Saturday 31 January 2009

The Exceptional People's Coalition - Preview

Yes, another preview. These will eventually be expanded into coherent future posts, I promise! Today we look at a very early-stage idea I have in my head for a short campaign using my Blowing Stuff Up system. I'll go into how the concept fits the system in another post. Today I focus on the setting.


The Exceptional People's Coalition


The basic idea is similar to that of the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, where Alan Moore did his best to unify a huge chunk of pre-20th Century fiction into one canon. A large part of the appeal was in recognising the characters, even if they were tweaked to fit, and seeing how they related to each other. So what happens when we take that concept into present-day. Do all the novels of the 20th Century suddenly become real? No. Something much better.

Nearly every film or TV series you've seen set in our real post-war world actually happened. Failed theme parks are internationally reported events. A battered Vietnam veteran still wanders the jungles of Asia and people often mistake him for that former boxing champion. Coincidence? Oceanic Flight 815 mysteriously disappeared and conspiracy theorists may have draw the attention of a certain pair of FBI agents to the incident. However, they still have their hands full with the increasing number of cases involving the living dead and that one situation everyone seems so quick to deny.


I'm forcing myself not to expand that into pages and pages of material yet. As you can see there are a wealth of possibilities with this idea, but you have to draw the line somewhere or else you hit a few problems. Here's my official what's in and what's out of the EPC.


What's In?
- Our heroes could be John McClane, Jack Bauer, Jason Bourne, John Rambo
- Modern James Bond, the old one reverted to his birth-name John Mason
- Big Trouble in Little China, Harry Potter, anything where magic is secret
- The events of MIB, Back to the Future, Jurassic Park and The Terminator, undercover to different degrees
- Crank and Shoot'em Up are both common situations
- The A-Team, Starsky and Hutch and Michael Knight could all come out of retirement.
- Video-Game Movies are in, for the most part, if only for Raul Julia's M. Bison.

What's Out? - These films are assumed to have not happened... yet!
- World-Shattering Catastrophes such as Independence Day, Day After Tomorrow, Deep Impact, Cloverfield.
- Any "open" knowledge of aliens and the supernatural.
- Superheroes. They already have enough collective canons of their own.
- Anything before 1939 is identical to our world.


How can you help contribute? Well the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen unites their characters under the said league, each filling a different role. Who would fit each role in the 2009 Exceptional People's Coalition? Fill in the blanks!


Adventurer/Leader -
Scholar -
Engineer/Scientist -
Loner/Rogue -
Muscle/Monster - 

Look forward to hearing your suggestions!

1 comment:

  1. Adventurer/Leader - Jim Phelps from Mission Impossible
    Scholar -Rupert Giles from Buffy
    Engineer/Scientist -Doctor Elvin Lincoln from Misfits of science
    Loner/Rogue - Raven from Highlander
    Muscle/Monster - Eric Draven from The Crow

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