We Need a Game Set In the Roman Empire.
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@Ghost said in We Need a Game Set In the Roman Empire.:
The last game set in a Roman Empire era/setting had a shitload of rape, forced character pregnancies, and when you mention that game's name on this forum, people flee, close doors, lock windows, and speak in bad English things like "yooo musss go now. Yooo go back home. You stay away. Isss Vam-peeeer."
I put it at a 65-75% chance that if another Roman Empire setting game opens, plenty of people who enjoyed Firan will show up to roleplay some of the same, theme-enforced misogyny.
They also had copious amounts of female leaders, female generals, female rank-and-file soldiers...
Not to defend Firan (because it was horrible in many, many ways), but it was even more progressive and equitable than a game trying to hew close to Roman-era realism would have any justification for being.
Trying to create a realistic Imperial Rome game and removing the structural sexism of the era would be like creating a game set in '60s Mississippi but having a big statement on your login screen saying that racism doesn't exist and everything's integrated.
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@Jennkryst said in We Need a Game Set In the Roman Empire.:
Any thoughts on a game set in Alera?
I've actually been working on a game system for Alera on and off for a couple of years. @Avarice coded up the basic levels of dice rolling, @GirlCalledBlu built a small grid... but there never seemed to be much interest from the folks we talked to.
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@Seraphim73 said in We Need a Game Set In the Roman Empire.:
I've actually been working on a game system for Alera on and off for a couple of years. @Avarice coded up the basic levels of dice rolling, @GirlCalledBlu built a small grid... but there never seemed to be much interest from the folks we talked to.
Generating word of mouth on a non-standard kind of MU* is really, really hard. That's why we see a dozen WoD variations before one Arx.
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Never even heard of the property before now, but at first glance that looks like it could be a lot of fun. You totally should do it. Totally. I think you'd find there was more interest than it sounds like you think. ^^
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@Sunny said in We Need a Game Set In the Roman Empire.:
Never even heard of the property before now, but at first glance that looks like it could be a lot of fun. You totally should do it. Totally. I think you'd find there was more interest than it sounds like you think. ^^
I remember this guy, whatever username Asklepios@HM used here, who was really into running a "World of Darkness in SPACE" thing. He went with a friend and and did it, they had space stations and ships code ready, all that stuff... then they opened a beta to find even staff for spheres and no one offered. It had to be shut down.
It's just a shitload of work, unfortunately, for something that might not pan out. I love people who take the risk, though.
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Actually, Imperial Rome was a lot friendlier to women than Republican-era Rome, esp. in Late Antiquity. But even in the Republican period life could be vaguely tolerable if you were rich and/or had super powers, which is really a pre-requisite for life not being terrible in any historical setting and honestly largely in modern-day settings too. I mean about half the population was also literally actual slaves, no one really wants to play the life of the "average" person in the Roman Empire.
The other big problem with historical settings though is that no one will do the research and even more informed people will disagree on meaning and interpretations. But most people will apply only a vague pastiche of cultural osmosis learned aesthetic from shit like Gladiator and Spartacus, and then play basically the characters they play in modern games with a wardrobe change.
Which like yeah is just reifying what others have been said, but to the extent that some of that could still be fun it's easier/less frustrating to do it as Roman-esque fantasy and then ban the rapists and pedophiles etc..
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I remember my favorite thing about Xena was that they both were mucking around with Isaac and Jacob with the whole sacrifice thing, but then they also protected Mary when she was giving birth to Jesus or something? So like, okay, those events are three thousand years apart on a Biblical timeline.
But I mean then again the stuff in ancient Japan and Ireland was all like five or six centuries after Julius Caesar anyway so
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Xena and Hercules treated history with less respect than MU* players. They are the Star Trek: Voyager of historical settings.
Ceterum autem censeo Carthaginem esse delendam
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@Ominous ...and yet there's something so campyfun about that it would probably make a cool beer and pretzels fun game, which I absolutely cringe to admit.
I'm kicking a historical thing around. I am hoping for 'TV grade' reality for one of the sources as an ideal, which is still timey-wimey at best and still... television grade. I will still be happy to settle for 'A Knight's Tale' grade, because... ultimately, it's a MUX, and that's probably the most realistic guesstimate of where it will end up anyway.
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@Trundlebot said in We Need a Game Set In the Roman Empire.:
I mean about half the population was also literally actual slaves, no one really wants to play the life of the "average" person in the Roman Empire.
I do! But I'm some sort of masochist who thoroughly enjoys playing characters limited by themselves and by their circumstances, and I enjoy downward rather than upward mobility in my characters' stories, just because I think it's more interesting these days.
Winding up as the biggest badass on the block is just...not interesting anymore.
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Around the time of Spartacus, one in every three people in Roman held territories was a slave. This varied regionally, of course.
I had an idea to set a game, a while ago, in the Roman/Greek colony of Narbo Martius, in what's now the south of France. Sort of a Roman wild west type deal.
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@surreality said in We Need a Game Set In the Roman Empire.:
@Ominous ...and yet there's something so campyfun about that it would probably make a cool beer and pretzels fun game, which I absolutely cringe to admit.
I'm kicking a historical thing around. I am hoping for 'TV grade' reality for one of the sources as an ideal, which is still timey-wimey at best and still... television grade. I will still be happy to settle for 'A Knight's Tale' grade, because... ultimately, it's a MUX, and that's probably the most realistic guesstimate of where it will end up anyway.
A Knight's Tale is actually a fairly high bar to aim for given that, so far as I can tell, they did do the research for that film then deliberately went with the bits they thought were cool or evoked the right themes rather than actual historical accuracy.
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@Packrat Yep, they took the old truths and interpreted some of them in a way a modern audience would best understand (and find fun). For a game that isn't intended as an accurate historical simulation, I think that goal is the right tone to strike for a fun space.
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@Seraphim73 Technically I still have it up. We still need to play test the system. That all said, if there's interest, it's something we could look at again...I never finished coding the combat system though.
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@Avarice said in We Need a Game Set In the Roman Empire.:
@Seraphim73 Technically I still have it up. We still need to play test the system. That all said, if there's interest, it's something we could look at again...I never finished coding the combat system though.
I'm just saying I would play the ever loving shit out of a Codex Alera game. The big question is: WHAT FURY?! Oh god the decisions.
Everytime you mentioned this on the 100 I had to have some private time to myself over the idea.
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@Avarice said in We Need a Game Set In the Roman Empire.:
@Seraphim73 Technically I still have it up. We still need to play test the system. That all said, if there's interest, it's something we could look at again...I never finished coding the combat system though.
I'd give a Codex Alera game a try, I think. It's an interesting setting.
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I want a MU* based on the Republic of Rome board game. https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/1513/republic-rome
