GURPS High Tech: Pulp Guns
As their titles suggest, GURPS High Tech: Pulp Guns, Volume 1 and GURPS High Tech: Pulp Guns, Volume 2 are two PDF supplements devoted to the type of weaponry found during the Pulp Era, roughly from the end of the Great War until the outbreak of World War II. Designed for use with GURPS Fourth Edition, and more specifically the GURPS High-Tech supplement, both are written by Hans-Christian Vortisch, who has contributed to numerous GURPS and Call of Cthulhu supplements (the latter unfortunately only available in German) on the subject of guns. The first volume details revolvers, automatic pistols, shotguns, and submachine guns, while the second, devoted to rifles, machine guns, grenades, and flame throwers (!), has more of a military bent to it. With these two supplements a player can find something interesting with which to arm his character, while the GM can arm anyone from a hard-boiled detective or a femme fatale to a masked vigilante or a big-game hunter.
Players do not win adventures by brains alone, and when their brains do fail, the next step is to bring out the guns. Primarily what these supplements do is provide the background, history, and technical details for GURPS games, specifically games in the style of GURPS Cliffhangers or GURPS Lands Out of Time, but equally, a use could be found for their contents with GURPS Horror or GURPS Infinite Worlds. Putting GURPS aside, the background on these weapons is just as useful for any RPG set during the Pulp era, such as Call of Cthulhu or Hollow Earth Expedition. After all, the statistics for weapons in most games are easy to create; and indeed, the background will prove very useful for my own Call of Cthulhu gaming, and I secretly wish Call of Cthulhu gaming had its own similar supplements. A nicely colorful touch is the author’s references to many weapons’ use as seen in the movies or on television, managing to tag Miller’s Crossing, The Mummy, and Tales of the Golden Monkey among many others. If the supplements are lacking in any way, it is that they need another edit and that not every weapon is illustrated. A character should know what the weapon he is wielding looks like. After all, not everyone knows what a “HDH Mitrailleuse Velo-Dog” looks like, and yes, I did have to look it up. These minor issues aside, unless you actually have your own Hans-Christian Vortisch, then GURPS High Tech: Pulp Guns, Volume 1 and GURPS High Tech: Pulp Guns, Volume 2 are next best sources for Pulp era firearms.
The bulk of both supplements are devoted to listing and describing some 180 firearms between them, but each also addresses one or two other aspects. In GURPS High Tech: Pulp Guns, Volume 1 the first is a discussion of the law with regard to firearms during the period, mostly in the USA, but also the UK, Germany, and as far away as Shanghai. The latter no surprise given that the author also wrote GURPS Martial Arts: Fairbairn Close Combat Systems, a supplement about William Fairbairn, the martial artist, policeman, and spy who served with the Shanghai Municipal Police during this period. This information adds a certain wrinkle to the ownership of guns for the more historical game – for example, in Chicago and New York the laws were tighter on handgun ownership than on the ownership of longarms, including submachine guns. For the benefit of those without a copy of GURPS, higher CR or “Control Ratings” indicate greater restrictions upon the ownership of firearms. The second is a listing of various gun shops around the world, but of primarily in the USA, which add further flavor. In addition, the first volume discusses firearm accessories such as carrying cases and the Cutts Compensator (which reduces recoil and muzzle climb); various ammunition types, including the exotic (tear gas weapons plus wooden slugs and wire shot for shotguns, for example); and explosives during the period.
GURPS High Tech: Pulp Guns, Volume 2 also discusses exotic ammunition for its rifles and machines guns, but there are fewer options. While alterative ammunition types are covered for grenade launchers as well as the “Kuusinen LH/44,” a Finnish flamethrower-submachine gun combination from 1944 (which should get many a gamer frothing at the thought!), on the whole, the second volume is very much a more straightforward affair.
Both volumes are clearly laid out in the GURPS Fourth Edition house style, with only limited use of spot color. Even as 35-page PDFs, both come with an index – oh heaven, if only some publishers would take note! – and while both are decently illustrated with numerous photographs, there are just not enough. Every gun needs an illustration! Both come with numerous quotes from movies and books, including the works of H.P. Lovecraft in Volume 1 (hence my earlier references to Call of Cthulhu). Lastly, both could have done with another editorial pass, but such issues are minor in comparison with other publishers.
So what of the guns themselves? Plenty of player favorites are covered, including the “Webley-Fosbery Automatic Mk I,” the “Mauser C96,” the “Colt .45 Government,” and the “Auto-Ordnance Model 1921” or “Tommy Gun” in the first volume, and in the second, the “H&H Royal Double-Express, .600 Nitro Express,” the “Enfield SMLE Mk III, .303 British,” and the “Browning M1918 BAR. ” Of the others, the “Greener Light Harpoon Gun Mk II” is perfect when you want to go Deep One hunting; the “Colt Model 1914, .30-06” is just the thing for emergency situations, but you do need to mount in on a Indian Big Chief motorcycle and sidecar, and be part of the New York Police Department’s Firearms Battalion; while the “hi ze pao” or “Boxed Cannon” is a machine pistol variant of the “Mauser C96” that is just too cool not to be seen with in Shanghai (and other exotic parts of the world.)
The honest truth is that I really would love for these two supplements to be for Call of Cthulhu and even though they are not, their contents can still be used as background detail for that game (and for any Pulp era RPG). Certainly the background details make both worth their purchase price. The individual weapon stats you will have to provide yourself though, but most games are not quite as detailed in technical terms as GURPS is, so the conversion process is relatively easy. For the GURPS GM and player alike, GURPS High Tech: Pulp Guns, Volume 1 and GURPS High Tech: Pulp Guns, Volume 2 are excellent resources, rich in the kind of detail that most gamers want, with the technical details that they need. Of the two, Volume 1 is the more useful, concentrating as it does on civilian weaponry, while Volume 2 is useful only if running a military campaign or if details of an elephant gun are wanted.