We Need a Game Set In the Roman Empire.
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Has this been done yet?
It could even be a WoD game. It would make a fucking awesome WoD setting, even!
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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.
Delete the Hog Pit. It'll be fun.
I really don't understand He-Man -
@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.
Huh, I was honestly expecting people to declare Shang as being the definitive reason why this should not be done - for a lot of the same reasons you have cited in this post, even.
As an aside, I'm glad we've reached that point in MU*ing where we can finally start calling people out for being misogynistic.
Fifteen years ago, people would laugh in your face if you said such a thing. It was the wild west. People would call you a whore bitch cunt to your face and then laugh about it.
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I'd play on that shit.
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@Julia-Cornelia said in We Need a Game Set In the Roman Empire.:
As an aside, I'm glad we've reached that point in MU*ing where we can finally start calling people out for being misogynistic
I'm sympathetic. I've occasionally rolled up female characters because the character just reads better to me as a female. I approached MU as a writing experience, and I'm not much into TS.
Every female character I have rolled up has resulted in a truckload of uninitiated, unsolicited creeper flirtation and nagging, pressuring, etc. I've also ran into situations where I got the impression that my char was being taken less seriously due to alpha male on scene needing to own the dominant role.
Oh. Yeah. There's misogyny.
Delete the Hog Pit. It'll be fun.
I really don't understand He-Man -
@Ghost said in We Need a Game Set In the Roman Empire.:
@Julia-Cornelia said in We Need a Game Set In the Roman Empire.:
As an aside, I'm glad we've reached that point in MU*ing where we can finally start calling people out for being misogynistic
I'm sympathetic. I've occasionally rolled up female characters because the character just reads better to me as a female. I approached MU as a writing experience, and I'm not much into TS.
Every female character I have rolled up has resulted in a truckload of uninitiated, unsolicited creeper flirtation and nagging, pressuring, etc. I've also ran into situations where I got the impression that my char was being taken less seriously due to alpha male on scene needing to own the dominant role.
Oh. Yeah. There's misogyny.
Happens /all/ the time.
And if you try to play a woman who isn't a submissive sex-kitten then you get even worse.
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I was also thinking about this form of misogyny. Stop me if you've heard it before.
"Uggggh. How dare she make a character with big breasts and scanty clothing and heavy makeup. What a fucking slut. Fuck this fire-pussy bitch so much, right now. Anyone who makes women characters with big tits and flirty attitiudes is WHAT IS WRONG WITH MUs.
Generally speaking, the attitude towards women used to be quite terrible.
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How about female characters who aren't defined by their gender, but by their skillset and personalities as people who happen to be women? TBH I've often made wimpy male characters when I knew I was apping into a more action-female environment. I was more than content to let the skilled female characters fulfill their concepts as soldiers, etc, and enjoyed being 100% okay with being the damsel. Even then, it wasn't about which character was male or female, because there's no telling anymore who is actually female or male on the other side of the keyboard. I just hate that weird dominance wrestling shit.
I don't wanna derail this thread, so I'll end my point. I'm married to a so-called tomboy in real life, but she's not a tomboy. She's a woman who isn't afraid to fight, likes action movies, and if I treated anyone online in the manner I've been treated by being mistaken as a female, she would woop my ass.
So, for what it's worth, I don't envy the shit most women in the hobby deal with.
Edited a few times. I just don't care anymore which character has which organs. I just want the story to be good.
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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
plenty of people who enjoyed Firan will show up to roleplay some of the same, theme-enforced misogyny.
This was the norm for the roman era. What's being described in this thread is ultra progressive modern day philosophy with tunics, swords and sandals. It begs the question of why you're trying to base a game on a chosen historical period to begin with instead of just doing what Arx did and making original lore and with aesthetics and technology that's reminiscent of it.
Edit: Firan was only nominally roman. I always thought it was dumb that's how it advertised itself.
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Just gonna leave this here: http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/144754/Eagle-Eyes--A-World-of-Adventure-for-Fate-Core
It's free. It may or may not help.
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I would love a game set in the Roman Empire/Republic (Republic with Senate politics would be way better for a MU. You want a dynamic political landscape, not a static one, I've always felt.). What you need to keep in mind when making a game in that setting is that women were considered property of the patriarch of the family (so were younger unmarried sons and children too for that matter, let alone the slaves).
By itself simply playing a historic Roman game could possibly run into some trouble.
However if you make it a wod game, with vampires etc, then you change the dynamic completely. There's no reason why say vampire society might not be equal, and so you have these powerful vampires (or mages, or whatever) in the background that can behave largely as they please. In fact you add layers of complexity to explore.
And if anyone wants to play a plain vanilla roman lady (or a male slave for that matter), go do it!
Its only really a problem if those who want agency, can't have it. Conversely those who want to explore roles with limited agency, shouldn't be forced (or looked down upon for it) into making that choice.
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I wouldn't mind if there was a game that had the kind of Greco-Roman fantasy world a la Hercules and Xena.
"If you stand for nothing Burr, what will you fall for?"
-- Hamilton: An American Musical -
I only made it in on the end of the Firan stuff, so I probably missed out on a lot of the most spectacular drama. But I really was drawn to the theme and I'd love to see someone do something similar.
People tend to gravitate toward medieval-themed lords and ladies-ish stuff, but pre-christian antiquity is in a lot of ways a much more vibrant period to draw on. There's a lot of room for cultural and religious diversity (and conflict), exploration, etc. It also deals with a lot of the common issues people cite with historical games, in that you have more modern-familiar public civic life.
I'm sure, especially with the positive attitudes being expressed here and in some other threads or by other game staff (ie on Arx, even if they don't get it right 100%), that someone could do it without egregious sexual stuff. And to be clear, I don't find sexual themes problematic on their own, even ones that include uncomfortable or negative historical material. I rather enjoy the opportunity to RP around those themes as long as it's clear the players aren't using the RP environment as an excuse to act out RL misogyny or reinforce those themes as correct.
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@Cupcake Aren't Hercules and Xena Greek? Or am I remembering wrong. Ancient Roman and Greek still are parallel in ways so I could be forgetting.
That said, I incline more towards Greek feel over Roman.
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@icanbeyourmuse Mostly Greek, but you know, at one point you've got Xena making out with Caesar, so there you go.
"If you stand for nothing Burr, what will you fall for?"
-- Hamilton: An American Musical -
I need this game to happen so @lordbelh will play with me again. At least I'm honest in my reasoning?
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@Cupcake
It went everywhere. They went to Ireland, Egypt, Israel, Mesopotamia, all kinds of places. The Roman army was a big deal in later seasons of Xena, near the end. -
@Bobotron said in We Need a Game Set In the Roman Empire.:
@Cupcake
It went everywhere. They went to Ireland, Egypt, Israel, Mesopotamia, all kinds of places. The Roman army was a big deal in later seasons of Xena, near the end.I'm aware, yes. I was a big fan.
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Any thoughts on a game set in Alera?
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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 really, REALLY liked the Codex Alera, and I think it could be an interesting setting, but I think the world might be a tad too mysterious still to utilize as a long term game.
