Tales of the Gold Monkey

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Ronin

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Posting in the IP thread got me to thinking. Tales of the Gold Monkey is pretty much what I want in a pulp RPG. Exotic locations, check South China Sea. Flying boat/planes, check Grumman G-21 "Goose". Two fisted action, check. Spies and intrigue, check. Plus its totally got the Traveller free trader vibe going on. It's just what I consider perfect for the genre. What do you think?
 
God I loved that show as a kid. It lead to a lifelong love of flying boats. Thanks for bringing it up.
 
Wow, I totally missed this one as a kid. We lived out in the middle of nowhere, no cable TV, so just what we could get on the bunny ears: CBS, PBS, and sometimes, if the weather was just right, a Canadian station ...
 
Wow, I totally missed this one as a kid. We lived out in the middle of nowhere, no cable TV, so just what we could get on the bunny ears: CBS, PBS, and sometimes, if the weather was just right, a Canadian station ...
That figures it was on ABC. You used to be able to find episodes on youtube. No sure if they're there anymore.
 
For a similar vibe, you can scout the Internet for old radio episodes of Voyage of the Scarlet Queen a radio serial about a tramp steamer in the South China Sea.

I generally find the biggest problem with any TV adventure show is that the casts of characters that actually do things tops out at 2-3, too small to easily accommodate the typical gaming group.
 
I'll second the recommendation
I ran a very enjoyable game lifting a great deal from Tales and translating it into the Mini Six system. The most useful resource I found (aside from the original series, fansite and the published annual) was Peter Schweighofer's Heroes of Rura-Tonga, a terrific setting book for any RPG.
I'll second the recommendation for Heroes of Rura-Tonga.
 
Posting in the IP thread got me to thinking. Tales of the Gold Monkey is pretty much what I want in a pulp RPG. Exotic locations, check South China Sea. Flying boat/planes, check Grumman G-21 "Goose". Two fisted action, check. Spies and intrigue, check. Plus its totally got the Traveller free trader vibe going on. It's just what I consider perfect for the genre. What do you think?
:thumbsup:
 
Another game that would be good, especially if more globetrotting is involved, would be The Troublshooters.
 
This also came up in the what IP would you make if you could. It was a fun show so I thought I might throw together a guide for it. There is a really good site for the show that includes a ton of details on the show including original scripts.

I may eventually get to it, but the more I followed up on the details the more the massive anachronisms lept out at me annoying my inner amateur historian. Many of these basically come down to lazy writing. Based on events the show should have been placed in 1943 not 1937.

Anyway it moved me towards working on a "not Tales of the Gold Monkey" same idea but without the short range time travel, network TV censorship or copyright to worry about.
 
I wish I'd noticed this thread earlier, because it was me who brought up Tales of the Gold Monkey in that other discussion.

It really ought not to be a surprise that a show with a solid, ongoing, episodic basis should make for good, long-term gaming, but I think that's been overlooked in more recent game designs. Ones that emphasize a sort of rambling, loose story-making style over good, self-contained adventures.

For those who haven't seen the show: seek it out, because it really is (mostly) a lot of fun. There are some dud episodes in there, but for the most part it's a prime example of a show that missed its audience, as opposed to one that never made good on its promise.

As for how I chose to explore the concept: Mercenaries, Spies & Private Eyes all the way.

tvguide.jpg
 
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I may eventually get to it, but the more I followed up on the details the more the massive anachronisms lept out at me annoying my inner amateur historian. Many of these basically come down to lazy writing. Based on events the show should have been placed in 1943 not 1937.
Lazy writing isn't the issue so much as narrative necessity. The show's set in 1938 because 1939 marked the beginning of the Second World War. If you, as a creator, don't want to get tangled up in that, you have to set your show/game sooner.

But what if you want something cool like the Flying Tigers, which don't fit the timeline? Well, you just change the dates and don't worry about it. Gold Monkey did likewise. Fun first, accuracy second.
 
Lazy writing isn't the issue so much as narrative necessity. The show's set in 1938 because 1939 marked the beginning of the Second World War. If you, as a creator, don't want to get tangled up in that, you have to set your show/game sooner.

But what if you want something cool like the Flying Tigers, which don't fit the timeline? Well, you just change the dates and don't worry about it. Gold Monkey did likewise. Fun first, accuracy second.

Or you don't be lazy, you get out your history books and recognize the fact China had American volunteers flying for them in 1931 during the invasion of Mongolia. Claire Chenault arrived in China in 1937, long before the Flying Tigers were formed. It would have been way cooler if Jake Cutter had been wounded while flying a Curtiss Hawk 2 or 3 in the defense of Shainghai instead of some non descript action in the near future.
 
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