Recommendations for a Good RPG set in Ancient Rome

Nyogtha

I am looking for good RPG's (pencil and paper) set in Ancient Rome, it could be variations on this theme as well like HELLA (Ancient Greece in Space!) Or even post apocalyptic ancient Rome variants. My group has got a Spartacus hook after having a marathon weekend watching the whole series, so they want to play a Rome based game (Sci-Fi, Horror, Fantasy as long as its in the theme).

Thanks for any help!

The Ender

Hm. That's a tough order to fill.


There's Rome: Life and Death of the Republic, a splat for Chaosium's Basic Roleplaying System; Imperial Rome, a (very horrible) splat for GURPS, Requiem for Rome, a White Wolf splat for Vampire: The Masquerade (Rome with Vampires! And badly flawed understanding of Roman history, but whatever...); Cthulhu Invictus, a splat for Call of Cthulhu set in Rome... and that's honestly about it.

If you want something from the time period but more focused on Greece than Rome, there's also ΑΓΩΝ.

Nyogtha

Thanks Ender, I have not been able to find much myself. I will have a look at BRS Rome and Cthulhu Invictus. I think based on your description I will stay away from GURPS Rome and White wolf VTM Rome. AGON isn't the right feel for what my group is after I appreciate the suggestion however.

There does seem to be a lack of good Rome based RPG's. We also looked at a sons of god feel and found Scion (a white wolf game) but that was a modern day setting and from everything we could tell the game is very broken rules wise.

Thanks for your help!

El Skid

My only thought is that GURPS has a campaign setting for pretty much everything, so that's always an option.

Here is what seems to be the ancient Roman GURPS book.

Caveat: I can't recommend it from personal experience as I've never played the system- Just that GURPS is known for its plethora of themes/flavours.

badpoet

I'd argue for using a Fate system and just using the setting material from a GURPS book and convert it (really, it can be done easily enough), as the GURPS system is still overly complicated (and frankly is crap). You can make your Fate game light or heavy on rules as you desire, and GMing is pretty fun, with the right players. You could easily set up basic stats for Roman soldiers, Hannibal's troops, etc. Of the generic systems, I think Fate is the easiest to use and best.

Something like this could work for setting, as well http://www.alephtargames.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&catid=39:historical&id=51:brp-rome&Itemid=59 but convert it to Fate.

EDIT: I should note that the last GURPS I played was 4th edition, so it may have suddenly become good, but it's basically been an awful RPG system since its inception in my opinion.

Nyogtha

Thanks for the assistance gents. So far I think we are going to either go with Cthulhu Invictus backed up by BRP Rome: Life and Death of the Republic by Alephatus games or we are going to go savage with https://www.peginc.com/store/weird-wars-rome-bundles-hardback-edition-pdf/ anyone have experience with the savage weird wars Rome?