Thread: Query regarding 'Pulp Cthuhlu'

Does anyone know when this will be released?

I recently purchased 'Secrets of Morrocco' and there are many references to the Pulp Cthuhlu rules riddled throughout this setting book. The Chaosium website has had the product listed as an 'Upcoming Product' for many moons, and I'm just wondering if anyone within these forums may be able to shed some light as to when the stars will be right for this book to be published.

I have found the Pulp Cthuhlu book listed on Amazon.com as a pre-release product (not date or price yet). Amazon's blurb indicates that it is a rule book for Call of Cthuhlu D20 rules and not Call of Cthuhlu BRP rules. Does anyone know if this is correct? I'ld certainly be very disappointed if this book comes out in D20 rules...

I can allay your fears about Pulp Cthulhu - it definitely won't be D20. Unfortunately at this point in time, as far as I know, the book is vapour ware and unlikely to appear in the near future.

Well that's great news about your first point, and not-so-great news regarding your second point. Sounds like a serious pothole to me.

Perhaps a Pulp setting (non-Cthulhu) for BRP would be the way to go, with specific advice on how to 'pulp up' particular Cthuhlu settings, as some Cthuhlu campaigns make ideal locations for pulp-action rather than investigative-horror (Secrets of Morrocco, Masks of Nylathotep, and the such I'm looking at you). I think, however, the core book should just focus on Pulp Action in general, with varying levels of 'pulpiness' from Indy Jones thru to Sky Captain, giving a wide scope in eras from the 1920s to the 1950s (I think the '30s will always be the defining 'pulp' era though).

Anyway it sounds like a mythical product at present rather than a mythos one. Sad news. Thanks for getting back to me.

By the way, there is a German pulp version of Call of Cthulhu, named
"Der Hexer von Salem" (= The Witcher of Salem), based upon the no-
vels by Wolfgang Hohlbein and published by Pegasus, the publisher of
the German version of Call of Cthulhu.

http://www.pegasus.de/hexer.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolfgang_Hohlbein

The typical player characters of this game are witchers fighting the
minions of the Great Old Ones with magic, skills and weapons. The
background is slightly different from Lovecraft's universe, the mythos
creatures are less powerful and can be defeated by mere humans,
and time travel and other pulp magazine themes are possible.

I'm always eager to see another pulp adventure game. But while BRP's gritty mechanics are great for pulp horror (Lovecraft) and pulp fantasy (Conan), are they a good fit for the outrageous antics of the pulp adventure heroes? Secret Agent X-1. Tarzan. The Phantom. The Shadow. The Green Hornet and Kato. Chandu the Magician. The Green Lama. Nalan Smith and Dr. Petrie battling the ever-insidious Dr. Fu Manchu. The fiendish Fantomas. John Carter of Mars. Carson Napier of Venus. The Saint. Nero Wolf. Ellery Queen. Red Ryder, The Cisco Kid, and Tom Mix. Gene Autry vs. The Phantom Empire or Crash Corrigan vs. The Undersea Kingdom. Buck Rogers, Brick Bradford, and Flash Gordon. Heaven protect us from the Crimson Ghost and the Purple Death.

We'd need to at least use CON+SIZ for hit points, the mook rules various of you GMs have concocted over the years. We'd need guidelines for weird science gadgets, dinosaurs, genius talking apes with global ambitions, totalitarian zombies on snowboards, gee-whiz vehicles.

In my view this would depend on the type of pulp one intends to play,
the rules would only need cinematic elements where the genre comes
close to the superhero genre, but not for the average pulp adventure
story - while the Phantom would almost certainly require cinematic ru-
les, Indiana Jones could probably do with high skill levels, and Profes-
sor Challenger would hardly need any rules modifications at all.

I'd be surprised if Pulp Cthulhu is ever published. they've advertised it for years as "coming soon".

Perhaps instead of "Pulp Cthulhu" then, someone needs to write "BRP: Pulped!"

Originally Posted by tedopon

I'd be surprised if Pulp Cthulhu is ever published. they've advertised it for years as "coming soon".

Pah! HeroQuest was "Coming Soon" or "Coming Next year" for 20 years!

Originally Posted by soltakss

Pah! HeroQuest was "Coming Soon" or "Coming Next year" for 20 years!

Pulp Cthulhu recently passed 10 years, so it's getting there!