Stonegiant
Level 5 Thaumaturgist
100% in Liar
Posts: 240
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Post by Stonegiant on Sept 29, 2007 23:27:01 GMT -6
I am in the process of rereading the ERB's Martian and Venus stories. I was thinking of course about the idea of using the OD&D rules for a Barsoom Campaign. My question to those of you more familiar with the stories is A.) What would you do for the classes? B.) What races would you allow for the PC's? C.) Is there any sort of "magic" or "psionics" in the stories or is it just "weird science"? (It has been 25 years since I read the stories) Your help is appreciated!
PS I have posted this at K&K's OD&D Homebrewed section to try and collect as many opinions as possible.
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Post by Falconer on Sept 29, 2007 23:59:55 GMT -6
My initial thought is that "Fighting Man" is the only kind of adventurer appropriate to this genre. Though there is an "Assassin" or two here and there. There is also the "Mastermind" but I'd say he's got to be an NPC. You can throw in a "Princess" class just for flavor, perhaps with Thief skills but just fine as a Fighting Man. Either way, make level titles for it and write it all out so it's appealing to female players, if applicable.
Most Human PCs would be Red Martians, probably with one Earthman thrown in depending on how you want to go about it. Yellow Martians, Black Martians, and especially White Martians would be mainly NPCs, though definitely allowable (particularly Black Martians) depending on how you want your campaign. The only non-human race I guess you would consider would be Green Martians, but again, only if it fits your idea of the game and/or a player has a good concept or whatever. Regards.
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Post by Finarvyn on Sept 30, 2007 5:14:56 GMT -6
I may move this into the Warriors of Mars section eventually just because it's Barsoom related. OD&D and Barsoom seem to be linked together from almost "day one" since the encounter tables in The Underworld and Wilderness Adventures mention Barsoomian critters and the short-lived Warriors of Mars is miniatures rules which are also very OD&D-like. If you haven't had a chance to look at the links in the WoM section, there are some great Barsoom on the Web sites where there are lots of places to go to find some good articles to read. |
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Post by doc on Nov 27, 2007 17:38:09 GMT -6
I'm actually running an OD&D game where the characters are in Barsoom right now! It isn't a "complete" Barsoom game as the characters are not Barsoomian, but from my own world, and they will likely leave the Red Planet as soon as they figure out how.
I actually posted some of their Barsoomian adventures on the ODDguild Yahoo group. The biggest problem I had was what to do with the difference in fighting styles. I wanted the combat to be different enough so that the players actually FELT like they were on a world they weren't familiar with, but still similar enough so that I wouldn't have to create an entirely new fighting system. I'm pretty happy with what I came up with.
That being said, I'm still hunting down a copy of Warriors of Mars!
Doc
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Post by Geiger on May 13, 2008 12:57:03 GMT -6
The biggest problem I had was what to do with the difference in fighting styles. I wanted the combat to be different enough so that the players actually FELT like they were on a world they weren't familiar with, but still similar enough so that I wouldn't have to create an entirely new fighting system. I'm pretty happy with what I came up with... Care to share? |
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