An Ancient World Campaign Setting: How Would You Do It?

[Dark Jezter]

Greetings. I'm a big fan of those grand old Hollywood epics, such as Ben-Hur, The Ten Commandments, Sparticus, etc. The thought has crossed my mind a few times about how an ancient world campaign setting would differ from the typical 14th-century Europe-style setting. I know this is covered briefly in the DMG, but I thought I'd add a few thoughts of my own:

1. Steel weapons and armor are exceptionally rare. Many metal weapons are instead made out of bronze (-1 to attack and damage). Some are even made of bone or stone (-2 to attack and damage). I know that this one was in the DMG, I just thought I'd expand on it a little.

2. Longbows, bastard swords, greatswords, polearms, and heavy armor have not been invented yet, so they are not available.

3. With the exception of wizards (and possibly clerics), ALL of the standard classes start out illiterate, not just barbarians.

4. Civilized countries are often seperated by large expanses of wilderness. Travelling between these areas can be dangerous because of bandits, barbarians, and environmental conditions.

5. Civilized countries can range from small city-states to grand empires. Those that border on the wilderness are ever at war with barbarian hordes.

6. Armies don't rely on heavy cavalry or knights, instead they might gain their edge by using things like highly-trained archers, mounted raiders, formations of spearmen, war chariots, or armored centurions. Some of the kingdoms in warmer climates might use camel or elephant-mounted soldiers on the battlefield.

These are just a few ideas of mine. I know that a few people here know a lot about ancient history, so I'm excited to see their ideas.

 

[Darkness]

GURPS Imperial Rome! GURPS Imperial Rome!

Or maybe GURPS Egypt...

 

[Sulimo]

GURPS Imperial Rome! GURPS Imperial Rome!

Or maybe GURPS Egypt...

They're OK if you want a straight recreation (and for the most part all you need is a few history books...

Personally, I quite like the similar long OOP ICE books Mythic Greece & Mythic Egypt, which are set in the mythic ages og those cultures rather than the historical era's...

I would love to see a gaming company (d20 or not) have a crack at a setting which uses these cultures as a base (just as most D&D settings use medieval Europe as a base).

 

[Corey II]

For my campaign world I simply picked the era that interested me, researched it and then changed all the names. Essentially, it is the eastern part of the Persian Empire (modern Afghanistan, my wife is from there) a few years after Alexander's former generals got done smacking each other around in the Successor Wars.

A few thoughts:

In this period the nomads known collectively as Scythians (later Huns and Mongols) were getting fiesty, ripping up some lovely "civilized" lands. This makes for one point- borders mean very little. The nomads, who were very definitly the main threat to civilization, go where they please. Their practices of deliberatly malforming their children's skulls and facial scarring made people of the time wonder if they were even human.

For equipment, the main difference between this period and the standard medieval setting, you can go to the Wizards site and for a minimal cost ($5 a piece) download the 2nd edition Age of Heros Campaign Sourcebook and the Players Option: Combat and Tactics book. Both have excellant "Bronze Age" equipment lists.

Since bronze is the primary metal, the baseline, used for weapons, I would not give it any modifiers. Add a plus to iron (or just say a masterwork weapon is iron) and a minus to bone/stone.

No stirrups for horses and saddles are basically blankets. This means Ride DCs increase.

Maps and news about the greater world are very rare and very precious. You're right, literacy is a big deal and should be fairly rare.

Corey

 

[mmadsen]

The thought has crossed my mind a few times about how an ancient world campaign setting would differ from the typical 14th-century Europe-style setting.

If anything, the ancient world was more advanced than the later medieval world -- with a few specific exceptions: the stirrup, the wheelbarrow, steel arms & armor, and eventually gunpowder. For just about anything else, scholars of the Middle Ages looked back to the ancients.

Steel weapons and armor are exceptionally rare.

Even in Classical Greece, where armor and swords were made out of bronze, arrow tips and spear tips were often iron or steel. Later, the Romans wore mail and carried steel swords, but some still wore bronze helmets.

Bronze is much easier to fashion into sophisticated shapes (helmet, muscle cuirass). Iron/steel makes for hard arrowheads.

Many metal weapons are instead made out of bronze (-1 to attack and damage). Some are even made of bone or stone (-2 to attack and damage).

I'm not sure bronze deserves any significant penalties except against superior steel equipment. A 1d4 (2.5 average) dagger stab would reduce down to 1d4-1 (1.75 average) just because the blade is bronze; that's a big penalty. And a stone club should be almost as good as an iron mace.

Longbows, bastard swords, greatswords, polearms, and heavy armor have not been invented yet, so they are not available.

Even longswords are impractical using bronze.

With the exception of wizards (and possibly clerics), ALL of the standard classes start out illiterate, not just barbarians.

Certainly priests would be literate. Further, an ancient empire could easily be more literate than a medieval society. Of course, D&D isn't very medieval when it comes to literacy; almost everyone should be illiterate until well after the introduction of the printing press.

Civilized countries are often seperated by large expanses of wilderness. Travelling between these areas can be dangerous because of bandits, barbarians, and environmental conditions.

It's the Romans who built the roads that were still being used in the Middle Ages, and it's the Roman military machine that kept travel safe throughout the empire. They even had daily newspapers transported hundreds of miles. You certainly didn't see that in the Middle Ages.

Armies don't rely on heavy cavalry or knights...

Because the stirrup wasn't around yet.

 

[bmcdaniel]

Re: Re: An Ancient World Campaign Setting: How Would You Do It?

If anything, the ancient world was more advanced than the later medieval world -- with a few specific exceptions: the stirrup, the wheelbarrow, steel arms & armor, and eventually gunpowder. For just about anything else, scholars of the Middle Ages looked back to the ancients.

Gotta disagree with you here. Even discounting the fact that the "Ancient World" covers a much longer period (and wider geographical area) than the medieval period. I believe that the modern scholarly consensus is that the idea that the medieval period was backwards was a myth invented by the scholastics, who wanted to justify their reliance on authority, and perpetuated by the renaissance, who wanted to show how superior the new thinking was. Technologies such as crop rotation,cheese-making, waterwheels, metallurgy, chemicals (alchemy), architecture (gothic arches and domes were far more advanced than anything ancient), etc. On this topic, I can reccomend Cathedral, Forge, and Waterwheel: Technology and Invention in the Middle Ages.

Even in the pure sciences, Medieval scholars generally built upon, and knew more than, ancient philosophers; think, for example, of the Arab contributions in optics and algebra, which the Greeks had made no progress in. Of course Aristotle knew more than an average 13th century peasant, but comparing Aristotle to, say, Nicole Oresme or Roger Bacon, well the medievals were not as original or formative, but they knew most of Aristotle and a lot more besides.

 

[Mouseferatu]

If you go to http://www.monkeygodenterprises.com/, you can see the cover and blurb for "From Stone to Steel," a product that discusses and stats weapons from about a bajillion ages and cultures.

I've seen a few pre-production pages of this book. It's incredible. And a perfect sourcebook for this sort of campaign.

 

[mmadsen]

Re: Re: Re: An Ancient World Campaign Setting: How Would You Do It?

Gotta disagree with you here.

My point wasn't that no advances were made in the Middle Ages, but that the Ancient World was generally more advanced. Rome did fall, after all. It didn't rise.

A quick look at the aquaducts, the coliseum, Roman roads, baths, etc. demonstrates that ancient Rome achieved quite a bit that the later Europeans couldn't replicate. Further, the Roman economy regularly exchanged goods (and information) across vast distances, and the Roman government ruled and maintained peace over those vast distances.

 

[sword-dancer]

Greetings. I'm a big fan of those grand old Hollywood epics, such as Ben-Hur, The Ten Commandments, Sparticus, etc. The thought has crossed my mind a few times about how an ancient world campaign setting would differ from the typical 14th-century Europe-style setting. I know this is covered briefly in the DMG, but I thought I'd add a few thoughts of my own:

1. Steel weapons and armor are exceptionally rare. Many metal weapons are instead made out of bronze (-1 to attack and damage). Some are even made of bone or stone (-2 to attack and damage). I know that this one was in the DMG, I just thought I'd expand on it a little.

2. Longbows, bastard swords, greatswords, polearms, and heavy armor have not been invented yet, so they are not available.

3. With the exception of wizards (and possibly clerics), ALL of the standard classes start out illiterate, not just barbarians.

4. Civilized countries are often seperated by large expanses of wilderness. Travelling between these areas can be dangerous because of bandits, barbarians, and environmental conditions.

5. Civilized countries can range from small city-states to grand empires. Those that border on the wilderness are ever at war with barbarian hordes.

6. Armies don't rely on heavy cavalry or knights, instead they might gain their edge by using things like highly-trained archers, mounted raiders, formations of spearmen, war chariots, or armored centurions. Some of the kingdoms in warmer climates might use camel or elephant-mounted soldiers on the battlefield.

These are just a few ideas of mine. I know that a few people here know a lot about ancient history, so I'm excited to see their ideas.

1. Steel weapons and armor are exceptionally rare. Many metal weapons are instead made out of bronze (-1 to attack and damage). Some are even made of bone or stone (-2 to attack and damage). I know that this one was in the DMG, I just thought I'd expand on it a little.

after old egypt Iron was the main metal for weapons.
And i wouldn`t reduce the damage, six inch are six inch.

2. Longbows, bastard swords, greatswords, polearms, and heavy armor have not been invented yet, so they are not available.

No 2handed Weapon as axe Mace etc are exists.
scale, chain shirt, and bronce cuirass would be, with the mycenaen bronce breast plate or plate mail excepted, exists.

4. Not really likely between sumer, phoenice egypt where was their wilderness, with the exception of th desert?
the borders of the civilised world would be the home of barbarians and the nomads would be a terrible thread.

6. Yes the heavy armor wasn`t invented, heavier horses not upraised, but the stirrup isn`t necessary for a cav charge

 

[Someone]

Is a wonder that SHARK isn´t here already.

"Ancient ages" is a really long period, and the territory discussed is huge. Is a mistake treat it all as the same, constant thing. My advice is that you choose a concrete period (cool campaings can be made with the background of the siege of Troy, early-middle-late-fall of Roman Empire, Alexander the Great campaings, punic wars, any period of Egipt... not counting truly mithical settings based in those cultures) and look for information. Technology, warcraft, government, and writing varied greatly.