Here's a question.  What would be a good campaign setup for such a setting?  The traditional wandering swords meeting in a tavern (beer being a huge part of Mesopotamian life, but even though it was shared with straws I am unsure if it was in a drunk communal location) and seeking adventure?  

I was thinking about the idea of the PCs being the trusted companions of a city-state ruler ala Gilgamesh.  They would be sent out on missions to the wilds when the big guy is busy running the city, or they might be tasked with dealing with problems in the city while he is away fighting wars with other cities, etc.  There would be plenty of room for everything from fantastic monsters to political intrigue within the temples.

What do you think?


TGA

Hiya,

I would absolutely avoid the 'rootless wanderer and inns' approach; it isn't right for the setting, and nullifies the 'exoticism' that makes the setting attractive. Baaaad cliché...

The 'buddies of the King' approach is better. A king could act as patron, while the player-characters themselves are junior royal relatives, royal officials or even trusted slaves.
They could even be members and followers of an exiled royal family from another state given refuge: an exiled group of princes and their charioteers, acting as their host-protector's loyal guest-friends.

As for source material, in addition to Nemet-Nejat's book I'd advise the following books:


http://www.amazon.com/Ancient-Near-East-3000-330-Routledge/dp/0415167620/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1235248915&sr=1-3
Amélie Kuhrt: The Ancient Near East c. 3000-330 BC (2 vols.)
An excellent, if serious, general introduction, to get a good 'feel' for the region and period; the second volume starts with the late Bronze Age (circa 1200 BC), but it looks as if you have to buy both volumes (not a bad thing, as they make an excellent set!)
If you need a good overview of the region, its history and its societies, this is the one to get!

http://www.amazon.com/Gods-Demons-Symbols-Ancient-Mesopotamia/dp/0292707940/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1235248880&sr=8-1
Jeremy Black and Anthony Green: Gods, Demons and Symbols of Ancient Mesopotamia.
Good place for finding your gods, demons and monsters...

http://www.ospreypublishing.com/ancient_world/
Osprey Men At Arms series; there are various volumes on the ancient Egyptian, Assyrian and other armies, Mycenean and Hittite Bronze Age fortresses, war chariots etc. It's not just the information, but the splendid illustrations that make them must have source material...

Finally, 'Les Voyages d'Alix' is a series of illustrated books about the ancient world; the range of published volumes ranges from costumes (3 volumes, the first one is the most interesting if you want to run a campaign in the Bronze Age Middle East) to ships and various locations (alas, no Babylon or Ur yet...)

Here's a list of volumes with example pages:

http://www.bedetheque.com/serie-3301-BD-Alix-(Les-voyages-d-).html#

The books themselves, if you're living in North America, can be ordered from Amazon Canada:

http://www.amazon.ca/s/ref=nb_ss_gw?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=les+voyages+d%27alix&x=0&y=0

Hope this helps,

Chariovalda

The Gods, Demons and Symbols book is excellent; I found a copy at local used books store.

TGA, in Dumurra I had the PCs start as members of a temple in one of the major cities.  The free-spirited wanderers idea just doesn't work, as Chariovalda says.

(btw, welcome to the board, Chariovalda!)

Quote from: KenHR;284692Just remembered another:

http://www.amazon.com/Life-Ancient-Near-3100-332-B-C-E/dp/0300076665/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1235160746&sr=8-5

This one I really liked.  Still refer to it every now and then.

This book is excellent and enjoyable to read.  I second the recommendation.

If you are interested in a traveling game, you may want to consider that there was some really long-distance trade going on in the Bronze Age.  While it's written from a Harappan perspective, the book Trading Encounters: From the Euphrates to the Indus in the Bronze Age by Shereen Ratnagar does an excellent job of covering the resources being traded during the period and where they came from (the book even includes a fold out resource and trade map not unlike the ones you'll find in RPG books that goes from Mesopotamia to the Indus Valley) and a map of trade routes through the ancient Persian Gulf.  The novel Between the Rivers (mentioned earlier) has a trading journey component to it, though they run into Mycenaeans (the terminology used for titles such as "wanax" and "lawagetas" are Mycenaean).  

I've got a lot of books about the Bronze Age but my focus is more Mycenaean, Minoan, and Hittite than Egyptian or Mesopotamian.  Basically, it's an interesting period of human history that's got a lot of things going on that make it suitable for role-playing adventure, either straight, fictionalized, or in fantasy form.  If you want to do an ancient-based fantasy world, I highly recommend taking a look at Bruce Trigger's Early Civilizations: Ancient Egypt in Context which compares various ancient cultures and abstracts out various traits that they exhibit:

QuoteFor anthropologists an 'early civilization' is historically the earliest form of a class-based society. In this original and provocative book, Bruce Trigger places our understanding of ancient Egypt in perspective through a comparative examination of Egypt during the Old and Middle Kingdoms with the early civilizations of the Inkas, the Shang and Western Chou of China, the Aztecs and their neighbors, the classic Mayas, the Yorubas and Benin, and ancient Mesopotamia. Professor Trigger investigates the economic foundations of these early civilizations, their politics and culture, and their religious traditions, drawing some surprising conclusions. His innovative work adds a new dimension to our understanding of early civilizations, charting new courses for their study in the future and indicating for both anthropologists and Egyptologists the value of comparative studies. Enhanced by an important bibliographical essay, the book broadens our understanding of the similarities and differences among ancient civilizations.

It's a small easy-to-read book full of great details to put into an ancient fantasy setting.  It's only $16 and I highly recommend it.

If you are a really glutton for punishment or a real fan of ancient history, he's more recently written the much more comprehensive Understanding Early Civilizations : A Comparative Study.  Where the first book is a nice terse 168 pages, this one is 757 pages.

Personally, I advise against using Trigger's 'Understanding Early Civilisations'.
Not because it is a bad book, but it is, relatively speaking, rather dry and sometimes hard to get through, mainly due to its size. At heart, it is a 'compendium of facts' for the use of comparing different civilisations, but it lacks the ease of use of a book organised along the lines of an encyclopedia, and it is not as readable as a more conventional history book.

There's two titles I'd like to add to my recommendations:

J.N. Postgate: 'Early Mesopotamia. Society and Economy at the Dawn of History'.
http://www.amazon.com/Early-Mesopotamia-Society-Economy-History/dp/0415110327/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1235311816&sr=1-1
A good overview of the subject matter mentioned in the title. It's a good addition to Amélie Kuhrt's two volumes, providing more in-depth information concerning Early Bronze Age Mesopotamia.

W.J. Hamblin: 'Warfare in the ancient Near East to 1600 BC. Holy Warriors at the Dawn of History'.
http://www.amazon.com/Warfare-Ancient-Near-East-History/dp/0415255899
An excellent book all in all, with plenty of nice, evocative literary quotes and a general “feel” for the ebb and flow of Near Eastern Bronze Age political and military history.
For instance, the book was able to inform me that Bronze Age Mesopotamian city-states had “sacred” named standards and weapons, like “Mace-unbearable-for-the-regions” and “Slaughterer-of-a-myriad”. Or how about this triumphal hymn to Inanna/Ishtar, in her aspect as war goddess:

Drums, silver inwrought, they are beating for her -
Before Holy Inanna, before her eyes, they are parading -
The Great Queen of Heaven, Inanna, I will hail!
Holy tambourines and holy kettledrums they are beating for her
The guardsmen have combed their hair for her
They have made colourful for her the back hair with coloured ribbons
On their bodies are sheepskin robes, the dress of divinities
They are girt with implements of battle
Spears, the arms of battle, are in their hands
Playfully, with painted buttocks, they engage in single combat
Captive enemy lads in neck stocks bewail to her their fate
Daggers and maces rage before her
The kurgaru warriors mounted on chariots swing the maces
Gore is covering the daggers, blood sprinkles
In the courtyard of the place of the assembly
The temple administrator-priests are shedding blood
As loudly resounds there the music of tigi-harps, tambourines and lyres.

Now, if you can't make an evocative roleplaying scene out of the above, I would check your pulse.
Blood, bronze and human sacrifice, what more do you want?

Cheers,

Chariovalda

Quote from: Chariovalda;285008Personally, I advise against using Trigger's 'Understanding Early Civilisations'.

Well, that's why I started out the mention of that book with, "If you are a really glutton for punishment or a real fan of ancient history..."  No, it's not a book one would casually read.  I mentioned it because it's Trigger's more recent work on the subject and it isn't the same as his earlier "Early Civilizations: Ancient Egypt in Context", which was the book I was really recommending.

The earlier book ("Early Civilizations: Ancient Egypt in Context") can be casually read and doesn't get bogged down in minutia.  It's shorter (168 pages), easy to get through, and not dry (in my opinion).  I think it's an excellent guide for the sorts of things that one should think about while crafting a fantasy ancient civilizations (the sections in the index are agriculture, kinship, land ownership, taxation, authority, army, inequality, class hierarchy, social mobility, administrative control, status symbols, tribute, trade, monumental architecture, art, values and lifestyle, concept of deity, cosmology, humanity and the gods, kings and gods, and the destiny of the individual with each point discussed over 2-6 pages).

Quote from: The Good Assyrian;284718Exactly!  The thief just seems too "urban" for this kind of primeval setting.

How about the bandit/livestock rustler/grain thief ?

I am working on a project where one section deals with Ancient civilizations. This not meant as a historical treatise but an attempt to make something useful for gamers.

QuoteThe Ancient Age
This time period corresponds to the Bronze Age of our own history running roughly from 3000 BC to 800 BC. This was an age where increasing sophistication in organization and technology caused important changes to human society.

The increase in agriculture production caused an expansion of population and allowed a surplus that supported specialized occupations. The unfortunate side effect of this is that extreme levels of social stratification appeared for the first time. To achieve the new levels of crop production society had to be organized. With foreman, managers, and leaders appointed to oversee the engineering and workforce.

The tribes beyond the frontiers of these early civilizations saw them as lands of milk and honey. With volumes of food far beyond what their own efforts could gather. Many early civilizations suffered periodic raids by the tribes requiring that a permanent military be established.

The early civilizations did not spring up full grown. They originated in the tribes that learned the rudiments of agriculture and settled down in one location. Agriculture alone did not cause the formation of the first civilizations. The first great civilization rose among the tribes who settled near the great rivers where there was arable lands to be found on the banks. The need to control the seasonal flooding and to expand their fields caused these tribes to learn the beginning of engineering. It was the requirements of engineering along with the increased agriculture that propelled the first great civilizations to glory or infamy.

With the expansion of population came the need to organize the people effectively to maintain the works and fields. The old shaman became a high priest blessing the crops and proclaiming the will of the tribe's god. The chief was anointed king by the high priest.  The year's surplus was given to the king to protect and distribute. As the population grew so did the wealth possessed by the kings.

In most early civilizations the king's territory comprised little more than a city or town and the surrounding fields. The larger city-state would often have satellite villages. They were viewed as an extension of the city itself not separate entities. The economy was run as an extended household of the king. The king's took in the crop into his treasuries and then distributed back out to everybody who lived in the city-state. The surplus was used to feed artisans, the priests, and the military needed to protect the city-state.

The first empires were run similarly. Instead of households the formerly independent city-states now held allegiance to one king. The individual city-states were now run by governors instead of kings. However instead of sending the entire crops to one central location in the empire each city-state instead sent a tribute the forerunner of today's taxes.

While the above elements were found in nearly all of the early civilizations the details of each were very different from one another. The mix of local resources, and geography heavily influenced the cultures of these early civilizations.

The tribes outside of the frontiers of these early civilization responded in different ways. Some turned to raiding. These raids resulted in a number of different possibilities. Some were defeated due to the superior organization and population of these early civilizations. Some managed to significantly harmed the civilization causing it to decline as irrigation works and fields can no longer be maintained and were abandoned. Yet others conquered becoming the new kings and overseers of the city-states.

Other tribes turned to a pastoral existence. They lived a nomadic life of herding sheep, goats, and other domesticated animals. Throughout history there was considerable conflict between these pastoral tribes and the early civilization as the expanding frontier either blocked off or took away needed grazing ground.

Many tribes that led a settled existence of agriculture were assimilated into the neighboring civilization. Several learned from their neighbors and founded their own civilization in order to defend themselves.

The later centuries of this period was marked by increasing trade fueled by luxury goods and the need for the components of bronze. Tin and copper, the two components of bronze, are not found together and are often found geographically far apart. In our history one of main source of tin was the British Isles. The tin was mined in Britain and then shipped through a series of intermediaries until it reached the civilizations of the eastern Mediterranean.  The diversity of luxury goods further fueled trade as each civilization traded for the luxury items of the other.

Quote from: estar;285072How about the bandit/livestock rustler/grain thief ?

There was also plenty of tomb and temple raiding going on, which is why the Egyptians eventually went through such elaborate efforts to keep their pharaoh's tombs from getting looted and why much of it failed, anyway and why the temples had walls and guards and so on.  The Code of Hammurabi (later than the Akkadians) also has a specific anti-fencing law, for example, and talks about thieves or robbers.  Some of the options will depend on how you deal with the supernatural.  Raiding a tomb or temple is a very different proposition if deities, magic, and curses are demonstrably real and actively deter the thievery.

Ancient Kingdoms: Mesopotamia by Necromancer Games is very, very good.

Quote from: estar;285072How about the bandit/livestock rustler/grain thief ?

I am positive that there have been thieves as we think of them since the beginning of civilization, but my point is I don't see the thief as a "heroic archetype" being appropriate to my concept of a mythic Sumerian campaign.  I would handle all those examples as a Fighting Man. But then again, that is the trade off in using Swords & Wizardry in the first place, I suppose (although I house rule a "Scoundrel" class in my own fantasy S&W campaign).


TGA

Yeah, I'd use Conan.

RPGPundit

I'd put it like this: If you want to run something more than just a run-of-the-mill dungeoneering campaign with stereotype characters with just some weird names for gods and places slapped on 'em, each Player Character should be a 'hero' as people understood them in those times.

That is, the hero can be a king, a king's buddy, nobleman, warrior, tribal chief or whatever.
They are never thieves, in the sense that they covertly take stuff from other people who belong to their own 'in-group' (that is, family, village, tribe, city, kingdom, or friendly strangers, 'guest-friends').

However...a hero can take, with force and possibly involving some guile, anything – women, cattle, treasure – from enemies and foreigners. To seize with force, to kill – it's cool, it's honorable, it's what heroes do.

(Of course, the victims might disagree, judging by ancient complaints about thieving Amorite nomads etc.)

The 'sneaky thief' did probably exist, but was considered vermin – and treated as such.
Same with tomb-robbers, if found out.
Of course, tomb-robbing did happen quite a lot, especially in Egypt where they had the smart idea of burying large amounts of valuables with the dead. Tomb-robbing has been referred to in some contexts as a kind of local 'cottage industry'. The point is: you don't boast having found things in some underground tomb or complex; it is an impious act and 'certainly to be punished by the Gods' (well, in theory, that is; in a Mythic Mesopotamian Campaign, I suppose you'll get bad dreams and have your limbs rot off your body...I have visions of entire villages of tomb-robbers with various nasty disfiguring diseases...). In Egypt, when caught, they would insert a sharpened piece of wood into the business end of your digestive tract (of course, any bigwigs involved, like a prominent high priest, might escape punishment. Plus ça change...)
There's a nice episode in the TV documentary series 'Ancient Egyptians' http://www.amazon.com/Ancient-Egyptians-Jeremy-Sisto/dp/B000244FGE/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1235505411&sr=1-3 that describes a case of tomb-robbing that was discovered, with a hapless tomb-robber meeting a 'sticky' end on a sharp piece of wood...

Quote from: Chariovalda;285554I'd put it like this: If you want to run something more than just a run-of-the-mill dungeoneering campaign with stereotype characters with just some weird names for gods and places slapped on 'em, each Player Character should be a 'hero' as people understood them in those times.

That is, the hero can be a king, a king's buddy, nobleman, warrior, tribal chief or whatever.

That's a great point.  At one time, I wanted to run a heroic Bronze Age game (set in a Greece-like region of a fantasy world) using d6 as the base.  To run the kind of game I wanted, I realized that the PCs would have to be nobility, sometimes leading armies, sometimes being manipulated by gods.  I thought it looked fun, but that pitch was voted down.

Dumurra was aimed at the normal person level, just because it was fun to imagine life in those times (for me, at least, turned out not so much for the players).  I think the kings/princes/high priests approach would have worked better.