![]() And my personal favorite: beware blind obedience and adherence to belief systems that defy reason. Let people rule themselves whenever possible. Don’t kill someone so you can take their spouse. Don’t use guns or other superior weapons to kill those not similarly armed. Other elements surface in the work, often championed by Carter himself. So this didn’t have as strong an effect on the RPG as some might expect-mostly specific art direction and an understandable lack of armor rules. No, he expresses some understandable culture shock and then dons a harness and cloak and wandered around “naked” like everyone else. Carter doesn’t go around forcing Barsoomians to “put some clothes on!”. While more than a few artists over the years used the undisputable fact that most people on Barsoom wander around with few clothes to create some spicy artwork, it’s not presented as inferior or immoral in the text. We just added some art and examples to showcase it.īarsoom’s general lack of clothing was another issue. Thus the idea that Barsoom was filled with exceptional people of all genders was…already there. Remember, behind every green Martian male trying to blow your heroes’ head off with a rifle is literally a green Martian woman-they make the weapons. Even in cultures that have strong gender divides like the green Martians, we find strong women and vital cultural roles. No, they treat them as peers, partners, and respected companions. Honorable Barsoomians don’t enslave, abuse, or kill women to show some “alpha” status. They were also leaders, stateswomen, scientists, and often portrayed as smart, capable, independent, and valued. ![]() Also note this wasn’t true and these cultures and races are supposed to be Earth stand-ins? Burroughs would be such an anti-establishment radical that history frankly just doesn’t bear that out.īurrough’s women were not usually big fighters, but they were capable of it and some like Llana of Gathol are quite skilled. This also means the Therns, the corrupt white guys who kinda ruin everything for the second and third book aren’t actually white people in the Earth sense. In a move that would make certain pulp writers like Lovecraft decidedly uncomfortable, the mixing of races and cultures led to the creation of the red Martians, the central culture of Barsoom that includes numerous heroic and admirable groups and individuals. ![]() The Okar are not Asians, the First Born are not Africans. The red Martians are not Native Americans, Indians, or anyone else. Specifically, I want to focus on three things from the Barsoom stories that informed how we presented his world.īurroughs was the guy who created strangely human but unique alien cultures. And I thank Edgar Rice Burroughs for that. So how does one introduce Barsoom and open it up for an RPG without ignoring or undermining the original stories? How do you welcome the modern diverse RPG market while not alienating long time fans? This is in fact the Carter I have myself had thrown at me on occasion by those determined to place Burroughs in some pulp literary dustbin with other writers. From a certain point of view, Carter is a somewhat problematic “white savior” or “white knight” who comes in and fixes everything for other cultures while rescuing ladies who can’t care for themselves. LGBT players and narrators abound as well. There are more woman and people of color playing games every day. That is frankly not what the RPG market looks like today. The world of Barsoom was created over a hundred years ago by a pulp writer writing for a mostly white male audience. With today’s developer diary I wanted to talk a bit about adapting the world of Barsoom and the works of Burroughs for a modern RPG setting.
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