An interesting thread.
I for one will adopt the axiom; Your Barsoom May Vary.
I too am truly looking forward to solid yet simple airship rules and mechanics that lend themselves to the cinematic. The idea of air ships truly captured my imagination as a child. I could easily imagine sailing aboard one. As for their visuals…well…frankly, the movie analogs appeal to me far more than ERB’s literary imagery, but I plan to draw from both genres, use what I like and ignore the rest.
For example, my airships won’t be ERB’s glorified surf boards with propellors because even at age eight, as B52s flew low altitude training missions over my house, I felt prop-driven aircraft were rather silly in a world where brains could be transplanted, giant machines maintained the atmosphere, and radium bullets existed. They will have buoyancy tanks, however, because as stated above, crazy (threat-complication) cool stuff happens when they’re damaged.
Though it’s canon, my Tharks will NOT be able to shoot the center out of an ace of spades at three miles distance, nor will they be as tall and, frankly, goofy looking as the image ERB’s descriptions of Tars Tarkus conjured from my young mind.
My female adventurers will most decidedly NOT be the objectified ERB damsels-without-a-dress waiting for a John Carter to rescue them. They will be more like Lynn Collin’s depiction of Deja Thoris: confident and competent, sharply intelligent, independently ambitious, boldly adventurous and very [red] human.
I’m going to introduce new flora and fauna, exotic races and cultures, as well as different myths and legends that might draw a little on Herbert, working up a slightly more water-driven economy; a little on Bradbury, spinning legends of great plagues that wiped out whole martian cities that encountered the first Earthlings on Mars; or a little on Scot, introducing far older star-faring races that visited Barsoom and seeded it with the DNA which would eventually give rise to the Hordes and other multi-limbed predators.
The point is, my Barsoom is going to be slightly different than ERB’s, or the movie’s, or even Modiphius’s. Shrug…no problem because I believe the Modiphius game is robust and flexible enough for a whole spectrum: from fully traditional ERB-centric games with prop-driven buoyancy-tanked airships to Disney-esque movie imagery sporting solar-power and a unique 9thray application. I’m not going to demand it be one way or another, save only that it capture the feel of Carter’s Barsoom. If there are things in the game as published—pictured or described—that don’t match my vision, then so be it. I’ll take the best—according to my imagination—and leave the rest to others, wishing them luck as well as hours of enjoyable play.
Hail Barsoom, and hail Modiphius for a crackin’ game that can support both die-hard ERB traditionalists and sacrilegious GM’s like me who can’t leave well enough alone.
Cheers…and remember: YBMV ,
Sunwolfe
