RPGnet Forums - View Single Post - [RPG]: OGL Ancients, reviewed by NPC Jeremy (4/5)

2nd Level RPGnetter · 05-28-2004, 03:16 PM

Post originally by Jeremy at 2004-05-28 14:16:23
Converted from Phorums BB System

The Face that Launched a Thousand Ships 
 
It's a very nice looking book. Not the fanciest, but clean
looking and has some nice touches. Not all that much in the way
of art, not completely bare, but a bit on the sparse side. Most
the pieces are also pretty small. One artist really stands out,
though he uses a logo to sign his work, so I don't know whose
(looks like two es surrounded by a | ). He does some really nice
landscapes (and very colorful). Another noteworthy piece by
different artist is an Egyptian style Tomb Raider (as in Tomb
Raider the franchise). Kinda funny. All of the artwork is good
quality and does use color to its fullest (being bright and
vivid). Many color RPG books don't actually use color to it's
fullest, but this one does. 
 
Also nice is that the graphics in the outer margin contain the
name of the chapter. On the down side, there is no index, which
is a big enough deal to give it a 4.5 out of 5 on style, instead
of a 5. Also in some cases, it can be a bit cluttered, like when
the descriptions of the Greek gods is superimposed on a picture
of them. Similarly, the tables sometimes have a gigantic eye on
them, presumably of some Egyptian god or maybe Liz Taylor. I
don't find it hard to read, but some could. 
 
There are a couple of editing quirks. But pretty much what you
generally find in books that were cut down from a larger
manuscript, not the terrible blunders that marred OGL Conan.
There are a couple items in the equipment list that might have
inadvertently been left in from the SRD, like the "Alchemy
Lab" and the "Silk Rope". There is no alchemy
skill in the game (though maybe that was an oversight, supposedly
Alchemy started in Egypt, with the emerald tablet of Hermes
Trismegistus) and while silk was available, through trade from
the east, I imagine it was a bit too expensive to be used as
rope. (Actually, silk is listed in the precious goods table as
costing 60 dinars a lb. But the price of silk rope is 25 dinars,
and it's 5 lbs. So I guess this was mistakenly left in). 
 
 
 
Achilles' Last Stand 
 
This is an excellent book. Not only does it do what it promises,
it's a great resource for those running a Conan game - the vast
majority of things from this would fit into Conan as is. To a
certain extent, there is a lack of GM support material, ie, there
are no NPC stat blocks or all that many monsters. But I'm not
sure that could be helped, and there is actually little to no
wasted space in the book. While there is some copy & pasting
from the SRD, there seems to be very little, most of the book is
original text (unlike say, OGL Cybernet). So it seems like a good
value - it would have been nice if it were longer, but there is
no white space, and the space in the book seems to have been used
well. 
 
I also believe Mongoose has a OGL license that will let others
put out affiliated books, though I'm not sure if it extends to
OGL Ancients, or is just for OGL Cybernet. But the book is
actually almost entirely open content (everything but how to roll
up characters and the XP chart), so anyone could expand on this
if they want... 

A solid A. 
 
 


Final ramblings almost as long as the Odyssey

I do have to say, how you like this book depends on what you
expect from it. I suspect it's something of a love it or hate it
book. (Though I do think you have to give the author credit for
writing a lot of new material). 
 
It's essentially a rules book, if you want to play an RPG set in
the Ancient World. It's not really a setting book, while there is
some setting, you'll likely need history books. It's also far
grittier than you expect from d20 or even RPGs, as I said in the
beginning, this is not something you would use to recreate the
Hercules/Xena TV shows (which did occasionally have people die,
but it was fairly rare, and never all that messy). You can
recreate the Iliad or Odyssey pretty well. 
 
Personally, it was exactly what I was looking for. Frankly, I've
never been much of a fan of various other historical d20 products
that simply used the default D&D rules or just tweaked them a
bit. Like most of Avalanche's stuff - you'd have clerics and
wizards and sorcerers and paladins traipsing about medieval
Europe, China, etc, etc, etc. That made no sense to me.
Similarly, there is an otherwise excellent looking PDF product
about the Trojan War, from <a
href="http://www.steampowerpublishing.co.uk/">Steampower
Publishing</a>, but in the preview, we see that Paris is a
D&D style Ranger. WTF? At least he doesn't use 2 scimitars
and have a pet tiger. 
 
While I'm hardly an expert on the region, I do have several books
on the Ancient Egyptians and Greeks and I have several books on
mythology. And I have Clash of the Titans on video tape. So I
don't really need setting material, I really need rules material
tailored to the setting, and this delivers. I would have liked to
have seen a bit more rule material for the Persians, since they
were pretty big back then, too, but they at least got some
coverage. 
 
If you are looking for something more D&D-ish, you might wait
for the upcoming Relics & Rituals: Olympus from Sword &
Sorcery/White Wolf or the upcoming Troy book from Green Ronin
(they also have announced an Egyptian boxed set. Though it seems
Egyptian themed D&D, sort of like Nyambe was African flavored
D&D). If you just want a setting sourcebook for Greece, then
you might check out Gurps Greece and Gurps Egypt (which is mostly
setting). But I'm very happy with this.