Rome: Decline and Fall (Adventure Series)

Paul Strack · Oct 29, 2008

I am now running a monthly 4E campaign. As a way of inspiring myself to write up detailed game notes, I've decided to post the adventures I am running in these forums. There is also a detailed campaign background that I thought was worth sharing.

I am hoping to post a new adventure each month. Right now, I am advancing the characters one level per adventure, so (in theory) this will ultimately lead to 30 adventures, one per level. In practices, that's a 2.5 year commitment, so I have no idea how far I'll really get, but it will be interesting to try.

Here is the background, house rules, campaign outline and the first adventure. The background and house rules can be shared with the players. The campaign outline and the adventure are DM-only. The house rules are optional. The adventures are written so that you can run them using the core rules with only minor changes (discussed in the campaign outline).

Feel free to use however you like. If you do use them, all I ask is that you let me know how things went.

EDIT (Nov 16): Posted second adventure: http://www.enworld.org/forum/4e-fan...ecline-fall-adventure-series.html#post4550402

EDIT (Jan 28): Posted third adventure: http://www.enworld.org/forum/4e-fan...line-fall-adventure-series-2.html#post4644563

EDIT (April 21): Posted fourth adventure: http://www.enworld.org/forum/4e-fan...line-fall-adventure-series-2.html#post4762819

Allanon · Oct 29, 2008

Wow... That's the first thing that comes to mind. The way you've woven roman history and D&D fantasy together is inspiring to say the least.

The quality of writing is staggering for something released for free on the Internet. I truly think you could publish this setting and that people would pay for it. For now I can do nothing more than applaud your efforts. And to look forward to the rest of these campaign notes.

PeelSeel2 · Oct 29, 2008

Wow! You have done a GREAT job on this!

I like your house rules.

I have referred another friend of mine who is a Rome nut like myself to these documents.

I once ran a campaign based on Rome. It was a lot of fun.

Paul Strack · Oct 31, 2008

Thanks for your kind words.

Even if this were of commercial quality, it takes a lot more work to really publish something. I don't want to over-commit.

Hopefully at this rate I can keep things up.

Twycrokai · Oct 31, 2008

cool implementation of history and myth

I like that you have mapped out the path to 30th and the setting sounds interesting. I am building a game world based on a Romanesque view of the world, but it is much less put together than this.

Are you playing up the Roman/Grecian-centric view of the world? I am really trying to make the world more racially integrated, where a citizen of Rome can be of almost any race, so that a party doesn't just come upon a goblin encampment and see them as ambulatory XP. Rather, it depends on the status of the creature (citizen, soldier, slave, rebel, barbarian, auxiliery, etc.) as to how the players can socially interact (i.e. it might be fine to kill a human barbarian, as the Romans wouldn't view them as people, but the killing of an Ogre slave of a Half-Orc centurion would not only piss off the Half-Orc, but lead to civil and possibly criminal penalties for destruction of property).

Just a question on god choices, why use the Greek gods and not the Roman?

Paul Strack · Oct 31, 2008

Twycrokai said:
I like that you have mapped out the path to 30th and the setting sounds interesting. I am building a game world based on a Romanesque view of the world, but it is much less put together than this.

Are you playing up the Roman/Grecian-centric view of the world? I am really trying to make the world more racially integrated, where a citizen of Rome can be of almost any race, so that a party doesn't just come upon a goblin encampment and see them as ambulatory XP. Rather, it depends on the status of the creature (citizen, soldier, slave, rebel, barbarian, auxiliery, etc.) as to how the players can socially interact (i.e. it might be fine to kill a human barbarian, as the Romans wouldn't view them as people, but the killing of an Ogre slave of a Half-Orc centurion would not only piss off the Half-Orc, but lead to civil and possibly criminal penalties for destruction of property).

When I mapped D&D races to human cultures, I wanted to capture the racism of ancient Rome in a way that was less offensive to modern sensibilities. For example, the Germans are all orcs rather than being a mix of races. For the most part, the classically "evil" D&D races are considered bad by Romans as well.

That said, the Roman empire does include a wide variety of non-human races: dwarves (Semitic cultures), half-elves (Celts), eladrin (Egyptians), half-orcs (semi-civilized tribes on the German border), etc. Furthermore, the scenario you outlined (a half-orc centurion with an ogre slave) is quite possible, and the PCs would face legal ramifications for killing someone else's slave (or even their own slaves, technically).

Twycrokai said:
Just a question on god choices, why use the Greek gods and not the Roman?

The in-game justification is that the Greeks are the first ones who seriously studied the correspondences between the different manifestations of the gods, making the Greek names more common. The out-of-game justification is that the Greek names and myths are better known to me and my players, so that "Athena" brings up a stronger image than "Minerva" does.

Khuxan · Oct 31, 2008

I dreamed last night that Tacitus had discussedt

Khuxan · Oct 31, 2008

I dreamed last night that Tacitus had discussed the dragonborn in his Annals - which I think must be your fault.

I'm glad to see the decision to make certain ethnic groups certain races came from a deliberate design decision to portray the racism of the Romans. I feel awkward when real-world groups are described as goblins, orcs or even dwarves - but your explanation is a great rationale.

Paul Strack · Oct 31, 2008

Khuxan said:
I'm glad to see the decision to make certain ethnic groups certain races came from a deliberate design decision to portray the racism of the Romans. I feel awkward when real-world groups are described as goblins, orcs or even dwarves - but your explanation is a great rationale.

I must admit that this made me somewhat uncomfortable as well, especially the Dwarves=Semites. In the end, though, I figured my players were mature enough to handle it, especially given that the racial assignments are all from the point of view of the Romans.

So, when I am saying that the Semites are all dwarves, all I am really saying is that, off the D&D races and given the Roman world view, the dwarves are the best race that fits into that cultural group.

Twycrokai · Oct 31, 2008

Paul Strack said:
That said, the Roman empire does include a wide variety of non-human races: dwarves (Semitic cultures), half-elves (Celts), eladrin (Egyptians), half-orcs (semi-civilized tribes on the German border), etc. Furthermore, the scenario you outlined (a half-orc centurion with an ogre slave) is quite possible, and the PCs would face legal ramifications for killing someone else's slave (or even their own slaves, technically).

The in-game justification is that the Greeks are the first ones who seriously studied the correspondences between the different manifestations of the gods, making the Greek names more common. The out-of-game justification is that the Greek names and myths are better known to me and my players, so that "Athena" brings up a stronger image than "Minerva" does.

I must have missed the race mapping in the campaign background, sorry. That sounds good. Did you map the D&D race to the racial geographic location or make the historical cultural inhabitants look like the D&D race or a mixture? Since this might not be entirely clear, as an example, when the PCs meet a dwarf, is he likely to be a beer swilling miner or culturally middle-eastern, just short and bearded?

The adventure looks like a lot of fun. Hope you stop by and tell us how the first session goes.

BTW, do you have any recomendations on source literature?

Rome: Decline and Fall (Adventure Series)

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