For months I've been following the Warriors Of The Red Planet blog posts across the blogsphere here and there. I love everything I read about the game book.So much so that the fiancee ordered the book from Lulu for my birthday! Big thank you honey! But what about the game system and background. The whole book is one big love letter to the major science fantasy authors who made Mars the home for their characters.
Even though this was a Beta edition, a ton of hard work went into it. The game system seems to be a variant on OD&D according to the Platemail forums:
"WotRP is OD&D reimagined with Sword & Planet content. So Imagine - the exact same rules (with some minor simplification and clarification) but all the flavor: classes, spells, creatures, treasures are replaced with Sword & Planet themed content.
It has a new system called Weird Science (which functions much like a unique form of magic), and it has a fast-playing ship-to-ship combat system inspired by, but not exactly like anything from OD&D."
Even though this was a Beta edition, a ton of hard work went into it. The game system seems to be a variant on OD&D according to the Platemail forums:
"WotRP is OD&D reimagined with Sword & Planet content. So Imagine - the exact same rules (with some minor simplification and clarification) but all the flavor: classes, spells, creatures, treasures are replaced with Sword & Planet themed content.
It has a new system called Weird Science (which functions much like a unique form of magic), and it has a fast-playing ship-to-ship combat system inspired by, but not exactly like anything from OD&D."
Grab It In Print
HERE
There are Four PC classes : Fighting Man, Scoundrel, Mentalist, and Scientist. As well the optional Sorcerer of the Black Gate ( a sort of Conan sword and sorcery homage with a good bit of Jack Vance thrown in).
There are also four races as well : Human, Exotic (natives roll once for color, once for distinguishing trait such as plant based, four armed, and more.)Unliving, Ancients, And Elevated (Uplifted beasts)
From what I've seen it looks like this can easily be run with Swords and Wizardry as the preferred OSR game engine or original Dungeons and Dragons. What really got me going on this one was the description on Lulu :
A roleplaying game in the tradition of classic 70's style RPG's also known as OSR. Warriors of the Red Planet captures the "Sword and Planet" genre of science fantasy romance, inspired by the works of Burroughs, Vance, Moorcock, Kline, Norman and others. This is a Beta edition. Which means it is a fine working RPG, but could still use some playtesting and editing to polish it.
I just picked this up myself and it IS awesome. I like the fact that it's not super specific to Burroughs' stories, too, but includes flavor to support the stories of Brackett and Moorcock, for example. He's truly done a great job.
ReplyDeleteI'm still waiting for my copy and I can't wait to rip into this one! I've already got notes and such set up for a continuation of a Mars campaign I started several months ago! Can't wait to see the book, all I keep hearing about the book is great things from everyone so I can't wait to get my copy! Thanks for the comments and I can't wait to see this one.
ReplyDeleteGot my copy a week or so ago, it is awesome!! Can't believe the price or that it is the Beta version.
ReplyDeleteI can't wait to get a hold of this game system for Mars from everything I've been told it should do everything I need it too. My copy should be coming Tuesday or Wednesday after doing a bit of package tracking this morning Bill.
ReplyDeleteI've got a ton of Mars material that I've been holding onto for a campaign setting revamp. So this is coming at a good time, thanks for the comment definitely more to come!
It certainly is a hard price to beat if you live where shipping from lulu is reasonable.
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