From: Saunders Alan Subject: John Carter, Warlord of Mars Danny Holte wrote: >Subject: SPI Compendium - Con't >Here's the next 10, plus a few that rec'd little or no >comment last time (but might warrant it?) >John Carter, Warlord of Mars >Mark Herman Obviously rushed, rules full of holes, map fiddly to use. But what a brilliant game. Adventure across Edgar Rice Burroughs' Mars (or Barsoom as the natives know it). Each player takes on the role of one of the heroes of the stories attempting to rescue a princess from the clutches of an evil villain. Each player also takes on the role of the villain of the player to their left. The villains are doomed to lose to the all powerful heros; the question is can you delay the inevitable long enough for your hero to win first. The map consists of the two hemispheres of Barsoom allowing you to travel point to point between various cities. There is also a general display of a city to explore for when you arrive at one as well as a number of duelling displays (House, Street, Flier, Open and the magnificent Palace) for you to fight on once your explorations turn nasty. It was a novel SPI game for its day in that it ran off a D10 rather than a D6. The counters are very pretty - the races were coded by symbol and counter colour. Races of the same symbol could pass as each other using disguises. Different symbols meant that the numbers of arms or whatever were so radically different as to make impersonation impossible. This game really captures the favour of the original books (often imitated, never equalled, even by Burroughs himself) but never forces you down the same paths as them. Elements from all eleven are gleefully thrown together to create a magnificent whole. Movement around the planet is card based and event cards allow you to help or hinder other players as you see fit. There are problems with the game however. Heros are so powerful, and in the case of John Carter so loaded down with special bonuses, that they rarely lose any fights even against stupendous odds. However they get into a lot of fights so after a while it can get very dull having to throw warrior after warrior onto the hero's swordpoint with no real chance of achieving anything. The duels are fought on a graph paper grid - 1/10th inch squares with each 1/2" x 1/2" counter occupying 16 of them. This allows for very fine movement and maneuver, but the duelling system doesn't really allow you to take advantage of this. This is the only game I have ever clipped the counters for - large mobs of warriors don't fit on the grid otherwise. A few years ago I redrew the maps with 1/2" squares and modified the movement in the duelling rules to make the fights quicker and easier to run. Never got much chance to try them out though. The rules smack of not being fully playtested. There are a number of situations that occur that are either not covered of covered very sloppily. House rules take care of these but it would be nice not to have to come up with them. It's also a pity that the development costs didn't stretch to some artwork (apart from the box - the game is colourful and the maps and counter functional, but some pretty pictures wouldn't have gone amiss. There is a lovely guide to Barsoom though, with potted biographies of all of the characters and short pieces on wildlife, weapons, warfare and so on. Well worth the read. Overall I love this game. I rushed out and acquired one of the first four copies of it to reach Britain (via the old Dungeons and Starships in Birmingham) and was not disappointed. We actually wore the map out playing this game (another reason for redoing the duelling maps). It was only later as a more jaded adult that I realised how cobbled together the whole thing was in places. I still have a great affection for it and would love to get it out and play it again - alas, no space and no time. Any game with rules for the effects of unrequited love and a hero who gets to choose which body he starts the game in has got to be a winner .... Alan Saunders asaunders@dsl.uk.ibm.com From: dja1@iscp.bellcore.com (Dave Arlington) Subject: John Carter - Warlord of Mars stuff... Alan Poulter asked me to write up my John Carter solitaire rules for the Grognard's web page and I thought, "well, why not also write a review, write up the official errata" in addition to the solo rules. I hope the list doesn't mind if I send them here as well... here's teh review first, errata sometime on Monday, solo rules maybe tuesday. If you guys don't want to see it here, let me know. John Carter - Warlord of Mars Review John Carter - Warlord of Mars is an SPI game produced in 1979. Based on the series of adventure novels by Edgar Rich Burroughs, creator of Tarzan, this is a game that captures the high adventure and details of these early century pulp science fiction novels without sacrificing fun game play. In a time when TV shows like Hercules, Xena, Sinbad, Conan, and Tarzan himself are finding new popularity, this underrated gem of a game should be looked at again. The game includes a 28 page rulebook, 400 beautiful counters, 2 booklets of charts and tables, 168 cards of various types, and a 22" x 34" map with maps of Barsoomian Mars, a customizable typical Martian city, and various tactical maps where typical duelling action takes place, a house, a street, fliers, an arena, a palace, etc. Each player plays a hero from one of the Burroughs books and a villan to someone else's hero. This lets you indulge both your swashbuckling hero mode and dastardly villian mode as well. The villian kidnaps the hero's princess and then the hero must set out on a quest to foil the villain and win true love. The game is very adept at recreating the atmosphere of the books in the game play without being a slave to their plot lines. Some of the atmospheric touches include game rules on Love and Treachery and the players are not competing for such mundane things as victory points but instead the Glory of wiping out a heinous villain and the Love of his beautiful Princess. A typical turn consists of each player drawing one of 65 random event cards that can be played by either the hero or villain or both. Some are just immediate events. Then the hero will attempt to travel to the latest city where the villain is ensconced with his Princess. If he doesn't make it to the villain's city this turn, he faces either an outdoor encounter againt some of the terrible Beasts or Warriors of Mars or a city encounter. Some of these city encounters can result in the hero picking up a retinue of friends and helpers or maybe a beautiful female personage who will fall in love with him. Of course, these helpers can also betray you in a fit of jealousy so watch out! Once the hero reaches the villain's city, he skulks around digging up information, trying not to be discovered while he finds out where the villain is holding his princess or hiding out himself. If he gets found before rescuing his Princess or slaying the villain, he could be thrown into a battle inside the Arena, while the villain flees to set up in a new city. All combats are fought on tactical displays with a simple yet effective combat system. Some duels with Grand Masters or Masters of Arms are fought using a deck of cards in which the players take turns playing manuevers against each other and then comparing them on a matrix. I didn't feel these Master Swordsmen duels added that much to the game although the system of matching swordsmen of varying skills was well done. (A lesser swordsman has to play several moves in advance and cannot change them. A swordsman like John Carter can use his full range of manuevers every single round). I still like the plain ol' map combat better. :) Finally, the hero will corner the villain in his final city and the grand battle begins with the hero and any companions duelling their way through houses and palaces to hopefully slay the villain and all his henchmen (for Glory) and rescuing his one true Love (for Love!). There is a lot of flavor to the game, even in the rules themselves. (Characters may fight and move through non-combatant personages because "not even the most vilest caitiff would swing his sword at a woman while in battle".) Certain locations have certain flavor rules as do certain heroes, monsters and personages. You have invisible men, six armed Green Martians, atmosphere plants, living trees, headless bodies carrying bodyless heads, brain transplants and so on. The Random Event deck cards adds to the spice with sudden treachorous turn-arounds of formerly loyal friends and allies, fliers crashing into the Martian landscape and so on. If you enjoy one-dimensional pulpish adventure fiction as much as I do, try to find this game sometime. You won't regret it. Dave ---------------------- Dave Arlington Bell Communications Research ISCP AIN Development RRC 4A-365 908-699-4941 dja1@iscp.bellcore.com ----------------------