DOTAR SOJAT! John Carter of Mars RPG by Modiphius!

On Thursday my pledge for John Carter of Mars RPG arrived. Pretty exciting! I first wrote about this back in January 2018 when Modiphius announced this would be a thing. Since then those of us who are backers have watched this come together, seeing initial pdfs and pictures of miniatures. For me a good kickstarter maintains excitement for the product even after the kickstarter is complete. Modiphius has done a pretty good job with this with Conan and continues this with John Carter(JCoM), being plugged into the community and sending regular updates.

I did not get an all in pledge, but I did get what I thought was a pretty good approximation of that, DOTAR SOJAT, gave me all the books, miniatures, dice etc. Pretty much everything. Basically I got everything except for the fancy leather bound versions of the book, notebook and the dice bag; nice to haves, but not necessities.

This is the first of two shipments for my pledge. As you can see on the right, the expected delivery was July 2018, and it is now Feb 2019. The pledge fulfillment is late, but it's not several years late, certainly well within my expectations on hitting delivery date targets. The second shipment is supposed to ship late 2019, but mid 2020 would be more likely in my experience. Only time will tell! I also ordered a set of the airship tiles so I could play with miniatures but use less crafted terrain, and well.....Airships....

I am almost sure most of you are here to look at pictures and hear my thoughts on the physical products. To that end I took a lot of pictures and have spent some time with the physical products, although I have not assembled the miniatures.

	The Packaging. We will start with what I see when I open the box. Lots of packaging, not as cool as what I got with Monolith's Claustrophobia, but it appears sufficient to get the product shipped to my door in one piece, after looking through it all, I would say it was successful.
In the Box. After removing the air packs we can see all of the goodies a little more clearly. Well the dice and miniatures anyhow, there is so many of these the books remain unseen, hidden, below the horde of Barsoom!
	Dice. Lots and lots of dice. 15 d20s and 18 combat dice that will assuredly be pressed into service for Conan as well! The dice are clean and easy to read with the combat dice eliminating having numbers on them as well to clarify what is damage and what is not. I approve. D6s are the most common dice out there, we really don't need to press our special dice into service to roll as a d6.
Blister Packs. The resin miniatures are all packed in sealed blister packs. A few are in blister packs that are not sealed, but they were secure for me and had not popped open in transit. Inside the figures are all in small ziploc bags preventing them from moving around freely within the blister.
	Miniatures. Resin figures are a little new to me so I wanted to check them out when I got them. The casts look nice, although there is a little flashing. I think I might actually prefer big obvious flashing like this to a tiny small occasional amount I generally miss till I am painting. The material is grey and has a little flex in it, not something like Bones, but not rigid either. They will look bad ass painted.
White Ape. Another shot of one of the miniatures showing the detail of the figures.
	Notebook. Next up are a few photos from the notebook. It has a great cover, elastic closure and integrated cloth bookmark. It's actually pretty similar in size and function to what I currently use. It does have a few JCoM specific pages though.
Notebook Cont. A shot of the interior of the book showing it's integrated character sheet.
	Notebook Cont. My quick look showed most of the other pages to be blank lined pages with a few grid pages in there as well.
Toolkit A shot of the interior of the book showing it's integrated character sheet.
	Toolkit Cont. The Conan Toolkit was a great resource and I expect nothing less from this, although I've not had time to go over it in detail..
Screen Second half of the toolkit package. I am not a big user of screens, but this one looks like a great selection of reference materials, that I of course didn't take a photo of.
	Slipcase A lovely, robust, slipcase to hold the core book and the campign book with your more conventionally formatted books.
Clipcase cont. The two books inside the slipcase.
	Core Book Quick shot inside the core book. The pages in these books feel thinner and more glossy than what we see in the Conan books. Hopefully that doesn't translate into page tears in the future.
Campaign Book Easily my favorite of the two covers. Love it.
	Campaign Book Interior shot of some of the bad guys. I would have preferred cool art for these, but I don't hate the miniature images either.
Campaign Book Double interior cover map of Barsoom. Pretty cool interior art.
	Ship Tiles I wasn't sure what to expect here. I have heard the Star Trek tiles are scaled a little small, and I didn't get any of the Conan tiles. In the end size and art wise these turned out pretty excellent.
Ship Tile Warpage The only down side is once removed from their shrink wrap they immediately took a slight warp. I live in a dry climate and it's the middle of winter and a cold snap. Slightly dissapointing, but I doubt it will be a long term issue.

Overall it is a cool set of books and accessories from a loved and formative work of Sci-fi. The format isn't even as bad as many people, myself included, feared. As I mentioned above I do have a few concerns, but overall the books and such look excellent and well put together.

It is something I will love having on my shelf and enjoy playing. Who doesn't want to play some good old fashioned sci-fi set on the old ideas of what Mars might have been?

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Adventure Wednesday: The d6 Outpost

On the far reaches of the kingdom sits a small fort. Its only purpose is to guard the border and warn of approaching threats from the west. The land is desolate and the soldiers stationed here rely on supplies from the nearest city, some two days hard ride away. This place is isolated and those unlucky enough to be here spend day after day looking out at nothing......

Welcome to Adventure Wednesday! Last week we started Story Seed Tuesday. I decided I should move this to Wednesdays so I could have my efforts to create weekly content more spread out across the week. This is our first Wednesday installment and I already though I would do something a little different. If you like this idea, I will see about including some roll tables with future adventure ideas. As we go forward the blog will end up with a good store house of adventure roll tables to go along with the monsters of Friday's Forgotten Fiends!

Stories about an isolated outpost or ship are common place and work equally well for sci-fi and fantasy. Players can either be stationed there when things start to go wrong, or they could be responding to word of something bad, perhaps the last supply train never returned?

Today I am going to provide a few roll tables that will allow you as the GM to generate a quick plot you can use to build an adventure around. The tables are setting agnostic and should work as well for D&D 5e as they do for The upcoming Expanse RPG by Green Ronin Games.

Step 1: Roll for the outpost type.

1d6 Roll	Result	Goods, Cost Modifier Number of goods
1 2 3 4 5 6	Guardpost Gateway Place of Study Isolated Community Trade Outpost Religious Order	-2, +20%, 3 0, +10%, 2 +2, +10%, 2 0, +20%, 1 0, +10%, 4 0, +20%, 2

Step 2: Make a number of rolls equal to the "Number of Goods" rolled in Step 1. Modify these rolls by the "Goods Modifier".

1d6 Roll + Goods Modifier	Result
1 2 3 4 5 6	Weapons Armor Food Lodging Basic Goods Lore about the Area

Step 3: Determine the environment the outpost exists in. Make sure to note if this is a fantasy or a sci-fi outpost.

1d6 Roll	Location
1 2 3 4 5 6	Edge of Kingdom/Deep Space Rocky Area/Asteroids Coast Line/Gas Giant Forests/Rocky Moon Deserts/Lagrange Station Mountains/Class M Planet

Step 4: Determine a basic plot

1d6 Roll	Location
1 2 3 4 5 6	Attacked by Enemy Faction (Military, pirates, etc) Attacked by Natural Enemy (Wild animals, alien organisms) Natural Catastrophic Event (Earthquakes, asteroid strikes) Plague (Disease outbreak, Zombies, Mutations) Betrayal (Higher up at outpost has sold it out) Outpost has been taken over in secret (Enemies unknown to the players now control the outpost)

Step 5: How are the players involved?

1d6 Roll	Location
1 2 3 4 5 6	Relief Effort Stationed at Outpost Sent to Investigate Escort to or From Outpost Evacuation of Outpost Rescue Mission Infiltration

Now that we have a few fun tables to roll on, let's generate a few story ideas!

Setting	Type	Goods	Location	What is happening?	How are the characters involved?
Fantasy	Trade Outpost	+20% cost Weapons, Armor, Lodging, Basic Goods	Edge of the Kingdom	Natural catastrophic event.	Sent to Investigate the cause of the event
Sci-Fi	Religious Order	+0% cost Basic Goods, Lore about the Area	Asteroid Base	Attacked by a natural enemy	Evacuation
Fantasy	Religious Order	+0% cost Weapons, Food	Mountains	Attacked by an enemy faction	Members of the order, or hire as guards
Sci-fi	Gateway	+10% cost Lodging, Lore about Area	Lagrange station	Attacked by an enemy faction	Rescue Mission

There you have it. Four super quick story idea seeds and a set of table to generate a lot more all revolving around an isolated outpost.

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Conan 2d20 - Quick, cheap and easy Combat dice!

If you are familiar with Conan 2d20 either through playing or reading about the system, one thing that stands out is it's damage system. Instead of weapons doing 1d6, 2d8, 1d10 or other combination it uses a number of combat dice to determine the damage and effectiveness of the weapon. These dice are nothing more than a fancy 1d6, and you can easily use a regular d6 to get the result.

Modiphius does however make custom combat dice, and I have found they can make a difference. They sell these in a players dice set that will run you about $30cad and comes with 4 of these combat dice, 2d20 and a hit location die. Four combat dice is probably not going to be enough for most players, especially ones with high brawn. As mentioned above we can simply replace the missing dice with d6s.

We do have another option. You can buy a set of inexpensive blank dice from Aliexpress or Amazon. I prefer the sets from Aliexpress, simply because I get more bang for my buck, even if shipping is a little slow. This is a link to a set of 20 16mm blank dice for about $5US, with shipping included! The size of these are the same as the combat dice, but have a slightly different shape, mirroring the dice you might find in Monolith's Conan boardgame.



Using a regular fine point sharpie we can simply write on the values we want, following the patterns laid out by the combat dice. It is important to note that when you write on the dice, the ink from the shaprie will take a little time to dry. I have found it to be fine after about 10 seconds. Once dry it is a fairly robust addition to the die and can't be wiped off. I am sure after some use it will begin to wear out.


One of the happy parts of these dice is a little acetone will clean the ink right off the dice face without damaging the face. Over the course of the last couple of days I have been experimenting and have cleaned the sharpie from the dice multiple times with no issues. This is a super quick way to make a multitude of combat dice at your table.

Why Pulp Fiction?

Escapism is all around us. Today society has myriad forms of entertainment ranging from the written word to the moving picture. We live in a world that has made all of this entertainment and escapism accessible to the masses.

Stories have always been important to us. Since the dawn of man we have found ways to record our exploits and our heroics, but until the modern era these stories were told by word of mouth or perhaps through expensive reproductions laboriously copied by hand on vellum.

Paper, in the Western world at least, wasn’t really needed until the invention of the printing press in 1450. Suddenly we had the ability to mass produce books, but we still lived in a labor intensive society. We still didn’t have time to sit down and consume entertainment like we do now.

Listen to me talk, I complain about not having enough time to do half the things I want to do. In reality though I could make much better use of my down time. In the middle ages and renaissance, living and working by sunlight or lanterns, I simply would not have. I wouldn’t have the luxury I have now.

Enter the Industrial Revolution. Automation of processes brings workers time and an increase in the standard of life. It gives them, for the first time, the ability to have a sustained ability to consume entertainment. Although I am not going to discuss, or hypothesize as to why, we also see a dramatic increase in literacy. (Devon Lemire, 2012)

Now we have paper, the ability to produce the written word and an audience. What becomes of this? If we type “Penny Dreadful” into google we largely get hits from a TV show called “Penny Dreadful”. This TV show about the weird and dark side of Victorian London takes its name from the widely available cheap literature of the day. These magazines, known as a Penny Dreadful specialized in sensational stories and offered the working class a way to get the written entertainment without having to buy the more expensive novels. You should check out this article for a more in depth look at the Penny Dreadful.

In 1900s United States we see the rise of the pulp magazine. These magazines are the direct successors to the serialized cheap publications that came to be known “Penny Dreadfuls”. The collective name for those publications is a combination of the content and the price, the pulp magazine takes its name from the paper used, which has become synonymous with how the content is generally viewed; cheap, tawdry and of no value.

From the introduction of these magazines in the early 1900s to their demise in the 1950s, a wealth of these magazines were produced, and because of this need for content many people tried their hand at writing. Some created iconic characters that have lasted to this day; Conan, Tarzan, Doc Savage, The Shadow.

In the 1950s rising costs and increased competition from books with higher production quality, television and comic books saw this boom in pulp literary entertainment begin to wane and the majority of the pulp magazine companies going out of business. I found a graph stating that in 1950, 9% of US households had television, and in 1955 it had rise to 64%, by 1965 92% of households had television (Understanding Media and Culture: An Introduction to Mass Communication). I am sure it’s now close to 100% and although reading is still popular among some, I am sure we all know someone who just doesn't read anymore.

Pulp magazines are often looked down on. Their authors are not held up like “true” authors. They are not typically views as literary masters, or authors that made a contribution. I am not here to tell you that everyone who wrote in a pulp magazine was an expert wordsmith, but to wipe our hands of every author because they were commercial authors being published in the pulps is a disservice to literature. I would argue that these authors writing in the early 1900s have had a significant effect on our culture, as great as any of the large names. They have created ideas and characters that have become our modern heroes, or the basis for them. Who’s work reached a larger audience: Hemingway or Howard, Lovecraft or Lawrence, Steinbeck or Smith?

These magazines defined a large portion of entertainment for the working class for the first half of the 20th century. They were a large part of culture during that time and to ignore their influence on it is folly. The authors of those magazines certainly wrote to get published but that doesn’t make them less. This does not mean that there is not depth in their stories.

FG extension going forward

With a more or less working version, meaning I have a working PC and NPC sheet, I look to places where things can be better.

The combat tracker is the obvious one, it can be a powerful tool within FG to track an encounter, but I think it might be better to update it once we have a look at the full core book.  

One of the things I think that is needed is an additional momentum track.  ie one that stores current generated momentum, and that once a turn is complete can be transferred to the stored track.

To facilitate this I would ALSO like to make it easier to see momentum generated.  And for that I am looking at implementing task difficulty for the PC.  This will probably be implemented as a numberfield and perhaps a group of buttons.  Ideally it will be a numeric entry on the Combat Tracker. 

If we know the difficulty we can roll and determine success/failure as well as how much momentum was generated, which can then be transferred to the character sheet.

Anyhow that's all for now!

John Carter Fantasy Grounds Extension

I am posting what I am calling v.9 of the extension for people to have a look at and play with a little.

There are some things that need to be done to make it really slick, but it should be functional for the quickstart.

As this is a MoreCore extension you will need that ruleset as well.

The link here should allow you to download it.

John Carter Extension

There are a few static height anchor issues but that shouldn't affect anything functional.

I will try and get a demo up via livestream in the next day or so. Finally, the only thing the CT will really be good for right now is to see who is in combat, none of the JC fields are linked.

John Carter Fantasy Grounds Extension v.99, a quick tour.

On the last to do list we have the following items:

• Stress boxes
• Spend button for Luck
• Chat messages for momentum and luck spends
• Finish adding in the stat rollers
• Resolve the static anchor issues

After a little more work I can label all of those as completed, except for the last item. There is still some work to be handled with the momentum pools, but for all intents and purposes that are functional.

With that information completed I wanted to take a quick tour of the sheet, and I hope to do a live feed demonstrating it soon.

I wanted to make a quick note that I got an e-mail last night saying 3.3.4 of FG was released. I have yet to install this and I also need to update my verion of MORECORE. This could introduce new errors to the extension, but I can not confirm or deny that at this time.

Initial version of sheet with chat window showing some basic rolls and momentum spends.

Togglable stress & affliction buttons, as well max stress levels which control the useable stress boxes.  Stress on these maxes at 16, but another 4 could be added.

Momentum and luck, momentum can be on, off, selected or disabled.  All selected momentum is spent when the spend button is double clicked.  Luck can only present or not.  I need to cut this back to 5 max as well and change the graphic.  Double clicking on the spend button spends a single point.

Dice selector, defaults to 2.  They can be toggled on and off to set number of d20s to roll

Basic list allowing for talent entries with reference buttons to the descriptions.

Character inventory window showing a shortened list of the inventory from the inventory page.

Weapons list.  Taken from the Conan extension, will probably need some more work for the final JC rules, but functional for the quick start

If you have any feedback or comments, please drop me a note and let me know, I would love to hear your ideas and thoughts on this project!

FOR HELIUM!

JC: FG Extension Update.

As expected I managed to get sometime to work on the project over the weekend. I sadly squandered some of my Saturday in Age of Conan, and although I didn't stream the session I did managed to escape Tortage and begin my quest into the main world.

Even having squandered that time I managed to get a fair it done.

Completed

• Finish inventory list.
  • Completed the core inventory list on the main screen, pulls from same source as the MORECORE inventory tab.
• Add talent list.
  • Completed a working list that ties to the talents tab of the MORECORE sheet.
• Add weapons list.
  • Completed the Weapons list using the 2d20 weapons class, rollable, may need a couple of tweaks, but essentially functional.
• Create graphics for Momentum, Threat and Luck.
  • Created momentum tokens, Luck tokens and threat tokens. Will re-design the luck tokens in the future.
• Create momentum, luck and threat counters as well as spends.
  • Added selectable tokens for luck and momentum.
  • Momentum can be On, Off, Selected or disabled.
  • Momentum can be spent by double clicking the spend button.

To Do

• Stress boxes
• Spend button for Luck
• Chat messages for momentum and luck spends
• Finish adding in the stat rollers and resolve the static anchor issues

Latest version of the Character sheet showing Inventory, Talents, weapons, Momentum and Luck.

Further updates and a screenshot on the JC: FG extension.

Yesterday I gave a quick overview of the extension I am working on. I laid out a few things I felt I needed to complete. Here they are again in review so we can see what I have accomplished in the last day or so.

TO DO

• Finish inventory list.
• Add talent list.
• Add weapons list.
• Create graphics for Momentum, Threat and Luck.
• Create momentum, luck and threat counters as well as spends.

And some new additions

• Stress boxes

1. Add Weapon list -- Complete

• I added the frame and pulled the weapon class and reference window from the Conan ruleset and renamed it to "2d20_weapon"
• Copied over the "strings" document as the weapons entry window relies on it for labels.

2. Add Talents Frame -- In Progress

• I have added the frame to hold the list, but not the list itself

3. Luck, Momentum and Threat Counters -- In Progress

• Not much progress here, but I added frames for notes and flaws, so I know where I can place the counters.

4. Misc Bug fix -- In Progress

• I noted today I had created a control to hold the number of dice being rolled as a stringfield and not a numberfield so it was throwing a type mismatch.

That is it for actual updates, but in the end I have worked on it for not much more than an hour since the last update, either way, here is a screenshot of the current character sheet


New version of the Character sheet showing addition of d20 selectors, weapons lists and various new frames.

FG: John Carter Update & New Channel Video

I got a little more time to work on the JC: Adventures on a Dying World Fantasy Grounds extension. Currently working towards a functional quickstart setup.

Over the past few days I got the lists working for inventory and a set of 5 d20s that can be clicked on and off to determine the number you are going to roll. The dice graphics are the "Helium" d20s from the kickstart page. At present it is a column of 5 dice. 2 highlighted at all times and 3 greyed out that can be toggled on and off. Once the roll is completed it returns the 3 optional dice to their greyed out state.

I need to add a list for the weapons, which I will most likely pull from the Conan system as I am fairly happy with that and add a list for the Talents area. Finally I need to incorporate momentum/threat spends and graphics. It would also be nice to get the custom damage dice operational, which will be another pull from the Conan extension.

So that list looks like this:

TO DO

• Finish inventory list.
• Add talent list.
• Add weapons list.
• Create graphics for Momentum, Threat and Luck.
• Create momentum, luck and threat counters as well as spends.

In other news I have almost finished the next crafting video for the channel, which will have a slightly new format, which I hope people enjoy.

FOR HELIUM! A John Carter 2d20 adventure.

The air was still as the graceful airship slid over the horizon and slowed over the moss covered plains of Barsoom. The ship wasn’t as massive as one of the ships of war, only a small scout vessel, but it stlll proudly flew the colors of Helium. In moments, it settled softly on the ground and two of the Red Men of Helium emerged.

Standing on the plains of Barsoom the two scouts of Helium looked around nervously. They were waiting for a party of green men to rendezvous with them and they knew dealings with these savages could be deadly. However, the knowledge they had of places the Red Men did not go made the danger acceptable to Hor Zak.

Hor Zak, was commander of the scout mission and knew the knowledge of the Green Men could be had, for a price. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity they saw three of the Green Men approaching lazily on their thoats. The mounts and their riders steadily grew larger, as the scouts waited, until the scale of both the Green Men and thoats was impressive.

Finally reigning in beside the two Red Men, they dismounted. Their leader, towering over the scouts, came forward and offering the customary greeting said, ”Hor Zak. “

The scout nodded and returned the customary greeting, “Hortan Gur.”, and then turned to his companion, “Larok! Bring up the chest!”

“Yes, my Dwar!” was the man’s reply as he disappeared for a moment and brought back a small chest full of ornaments of gold and silver from their small ship.

The eyes of all three Green Men turned to look upon the ornaments, and after a brief discussion nodded to each other. The other two loaded the chest, mounted their thoats and waited for their leader to join them. Hortan Gur spoke, “This will do nicely Hor Zak, here is the map we spoke of at our last meeting. Know that my people will not take kindly to intrusion. Until we have further business. “

With the words spoken Hortan Gur, Green Man of Artol mounted his thoat, and his small party returned the way they came.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Some time Later ~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You stand among your fellow brothers in arms in a vast auditorium deep within the walls of Helium. At the front of the hall stands the beautiful Deja Thoris, Princess of Helium. Her voice sounds clear and true, nearly musical, as she addresses the assembled throng, “Warriors of Helium! I seek volunteers to go to Artol in search of lost knowledge from the old civilizations. A work that could change Barsoom forever! “

Her words echo across the auditorium as a murmur passes over the assembled.

Her words continue, “I will not tell you it will be easy or that the way will not be perilous. The Green Men of Artol will not take kindly to our intrusion, and where they are not, there will almost certainly be the Great White Apes. Who among you will step forward and face the wilds of Barsoom? Who among you will sacrifice for your Princess? FOR BARSOOM!?”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Game Details ~~~~~~~~~~~~~

If you are interested in playing, drop me a line. The current day is February 7th @ 6pm MST! Looking to stream via youtube!

Running on Fantasy Grounds and Discord with pre-generated soldiers of Helium.

John Carter of Mars: FG Extension

I've spent a little more time on the extension for John Carter of Mars. Now that we have the quick start and a basic feel for the rules I have begin adding die rollers and damage trackers into the extension. The image below shows the current iteration of the character sheet.

I need to re-work the frame graphics a little, as well as the title, but those don't really change functionality so I am concentrating on getting equipment and talents operational, as well as a dice selector so you can choose bonus dice when rolling checks.

As you can see I have die rollers added to the attributes column for cunning, and will add these to the remaining rows in the coming days.

There are a few automation things to work on as well, but they are nice to haves and some still need to be implemented on the Conan extensions as well.

If you have comments please drop them below, I would love to hear your feedback.

Quickly! To Barsoom!

Today Modiphius released the quickstart rules for John Carter. We get our first taste of the system.

I wanted to jot down what I see as the major differences between Conan 2d20,as I am most familiar with this system, and the mechanics in the John Carter game.

Dice
The system is the same as Conan in this.
2d20+up to 3 bonus d20s
combat dice are calculated the same, 1,2,0,0,effect,effect.

Accomplishing Tasks
The Same
Roll 2d20, buy up to 3 extras.
Roll vs 2 numbers, get under the TN = 1 success, get under the lower value = 2 successes
Opposed tests work the same. Each side rolls, if both succeed, the side with the most momentum wins.
The Differences
Skills vs attributes
Conan uses Attributes+Skills. Skills have an Expertise and a focus and these plus the attribute provide the TN and Focus to roll against. Example: Melee attack: Agility=9, Melee Ex=4, Fc=4. Melee TN=13, Fc4.
John Carter uses attributes. Each test utilizes two of the attributes. Daring+Might for example. The sum of these is the TN and the lowest of these is the target to gain a second success. Example. Daring=5, Might=6. Daring+Might test: TN=11, FC=5

Momentum, etc.
The Same
You gain one momentum for every point above your target difficulty. Task is Difficulty 2, roll 3 successes, momentum = 1
You lose one momentum at the end of each scene
You can spend momentum for various effects
The Differences
No group pool. Players are allowed to save momentum past their turn, but it is stored in a momentum pool with a maximum equal to the players lowest attribute. Players may contribute to another players momentum pool, but it can't exceed it's maximum. Doom becomes Threat
Fortune becomes Luck

Zones
The Same
The world is broken into zone vs measuring squares. Distances are therefore abstractions.
The Differences
New names for the zones
Immediate - Within arms length. (Melee)
Near - not next to, but easily reachable. (Same zone)
Away - areas apart from others either due to distance or obstacles. (Adjacent zone)
Far - Visible range (2 zones over)
Too Far - Out of visible range, beyond the ability to engage without special tech.

Action Phases
The Same
Broken into rounds and turns. Each round is composed of player turns.
Players go first in initiative. GM can interrupt for the cost of 1 threat.
The Differences
Phases are simplified. Movement, Conflict, spoken.
Movement allows moving to any point within away. Moving further costs a momentum..
Conflict actions. Generally things that require tests.
Spoken actions. Simple quips and spoken commands.
Free actions. Not listed in the quickstart, but references are made to it.

Damage
The Same
Essentially broken into stress and harm. Harms are renamed as afflictions.
Having an affliction causes a penalty on the appropriate stat.
Reducing stress to 0 = 1 affliction.
Causing 5+ points of stress in a single attack = 1 affliction.
The Differences
One additional damage category. Confusion. It's Affliction is called "Madness"
When characters take damage they look at the two attributes used in their defend reaction and choose which stress track to take the damage on. Ex. A character parries with "Cunning" and "Daring", this brings the "Confusion" and "Injury" stress tracks into play and either can take the damage.
Blacking out instead of death at 5 wounds.
Optional note that an affliction can be caused at EACH 5 stress if the GM desires

What other differences have you noticed in the rules between the various 2d20 systems and this "lite" offering? Drop me a comment below and let me know!

John Carter FG Extension Update.

Although I have no screen shots I wanted to drop a quick update on progress. I spent part of last night working on templates to allow the construction of the attribute columns for the John Carter Character sheet. I showed the initial beginnings of the character sheet on a livestream last night.

I have about half of the "plus attributes" on the sheet, but need to make a modification on the code that does the calculations. Right now changing Cunning updates all of the "Cunning+Daring", "Cunning+Might", etc attributes, but does not update those plus attributes associated with the other main attributes. ie changing cunning does not update "Daring+Cunning".

It is a good start, and I'll work on the rest of the layout this week once I square that away. As I am trying to mimic the actual character sheet, this will take some time to make it as cool as it can be.

John Carter FG Extension, a first look.

Spent a little more time on the project last night.  Largely working on graphics items; choosing and modifying.  Although I didn't get THAT much done I did get some work done include creating the start of a new JCM roller to handle the 2d20 Momentum system.


After last night and this morning I currently have a good start.

Complete.
Desktop - updated - will need further updating to allow for tiling, but this is a good intermediary step.
Sidebar - Updated
Decal - Updated
Chat box - updated.  Framedef needs to be updated still. - Framedef updated
Added a titlebar graphic lifted from the kickstarter page, slightly modified.
Dice rolling fundamentals - completed
New character sheet tab added back into the charsheet allowing the build of a JCM specific sheet, still contains CONAN 2d20 at the moment.

To do.
New character sheet graphics
New NPC sheet & graphics
New CT Graphics
Update the roller with proper documentation

John Carter for Fantasy Grounds. The Beginning.

Last night I started working on a re-skinning of the MoreCore ruleset for use with John Carter of Mars by Modiphius.

I have decided to handle the big graphical components first.  Desktop, decal, sidebars, chat box and option buttons.

After last night and this morning I currently have a good start.
Desktop - updated
Sidebar - Updated
Decal - Updated
Chat box - updated.  Framedef needs to be updated still.

To do.
New character sheet graphics
New NPC graphics
New CT Graphics
Update the character sheet to use the new 2d20 system using 2 attributes.

I hope to have some screenshots available tomorrow.

My Advent on Mars

Like Conan, I came to Barsoom later in my life.  These early works of fiction eluded me.  I had certainly heard of Conan, but I head read none of the comics and NONE of Howard's writing till about 7 years ago.  I considered myself a fan of the character and the movie. 

Barsoom was different.  I have certainly heard of Tarzan, but not of Barsoom.  Maybe I saw the occasional comic cover here and there and didn't know what it was.  When they decided to make a movie, I looked into it more.  I became excited for the movie.  I *ENJOYED* the movie.  Did it have an amazing plot?  No.  Did it have a fun plot?  Sure!  Earth man on new world rescues the Princess and finds love.  What did it have?

Action.  Adventure.  Visuals.

This movie for me is visually stunning, and so the world created by ERB captured my imagination.  Hordes of inhuman, tribal, green Martians with 6 limbs doing battle against the Red human men of Barsoom.  A dying world of violence and conflict.  A world where airships glide across the skies like our ships on the ocean.  The movie showed me all of this and more. 

After the movie I immediately sought out and read the first three of ERBs books set on Barsoom.   They are of course different than the movie.  It seems obvious the writers were going for a more connected set of books starting from day 1.  They had an advantage over ERB in this respect.  They had all 3 books. 

So now I find myself a fan of John Carter of Mars.  The world captures my imagination.

I was delighted to learn Modiphius was planning a series of games centered around John Carter of Mars and I looked forward to the launch of the Kickstarter for the RPG.  The system is based around the same system as their Conan 2d20 lineup, which I am familiar with having played it for the last year and participated in the various forums for a longer time.

So come!  Join me on Barsoom and save YOUR Princess!

John Carter of Mars: Adventures on a Dying World

"Instantly the scene changed as by magic; the foremost vessel swung broadside toward us, and bringing her guns into play returned our fire, at the same time moving parallel to our front for a short distance and then turning back with the evident intention of completing a great circle which would bring her up to position once more opposite our firing line; the other vessels followed in her wake, each one opening upon us as she swung into position. Our own fire never diminished, and I doubt if twenty-five per cent of our shots went wild. It had never been given me to see such deadly accuracy of aim, and it seemed as though a little figure on one of the craft dropped at the explosion of each bullet, while the banners and upper works dissolved in spurts of flame as the irresistible projectiles of our warriors mowed through them. "
-Edgar Rice Burroughs, A Princess of Mars

Modiphius is bringing another piece of classic pulp fiction to the tabletop.  This time we visit the dying world of Barsoom with it's Red and Green men.  With the constant war between peoples.  With it's Airships and hordes of Tharks.  With it's mighty cities like Helium and Zodanga.

It is currently LIVE! on Kickstarter right now!  It has more than met it's desired goal and is cruising through stretch goals.

The game uses a skill-less based 2d20lite system.  Instead of skills you will combine 2 attributes to determine the outcome of your action.  If you desire to run into melee combat with the Thark about to kill your lover, your GM will probably tell you to roll against your attributes of Daring and Might.  Daring deals with movement and Might physical combat.

Check out the cool character sheet!

I've not seen the whole system, but what I have seen I find exceptionally interesting with a lot of potential to increase narrative story telling.  I look forward to the quickstart rules arriving soon!

If you want to get in early on the community stop by the google+ group, it currently only has 14 members!

Check back often here and on youtube for updates as the kickstarter progresses and we get a chance to play the quickstart rules!