Modiphius Entertainment has released a FREE John Carter of Mars Quickstart adventure so you can take your first steps on the legendary red planet of Barsoom and begin your adventures alongside John Carter, Deja Thoris and all the heroes of Helium. If you like what you see check out the fully funded Kickstarter! This is a streamlined, more narrative version of 2d20 – more info on that below.

The FREE John Carter of Mars Quickstart is available on both Modiphius.net and DriveThruRPG.com.

Flags over Mars!

This short Quickstart adventure is designed to allow play­ers to take on the role of heroes from the John Carter of Mars stories as they encounter perilous adventures on Barsoom explore the rules of its 2d20 roleplaying system.

The adventure is set shortly after the events of A Princess of Mars and the decline of Helium’s long time rival, Zodanga. During this period, John Carter stays for years in Helium with his beloved Dejah Thoris, but few of his adven­tures during this time are described in Bur­rough’s work.

As the adventure begins, Carter is travelling with Dejah and several friends and allies by flier to meet with a delegation from a minor Red Martian kingdom, Voninka, that is seeking alliance with Helium. Voninka was a small satellite nation of Zodanga until the nation’s recent defeat at the hands of Helium. It now seeks new allies among Helium and its jeddak, a young but respected leader known as Corlan Nim, has requested a diplomatic meeting with representatives of Helium-the player heroes and their crew.

But all is not quite as it seems and this apparently simple diplomatic mission soon launches our heroes into a whirlwind adventure!

Prepare to experience the might and majesty of 2d20 adventures on the red planet in John Carter of Mars! The John Carter Kickstarter is fully funded but still in full swing, so help unlock further stretch goals and bring you even more awesome John Carter adventures!

The Momentum system is a streamlined version of the 2d20 system used in other games such as Conan, Infinity, Mutant Chronicles and Star Trek Adventures. It focuses entirely on the abilities of the characters you play by allowing characters to build talents out of whole cloth and eschewing granular details that just aren’t important in describing the ultra-competent characters of Barsoom.

Characters in Momentum are described by six attributes that combine to form the Target numbers of all tests. There are no skills, instead your background and archetype determines your role in the world. You’ll also be told what your character will find harder. This guidance for your GM will help them decide if a test is low or high difficulty. Secondly if you’re a talented scientist then you will have a Talent that describes how you use science. It might be that you make discoveries after hours of painstaking research or perhaps your best leaps of intuition only happen when under fire; however how you relate to the activity is custom described for your character.

The Momentum system cuts down on the descriptive terms such as status effects and weapon qualities. Once you understand how to do a skill test and have chosen how you want talents to describe your character, you’re ready to go! There is also an entire chapter of example talents for you to choose, reword, combine and ignore as you see fit.