Introduction

A.T.L.A.S. is a pulp themed game I am developing. It is inspired by the works of H.P. Lovecraft, Robert E. Howard, Jules Verne, Edgar Rice Burroughs, and so many other incredible writers of the weird, fantastic, and imaginative adventure tales. When I began thinking about how the game would be I thought about the properties of the pulp stories and came up with the following:

• Good and Evil are Black and White. There are no shades of gray. 
• The protagonist may make appearances in multiple stories but there is no real chronological order. 
• Geography is not always accurate in historical settings.
• Science it not consulted when technology is invented. (Cosmonauts wearing glass bowls over their head to travel in space, automatons have no obvious power source, etc.)
• A protagonist could be in multiple stories that have no continuity. 

And the most important thing....

• Anything could happen and nothing is impossible that the mind cannot imagine.

So taking all of that into consideration I came up with some of the following features of the game:

• Adventures will be episodic. They could easily be as short as a one shot or strung together to develop a lifelong campaign.
• Due to the episodic nature of the game a player could miss a night without their character lagging behind the other players. The player could bring their character to another groups game easily. A player can make a new character for each game session and go back to an old character for the next session.
• Player creativity will be rewarded more than dice rolls to overcome obstacles, although the luck of the dice roll will still play its part.
• Character generation will be fairly quick.
• There will be no experience levels. Instead the character will develop by completing adventures. 
• The setting will leave room for adventures on earth around the time of the industrial revolution where the world is still very unexplored, there will also be a hollow earth that will be similar to a low magic fantasy setting (there will be dwarves, elves, and fairies but they are exceedingly rare), and of course adventures in space. The characters could move between these settings from one adventure to the next. Anything can happen that the mind can imagine.

Another aspect of the game is the different ways it could be played. It is well suited for 2 players or a large group. It could be played the classic way with just pen and graph paper or with miniatures. There will be rules for miniature skirmish games and even an option for short solo play. 

I have a ton of work ahead of me now. Most of the game mechanics are just theory right now but I will post as I get more completed.