I have just started a read-through of Pulp Cthulhu, and I kind of wish that I had discovered this earlier. Solo rules for Pulp-C was requested by my Patrons, and I have played quite a few cosmic horror games in the past, and so I thought I would take a look at this game as my next project.
Pulp-C characters are not called investigators, they are called heroes. This is a massive change. Investigators die, and die frequently, in Call of Cthulhu. Heroes are built to survive, and in one form or another to emerge victorious.
Solo play is hard in games that are known for being deadly. If it is deadly when you have a team to support you, being on your own often makes investigations impossible. Either you cannot cover enough skills, or you don’t have support to evacuate a struggling character.
You can boost up a single investigator, give them a bump up in some attributes or more skill points, but it can feel a bit ‘off’ if you have to bend or break the game rules just to survive.
Pulp-C has four levels of pulpiness, from standard investigator level of fragility to ‘hero of many adventures’ level. It looks like the top level may be verging on overpowered for an entire party of pulp heroes, but as a solo investigator, it could be just what CoC needs to make it work.
So far, I have only read character creation, but I am excited by what I have seen so far.