Quote:
Originally Posted by badcat
I agree about the system, but I liked the alternate history angle. It was amazing to me how unnecessarily complex the system is, to basically do the same thing BRP does, yes. There's always GURPS Rome, if you can ignore the rules parts.
|
I don't mind GURPS that much, and do have GURPS Rome. I sort of wish more RPGs would explore actual historical settings as opposed to alternate ones, since there are usually more and better opportunities in the former.
Quote:
Originally Posted by badcat
I am going to model the Atlantean army after the Roman army to some extent. I do hesitate a bit at using the weapon names 'gladius' and 'pilum' (anachronistic) but then again, why not?
|
Well, you could drop the Latein names for something else. I'd suggest changing the pilum to trident, and replacing the Gladius Hispanica (which only means "Spanish shortsword" in Latin) with either the Greek Xiphos ( a pointed double edged shortsword) or maybe even with the Cretean thrusting sword (this is pretty much an early rapier). One neat thing about the Cretan sword is that Crete is one of the places that may be the source for the original Atlantis myth. You could even swipe the kopis for a spaetha.
If you like you could replace the Roman Scutum with a Figure Eight or Dipylon (Hourglass) shield with little effect.
THe neat thing is that a Trident (made to bend like a pilum) and a Rapier would work quite nicely with Roman tactics, allowing your Atlanteans to fight like Romans without being Roman.
If you make you Atleanteans Cretans, then it might be worth if to give them something that the Cretans had, but the romans didn't, archers. The Cretan archers were the Ancient World equivalent to the Welsh Longbowman. They used a bow, possibly even a composite bow or recurve composite bow (and if Atlanteans, why not a recurve composite bow?
Give them archers, roman tactics, and a strong navy, and the Atlanteans would dominate the Mediterranean as in the legends.
If you want I can dig up stats for these weapons/shields. A little bit of flavor goes a long way.
Quote:
Originally Posted by badcat
I'm not a big fan of Pendragon, so I don't know anything much about it. The generational thing and personality trait thing are big turn-offs to me. I consider them as unnecessary as some of Roma Imperius' more arcane rules...or fate points, et al.
|
A pity. I think you might like it if you got familiar with it. I think the combat system is right up your alley. It uses total hit points (equal to SIZ+CON) a major wound rule (=CON) and a knockdown rule (=SIZ). Combat is handled by an opposed roll. The winner inflicts damage on the looser. If the user rolled under his skill he gets his shield protection.
The
generational thing is sort of nice. As the game goes on you get to pass on manors, gear, the heirloom magic sword,etc down to your sons. Keep in mind that since the entire campaign runs 70 years or so, you really onyl go through 2, 3 or maybe 4 generations. And you can keep playing a character when he gets old. Depending on how well you do on the aging table, old age might not be a factor. Lancelot didn't slow down at 70. Plus it take a couple of years to run through the whole campaign, and I never had a PC die of old age. So it is more along the lines of starting your replacement characters a little better off than the first character.
The
personality traits serve some useful purposes:
-They are a guideline for the player for when he isn't sure what to do.
-They are used to calculate religious and chivalrous bonuses. SO a character who has a 16 or more is all his religious traits gets a bonus, like extra hit points or a better healing rate.
-They get used to test a characters virtues. Have you ever ran a camapign with a player who took everything that wasn't nai,led down until the time where the Player (not the character) knew something was up and suddeenyl acted out of character?
That is what the traits are for.
-The player has some control over his traits. Most are average, and so have little effect on the game, as only extreme traits tend to force rolls.
-Traits are also affected by the characters actions. If a character acts in accordance with a trait he gets an experience check. So if your character acts braver, he will become braver.
Passions are a bit different than traits. Basically they represent things such as a loyalty, love, or hate. A character can draw on a passion for inspiration getting a bonus to accomplish some task. For instance a character could Hate (Saxons) and roll to get inspired when fighting Saxons to get a bonus to his sword skill. The drawback is, is that if you use a passion to do something and then fail, you suffer shock. For instance, if you used you Love (Wife) passion to try and rescue her from an ogre, and failed, you would be very distraught.
-
KISS all the way.[/quote]