Pythonic means simple, straightforward code, and not one-liners.
def runs(seq):
result = []
for s in seq:
if not result or s != result[-1][-1] + 1:
# Start a new run if we can't continue the previous one.
result.append([])
result[-1].append(s)
return result
print runs([1, 2, 3, 4, 8, 10, 11, 12, 17])