Thrilling Tales for Savage Worlds

In the annals of pulp adventure, there seems to be two distinct eras, separated by the span of a couple decades' time.  On one side, you have the "post-modern" pulps, which are, in reality, an homage to the stories from the 1930s.  It began in 1981 with the release of Raiders of the Lost Ark, whose protagonist, Indiana Jones, would go on to star in numerous films, comic books, novels, video games, and his own TV show.  The movie treatment of other pulp inspired characters, such as The Rocketeer (who was created in 1982), and classic heroes from the 1930s, such as The Shadow and The Phantom (though he was strictly written for comic strips and not pulp magazines) tried to garner more interest in the pulp revival, but nostalgia wasn't something that was on the mind of the average person in the 80s and 90s, much less on the mind of comic book geeks.  To this day, interest in pulp adventure remains a niche market

Then, of course, there is the original pulp era that was prominent in the 1930s (some say, arguably, that the era died in the 1950s, but it had probably started its decline just after WWII).  The elements of such pulp characters  as Doc Savage and The Shadow (the two most popular characters of the pulp era) helped spawn the movie serials of the 40s and 50s and the burgeoning comic book industry.  When many pulp writers migrated to writing novels, it also gave birth to the science fiction and sword & sorcery genres.

I bring this up because there are two different pulp adventure lines for Savage Worlds that ascribe to the two different schools of pulp adventure.  For instance, "post-modern" pulp tends to use Nazis as the villain du jour, something that was only later used in the pulps of old.

I've already made a mention of Daring Tales of Adventure on The Ablogcalypse, which is more of the Indiana Jones inspired "post-modern" game.  Today, I'm (finally) taking a look at Adamant Entertainment's Thrilling Tales, which gives Savage Worlds gamers a more classic pulp experience.  Not only does Thrilling Tales invoke the ghosts of pulp adventure, it also gives an introduction to the pulp world of the 1930s, complete with the personas, cars, weapons, and aircraft of the era; with detailed pictures of all the items, even.

While Daring Tales of Adventure is actually a series of adventures, Thrilling Tales gets into the meat and potatoes of pulp rules for Savage Worlds.  Inside the core book, you can find suggestions for creating certain types of characters (from G-Man to Air Ace, Gun Moll, Fortune Hunter, or Mesmerist) using skills, edges, and hindrances.  There's also an extensive section on the typical villains in pulp adventure.  Yes, there are Nazis, but there's also Thugee cults and masterminds from the Asian underworld to pit adventurers against.  It does come with a plot point campaign, but also includes the always welcome adventure generator for making your own peril packed tales.

I like how much detail they put into this game, giving players an authentic feel of the era.  Before coming to Savage Worlds, this pulp campaign was created for the D20 Modern system and later adapted for the FATE system based Spirit of the Century game.  Their old catalog of supplements is pretty extensive and looks like there's a lot of content they have to work with.  They are also making use of other media to support their game, such as Thrilling Tales Theatre, which allows gamers to download the old serials (such as Radar Men from the Moon and The Undersea Kingdom) in episodic format with stats for using the characters and technology from the serials into your Savage Worlds games.  Not only that, but they created a membership program that allows you to become a part of the Secret Squadron, where you get an annual subscription to upcoming Thrilling Tales adventures plus a Secret Squadron Decoder that you can use to decipher secret codes on their products to get access to special offers and exclusive content.  Adamant Entertainment definitely went the extra mile to make its customers feel like a kid in the 1930s, following the adventures of their favorite pulp heroes.

If you want to check out more Thrilling Tales (and you should), go to their website.  You can pick up their products on DriveThruRPG.