TROS Tarnsman of Gor

[Alan]

Anyone remember the John Norman potboilers?  Gor was a planet in the same orbit as Earth on the other side of the sun.  The Priest Kings kept a human culture going there, restricting most technology except medicine and occasionally abducting Earthling to dump them on Gor.  Lots of passion and combat and flying mounts - no magic, though there were longevity serums and advanced surgery and no non-humans.

Someday I'd like to try it as a TROS game.

Being an Earthling might be a major Gift or Flaw - not sure which.

Most of the cities had a Caste System.  For the game, each social class would have a number of Castes availalbe.  In Gor, the Warrior caste was near the top of the pyramid, but since only warriors were intensively combat trained, and TROS is largely about warriors, I'd make it available at social class priority C and above.  A priority B Warrior would be more influencial but not necessarily richer.

Caste would also restrict the kinds of skill packages available and might involve new packets - eg. Physician Caste would have First Aid, Surgery, and other skills.

I recall that each Caste had a "code" - I would ask players to design philosophies and SAs in line with their Caste Code.

Gorean Warrior Weapons
Short Sword
Short Spear
Longbow

Armor
Full Helm (Hoplite Style)
Breastplate
Leather skirt
Greaves
Round Shield

Not a very woman-friendly environment though.  Women in most cities were either slaves or vieled and subject to abduction raids.  [Norman's dom sub fetish overwhelmed the adventurous characer of the series by the fifth book - but we could keep it at the level of the first book.]

EDIT: I just noticed that the nation of Ahr in Weyrth is very remeniscent of Gor.  Castes, Assassins, cities founded around stones, pleasure slaves, etc.

[sirogit]

My personal, inner crusade against Gor made me never consider this idea. But if you took the focus off of the whole women-as-sperm-recpticles and on other earlier aspects than it could be a decent idea.

What I remember from Gor was a guy riding a pteryodactyl that had a sword and a gun or something. Were firearms always in the series or were they a later invention?

If you knew people who are aware of the series and therefore refuse to play in it, you could try switching the gender roles in it. It occured to me right now that that would be funny. And sexually awkward. And funny too.

[Jake Norwood]

Rick McCann, who penned Ahr, is (or at least was) a pretty big Gor fan. He turned me onto those books back in High School. I think I read through book 15 or something...we even ran a GOR WFRP for a while. I never thought it was "good" literature, but it did capture something in me at the time. Wink-wink, nudge-nudge, knowwhatImeanknowwhatImean...

Jake

[Alan]

The first three or four books were fun adventures with hard edged "codes of behavior" and a fascinating portrayal of a culture which had all the stereotypical barbaric qualities contrasted with the technological attitudes of the upper castes.  

I'd love to catch that feeling and I think TROS might work.

Tarns were giant birds of prey, not pteradactyls and gunpowder was one of the technologies the Priest Kings forbade, causing inventors themselves to explode on discovering the formula.  Geez, I can't believe how much I remember; it must be more than a decade since I looked at Tarnsman.

To be honest, the increasing fetishism didn't turn me off half as quickly as the increasingly repetative writing - and the fact that Tarl Cabot just got more and more cynical and never redeemed himself.

On our local game list, Wilhelm (Rafial) wryly suggested that FATAL might be a better system choice!  :)  I guess it depends on what part of the GOr series one likes.

[Lance D. Allen]

I have the first 3 books, sent to me by my dad years ago. I loved them, but also noticed the increasingly misogynist "philosophy" of Tarl. I was told specifically that the rest of the series wasn't much good because of this.

But I love those 3. I would love to play in that world, even with the woman-unfriendly society.. Not all worlds are perfect, and it could be a definite theme to explore. Or if you'd rather just have a romping adventure across the world of Gor, that's doable too.

[Brian Leybourne]

The first (and only) Gor book I ever read was "Slave Girl of Gor".

I would love to say that its portrayal of women shocked and disgusted me and that's why I never read another one, but hell, I was 15 at the time and thought it was the bees knees. But I could never find any other books in the series :-)

Brian.

[toli]

I haven't read any of the Gor books, but I might have to try.  TROS would also be excellent for John Carter of Mars, aka Barsoom, the series by Edgar Rice Burrows of Tarzan fame.  Lots of fencing...and passion...and all that...NT