Observations And First Impressions Of The Warriors Of The Red Planet Rpg Retroclone System

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 Warriors of the Red Planet arrived today via the post office after I had gotten back from a repair job today and I unpacked and took photos. Well colour me impressed, the book and system are a reimagining of OD&D through the lens of a Barsoomian slant. There are lots of options here and add ons but its all pretty simply and nicely laid out. 

 The book clocks in at one hundred and thirty four pages of black and white beauty. This is a homage to the various science fantasy writers who immortalized  Mars but Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson as well. I see bits of Robert Ervin Howard, HP Lovecraft, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Fritz Leiber, Abraham Merritt, Micheal Moorcock, C.L. Moore, Leigh Beckett, and others here. 

 There are four basic character classes including Fighting Man, Scoundrels, Mentalists, And Scientists. These replace the Fighter, Theif, Cleric and Magic User From OD&D. Then there are the races Human, Exotic, Unliving, and Ancient. These Four are all a DM needs to flesh out many of the races and creatures from science fiction, science fantasy, pulp, or science romance novels 

 The lay out of the mentalist and scientists powers are easy to digest and well done. They roll very well into the background of the setting and are very useful for play. These were a pleasure to read. On Mars, 'Science!'  rules the day and its very pulpy and cool. The artwork is easy on the eye and a nice break from the Pathfindery stuff I've seen a ton of lately. 

 The layout and printing is nice on the eye and I was a bit worried as my older eyes can't always put up with the typed out fonts that we see in many old school products of yesteryear. While this game evokes the spirit of the products of the imagination this one is really nice to read as well. The system is a slimmed and trimmed OD&D varient that works. I like the combat and the saves, there are also a ton of tables for adventure design from wilderness to urban. That scores points with me right there. Great so far. 

 Love the scientists, every party is going to need one of these guys. And they're powers actually work and they can make stuff right off the bat as well. Nice and the mentalists are very polished and their powers match the design as well. Very cool stuff. 

 The more I read the more I'm convinced that this rpg could be used to run a Martian Dune style campaign or a Barsoomian Game of Thrones series of adventures, the system is streamlined and runs very well from what I'm seeing. 

 Combat is as lethal as any of the OD&D variants I've seen and this system makes the Barsoomian duels which grace the ERB novels actually doable in long haul games. Nicely done there. 

 Campaign design has lots and lots of add ons, details, tables, subsystems, and advise for handling a whole load of tools for making Mars your own. There's also lots of familiar faces in the monsters from the Banth, to the Green Men all of the usual suspects are here with a ton more who  might not be familiar to the casual science fantasy fan. 

 The monsters are laid out in a very familiar way to any OD&D DM and there is enough variety to keep a campaign going for quite a long time. These monsters are quite clever in places and adventures seem to write themselves as your imagination starts going into overdrive. 

We've got a ton of random tables for Martian adventure design, weird science generation tables  and an optional wizard class known as a Sorcerer of the Black Gate. An optional PC or  villain class that has bits of Moorcock and Howard as its base. Then we get a whole section on Martian air naval combat as well to round things out!
So this is a set of Beta rules? Really!?  Because this whole game makes me want to sit down, grab some players, some dice, give out a few rule books as gifts, and play the hell out of this game as complete campaign. This book can be used as an addition too or as a stand alone game. My bottom line on Warriors of The Red Planet? Why haven't you purchased this book and are not playing on your Mars. This book gives you the tool kit to get your own OSR Martian campaign going today! Was it worth the wait! Yes!