Mail Room: John Carter of Mars

I picked John Carter of Mars up on sale over at the Modiphius site last holiday and it looks like a fun setting and game. The books are a treat adventure series, classic, fun, and well worth reading. The movie (that bombed) is another story, still fun, but I feel a lot about that story missed the mark about what made this series a great story instead of a VFX 3d action film spectacle. I feel this is a series that cries out for characters and interactions that build a story, and not a "whoa hey look at me, isn't this crazy" sort of stumble through it adventure serial.

And there are times I like a game because it isn't really mainstream or terribly popular, but extremely well done, which this one fits into nicely. I am less interested in the mainstream games these days, like D&D, just because I feel there isn't really that much to say or explore there with so many channels and outlets covering the game. I get enough of it and having missed the D&D 5 boat, I don't have much to say. I would rather read and play lesser known games than be in the mainstream and offer the same opinions already said many times before by others.

And since this game is smaller, it is way easier to collect than the absolutely massive sister game Conan, also from Modiphius. I may read that too, but this is a good start.

Also, there are three different settings in the John Carter game which correspond to the timeline established in the books, and the game itself defaults to a "post era" after the stories concluded. You have an option of playing in any, or starting at the end and making up your own future. I get the feeling this is sort of like the Star Wars trilogy and playing after or during the events of each movie, or choosing to forge a new future with your own conflicts after the end of the movies. If you opt for the latter, you will need to invent a new "big threat" for the game.

Either I would play a parallel campaign alongside the events of the books through the era, and have the game "cross paths" with Carter and friends as a sort of "adventure party" parallel reality, or set my game afterwards and write stories of 1880-1920 Earth inventing steampunk space travel and starting a war to colonize Mars, create strife between the alien factions, and generally mess everything up in paradise.

Eventually the war wakes up ancient space demons and all is lost...or maybe not!

More soon.