and forgotten by all but collectors.
http://amzn.to/1RRtI3j

005. Yesterday’s Faces Volume 3: From The Dark Side – Robert Sampson

These are Villains who ever so occasionally will work the other side of the street – for their own purposes, to be sure. With more than forty to choose from, you have plenty of options.
http://amzn.to/1RurGWW

006. Yesterday’s Faces Volume 4: The Solvers – Robert Sampson

Detectives of all types are shown in this collection, from the amateur to the professional, from the medical mystery-solvers (shades of House!) to professional police officers.
http://amzn.to/1NPpCYJ

007. Yesterday’s Faces Volume 5: Dangerous Horizons – Robert Sampson

Explorers and Archaeologists, with the odd Ship’s Captain thrown in for good measure, these are characters that go where the strange and unexpected can be found – and live to tell the tale, then do it again.
http://amzn.to/1Hqci8f

008. Yesterday’s Faces Volume 6: Violent Lives – Robert Sampson

Some characters live for the thrill of combat, of swashbuckling, of bearding danger in its’ lair. This collects profiles representing the combative archetypes. Few copies available, and very expensive; it has been included only because we have already listed the other five, it would normally be relegated to honorable mentions. Expect little change from $100, and you may have to pay more.
http://amzn.to/1RRuvkN

009. The Chronology Of Bronze – Rick Lai

Summarizes most if not all the Doc Savage adventures that had been published up to 2010. Listed as much for the benefit to adventures.
http://amzn.to/1XOju7I

010. Rick Lai’s Secret Histories: Daring Adventurers – Rick Lai

Rick’s volume relies on non-canonical additions to the backgrounds of characters and may mislead readers, but this volume of essays on iconic characters you’ve probably never heard of is a great source of inspiration.
http://amzn.to/1PlriLf

011. Pulp Icons: Erle Stanley Gardner and his Pulp Magazine Characters

With over 650 pulp stories to his credit in the 20s, 30s, and 40s before his most famous creation, Perry Mason, Gardner’s work is an excellent source for pulp characters and this volume specifically focuses on his creations, both moderately-known and obscure.
http://amzn.to/1QkZTWq

Documentaries about Heroes & PC/Heroic Archetypes

Most of Campaign Mastery’s readership comes from the USA, Canada, Great Britain, and Australia, in that order. Because each of the first three are served by bespoke Amazon websites (with differing levels of availability of product) (and there is also an Amazon Australia for Kindle products), and because these four locations have three different region codes on their DVDs, we have gone to the trouble of checking all three sites. However, we have not applied the availability criteria with the same rigor, instead choosing to quote prices in all three markets (and noting some interesting patterns as we went). This was because this is a rapidly-evolving marketplace, thanks to the rise of streaming services; we think forecasts of the imminent demise of DVDs are a little premature, but have done our best to future-proof the series (even though pricing and availability information began to depreciate in accuracy the second it was recorded).

Unless it was somehow noteworthy, we have neither looked for, nor linked to, Blue-ray versions. However, when the search methodology required to actually locate the desired target was not a straightforward copy-and-paste of the title, we have made notes on that as well, so if you want to search for higher-resolution / premium formats, you should be able to do so – and may discover additional copies of something in otherwise short supply.

012. Air Aces

(6 part series). Originally shown in some markets as Heroes of the Skies. Criticized by some as overly dramatic and by others who seemed to expect cinematic special effects, this series tells the stories of six of the most legendary pilots and the most heroic airborne missions of World War I using real vintage aircraft and stunt pilots for reenactments, rare archival footage, and interviews with experts & the last surviving veterans (making a mockery of claims of factual error).

Available on DVD (Region 2) from Amazon UK for about £30 http://amzn.to/1THriJp; available in very limited numbers on DVD (Region unspecified, presumably Region 1) from Amazon Canada for about CDN$69 http://amzn.to/1QDppJZ; or can be streamed from Amazon US in HD for $3 per episode or $10 for the entire series http://amzn.to/1LbhNiJ.

Character Background Skills

There are a whole raft of subjects that might be applicable to this specific character or that. If the character is a Bridge player, for example, “Bridge For Dummies” might be an essential reference, even if all you got out of it was the psychology and vernacular. Those are not the books that we’ve listed in this section (with one or two exceptions).

There are some subjects that are going to occur frequently enough that the GM (and the occasional specialist player) is going to need to know about them – not for their benefit, but for the character being created/played.

Of course, you could simply give a copy to the player in question when it became relevant – such things make great Christmas gifts, a fact that Blair and Mike have exploited on a number of occasions.

Picture the following scenario: A teacher gives each of his students a copy of the (non-standard) textbook around which his class will be based for the year – bur doesn’t keep a copy for himself to refer to in planning his classes and writing his tests and preparing the class assignments…

Quite obviously, the GM (teacher) needs a reference source at least as good as that of the player (student).

You can further argue that the teacher can’t know what it’s reasonable for the student to have learned and understood if he doesn’t have exactly the same reference available to him. How can he expect them to know about, say, the Alaska Purchase if it’s mentioned in his references but not in the book that he gave the class?

Then, too, the GM is more likely to need these for NPCs and adventure planning. If anything, that’s likely to be a more urgent and recurring need – how many PCs will be created in the course of a Pulp campaign? Relative to how many PCs?

If there is one place where these resources belong, it’s on the GM’s shelf.

Books containing useful character knowledge/skills

013. Jazz For Dummies – Dirk Sutro

While arguably the blues (which metamorphosed into Rock & Roll) ultimately became the dominant musical form of the 20th century, during the pulp era, two styles were dominant: Swing (aka ‘Big Band’) and Jazz. Well there’s no “Swing For Dummies”, but there is this introduction to Jazz, enough that your narrative can name-drop with the best. You have to start somewhere!

Note that the first edition had an accompanying CD that the second lacks, and that only first-hand copies of the book are likely to still have that CD as part of the package.

We suggest that price be your guide as there are almost certainly introductory compilations available cheap if you want to actually provide a soundtrack.

In general, this book is so useful at providing an element of background color that we have listed it in the main reference section, and of course, you can easily set an adventure or two – or just an encounter or two – in the world of the Jazz performer.

1st Edition http://amzn.to/2cap95h

2nd Edition http://amzn.to/2cQfbHK

014. Early Blues: The First Stars Of Blues Guitar – Jas Obrecht

We thought about listing “Blues For Dummies” but there seemed to be too much focus on the more popular artists of the 50s and beyond, which the authors of that book describe as “a gateway drug to blues aficionados”. Instead, we are recommending this book which focuses completely on the people and places that define the early blues from 1900 through to the popular boom of the 50s, when it began to morph into Rock & Roll. Although there are quotes from many more modern exponents of the style such as BB King, the focus is almost entirely on the blues scene that would be found or remembered by ‘contemporary’ characters in a pulp campaign. Copies start at about $13.50 and there is also a Kindle edition for roughly the same price.
http://amzn.to/2bqZRzY

015. And They Called It Swing – Its History, Its Bands, Its Legacy – Oren Freshour

Swing is the dominant musical style of the pulp era, at least in the US, and its popularity was spread globally by troops during World War II. This book seems to be both comprehensive and yet organized in such a way that it can be either read as narrative or used as a dip-in reference, covering everything the Pulp GM needs to know for period color from the hit songs to the artists, promoters, and early radio disk-jockeys who popularized them. Copies from mid-$6.
http://amzn.to/2bI2fFO

016. Complementary Medicine For Dummies – Jacqueline Young

This book offers a goldmine of all sorts of individual cultural medical practices – a chapter on Chinese and one on Indian and so on That makes it a potentially useful reference for the GM. In essence, this described traditional medical practices in non-western parts of the world. There is a Kindle Edition as well as the paperback linked to.
http://amzn.to/2ctrQl9

017. Cricket For Dummies – Julian Knight

Cricket For Dummies – For most people in the USA, the game of cricket is the most confusing sport ever invented. The language of the game is inherently internally contradictory, leading to a number of amusing verses “describing the game for Americans” in the most deliberately confusing way possible. But for a large part of the world, cricket is one of THE major sports, as big as Baseball is in the states – but international in scope. If you come from a country that plays cricket, you don’t need this book. If you come from the US, and want to set an adventure in England, or Australia, or New Zealand, or India, or the West Indies, or Pakistan, or South Africa, or Zimbabwe, or many many more places, then you probably DO. As usual, there is the physical book and a Kindle edition.
http://amzn.to/2cgBibU

018. Etiquette For Dummies – Sue Fox

One of the changes that has taken place over the last century or so is that a certain informality has become acceptable. While the pulp era wasn’t quite as straight-laced on the subject as Victorian Times, there are still strict limits on how far one is permitted to deviate from the rules of polite society without acquiring an unsavory reputation. The formal rules of politeness are called Etiquette, and that’s why this volume is essential reference for anyone younger than about 75, or maybe 80. Even today, lessons on Etiquette and Deportment are taught – and there are places where the highest formalities are expected to be observed (White House formal dinners, Buckingham Palace, when dealing with Aristocrats and Snobs, etc).

We do recommend that this be used sparingly – a little goes a long way – but for any formal occasion, this would be essential. That said, this can be an essential guide to creating the look and feel of the pulp era. There is the usual Kindle edition as well as the paperback linked to.
http://amzn.to/2cptmCN

019. Organizational Behaviour For Dummies – Cary L. Cooper, Sheena Johnson, and Lynn Holdsworth

How do organizations behave and how can an organization perform and support actions that none of the leaders or individual employees would personally countenance? Organizational Behavioral studies got their real start post World War II as people struggled to understand how the German populace could simply not notice what was being done in their name, or worse yet, embrace the Nazi ideology so completely despite morally ‘normal’ upbringing. A lot has been learned since then. This is a must for GMs regardless of genre. (And no, that’s not a misspelling – the title is spelt in the British way).
http://amzn.to/2cgE9Su

020. Sociology For Dummies

In a nutshell, Sociology is the study of societies and how they evolve. And since any pulp campaign will have non-standard stimuli driving the social development, it’s a subject that GMs should have at least a basic understanding of. We can’t remember a single adventure in which we didn’t have to explore this subject as it applied to the development of the Game World. There are two versions of this book at Amazon (one also has a Kindle version, the other has an “e-textbook” version which may or may not also be a Kindle version before the marketing machine really hit its stride. Both are described by Amazon as First Editions, one more prominently than the other. The style of the covers makes it clear that one is older than the other.

The older version is the one with the “E-textbook” version and the more explicit “First Edition” label; it is 384 pages, and is credited to Jay Gabler. http://amzn.to/2carzRs

The newer version is the one with the Kindle-by-name version; it is 400 pages, and is credited to Jay Gabler (author of the older version) and Nasar Meer – with the latter being listed in first place (it matters when it comes to books, just as it does in Hollywood).
http://amzn.to/2d0os0n

Beyond these observations, we have no idea what the differences might be, either cosmetic or substantiative.

‘For Dummies’ books containing useful character knowledge/skills

In most cases, we haven’t read any of these, and are recommending them for consideration based purely upon the publisher’s descriptions and on general principles except where otherwise noted. We felt reasonably comfortable doing this because the publisher has an established reputation for providing consistent levels of quality-if-introductory-in-scope works. This also shifts the content of the review from one of “this book is recommended and here’s why” to “this book might be useful and here’s why” – a subtle but important difference. We have also made the assumption that availability and price would fall within our parameters, or close enough to them; we have rarely found this not to be the case.

Selected works were so promising and so relevant, that they were afforded a greater level of scrutiny and (in some cases) promoted to the main list of recommendations, excluding them from the general caveats that apply to this section.

Some notes about ‘Complete Idiot’s Guides’

A lot of people have a marked preference when it comes to “For Dummies” vs “Complete Idiot’s Guides”. Blair, for example, has a marked preference for the latter, while Mike tends to find the former more accessible when he knows nothing about the subject. That having been said, he has a particular anecdote which we intended to form the basis of our editorial policy on the subject:

A few years back, I was a quite successful self-taught composer of original music. When I received a gift certificate from Dymocks, one of the major book retailer chains in Australia at the time, I used it to buy both the Complete Idiot’s Guide to Music Composition and Music Composition For Dummies, and discovered something very interesting: The two complimented each other perfectly. What one explained very poorly, the other made very accessible, and vice-versa. Invariably, too, the one that was harder to grasp went into greater technical detail on that aspect of the subject. The combination made for a far more effective self-educational tool than either one alone.

With that in mind, our recommendation was going to be that such pairings be the preferred option, especially on technical, scientific, or obscure subjects.

But then we discovered one critical difference between the two series: while the “For Dummies” series has a website that lists all the books currently available in the series, there is no such equivalent resource for the “Complete Idiot’s Guides”. The most complete listing we could find was a list of 101 books on Goodreads. Is this all there is? We are fairly certain that it is not. It’s often perceived that there is a “Complete Idiot’s Guide” to match any “For Dummies” book that you care to point at, but the absence of a definitive listing raised doubts as to the veracity of this perception.

So, here’s what we have done: We’ve gone through that list of 101 books and extracted the ones of relevance to the Pulp GM and that have no direct “For Dummies” equivalent (almost all of which ended up getting promoted to the main list as described earlier), and are issuing the blanket advice that if Amazon lists a “Complete Idiot’s Guide” that matches the subject of one of our “For Dummies” recommendations, you should buy both. That blanket advice (without the backstory) will be repeated in each part of the series.

021. Art History For Dummies – Jessie Bryant Wilder

Art is one of those subjects that generally either fascinates or bores, and art history doubly so. We’ve tagged this book for inclusion because it’s likely to be broad enough to provide enough of an overview for the GM/player to be able to fake whatever knowledge of the subject is necessary while being general enough to be quickly digestible. Art technicalities are hard to fake convincingly, but art is a definite source of pulp plots (even if it’s only the theft thereof) – it’s our hope that this reference will take the pain out of the problem for anyone who isn’t naturally interested in, or educated in, the subject.
http://amzn.to/2ctxZy6

022. Anatomy Essentials For Dummies – Maggie Norris and Donna Rae Siegfried

Doctors are going to be encountered from time to time in any pulp campaign, and once again, it’s hard to roleplay one credibly if you don’t have the vernacular down, usually by preparing it in advance and then reading it from your notes. There are at least two “For Dummies” books on Anatomy, and we aren’t sure which one is better suited – so we’ve listed both. “Essentials” is supposed to give you the knowledge you need to pass a first-year medical school exam in the subject in a quickly-digestible form – which means that it assumes that the reader knows a lot on the subject already. If you do, this can be a great quick-reference, but for most of us, this lacks the necessary descriptive passages.
http://amzn.to/2cgFzfG

023. Anatomy & Physiology For Dummies – Maggie Norris and Donna Rae Siegfried

This is the other book on Anatomy. Unlike “Essentials” by the same authors, this is intended to be a general introduction to the subject for someone that knows nothing, and as such, Strong>is our preferred recommendation for most GMs.
http://amzn.to/2cq1ofK

024. Medical Terminology For Dummies – Beverley Henderson and Jennifer Lee Dorsey

This is a third contending volume. This offers a course in the taxonomy and construction of medical terminology, enabling you to take terms like “histology” apart to see what they mean or even create your own medical terms to describe the structures of the body from first principles – if you study and understand the whole book. But that makes it less likely to be useful as a dip-in ‘find what you need and get out’ reference.
http://amzn.to/2cauXM2

025. Herbal Remedies For Dummies – Christopher Hobbs

Pharmaceutical History becomes more fascinating the more you study it – but there’s no “History of Pharmacology For Dummies”. Again, this book represents the height of pharmacological knowledge in much of the world, and even in the more advanced corners, these would persist as home remedies. That makes this worth listing – with the understanding that regardless of their efficacy or otherwise in the real world, most of these should be treated as populist quackery in the era – with perhaps the very occasional grain of truth. We suspect from the very “old-style” for-dummies cover that this may have been replaced by the next book on our list.
http://amzn.to/2cHEIFE

026. Natural Cures For Dummies – Scott J Banks

There is considerable overlap between this volume and the one above. We don’t like the implied advice of replacing what your doctor has told you to take with something somebody’s grandmother’s grandmother used to use (though this might be editorial hyperbole on someone’s part), but as a guide to what native healers might use for treating common ailments, this looks like it would still be an occasionally useful volume. Just don’t follow the advice yourself without serious consideration.
http://amzn.to/2czgCg9

027. Charity & Philanthropy For Dummies – Karl T. Muth, Michael T.S. Lindenmeyer, and John Kluge

We debated whether or not to include this book on the grounds of relevance of the subject matter and whether or not the perspectives would be entirely too modern to be useful. In the end, we decided to include it – with a caveat. Charity and Philanthropy on a large scale, and by the wealthy, are far more common in the Pulp Era and Genre. This book seems to be aimed at the modern-day ordinary person, and deal therefore in much smaller-scale activities. On top of that, the world has changed a lot since the 1930s, so this may require some period analogue interpretation by the Pulp GM. Or it could be brilliant. But we don’t think so.
http://amzn.to/2cpBeEF

028. German Phrases For Dummies – Paulina Christensen and Anne Fox

There are a number of language and phrase books in the For Dummies series, and until we came to this one, we had rejected them all on the basis that there was nothing you couldn’t get (and customize far more effectively) using Google Translate (especially now that they have added a phonetic English display as part of the service). But the Nazis are such a big part of the pulp Genre that this volume might just be useful enough to include.
http://amzn.to/2cavyx4

029. Inventing For Dummies

There’s more to inventing than just coming up with a clever idea. Since a great many pulp characters will be the type to invent things – some released to the public, some commercially successful and some commercial flops, and others kept private, and their inner workings a mystery – it behooves GMs to understand the process of taking inventions from idea to manufactured product. That’s what this book is all about.

There are two editions of this book. The older one (pictured) is 384 pages and credited to Pamela Riddle Bird. There is a Kindle edition and a lot of cheap copies available.
http://amzn.to/2cQpfAn

The newer one is 394 pages and credited to Peter Jackson (nothing to do with the Lord Of The Rings), Philip Robinson, and Pamela Riddle Bird. There are nowhere near as many cheap copies, so unless you want to do more than talk the talk, that is probably a better bet.
http://amzn.to/2cLG3K9

030. Patents, Copyrights, & Trademarks For Dummies – Henri J A Charmasson and John Buchaca

…But it’s also what this book is about, and we aren’t sure which one is going to be more useful to the pulp GM. We suspect the previous listed, but have minimal confidence in that assessment. Make your own assessment, but buy cheap just in case.
http://amzn.to/2cLjEzE

031. Medical Ethics For Dummies – Jane Runzheimer and Linda Johnson Larsen

A recurring concern with some of these books is that the perspectives may be too modern to present much Pulp reference value. That’s certainly the case when it comes to this book, and bearing in mind that medical ethics was a far less universal practice in the 1930s – in fact, about the only thing you could say for most medics of the period is that they were far more honest and ethical than their turn-of-the-century forebears, who in turn were better than the practitioners of the later 19th century. Radium as a treatment for skin blemishes? Lead in women’s makeup? Heroin as a recommended treatment for alcoholism? The more historical context this book provides, the more valuable it will be, because our history is the Pulp “Now”. Beyond that, if your PCs include a doctor, you may be able to get any number of plotlines and difficult decisions to confound him with.
http://amzn.to/2cHIRJV

032. Leadership For Dummies

Another of the books that we debated including. If it contains material that helps you “think like a leader,” i.e. roleplay someone in a leadership role, this is worthwhile. If it helps you show leadership as a GM, inputting the desires and goals of the players and PCs and shaping them into a campaign direction that suits everyone, so much the better. But if it’s full of self-help buzzwords and superficial phrases like “Be the change”, this isn’t worth getting. We haven’t read it to know for certain.

There are two editions of this book – a very old 388-page one from 1999 (pictured) credited to Marshall Loeb and Stephen Kindel http://amzn.to/2d0yOxk and a much newer one with 352 pages from 2012 http://amzn.to/2ccAkiQ. Unsurprisingly, there are many more copies of the older one available at a much lower price than the newer, but it’s the shorter length that actually makes the decision about which one to recommend far more difficult. What’s missing between the two? Is the difference mere waffle, or outdated techniques that have subsequently fallen out of fashion? Rather than decide for you, we’ve decided to spell out the issue (as we have now done) and leave the decision in your hands.

033. Organizing For Dummies – Eileen Roth and Elizabeth Miles

This seems like it would go hand-in-hand with the previous listing. Again, there are two possible areas of benefit: the GM himself, and the representation of leaders and organizations in-game. From the blurb that we have read about the book, we suspect it leans toward the first of those benefits far more than the second.
http://amzn.to/2cLKeFI

034. Physics Essentials For Dummies – Steven Holzner

An astonishing number of people struggle with basic physics, even people who should know better – like those who pronounced that man could never travel to the moon because there was no air for the rocket to push against. Game mechanics and a liberal imagination will solve 80% of the physics problems you come across as a GM – hopefully this book will help solve the other 20%.
http://amzn.to/2cLmK6J

035. Public Relations For Dummies – Eric Yaverbaum and Ilise Benun

Blair’s character in the Zenith-3 campaign wants to study this subject; she’s supposed to be pretty good at talking to the press, and she’s certainly been doing enough of it over the last game year or so. If your campaign is ever going to include a politician (NPC or otherwise), CEO (ditto), or anyone who’s used to being interviewed or promoting a brand, they need to know this subject, too. Of course, as with several of these books, value might be limited because the world has changed a lot since the pulp era, but most of the basics will remain fairly relevant, we think.
http://amzn.to/2ctI79O

036. Roberts Rules For Dummies

“Robert’s Rules Of Order” is a famous guide to the conducting of meetings and making decisions as a group. But there’s a lot of technicality and formality in the real thing, and it can be quite expensive; it’s our hope that this will cut through to the basics and cut through the price barrier as well. Older editions are probably going to be more useful to the pulp GM simply because there will be less focus on modern communications methods.

There are two editions of this book – the 1st edition is from 2004 by C Alan Jennings, is 360 pages long, and there are abundant cheap copies available.
http://amzn.to/2cQxk8r

The newer edition (pictured) comes from 2016, is by the same author, 432 pages in length, and is not quite as well-supplied with cheap copies – and what copies there are tend to be around the $10 mark and not the 1 cent price. This makes the choice fairly simple, for a change – we recommend buying the newer one (unless the price is beyond your budget) until the remaining copies hit the $20 mark (or thereabouts) at which point a cheap copy of the 1st edition begins to look fairly attractive. But if you aren’t sure that you will get $10-$20 of value out of the book, go directly to the first edition.
http://amzn.to/2d2AnO3