What do you think?
Rate this book
John Carter of Mars: Adventures on the Dying World of Barsoom
Modiphius Entertainment presents John Carter of Mars: Adventures on the Dying World of Barsoom. A roleplaying game from the mind of Edgar Rice Burroughs that transports you to Barsoom, an arid, dying land of ancient civilizations and fearsome creatures. John Carter of Mars is a science-fantasy roleplaying game using a pulp-action inspired variant of the 2d20 System. A 288 page full color, landscape hardback book with everything you need to play the game and introduce new players to the world of Barsoom. Uses a pulp-action, narrative driven version of the 2d20 system with a character generation system designed to create diverse and unique heroes. Detailed narrator’s section with information on how to run genre and setting appropriate campaigns. Detailed information on the people, cultures, technology and secrets of Barsoom. Introductory adventure Mind Merchants of Mars to help you begin to explore John Carter of Mars and the world of Barsoom.
278 pages, Hardcover
Published March 1, 2019
4 people are currently reading
21 people want to read
About the author
Modiphius Entertainment
86 books12 followersWe publish roleplaying games, boardgames, miniatures, novels, cool accessories and more. Our aim is to inspire those who read, play or encounter our work with tales of heroism, adventure and courage.
As well as our own worlds Achtung! Cthulhu, Cohors Cthulhu and Dreams and Machines, Modiphius also publishes tabletop games based on other major licensed properties, Dune Adventures in the Imperium, Star Trek Adventures, The Elder Scrolls Skyrim and Call to Arms, Fallout the Roleplaying Game and Wasteland Warfare miniatures game, and many more.
As well as our own worlds Achtung! Cthulhu, Cohors Cthulhu and Dreams and Machines, Modiphius also publishes tabletop games based on other major licensed properties, Dune Adventures in the Imperium, Star Trek Adventures, The Elder Scrolls Skyrim and Call to Arms, Fallout the Roleplaying Game and Wasteland Warfare miniatures game, and many more.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
July 13, 2021
First of all, I should probably admit (ashamedly) that I have never read a John Carter book. My John Carter experience includes watching the movie once and reading the same comic twice (I thought I had the complete series so I started it again only to find out I was wrong). I do, however, have a lot of experience with ttrpgs. Before reading this, I had no exposure to Modiphius’ 2d20 system which this system uses, with some changes (I believe that’s what it said in the introduction).
Really what sold me on this book was the beautiful cover and the fact that it was formatted wider than it is tall. I was also interested in the system mechanics. The book is EXTREMELY detailed, as far as I can tell they didn’t miss anything and sometimes they repeated themselves. It was quite a shock after reading a couple “minimalist” systems like Mork Borg and Lightbringers. Over 100 pages were spent on the cultures, cities, religions, characters of Barsoom, about 25 pages spent on an introductory adventure and other adventure seeds and about 80 pages of game mechanics.
Overall, I thought the system was interesting but not mind blowing. I didn’t like that “talents” were described before the rules that the talents used were described. So a talent might say that it “reduced threat” but while reading it I had no idea how the threat mechanic worked. And on the threat mechanic, basically the DM has points, the players have points, the players can use points to make things easier by giving the DM points to make things more difficult later. It didn’t really sit well with me as a DM because it felt restrictive.
I was also disappointed that there were only 17 monsters included and most of them didn’t have pictures. I love having pictures of monsters to say, “You see something like this…” and also to help me conceptualize them. I guess maybe they plan(ned?) to put out a “monster manual” later with more monsters, or maybe they wanted to just stick with the monsters that were in the books.
The system really does seem setup for the swashbuckling, pulp style adventures and I also like the idea of “renown” where characters become more and more influential and respected over time and depending on their deeds. Also thought the using XP to get equipment was interesting.
One last thing that seems like it would ruin a big part of the game is that most Martians have a kind of telepathy that makes it hard for them to lie to each other successfully. I’m pretty sure that’s the first change I would make if I was going to run this.
Really what sold me on this book was the beautiful cover and the fact that it was formatted wider than it is tall. I was also interested in the system mechanics. The book is EXTREMELY detailed, as far as I can tell they didn’t miss anything and sometimes they repeated themselves. It was quite a shock after reading a couple “minimalist” systems like Mork Borg and Lightbringers. Over 100 pages were spent on the cultures, cities, religions, characters of Barsoom, about 25 pages spent on an introductory adventure and other adventure seeds and about 80 pages of game mechanics.
Overall, I thought the system was interesting but not mind blowing. I didn’t like that “talents” were described before the rules that the talents used were described. So a talent might say that it “reduced threat” but while reading it I had no idea how the threat mechanic worked. And on the threat mechanic, basically the DM has points, the players have points, the players can use points to make things easier by giving the DM points to make things more difficult later. It didn’t really sit well with me as a DM because it felt restrictive.
I was also disappointed that there were only 17 monsters included and most of them didn’t have pictures. I love having pictures of monsters to say, “You see something like this…” and also to help me conceptualize them. I guess maybe they plan(ned?) to put out a “monster manual” later with more monsters, or maybe they wanted to just stick with the monsters that were in the books.
The system really does seem setup for the swashbuckling, pulp style adventures and I also like the idea of “renown” where characters become more and more influential and respected over time and depending on their deeds. Also thought the using XP to get equipment was interesting.
One last thing that seems like it would ruin a big part of the game is that most Martians have a kind of telepathy that makes it hard for them to lie to each other successfully. I’m pretty sure that’s the first change I would make if I was going to run this.
Read
October 15, 2021On one hand, a perfectly capable RPG book for John Carter and Carter-style adventures on Mars, a dying world of fractured city-states and wandering desert hordes, with scheming priests, decadent ruins, and hidden cults.
On the other hand, who is this for? That is, Edgar Rice Burroughs's Barsoom books are so deeply woven into our adventure fiction that most attempts to recreate it (cf, the 2012 movie Andrew Stanton directed) can only elicit a shrug because, for one thing, we've seen it all before in the successors. Like, why do we need a whole new game for this?
Here's the things that interested me in this book and the negatives:
* the art is lush, but gets repetitive with people facing off dangerous monsters (possibly a result of the ecology of Barsoom being so messy and adventure-oriented -- you can't possibly take it seriously, but it's also sort of boring outside of one or two entries);
* the abstractness of the character traits -- so instead of strength, dexterity, etc., we get daring, cunning, empathy, might, passion, reason -- which is interesting, but kind of feels like the abstraction it is, so if someone tries to, say, shoot a gun (a dex action in most games), what do we end up using here?
* the offer of three different eras of Mars history to play in, though each is pretty short in its description
* the discussion about theme in Burroughs, the rationalist fantasy of it all, where evil isn't evil because it's a particular species (like D&D's orcs) but because that evil person is being selfish, short-sighted, etc., and that the heroes should be better because ethical action is good all around. (Reminding me of the time when John Carter explains why being nice to his Mars horse is good: because it makes the horse like him more and so be better in battle.)
If you have some players who are super interested in playing in something officially this world, with these characters and mysteries from the books, then this is the RPG for you, I guess? And if you're out there, please let me know -- I know you must be because this book was Kickstarted with over 2000 backers. But are you playing this game?
On the other hand, who is this for? That is, Edgar Rice Burroughs's Barsoom books are so deeply woven into our adventure fiction that most attempts to recreate it (cf, the 2012 movie Andrew Stanton directed) can only elicit a shrug because, for one thing, we've seen it all before in the successors. Like, why do we need a whole new game for this?
Here's the things that interested me in this book and the negatives:
* the art is lush, but gets repetitive with people facing off dangerous monsters (possibly a result of the ecology of Barsoom being so messy and adventure-oriented -- you can't possibly take it seriously, but it's also sort of boring outside of one or two entries);
* the abstractness of the character traits -- so instead of strength, dexterity, etc., we get daring, cunning, empathy, might, passion, reason -- which is interesting, but kind of feels like the abstraction it is, so if someone tries to, say, shoot a gun (a dex action in most games), what do we end up using here?
* the offer of three different eras of Mars history to play in, though each is pretty short in its description
* the discussion about theme in Burroughs, the rationalist fantasy of it all, where evil isn't evil because it's a particular species (like D&D's orcs) but because that evil person is being selfish, short-sighted, etc., and that the heroes should be better because ethical action is good all around. (Reminding me of the time when John Carter explains why being nice to his Mars horse is good: because it makes the horse like him more and so be better in battle.)
If you have some players who are super interested in playing in something officially this world, with these characters and mysteries from the books, then this is the RPG for you, I guess? And if you're out there, please let me know -- I know you must be because this book was Kickstarted with over 2000 backers. But are you playing this game?
November 24, 2020
Creo que no tengo que repetir lo que me gusta el personaje de John Carter, su mundo y la ficción relacionada o protagonizada por él. Es sin duda uno de los pilares del pulp, y la ciencia ficción en general, e incluso me permití una pequeña investigación genealógica sobre John y su relación con otro famoso Carter de la ficción pulp (en tres partes) hace ya unos cuantos años.
http://aventurasextraordinarias.blogs...
http://aventurasextraordinarias.blogs...
May 2, 2022
Simple and versatile system. A great vintage SF setting. Tons of adventure seeds. Beautiful and evocative graphics. And all from 1910’s tales. This RPG is absolutely amazing, and directly gets you to the beginnings of SF as we know today. The people at Modiphius did a great job to make the setting more inclusive, easy to play (it’s the best 2d20 iteration for me, so far), and visually appealing. Really an amazing job.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews