Under the Moons of Mars and Beyond
It was a pleasure to speak with Chris Mackie, the Principal of Creative Mage Productions. I am an avid fan of Edgar Rice Burroughs. When I discovered Creative Mage was working on a Barsoom RPG, I had to learn more.
How were you introduced to roleplaying games?
Formally, I was first introduced to RPGs via D&D. There was a gaming store in the local mall that had all these neat (lead) figures to paint, and then one day while in there with my dad I convinced him to buy me 'the red box'. This was about 30 years ago.
Reading through the rules, however, I was stunned to discover that a buddy and I had already been informally playing RPGs (in a sense): Ray Olma (another Director at Creative Mage) and I would stay up late into the night as kids, 'telling stories'. I'd act as a sort of 'DM', improvising tunnels a la The Hobbit, and he'd tell me what he did as he entered each new chamber, or encountered each new creepy-crawly.
Warlord of Mars RPG Chris designed as a child.
That's a bit of tale, but I'll shorten it for your poor readers.
I got mowed down by a bus several years ago, and spent several months in hospital recovering. As part of that near-death experience, I stared thinking about all the personal projects I'd left undone, and determined to complete as many of them as I could once I got out. 'Warlord of Mars' was one of these. Back when I was a kid, I'd made a D&D hack of the Warlord of Mars, as I knew the character from the Marvel comics. I've still got this childhood hack: it's pretty great to have a gander at my clumsy attempt!
In order to do it properly, we needed to incorporate, and so a number of my friends got together and off we went.
Why design RPGs?
Well, the catalyst for Creative Mage was an RPG (per above), but also most of the directors are actors, and there's a clear connection between playing roles on stage and role-playing as a game. More than that, however, RPGs are simply great fun for us, and we hope that sense of fun carries over into our designs and writing.
We don't do only RPGs, however: we also have a couple of board games and card games in the works as well (and even a stage play for next month!).
Ok, so you had me at Barsoom. How on earth did you get permission to make an RPG based on Edgar Rice Burroughs' Mars series?
That's great to hear! Very encouraging enthusiasm! And followed by an understandable question, but with a rather legal reply that we can't really get into. In general terms, however, there's a good article by Janna Silverstein in the Kobold Guide to Worldbuilding that talks about the process and challenges in 'playing in someone else's back yard'.
Can you let us in on the creative process of Warlord of Mars? What’s the system like? Is it available?
In terms of system, 'Warlord of Mars' (which has undergone a name change, and is now Under the Moons of Mars, or UMM, for short) is based on OpenD6, with some more free-form narrative elements included. We aim to capture the pulp of ERBs original stories, and so the system is crafted to be as pulpy and thematic as we can get.
But this is not a game dealing with the 'new adventures of John Carter on Mars': rather, it's a game that encourages you to create new characters in that setting. Bring 'supporting characters' from the novels to the fore, and play a wild green hordesman of Mars, or an insane red scientist. Never fear, it has Jasoomians too: but we encourage players to transform or alter the expression and meaning of ERBs Mars by playing Earthlings different from the Confederate cavalry officer that is John Carter. How about a Victorian aristocratic lady waking up on Barsoom? Or a slave escaped from a plantation in the American South?
The game's not currently available, as our Kickstarter to fund illustrations for the rulebook failed 🙁 We'd scraped together some limited funds to hire several artists to do promotional work for the Kickstarter, and the artwork turned out great. D. J. Burgerss, for example, did a new and unique interpretation of the dreaded banth that we were really proud of. We just wanted to get enough funds together to have the book completely illustrated. Alas, we couldn't make it happen, so UMM got temporarily shelved.
My take is that the Kickstarter failed from lack of marketing, rather than a disinterest in the subject matter. So, it was out of the marketing failure that Barsoomian Chronicles was born...
What is the Barsoomian Chronicles? Why did you choose to base the rules on Microscope and Diaspora? Oh, and when and where can I give you my money for it?
We're quite chuffed about Barsoomian Chronicles (or, BC). As mentioned above, it came out of having to pause UMM. What we figured we needed in order to generate buzz about a Kickstarter for UMM was to release a sort of introductory game, to build our fan base. This was originally meant to be a fairly simple intro game in which the GM and his players would collaboratively create their history of Barsoom - rather than just have a comparatively dull chapter in UMM narrating what happened in the past of ERBs Mars. This is where Microscope came into play as an inspiration. What it's become, however, is a full game, spanning as many sessions as your group wants, in which you flesh out as much (or as little) of the history of Barsoom, its races, cultures, myths and technologies. By the time you finish a few sessions, your group should have several city states established (compare Diaspora's cluster creation) as settings for your adventures with UMM, complete with cultures and their histories. We think this will be tonnes of fun, and leave players (hopefully) drooling for UMM.
As for getting a copy of it, contact us and we can send you the first beta-playtest chapter, with further chapters to come. Ultimately BC will be free (though there will be a richer version - the Unabridged Barsoomian Chronicles - for purchase by those who are really pumped).
What does the future hold for Creative Mage?
UMM needs to be published, and so I think we'll do that in a beta version without illustrations. It just needs to get out there! What we need more than illustrations, however, is playtesters! Creative Mage is based in a relatively small town, and getting playtesters is a challenge. So, if any of your readers are on board for playtesting the beta versions of UMM or BC, check out our 'Latest Buzz' page to see how to sign up as a playtester!
After UMM, we have a list of support products and expansions. As a taste, some of the titles are, Green Men of Mars; Arenas of Mars; Airships of Mars; Masterminds of Mars; etc. Also, BC itself will have some expansions: Cities of Mars (a city-building game) and Tongues of Mars (a language creation game). We're really chomping at the bit to get on with these, but need to breathe, and take things step by step. Stay tuned!