So when it comes to Dungeon World expansion books what do people enjoy? Play books? Full settings like Inverse World or Grim World? I ask because Im about to do something from a work perspective that seems stupid. Toga World, roleplaying in the Ancient World. Goodbye nights and weekends…
when my manuscript is pretty much done and edited… which might be some time I will kickstart it. Until then I’d like to playtest some of my stuff here (like classes and Monsters) as it comes on line.
So I guess watch this space for Roman Witchcraft, Necromancy, Religion, Gladiators, Cults, and lots of new moves… and let me know if theres stuff you really want.
I’d like cool moves and options for different parts of the Pantheon.
I’ll see what I can do, Roman Priests tended to do more augury and prophecy than spells, if you wanted a spell you went to a witch but there are some boss moves I was thinking about… and prophecy can be super awesome!
Nono, not spells – just cool deity stuff to do.
What are boss moves?
boss: American English colloquialism for “bad ass”
but that is all the monsters.
Italian Dungeon World fanzine Mondo Sotterraneo published lots of stuff on this in its first issue, aptly titled “Mare Monstrum”. I contributed with some custom MC principles and some new racial moves (there were several new racial moves for each base class, most of them written by Luca Maiorani). Cool stuff in there, unfortunately only in Italian at the moment.
Alberto Muti I saw that, downloaded it from Drive Thru RPG yesterday and Im at the mercy of Google translate to get stuff out of it. It looks really good. Toga World will have lots of sources… from Oxford Press’s Magic,Witchcraft, and Ghosts
in the Greek and Roman Worlds to the 2e D&D Rome green book (theres a ton more)
The mechanic I like right now is using social caste as a race… so instead of being an elf dwarf or halfling you can be a slave, pleb or Senator… (freedman equestrian and barbarian too…)
I don’t know enough to really speak about this but aren’t the 2 big “roman stories”
And then the legion went there and killed the barbarians
and
Then some Senators had some politics and backstabbing?
Both of them are kind of bad fits for Dungeon World, aren’t they?
Great question TIm… and the answer is nope! Im approaching it from a couple of perspectives which focus more on everyday people and adventurers than the generals and the senators… If you read Ancient Rome on 5 denarii a day or watch HBO’s Rome you can get a cool idea of how to run Roman games. Of course you also have the mythic rome of Aneaus or Romulus and Remus with monsters and gods… you have interactions with ancient cultures like Egypt and pretty cool city games… Fvlminata has some cool ideas on how to do a good roman stories.
Limiting rome to Legions and intrigue Is like saying the 2 big high medieval stories are the crusades and rescuing princesses.
Roman history spans about 1100 years. There’s much more than the imperial period. Interesting stuff to play could be the years of the expanding city state, the italian wars, the arson of Rome, the slaves’ revolts, the Vesuvius’ eruption, the barbarian invasions, the christians’ persecutions and the conversion of the empire… but, unfortunately, most of it is a bad fit for DW.
Ever read “Eagle of the Ninth”? It reads like a great adventure.
I’m a few days late, but I love everything Roman, and so I definitely want to check out whatever you end up making!
Awesome!… Ive been thinking about the whole it doesn’t fit with Dungeon World thing and I have to say it sounds like this is more of a historical settings gripe rather than a setting in general gripe. A few possible adventure ideas off the top of my head include hunting rare beasts for the imperial Games, exploring a cursed Egyptian tomb, fetching (stealing) ancient magical knowledge from a magi in Parthia, Dealing with a monster boar menacing the countryside… etc… Hell Pliny the Elder himself gives you a ton of Monster seeds in his natural histories… Basically I see historical games as taboo because theres always that 1 player who knows more about that history than someone else… but historical doesn’t have to mean slavishly historical… just interesting … use it as a framework or play with people who can avoid being jerks. I’ll put a few different setting ideas in the book too all based on time periods… Antiquity, Republic, Caesarian, and Imperial. I plan to work out the Venefica class on vacation for a few weeks and then I’ll post it up here. Think erotic magic, curses and necromancy… thats Roman historical hotness for you…
I get what you mean. And adding the pbta flexibility of story and outcome can work well with this.
Just because it was historical when you sit down to play does not mean at all that it will remain so. Which can shut up ‘that guy’.
Also, dw (and every fantasy rpg before it) is already mired in semi historical trappings. The taverns, the plate mail, paladins and clerics, bards, etc. All are patterned after elements of ancient europe, so who’s to say swapping breech clouts for togas is some kind of sin?
I don’t like playbooks.
I do like setting books.
I like adventure frames the best.
Savage World’s Weird Wars Rome (https://www.peginc.com/product-category/weird-wars-rome/) may inspire.
Good luck!