TROS is Greece

[Sir Mathodius Black]

After seeing the movie Troy (which, by the way, I thought was excellent), it got me thinking about the possibility of a ROS campaign set in a world similar to the mediteranian with aspects of cultures (mainly Greek) from around 1200 BC (The Trojan War) to around 300-200 BC (Pelopenesian Wars and early Emergance of Rome).

Any ideas as far as nations and their nationality modifiers would be great.  Im thinking of basing the nations in this world closely to real ones that existed and having their attributes reflect their history.

Any suggestions/ideas welcomed and appreciated.

Thanks,
SMB

[bergh]

You will still need a Spear and Shield Style.....which is missing in the book....hehe..

anyway great idea.......im first gonna see the movie sometime this week...i envy you...

[Valthalion]

Troy was excellent. I am really surprised that they followed the outline of the Iliad so closely. I noticed that they had to redeem Achilles and Paris (not Ancient Greek thought at all)  And they certainly detheoligised it.  

That probably your first decision in dealing with Greek History. Pre 5th century Greek history is mythology.  The Iliad has the gods involved right there in the battle. Turning spears. Aphrodite is wounded by an arrow.  The movie took stance to make it a "historical" rather than a fantasy movie.  It did pay some lip service to the gods, Achilles meets his mother (the goddess Thetis) I recall in the Iliad she came out of the sea to give him the choice of fame or long life.  

One of my players suggested that I should do a Greek Mythology campaign (as I am a Classical Greek major) and I thought for the first time ever I've seen a game that could do it.  I would just make the gods characters under the rules.  Vagaries to the max etc.  But not infinite,omnipotent, omniscient omnipresent.  (Odysseus can leave the island of Circe because Poseidon, who hates him has gone to feast with the Ethiopians (from the top of my head)

Anyway for Pre Hellenistic greek TROS you need to work out rules for the shield wall. Spear and shield proficency.

Mycanean Greek (Homeric) tended to have one to one combat a lot (hence the Iliad heroes)

Later Greek history with the polis tended to have communal warfare with the hoplite (citizen soldiers) So you get the rugby scrum hoplite battles with the shield wall etc.

This is perfected by Philip of Macedon an hence his son Alexander the Great in the phalanx with its 16 rank deep formation with  6 yard long pikes (sarissa).

Anyway I think we need flower of battle for massed engagements.  You also need big shields. Mycenean shields are depicted as being taller and wider than the man. (It was thought that you actually placed them in the ground sort of like a mobile then fought behind it.  The Iliad also depicts archers hiding behind the big shields and the shield bearer opening it up for them when they are ready to fire.

Well just some jumbled thoughts

Valthalion

[bergh]

Mycenean! hellenic, pre hellenic ancient greece, before 5th century.....

HELLO! i need a time line? and now i got a person who know about such things. would you not be so kind to make a time line of the "greek periods" with names and year?
It would help me ALOT.

PS: if you don't answer here i will continue to bug you over PM......:-)

[Tash]

http://courses.wcupa.edu/jones/his101/TIMELINE/T-GREEK.HTM

Do a quick google search for Greek+history+timeline

Don't remember much about greek history, being a music comp major I'm kind of procrastinating on Western Civ I.

[Caz]

I've been considering the same thing.  For the spear and shield prof. I don't think there's a need to make a new one up.  Sword and mass weapon both have shield dropped in, just say spear counts for shield too.
   For combat in formation, no new rules need apply, just common sense.  Battle skill, shields help protect your neighbor, you can only attack and be attacked from certain directions, and your own mobility and maneuver considerations, etc.

[Edge]

the first thing i see when i open up the boards today is a post on TROS in Greece :)

it was one of the things i was thinking about during the film, how to convert to TROS

would be a pretty good thing to work on and fun to play in.

[Valthalion]

Mycenean! hellenic, pre hellenic ancient greece, before 5th century.....

HELLO! i need a time line? and now i got a person who know about such things. would you not be so kind to make a time line of the "greek periods" with names and year?
It would help me ALOT.

Woops

Too much technical information


The area of Greece was ruled by a warlike civilisation called the Mycenean civilisation from about 1500 - 1200 BC.  Great fortified cities which later Greeks described as having Cyclopean walls (Ie the rocks were so big that they were built by Cyclopes)  The most famous one is at Mycenae.
http://www.culture.gr/2/21/211/21104a/e211da01.html
This is the period in which the Trojan War happened.  In 1200 BC there was a great destruction around the whole middle east. The Mycenean civilisation was destroyed, the Hittites (in Turkey) were destroyed, we have the great sea people invasions of Egypt and Palestine.  The Greeks went into their "dark age"  The Greek history and culture was kept alive by the poets (there was no writing in this time) About 600 BC writing was invented and the poet Homer was convinced to write down the two epic poems which had been kept alive by their repetition, namely the Iliad and the Odyssey.  The Iliad is the basis for the movie Troy.  It is the first written work of Western European civilisation.

After the Dark Ages we have a period of great intellectual development from the Greeks. 5th century BC. This is the time of the playwrights Sophocles Euripedes and Aeschylus, the philosophers Socrates and Plato. The historians Herodotus and Thucydides.  The time of Athenian ascendancy. Greece is divided into city states. The polis.  Early in the period they have a war with the great empire of the middle east at this time Persia.  The Greeks strength is their navy and their heavy infantry.  This is the time of the 300 Spartans and 50000 Persians at the batlle of Thermopylae.  The time of the great naval battle of Salamis.
Late in this period we have the Peloponesian war between the Athenian Hegemony and the Spartan Kingdom

In the fourth century BC we have the rise of the Macedonians under Philip II and his Son Alexander the Great. Alexander not only conquers Greece but also Persia all the way to India.  This is known as the Hellenistic era as the entire Mediteranean all the way to India came under the dominance of Greek culture.  The Greeks had colonies from Spain to India.

The Hellenisitc Era ends in 146BC when the Romans take Greece with the sacking of Corinth.

Thats a thumbnail of Greek History before the Romans.

Regards

Valthalion

[Sir Mathodius Black]

Valthalion, because of your knowledge of Greek History (and I presume you also have some about other mediteranean cultures of the time), what nationality modifiers might the greeks have had if put into ROS terms, i.e., Spartans have bonuses similar to that of Gelure because of their military based culture, or Athens having some bonus because of their navy and politics ect.

[Valamir]

At the time of Troy?  None really.  There wasn't really much of a national identity at the time.  Cities and the surrounding lands were really just the personal property of the kings who kept them until someone with a bigger army came and took them away.

More important by far was family lineage.  Everyone knows that Achilles is the son of the mighty warrior Pelleus and his sea nymph mother Thetis.  That's far more important then geography.

If you're going to do modifiers like that, I'd recommend a system where they can be randomly generated representing bloodline influences.  In fact, if you want to get really into it, you could hook that up to a random name generator, generate the character's lineage back a couple generations and randomly determine the modifiers for the ancestors.

[Irmo]

In a heroic campaign, the issue also needs to be addressed whether to allow, and to what extent, characters with divine bloodline. I wonder if an A priority is enough to describe a son of Zeus, though it might for example be offset by adding a major flaw of having incurred the hatred of another god of similar power. ('Well, yes, you are a son of Zeus, but he has a wee bit trouble keeping track of all of his offspring. On the other hand, Poseidon, he REALLY wants to feed yo to the fishes" ;) )

[Tash]

Doesn't Greek literature usually give heroic characters a great flaw that eventually prooves their doom?

[Sir Mathodius Black]

Yes, i believe thats their hubris, which i think means overbloan arrogance or something like that.  For achillies it was his heal (although i dont think his amazing arrogance helped either)

However, for nationality modifiers, they might be less of temporal and more mental.  For example, SPartans might get -1 Soc, and/or the bad rep flaw since most other greeks hated and feared them.   THats just one example though.

I also like the idea of Priority A as divine blood line and the idea ofd randomly generated bloodlines as well.  Thats something that might be worth digging a little deeper into.

[Jake Norwood]

I would be tempted to steal the Pendragon "Family Trait" inheritance mechanic almost whole-sale to represent famous bloodlines.

Jake

[Sir Mathodius Black]

Im not familiar with that system or game.  Whats the gist of it?