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Pulp Plot Seeds

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Just goes to show that with a slight change in location or setting, anything can be a Pulp Adventure. Pick any action movie - you can pulperise itPeter Cobcroft 2006/02/23 16:08

Pulperised Movies and TV Shows

A

  • Alien - Discovering a derelict ship of unknown country and design (possibly from the Inner Earth) in the unchartered waters near an unchartered island somewhere far off the regular trading routes, the merchant traders discover crates of large dinosaur eggs. One is taken aboard and hatches. Who knew how intelligent dinosaurs were? One of the crew is a native from the Inner Earth/Lost World plateau on a mission to retrieve the eggs as sacred objects. - (Curufea)
  • Aliens - Replace Aliens with Dinosaurs, set it on a colonial outpost in a tropical country. The marines are colonial infantry. Or if not the Victorian Age - A mining encampment far from civilisation. The marines are mercenaries sent in. - (Curufea)
  • Alien3 - Replace the Alien with a Dinosaur, set it on an island prison. The derelict ship from the first adventure has broken up, and parts of it come ashore. - (Curufea)
  • Alien 4 - Mad scientists have made a Dinosaur/Human hybrid and hire mercenaries to retrieve material for their experiments in making a Super Race (obviously these would be Nazis). The Dinosaurs escape (of course). Location is a secret underground installation, or possibly a large zepplin - (Curufea)
  • The Amazing Race - Inspired by Around the World in Eighty Days, a newspaper mogul sponsors eleven teams of two on a scavenger-hunt-like race around the globe. Along the way the teams meet with European madmen, African headhunters, Middle Eastern mystics, Japanese ninjas, American bandits, and just about every other staple of pulp literature. - (BobGreenwade)
  • The American President - Eleanor dies and FDR begins a whirlwind romance with a female in Washington while trying to push his New Deal legislation through Congress. - (Steve Long)
  • Angel Links - A buxom and gorgeous teenage heiress with impossible mad skills forms a private security firm with an international group of experts and charges them with the task of protecting vital shipments from the pirates who plague the South Seas, while being pursued by a handsome shipping magnate. But that magnate has a secret that links him inextricably to her and may inevitbaly destroy everything she holds dear…. - (Michael Hopcroft)
  • The A-Team - Ten years ago, a crack military unit was sent to prison by a military court for a crime they didn't commit. These men promptly escaped a maximum security stockade to the Los Angeles underground. Today, still wanted by the government, they survive as soldiers of fortune. If you have a problem, if no one else can help, and if you can find them, maybe you can hire…the A-Team. I think that all you probably need to do is change out the weaponry to era appropriate. Tommy Guns, etc. and figure out where they gone to ground. Not likely to be L.A. but I think that’s a matter of choice. Also the original team was of course special forces. These didn’t come around until after the Second World War. That doesn’t have to be a definite after all they could have been trained for some special mission that history has forgotten (or never happened). - (Silverhawk)
  • Auntie Mame - Little Patrick Dennis thought the realtive on whom he's been foisted was a free spirit – but he doesn't know the half of it. Little does he realize that he has now become the ward of Mame Kildare – two-fisted adventuress! – and that he'll need to open new windows every day just to survive. - (Michael Hopcroft)

B

  • Battle Royale II - For a “bloody pulp” set in WWI…Those fiendish Huns have come up with their most despicable plan yet to attack our heroes' island base. They've abducted an entire class of 42 fifteen year olds, slapped explosive collars on them set to go off in 72 hours, and ordered them to attack the base and kill the heroic leader or else get their heads blown off. - (SKJAM!)
    • The plan relies on the Allies being squeamish about killing mere children, even if they are heavily armed. And the Hun doesn't expect the draftees to actually succeed. They're really just meant to soften up the defenses for a crack team of special forces landing the next day.
  • Battlestar Galactica - Fleeing the Japanese occupation and rape of Nanking, a dying village elder leads her few surviving people towards the legendary city of Shangri-La. They are plagued by Japanese spies, limited resources, and treachery within the village council itself as the village's few martial artists try to hold the refugees together. - (Trebuchet)
    • Hilarity ensues.
  • Berserk - The man known only as “Guts” was born from a corpse, and has been a mercenary soldier since he could walk. Only recently, however, has he found some sense of belonging and purpose. Guts has joined Hawk Company, an elite mercenary group led by the charismatic Captain Griffith, in their contract with the embattled South American country of Tierra Medi. Griffith has big plans, including seducing the daughter of El Presidente. But the wealthy families and regular military don't much like these mercenaries, and plot against them. - (SKJAM!)
    • Worse, the good luck talisman Captain Griffith wears is actually the product of blackest magic, and Things Man Was Not Meant To Know have taken an interest in him. Can Guts save his friends? Can Guts even save himself?
  • Beverly Hills Cop - Reckless detective Axel Foley must Journey cross country to Hollywood and deal with culture shock and local cops who don't appreciate his style so as to apprehend the owner of the local hunt club. - (Blue)
  • Big O - which looks like a giant robot version of Batman - The Animated Series, and clearly is set in a late-1930s/early-1940s era city. - (Susano)
  • The Black Hole - submarine crews and their robotic assistants clash over one man's obsession with delving the crushing depths of the Marianas Trench. - (Supreme Serpent)
  • Bladerunner - Ex-cop now private investigator Decker investigates a series of murders. All were committed by the golem creations of a mad scientist (insert “Nazi” if needed, but Jewish would be more appropriate). These particular golems can imitate humans and were originally designed to fight in the Great War instead of human soldiers, but have since developed free will. They can be detected with an interrogation regarding rabbinical texts, with carefully placed errors in the Torah an aggressive response can be provoked. - (Curufea)
  • Blake's 7 - Something is wrong in the British Empire – behind the facade of partliamentary democracy a secret cabal known as the Federation runs the Empire and gets rid of anyone who might concievably oppose them. En route to their secret prison in Australia, a group of priosners, including brillaint but unstable political activist Roger Blake, black marketeer Jenny, cowardly cat-burglar Vinny, and genius embezzler Kerry Avon, discover an abandoned secret project that may be their means of escape – or, for Blake, the instrument of his long-overdue and truly terrible revenge…. - (Michael Hopcroft)
    • Jenny Stanis - black marketeer and master pilot
    • They pick up Kelly - a telepath and sabateur whilst on a mission.
    • Diana - weaponcrafter who lost her father to the evil machinations of the Minister for Peace, Miss Minerva Lang. Eventually the crew manage to pick up Diana's father's invention - Oracle, a machine able to intercept and decode any radio signal, anywhere (also a transmitter).
    • Devon Tarrant - master pilot ex-airforce special forces fleeing the disaster of the British Empires high-casualty repulsion of the Martian Invasion in which Travis dies..
    • Sue-Lynn - as brilliant as Avon, but without the drive to lead. Content to hone her crackshot skills and razor sharp reflexes.
    • Travis - a government operative answerable only to Miss Lang, had his eye and hand shot off by Blake and replaced with clockwork parts.
    • Minerva Lang - femme fatale. Beautiful, treacherous and power hungry. The power behind the thrones of Europe.

C

  • Carnivale - Doesn't really need to be changed; just find a way to get the P Cs involved as things reach a climax. - (st barbara)
  • Chrono Crusade - is even the right location and time period, and it has gun-toting babealicious nuns. Who doesn't love that? (Well, Pope Benedict would probably say he didn't, but I bet he's lying.) - (Michael Hopcroft)
  • Cowboy Bebop - All's fun aboard the sea-faring vessel Bebop as bounty hunters Spike Spiegal and Jake “Jet” Black team with former heiress Faye Valentine (who has awoken from a coma), weird scientist protege Ed and Ein, a german experiment that placed a human brain in the body of a welsh corg, to chase after bounties and adventures! Let's Jam! - (Sketchpad)
    • Possible Add-ons - Spike is a former Chicago gangster on the lam trying to make good. Jet is an ex-New York cop who lost an arm in the line of duty. Ed is a science genius who has a built an electrical calculating engine (and other weird science toys), Ein is her “dog of the future,” who's nearly as smart (or smarter) than any one of the rest of the crew. Faye is a Frenchwoman from the colonies in Vietnam/Singapore and is quite handy with a gun or behind the stick of an airplane.
    • Somewhere along the line they've run afoul of a Japanese/(pick… American? Russian?) Yakuza boss who goes by the nickname of Vicious. He's been seeking them here and there across the Pacific, and has been known to send Yakuza hoods and ninja to try and do our heroes in!

D

  • The Day The Earth Stood Still, Part 2 - Klaatu returns to the backwards blue planet called Earth, and the world discovers that he is actually a clone. The first time he came to Earth was to warn man, but this time, he has come to protect him. He and Gort have come to root out the individual or group that has made contact with a rival faction of the outer space alliance, one that will surely end in invasion. He enlists the help of scientists, warriors and regular Joe's alike, in a mission that could mean the survival or distruction of humankind as they know it. - (JakSpade)
  • Death Note - The big change here is that without television or the Internet, the holder of the Death Note has a considerably smaller range of operations. Dealing with such a person would be a job for a masked crimefighter, especially of the “bloody pulps” persuasion. - (Michael Hopcroft)
  • Detective Conan - Teenage amateur detective James Kudo and his sort-of girlfriend Rachel Moore go on a date to Coney Island. After solving a bizarre murder, James stumbles on evidence of crimes by a mysterious organization of men in black. The criminals decide not to shoot him, but instead use a new experimental poison that's supposed to be untracable. - (SKJAM!)
    • As it turns out, the formula instead shrinks James to a pre-adolescent state. Realizing that he and those around him will be in danger if the Blackcoats know he's alive, James takes the name of Conan Edgar. He now lives with Rachel and her father Richard Moore, the world's most incompetent private eye. Conan continues to solve crimes, though he must now use stalking horses due to his apparent youth.
    • Actually, this series requires relatively little adjustment to be set in the Thrities. Some of the gadgets may require a second look, and Rachel's combat skills will be much more remarkable for the time period.
  • Die Hard – with the Empire State Building almost complete, one of the early tenants holds a party to which local businessman and playboy millionaire Carson Whitlock is invited. When the minions of the insidious Yellow Scar, along with their master, take over the building and hold everyone hostage, Whitlock has to slip away, assume his costumed identity of the Ghoul (UMM 206), and save the day. - (Steve Long)
  • The Doberman Gang - Some evil genius is using trained guard dogs to rob banks. Their fierce behavior and complex escape routes have the authorities baffled. Can the Jungle lord overcome their training and communicate with these beasts? Can the Detective track the dogs to their lair? - (ArmlessTigerMan)
  • Doctor Who - A pair of teachers stumble into a time machine owned by the elderly and eccentric grandfather of one of their students… Too easy. - (assault)
  • Doom (although it does stray) - A group of US Military personnel (or a Doc Savage like gang of highly skilled, special type folks with friends in high places who are suitable “blunt instruments” in modern parlance) are sent to a remote island in the carribean where a secretive scientific organization (which originally had ties to the US military as well as several major US corporate interests) has been performing “super-soldier” experiments using ancient secrets unearthed from a dig on the very same island. To evade detection, these experiments were being conducted in the temple that the dig uncovered, with shafts running deep underground and curious chambers, hidden grottos etc. - (Publius)
    • Various animals were exposed to the super-solider experiments (which involve a combination of exposure to radioactives, electricity and chemicals other than heavy water *cough*Flash*cough*) and had become larger, more aggressive and far more hardy. They also gained a strange new set of behaviors. Those in the secret organization decided that the time had come for human experimentation, but here the US backers balked. The situation grew more distant and aid was eventually cut. Convinced that the secret organization has gone to other governments for the necessary “raw materials” and funding, the Players have been sent in to see what is going on. (One of the PCs of course is related to a scientist on the project that he has not heard from in some time)
    • Unbeknownst to the US Military, Nazi (or Bolshevik or whatever) troops have been “invited” in and have all but kept the scientists under lock and key. A convict from their land has been subjected to the human testing phase and things… have not gone well. He/it/Test Subject Zero-One has gained enormous strength, vitality and near-immunity to bullets. Furthermore, those who he killed have undergone a mysterious transformation that brings them back to a semblance of “life” (No Nazis like Undead Nazis).
    • Then the PCs will have to first decide how to get inside of the Temple now that the security doors and such have been activated from inside (puzzle stuff maybe?). As the PCs penetrate the facility, they also find scattered pockets of people who have holed up and defended themselves, sometimes effectively… sometimes not so much. They also find the freed animals, and animals that have not fully changed, but are half-transformed… humans in the middle of transformation as well as the dead which are shambling horrors driven by an inhuman appetite for flesh. And finally, they discover “test subject zero-one”, evolving into a huge squid-headed bat-winged creature, in the deepest sections of the temple, attempting to enact some strange rite (probably using the sister-scientist)
  • Doomed Megalopolis - occurs around the time of the Great Kanto Quake (circa 1923 IIRC), and has several heroes trying to stop an evil spirit from destroying Tokyo (not exactly Pulp, but still cool). - (Susano)
  • Dude, Where's My Car - The player characters wake up after a rather gregarious night (or nights) of carousing, only to find the coupe is missing. As they gather together to find out what happened to their favorite automobile, random events begin to take place. Faceless minions attack outside their favorite coffeehouse, albeit bent on their destruction. People they have never met drop by, thanking them for all their help. A professor at the local university calls upon them, because they are late for the presentation they had promised to give. A strange crate arrives from Persia, with one of the character's name on it, and with strange locks that no one seems to have the keys to. - (JakSpade)
    • As the players continue on their merry way, they begin to put the pieces to their adventure together. But just what caused them to forget their whole debaucle? And just where is the coupe?
  • Dune - The father of one of the PCs, His Grace Leto Atredies Duke of Caladan, has recently been named to the Chairmanship of CHOAM (Cobalt-Hastings Oil, Amalamated), and has been moved to the “Home Office” in the Middle East. There, the former head of Operations, now Nazi sympathizer, Vlad 'the Baron' Harkonnen, laid a trap that killed Duke Atredies and left the PC son a renegade, hunted by Harkonnen's crazed Nephews and their Nazi allies in the desert. Eventually, they find themselves among the local natives that call the young Atredies “Mouse” and keep babbling about some local dish called “Kwisatz Haderach”… - (Publius)
    • Will the PCs manage to stage a raid on the Nazi pumping stations? Can they destroy the CHOAM HQ, now secured as a bunker loaded with Nazis? will they discover why some of the deep desert fields have been destroyed by some sort of large burrowing creature? And why everyone has blue eyes?
    • The Petrol must flow…

E

  • The Equalizer - The Equalizer (Robert McCall) is a former agent of a shadowy, unnamed government agency, who is trying to make up for the unspoken sins of his past. His atonement comes in the form of an advertisement in the New York Yellow Pages that features the above quote. McCall uses his finely honed skills, and occasionally, the agents and resources from his old agency, to combat the injustices perpetrated against those who can't seek protection from the law. Bootleggers instead of drug dealers, corrupt politicians are corrupt politicians, etc. - (Silverhawk)
  • Eraser - The player characters are members of an elite US Marshal's team that protects and sequesters informants before they are to testify in court. Their latest charge is a woman who works for a New England think tank that develops new weapons for the military. The woman has informed the government that she has discovered that the main entity behind the think tank developing the weapons is none other than <enter villain name here>, and he's bogarting their latest invention (an Electro-Gun that pierces the toughest armor), and plans on selling it on the Black Market to the highest bidder. - (JakSpade)
    • In the mean time, the villain has discovered the leak in his organization, and has shifted all his resources into stopping (and probably killing) the young lady spy. The player characters are ordered to protect the snitch, and make sure she makes it to testify before Congress, a week from now.
    • Unfortunately, the player characters don't know that the villain has eyes everywhere, and they don't know who to trust. Is their boss on the take? What about one of the PCs them selves?
  • Everybody Loves Raymond - Crusading reporter Ray Barone tries to balance home life with derring-do. Frequently getting himself into trouble deeper than he can manage alone, he is ably assisted by his sassy wife Deborah, his powerful policeman brother Robert, his hard-as-nails veteran father Frank, and his mother Marie, a cunning master of intrigue. Frank also sometimes pulls in assistance from a mysterious organization known only as “The Lodge”. - (Supreme Serpent)

F

  • Fantastic Voyage - A dear friend and important man has an affliction that cannot be diagnosed! All cures have failed. But you have the opportunity to use his research to aid him; You climb into a full-size diving bell and bring your diving gear then are shrunk down to microscopic size and injected into the bloodstream. THRILL at combat with the defenders of the body, the White Blood Cells! TREMBLE as the forces of infection wrestle with our intrepid hero. GASP as the team encounters the evils of the Malignant Tumor! - (Blue)
    • And for extra fun, they can discover that their true adversary is a competing scientist who has the same technology, inside the Doctor's Bloodstream causing harm.
    • Exploratory Surgery was never so compelling!
  • Farscape - Miami-based inventor John Crichton, developing a new engine for ocean-crossing aircraft, suddenly finds his one-man ship caught by a mysterious whirlwind and carried to the coast of Morocco, where he's brought on board a prison ship by its revolting inmates – a disgraced warrior, a mildly psychotic priestess, and a deposed king from the eastern coast. He has to rely on his wits, separated from American forces, as they fight against Nazi invaders in the years before America enters the war. - (BobGreenwade)
  • Fast and the Furious - A gang of hooligans is tearing up the city in their souped-up Model A coupes, all hopped up on the Reefer and that infernal Jazz music! - (ArmlessTigerMan)
  • Fight Club - the Red Sickle organizes illegal underground bare-knuckles boxing clubs and slowly but surely turns them to the Bolshevik cause, then sends them out to commit acts of vandalism, mayhem, and eventually mass murder. He's gotta be stopped! - (Steve Long)
  • Final Destination (and II and III) - a mismatched group of travellers on a train are disturbed when one has a psychic image of the train's crash and decide to disembark at the next stop. Sure enough, the train crashes immediately thereafter. Then they have to avoid the strange traps and machinations set forth by death. - (Blue)
    • (Okay, not sure how you resolve this one. Perhaps a trip to gain a magical ward or to engage a mystic in their defense )
  • Firefly/Serenity - Under the guidance WWI vet Malcolm Reynolds, the crew of the pontoon plane Serenity try and undermine the Nazi regeme in the skies and the air. - (Sketchpad)
  • Frazier - Failed Boston radio personality and boozehound Frazier Crane is forced to move to Seattle to look after his dad, top cop Martin Crane, who was critically injured by a mysterious shooter. With the assistance of his ballsy secretary Roz, his father's psychic nurse Daphne, his brother (socialite and fencing champion Niles Crane), and Eddie the Wonder Dog, Frazier looks to use his mastery of human psychology to track down and arrest the man responsible for his dad's shooting, only to be drawn into a web of criminal deceit that spans three continents! - (GestaltBennie)
  • Friends - An actor (Joey), a paleontologist (Ross), a businessman (Chandler), a masseuse & singer (Phoebe), a chef (Monica) and (whatever Rachael was) hang out together, fight crime and the day to day struggle in New York City. - (JakSpade)
  • The Fugitive - After Dr. Richard Kimble is convicted of the murder of his wife, which was actually committed by a mysterious one-armed man, he escapes from prison and goes on the run, with FBI agent (and “Untouchable” wanna-be) Philip Gerard following him closely. After narrowly parting ways with the mob he discovers that the one-armed man was a part of a strange Far Eastern death cult. - (BobGreenwade)

G

  • Ghostbusters - swap the unlicensed nuclear particle accellorators for something like “Radium-powered etheric lightning projectors” and you're good to go. - (Supreme Serpent)
    • “Ray, what did you think of?”
    • “Something from the radio…someone who could never turn evil or hurt us…(sigh) it's Little Orphan Annie.”
  • Ghosts of Mars - A group of Marshals (and probably a guide or two just to mix things up) have been dispatched to pick up Jim “Desolation” Williams from the Mining town of Shining Canyon and bring him back to Denver for trial. They stumble onto a scene of edritch horror as body-stealing spirits had been freed the night before and laid waste to all those who had not been taken over. - (Publius)
    • The spirits were from a group of corrupted Native Americans tricked by a Thing Man Was Not Meant To Know. These corrupted ones had been defeated by a combination of (untainted) tribes around them and sealed into a cave hundreds of years before with a mystic symbol-laden rock over the entrance. The Miners encountered the cave, rich with silver, and removed the rock in order to get deeper into the cave. After its removal, the spirits of the corrupt ones began to take over the bodies of the miners, killing them indiscrimnately and moving on to other bodies in the camp.
    • Inside the jail is Desolation, as well as a few drunks, prostitutes and the local administrator of the mining company (they were protected by the fact that metals, like iron and silver, sap the disembodied spirits of their energy.
    • As a twist - iron does a good job of containment, but silver kills them). As the party kills off the spirit-dominated townsfolk, they start to notice that some of the NPCs in their party fall prey to bodily takeover.
  • Goonies - The Dead End Kids have found the treasure map of infamous pirate One-Eyed Willie. In secret caverns deep beneath Manhattan lie untold riches, protected by intricate booby traps. They are hounded at every turn by the mob. Or it could be the Little Rascals and the caverns could be under Santa Monica. - (ArmlessTigerMan)

H

  • Hard Rain - A mad scientist uses his gadgets (a weather control device, and his new zepplin) and minions to beseige a small town receiving a rather large bank shipment. He hopes to flood the whole area (crippling the local police), loot the town, and wait for the dam to break, destroying the remaining community. The heroes are members of the local community that are caught in God's Fury, the worst storm of the century. Then they see the zepplin drop in over the bank… - (JakSpade)
  • Harold and the Purple Crayon aka The Peril of the Purple Pen! - The nefarious Harold Crockett, having obtained a supply of (insert monster or extradimensional entity here) ichor, is using it to enact his revenge on his enemies. By using the purple ichor as ink in an enchanted fountain pen, Harold can draw things that spring into reality, even life, for a short period of time. He can also use the pen to write out events of a limited nature in a special tome, and those events will come to pass. So far, he has been using his ability to write the future and his purple monsters to kill off enemies and rivals, but soon his attention might turn to other goals… - (Supreme Serpent)
  • Hedwig and the Angry Inch - Tommy Gnosis, All-American, joins forces with Hedwig, the “Mr. & Mrs.” of a travelling German carnival, when they get caught up in a Gestapo plan to assassinate J. Edgar Hoover!! - (James Gillen)
  • Hellsing - It's 1936 and the Thulegesellschaft (Thule Society), backed by Himmler's new Sonderkommando H (Special Unit H) are scouring the world for occult artifacts and secrets. Rumor has it they are looking for ancient mystical superweapons, such as the Ark of the Covenant, the Lance of Longinius, the Holy Grail, Excaliber, the Vajra of Indra, and even the original Bowie knife. But there are hints of an even darker purpose beyond collecting reputed magical tomes and records of ancient Catholic witch trials. It is whispered that certain members of the Thulegesellschaft are engaging in research designed to create unstoppable soldiers. Soldiers who are superhumanly fast, strong, and nearly impossible to harm. Soldiers who can't be killed because they are already dead, and worse yet, prey on the living (such as Allied troops) for sustenance. - (Susano)
    • Enter the Hellsing organization. Started late in the last century after a certain incident with an Eastern European nobleman, Hellsing is Britain's own occult arm. Specially equipped to fight the exact enemy it is feared the Germans are bent on creating, Hellsing uses both technology and ritual to put down the black magics of the Nazis. And if the rumors are true, they have one (or more) (highly) “special operatives” of their own….
    • PS- The Thulegesellschaft and Sonderkommando H really existed!
  • The High and the Mighty - An unusually full flight from Honolulu to San Francisco develops engine trouble shortly after the point of no return. The pilot is losing his nerve, there's a jealous husband with a gun on board, a scientist with important papers, a little kid traveling alone, a luckless middle-aged tourist couple, and others, each with their own backstory. Oh, and the weather's turned nasty. Can the dashing co-pilot keep plane and passengers together until they reach their destination?
  • Hikaru no Go - The series itself wouldn't make very good pulp material, but the fantastical element would be nifty for a player character. A young fellow discovers an antique in his grandfather's attic while looking for something to sell. (It's the Depression, after all.) It's not salable, but it does come with the ghost of a falsely accused and murdered nobleman of centuries ago. The nobleman agrees to give his expertise (a number of Knowledge Skills, Limited “Only when ghost agreeable”) in exchange for the modern youth looking for clues to prove the noble innocent. - (Michael Hopcroft)
  • The Hound of the Baskervilles - Hard-boiled gumshoe “Sureshot” Holmes and his partner “Doc” are called out of their usual haunts in NYC, down to the New Jersey Pine Barrens to deal with “The Jersey Devil”—at least, that's the story. But Sureshot isn't buying it; “I don't believe in ghosts, Doc.” - (Basil)
    • Still, something is leaving BIG tracks around the ol' Basker home—and scaring members of the family to death! As the death toll mounts, Sureshot puts his brain, his shoe-leather, his persistance, his gat, and his moxie to work. In the end, the “Jersey Devil” is just a big ol' dog with some phosphorent paint, the whole plot got up by a cunning criminal mastermind; Sureshot's right, no ghosts involved. The dog lands up plugged, the bad guy swallowed up by one of the bogs dotting the Barrens.
    • All in a day's work for “the king of the PIs”.
  • The Hunt for Red October - A German U-Boat commander has decided that the Nazis are wrong and wants to defect and bring his sub with him. But the Allies are unsure of his sincerity and the Germans are pursuing him through the Atlantic. - (Blue)

I

  • I, My, Me Strawberry Eggs - Something strange is going on at the exclusive Faversham Academy for Girls, something that calls for the investigative skill of a pulp hero! The catch is that the Academy is off-limits to men. So our hero must disguise himself as the newly hired female physical education instructor with the help of a mad inventor's gadgets. - (SKJAM!)
    • The disguised hero must deal with the man-hating principal's screeds, the suspicious vice-principal's prying, the growing attraction of one of the pupils to her new teacher…and figure out what the heck that dying man meant by “strawberry eggs” before it's too late.
  • Island of Dr. Moreau - Adventurers find themselves on an island populated by half-man, half-animal freaks… Wasn't there more of a plot than this? I'm having a heck of a time trying to remember what, if so. - (Blue)
  • It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World - Former rum-runner Smiler Grogan is finally out of jail, and driving way too fast. He's trying to get to a park in Santa Rosita, California where he buried $100,000, when he misses a turn and goes flying off the road; right in front of 4 cars-ful of people. As he lays dying, he explains—in part!—what he was up to, but leaving only a vague clue to the exact spot the treasure is buried at. The people in the cars can't agree on how to split the cash, so each takes off trying to make the 200 mile trip first. - (Basil)
    • Hilarity results as each group uses its idea of the fastest method (car, zeppelin, biplane, train, etc.) to head to Santa Rosita Park! Complications include tire failure, deep water, drunken millionaires, a British adventurer/aristocrat, and so on!
    • {NB- frankly, you could take the movie, push back the tech 30 years, throw in a zeppelin, and there you are. Well, you'd have to change Dick Shawn's character (Sylvester Marcus) pretty substantially — jazz musician, maybe? — but that's the only big change.}

J

  • Jackie Chan Adventures - Change the timeline to 1930s-1940s Chinatown, and you've got everything you need. A reluctant hero, two scrappy kids, crabby uncle/master, the big tough guy repented with a heart of gold, and the masked Mexican wrestler… Add lots of mystical artifacts from various parts of the globe, martial arts mayhem, and what more can you ask for? - (JakSpade)
  • James and the Giant Peach - Drawn by rumors of gigantic flora, jungle explorer James Henry Trotter journeys to a hidden glen in the Amazon and must rescue a gentle race of intelligent arthropods from the Mad Scientist who created them to staff his army of world conquest!! - (James Gillen)
  • Jurassic Park - Mad scientists Weevil Underhill and Rex Raptor have managed to swallow their animosity just long enough to create a way of producing dinosaurs from the blood in the stomachs of amberized mosquitos. (Also giant prehistoric insects, but no one wants to hear about that.) The eccentric millionaire who sponsored the experiments, Mr. Holland, decided the best way to exploit, er showcase the discovery is with a zoological park devoted to the magnificent creatures. - (SKJAM!)
    • He's converted an island off the Gulf Coast into a haven for dinosaurs, and has invited a group of scientists, adventurers and potential investors (that is, the player characters), along with a couple of his grandchildren, to see this amazing place so that they can spread the word.
    • Sadly, Dr. Underhill has been approached by agents of a foreign power who want to weaponize this discovery, and he's arranged for the safety precautions to suffer catastrophic failure at nightfall, just in time for a trapical storm.
    • Mayhem ensues.

K

  • Kishin Corp - is a little late period (WWII) but features giant robots (with vacuum tubes and hand-cranked engines) fighting it out with alien invaders. - (Susano)
  • Knight Rider - “Knight Rider! A shadowy flight into the dangerous world of a man who does not exist” - Michael Knight — a young loner on a crusade to champion the cause of the innocent, the helpless, the powerless, in a world of criminals who operate above the law.“ - (JakSpade)
    • Michael King, a lone private detective who has made a promise to bring down organized crime, finds himself in a dark alley on the wrong side of the tracks. Cornered and almost beaten within an inch of his life, he is rescued by a good Samaritan driving a dark colored car. When he climbs in the back, he realizes that the car is driving itself! He wakes up days later in a hospital bed, with a new face, new identity (Michael Knight), and a group of new friends.
    • “KITT” is a 1937 Buick Special Coupe that holds the spirit of Perry “Kitt” Kittrich, a former special police investigator that also became an enemy of the mob. One night, he was gunned down while staking out a rumored mob business, and his spirit has been “haunting” his car ever since. KITT uses his special supernateral abilities to drive fast, jump high, and defend himself from those who would do him or his companions harm.
    • Devon Miles is CEO of Knight Industries, a new technology firm that secretly uses it's inventions to fight crime. The former owner of KI was a friend to Perry Kittrich, and vowed to find his killers, sinking all his money into his company, and passed all the gains to his friend Devon Miles, with the requirement that he use the company to fight injustice.
    • Bonnie Barstow is a top notch grease monkey, always with her hands under some hood or transmission. She maintains all the current and up and coming hardware provided by Knight Industries. In her spare time, Bonnie tinkers with her own inventions, which she usually tries out on Kitt and Michael.
    • Michael has come to realize that Knight Industries isn't all hardware and powerful engines. KI investigates all types of cases, from the mundane to supernatural. He travels through the country helping everyone he can, setting right what once went wrong.

L

  • Laputa - Castle in the Sky, a classic lost world adventure. While it occurs on a different Earth than ours, the flying machines, armored train, and giant armored zeppelin just beg to be used in a Pulp-era campaign. Not to mention the air pirate's ship and flyers are the perfect tools for PCs to boot around the world with. - (Susano)
  • Last Man Standing - A masked avenger wanders into a Texas border town and finds it in the grip of two rival bootlegger gangs, who trade guns for liquor with Mexican bandits. By working both gangs against one another, he decides to clean the town up in a blaze of .45 automatics. (Okay, that was an easy one.) - (Susano)
  • The Last Samurai - Hit man Nat Algren is hired by a young mob boss to rub out a gang of troublemakers outside the city limits. He takes a band of tommygunners, but after a firefight he is the only attacker left alive. As their hostage he learns that they are the remnants of a gang of Old West gunfighters. They will not acquiesce to the mob boss, who does not respect the code of the gunfighter. After a time he comes to respect their old, romantics ways. They teach him the elegant lethality of the rifle and the handgun. In the end he stands with them as they boldly face an overwhelming band of tommygun assassins. - (austenandrews)
  • The Last Starfighter - Stunt-show pilot Alex Rogan had no idea what he'd gotten himself into when he accept a job with Mr. Century. Whisked into the stars, Rogan now battles the evil warlord Xur in his rocketship and along with the rest of the Star Legionaires! - (Sketchpad)
    • Substitution- Replace rockets with a foriegn air force and you have a fun alternate.
  • Lord of the Rings - Adam World of the World Foundation discovers that a crystal one of his aides has is the lost igniter for an Atlantean Electro-Radium bomb of the kind which destroyed Atlantis. A villain known as the Lidless Eye has just taken over the Eastern European country of Transcarpathia and has started sending assassins to America hunting for the igniter. Adam World and his aides have to take the igniter to the only place where it can be destroyed, in the last Atlantean crystal reactor in the deepest darkest forests of Transcarpathia. As they leave, they discover that the Lidless Eye has already started the conquest of the neighboring countries, using advance Atlantean technology and the only way to stop him is by destroying the igniter and the crystal reactor. - (Lemurion)
  • The Lost Boys - Just change the time line of this movie, and you've got a setting… Boardwalk, gangs of vampires, comics, Frog Brothers… who could ask for anything more. - (JakSpade)
  • LOST - A Musician, Convict in Transit, Doctor, Con-Man, Obese Millionaire, and a Man travelling with his son take an ocean voyage but are shipwrecked on a tropical island where they encounter a cunning and delusional French woman, a Polar Bear, an abandoned facility once used for some nefarious unknown purpose, and an unreasonable rival group seemingly shipwrecked from a previous voyage. - (Blue)
  • Lupin III - A globe-trotting master thief who ends up foiling all sorts of diabolical schemes as he attempts to gain riches for himself and build his reputation as “the greatest thief in the world”, no to mention finally get the beautiful and deadly Fujiko into the sack again and continue his cat-and-mouse game with Inspector Zenigata of INTERPOL. - (Michael Hopcroft)

M

  • Macross - Twenty years ago an alien war machine crash-landed on an island in the Pacific while the world was caught up in the Great War. The Allies and the Central Powers had no choice but to make a truce while the Martian “Sky Machine” was rebuilt. But now, just as the work is completed as well as 1936 technology will allow, the Martians have returned to reclaim it – forcing the ship to flee with only a rag-tag fighter squadron to protect it and the entire population of the island forced to take refuge aboard, and carrying with it a secret the Martians fear beyond any other force in the cosmos…. - (Michael Hopcroft)
  • The Magnificent Seven - The PCs are a collection of international adventurers collected/hired/aquired to defend a village/hospital/trading post from a brutal warlord/bandit king/tribe of headhunters in darkest Africa/wind-swept Mongolia/the dusty Middle East/the plains of China. - (Susano)
  • Man of La Mancha - Don Quioxte, a Spanish nobleman who has lost everything to revolution in his country, snaps and decides that he is a “knight errant” in the old style. His lunatic zeal to conquer evil leads him to travel the world with only his last remaining servant, the long-suffering and loyal Sancho Panza for company. Despite his uncanny knack for taking the worst concievable action at the worst possible time, and his utter lack of connection to objective reality, there are many criminals and conquerors who have come to regret meeting “the Mad Don” over the years, and in the midst of his mad dream Don Quixote may well end up becoming a genuine hero. Unless, of course, you're the guy whose windmill he blows up with a bazooka after mistaking it for a giant…. - (Michael Hopcroft)
  • March of the Penguins - Army of identical, freeze-proof, torpedo-shaped birds take over the Southern Continent and turn it into their unreachable secret base, from which they begin to take over the rest of Earth. - (Cancer)
  • Masked Rider - An an extradimensional Prince has been sent to Earth to learn about humanity. But the timing couldn't have been worse, as Humanity is poised to reveal the very worst parts of its nature. To keep his secret and protect his surrogate family, the Prince will have to take on not just humans of every stripe, from Klanjsmen to Communists, but also the efforts of his own uncle to ensure that his voyaage to Earth will come an an end so utterly abrupt and fatal that Father's revenge would turn the planet into so much dust….. - (Michael Hopcroft)
  • Mermaid's Scar - which allows one to have a pair of several-hundred year old youths (one male one female) as part of your team. Not only are they immortal, but they heal from most damage very quickly - (Susano)
  • Mission Impossible - Good morning, Mister Phelps. There is a (mad Scientist, agents of a hostile foreign government, agents of a hostile organization not affiliated with a government (GM Picks) whose ambitions and goals are detrimental to our why of life. Your mission, should you decide to accept it, stop (see above pick) before their plot comes to fruition. As always, should you or any of your I. M Force be caught or killed, the Secretary will disavow any knowledge of your actions. This message will self destruct in five seconds, four, three, two, one - (Silverhawk)
  • The Miracle Worker - The Crimson Veil goes undercover as a tutor to a deaf dumb and blind girl in order to get closer to the Boss of the Underworld. She quickly learns that her student has immense mystic senses, and makes her a partner on her war on crime… - (dbsousa)
  • The Muppet Movie - I just watched this on video last night. I think all you'd have to do to make this work as pulp is push back the tech and ramp up the action (especially in the scene with Animal at 50' tall). - (BobGreenwade)
  • My Fair Lady - British spymaster Henry Higgins takes the young guttersnipe Eliza Doolittle from a hard life on the streets, and subjects her to an intensive regimen of physical, intellectual and combat training to forge her into the ultimate agent of the British Crown!! - (James Gillen)

N

  • Naruto - The Hidden Village of the Leaf is a switchup from the usual lost civilizations, though you'll have to come up for a backstory for how several ninja families got to Africa or South America to get lost. Some of the more bizarre ninja powers might need to be toned down. - (SKJAM!)
  • Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind - Deep in Africa lies the hidden Valley of the Wind, where the air always moves. The inhabitants are simple, peaceful folk for the most part, but fear the jungle beyond their valley and the dangers it holds. - (SKJAM!)
    • Only the chief's brave daughter Nausicaa, who can communicate with the elephants, and the mighty warrior Yupa ever venture beyond the borders to bring back useful plants and items they find.
    • One day, however, a tribe in one direction discovers an ancient and terrible weapon. A second and much more powerful tribe steals the weapon, but the expedition stumbles into the Valley of the Wind and brings war to the land.
    • Can Nausicaa save her people, and those of the other tribes? And what of the maddened elephant stampede headed straight for the village?
  • Neighbours - “But down Ramsay Street a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid.” Brought to you by the Universal Soap Corporation. - (assault)

O

  • One Piece - The Merry-Go can become a treasure-hunting ship of the South Seas, with its wacky crew mostly intact. Some of the backstories will need to make the pirates involved more human, and Luffy's abilities are too freakishly superhuman for most pulp games. He'll be toned down to a contortionist with perhaps an inch of Stretching. - (SKJAM!)
  • The Oscars/Grammys/Tonys/Emmys - The adventuring community comes together once every year to promote the spirit of adventure and discovery with the “Tubies”, awarding the various personalities of the year with “Tubie”, a large gold-plated statue of a vacuum tube. The categories for award are such diverse topics as “Best Scientific Discovery”, “Best Creation”, “Best Supportive Assistant”, “Villian You Most Love To Hate” and “Best Criminal Capture”. Adventurers, scientists, masked avengers and sidekicks from all over New York City come out to show their support for the cause, and to ge their award, of course. - (JakSpade)
    • And it's always a good place for masterminds to show their distaste for their nemesis, and perhaps stop them from getting their awards…
  • Outlaw Star - the rag-tag crew of the Pacific Star – a large flying boat, island hops around the Pacific, working as a plane-for-hire. They haul goods, people, repair engines, pursue bounties, and have non-stop adventures. Gene is the plane's captain and pilot, Jim is the chief mechanic and master of weird science, Melfina is the cute French girl who acts a navigator, while Suzuka (who claims to be descended from samurai) is security. Russian strongwoman Aisha does all the heavy lifting and pulls in extra cash fighting in underground boxing matches. - (Susano)

P

  • Patriot Games - A college professor accidentally saves one of the young Royals from an IRA assassination plot during a trip to England. The mastermind behind the plan decides to teach the world a lesson, and brings the full force of the IRA American contingent to bear in an effort to kill the professor – but only after destroying his family and everything else he holds dear. - (Michael Hopcroft)
  • Pitch Black - Onboard of the Zepplin Von Riddick, the PCs and a few NPCs are caught in a storm and end up crashing on an isolated island which has the eerie quality of being practically devoid of animal life and filled with huge skeletons of strange creatures. There they discover that the heavily sedated “French Patient” who had been brought on board by his “Brother” wasn't a patient at all but a murdering Nazi Spy, and with the “Brother” dead, he is now free to wander among them. Or is he? At the same time, they find a reseach facility on the island that has been abandoned for twenty years, and as night falls they begin to understand why as wave after wave of stygian horrors begin to flock over the surface of the island. - (Publius)
    • Can they discover the hidden (and well-supplied) boat that will allow them to escape? When will they discover that water (sea, or fresh and sea water both) causes the stygian horrors acid-like burns? Will the French Patient turn out to be the Nazi spy or an American Double Agent who knows of another Nazi spy hidden amongst the group?
    • Add Twist - As a one-shot convention type game, the “French Patient” is played by a PC 'ringer' whose goal is to kill all of the rest of the players and escape the island.
    • Add Different Twist - As a one-shot convention game, as the players are killed off, they direct the increasingly threatening stygian horrors and help to speed the adventure towards a thrilling conclusion.
  • Pokemon - Teenager Ash Ketchum becomes involved in the seedy world of cockfighting when he comes into possession of “Pick 'n' Choose,” a feisty yellow bantam. Ash wanders the Dustbowl looking for the next chance to prove his training skills, and picking up new roosters with specialized talents. - (SKJAM!)
    • Naturally, Ash actually spends most of his time interfering in other people's business, as there's always a problem that needs solving in each town he visits. Fortunately, he has the help of Misty Waters, a tough as nails broad who follows Ash around supposedly in hopes he'll pay her the money he owes her; and Brock Stone, a ranchhand searching for his missing father.
    • They are plagued by members of the Rocket Gang, which is named after its use of rockets in its crimes. James (a playboy who left home because he wants to avoid marriage), Jessie (whose family was dirt poor even before the Depression) and M. E. Owth (midget cat burglar) have been tasked with bringing the pit fighting circuit under the control of the Rocket Gang's mysterious leader, Giovanni. (In reality, Giovanni just sent them on this futile quest so he could concentrate on taking over the more lucrative rackets.)
  • Pokemon - Well, not trying to capture poor defenseless creatures in tiny spheres. Instead, at the height of the depression, X number of friends decide to leave the dust bowl and try to find work, or at least some reason to live when it seems like civilization is at its breaking point. Each town they come across has its problems, from bootleggers trying to control the population to missing children, a drunkard of a doctor that needs to sober up to help deliver a baby, or a crashed aircraft in the middle of the wilderness. - (BlackSword)
  • Porco Roso - which is 1930s era airplane goodness, complete with pirates and a pretty girl to save. - (Susano)
  • The Power Rangers - Mars is sending giant monsters to destroy Earth, before humans can get their space program off the ground (oh, bad pun!). Zordan, the watcher and protector of Terra, and emmensely powerful entity, recruits five students from a small town high school to fight the upcoming onslaught by the Martians. Red, Blue, Black, Yellow and Pink Rangers use their fabulous fighting skills to stop the invasion, and combine their awesome talents to comine into the Ultimate Ranger, a sky-scarper sized embodiment of Earth's finest warriors to put an end to the giant robots, lizards, moths and other mutated creatures sent to pulverize the Earth. But, will they find the Martian's moon base staging ground in time? - (JakSpade)
  • Predator: A group of experienced adventurers are sent deep into the jungle to find the remains of a previous expodition, only to be stalked by a hideous beast that can blend in with the surroundings. - (Blue)
  • Princess Mononoke - Back to Pulp Western for this one….Aaka, the last chief's son of a dying tribe, defends his hidden village from a crazed animal, only to have his arm infected by its bite. - (SKJAM!)
    • Searching along the backtrail of the beast, Ashitaka comes into contact with San, a girl raised by wolves of unusual size. She's engaged in a struggle with a small settlement of iron workers.
    • The iron workers are led by a very progressive and strong-minded woman, who's taken in former prostitutes, runaway slaves and lepers to be members of her community. What they don't know is that the iron they've been mining has…unusual properties, such that weapons created with it cause infected wounds and mutation.
    • Worse, the Federal government has finally started catching up, and they've sent an agent charged with bringing the iron-workers' town under control and hunting down a forest creature supposedly capable of granting immortality.
  • The Prisoner – Swap time to just before WWII. Rovers look like Mini-Zepplins. Number 2 must always be a femme fatal. - (gamerz123)

R

  • Ranma 1/2 - Skipping over the main plot, we have a set of valleys in the Bayankala region with not one, but three lost civilizations! - (SKJAM!)
    • The Joketsuzoku, fierce Chinese Amazons with bizarre laws involving ritual combat.
    • The Musk Dynasty, dying remnants of a once-proud empire, supposedly strengthened by the animal ancestry in their clans.
    • The Phoenix People, who fly on actual wings!
    • And of course the Valley of Cursed Springs.
    • A treasure seeker or archaeological expedition could easily stumble into this fog-shrouded region without ever suspecting the terrors and wonders within.
  • Real Genius - A couple of young scientists at a prominant college in the 1930s complete their term project - a vehicle-mounted laser! – only to discover their professor is secretly working for the Nazis and plans to give them the laser to destroy enemy tanks and ships long before their own weapons come into range. After outsmarting the professor and putting the kabosh on the Nazis' plan–all without ever actually revealing their involvement–the young adults decide to ferret out and ruin other Nazi 5th Column scientists and their minions, including their new Nemesis, Professor Atherton! - (Vanguard00)
  • Remote - A brilliant detective has developed agoraphobia and can't leave his home. So he hires a strong legman to tote around a two-way radio to help investigate tough cases. (Or you can just use Nero Wolfe.) - (SKJAM!)
  • Repo Man - a depression era thug and fan of edgey new “swing” music is hired to repossess belongings from people who were victims of the stock market crash, discovers something strange and deadly in the trunk of a Model T. - (Blue)
  • The Road Warrior - Maxwell Rock must drive a large truck of needed medical supplies across (insert desired expanse of wilderness here [Africa, China, Mongolia, and so on]) all the time trying to avoid and fight off hostile tribes, petty warlords, and/or the Nazi/Imperial Japanese Army. Assistants in secondary vehicles and a gyro-plane optional. - (Susano)
  • Running Man - Ben Richards was a member of the American Volunteer Group in China. He was accused of strafing a village and killing the civilains there, a crime that was actually committed by the ruthless drug runner Damon Killian who was covering his tracks. Killian fears that Richards knows the truth, so when Richards is transported back to the US to stand trial, Killian takes the ship and strands the crew and prisoners on an island full of paid killers. Fighting his way through the challenges, Richards (and those trapped with him) will discover the truth and clear his name. - (BlackSword)
  • Ruroni Kenshin - It is ten years after the end of the Civil War, in a western territory on the verge of becoming a state. Schoolmarm Miss Katie is both furious and worried about a series of murders around the town committed by someone calling himself “the Fastdraw Kid” and using some of her father's patented shooting techniques. - (SKJAM!)
    • So Miss Katie straps on iron herself and goes looking for this sidewinder. What she finds instead is a mild-mannered redhead with a curious scar on his cheek, who seems dedicated to peace. Naturally, this redhead is in fact the real Fastdraw Kid, Ken Fireton. He was a top gun for the Union during the War, but he's sickened by the lives he's taken, and has vowed never to kill again. Ken locates the false Fastdraw Kid and ruins his hands.
    • Ken claims to be a drifter, but hangs around to help keep the school running. He's soon joined by Sam, who used to be the drummer boy for a unit of Confederate irregulars before they were framed for the massacre of a village and shot down like dogs. Ken also takes one of Katie's unrulier pupils under his wing, and has a standoffish relationship with Meg, the weird lady doctor.
    • Naturally, no shootist can ever fully retire, and Ken is constantly plagued by young punks wanting to prove their mettle, and old enemies who have scores to settle or want to start the Civil War all over again.

S

  • Sailor Moon - The Princess of the Moon Kingdom, dead for a thousand years, haa been reincarnated at last. Unfortunately, the new version is a bottle-blonde teenage ditz without a clue as to her eternal destiny, about the overwhelming supernatural forces massing to destroy the Earth, or why she can never get her hands on those Frank Sinatra tickets she longs for so dearly. Can the talking cat Luna and the four other girls who keep running into her straighten her out in time to giver her a chance to save the world? - (Michael Hopcroft)
  • Saint Tail - A young girl uses amped-up stage magic to recover items wrongfully taken from their rightful owners, while falling in love with the detective who obsessively pursues her. - (Michael Hopcroft)
  • Sakura Taisen (“Sakura Wars”) - which occurs in 1920 (or so). It features steam-powered tanks and suits of powered armor, as well as various Weird Talents (so far I've seen telepathy, telekinesis, and possibly teleportation). Nadia occurs in either late Victorian or early Pulp-era (when exactly? anyone know?) and I think deals with South Pacific adventures. Then there's Steamboy which is so full of Pulp goodness it's almost overflowing. - (Susano)
  • Seinfeld - A group of adventurers hang around in their apartments and in local diners, having amusing discussions about life, love and careers. - (Oddhat)
  • “7 Deadly Wonders” by Matthew Reilly - A small international team of commandos, plus a scientist and a 10-year-old girl, dash around the world in a retrofitted Sikorsky S-42. Their objective - to navigate through ancient traps set by an Egyptian architect and find the far-flung, long-lost Seven Wonders of the Ancient World and, with them, the seven pieces of the golden capstone of the Great Pyramid of Cheops. Their competitors - large, heavily armed contingents from Japan And Nazi Germany. At stake - the fate of the world.
    • Add PC's, season to taste. - (proditor)
  • Seven - the PCs, all gumshoes and feds, have to track down a mysterious killer (the Ripper reborn, perhaps?) through the dark and dismal streets of the Bowery. - (Steve Long)
  • Sex and the City - Carrie Bradshaw, a detective novelist and writer for a local sleuth magazine, solves mystery cases with her band of “meddling kids”… Samantha Jones, a dilletaunt and secret owner of a successful public relations firm… Charlotte York, wife to high society personality Dr. Trey MacDougal… and Miranda Hobbes, a struggling female lawyer. Together, they the ins and outs of relationships, shoes, and pre-meditated murder in a predominately man's world. - (JakSpade)
  • Shaman King - The Shamanic Tournament could easily be moved to the Thirties, keeping in mind the increased time length for travel. The Patch would show an amazing grasp of radio technology, especially since it's all hand-crafted. The scary thing about this campaign would be the strong possibility of changing history, depending on who wins. (The Big Bad's motivation could be amplified by foreseeing World War II.) - (Michael Hopcroft)
  • Speed – Dr. Jennings Petrie has rigged your zeppelin so that if you drop below a certain speed, the whole vehicle goes up in a conflagration that'll make the Hindenburg look like a Boy Scout campfire. And you're running low on fuel. Whaddaya do? - (Steve Long)
  • Speed - Pop Quiz, Chumley… There's a bomb on an express train. When that train reaches 30 mph the bomb is armed. If it drops below 30 mph, boom! What do you do? What do you do? - (JakSpade)
  • Star Trek II – just convert the starships into submarines, Khan into an appropriate villain (I'd suggest the Geistkapitan from MM), and the space stations and planets into isolated islands. - (Steve Long)
  • Star Wars - A New Hope - Young Kansas farmboy Luke has great dreams, to fly fighters like his father did in the Great War. But, it seems, he will be stuck working his Uncle Owen's farm for the rest of his life. That is until a strange dirigible crashes out in one of the distant fields. Going out to investigate, he discovers a strange clock-work man, who is apparently looking for his creator. Taking the golden-bodies mechanical man back to the far for some simple repairs, Luke is soon embroiled in intrigues of world-shaking proportions. Agents of an unknown force, who will stop at nothing to recover the clock-work man, kill Owen and Beru, and burn the farm. Luke escapes, and heads for the big city, looking for someone who can take him to New York, the apparent home of the inventor the robot is looking for. Along the way he befriends free-lance pilot Han, learns to fly himself, and eventually assists in a massed attack on the world conquerer's massive lighter-than-air flying fortress!!! - (Susano)
  • Stargate - Austrian archeologists in 1928 discoverd a ring made of an unusual metal in the Giza plateau during their search for religious and powerful artifacts. During shipping of the ring back to Munich, American troops attack and steal the ring. In studying the ring, the scientists discover that the ring conducts an electric charge, but continue to pour more and more energy into it, without results. Finally, after several days of charging the ring, they discover that the ring begins to turn. An earthquake, and spash effect later, the scientists and military personel are faced with a German infantry squad returning from an offworld mission. - (JakSpade)
    • When the infantrymen are interrogated, the Americans discover that the Germans know more about the gate than they do, have discovered another gate, and have been using it for several months, travelling to other worlds.
  • Stealth - “The Curious Contrivance of the Clockwork Cloudbuster.” The Army Air Corp has developed a new unmanned medium range bomber, utilizing an extremely complex system of clockworks, compasses and primitive electric eyes for operations, navigation, and enemy evasion. On a practice bombing run north of Campaign City, a freak lighting storm shorted out some critical vacuum tubes. Can the pc's board the aircraft and disable it before it destroys downtown?! - (ArmlessTigerMan)
  • Steam Detectives - Genius detective Narutaki, assisted by his assistant, nurse Ling Ling Hsu, his butler, and the hulking mechanical man Goriki (built by Ling Ling's father), battle crime and various dastardly criminals, such as; the Phantom Knight, Dr. Guilty, Don Death, criminal mastermind Le Bread, the Machine Baron, and jewel thief the Red Scorpion. - (Susano)
  • Supernatural - A pair of brothers wander through fepression era America living off their wits while trying to track down the ” thing“ that killed their parents. - (st barbara)
  • Survivor - As part of a radio show, sixteen men and women are taken to a scavenger hunt in the South Pacific to find clues to an ancient treasure. However, no one told them about the headhunters. - (GestaltBennie)
  • Survivor - Skull Island. Not only do you have to outwit your rivals and find that Immunity Idol, you've got to deal with those pesky natives, that big monkey, and a frikkin' million jillion nasty critters that can kill you. - (Steve Long)
  • The Sweeney - two-fisted hero cops Reagan and Carter smash their way through the 1930's London underworld whilst their boss Chief Inspector Haskins fends off the politicans and the yellow press. Nobody is safe from this reckless crime-fighting duo - Fascists, Bolsheviks, Chinese Triad dope-dealers, Nazi mad scientists, 1000 year old sorcerors, Ancient Tentacled Horrors From Beyond - all of them live in fear of the words “Shut it! You're nicked!” - (ThothAmon)
  • Swiss Family Robinson - Family is marooned on a tropical island. Armed only with their knowledge of building fantastical tree-houses with running plumbing, manufacture of boobie traps, and how to repair a pipe organ, they defend themselves against oriental pirates. - (Blue)
  • Sword of Justice - A playboy was framed for a crime he did not commit. Realizing that he had a lot of money (which would still be waiting for him when he got out) but no real talents other than quick wits, and that a lot of things similar to what had happened to him had happened to less fortunate people, he decides he is going to do something about it. He tells his cellmate “I hear prison is a college – well, I'm ready to learn”, and is thus introduced to several talented burglars, safecrackers, forgers and con artists who agree to teach him their trades. After he gets out, he puts those skills to use – first to nail the men who had wronged him, and then to nail others like them. His trademark, a set of cryptic messages left on the backs of playing cards (the finishing touch is “The spade is the Sword of Justice – it signifies the end.”) has placed a police detective on his trail who, laudable as he might find his goals, would throw him back into prison for the means he uses. - (Michael Hopcroft)

T

  • The Thirteenth Warrior - An educated and bookish American diplomat assigned to visit a powerful African tribe gets swept up in adventure when a crisis occurs and the tribe needs thirteen warriors, one of whom is “no Africa-man,” to find and destroy an evil lost city. - (Steve Long)
  • Total Recall - Man is a Frenchman who escapes German occupation in Paris and flees to the US pre- American entrance into the European theater. He returns to help the French underground, but it is reviled that he really is German-sympathizer who's had his memory wiped by Nazi Scientist to work for the Germans. He must then come to terms and decide if he keeps his new memories or goes back to the old… - (Silverbullet)
  • The Town That Dread Sundown - The players arrive at dusk in the county seat of Texarkana, Arkansas, and wonder why everything and everyone is shut down for the night. They are able to find lodging (after much convincing), but they discover that the town is beseiged by a killer who comes only at dark. Rumors have it that the killer is supernatural, but there is no evidence to reach this conclusion. Every law man and able bodied person who stays out after dark turns up dead with no evidence to what killed them. People staring out their window at night have spotted a large man walking the streets with a burlap hood covering his face. - (JakSpade)
  • The Transporter - A highly-skilled soldier, burned out from his experiences in the Great War, makes his living as a discreet courier of people and objects in his modified Duesenberg-J… until the day he makes the mistake of opening the package and finding a beautiful young Chinese girl inside it, who begs his help in saving a shipload of Chinese immigrants being smuggled ashore to work in the insidious Dr. Fang's opium packaging plants and other, less wholesome, criminal operations. - (Kharis2000)
  • The Triangle - A rich shipping magnate, tired of losing cargo, manpower, and ships to the mysterious Bermuda Triangle, gathers a skeptical journalist, a grizzled sea captain*, a scientist, and a psychic to explore the area. - (Blue)
  • TRON - Sound engineer working with the experimental Total Radio Oversight Network, which allows for a series of relays to blanket the nation with a single broadcast, is transformed into radio waves when a freak electrical storm overloads his equipment. Now he has to navigate through deathly real versions of the various radio dramas the network broadcasts, trying to get past gangsters, savages and others to reach the Master Control which will allow him to escape this strange world… - (Supreme Serpent)
    • “Carrier Signal” based on what the function of “Trace On” did for the early computer industry.
  • 28 Days Later - scientists researching Dr. Jekyll's process in order to create more powerful soldiers for the Western Front have an unfortunate accident…and soon London descends into a true “Hyde Park”… - (Supreme Serpent)

U

  • Up in Smoke - FBI Special Agent Richard Marin, aided by the wandering Chinese boxer known only as Chong, hits the mean streets of Los Angeles to get to the bottom of a sinister narcotics ring!! - (James Gillen)
  • Urusei Yatsura - The lovely Princess of Mars has chosen a luckless Earthman as her groom. She dearly loves her chosen mate, to the point that she is blinded to his multitude of totally obvious faults, but he would rather be The New Casanova and have his way with every woman he meets except her. But when a millioanire playboy seeks the Princess's hand – well, to say “chaos ensues” would be the understatement of the 1930's. - (Michael Hopcroft)

W

  • Waiting for Godot - Doc Godot, physical marvel and scientific wunderkind, sends his faithful henchmen, Vladimir and Estragon, on a whirlwind quest around the world, packed with never-ending action and adventure!! - (James Gillen)

Y

  • Yu-Gi-Oh! - Young professional gambler Yugi Mutou (this name may need to be changed) discovers that he is in fact the reincarnation of an Ancient Egyptian pharoah, which gives him various weird psychic powers. Accompanied by two-fisted adventurer Joe Wheeler, gunslinger Tristan Taylor and dancer/chanteuse Tea Gardner,he travels the world in search of the Seven Golden Treasures that will fully unlock his ancestral memories. - (SKJAM!)
    • Opponents on this quest include - Seto Kaiba, vengeful Japanese industrialist who fancies himself the world's greatest gambler; Pegasus Crawford, a flamboyant artist who truly captures his subjects' souls in his paintings, and Malik the Mad, who plans to become the Pharoah himself and bring the entire world under Egyptian rule. (And from the anime continuity, Dartz, last survivor of Atlantis, bent on world destruction.)
    • Bandit Keith- A scoundrel and cheat who abuses his position as an agent for the American government. Naturally, he's the special enemy of patriotic Brooklynite Joe Wheeler.
    • Mai Valentine- Femme Fatale with a heart of gold.
    • Weevil Underhill (crazed entomologist) and Rex Raptor (crazed herpetologist), arch-rivals, they're even less threatening working together.
    • Bakura, King of Thieves- Mild-mannered occultist by day, at nightfall his personality changes to a cat burglar with a sadistic streak.
    • Swami Roba- Fake psychic whose brothers assist him in his scams.
    • Arcana- Stage magician and escape artist, servant of Malik.
    • Mako- Brawling fisherman from the South Seas.

Pulperised Characters

  • Jake Speed - Pulp hero with his journalist side kick and good press.
  • Remo Williams - G-Man martial arts master and his Korean mentor.
  • Superman - See Pulp Superman.
  • Wonder Woman - See Pulp Wonder Woman.
  • Chuck Norris - The man or any of the characters.
  • Bruce Lee- Again, the man or any of his characters.
  • Snake Pliskin - Hard boiled anti-hero, in the darkest edge of the Pulps.
    • Snake Pliskin in the darkest reaches of Africa. Snake Pliskin goes to Tibet. Snake Pliskin in Inner-Earth.
  • Jack Burton and all of Big Trouble in Little China- Just change the dates and tech.
  • Blake's 7-
    • Jenny Stanis - black marketeer and master pilot
    • They pick up Kelly - a telepath and saboteur whilst on a mission.
    • Diana - weaponcrafter who lost her father to the evil machinations of the Minister for Peace, Miss Minerva Lang. Eventually the crew manage to pick up Diana's father's invention - Oracle, a machine able to intercept and decode any radio signal, anywhere (also a transmitter).
    • Devon Tarrant - master pilot ex-airforce special forces fleeing the disaster of the British Empires high-casualty repulsion of the Martian Invasion in which Travis dies..
    • Sue-Lynn - as brilliant as Avon, but without the drive to lead. Content to hone her crackshot skills and razor sharp reflexes.
    • Travis - a government operative answerable only to Miss Lang, had his eye and hand shot off by Blake and replaced with clockwork parts.
    • Minerva Lang - femme fatale. Beautiful, treacherous and power hungry. The power behind the thrones of Europe.
roleplaying/hero/resources/pulp/pulp_plot.txt · Last modified: 2010/06/07 22:18 by 127.0.0.1