Trinity Continuum: Adventure! (Adventure 2e)

I once speculated that colonialism was an inalienable part of the pulp genre, and that the only way to change that was through a total genre parody that made its ostensible heroes into buffoons (I referenced Don Quixote at the time, though Inspector Gadget likely would have been more apt). Trinity Continuum: Adventure! was already written when I made that comment, but it nonetheless feels like it's trying to prove me wrong.

(Gasp! What if I wasn't the first person to notice the pulp adventure genre's reliance on the colonialist gaze and this has actually been a matter of concern for quite some time? I may not be as original as I thought!)

As to whether the book succeeds at its (presumed) goal, that's a bit of a trickier question. I can say, with confidence, that Trinity Continuum: Adventure! is an action-adventure rpg set in the 1930s that is fair-minded and consciously inclusive and which makes a compelling case for using the era's political conflicts as inspiration for progressive alt-history roleplaying. There are probably more specific, named African characters in this book than in every game and supplement published by White Wolf prior to 2012 combined (Kindred of the Ebony Kingdom might skew this figure a bit, though. I haven't actually read it).

But is it good pulp? It's definitely a good something, and I don't necessarily want to come across like I'm gatekeeping pulp here. The elements of pulp are present. You can tell a tale of two-fisted justice where your iron-jawed Moroccon freedom fighter chases a corrupt French colonial official-turned-mad scientist across the top of a speeding train in order to stop him from running away with a stolen magical jewel of incalculable destructive potential. The rules for that are in this book. 

But I kinda had to work to come up with that example. Like, I created a scenario that fit in with the book's competencies and sensibilities, but the reason I was able to make it a pulp scenario is that I already knew what pulp was. Could I have done it with no prior knowledge, using just things I learned from the book?

Maybe. Trinity Continuum: Adventure! is a really well-made rpg. The Storyteller advice is both expansive and actionable. The setting information seems well-researched and the conflicts described could easily serve as inspiration for thrilling pulp-style stories. There are plenty of options for a variety of mechanically-distinct low-level superheroes, ranging from implausibly competent swashbucklers all the way through weather-manipulating superhumans. And the Trinity Continuum as a whole is richer for the introduction of the new environmental condition rules.

I suppose the way I'd describe it is that Trinity: Continuum: Adventure is really good at describing pulp, and less so at embodying pulp. The biggest culprit here is probably just the loss of the interstitial fictions. The original Adventure! had something like three or four full short stories that each demonstrated the type of fiction the game was meant to emulate. And then there's the form-factor of the book itself. First edition styled itself like a pulp magazine, it had yellowed pages, a 10 cent pricetag on the cover, and an overall grainier feel. Second edition looks first and foremost like a Trinity Continuum game. It's just a bunch of little things, like the switch between unreliable first-person narrators who were rarely afraid to get florid and an objective third-person voice that is generally very respectful.

When I look back at Trinity Continuum: Adventure!'s presentation of The French Protectorates of Algeria, Tunisia, and Morocco I'm left feeling like these are real places with serious concerns rooted in a long history and not just backdrops for my pulp adventures. The "problem," such as it is, is that my main use for these locations are as backdrops for my pulp adventures. The book spends so much time telling me about the structural racism encoded into agricultural subsidies for different varieties of wheat that it neglects to tell me about the area's climate or fashions or architecture or customs. I even had to look on Wikipedia to verify that Morocco had a railway at this time.

And to be absolutely clear, the first edition of Adventure! didn't do this either. It's more a case of a new edition putting me into the mindset of looking at something new, and then second edition's increased transparency and introspection opening my eyes to flaws that were always present. The old edition came with a lot of extra-textual baggage that the new edition thoughtfully addresses, which ironically means that even though the two games have many of the same blind spots and gaps, first edition feels more like a complete experience, because your mind automatically fills in the blanks with the baggage.

(Note: this is not necessarily a good thing, because that baggage was often racist as hell).

Or to put it another way, Trinity Continuum: Adventure! convinced me I was wrong about the pulp genre. You could reconstruct it around another axis, keep its stark moral conflicts and globe-trotting action by making the European colonialist project into a font of villainy and casting the protagonists as the resistance to colonialism, using the literary and visual language of early superheroes and detective stories to tell the same sort of stories, but with different cultural and political values. That is something you can do, but if you do attempt it, you probably should not do it by reading vintage comic strips like The Phantom. 

It's probably not a fair thing to lay on the shoulders of Trinity Continuum: Adventure!, but the book's greatest flaw is that it doesn't step up to fill this vacuum. It never successfully models the new, woke pulp.

Though it sometimes wafts tantalizingly close. Like with the Seven Brothers and the fate of the Ubiquitous Dragon. In first edition, the Ubiquitous Dragon was a criminal mastermind with the ability to makes clones of himself. He would send these clones on missions and sometimes directly control their bodies when he needed to pay personal attention to a particular matter. Second edition takes place a decade after first, and in this hypothetical interregnal decade, the Ubiquitous Dragon schemed to release a virus into San Francisco's water supply that would turn the affected into more clones, potentially giving him thousands of bodies to work with. Fortunately, the plot was foiled and the Ubiquitous Dragon was killed. All around the world, his clones started to spontaneously combust thanks to the dragon tattoos that were put in place to eliminate traitorous or inconvenient clones. But seven of the clones had either lost or removed their tattoos and thus survived the purge. 

The eponymous Seven Brothers subsequently found each other and realized they could use their physical resemblance to the Ubiquitous Dragon to take over his criminal network and pick up where he left off, but this time, they wouldn't ruthlessly exploit their agents. They would instead be like a family to each other. Just the sort of family that's financed by drug dealing, gambling, and prostitution.

There is definitely something here. It's weird in a very comic-book-y way. But it doesn't quite feel like a threat. The Seven Brothers have too much affection and respect for each other. They are more like sympathetic anti-villains than a ruthless criminal syndicate in dire need of immediate thwarting. So it all winds up being a bit of (fascinating and cool) setting color. 

Now, with all that being said, there was a lot about this book that I absolutely adored. I have so many notes I didn't use, and approximately 90% are things that I thought were interesting or beautiful or awesome. 

A mad scientist is building 100-ton spider tanks on behalf of Nazi Germany!

Sherlock Holmes exists in this universe. He mentored a Black woman in the art of detection and survives to this day as a sort of professor emeritus in the International Detective Agency.

An Australian successionist movement is assembling a "secret army of battle-ready emus."

The Order of Murder is back, still faking the deaths of the rich and powerful, but this version gives Anne Boleyn a lot more agency in her own rescue and canonically establishes her as one of the Order's founders.

The Ponatowski Foundation works really well in this new edition as a dark foil to Aeon, essentially playing the "gentleman adventurer travels to another continent and 'discovers' things the natives have known for a thousand years" trope entirely straight. Which makes all the stuff with their leader's plot to restore the Russian monarchy and crown himself the new czar seem a bit superfluous. Like putting a hat on a hat.

Max Mercer is now officially and explicitly asexual, and despite falling in love with Michael Donighal, patronized his future arch-rival by preemptively breaking up with him "for his own good." I think this is as openly flawed as we've ever seen the Continuum's golden child and it puts an interesting wrinkle in a ship that I'd otherwise been lukewarm about.

Though, while we're on the subject, where does Maxwell's son, Michael Mercer, come from? I'm not sure I entirely approve of putting an unsolved mystery in a section of the book titled "Setting Secrets."

 And while I'm of the opinion that this book could have used more Strange Places, I'm largely happy with the ones we got. In the Trinity Continuum, the Bermuda Triangle is real!

Finally, I thought it was a really sweet gesture to have an in-character newspaper clipping revealing that real-world aviation pioneer "Queen Bess" Coleman (the first woman, first Black person, and first Native American to earn a pilot's license) did not die tragically young in this alternate universe and instead became a fearless action hero. Alt history doesn't have to be all world-shaking events. Sometimes it can just be a way of paying tribute to some of history's lesser-known badasses.

I guess it's time to wrap up. My final verdict on Trinity Continuum: Adventure!? It's a very fun rpg that sometimes feels like it treats its genre inspirations as an intellectual exercise. It's about a form of fiction that was essentially audacious trash, but it keeps its own audacity and trashiness firmly in check. On the other hand, almost every gaming group I've ever played with has had those qualities in excess, so it might just be a case of looking at an inert solution before the catalyst has been added. It seems likely to me that when players get ahold of this book, they will create better pulp than they would with almost any alternative (including the previous edition of the game). Let's call it an unreserved recommendation.

Ukss Contribution: This one is tricky because of all the stuff in this book, the idea that I would most want to add to an rpg setting is a noxious bit of real-world history - the cozy relationship between the US government and United Fruit, and the brutal unchecked imperialism that resulted from this partnership.

If United Fruit were fictional, invented entirely by an author as part of an anti-capitalist fantasy world, I would think it too outlandish to be believed. They're a fruit company that kills people so they can make slightly more money selling bananas? Ridiculous.

But I don't think I can put United Fruit in Ukss. Firstly, it's insensitive. I live in the country that originated this injustice and I very much benefit from the low price of bananas. Secondly, it's not something Trinity Continuum: Adventure! invented. And while I've used real-world things in the past, either because the supplement was historical or I admired the author's daring in choosing to use it (Sparta and Santa Claus, respectively), this book has plenty of amazing fictional things to pay tribute to.

For example - Ornithopter Hoplites, elite soldiers that wear bird-like wings to conduct surface raids for Baron Zargo, Tyrant of the Skies. I think the image of aerial warriors staying aloft with rapidly-beating mechanical wings is delightfully baroque.