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Elfin
2010-02-13, 02:04 PM
Having recently acquired Heroes of Battle, my gaming group has decided that we want to start a D&D campaign based around the Trojan War (specifically, the events of The Iliad) and The Odyssey.

Now, we have three players (I'm DMing), and the heroes the players intend to play are Ajax, Odysseus, and Phoenix; however, there are a number of issues (both story-wise and mechanically) we need to answer.

Thus, I'm turning to the Playground's considerable expertise.

Now, the questions I need help with are these:

Story-wise:

How do I best make Ajax, Odysseus, and Phoenix central to the story, when it's really Achilles who's the main protagonist?

What parts of The Iliad do you think would make the best 'adventures'?

What's the best way to alter the story so that all three PCs end up on the Odyssey?

Mechanically:

Basically, only one, broad question:
What kind of rules alterations should we make, so that the game stays true to the spirit of the epics?
(We've already gotten rid of arcane magic, except for sorcery (but the Sorcerer isn't a PC class, and has a much more limited spell list), and given all magic a heavy XP and/or material cost. Furthermore, divine spellcasters have many fewer spells per day).

Swordgleam
2010-02-13, 02:13 PM
Which Ajax? I'm assuming Greater - for Lesser, just have him not get impaled on a rock by Athena. For Greater, you're going to have to take out the whole "contest for the armor" which ended with his suicide, especially since it was Odysseus' fault.

I don't think I know who Phoenix is, which is really odd. Is he usually known by a different name?

There's a lot of "sidequests" that happen during the Trojan War that you could use. Odysseus sneaking into Troy to do recon, Achilles lying in wait for Troilus, and that sort of thing. So I'd focus more on smaller battles, funeral games, and diversions than I would on the great battles.

Achilles might be the main character of the Illiad, but he's hardly the main character of the war. I doubt that will be a problem.

Are you sure you want to do this in 3.5? There's a number of systems specifically designed to play greek epics.

Lycanthromancer
2010-02-13, 02:13 PM
I don't have much to add to the topic at hand, except to say that I was thinking the completely wrong 'Homer' when I read the thread title.

D'oh!

Elfin
2010-02-13, 02:17 PM
Yep, Ajax the Greater; Phoenix is one of the senior Myrmidons.
Focusing on the smaller action sounds like a good idea - as for the system, that's the only one (apart from some 2e a couple of us picked up) we know or have the books for...though I might look into other systems anyway.


Which Ajax? I'm assuming Greater - for Lesser, just have him not get impaled on a rock by Athena. For Greater, you're going to have to take out the whole "contest for the armor" which ended with his suicide, especially since it was Odysseus' fault.

I don't think I know who Phoenix is, which is really odd. Is he usually known by a different name?

There's a lot of "sidequests" that happen during the Trojan War that you could use. Odysseus sneaking into Troy to do recon, Achilles lying in wait for Troilus, and that sort of thing. So I'd focus more on smaller battles, funeral games, and diversions than I would on the great battles.

Achilles might be the main character of the Illiad, but he's hardly the main character of the war. I doubt that will be a problem.

Are you sure you want to do this in 3.5? There's a number of systems specifically designed to play greek epics.

Siegel
2010-02-13, 02:18 PM
I don't have much to add to the topic at hand, except to say that I was thinking the completely wrong 'Homer' when I read the thread title.

D'oh!

Yeah me to. I thought it was about having INT as a dump stat :smallbiggrin:

Swordgleam
2010-02-13, 02:26 PM
Well, at least they're all on the same side! As much as achaens ever can be, that is. Ajax and Odysseus are supposed to represent two sides of the greek heroic coin, so I hope that's what your players were going for, or else it's going to cause some tension.

I can see Phoenix ending up on the Odyssey as just something heroic to do after Achilles dies - when you're used to fighting under a famous hero, it's hard to go back to doing nothing. Ajax is going to be tougher even if he lives through the war, since he's so much the opposite of Odysseus. I think that's going to be the main story goal you're going to have to shoot for as the DM: getting Ajax and Odysseus to appreciate each other's heroic attributes as being equally valuable.

You might look into the Aeneid for inspiration as well; the first couple chapters cover the Trojan war, from the Trojan perspective.


Arete (http://games.dungeonmastering.com/arete/) just came out and is supposed to be pretty good - just reading the description and reviews, I can tell he knows his greek epics. I think there's some sort of d20 greek epic rpg, but I can't remember the name of it off the top of my head.

Eloel
2010-02-13, 02:27 PM
Find a way to make archery worthwhile. Pre-epic, Odysseus can't pull off the stunt he did when he went back home by D&D rules, especially with the -6 Dex penalty due to venerable age.

Elfin
2010-02-13, 02:30 PM
The tension between Ajax and Odysseus is definitely something I'm worried about, and their cooperation/friendship seems like a good aim to have; I'll check out Arete - thanks for the link.

hamishspence
2010-02-13, 02:33 PM
Find a way to make archery worthwhile. Pre-epic, Odysseus can't pull off the stunt he did when he went back home by D&D rules, especially with the -6 Dex penalty due to venerable age.

When listing examples of "epic heroes of myth and legend" in the Epic Handbook, Odysseus was on the list.

Darrin
2010-02-13, 02:38 PM
How do I best make Ajax, Odysseus, and Phoenix central to the story, when it's really Achilles who's the main protagonist?


When Achilles gets mad, he stops fighting. This prolongs the stalemate. Plus, Achilles can be kinda an asshat...

I guess what I'd do is set him up as a higher-level NPC, but he's very difficult to deal with, particularly when he's in one of his "moods", and since the whole war took, what, 10 years? I might liberally define one of his moods as lasting a year or two.

So I'd probably make it explicit to the players that Achilles is the hero, and the various gods are getting involved to make sure he (eventually) winds up with all of the spotlight, but PCs have two important roles:

1) When Achilles is sulking in his tent, the other greeks look to the PCs for leadership and guidance.

2) There are a variety of gods and divine powers at work here trying to help Achilles, but for various reasons they either can't or prefer not to help him directly, and thus are trying to go through the PCs as intermediaries. These divine powers may not want Achilles or the other greeks to know they are interfering, so the PCs might have the added difficulty of concealing the divine aid.



What parts of The Iliad do you think would make the best 'adventures'?


A 10-year war where none of the principal characters really go anywhere other than the current battlefield? Ugh... good luck there. To evoke the right theme, you'd probably want to start somewhere in medias res, but unfortunately with a 10-year war where nothing particularly interesting happens for 9.99 years?

At a rough guess, I'd say maybe Book 9. Achilles is in his tent, and Ajax, Odysseus, and Phoenix are given the task of trying to get him to return to the fight. You can up the drama a bit by making it clear the greeks are getting their keisters kicked and are losing badly. It's up to the PCs to either get Achilles back in the fight or turn things around.

Hector would be the main antagonist, and early on the PCs aren't strong enough to take him on directly. You may want to move some of the Ajax vs. Hector stuff further down the timeline, and build up towards a couple Ajax vs. Hector fights that end in a draw. Then build towards Patroclus getting killed, and there are a lot of major events that happen around that, such as fighting to protect the body, getting it back to the greek camp, making sure Achilles doesn't do something rash and stupid in his rage, etc.



What's the best way to alter the story so that all three PCs end up on the Odyssey?


Begin the first session by stating, "So, you're all on a boat." Seriously, the Odyssey would be much easier to do with D&D rules, and the structure lends itself much more easily to a campaign rather than trying to make a 10-year stalemate interesting. You have a clearly defined goal (get home, reunite with family), a more episodic structure (every session or mini-chapter deals with one island or obstacle), and you've got much more flexibility with what the players decide to do vs. what the books say they do.

Swordgleam
2010-02-13, 02:43 PM
The tension between Ajax and Odysseus is definitely something I'm worried about, and their cooperation/friendship seems like a good aim to have; I'll check out Arete - thanks for the link.

Luckily, that's the sort of thing RPGs are good for. Wily Odysseus is a great 'expert' archetype, whereas Ajax is a pretty classic tank. Just set up encounters that play to each of their strengths, and hopefully respect will grow naturally.

Martin Greywolf
2010-02-13, 03:15 PM
Well, I'm going to assume that you know nothing and go from there...

1) Weapons and armour. Remember this is a part of history of which we know practically nothing about except what Homer tells us. These stories take part at the end of bronze age, most weapons and armour will be bronze. In fact, you can make a session revolving around a sword of some Trojan officer (perhaps imported from middle east, Chettits had iron much sooner) that can cleave through armour... because it's iron. Iron, not steel, steel is not available at all, so all weapon stats will have to go down a bit. Iron was, at that time, actually more valuable than gold in some parts of the world, so iron armour is right out.

2) Tactics. Illiad is boring. Really boring. There are pages upon pages, where all you see are lists of who killed who and how, one line per kill. The tactics for most major battles were nothing much - get in line and charge (perfected by spartans in their phalanx). That said, read Illiad and look for the interesting bits (Trojan counterattack on ships could make a nice encounter, fighting trojans on a burning ship while trying to put it out). Also, while no navy was mentioned in the books, it doesn't mean that there were no naval battles - at least against pirates.
Also, although you probably know this, trojans went out of the walls to battle with greek army. I don't recall any fight from the book where they fought over the walls - it was always about pushing trojans inside their walls (or greeks to the beach, for that matter, with one notable exception when trojans tried to burn greek ships) and retreating.

3) Power. Characters your players will play have access to major resources. Especially Odyseus was a king of a big city-state, and commanded a sizeable army - maybe he had army as big as Menelaos or Agamemnon, Agamemnon was quite keen on listening to Odyseus and invited him to all major meetings.

4) NPCs. If you want to create a feel of greek epic war, then make a lot of them. Duels in the middle of a battle are not exactly rare - and by duels, I mean that all stop fighting and watch two heroes duke it out. Also, try to make players compete against NPCs of similar skills (Paris WAS quite a good archer, you know).

5) Odyseus problem. Archery was considered to be subpar and dishonourable, because there was no glory in killing opponent from far away (throwing spears was accepted as an initial skirmish). Odyseus had quite a lot of flak because of it, although mostly implied - no one wants to insult a king after all. This is also major problem with Ajax - Odyseus thing, it willl take a lot of skin saving to convince Ajax that Odyseus is as good a hero as himself. Troy on the other hand was not quite a greek city and had a lot of highly trained archers. On walls.

hamishspence
2010-02-13, 03:18 PM
One of the common themes I've noticed in Troy-based fiction, is that Ithaca is usually implied to be relatively small and weak in power compared to the others. Odysseus may be a king, but he doesn't control all that much territory and men compared to other kings.

Gnaeus
2010-02-13, 03:27 PM
A 10-year war where none of the principal characters really go anywhere other than the current battlefield? Ugh... good luck there. To evoke the right theme, you'd probably want to start somewhere in medias res, but unfortunately with a 10-year war where nothing particularly interesting happens for 9.99 years?

But they do go elsewhere. The greeks raided trojan allies up and down the coast of Asia Minor (Briseis, for example, was captured during the trojan war, when Achilles sacked Lyrnessus). You could send them to punish a city that was giving the Trojans aid. Or intercept an incoming column of troops/supplies. Achilles likes to boast about how he has roamed the hills behind Troy. There are plenty of places Odysseus and Ajax could wind up during the middle of the trojan war that are far from the plains of Illium.

You could make these side quests critical to the war if you wanted to. The gods were all the time making statements like "Troy will never fall until XYZ". Whats a few more?

Greenish
2010-02-13, 03:47 PM
Find a way to make archery worthwhile.Expanding that, you might want to find/make some homebrew stuff to make shields useful, perhaps even changing the mechanics from static AC to something fancy.

As it comes to the material of their weaponry and armor, there's probably no need to mess around with them, just call the default stuff bronze and adamantium steel. That'll preserve the comparative strengths (to sufficient detail), without having to toy around them.

Gnaeus
2010-02-13, 03:49 PM
Ooh, and something about picking up big rocks and killing people with them. Homer and Virgil loved the big rocks.

Dusk Eclipse
2010-02-13, 04:14 PM
Ooh, and something about picking up big rocks and killing people with them. Homer and Virgil loved the big rocks.

Hurkling Hurler?