Adventure! RPG - Planetary

[WisebloodJ]

Hi all

This is my first post here so sorry if this subject is beat to death. Basically I'm gonna be running Adventure! in about a month (had the game for awhile, finally got a crew wiling to play it). I was wondering if anyone has done anything akin to Warren Ellis' Planetary and if so how it went. I like the multi-faceted pulp feel to it and as an anthropology student I love the whole Mystery Archaeology thingie. Anyway, if anybody has interesting Adventure!/Planetary info to share I'd be happy to listen.

-WisebloodJ

[CHILL]

Heya there WisebloodJ, welcome aboard

I think there was a topic on this a while back, it might have been on the Wolf's forums though... can anyone remember??

[harlequin]

welcome aboard WisebloodJ, hope you like the forums. ::biggrin

hrm, don't remember that one myself... likely that was the wolf's boards... or it's possible that school has destroyed my memory... ::wacko

[phoenix]

it's possible that school has destroyed my memory... ::wacko

School? What's school? ::mellow

[WisebloodJ]

BTW, loving the forums and the site in general. Definitely looking forward to Trial by Fire. ::thumbsup

-WisebloodJ

[Kanseg]

Hi there

I'm not sure if this is on topic so I apologise if it isn't. I noted your following comment:

as an anthropology student I love the whole Mystery Archaeology thingie

I admit I don't know what the 'Planetary' system(?) is, but I followed the advice in the back of Adventure suggesting you need to look at Charles Fort's works. He basically catalogued 'anomalies' so that should give plenty of ideas for Adventure scenarios. In addition I recently ordered a copy of a book called 'Forbidden Archaeology', which is supposed to be an in depth examination of evidence of civilisations prior to our recorded history and I'm certain it should give plenty of little hooks to base scenarios around.

By the way I have not looked at either of these books yet - I'm waiting for Amazon to deliver. Hope the above was of some use.

Regards

Kanseg

[Arcanum_V]

I admit I don't know what the 'Planetary' system(?) is, but I followed the advice in the back of Adventure suggesting you need to look at Charles Fort's works.

Planetary is a comic series by Warren Ellis that has a small group of very powerful people investigating "archaeology of the impossible." The "archaeology of the impossible" consists of things that resemble the conventions of other comics, like The Four, which are pretty obviously a rethinking of the Fantastic Four, only evil. The archaeologists find things like Green Lantern's lantern (only they don't call it that), Wonder Woman's bracers, etc., and are assembling a picture that there has been much more strangeness in the past than most people are aware of. Other conventions or characters that have shown up have been 1950 radiation horror movies, Godzilla-like giant monsters, Doc Savage-style pulps, John Constantine, Sherlock Holmes, Dracula, and Hong Kong action films. Here's a not-bad fan site that lays out some of the basic and has some issue summaries. The series seems to be on infinite hiatus (and has been for nearly a year), and I'm not sure what the future holds.

I'd argue that Adventure! is probably not the best system for doing Planetary faithfully because there's no way that the principle characters can be described using Knacks. To do justice to Elijah Snow, the Drummer, Jakita Wagner, and The Four, you'd need to use Aberrant. On the other hand, I think toning them down would make for a much more interesting game since epic battles are more consistent with Ellis' The Authority then his Planetary. The agents of Planetary have enormous powers, but they don't usually use them.

The closest that I come to using Planetary in my Adventure! game is that I set my game in the 1990s and accept that many of the things that comics portray may have happened, although perhaps not on quite such a large scale. I've used the ghost cop idea from issue #3 after an NPC HKP inspector modeled on Chow Yun-Fat was beheaded with a flying guillotine, and I might use the 1950s giant radioactive monster bit from issue #8 in conjunction with the Machinatrix and an abandoned Russian or Chinese lab.

[WisebloodJ]

I think toning them down would make for a much more interesting game

My plan is to tone the whole thing down to Adventure! level. At the moment I think I"m going to set it in the 1950's. Instead of the evil Fantastic 4 I'm gonna use a bitter and twisted cold war, McCarthy-ist version of Captain America who never got frozen. I'll probably even have an adult version of Bucky Barnes in a position of power within Aeon (maybe the Triton division head). Obviously it wouldn't be vanilla Adventure! but that's where my thoughts are leading at the moment.

-WisebloodJ

[Slagheap]

This is a little OT, but it's good news for all you Planetary fans. I just read on Ellis' site that he has finally made it through all of his personal problems and John Cassady is presently working on the 148 pages he has scripted. Wildstorm is planning on starting Planetary back up on a bi monthly schedule in late spring. ::biggrin ::biggrin ::biggrin

WOO HOOO!!!!!!!!!!!

-Slag

[Psionycx]

Now THERE'S good news!

Planetary is a little advanced in terms of power levels, but remember that they're in the same timeframe as the demigods of The Authority.

BUT, flashback to Doc Brass and his team of adventurers and I think you have a perfect template for an Adenture! era setting. Ellis picked up some of the most traditional character concepts there and ran with them. And their power levels were mainly consistent with the Adventure! era.

If you wanted to really emulate the trio from Planetary, you could using knacks, just at a slightly less superheroic power level. Jakita would have Piledriver and Body of Bronze (and you'd need something extra to account for her running speed). Elijah would have Frost Conjuration. Drums would need some work to adapt to an era where electronics would be rare and computers only found in the rare genius's possession. He's the trickiest to use as written just because high-tech is not ubiquitous in the 20's/30's setting.

Planetary IS cited in the Inspirational Reading section, so I think that Bates would agree that they are a good fit for the genre.