How To Run Adventure!
By
Craig Oxbrow
“The demand was
for constant action; if you stopped to think you were lost. When in doubt have
a man come through a door with a gun in his hand. This could get to be pretty
silly but somehow it didn’t seem to matter.”
—
Raymond Chandler, The Simple Art Of
Murder
Adventure!:
Tales of the Æon Society is White Wolf
Game Studio’s “Storytelling game of pulp action”, a roleplaying game of daring
heroes, dastardly villains, strange lands, amazing mysteries and death-defying
excitement inspired by the pulp heroes of the 1920s and 30s. While the pulp
magazine was a medium and not a genre, Adventure!
draws on the distinctive genre that was home to characters like Doc Savage, The Shadow and novel series such as John Carter, Warlord of Mars and Tarzan. Partially science fiction, partially fantasy but largely
set in the present, featuring larger-than-life heroics and villainy, the pulp
action genre was the direct precursor to the first superhero comics, and the
antecedent of over-the-top action-adventure fiction and film from James Bond to Die Hard to Star Wars, as
well as directly influenced work such as the Indiana Jones series.
Rather than being a generic pulp
action game, Adventure! comes with a
specific setting. This is the third in the Trinity
Universe series of games, a prequel to Trinity
and Aberrant. It is set during the
formative years of the Æon Society,
explorers or the paranormal and solvers of mysteries, a major power group in
both later periods, and the first recorded appearance of the setting’s two (or
maybe three) possible advances in the human race.
A
pseudoscientific explanation is offered for the various paranormal phenomena
and superhuman abilities manifesting in the pulp action genre. This “unified
field theory” of the paranormal ties the game loosely to the Trinity Universe,
but those who want a truly generic pulp action game are invited to ignore it
and can do so without significantly affecting the rules.
While the pulps and their spin-offs
such as comic books and matinee serials reached their heyday in the 1930s,
during the Great Depression, the default setting for Adventure! begins in 1924, five years before the Wall Street Crash.
This is a more prosperous and optimistic era in much of the world, although
there is still plenty of danger and unrest to fuel series, and some of the
terrors of later decades are already present. The 20s were chosen as an
escapist setting, whereas the 30s were a time more in need of escapism.
Like Trinity and Aberrant, Adventure! uses a streamlined variant
of White Wolf’s Storyteller System,
where nine Attributes such as
Strength and Intelligence are rated from one to five in the human scale, and a
variety of Abilities such as Pilot
and Firearms, linked to the Attributes they are most often used with, are rated
from zero to five. To determine success or failure, combine the relevant
Attribute and Ability, roll that many ten-sided dice and every die that
produces a result of seven or more indicates a level of success. Various
modifiers give or take dice, and the Storyteller or Games Master is encouraged
to give bonus dice for good ideas and descriptions of actions.
The players’ characters, referred to
as The Inspired after the effects of
the aforementioned pseudo-explanation, are suitably larger than life. While
they are hardly powerful compared to the more extreme superheroes, they begin
at a heroic level. A starting character can be skilled in a wide variety of
fields, a world-class expert in several, or specialise to the point of
superhuman feats in a few chosen areas. It is entirely possible to create a
starting character, with no experience, who can legitimately claim to be the
World’s Greatest in any of the abilities covered, and who is still quite
capable in other areas.
Players’ characters fall into three
categories depending on the source and type of their powers, although these are
not entirely exclusive in the setting and Storytellers may choose to allow
crossing over of powers. Mesmerists
are the antecedents of the psions of Trinity — psychics, with a variety of
mental powers. Stalwarts are more
physically superhuman, an early variant of the do-anything Novas from Aberrant, but
far less powerful. Daredevils, finally,
are human, but blessed with the sort of extraordinary skills and unexpected
good (and bad) luck that human heroes in the adventure genre regularly display.
The powers of Mesmerists and
Stalwarts, and the “powers” of Daredevils, are presented as a grab-bag of
special abilities called Knacks. The
Shadow’s ability to Cloud Men’s Minds is a Psychic Knack, while the early Superman knocking people through walls
is reflected in a Stalwart ability. Daredevils have a mixture of uncommon
heroic abilities and narrative points that seem to work in their favour. For
instance, the player of a Daredevil martial artist is well advised to take
Untouchable, the uncanny ability of unarmed heroes to avoid being gunned down
by armed thugs in combat. Personally, I would let an unarmed combat Mesmerist
or Stalwart take that one as well, since almost all such heroes seem to have
it.
All characters have an Inspiration rating, which determines the
number of extraordinary things they can do in a scene. Most Mesmerist and Stalwart
Knacks are powered by it directly, and it reflects their reserves of power, but
Daredevils’ abilities are not powered by Inspiration. Instead, they use it
almost entirely for its second effect in the game.
Dramatic
Editing is one of the rules that marks Adventure!
out as a heroic action game. Powered by Inspiration, it enables players to edit
and complicate scenes to their characters’ advantage. This gives the players
control over the kinds of lucky escapes and strange developments seen in the
genre. The system explains it in depth. “I remembered to pack my snakebite kit”
might take a single point, while “Ah, but this is Professor Dixon’s submersible
car!” would take five, if the Storyteller allowed it at all. Daredevils
generally have more Inspiration to spend on Dramatic Editing, reflecting the
superhuman heroes’ reliance on their powers while the human heroes have to turn
situations to their advantage more.
Other rules throughout the system
model the style of the genre. Rules for Extras
reflect the nameless goon syndrome we have all seen. The extra dice to
encourage descriptions have already been mentioned. Characters with a high Wits attribute allow their players to
give the Storyteller ‘feed lines’ for one-liners.
Adventure!
appeals to me as a self-confessed pulp action fan. I have been ever since Raiders Of The Lost Ark excited, scared
and delighted me when I was eight. As a result, I have played a lot of pulp
games. Adventure! is the one I feel best captures the pace and style of the
genre, and its writing clearly reflects the sense of fun that modern tributes
to the genre often do. The setting information is a wealth of story hooks,
references to real-life mysteries and in-jokes about pulp adventures, full of
enthusiasm for the genre and encouragement for Storytellers.
There
is plenty to do in Adventure!
Because the genre is so diverse, it is a good idea to find a focus of some
kind. Even exploring the breadth and depth of the setting can serve as such, if
the players’ characters have good reason to explore.
As well as a focus, I would suggest
agreeing with the players on a “weird level” for the game. While the setting
includes mad scientists building floating cities, intelligent gorillas, haunted
houses, resurrected Pharaohs and possibly a Hollow Earth full of Neanderthals
and barbarians, this might be a little too high a weird level. Equally, a game
of Daredevil private investigators with just a hint of the esoteric, while
keeping the wild action scenes of the genre, might work well. It worked for Sam Spade, after all. Personally, I
pitched my game around the Raiders level — fast action, hair-raising stunts,
and very occasional unexplained phenomena. One of the player characters wearing
a Rocketeer-style jet pack is about
as weird as it generally gets. The floating cities were kept off-screen,
although the mad scientist did invade Rhode Island with an armada of zeppelins
supported by pirates in fighter planes at one point...
Another suggestion is to be highly
aware of the style of the genre, and also of modern tributes to it. I have so
far run Adventure! for an academic
year, and ran one or two ‘serials’ in each of three ten-week terms. I gave them
suitably melodramatic titles, and gave each ‘chapter’ a title as well. I
started each session with a recap, and ended each with a teaser for the next
part of the story. For example:
Armies Of Armageddon, Chapter
Four: Peril In The Skies!
When
last we left our heroes, Rocket Man was plunging two hundred feet to the earth,
injured and out of control! The team race to his rescue, but they won’t arrive
before impact! Will he survive?
I generally ran the game with the
awareness of cliché that modern tributes to the genre display. I always made
sure that my villains’ warped ideals have a point, however flawed their logic.
None of them is as devoted to villain tradition at the expense of common sense
as Dr. Evil in the Austin Powers films. Likewise, the
players will, from time to time, follow the example of Indiana Jones and shoot
the lunatic with the scimitar.
Finally, most advice for Adventure! could apply to all
action-adventure roleplaying games. Keep things moving. Follow Chandler’s
advice if stumped. Encourage the players to take part beyond merely reacting to
your stimuli.
I would particularly advise
preparing stories with a loose structure. I prepare heavily for some games, but
for Adventure! if I have some idea
of how four or five scenes hang together and a few alternate ways to move the
story, I can run a session.
That said, with Knacks, Dramatic
Editing, encouragement for creativity on the part of players and assorted other
rules, Adventure! could easily be
used for any genre that the pulp adventures influenced. I hope to run 60s Spy Adventure! soon, and have also seen swords
and sorcery and Star Wars conversions. The setting information and advice
create a great pulp action game, but the style and flair of the pulps is still
alive today and the rules can tackle any setting with that style.
In all, with its clearly displayed
love of the genre and infectious enthusiasm for gaming, Adventure! is a lot of fun. What more can you ask for in a game of
pulp action?
Would you like to know more? Click here!
Adventure! and all associated terms are property of White
Wolf Game Studio and this article is not intended as a challenge to these or
any other copyrights.