Was thinking about the paucity of noir and pulp adventures that didn't involve magic or super-science. Now those are fine, but I have been reading Urban Jungle, which trends a little more towards street-level action. Depsite being a game about playing walking and talking funny animals as it's a spin-off of Ironclaw.
Crimewave RPG (A Tunnel Goons hack), New Babylon Blockcrawl and anything that works with it like the Flimflam Jam. All of these work perfectly either as indivdual scenes or scenarios to hang ones own material off of. Not really full-length though, they tend to be enviroments or a few seperate enviroments which complicate a preexsisting plan. Some of the jam material is supernatural and so needs to change.
New Babylon could easily be subbed in for Tricogha except for having to answer the world-building questions that arise when using human material for a funny animal game. Like what is a giant rat or a barking dog in a world where those are player characters?
Gangbusters
in general – Give stats by level if available: 1-4 Typical (With a Tweak if 3+),
5-7 Elite, 8-9 – Superior and 10 – Ultimate. If unsure, go with Typical.
Gangbusters
– Trouble Brewing/Corebook (Starting campaign/scenario)
1920s,
assumes Police, Government Agents, Reporters, Criminals and Private
Investigators. A campaign of mobs feuding over control of alcohol. Detailed map
of First Ward of Lakefront City. Could sub it in for Tricogha. Number of short
scenarios that might fill one session but likely with just be one or two
scenes. Frame to hang more scenarios on. Frequent referrals back to map and
NPCs as they interact and harm each other.
Gangbusters
– Murder in Harmony (level 1 to 3, not too difficult)
1920s,
assumes Police or Private Investigators. Can work with Socialites and
Reporters. Dense script that will occur regardless of player involvement. Good
chance players who aren’t directed to locations will miss events if they try
and investigate the wrong thing at the wrong time.
Gangbusters
– Death on the Docks (level 1 to 3, not too difficult)
1920s,
assumes Police, Government Agents, Reporters and Private Investigators. A
series of chronological events the players can easily miss. But each has an
investigative component where clues can be gathered though it’s up to the
players to intervene once they have decided on a course of action. Details
outside the evidence need improvisation.
Gangbusters
– “Mad Dog” Johnny Drake (Choose Your Own Adventure with squad of characters)
1920s,
assumes Police, Government Agents. Could be repurposed as rough chronology of a
group of players chasing down a criminal. But it is unlikely as it is too much
of a railroad.
Gangbusters
– Death in Spades (level 5 to 7, moderate difficulty)
1930s, assumes
Police, Mobsters, Reporters and Private Investigators. Randomized plot and lots
of double crossing around a hitman. Clues discoverable are also determined by
the initial randomization. If the players don’t find the clues, they just read
about the deaths. Tend to be one hard roll to find them when Urban Jungle likes
2-3 successes to complete the find.
The
Vanishing Investigator (level 4 to 7, moderate difficulty)
1920s,
assumes mostly Police and Government Agents, but one Private Investigator and
Reporter in pregenerated characters. A senator and presumed dead mob boss begin
a special public investigation. Mob kidnaps senator’s family, senator tries to
go undercover himself and investigates. Mob tries to discredit the senator;
players try to find everyone before senator, family and witnesses end up dead.
Another set of encounters that occur on a timeline.
Deadlands
Noir Plot Point Campaign and Savage Tales
Mostly set
in New Orleans (Bellegarde) but the Companion has adventures for Lost Angels (San
Dorado), New York (Shaysen City), Chicago (Tricogha) and the City of Gloom.
Which is supposed to be Salt Lake City but you can just thematically flip
everything to make it an ironic theme for Sunshine City.
All Savage
Tales are short affairs. Nearly all of them are better suited for an Occult
Horror or Weird Science game. Especially if you remove Deadland’s metaplot.
Though the Case Generator is good for detective stories. For classic play, the
Lost Angels Savage Tales are good, mostly because they tend to be reusing noir
movie plots as a homage. Tendency to have mundane consequences hang in the air
and say it’s the GM’s job to follow up on them. Supernatural plots get resolved
swiftly.
Justice Inc.
Made for
the Champions system, so some work will need doing to turn the penalty/skill
rolls into multiple successes.
The Coates
Shambler. The module works for either classic or Occult Horror. Really a series
of clues the players will have to decipher through prodding them and realizing as
players that something needs looking at before skill rolls get involved.
Densely written, drops some clues inside the descriptive text for the GM
without hinting at them earlier and a bit hard to follow.
The Grey Scarecrow.
Murder mystery set on a Texan ranch with a double-crossing villain. Relies on
the players being willing to investigate subtle signs and the GM reading the
book closely as those signs are not explained all at once until the reveal. Theoretical
questions if using this for Urban Jungle about what animals they are riding and
herding.
Killer
Candy. The adventure is just an open-ended scenario outline with a motive. One
of the people present or not present has poisoned some candy and one or more of
the present will die. If a GM is good at constructing locked-room mysteries, it’s
good. Otherwise, it’s going to be a struggle.
Trail of
the Golden Spike. Rip-roaring adventure that might not be suitable if the characters
lack piloting skills and the GM lacks the ability to pick out key text from a
very dense pair of columns.
Lands of
Mystery. Wholly unsuited for classic UJ. Absolutely great for playing with the
Amazing Science book. Very loose structure though with Hero System’s constant
inability to put the vital clues and information at the start of the adventure’s
GM section. Questions about what animals the dinosaurs and ape-men are in an anthropomorphic
world. Maybe have to steal monsters from Ironclaw.
https://1shotadventures.com/ material
Gotham ’39 The
Mirror Eternal
Tweak the
ending to taste if you the GM is not using Occult Horror. Might be a little
heavy on the pregenerated characters as a source of plot and cameos from Batman
villains. As each of them has a motive to participate when normal UJ characters
might need a stronger hook.
The Uncanny
Curse of Sekhmet!
Apparent
from the potential supernatural ending and radioactive wall. A great adventure
held up from being useful in UJ by the game maybe not being the best fit for
globe-trotting high-flying pulp. The game probably could handle it, but it’s a
matter of taste.
