Greece vs. Rome: Which is better for a Campaign?

[Wik]

Ancient greek was considered the de facto common language in the east (egypt included) even in roman times.

Except there were regional variations in Ancient Greek that were pretty big. And, while Egyptians DID speak Greek (there were cults of Isis in Greece, and a pretty big cultural connection there), other peoples did not. Phoenicians come to mind... as well as the Hittites. Persians. Mesopotamia had two different languages at the time. The early Etruscans. Not to mention the dozens of local languages floating around.

So, yeah, Ancient Greek was pretty common... but if you played a Greek campaign, it would be pretty likely that the PCs would find themselves in a place where Greek wasn't common. And this would happen more readily than in a Roman campaign, where if they stayed on the mediterranean, odds were good that Latin would be a common tongue.

 

[xechnao]

Except there were regional variations in Ancient Greek that were pretty big. And, while Egyptians DID speak Greek (there were cults of Isis in Greece, and a pretty big cultural connection there), other peoples did not. Phoenicians come to mind... as well as the Hittites. Persians. Mesopotamia had two different languages at the time. The early Etruscans. Not to mention the dozens of local languages floating around.

So, yeah, Ancient Greek was pretty common... but if you played a Greek campaign, it would be pretty likely that the PCs would find themselves in a place where Greek wasn't common. And this would happen more readily than in a Roman campaign, where if they stayed on the mediterranean, odds were good that Latin would be a common tongue.

The legacy of Alexander the Great's campaign did establish greek as "common" in the areas you are talking about. There are tribes in Afghanistan today that their languages have evolved as ancient greek dialects.
Besides I fail to see your point because even in the regions of the roman empire where latin was established as common there were many dialects too. In fact greek had more of an influence than latin everywhere except perhaps the iberian, gallic and some time later the northern domains.

 

[Wik]

The legacy of Alexander the Great's campaign did establish greek as "common" in the areas you are talking about. There are tribes in Afghanistan today that their languages have evolved as ancient greek dialects.
Besides I fail to see your point because even in the regions of the roman empire where latin was established as common there were many dialects too. In fact greek had more of an influence than latin everywhere except perhaps the iberian, gallic and some time later the northern domains.

Well, we seem to be at an impasse. For what it's worth, I've done a bit of archeaology langauge studies on this, and figure Latin was more common than Greek. But, we can disagree - it's a minor point, considering the actual topic of the thread.

 

[Kzach]

* Harder to come up with "Orc invasions", since the well-equipped legions should be able to deal with this.

Yah, 'cause Rome was never sacked multiple times by barbarian tribes...

 

[S'mon]

I think a Greek-style setting of squabbling city states is much easier to write adventures for than is a powerful unified Roman-style empire; though most of my experience has been with the latter, using Mystara's Empire of Thyatis.

Conversely, Roman culture was considerably closer to our own than was Greek, I think, so there is an issue of distance.

 

[kigmatzomat]

While Greece is an obvious choce for points of light, something around the time the Roman Empire was falling apart would be good for points of light. Rome's protection falters and is withdrawn from Britain leaving numerous villas and enclaves of citizens who have intermarried. Europe is a cauldron of cities loyal to Constantinople, rebellious cities who feel that Constantinople is a bunch of effeminate wanks, and raiding tribes.

Of course, I feel that since I'm running an Earthdawn game set in 546AD Europe with the players a bunch of pagan demon hunters in Europe dealing with the imperial conversion edicts.

 

[Mark]

You might try out an RPG system or two designed specifically for those settings as a way of researching how best to model the system of choice toward that end. For Rome, Hinterwelt has a good Historical-Fantasy system -

EN World PDF Store - HinterWelt - Roma Imperious

Which they also put out in a True20 version -

EN World PDF Store - HinterWelt - Roma Imperious True20

There's a freebie put out by SKR called The New Argonauts that might be inspirational in setting up a Mythic Greece setting -

EN World PDF Store - Sean K Reynolds Games - The New Argonauts

 

[Achan hiArusa]

Don't forget Mazes and Minotaurs: M&M

 

[UngainlyTitan]

I voted for the Greek world because of the fragmented nature of the Greek world. That said, I think D&D is a bit OTT for a Classical peroid campaign though thinking about, it would fit ok with a Xena/Herclues the Legendary Journeys type treatment.

Though Rome in the declining period could be very good also.

 

[cignus_pfaccari]

I went with Greece; there's a much closer match to the default setting template with Ancient Greece (from the Iliad through classical times to Alexander) than there is with Rome. Sure, you can set it in the period where the West fell, but let's be honest, that's not the cool time period for them, and much more depressing.

Also note that with Greece, if you set it a bit later, you can get the Persians as a Big Bad Evil Empire, and you can't go wrong with that. With Rome, at best you have Carthage, and their enmity with the Persians/Parthians wasn't nearly the factor it was with the Greeks.

For language issues, I wouldn't worry about it. Assume everybody speaks a Greek form of Common in most areas, at least enough that you can talk to the innkeeper, the authorities, and the questgivers; I'll note that there aren't any communications issues in the Troy series, after all. If you want to involve languages more, make Linguist cheaper (like Int 10 or something). Maybe describe people as having funny accents.

Brad