Planning first Amazing Adventures campaign

Discussion of the pulp roleplaying system, including hard-boiled detectives, fedora-wearing action heroes, and steampunk gadgeteers rocketing to battle.
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Barrrel_Copagen
Henchman
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Joined: Thu Dec 04, 2014 3:41 pm

Planning first Amazing Adventures campaign

Post by Barrrel_Copagen »

Sorry if this is in the wrong place, new to the forums.

So I picked up Amazing Adventures at Carbon Con 1, having played it twice before but never actually getting the book. I finally broke down and got it (the Troll there was offering a sweet bargain). I am now in the process of planning a game, but I'm running into narrative problems, not really rules problems. The thing is that I am a big fan of old radio serials, particularly Johnny Dollar and The Shadow, and draw heavily from them for inspiration. I know in The Shadow the main character can hide himself from other people's sight via some mystic art learned in the Orient.

My main issue is the use of magic in the setting. I want magic to be very hush-hush, secretive, without outright banning it because I know at least one player will want to be a magic-user. And the idea would be that magic hasn't changed the timeline, but it has caused things to happen (usually subtly or covered up), such as the Tunguska Fireball, the miraculous survival of the crew of the Endurance during the attempted trans-antarctic expedition, etc.. But that may end up being thrown out the window if a player decides to hurl lightning bolts at an escaping suspect. How have other game masters dealt with this sort of thing?

It's going to take place in the mid 1930's, starting in St. Louis and ending up in Antarctica. I couldn't find any rules on extreme weather, such as extreme cold. I know it's a pulp-style game, so it would be rather undignified to have characters die from exposure after breaking up an evil cult or secret Nazi base, but I think there still needs to be that level of danger from the environment to keep the tension up during long periods of travel. If anyone has found rules for extreme cold weather in either the AA book or even the CKG please let me know.

I've run a lot of DnD and C&C before, ran a couple games of Call of Cthulhu, and a slew of other RPGs so I'm pretty practiced in GMing, but as this is my first time planning an AA campaign, if anyone has any pointers that I should know about I'd much appreciate it if you could share them.

Also, typing up a pulp-style short story as an intro to the game. It's fun. :D

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