[TML] Traveller pulp roots and related literature; was: The SRD is out for Traveller at the mongoose site.

[Zane H. Healy]

At 3:46 PM -0400 7/6/08, Mark Urbin wrote:
>Ross Winn wrote:
>>  As I said in my column "The Spirit of Roleplaying" I think it is 
>>true that all RPGs are pulp games,
>  >especially Traveller. If you disagree, read Space Viking.
>
>Oh very much so.  Traveller was originally released shortly after the
>first Star Wars Movie (now called Episode IV), and had that movie's pulp
>spirit at heart.
>
>Traveller is a fine vehicle for Space Opera.
>
>In addition to Space Viking, and Mr. Piper's other fine works, also try
>E.E. "Doc" Smith's Lensmen series.

H. Beam Piper is on the short list of authors I need to find and 
read.  I've read all of E.E. "Doc" Smith's Lensmen series and some 
others.  I view his works and Star Wars as "Space Opera", which I 
don't really associate with Pulp, though I guess I probably should. 
In fact as I was at one of the Powell's book stores earlier today, 
had I been thinking I could have probably found something of his.

When I think of Pulp, I think of things such as Wu Fang, Operator 5, 
Doc Savage, the Shadow, the Spider, the Suicide Squad, and others.  I 
have a hard time viewing things such as the works of H.P. Lovecraft, 
or E.E. "Doc" Smith as pulp, even though I realize they originally 
were.  At the same time the Call of Cthulhu campaign I've been 
running for the last 5+ years is more "Pulp" than "Lovecraftian". 
Shoot, I'd even classify stuff like Mack Bolan and the books set in 
that "Universe" as pulp.

I'm not sure if this is an example how how difficult it is to 
quantify "Pulp" and "Space Opera", or just my personal bias.

At 5:11 PM -0700 7/6/08, shadow at shadowgard.com wrote:
>The Skylark series is harder to find, but possibly a better starting
>point.
>
>There are four books and the order can be confusing:
>
>1. The Skylark of Space
>2. Skylark Three
>3. Skylark of Valeron
>4. Skylark DuQuesne
>
>The fourth book was written decades after the first three. It shows a
>bit. It also has what is arguably the biggest "battle" in any space
>opera.

I got these from Powell's ages ago, and I think they often have 
copies.  Definitely not something I'd want to base a campaign on, or 
at least if I did, I'd best not mention it to my players.  One of my 
players has a definite dislike for E.E "Doc" Smith, as she doesn't 
like how he portrays women.  At the same time, the Skylark series 
does almost read like one big epic RPG campaign!

Zane


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| Zane H. Healy                    | UNIX Systems Administrator |
| healyzh at aracnet.com (primary)    | OpenVMS Enthusiast         |
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