If you’ve not come across Pulp Alley yet, let me explain. Although the cover and title of the book might suggest that it is a rule set for gaming in the Pulp era of the 1920’s to 40’s, that is not the full story. It does of course excel at Pulp era gaming, but in truth it excels at gaming in any era from cavemen to spacemen where you want to field from one to twenty or so miniatures per time and to enjoy a plot driven story where the protagonists do more than fight and shoot at each other.

So… what’s with the reuse and recycle bit?

Well, at the weekend I was tasked with looking through the board games for some that we don’t play any more that could be sold on Ebay to make a little more space for other hobby stuff. A good plan. I’d not looked through the collection in quiet a while. I noticed that I had quiet a few board games with miniatures such as Warhammer Quest, Hero Quest, Dungeon Saga, HeroClix, Zombicide and the Dungeons and Dragons Board game from 2003. We played the D&D board game a lot when it first came out, but in all honesty I’ve probably not looked inside the box in the last 15 years. I decided that rather than the task in hand, I would have a look inside the box. This filled me with nostalgia. The miniatures are 21years old and are ‘of there time’. The game came with 40 miniatures cast in a softish plastic. I wondered how there cartoony style would respond to a quick lick of Army Painter Speed Paint. I guess by the time I’d cut them off there plastic bases and spray undercoated them I was sold on a new ‘recycling’ project.

Pulp Alley can be used for all sorts of different periods and genres. There are ‘kits’ in the main rulebook for Fantasy, Sci-Fi, War, Western, Horror and many more. One of the great things about the game is the ‘plot point’ mechanism. This builds objectives and story telling into every story as you do not win by destroying the opposition (although you may need to do this if they get between you and your objective) but by solving or overcoming ‘plot point’ obstacles. These could be unlocking the safe, interviewing the witness, finding the hidden clue or a myriad of other actions. The other thing that Pulp Alley does really well is Solo gaming. By swapping the normal player vs player Fortune Deck for the Solo Deck you get an elegant suite of Solo play mechanisms that give you a semi-intelligent set of responses and actions for an opposing league. It’s never going to be as exciting is playing against a real opponent, but it’s the next best thing. As I was painting up a test batch of 10 miniatures for the game, I decided that I would work out how to play the scenarios in the D&D board game, as a Pulp Alley Solo campaign using the miniatures, boards and terrain that came in the box.

I’ve created a set of Pulp Alley character cards for the four ‘player characters’ and the Goblins that feature in the first scenario. As I play through the campaign, I’ll paint up some more miniatures and update the character card download.

The first scenario pits our adventure’s against a gang of Goblins. This is the scenario map and the miniatures set up on the table ready to go.

I would imagine that in the board game, this is an easy scenario that the players are bound to win. I’m hoping that in Pulp Alley, it will be a bit more balanced as both the Party and the Goblins have a 10 point league. The Party is made up of four level 3 Sidekick characters as it made sense fo all of the characters to be an equal strength. The Goblins have a Goblin Boss who is a level four leader and five Goblins that are level two allies. A useful feature in the board game is that where there are multiple copies of the same model, they each have a rock on there base with a number engraved into it. I have given the Goblin Boss some tufts of grass on his base to distinguish him.

I have also designed some treasure chest cards. Initially a set of 10 to be printed out and placed in card sleeves. On the scenario map there are 10 treasure chests. As an action a character in base contact with a chest can attempt to open the chest by drawing a card. If the treasure card is a ‘plot point’, the normal Pulp Alley mechanism of overcoming a peril and a challenge is undertaken. If both are successful a reward card is drawn from the reward deck in the normal way. If one of the five other cards are taken the action on the card is undertaken and the card is discarded.

Finally I wanted a mechanism to deal with doors. Doors can be locked, unlocked, open, trapped or barricaded. I think that covers most eventualities!

A character in base contact with a door, can as an action attempt to open it. This is done by drawing a Fortune / Solo Deck card and consulting the story icon in bottom right hand corner.

If the story icon is a lightning bolt the door is trapped, draw a peril from Fortune / Solo deck. If you pass the peril you’ve disarmed the trap, if you fail you’ve triggered the trap and take the consequences. In either case the door remains closed and you will need to try again on a subsequent activation.

If the story icon was a lock, the door is barricaded. It will need brute force to open. Draw a fortune card. Consult the ‘X’ number. This is the number of successes needed with Might to batter the door down. If you achieve partial success, i.e. you needed 3 success but only scored two, mark with a dice as character can complete the action on a subsequent turn just needing one additional success to compete the challenge. No harm is taken if you fail. You just have not got the door open yet!

If the story icon was a magnifying glass, the door is locked. It will need finesse to pick the lock. This is done as above, but using Finesse rather than Might!

If the story icon was anything else, the door was unlocked and you can use your action to open it. No tests required!

Do let me know if you have played this scenario, in the comments section. If you have the D&D Board game you can use the boards, miniatures and terrain pieces from the game. I am treating each board game square as 1″ and the whole board as a difficult area, it is after all dark and unevenly paved, so if you move more than 6 squares in an activation you will need to take a peril. If you don’t have the board game you can easily play the game with four other adventure models and six goblin or orc type miniatures.

Also let me know of any ideas you have for improving the characters or the scenario. I love it when people take the time to leave a comment!

I’m planning to cover more scenarios and to look at doing something similar with some of my other old boardgames with miniatures, depending on what sort of feedback I get from this.

Useful Links:

Download free introductory Pulp Alley rules including Fortune & Solo Deck

Download Character and Treasure Cards for playing Scenario

Pulp Alley store at Sally 4th for all Pulp Alley books, cards & miniatures.

Army Painter Speed Paint store at Sally 4th for quickly transforming miniatures!