 August 2, 2016 - 2:08pm | Currently rereading Princess of Mars after downloading it from the Gutenberg Project on line. So some random thoughts: 1. Should this setting not be human centric? There are a lot of RPG sources available for PC creation: "A Soldier's Companion" from the Space 1889 rpg. It gives details on militaries from every nation on Earth from the 1880s which is more or less in line with the timeline of Princess of Mars. One might play a Belgian soldier of fortune posted to the Belgian Congo who under goes a similar/ death and transition to Mars as John Carter but "dies" in a ruined temple in the jungle. Or an Italian Bersagliere separated from his unit at the Battle of Adowa in Africa or at the Boxer Rebellion in China and under goes something similar in a cave or Chinese ruin. No doubt someone will want to play one of the green horde but with a game that could span from earth to Mars and back human centric seems a good way to go. Though no doubt you'd need to actually provide for green Martian PC's even while promoting human centric gaming. 2. Since the game can span from Earth to Mars and back provision should be made for Earth manufactured firearms of the period IMO. Gatling gun, repeating rifle, revolvers, muzzle loaders, shot guns, derringers etc. Maybe even cannon. And of course the radium rifles of Mars . Game balance: Earth human get such a huge boost in strength in this setting how do you balance that for the red men of Mars? More skill? Cultural advantages on Mars? I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
August 2, 2016 - 2:14pm | One side effect of being mindful of the possibility of the game taking place on Earth is that one might run a Peliculat campaign (Burroughs hollow earth setting with dinosaurs) or a Tarzan-esk game, or even a steampunk-esk game without it being a big deal. Even could run a Castle Frankenstein game. What to call it? ERB RPG, Burroughs Frontiers, Barsoom Frontiers, Adventure 1880s . I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
August 2, 2016 - 4:33pm | Item the 3rd: since sword play is such a huge heroic part of the setting there should be an option for cinematic type dueling . I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 August 3, 2016 - 6:10pm | I am pretty much in agreement with your assessment, I do have some Mars based resources. I have the Red Army done as they are getting... my skills on painting needs improvement, but then it has been years and one of the paint brands gave me issues (that brand is now in the garbage can)... I am starting the "Green" Army (Lizard men will stand in for them for right now) next. I will be play testing the old rules I have with hubby (who has agreed despite his dislike of using minis) so we can see how the large battle system works versus the heroic type dueling, I will need to jerry rig some flying ships for the air fleet rules test. I also have been delving through older rules of OD&D, Chainmail and Ancient Armies to figure out what should have been in the rules but got left out. I am thinking maybe "Warriors of the Planets" might be a good way to think of this game if I can get it expanded past ERB's Barsoom... I tracked down some of ERB's original Mars sketches and I think I know exactly where Exum is and which Mars maps he was looking at when he wrote his books. In addition I spent some extra research time on the ERB universe plus a few other authors writing similar stories in what amounts to the same setting and his worlds are connected, hell there is even time travel... I have some ideas, but first I got to play test the original rules so we can build on them. I wrote up some trial stat notes on a "new" creature from the Aelita book by Tolstoy, and I plan to do stats for each creature he mentioned in his book. The WoM system is very different than OD&D and not something that can be glossed easy. One thing the game lacks is points for the armies, how to figure out if armies are evenly matched... so I will have to figure that out based on Chainmail & Ancient Armies I think. "Never fire a laser at a mirror." |
August 3, 2016 - 6:39pm | Sounds like GASLIGHT, when it started: a level of play that was mass battle, a level of play that was skirmish, that was RPG and PC could be used on all level: treated as a hero figure at skirmish & mass battle level. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
August 4, 2016 - 9:31am | It is similar to Chainmail, which has a mass battle rules, heroic one on one rules, but WoM incorporated the idea of levels for PCs. It is someplace in development between Chainmail & OD&D with some very different concepts in mechanics, we are talking a very early TSR game, it may in fact be the first Barsoom/Mars game as well... TSR did not want to get into it with ERB estate so it only had 1 edition. In all likelihood it could have been made more generic, like they did with D&D after the Tolkien issues but that involved lawyers and it would not be the last legal problem for TSR. I have not played GASLIGHT. Interesting that it started with both types of rules like Chainmail. "Never fire a laser at a mirror." |
August 4, 2016 - 10:19am | GASLIGHT, Glorious Adventures in Science Loosely Involving Generally Historic Times, was three little books, one for each level of play. Then the produced a expansion that focused on the American Civil War then they produced a Pulp Adventures by GASLIGHT (Indiana Jones esk). Eventually the produced a rules compendium in hard cover which I grabbed at Histoticon but found it very confusing, much prefer the little books. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
August 4, 2016 - 6:06pm | Setting details: Quartz bearing rock- don't know if that has any significant implications geologically or not Yellow moss and no water in evidence- I would at this point hypothesize yellow moss adapted to lock up water and that the mounts used by the green men graze on this and get their water from this source naturally. The moss also covers most of Mars except the poles and cultivated Ares Solid glass used in egg enclosure is 4-5 inches thick, which is bullet proof! I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
August 4, 2016 - 8:53pm | Gaslight sounds like it is fun... sometimes the little books are easier to deal with than tomes, just an observation on RPGs in general. Yes I noticed the quartz thing too in ERBs, I am thinking it is significant... ERBs seems to indicate astral travel yet living in two bodies at once (the new one on Mars and the other in some sort of suspended animation/coma state else where). I was thinking that when the planets are properly aligned there is an ancient transportation system that gets activated by accident, probably psionically by the need of the adventurer, thus a person could literally be fighting a battle where one of these devices is buried on Earth and right at the point of death if they psionically activate the device it beams them to another world where & they get healed in the process thus they think they died but did not... (anyway that is how I am rationalizing it). There is also a device (carpet looking but not a carpet, based on the description not a carpet) that can transport people between worlds (found that is a book that predates ERBs) which is also activated by thought, several apergy spacecraft also appear in literature. ERB seemed to building on the idea that the Uranian Soul (put out there by an early astronomer) reincarnates (but not in the classic Hindu way but more like a transfer of the soul to a new body, some sort of vibrational level-spirit body thing) at the point of death on Mars in a human form, it's weird science alright. I think you are right on the yellow moss. Bullet proof glass, I forgot about that. Aelita has a stationary Cactus like plant that is cultivated but also attacks with it's limbs... this is very Barsoomian so I am thinking I should add that. I figured out that human children are bout 9 years old when they hatch on Mars. Also that means no Martian (Red or Green) should have belly buttons. The Red Martians use some form of hieroglyphs. The Helium ship is noted as being painted grey. Ray based Technology, 8th Ray is why the ships float, how the anti garv belts work, 9th ray has something to do with making the atmosphere... the ray thing is interesting and probably other rays do other things. I need to research what ERB was thinking on this. We started play testing WoM as is, and have already determined we will need to barrow some things from Chainmail... there are some movement and formation Qs that have been asked, tomorrow we are going to try adding in the ideas from Chainmail and possibly Ancient Armies. We are right now just working on the foot soldiers hacking it out and running about in mass... we will add in thrown/range weapons testing next. We are doing simultaneous play right now, in which we write down what we are going to do, share that at the same time than move all figurines. "Never fire a laser at a mirror." |
August 4, 2016 - 9:06pm | One thing to remember is technoogy can be different between city-states as almost all city-states are isolationists by nature, there is trade but not much exploring... so a city-state will know it's tech and probably about closest neighboring states and past that not too much. This means Mars suddenly becomes one big unknown world even to natives. "Never fire a laser at a mirror." |
August 15, 2016 - 5:57am | On the how to get to Mars question... 1) Space Ship of some sort 2) "Astral Projection" 3) Body Swap/Mind Swap 4) Alien Flying Carpet Device Making sense of the tech... A) a lot of it is psionically activated B) weird 9 Ray tech C) Crystals are involved though poorly discussed D) Concepts like Astral, Ether, Akashic Fields, and Force are real parts of this sort of science. E) Time Travel is possible (per other authors) I will be going through Urania, ERB seems to have read that. I also need to hit some older books he would have possibly based his "science" on. Urania has concepts we see reflected in the ERB stories. The concept of the Force is pre Star Wars in Urania and what I have read seems very much like what we see in ERBs writting... but that is from a quick look. I need to read read it. Below Martian philosophy from Gullivers (by an earlier author), it can be "let there be light" or an explanation of Force/Astral Life Projection as the prime mobile spreading out from one source. "....And from the midst of that natal splendour, behind
which was the Unknowable, the life came hitherward; from the midst of that
nucleus undescribed, undescribable, there issued presently the primeval sigh
that breathed the breath of life into all things. And that sigh
thrilled through the empty spaces of the illimitable: it breathed the breath of
promise over the frozen hills of the outside planets where the night-frost had
lasted without beginning: and the waters of ten thousand nameless oceans, girding
nameless planets, were stirred, trembling into their depth. It crossed
the illimitable spaces where the herding aerolites swirl forever through space
in the wake of careering world, and all their whistling wings answered to it.
It reverberated through the grey wastes of vacuity, and crossed the dark oceans
of the Outside, even to the black shores of the eternal night beyond." "Never fire a laser at a mirror." |
May 21, 2017 - 4:40pm | I wonder if I should try converting Barsoom Marsy stuff to a SF based system... hummmm. Might be interesting especially for adventuring, obviously this sort of game would be played probably outside of SF but SF is pretty sound system to convert to, just have to think how to do skills and it could work I think... I think it would be easier than some of my Mars Games I picked up... people could play test it... Maybe I will take a look at the major races and see what I think they would be in SF terms for starters. "Never fire a laser at a mirror." |
