Ancient History and Tabletop Role-Playing Games
By Owain Williams
I have recently started exploring, after a long time wishing to do so, the world of tabletop role-playing games (TTRPGs, for short). Your standard Dungeons & Dragons, Pathfinder, and the like. It is no secret that I enjoy fantasy – I have covered it a few times on the blog and I even wrote an article in AH 52 on the historical inspiration behind a recent fantasy book. However, it should also be obvious that I love history, especially ancient Greece. So, now that I have opened my first Player’s Handbook, I was intrigued to see how much of an overlap there is between fantasy, TTRPGs, and the ancient world.
I was pleasantly surprised. Mythic Odysseys of Theros and Odyssey of the Dragonlords – both for Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition – are two of the most high-profile examples I came across. Both settings sought to bring a world inspired by Greek mythology (with a dash of standard fantasy tropes and motifs) to the tabletop. The settings were slightly different, but each brought new races and monsters to the game, as well as new an entirely new setting. Mythic Odysseys of Theros, for example, has a whole new pantheon of deities, although some are just Greek gods with the serial numbers filed off, such as Heliod, god of the Sun. Odyssey of the Dragonlords, meanwhile, seems to be more anchored to typical fantasy elements, with one god – Volkan, the god of forges (a parallel to Heliod) – described as being depicted as a fantasy Dwarf. That said, they also introduced some really cool, interesting changes to the fantastical creatures and peoples of Greek mythology, such as the Blemmyes, a Libyan people described as having no heads, with their face in their chests (Pomponius Mela, 57–58; see also, Pliny, Natural History 5.8), becoming the Blemys, a headless cyclops.
However, while I was perusing online, I noted a wider trend in ancient-inspired TTRPGs: Greek-inspired TTRPGs tend to focus on mythological settings, while Roman-inspired TTRPGs have a wider selection of historical settings, largely or wholly divorced from mythology. Rome: Life and Death of the Republic, as the name suggests, brings the distinctly historical setting of Republican Rome, while the more ambitious GURPS: Imperial Rome tries to evoke Roman society from its founding through to the fall of the Western Empire, just to name a couple. There are, of course, fantastical elements in other Rome-inspired TTRPGs, but even these often have a grounding in the historical setting. (I should note that there is a TTRPG inspired by Greek history – Aegean – but I have not seen it for myself.)
Clearly there is an association of ancient Greece with its mythology, despite most of the sources for Greek myths coming from the Roman Empire, while Rome evokes a more historical feeling. I can’t say I was totally surprised by this overall trend. After all, the Roman Empire has a huge cultural footprint. I am surprised, however, by the near lack of historical settings for ancient Greece. Ancient Greece is fascinating, with diverse social groups, complex politics, and epic history. Perhaps the allure of Rome’s empire and arena is just too strong.
What do you think? Is Greece more mythological than Rome? Would you like to see a Greek-inspired TTRPG setting based on history rather than mythology?
1 comment
I am a sucker for more varied settings, so I would absolutely love a more political, historical focused version of a Greek setting. I think it’s a cycle, though, of what we are presented in popular culture. Ancient Greek stories are “Clash of the Titans” and “The Odyssey” while Roman stories are “Julius Caesar” and “Gladiator”. So those of us who aren’t going and reading deeper are fed these stories and push those into our own stories. Greece feels just that little bit further back than Rome (because it was, obviously). It tends to be more like Ancient Egypt in how we categorise these societies and cultures. I even find myself calling them “Ancient” Greece and “Ancient” Egypt, which is largely to divorce them from their “Modern” counterparts, but it makes us think of them as “Ancient”. Because “Rome” as an empire isn’t having to be disambiguated from “Modern” Rome we think of it differently. Plus the western, English speaking world has largely gotten it’s historical record via the works of one William Shakespeare, which makes Rome the more modern feeling, political and, dare I say, more “real” of the two.
Has someone done a thesis on this cos I’m starting to think it might be fun.
Great article. Thought provoking!