As to actual gaming resources, Mazes and Minotaurs has been mentioned, but really almost anything written by Paul Elliott is good. I particularly prize Warlords of Alexander, which is set in the Hellenistic era and explains why mercenaries of the age were very much like adventurers in the traditional fantasy setup.

Also Hellenistic is the GURPS netbook Philos Basilikos, which has a neat section at the end explaining "how to be a Greek" and also similar ones for Roman, Kelt and Phoenician.

Quote from: Marleycat;775283Doesn't Pundit have Lords of Olympus?

LoO has a LOT of material on Greek Mythology (more than any other RPG book ever, as far as I know), but hardly anything on greek society, culture, history, or geography.  It would be a great sourcebook for gods and legends but not for the rest of what would be needed for such a setting.

The Milenian Empire book for Hollow World is quite good; and I think there was one of those green-cover 2e books about Alexander's Greece, if I recall correctly.

Quote from: Armchair Gamer;775254Mythic Greece: The Age of Heroes is a Rolemaster/Fantasy HERO product (reportedly more FH than RM), and again, I can't speak to the quality, but while it's pricey, it's also an Aaron Allston production.

I have it, though I haven't touched it in a long time. It was quite good as a resource.

Wasn't there also a GURPS Ancient Greece?

Quote from: Kiero*Which segues into another topic - henchmen/hirelings and other allied NPCs. I don't now if 5th edition has rules for them, but they can really enrich the game in a way I'd never appreciated before I played ACKS (in my "old school" days we never had any). PCs should be aiming to become people of significance who attract followers as their exploits grow in renown.

Yes, I allowed my players to play their henchmen, as they were very limited as to how many they could have.   Henchmen earned 1/4 experience.

 My d20/OSR/Ancient Med hack had Fighting man, Scholar, Priest, Rogue, and the Orator.  The Orator was a charisma based class, the only one able to have henchmen early on, which meant a 5th level orator might have (depending on the charisma bonus) 2-4 henchman working for him, a fighting man might have one, and no one else has any.  So the Orator was a poor fighter, a mediocre rogue, a lousy caster, but he had followers.

Quote from: Omega;776054This one?



I think there is one other...

That's the roman one, but I was sure there was a greek one too.. or did I dream it?

The roman one was pretty decent, but GURPS Imperial Rome, and Bedrock's "Agents of Gaius" are both somewhat more useful for Roman play.

Quote from: RPGPundit;777269That's the roman one, but I was sure there was a greek one too.. or did I dream it?

  There was. It was the next one after the Roman one; HR6 Age of Heroes. I linked to the PDF in the second post on this thread.

Quote from: LordVreeg;777160Yes, I allowed my players to play their henchmen, as they were very limited as to how many they could have.   Henchmen earned 1/4 experience.

 My d20/OSR/Ancient Med hack had Fighting man, Scholar, Priest, Rogue, and the Orator.  The Orator was a charisma based class, the only one able to have henchmen early on, which meant a 5th level orator might have (depending on the charisma bonus) 2-4 henchman working for him, a fighting man might have one, and no one else has any.  So the Orator was a poor fighter, a mediocre rogue, a lousy caster, but he had followers.

I treat them as backup PCs; if for some reason the player's main PC is out of action (this happened when one was wounded and left bedridden after an attack), they can play them instead. Otherwise the players run them in combat and I speak for them. I don't track XP in my game, so the only consideration is that they need paying.

My players went into the retinue game with gusto - everyone took a maximum complement from the outset (which is 4 +/- Charisma modifier in ACKS - everyone had a bonus). It mean the "party" had over 30 people in it, and a horse-herd of almost 100 animals, with remounts and pack animals. That proved a tempting target in and of itself when they were travelling.

Quote from: Kiero;777415I treat them as backup PCs; if for some reason the player's main PC is out of action (this happened when one was wounded and left bedridden after an attack), they can play them instead. Otherwise the players run them in combat and I speak for them. I don't track XP in my game, so the only consideration is that they need paying.

My players went into the retinue game with gusto - everyone took a maximum complement from the outset (which is 4 +/- Charisma modifier in ACKS - everyone had a bonus). It mean the "party" had over 30 people in it, and a horse-herd of almost 100 animals, with remounts and pack animals. That proved a tempting target in and of itself when they were travelling.

To your point, we also let the Henchmen become the next PC, which happened on quite a few occasions....and you were not adventuring, you were expeditioning.  Happens to me all the time.

Quote from: Kiero;777415It mean the "party" had over 30 people in it, and a horse-herd of almost 100 animals, with remounts and pack animals. That proved a tempting target in and of itself when they were travelling.

It would be tempting for tribes and kings. Probably scare the hell out of villages and villagers and your run of the mill bandits.

I had to remind myself that encounters need not automatically scale up to the party size and strength in my current game. I realized on their last excursion the party was large enough and well armed enough that many bandits were hiding from them.

Quote from: LordVreeg;777556To your point, we also let the Henchmen become the next PC, which happened on quite a few occasions....and you were not adventuring, you were expeditioning.  Happens to me all the time.

This was more of a temporary arrangement, unless the PC was dead, of course. There's no magic in this game, so death is a very real possibility if you get caught unprepared. The fight that led to the wound was a surprise attack on their employers' estate and they'd run into battle with just shield and weapon.

Quote from: Bren;777572It would be tempting for tribes and kings. Probably scare the hell out of villages and villagers and your run of the mill bandits.

I had to remind myself that encounters need not automatically scale up to the party size and strength in my current game. I realized on their last excursion the party was large enough and well armed enough that many bandits were hiding from them.

They were in southern Gallia in 300BC, so not so many kings around the place any more.

There was an attempt on them by one of the Celto-Ligurian tribes, but that's because they'd been paid to attack them, and promised they could keep the horses. They had more than double the number of the PCs and their retinues, but it wasn't enough. The PCs took their chief prisoner after the fight and ransomed him off a little later.

Quote from: Kiero;777588They were in southern Gallia in 300BC, so not so many kings around the place any more.

I usually call the head of a clan a chief and the head of a tribe a king. By that definition, there would be plenty of kings available. A tribe was, to my way of thinking, about the right size for a group to consider a wandering band the size of the PCs and their entourage to be a target rather than a threat. Smaller groups should be worried that the PCs are going to raid their crannog or hill fort.

Quote from: Bren;777616I usually call the head of a clan a chief and the head of a tribe a king. By that definition, there would be plenty of kings available. A tribe was, to my way of thinking, about the right size for a group to consider a wandering band the size of the PCs and their entourage to be a target rather than a threat. Smaller groups should be worried that the PCs are going to raid their crannog or hill fort.

By this time most of the tribes of southern Gallia had elected magistrates, rather than hereditary kings, so again not really.

But yes, a Carthaginian warlord who didn't want the PCs arriving at their destination did hire a whole tribe (or at least a significant chief in a tribe and his warband) to attack them. They figured outnumbering them 2:1 and local advantage with an ambush would be enough. Turned out that when the group you are attacking is well-armoured and contains a lot of experienced fighters (and some proper cavalry), it isn't enough.

They'd been hosted by one chief of the Insubres prior to that, I'd imagine that settled a lot of nerves, given the Keltoi PC exchanged guest friendship and promised to host his son if he visited.

Quote from: Kiero;777619By this time most of the tribes of southern Gallia had elected magistrates, rather than hereditary kings, so again not really.

Who said anything about hereditary kings?

I'm not planning on having an argument with you about the difference between an elected king and an elected Vergobret or whatever the southern tribes called their ruling magistrates. For the purposes of the point I was making, there is no functional difference between the two.

Quote from: Bren;777630Who said anything about hereditary kings?

No one, but now you're splitting hairs. They had elected magistrates who ruled for a year, and had a council of elders acting as a constraint on them. That's not a king, nor were they called kings.

Lots of great advice, thanks folks.

The next step for me is to pick which classes and races would "fit" such a campaign.

Races
My knee-jerk reaction would be to only allow humans.

However, I thought about re-skinning certain races. Examples: Elves as Amazons, Tieflings as Satyrs... Not sure about this. I can't figure out where Dwarves and Halflings fit. Dragonborn are right out!

Classes

Most of them appear to be fine except for the magic users. The only "magical" specialists were Oracles, so unless I only have Wizards able to cast Divination spells... ergh...

I thought about letting Warlocks because of the possibility of Pacts with all kinds of mythical creatures. However...

I may just allow Clerics as the "magical" class.

What do you think?