Ancient civilizations

[tkdguy]

Most fantasy games are based on the Medieval era, albeit loosely. Has anyone tried to run a campaign set in ancient Egypt, Greece, or Rome? I know of a few gaming products that were written for them, but I don't know how well they did.

[Lord Liaden]

Re: Ancient civilizations

 

Thanks to the old ICE/HERO supplements Mythic Greece and Mythic Egypt, I've participated in a very successful campaign set in the Mediterranean and Near East during the Bronze Age. Definitely a refreshing change from pseudo-medieval RPG settings.

 

I'd recommend taking a look at Scott Bennie's Testament game. IMO it's a very well researched and entertaining treatment of the cultures of the Middle East in the late Bronze/ early Iron Age.

[Sword-dancer]

Re: Ancient civilizations

 

Had somebody experiences with Old Antique, so like Sumer, Babylon, Assur, the Medians, Persians and so on?

[OddHat]

Re: Ancient civilizations

 

I had a campaign that included mini-campaigns with a stone-age tribe, Atlantis, classical Athens, Rome in the reign of Tiberius, Arthurian (5th century) Britain, etc. Source material was primarily David Gemmel for Atlantis and Greece, Tom Holt for Greece, Robert Graves for Rome, and David Gemmel again for Arthurian Britain. Also used GURPS source books for all time periods.

 

Also played a micro-campaign through the Olympian/Asgardian war at the end of the Roman mini campaign, then had the survivors from both sides make cameos in Arthurian Britain. Players were the Greek gods in that micro-campaign, on 350 points.

 

It was great fun, and adding magic was easy as long as genre limitations were enforced.

[Captain Obvious]

Re: Ancient civilizations

 

Gary Gygax's old Dangerous Journeys game had a fair amount of stuff written up for his world's analogues of Egypt, India, and Persia, although the only stuff I've actually seen outside the core rulebooks is the Necropolis adventure. It was re-released under the OGL restatted for d20 recently.

 

The adventure itself is typical Gygax -- instadeath traps, monsters that are more than a match for the party intended to encounter them, and enough treasure to make any sane adventurer decide to retire. But it's heavy on the Egyptian flavor.

[Gadodel]

Re: Ancient civilizations

 

Because I studied Latin in college and thus, know quite a bit about Rome; I often try to use the city as a setting. Since much of antiquity has been preserved there i.e. buildings, finding maps etc is easier too. Course, one has to go there to get them...my mom brought some back when she visited The Vatican.

[Korvar]

Re: Ancient civilizations

 

I've been trying to not evangelise my favorite setting, but I've finally failed the EGO roll...

 

Dark Sun has seven City-States, each based on a different not-medieval-Western-Europe culture. You've got Ancient Greece, India, Africa, Mesoamerica, Babylon, plus the City-State of Tyr, which some think is Roman, but I think is Egyptian.

 

Although Dark Sun is a D&D background, and is no longer supported by WoTC, there's a fan-run official website at Athas.Org, and almost all the original supplements are available dead cheap at SVGames.

 

Thanks, I feel better now.

[Rapier]

Re: Ancient civilizations

 

I had a campaign that included mini-campaigns with a stone-age tribe, Atlantis, classical Athens, Rome in the reign of Tiberius, Arthurian (5th century) Britain, etc. Source material was primarily David Gemmel for Atlantis and Greece, Tom Holt for Greece, Robert Graves for Rome, and David Gemmel again for Arthurian Britain. Also used GURPS source books for all time periods.

 

Also played a micro-campaign through the Olympian/Asgardian war at the end of the Roman mini campaign, then had the survivors from both sides make cameos in Arthurian Britain. Players were the Greek gods in that micro-campaign, on 350 points.

 

It was great fun, and adding magic was easy as long as genre limitations were enforced.

I've done similar things. My campaign has been, at times, referred to as the "Light Fantastic" for all the travelling around the heroes do. I've never spent too much time in any one era though. There are a couple of reasons for this:

 

1) All my players are average (well, not AVERAGE, but fairly normal) adult Americans. As such they don't have a very in-depth knowledge of many of the other cultures (especially in the ancient timeframe)...except two of them and this is limited to a specific culture or two. Because they have so little knowledge about the time, it would be difficult for them to envision the setting and make appropriate actions. To overcome this they (or I) would be required to do some pretty extensive research to find out what everyday life in that setting would be. The short of it is that the farther you go from the player's setting in the character's setting, the more work needs to be done to continue to allow the characters to reacte appropriately and the players to continue to suspend their disbelief.

 

2) I'm crazily well-read. I read at a truly frightening speed and read often. However, I don't have the in-depth knowledge that it would take to create an effective campaign setting (while that is probably a little drama laden, I wouldn't feel comfortable with it. Call it my perfectionism talking). There is no single volume that would give me this knowledge.

 

I spent a few semesters taking Japanese in a total immersion environment. We watched clips of Japanese television and radio. Along with my ninja/samurai fanboy reading this greatly expanded my understanding of the Japanese culture. During a ShadowRun game, the GM (I was a player at the time) tried to incorporate more Japanese influences into his game for more setting realism. He mispronounced words, made inappropriate references, did not understand certain roles (especially the geisha) in the society and misrepresented certain societal drivers. While I love the GM dearly and to this day consider him a great friend (even if I haven't seen him in 10 years), it made it very difficult for me to stay in role.

 

Now, if I was (as I had intended to be when I was very young) an archeologist/anthropologist concentrating in Egypt or Sumer or Persia and was gaming with a bunch of other archeologists...that might be another thing entirely.

 

Of course, given the arguments prone to historical research, its possible that like as not those games could end in fisticuffs as the players debate an assumption the GM has made.

 

I frequently use alternate settings in my games. It adds spice and something unique to our gaming experiences. I use my current setting as a base and add "common-man" societal flavours (eg lots of pyramids, everyone walking around in togas). However, I don't allow the games to remain in that setting too long to scrape off the venear of "texas with a topcoat of ancient Greece."

[Aryanun]

Re: Ancient civilizations

 

My homebrew world is built around varying cultures, and I've used many of the ancient civilizations as groundwork for the different cultures. Egypt, Greece/Rome, Sumeria, Babylonia, Mycenae, Aztec, Mayan, Incan... as well as ancient China, Japan and others. Now, I'm very well read and spend my free time (what little I have with an 8 month old) reading history books on ancient cultures. While I may use the ancient civilizations as a springboard for my own world does not mean I limit the game to being strictly how that particular culture acts. It's just a starting point for me to create something completely different, even if the deities have the same names.

 

I've never been a big fan of medieval style games. The knights in armor and "I'm not dead yet" gets a little old and I like to have more flavor in my games.

 

It's all about the spice. I've played in some wonderful fantasy games where there was very little medieval flavor, but plenty of high fantasy.