Warriors of the Red Planet (WotRP) is a 124 page digest sized booklet authored by Al Krombach and Thomas Denmark and described as an "old school" science fantasy RPG. The author's state it is based on and compatible with "the original fantasy roleplaying game". As such, many of the concepts presented herein are familiar. WotRP uses the basic six attributes with character classes and experience levels. The Appendix includes information on the races of Mars as seen in Edgar Rice Burroughs' novels. Included character classes are Fighting Men, Scoundrels, Mentalists, and Scientists, but the authors state that bringing in other classes and game elements from other iterations of old school games is encouraged. Combining science fiction elements with fantasy was often done both in the literature of the day and in the game products they inspired.
Fighting Men require little explanation to anyone familiar with White Box. They are the basic warriors found on Mars and in many other heroic settings. Scoundrels are very similar to the Thief class in Greyhawk. Mentalists are the magic users of WotRP. Mentalists can use a number of powers each day and that number increases as the Mentalist levels up. First level powers include Control Person and Mind Bullets and it's fairly easy to see their parallels to White Box magic spells. Scientists are described as masters of forgotten lore. They have access to a number of "gadgets" they can use each day. Gadgets include ancient devices, lost technologies and new arcane devices of their own making. s the Scientist levels up they acquire more and stronger "gadgets". I find the Scientist class the most original and interesting of the WotRP classes.
WotRP wouldn't be Sword & Planet without rules for flying ships so the rules include a section on ship-to-ship combat listing several typical flying ships and how to use them in the game. The game can certainly be used for any setting or milieu with certain modifications, but as the title suggests, much of the material is aimed directly at adventures on Mars in the spirit of John Carter. Diagrams and maps show the Red Planet and its underworld and there is excellent advice on running a game in the style of Edgar Rice Burroughs.
I find WotRP to be a nice variant of White Box and totally in the spirit of the early inspirations for the game. In his forward to the original edition, Gary Gygax mentions "Burroughs' Martian adventures where John Carter is groping through black pits". When he later listed the books that influenced the design of the game in Appendix N of the Dungeon Masters Guide, Burroughs' Martian novels are there. In Empire of Imagination author Michael Witwer mentions the first adventure books Mr. Gygax suggested to protege and co-referee Rob Kuntz were the Martian novels of Edgar Rice Burroughs. One of the earliest publications of Tactical Studies Rules (TSR), the company formed to sell White Box, was a set of miniatures rules titled Warriors of Mars: The Warfare of Barsoom in Miniature. I think it safe to assume Mr. Gygax was inspired by reading John Carter's adventures on Mars and that the stories (along with many others) influenced his desire for a game such as White Box.
In many ways WotRP compliments White Box. There are ruins to explore, fights for survival, mysteries to unravel, undergrounds and wildernesses to explore, monsters to defeat and ancient treasures to recover. If all this sounds familiar, I think it should given Mr. Gygax's fondness for the source material.
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