With the White Star Rpg retroclone system getting so much press these days, another sci fi game echoes more of a lone Sword and Planet ethos in my mind. Warriors of The Red Planet emulates a rather diverse group of writers including Edgar Rice Burroughs but a huge number of writers of science fantasy. Everything about the game covers the works of Burroughs, Vance, Moorcock, Kline, Norman and others. And to tell you the truth, Mars for me has always been home to my science fantasy games.
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.
For me this game has all the makes of an excellent rpg system by itself but couple it with something like White Star and suddenly it becomes far more. There are a ton of comic books and whatnot that add a whole other dimension to the Mars setting and expand it into the interstellar void. White Star offers some very interesting options including the Star Knights, Alien Brutes, etc.
There is a ton that can be done to expand the scope of both games by adding in the space opera elements of White Star and since both games are based around OD&D this is a pretty solid and viable option. Because of the equipment, weapons, and scope of these games this is a solid and virtually well made marriage of genres. Easily done from across a number of islands of adventures. Just really a thought excercise at this point for me but one for those of who bought Warriors of The Red Planet a very viable option. There are a number of reasons why I would look into using the WoRP as a resource book. There are ton of encounter tables, decent ruins and dungeon generators, and lots more between the covers.
Personally at this point I've got a full blown Fantastic Heroes and Witchery campaign in full swing so this one isn't on the books right at the moment but maybe sometime down the road.
I'm not trying to delude the trade mark or copy right of either rpg property and this blog post is for entertainment purposes only
You're right Needles, WoRP would fit right in with WS, with minimal work.
ReplyDeleteOne thing I really like about WS is that aliens are presented as archetypes, instead of specific species, so they'll fit into just about any setting with no fuss.
-Ed
Yeah, I really love the idea of using the archtype of aliens but what can be done is to narrow down the traits of the archtype into a specific species as needed for other OSR system. Easy as pie really. Cheers.
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