The Worlds of Edgar Rice Burroughs

[Twin Agate Dragons]

A Barsoom RPG would be awesome.

If you don't mind using or converting from True20, there is a fan project in the works.

[djd]

Big fan of ERB myself, both the Mars books and Tarzan. I think the Hollow Earth Expedition RPG has been one of the better systems for this genre - although far from perfect. Dark Continent RPG was good for Tarzan type adventures too.

[zozotroll]

Tarzan should not be that hard. After all it is just a gunpowder game with no magic or weird tech or anythiing. Mostly just a setting book.

And if you did it in Conan 2.0, you could use it for the Black kingdoms books that seem to not be on any release list.

[DB]

I for one would love supplements for ERB's Mars/Venus/Earth's Core stuff. I see two problems though, the Burroughs estate and Disney.

[spinwardpirate]

I agree. Now that Disney seems actively involved in making at least one John Carter movie, rights for a game would cost an arm and a leg.

[Bygoneyrs]

Yes the Barsoom game would be awesome, but Tarzan would be a little harder for scope of it. Not everyone wants to play a loner swinging from vines within a Jungle.

Penn

[Gravmonkey]

Barsoom, yes!

[Tal]

Or Mongoose could just publish a Kane of Old Mars book in their Michael Moorcock Eternal Champion series and not have to pay for an additional license, since Mr. Moorcock wrote the Kane books as an homage to Burroughs.

[PdO]

Or Mongoose could just publish a Kane of Old Mars book in their Michael Moorcock Eternal Champion series and not have to pay for an additional license, since Mr. Moorcock wrote the Kane books as an homage to Burroughs.

I really need to get my hands on that book! The first I heard of it was in The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen volume II.

[troy812]

Yes Yes!
The Mars books!
me want Mars RPG thiiiiiiiiiis much.

So what system? Would you go Runequest II, or Traveller, or something completely different?

[Princedarkstorm]

Perhaps with the upcoming movie it might spark people and gamers to see the world of Barsoom come alive in table top gaming!

[Pascalahad]

I'm currently reading the Barsoom books again, I've begun the sixth (Ulysses Paxton) this morning. Awesome read. Aren't at least the first three books in public domain now ?

That would make an awesome rpg if someone manages to capture the spirit of adventure contained in these novels. The downside could be that, if you want to fully respect what Burroughs wrote, the roleplaying may be somewhat limitated in places (all those heroes and heroines come more or less from the same mold).

More often than not, the books are great because each time we discover an unknown and strange part of Barsoom unheard of. Discovery plays a huge part of the appeal. It may be hard in this case to compete with Burroughs' imagination !

Unfortunately, the movie's teaser did nothing to me at first sight. John Carter doesn't seem that charismatic (I would have preferred James Purefoy, who is also in the movie, but as Kantos Kan !), Barsoom does not seem exotic enough, Dejah Thoris not that attractive that she can provoke wars because of that, and she doesn't seem to be happy with the sole "damsel in distress" role (has anybody seen a Barsoom girl wielding a sword before ?). Poor Tars Tarkas is now as tall as Sola and doesn't have his eyes in the right places... We'll see the final result, the one thing I'm happy with is that they didn't go with the "boom-boom" Brukheimer's kind of trailer. That gives me a little hope that it could turn good after all.

If only we had that 1931 Bob Clampett full-lenghth animated feature ! I just can't believe this story took one hundred years to be properly adapted... (I'm not counting this 2009 Asylum stuff)

[Elrick]

You can download a load of them free and legal here: http://www.feedbooks.com/author/23

The download link from that page gives you epub format books, but if you go into the pages for each book you can also get PDF or Kindle versions. For example: http://www.feedbooks.com/book/80/a-princess-of-mars

[Princedarkstorm]

Sweet! Thank you for the link !

[Pascalahad]

(has anybody seen a Barsoom girl wielding a sword before ?)

I quote myself just for punishment, because how could I forget Tavia from "A Fighting Man of Mars"? One of my favorites because it doesn't focus on a high-ranking character (well, even if at the end... I could have done without the last page, but I guess it's ok!)

Great link, Elrick, thanks!

[Princedarkstorm]

Thinking about that

[Wolfsbane]

Only thing disappointing about the girls from Barsoom is their oviparous nature, frankly I'm a fan of mammaries, and find the 'glow' of expectant mothers very attractive (and that's where the gals from Caspak get creepy) - I grew up near Tarzana and have collected many ERB books ... the biggest challenge I see for a Barsoom RPG is ... getting the players to follow the code of combat conduct, I never met a player who wouldn't reach for a bigger gun, or choose to beat a knife with a blaster if they could !

[Princedarkstorm]

That is very true .

[SnowDog]

Actually I have spent a little bit time thinking about this. If the system uses XP, then you don't get as much XP when using underhanded tactics as you would get using fair combat tactics.

[Finarvyn]

Actually I have spent a little bit time thinking about this. If the system uses XP, then you don't get as much XP when using underhanded tactics as you would get using fair combat tactics.

The old Gygax game WARRIORS OF MARS gave XP mostly to killing things and rescuing princesses.

I'm thinking that underhanded tactics would go against the Martian code of honor and maybe would result in negative XP.