Tell me about the Iridium system, and Roma Imperious

[johnsemlak]

I've been been considering the product Roma Imperious, by Hinterwelt, as an RPG for a Fantasy Rome setting. It uses the Iridium system, which I"m not familiar with. Can anyone offer any comments on the system or the product?

 

[mythusmage]

Roma Imperious is, unfortunately, not well organized. It can be confusing. What I have learned of the Iridium system has come have diligent seaching, a lot of supposition, and thus winds up inaccurate and incomplete.

What I have learned of the Iridium system gives me the impression of somebody's homebrew of AD&D 2e. Only more complicated. You roll low, you roll high, you roll d20s and percentiles. It's Fortran without Fortran's organization and accessibility.

There are, in short, 3 perfectly good systems in Iridium, all crammed together like cats in a small closet.

Roma Imperious is, on the other hand, interesting. Thanks to magic Rome has lasted longer than it did historically. But now things are beginning to go bad. The Germans are getting antsy, there are buttinski gods in Scandinavia, and dwarfs are nasty bastards with a taste for human flesh. The game is focused on playing a Roman in a world becoming more and more hostile to Romans. Character types are pretty much Roman. The background is very Roman. Information available on non-Roman areas of the world are presented from the Roman point of view. Roman magic, Roman religion, Roman law and war. The Chinese like to characterize their land as The Middle Kingdom. Rome was The Middle Kingdom. Roma Imperious does a damn good job of getting this across, even to the casual reader.

All that said, I'd wait for 2nd edition.

 

[mcrow]

I have found the Iridium system very playable and in fact quite good. I reviewed one of their other games (Nebuleon sci-fi)games over on gamewyrd a while back:

http://www.gamewyrd.com/review/610

I have a fairly detailed explanation of the system there if you are interested. Also there is the Iridium System reference doc:
http://www.hinterwelt.com/ISCR-Ref.html

I also do not have a problem wiht the layout and the side tabs make fliping through easy and the index is good.

Systems are subject to personal tastes. Roma's Setting is what really shines though, great stuff. This is the best Roman Fantasy RPG on market right now. Though I don't particularly like Green Ronin's Roman book (Eternal Rome) you could use it to run Roma in d20 with some conversions.

There are also reviews posted on their site and on rpg.net as well. I don't think there are any plans on printing a second edition either.

 

[HinterWelt]

Roma Imperious is, unfortunately, not well organized. It can be confusing. What I have learned of the Iridium system has come have diligent seaching, a lot of supposition, and thus winds up inaccurate and incomplete.

Wow. I don't think I have ever had anyone complain about the organization of Roma. It has an Index, Table of Contents, sidebars and crossreferences. That said, organization of books is one of those very subjective things. Some people like it, some do not.

What I have learned of the Iridium system gives me the impression of somebody's homebrew of AD&D 2e. Only more complicated. You roll low, you roll high, you roll d20s and percentiles. It's Fortran without Fortran's organization and accessibility.

hmm, first time I have had Iridium compared to 2nd. I have had it compared to Palladium, Gurps, d20, First Ed. DND, Battletech, and a swarm of skill based games. I guess my collection is complete.

The Quick Summary
In all seriousness, you have a percentile system for the skills. It is influenced by modifiers from 11 stats that are generated on a d20. You roll under the skills. You roll under the stats. A person's defense is based on the average of STR, AGL and CON. An attacker must roll the target's Defense of greater on d20 thus defeating the target's Defense. The body has ten areas that can be targeted with the Targeting skill. The ten areas have different fortitude depending on the toughness of the area (i.e. a blow to the head means you are dead). Characters advance by spending exp to advance skills, buy spells and the like. They also track the total exp they have earned over their life and advance in level.

Some tools we have on line:
CHARGen Character Generator, storage and update system - Free and a way to see what kind of character customization is possible.

As Mike mentioned, we have just come out with our Irdium System Core Reference.

The Roma Imperious Homepage

So, if there is anything I can help the original poster with to make up his mind let me know.

Thanks,
Bill

Edit: We also have an Iridium Lite system that we are currently using for Squirrel Attack! Same concepts, fewer dice, only 12 pages long. Click here for the PDF.