300 Themed Game

[Thunderfoot]

I would normally agree, but if you're mentoring a new DM I'd stick with what you know first. There's plenty of Greek-themed stuff out there.

Heck, you don't even need to buy anything. Take some time to brainstorm a Sparta-like Empire, do some research, throw in a little world-building, and you're all set!

Which goes back to my suggestions - remember that this person is just starting out, give him the good tools to use, teach the aspect of research and role-play.

As for the comment about no realism, what I have found inthe 27 years that I have DMed is that using realism as a 'backdrop' causes the unrealistic style of play that the players bring to the table ('epic/heroic characters) creates a much better storyline and memorable campaign archs than the typical 'cartoonish' everyone is a superhero themes, if they were, then why are the characters special? Its about balance folks, if you've never seen it, you wouldn't understand, but once you have, you ache in your soul to see it again.

 

[S'mon]

It's a cool setting for a low-magic high-heroics campaign - I'm only familiar with it from Ancient History class, not this particular fictional version, though.

Check out Herodotus as well as Thucydides, Herodotus's account of the earlier Persian invasion has more gods, magic, prophesies and cool stuff, though Thucydides has some of that too.

If I were running a campaign based around the Persian invasion of Greece, I'd want a lot of emphasis on concepts of culture, civilisation, identity, honour and patriotism. Remember, this was when the West was born. Also, it's worth noting that the Persians are an interesting lot too; the Greeks saw them as tyrants, eastern despots. In fact Zoroastrianism is a pretty cool religion with an emphasis on egalitarianism and brotherly love, and the Persians are the same historical 'good guys' who a few decades earlier had saved the Israelites from captivity in Babylon! There's a lot of interesting political and moral questions in this setting beyond a simple 'Star Wars' approach of black vs white.

Oh, and check out Queen Artemisia, one cool lady...

 

[S'mon]

^^ That guy? Yeah, I wouldn't want to play that. No offense, just not my thing. Realism is all well and good, but I want one guy who can take on 2000 better armed and armored guys; and survive without too much injury.

In short, as several others have posted, Iron Heroes; but with Spartans.

If you did this, won't the Spartans win? I'd think you could do an Iliad type thing, perhaps with Persian gods and demons joining the battle (qv Herodotus), since their King & generals tended to stay safely back, or you can have the Immortals be super-warriors of comparable stature to the Sparteatei, but I'd think dialing it down a bit would work better - I'd generally peg Sparteatei at ca F3 (helots & perioeci as War 1-3), Persian Immortals at F1-F3, most of the 600,000 strong (Thucydides says 6 million AIR) Persian army as Com-1s, or War-1s at best, Thespian or Theban citizen hoplites as well-armoured War-2-3s, other light Greek troops as War1 -2. Your hero PCs can be 6th level or so with Leadership feat.

 

[BLACKDIRGE]

I recently released the Hoplite and Peltast prestige classes for the Master at Arms series. Both are very appropriate (especially the hoplite) for an ancient Greek campaign.

Links are in my sig.

BD

 

[Sir Brennen]

If you did this, won't the Spartans win?

I don't think the OP's intent is to redo the battle as depicted in the movie, just have a Spartan-ish campaign.

 

[Aust Diamondew]

If want to run a game like 300 then you don't need to worry too much about history or mythology since the movie pretty much makes up its own.

Having only run modern and medieval games you'll be fine since you know how to run a game and watched the movie that you want to theme your game off of, just use vivid descriptions through out the game, paritcuarly in battles.
I'd proably just use standard D&D rules and just ditch magic items and use class based AC bonus like in unearthed arcana: http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/adventuring/defenseBonus.htm
Since it doesn't stack with your armor bonus it would explain the nearly nude greek warriors.

 

[Gundark]

Pick up Iron Heroes...

QFT

 

[Simon Collins]

This could be adapted:
http://www.rpgnow.com/product_info.php?products_id=1694&

 

[theredrobedwizard]

Which goes back to my suggestions - remember that this person is just starting out, give him the good tools to use, teach the aspect of research and role-play.

As for the comment about no realism, what I have found inthe 27 years that I have DMed is that using realism as a 'backdrop' causes the unrealistic style of play that the players bring to the table ('epic/heroic characters) creates a much better storyline and memorable campaign archs than the typical 'cartoonish' everyone is a superhero themes, if they were, then why are the characters special? Its about balance folks, if you've never seen it, you wouldn't understand, but once you have, you ache in your soul to see it again.

No, no, you misunderstand. Only the PCs are superheroes. The mooks and goons are just that; mooks and goons. Warrior 1-2. Players have PC classes somewhere between 5 and 15. This way, they can probably take out at least 200 or so bad guys before taking something resembling any lasting injury.

-TRRW