White Wolf has announced that Warren Ellis, the writer of The Authority, Planetary, and Transmetropolitan for DC's Vertigo line has signed on to write for White Wolf's pulp fiction role-playing game, Adventure, which will debut this summer.  Thanks to its popular Werewolf and Vampire games, White Wolf is the leading publisher of role-playing games based on horror fiction.  The Adventure RPG will attempt to extend White Wolf's reach into the diverse realm of pulp fiction, which includes heroes that range from Sam Spade to Jungle Jim.

 

White Wolf has not announced the exact nature of Ellis's contribution to the Adventure RPG, which is slated for an August release.  Adventure game developer Andrew Bates notes that the game will allow players to indulge in various kinds of scenarios within a single basic setting and format.  According to Bates, 'Adventure explores many different aspects of pulp, from hard-boiled noir to over-the-top adventure -- all within a single setting.  As a result, it appeals to a wider audience than past pulp games have. Fans of The Shadow, Indiana Jones,the Rocketeer, Planetary, even the Maltese Falcon, will find Adventure equally enjoyable.'

 

Certainly having the popular comic scribe Warren Ellis writing various supplements, scenarios, or modules should help White Wolf gain support and sales from comics fans.  Although CCGs still dominate game sales (see 'Top Ten Lists For January'), role-playing games have not gone away, and aggressive companies like White Wolf (horror) and Guardians of Order (anime) have been able to dominate important segments of the RPG market.  White Wolf has recently gained the potential to attract Dungeons and Dragons fans by gaining the rights to publish extensions of the Ravenloft campaign setting (see 'White Wolf To Publish Ravenloft')  Now if Adventure proves to be a success, White Wolf will have succeeded in considerably enlarging its niche into an area which is historically and thematically very close to heart of American pop culture.