1 - Me & My Ego

In the Pulp RPG, an Ego is equivalent to one of the main characters in a story. The GameMaster paints this story with their scenarios. A player controls their own ego that they create and upgrade using the Evolution points they amass through the story. The GameMaster controls NPCs (or Non-Player Characters) that interact with the Players' Egos as they make their way through the Gameworld.
 
Before play begins, each player must have rolled up his or her ego.

Archetypes

Each ego is made from an Archetype. Archetypes are equivalent to race/class in other roleplaying games. An example: In D&D, a player may have a Dwarven character. The equivalent in Pulp would be a Dwarf archetype.
 
Archetypes have attribute modifiers. This is how the Archetype measures up against other Archetypes in the Gameworld. Archetypes have advantages and disadvantages. The Attribute Modifier (Abbreviated from here as AM) is a number from 1 to 9 that the applicable attribute roll is multiplied by when the player is first created their Ego. This makes more sense once you have read through the next section, Attributes.

Attributes

Attributes describe an Ego's strengths and weaknesses in standardized areas. With the exception of Mojo and Guts, Attributes cannot exceed 95 and cannot be less than 5. Attributes are rolled randomly at the time of the Ego’s creation and can be upgraded then or between actual sessions with Evolution Points at the cost of 5 EP for 2% improvement. The Attributes are:

Hand Damage

Hand Damage is the amount of damage that an ego does on an attack with just their natural weaponry (for humans this is teeth, nails, kicking, punching etc). Hand Damage is calculated from the ego’s meat score. There is a slot on the Pulp Ego Sheet to record this information. To determine Hand Damage, see the table below.

Evolution Points

Evolution Points are similar to Experience Points in other role-playing games. They allow the player to upgrade their Ego, to reflect the experiences that shape the Ego during their perilous life. They are awarded through good role-playing, making novel decisions in the course of game play, defeating enemies and other circumstances that the GM decides to award them to a player. All Egos start life with 2D10 Evolution Points (EP).

Abilities

Abilities differ from Attributes in that they are learned and not inherent in the Ego. Suppose the Ego worked in their life previous to adventuring as a blacksmith. They would have learned the Blacksmith Ability (if such an ability was available in the Gameworld). Abilities are bought with Evolution Points, when an Ego is created and any time between playing sessions that the Ego has enough Evolution Points to buy or upgrade an ability.
 
The Adjective
The Adjective piece is the level of mastery the Ego has. There are five different adjectives - Consult the table below for the cost and dice to beat. The inital cost for the level is determined by the descriptor.
 
Adjective Table

Adjective	Dice to beat*
Hack**	5
Inexperienced	15
Novice	30
Initiate	40
Accomplished	60
Master	80
*Dice to beat means the number to roll under or equal to on a d100 to succeed at using the ability. ** Hack is the default for someone using an ability that has not purchased it.

 
The Descriptor
The descriptor is the noun that describes what the ability is. For instance, Car Mechanic describes the ability to fix and build a gas powered car . Most descriptor are made up by the GM during the Game world design, as they depend upon the style of the gameworld. For instance, a Master Stellar Mechanic in the Bronze age is ridiculous! A small list of Generic descriptors is maintained on the list below.
 
Descriptor Table

Artisan/craft descriptors (Cost=4 EP per level of Adjective, 3 to upgrade)

singer instrumentalist armorer ballistician

Supernormal descriptors (Cost=15 EP per level of Adjective, 10 to upgrade)

Magic Hound Mind Warper Summoner Shifter Supplicant

Technical descriptors (Cost=8 EP per level of Adjective, 7 to upgrade)

Bookworm (pick an area of knowledge) Mechanic (pick appropriate technology) Tactician

Wierd descriptors (Cost=10 EP per level of Adjective, 5 to upgrade)

bullsh*tter lucky bastard

 
A special note on the abilities marked with . These are supernormal abilities and may not be allowed in a Gameworld if that gameworld does not allow supernormal abilities. A good example would be an historically accurate 30's detective gameworld would not have any supernormal abilities.
 
Supernormal Abilities
Whether supernomal Abilities are allowed in a Pulp Game is up to the GameMaster. They have to fit into the style of a Gameworld. Someone in a historically accurate 1930’s Cops and Robbers Gameworld would not be able to cast spells, while a Mage in a Fantasy style Gameworld certainly would. These abilities are bought and act in the same way as Standard Abilities with the exception that they deduct from the Ego’s Mojo score when they attempted, to success or failure.
 
Bringing an Ego’s Mojo to zero is a quite possibly deadly occurrence, so players should be careful how they spend their Mojo. See chapter two for more information.

Example Ego

The Example Ego we are making is taken from a Dune (Frank Herbert) based World. Why? Because I am currently reading Dune Messiah and am struck by just how cool of an RPG Gameworld it would be.
 
1. Picking an Archetype
The first step in creating our Ego is to pick from the GM’s list of available Archetypes for the Gameworld. The sample list for our Dune Gameworld is as follows:

• Human (i.e.: All races and families that are essentially human)
  Attribute Modifiers: Meat=7,Smarts=7,Cool=7,Mojo=5,Guts=7,Brawl=7,Eye=7
• Guildsmen (Because of their spice addiction, have become different than human)
  Attribute Modifiers: Meat=6,Smarts=8,Cool=4,Mojo=6,Guts=7,Brawl=7,Eye=7
• Mentat (Again, because of spice addiction & training, are different)
  Attribute Modifiers: Meat=5,Smarts=9,Cool=6,Mojo=3,Guts=7,Brawl=6,Eye=7

You can see now how attribute modifiers work to differentiate races. Mentats have a higher Smarts Modifier than humans, reflecting their superior mental abilities.
 
So, we decide to make an Human Ego. He’ll be an Harknonnen, but Harknonnens are still essentially human (barely!).
 
2. Rolling Attributes
We roll a d10 for each attribute. We get:
5 for meat (times the AM for Human, 7) = a meat score of 35. Not a weightlifter, by far.
3 for Smarts (times the AM for Human, 7) = a smarts score of 21. Not a brainiac, either.
9 for cool (times the AM for Human, 7) = a cool score of 63. He’s a very smooth person, though.
4 for Mojo (times the AM for Human, 5) = a Mojo score of 20. Not a Bene Gesserit.
7 for Guts (times the AM for Human, 7) = a Guts score of 49. Fairly tough.
5 for Brawl (times the AM for Human, 7) = a Brawl score of 35. Knows some fighting.
8 for eye (times the AM for Human, 7) = an eye score of 56. Pretty good aim.
 
So, we look on the hand damage chart and since our ego has a meat score of 35 (less than 50, greater than 20), his hand damage is D10-3, which means his player rolls a d10 for damage and subtracts 3 from the result.
 
3. Evolution Points
We roll 2d10 for this Ego’s starting Evolution Points. We get 16.
 
4. Buy Abilities
So, we have 16 EP to buy abilities with. Remember - there is no such thing as weapon abilities in Pulp (for simplicity and to keep gameplay expediant, the GM should assume that the Ego can fire every ballistic weapon unless that seems just too darn improbable, such as in the case of some complicated alien destruction machine...)
 
We'll make our Harkonnen a Captain in his previous military career, so we purchase:
Tactician (under technical descriptors) at Novice level (from Adjective table, he has to roll a 60 or below to successfully use this). You can see from the table that Technical descriptors cost 8 EP per level of adjective, so it costs (8 EP * 2 levels up from Hack) 16 EP. NOTE: you cannot upgrade when initially purchasing an ability.