Review: Pulp Dreadful
A Gothic Horror Mystery Point Crawl
Its becoming a bit of a pattern for me to spend a bit on Sunday afternoon playing a small, single session RPG (I’ll call it a tradition when its happened for at least eight weekends). Its been refreshing to step away from narrative heavy games like Ironsworn and play something that is meant to be almost board gamey in its gameplay loop. I could have written fiction, mind, I just chose not to.
Last weekend (26 April), I played through Aaron Best’s Meanwhile…Somewhere in the Dark Caribbean and enjoyed it immensely. I very much enjoy Dark Fort-inspired games, and MSitDC is in that vein. Since I enjoyed it so much, I went searching for more of Aaron’s games and discovered Pulp Dreadful: The Puritan, a Gothic Horror mystery point crawl that plays very similarly to Exeunt Press’s Eleventh Beast. The game is pay-what-you-want and is well worth spending an afternoon playing—I finished my run in about 30 minutes. All you need is the play sheet (comes as a triflold), a set of polyhedral dice, and a piece of scrap paper to track enemy health.
The Pros
Easy pick up and play
d20 Roll Under resolution
Easy to follow gameplay loop
Satisfying Combat
Thematic enemies and other encounters
Easy Pick Up and Play. There’s a lot of great stuff to be said about this game. Its incredibly easy to pick up and play. There’s no preparation necessary, you only really need the trifold and dice (or dice app) to play. This is something I look for in Micro RPGs, and something that I am trying to implement and practice in my own TTRPG design. Set up consists of rolling your character’s two abilities (Physical and Wit), logging gear, and rolling a d12 three times to place Leads on the map. There’s no HP, damage takes away from your Physical or Wit scores. These can be healed with bandages, laudanum, or a doctor’s bag if you have them. Once could draw similarities with Cairn in the way that stats take damage (though Cairn also has Hit Protection).
d20 Roll Under. Overall, I do not like the d20. Its so swingy, and makes for some really immersion breaking rolls in so many games that use it. Of all the dice in my dice bag, the d20 and the d4 get the least use. Pulp Dreadful uses the only d20 resolution mechanic that I actually enjoy: Roll Under. When you create your character, you roll 4d4 (drop lowest) for Physical, and 3d6 for Wit. The sum of those respective dice rolls give you the value you must roll under when making ability tests. While its still swingy, I think of roll under systems (like Dragonbane, my favorite d20 game) as rolling within the span of your skill. If you roll too high, the thing your trying to do is beyond your capability. It adds a bit of narrative to the roll all on its own.
My character got lucky on the Physical ability roll, scoring a 6, 6, 5, 2 for a total of 17. I never missed once in combat. My Wit ability score was more modest at 10. I failed a couple rolls looking for clues with that 50% success chance.
Easy to follow Loop. The game follows a very simple and clearly stated gameplay loop. Each Map Turn, you move from one point to any adjacent point, roll on the encounter table, resolve the encounter and, if there’s a Lead at that point, you make a Wit test to see if you find it. Rinse, and repeat. If you fail to find the Lead, you roll a d12 and move the lead to the point indicated (I had to reroll sometimes to keep leads from reappearing in the same point, where I already was).
With my middling Wit score of 10, I failed the first two Wit checks to find the leads indicated on my map. Fortunately, the three subsequent times I succeeded with rolls of 9, 5, and 2. One of the encounters was a phantasmal laugh, which forced a Wit check or face d4 Wit damage. The dice gods were on my side, and I managed to withstand the mental damage with a roll of 5.
Satisfying Combat. Best uses a combat resolution that I find to be incredibly satisfying and simple. Whenever you are in combat, you roll a d20 against your Physical stat. If you roll equal to or under, you hit and roll your damage dice. If you roll over, you roll the enemy’s damage dice instead. There’s no defense roll, though if you have armor, you subtract the armor value (either 0, 1, or 2) from the damage roll. Enemies do not have armor. I may have had a better experience with combat since my PHY was 17, and I hit every attack. Mileage may vary there.
In the final battle with the murderer, my character rocked a leather coat (2 armor) and a shotgun (d12 damage). The shotgun was a lucky roll on an item encounter, and was absolutely busted. I took down the murderer in two attacks, opening with a heavy blast of 6 damage and finishing him off with a 10. A bit anticlimactic, but also so bad ass.
Thematic Enemies and Encounters. The game has a d20 encounter table that has everything from empty streets and dead bodies to crazed brutes and frenzied mobs. In my mental theater, there was a lot to fear from the maddened citizens of the Gothic town the game is set in. I will confess to rerolling several encounters, not because they were “too dangerous” but because I’d already fought the enemy once (or twice in some cases) or experienced the event and I wanted a more varied experience.
My character ended the game with three unused bandages, a shotgun, a leather coat, and fifty-seven shillings (the game’s currency) despite spending 20 shillings for the armor about midway through the game.
The Cons
Clues had very little narrative impact
Clues. The only real con I could think of was that, unlike Exuent Press’s Eleventh Beast which is this game’s closest comparison, the clues had no impact. There’s no clue table, and all finding the three clues does is unlock the encounter with the murderer. Now, that’s fine for a game that’s less about the story and more about the gameplay. Its not a big deal, honestly, though I would have liked something to flesh out just what kind of killer we were hunting, what kinds of things they took or didn’t take from their victims, etc.
The Verdict
Pulp Dreadful is a fun time, and I’m glad I gave it a go. It rolled a solid 5 on the Review Oracle. That’s a “straight yes.”
I’m a big fan of Aaron Best’s game design, and both Meanwhile…Somewhere in the Dark Caribbean and Pulp Dreadful—while completely different types of games—are well-made, concise, and have great settings and mechanics. Next weekend, my plan is to play another Pulp Dreadful adventure called Assault on Castle Nachtenthal.
I have to say that roll under is my favorite check mechanic as well. That's part of why I love Blackoath games, they all have d100 systems.
I also love Dragonbane, and that was the first system I played with a d20 roll under. Great review!
Sounds like a fun Sunday afternoon, and a game I'd like to try myself!