The glory that was Rome!

[subplotkudzu]

I'm starting to piece together next year's prospectus and one thing kicking around is a Sword & Sandals epic. Something with Gladiators and Roman legions and noble treachery and all that fun stuff. The question is what to use to run it?

Fvlminata was my first thought, but I don't own a copy of the game and my two best "swipe rules sets off of them" players had only barely heard of it. I recall very favorable play descriptions in A&E when it came out, but the reviews I've read have been mixed and their website is tres sparse. Can anyone give a good thumbs up or down on play - especially with some ideas towards combat? Does 2nd edition clear up any of the complaints raised in the review of 1st edition I linked to?

Cambias and ladegard both mentioned GURPS Imperial Rome, which I do own, but I have never been able to wrap my mind around the 1 second combat rounds attack roll vs dodge parry roll on a 3d6 curve that is core to GURPS. (It just doesn't sing to me - call it a side effect of a V&V childhood.) I know I should get familiar with it, but I expect that a game that might have multiple gladiatorial duels would be a hard place to acquaint myself with the combat mechanic with players who know it much better than I do. 

There are other generic/fantasy engines (BRP, d6, even D&D if I wanted to) that I could turn to, but I'd rather experiment a bit. Can anyone recommend another alternative?

 

 

Comments

[whswhs.livejournal.com]

If you want action/adventure, I had good results with Hero System. I'm not talking about the superpowers part of it, which I find a bit too baroque; I'm talking about the combat engine, which is a model of elegance. I never got confused running fight scenes with it.

Bill Stoddard

[brianrogers.livejournal.com]

That's another system I own but have never really used, but in its case it's not because I can't internalize the system - I have a pretty good handle on that - but because I always felt it did an extremely poor job of capturing its supposedly default Supers setting. Baroque is a very kind word for it.

However, you're right that it's got a solid combat system, especially for a more lethal than D&D, differences between brawling and weapon-play setting. I still have concerns about how much the mechanic can be gamed, but if I keep the starting points low and install a Normal Characteristic Maxima (or better still, pre-build the characters) and minimize or eliminate magic that should rein things in quite a bit.

[whswhs.livejournal.com]

That's exactly what I did with my pulp heroes campaign: They paid double for characteristics above 20 or any "superpowers," and I expected them to be restrained about powers. And the campaign ran very smoothly for a couple of years.

[ladegard.livejournal.com]

On the prospectus front, have you seen Dead Inside?

[brianrogers.livejournal.com]

I am familiar wih Herr Doktor Underkoffler's work, but I haven't read it yet.

I take it this is a request?

[ladegard.livejournal.com]

I love the idea of a game where advancement is predicated on good deeds and helping others.

[brianrogers.livejournal.com]

Do you own a copy of Dead Inside yet?

[ladegard.livejournal.com]

I've managed to not acquire a copy of my own so far.