Pulp City SE FAQ's & Errata

The journey to get Pulp City SE published was a long one, taking over 3 years from the initial ideas we had about the revisions we wanted in the core mechanics to getting the book into fan's hands.

In the process we wrote and wrote, then edited, edited, and edited again. And still the odd mistake slipped through!

Accordingly, we will be maintaining a living FAQ and Errata, updated as issues arise (we hope these are not too many!).

The living FAQ and Errata will be featured on the Pulp City Forum, and fairly soon on the website. In the mean-time I will also be hosting it here in one of the pages in the header: click for link.

Leaders (Roles)

A while back I briefly explained about the new Roles that have been added to Pulp City, now I thought I would take a closer look at Leaders and  what they do.

Unlike most other Supremes, Leaders will be the focal point of building your Team - if you choose a Leader, then it is likely you will be choosing a particular Faction or Alignment of models to select around them.

A Leader typically has HP equivalent to Level 2 Tanks, give or take. However, they usually have a better set of defensive Traits. So what you have is a slightly more durable model than most combat-focused Level 2's, yet at a higher cost (Level 3 for the most part; ARC's Primates of Power are something quite different).

Because Leaders offer a mix of Team boosts, their array of Attacks is usually more limited than the combat oriented roles such as Blasters and Brawlers, but most Leaders can pack a hefty punch one way or another.

Where things get very interesting is through Leader Cards, which is why these Supremes have the cost that they do. These cards offers bonuses and extra resources such as AP or Power Up dice; they allow you to customise how your Leader will shape your Team.

One Leader Card in particular (Honorary Member) allows your Team to include a Supreme as though it belongs to the same Faction as the Leader, which opens up a massive array of choices. If you think your Faction has a weakness best covered by a Supreme not normally available, you can take Honorary Member to get around that. Have you always imagined Vector in Heavy Metal or Kitty Cheshire in the Coven? Honorary Member allows that.

If the Leader meets the requirements they may also take a Faction card which usually provides a pivotal boost to the Team; but timing is everything as these are often one-Round deals.

Leaders pack in a lot of utility for a Team. They may not be the hardest hitting models, but they can unlock massive potential for their Teams, and now with Pulp City SE they are a lot easier to bring to the table than before.

Chain Actions & Chain Activations

While we retained the alternating Activations of the original game, what we chose to do was create the opportunity for key moments where momentum can suddenly shift - if your preparations are right, that is!

Normally during your Turn you can Activate a Supreme and in addition Command a Minion card.

A Supreme can normally use between 1 and 3 Actions. Only 1 Action may be an Exclusive Action (those Actions on the card), although a second Exclusive Action may be used if it is Combinable. Move Actions may be used in addition and/or in place of the basic Exclusive Action. Of course, all rules are made to be broken!

Chain Action Example (Figure 1): Some models have their own rules that allow the Actions limit per Activation to be exceeded. Chronin's Time Control Power allows her to Combine any number of Action in a single Activation, allowing her to theoretically use 5 Actions (2 Moves, and up to 3 Exclusive Actions). This can be extended further if she is lucky with her Flurry Action!

And of course, the rule about Activating a single Supreme in a Turn can be broken too!

Chain Activation Example (Figure 2): It is the start of the Round and the Heroes have won the Starting Roll against the Ulthar. Trail (1) starts the Hero Turn using Mind Strike against Stormblades. As Trail had not yet Activated this Turn, thanks to his A Second Ahead Power, a Friendly model may Activate. Dead Eye (2) Moves in and uses his Power Smash. If Stormblades is still standing, then with Dead Eye's Tactics Power Jade Hawk could Activate (3), Moving in to Attack with her Death Claw. And of course Stinger may use his Power to swap places with Stormblades....

What's My Role?

Figure 1: Recruitment side of the card

One of the new features for Pulp City SE that emerged during the design process was the classification of Supremes (and Minions) into 'Roles' - a way of identifying for players what kind of rules or function to expect with specific models. Initially this was more about the type of Actions and Powers a model had, but pretty quickly we realised we could take things a step further.

So it was that we created a specific Power for each of our 8 Roles. For example, a Tank such as Iron Train has the same Tank Power as Rook. Because of their respective Tank Powers, both are good at protecting their allies. Rook has a further edge, because he has additional abilities specifically geared to protecting Team-mates.

Figure 1 & 2: Howler is a Blaster, so you pick him knowing he will offer decent ranged Attack options. His Blaster Power shows he gets extra dice in the right situation.

Figure 2: Howler's Blaster Power

Those Role Powers changed a little over time as we developed Pulp City SE, but that is what led us to the stage that when you select a Supreme for your Team, its Role will tell you what it is good at, and its Role Power will emphasize that contribution.

Your front-line fighters will be Brawlers, Blasters and Powerhouses.

Infiltrators, Speeders and Supports have more specialist functions, either for objective grabbing or AP fuelling. 

Leaders are there to buff your Team and most of them can handle front-line battles.

Tanks are useful because they straddle a couple of functions: they are highly durable; most pack a decent primary Attack; and they can protect your more fragile models.

As I continue to add to the blog, I will be sure to add the appropriate Role tags to update the various Supremes and Minions I have posted over the years.

Team Building Reloaded (SE Version)

With the upcoming Pulp City Supreme Edition Kickstarter delivery, I thought I would take an opportunity to talk about what amounts to some significant changes to Team construction.

In the previous edition, a Team had to have an equal or as equal as possible Level 1 and Level 2 Supremes. It could have a Level 3 model if playing a Level 12 game or above. All models had to be Hero or Villain (Hero/Villains could be fielded on either side).

We have changed that for Supreme Edition!

We set out to stream-line and improve the game, but also improve the game experience. One of the things we had to change was to make Team recruitment more permissive. Now you can field you own combination of Levels, with the restriction of no more than one Powerhouse (a 'big guy' model) and no more than one Leader. Teams can be built according to Alignment (Hero or Villain as before), or they can be built around Factions. And some of those Factions have quite an eclectic line-up to say the least. Better yet, some Supremes qualify for more than one Faction...

Consider the following models:

• Chimp Chi (Hero/Villain; ARC; The Way)
• Chronin (Hero; Heavy Metal; The Way)
• Crimson Oni (Hero; The Way/Freelancer)
• Stormblades, Libra Sensei (Villain; The Way; Ulthar)
• Tanuki (Hero/Villain; Jade Cult; The Way)
• Twilight (Villain; Coven; The Way)

As well as their usual respective Factions, they are all members of The Way, which means that models that previously could not be fielded in the same Team now can take the table together.

So those models could be fielded as a Level 8 The Way team. or a level 5 Hero Team, or a Level 5 Villain Team.

Combat Actions & Dice Pooling

One of the main and earliest settled on adjustments for Pulp City SE was to replace the Opposed Roll which mostly produced either results based on difference - Damage; or binary results - success or fail achievements.

What we wanted and what we have created is a mechanic that allows Actions to have multiple results, and that the spread of results is not limited to Damage alone.

Consequently most Actions have a menu of extra Effects (EFX) that can be chosen from and added when you have an especially successful roll. Success is measured by winning the basic roll (your best die plus Trait vs. opponent best die plus Trait or target Number), and additional success is through each result of 5 or 6 (Trump Traits) or 6 (no-Trump), or for Powerhouses each 4, 5, or 6. Enemies cancel those successes with their own dice achieving the same values (except for Powerhouses Defending don't achieve cancels on a 4+).

One of the keys to success is to maximise the number of dice you roll. This is done through Combat Bonuses, spending Power Up dice, Effects (bonuses to Attack or Defend) and any situational benefits such as from Powers.

Example: Six Feet Under Activates. He Moves in to engage Night Fright & Leech in Base to Base (BtB), and uses his Ashes to Ashes Action before Attacking with his Power Smash Action.

Normally you can you one Exclusive Action (the Actions on cards) per Activation, but because Ashes to Ashes is Combinable you can use it as well as Power Smash.
Six Feet Under succeeds with his Ashes to Ashes Action, but does not get any EFX.

For the Power Smash Each player rolls a basic 1d6 plus dice for appropriate modifiers:
Six Feet Under: Strength Trait + 1d6 +

• Momentum (from Moving) 1d6

• Size Matters (Six Feet Under has a bigger base) 1d6

• Strong/NonLiving (from his Undertaker Power) 1d6

• Attack 1 (from Ashes to Ashes) 1d6

• Power Up dice (Six Feet Under gets 3 new Power Up dice per round in addition to any unused dice) 3d6

For a whopping 8 dice; if he wins, any dice results of 4+ yield EFX.
Night Fright & Leech: Defense Trait  + 1d6+

• High Ground (because they are Flying) 1d6

For a less spectacular 2 dice. This will probably hurt. A lot.

So it is a good idea to learn how to maximise your modifiers to get the best advantage you can.

Character Cards - Pulp City SE

Figure 1

With Pulp City SE, we decided to revamp the game cards used for the different Supremes and Minions.

We set out with the design principle that as much information as needed as possible to play the model was on the card. That in turn affected how we re-engineered characters, folding Skills (we had around 60-70 or so in the old game) into the Powers, Actions, Traits and Movement Values/Types of each character, while still retaining the flavour of the character in question.

That also meant making a change in how the card was used to Recruit your Team as well as play the game. Previously, both sides of the card had the game information, meaning you had to flip the card during a game. Now one side is the Recruitment Side (top image) while the reverse side is the Action side used for gaming.

So the Recruitment Side lets you know the key information to build your broader strategy: the model's Role (what it is best at); its Level; its Origin; its Alignment; its Faction if any; how much it contributes to the AP Pool; how many Minion Levels (Minion+) it contributes; and also its base size which we included as a couple of minis have changed official base size.

Figure 2

Figure 1: Nuclear Jones is Level 2 and can be used in a Hero or Heavy Metal Team. He is a Support Supreme which means he contributes a lot of AP (Action Points) to the Pool. He adds 1 Minion Level to the Team (Minion+).

The Action Side is of course a run down of how the character can be used in an Encounter.

Changing all of this meant we had more information to cram into less space. Thankfully Melvin helped us achieve this minor miracle and we are very proud with the game cards we have.



Images copyright © Pulp Monsters 2014.