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 Another game rec thread! This month's theme is  MYTHIC HISTORY . I'm interested in games that use ancient/mythical history, whether as a setting or as part of an existing one. This includes the Roman Empire, the Levant, China, Atlantis, whatever.Accuracy is optional as long as you think it's good, though I'm not interested in games that are too lovely to the source material. Use your own judgement! 
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Jan 6, 2017 15:18
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| # ? Apr 16, 2024 23:27 |
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Mythic history, you say? Can't go wrong with Glorantha, the setting where you can literally walk into the mythology and fiddle with the levers.
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Jan 6, 2017 17:43
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If you want to stick to earth, there are Ars Magica and Pendragon. Both of them do a great job of making their mythologized medival settings plausible, playable, and respectful. The former has a ton of books and elements contributed by enthusiastic historians, while the latter is the masterpiece of the legendary Greg Stafford. Finally, both games are standout examples of theme driven rules.
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Jan 6, 2017 18:21
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Savage worlds has a setting called Weird Wars: Rome that got Kickstarted a while ago. Basically you play legionnaires who travel the empire protecting it from all manner of supernatural beasties.
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Jan 7, 2017 02:56
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Mage the Awakening 1e is my favourite for this, with Secrets of the Hidden Temple being a supplement all about it. Apparently they downplayed it in 2e in response to grog whining, which was a mistake imo.
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Jan 7, 2017 04:13
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Arivia posted:Mage the Awakening 1e is my favourite for this, with Secrets of the Hidden Temple being a supplement all about it. Apparently they downplayed it in 2e in response to grog whining, which was a mistake imo. On the other hand, To the Strongest, the Hellenic setting presented in Dark Eras that covers the period in the wake of Alexander the Great's death is pretty great for this sort of thing.
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Jan 7, 2017 04:26
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Speaking of Hellenes, there's Atlantis: The Second Age, a mythic prehistory game based on the rules of Hellas: The World of Sun and Stone. Basically they decided "You know what'd be cool? It'd be cool to take our "Let's do ancient Greek myth as a space opera" game and just use it to tell ancient myths!" Which seems to be working backwards to me, but hey.
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Jan 7, 2017 04:32
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For some reason the first one I can think of is Testament: Roleplaying in the Biblical Era, which was a D&D 3e supplement that allowed you to play in the Biblical Levant. I don't think it's actually very good, but it's interesting to say the least. Oh, and who could forget about Mazes & Minotaurs, a free RPG set in a world inspired by Greek myth through the lens of swords and sandals films without all that much thought given to mythical or historical accuracy. It's a complete game that you can actually play with a very retro aesthetic and feel to the rules, and it was written with the idea of "What if the first RPG ever created had been one inspired by Greek myth instead of swords and sorcery fantasy?" and the game is filled with sidebars detailing the fictional history of the game (including references to edition wars and the many arguments that were fought on the letters pages of the game's official magazine Griffin). As I said, it's entirely free, and while you shouldn't look to it for a historically or mythically accurate take on Greek myth it's got some pretty neat ideas. The authors later made a spin-off game called Vikings & Valkyries, which basically lazily adapts the game's rules into a setting more inspired by Norse myth. I think that's pretty much supposed to be the joke? Like, in the same way as AD&D got a number of supplements for playing the game in various historical eras which really didn't work with the AD&D rules the authors just haphazardly applied the rules of M&M to a Norse setting.
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Jan 18, 2017 08:20
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Agon is an RPG whose tagline is "Competitive Roleplaying in Ancient Greece." Trash talking and oath swearing are highly encouraged. It's basically about playing Greek heroes who get constantly jerked around by the gods and have to compete for favour and glory on very unreasonable quests given to them by capricious and uncaring deities. Mythenders is a loving metal RPG about killing your way through the Norse pantheon and all their slaves one god at a time because they wronged your mortal self in such a way that the universe compensated by giving you ultimate god-slaying power. Notable gameplay features include rolling literally about 70d6 at a time, trying to have normal conversations with regular humans being likely to set them on fire and screaming about how you're going to punch Odin in the dick being strongly encouraged.
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Jan 18, 2017 13:49
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