I've always wanted to run a classical period campaign, with city states and their different ideas about what constitutes "civilization"  driving the plot.

There's lots of interesting conflicts, i.e. democracy vs totalitarian states; the question of slavery and who is fully human, and the sense that the world is new and all these ideas about how people live together are put forth and tried out the first time (by philosopher kings in togas, no less).

Add divine intervention by tempramental gods and all sorts of mythical beasts and you have a pretty cool fantasy setting here ...

Read the "Taenarum" on http://dreamsinthelichhouse.blogspot.com/ to see a guy currently doing old-school-style megadungeon in fantastic-ancient-greece D&D.

Search for "Mercenary, Liberator, Tyrant" on the ACKS forums to see Kiero (sometimes poster here? I think there may have been discussion on this board as well) doing a no-magic very-historically-flavored Ancient Greece game.

This being a D&D pseudo-greek setting don't rule out Hercules The Legendary Journeys.

In most games, I bailed on d20, class based systems a long time ago.
But when I wrote my Bronze age game, set in the end of the dark ages of Greece (when Iron is just really starting use), and used a d20 variant specifically because the ultra heroic time period, with a real difference between the mortals and those touched by the gods, matched well.

Quote from: Exploderwizard;775623This being a D&D pseudo-greek setting don't rule out Hercules The Legendary Journeys.

Or the new Hercules movie. Which is suprisingly good.

OOH!
Don't forget you have the most logical use of Cavers of Thracia ever in a campaign.  That's worth something right there.

Quote from: Arkansan;775255There was a 2e sourcebook for just that sort of thing if I recall correctly. I think there was a book for d20 that was ancients or something along those lines.

This one?



I think there is one other...

There was a few in that series. Thanks for posting that though because it jogged my memory. The one I was thinking of was called Age of Heroes, you can get it from drivethrurpg.

http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product/16920/HR6-Age-of-Heroes-Campaign-Sourcebook-2e?it=1

Heroes of Hellas is nice for a mythic view of Greece...it uses the BoL system but is easily mined for D&D.

Quote from: LordVreeg;775761OOH!
Don't forget you have the most logical use of Cavers of Thracia ever in a campaign.  That's worth something right there.

Converting The Caverns of Thracia to Mazes & Minotaurs is full of win.

Regardless of whatever system you use, check out the Mazes & Monsters adventures and resources. Again, all free with free sauce.

They have some kind of megadungeon/mega-adventure too.

Rincewind1's advice is good. "Ancient Greece" when and where? On the historical side of things, we're talking a span of at least a thousand years, from the Minoan/Mycenaean Age/Greek Dark Ages to the beginning of the end of the Hellenistic Era and the rise of Roman dominion. Political organisation, economy, social mores, technology, everything is different depending on the when. The later you draw inspiration from, the more important are the "little men" as aristocrats would call them - though whether that means the hoplite class of affluent, yeoman farmers or the actual commoners who might be rowers as their only means to contribute to the defense of their city, depends on when you're talking about.

Hellas proper wasn't just the Greek mainland either, but included the western coast of Turkey and hundreds of colonies scattered around the Mediterranean seaboard. Colonies are a rich source of roleplaying ideas, not least the clash/fusion of Greek culture with that of the native peoples in the region.

Two critical notions of Greekness are the language itself and citizenship. People would just you on how well you spoke Greek, "barbarians" were those who spoke it haltingly or with a thick accent. Citizenship was the property from which all public rights, to speak in assembly, to carry arms and serve the city, to vote and so on flowed. You had to be the child of a citizen, or voted the citizenship by the ruling body (or tyrant) to acquire those rights. Foreigners (anyone not a citizen) had few public rights.

Slavery is also a big deal and something that should feature heavily if you're going to give it an authentic feel. Loss of freedom was always a risk when taking to the seas, or if you survived a battle on the losing side.

Religion is another big thing. You have polytheism, but everyone tends to worship everything, calling on whichever god(s)/hero/ancestor they think will aid them in a moment of need. You appeal to them for the success of your action, and/or give thanks after the fact for a success. There's none of the Judeo-Christian concept of forgiveness or salvation or preparing yourself for the afterlife (though there can be moral pollution caused by certain actions which needs to be purged). Hubris is another thing to consider in this context, that the gods punish those who overreach. Linked into this are festivals and such. There's no weekdays or weekends, no concept of the "week" at all. But there are plenty of festivals, linked to religious cults, city traditions, popular dates or personages and so on, so there are lots of effective rest days. Priests aren't a caste apart from everyone else (except in places like Egypt), they're usually aristocrats in a special "by invitation only" club called a cult. Being a priest is a role you take on for a ritual occasion, not a career.

If you really want to make it feel Greek, engage with the maritime focus. Give the PCs a ship, perhaps a small one like a triakonter (which has thirty oars on a single tier) to start with and a loyal crew. Most trips are coasting - going from one point on the coast to another, possibly without leaving sight of land. They can then upgrade themselves to a bigger ship. Boarding actions are great set-piece combats with a real stake - not only life and death, but huge wealth if you can take someone else's ship. I had a thread with a ship and it's crew as the centre of a premise before.

Other gentlemanly pursuits to consider: hunting (some men would judge your worth by how well you hunted), exercise and sporting competition (I started a thread on this), how well you host a gathering and navigate a party of guests. The Greeks really weren't like the dour, cynical Romans in many important respects.

A big way to make it not feel faux-medieval is to change the equipment. There's no mail at all. "Heavy" armour is bronze plates - a cuirass, helmet, greaves, arm and thigh plates and a big shield. To lighten up you might change the cuirass from bronze to leather or linen and drop the arm and thigh plates. Or wear a leather-backed-scale shirt (nomadic nobles had full suits of scale) or lamellar.

Shields are really, really important, moreso than armour. Some warriors would make do with nothing more than a shield for protection, at most adding a helmet if they could afford it. The shield also carries notions of honour for a Greek, after all it was heavy and cumbersome and would inhibit fast movement. A coward threw away his shield, a brave man kept his facing front and held, protecting his comrades. That's also important, with a big circular shield like the aspis, a third of it's surface protects the man to your left, reinforcing the collective ethos of the phalanx. Furthermore, the rightmost guy in the rank is unprotected on his weapon side - he has to be the best warrior in that rank because he's most exposed.

Most swords are shortswords, there are very few long blades except in the hands of cavalrymen (and no two handed swords). The spear is the noblest weapon and lots of people use javelins (both of which can break!). Most bows known to Greeks are shortbows, and the sling is often deadlier (if using cast lead bullets, rather than stones/pebbles); composite bows come from the east.

Make sure wrestling and boxing are worth something in the game, because athletes and warriors practised them and could find ways to apply them to armed as well as unarmed combat.

If you want to read some well-researched historical fiction, check out Christian Cameron's The Long War series for the Greco-Persian Wars, or Tyrant for the Hellenistic era.

Quote from: Spinachcat;776218Regardless of whatever system you use, check out the Mazes & Monsters adventures and resources. Again, all free with free sauce.

They have some kind of megadungeon/mega-adventure too.

You mean Mazes & Minotaurs, of course (ah, shall we ever be free from this curse ?).

I second Kiero's comment about the critical nature of a shield in actual historical use.  As important as armor, not as a little add on.

Quote from: LordVreeg;776295I second Kiero's comment about the critical nature of a shield in actual historical use.  As important as armor, not as a little add on.

Indeed, I'd go so far as to say change the way they work in the system so that shields are much, much more significant, mechanically. And by way of rebalancing, armour is less significant.

That's what I did for my Hellenistic era rules for ACKS, your choice of shield made a really big difference to AC, especially against missiles. Armour didn't really get beyond the values for medium armour under the regular system.

Talking some more of armour, a Greek gentleman-hoplite or gentleman-cavalryman didn't go about armoured all the time. They often had a slave (skeuophoros) or younger relative a son, cousin, nephew, whatever (hypaspist) responsible for armouring them*, carrying their helmet and shield, spare weapons and so on - just like a medieval squire. The role of shieldbearer, was an important aspect of the cultural approach to warfare. Only mercenaries tended to manage without attendant support, often because they couldn't afford to keep another mouth fed, clothed and armed. Along with more "professional" troops later like the Macedonian phalangites and later Roman legionaries who were supposed to carry their own gear.

If you have a maritime-centred game, it's even more important. Not only is armour uncomfortable when going about shipboard activities, it's also a liability if you fall overboard. Marines only armour up when expecting trouble.

This means scope for much more varied combats where it isn't always the PCs fully tooled up with all their best gear all the time. Often they might be completely unarmoured (or even naked) but for their shield and weapons, or using their cloak wrapped around the forearm as a makeshift shield.

It also introduces that question of how urgent a combat is; do I stop and armour up properly before engaging in battle, or pitch in now and deal with the threat before my friends are overwhelmed? Getting armed and armoured up is also a pretty bold statement of intent. You don't usually go into the home of another person tooled up, it's rude as much as anything else.

It's using societal expectations and such to liven things up and turn relatively mundane sources of threat into potentially dangerous ones, or else a real tactical decision about how much you prepare.

*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.