OGL Ancients

Overall score:

Roleplaying in ancient civilization. Why hasn't this been done already? I mean, to death. Greek mythology is probably the best known pantheon on the planet (ok, at least to us westerners). Egypt has that really cool mystique, what with the pyramids and the mummies and whatnot.

So Mongoose has finally come up to bat and produced something for us. OGL Ancients is, obviously, OGL so it's self contained but wont' take a lot of time to learn the rules (unless you live under a rock and have never played a d20 game).

Let's run down my complaints about it first, however, starting with the most trivial. This probably only applies to a really small sub-set of players, like myself, who are familiar with the Greek language, but it's really annoying that they use Greek letters for their font for headings (and on the spine). I read them as Greek letters, which makes "ANCIENTS" come out phonetically as something like "DPCFXPTS." Whatever that is. It hurts. But I look past that.

I should probably address content. Why the Greeks and the Egyptians? Why not… Egypt and Sumer? Or the Hittites? Or the Persians? The Greek culture rose well after Egypt had fallen from its greatness. By the time the two locations were doing a lot of interaction (besides touristy things like Herodotus' work) the Greeks are actually the rulers of Greece. This is the Hellenistic period, and Greek culture isn't even really ancient Greek culture anymore. It's more, Proto-Roman, if I can be permitted an anachronistic reverse-naming. They don't really go together.

The only reason I can think of is that outside of Rome, Greece and Egypt are the two most popular cultures in western history. More people know about them (or at least watch movies about it, like The Mummy) than most other cultures. I suppose. I probably would have taken an approach that would lead to expansions more easily as well as put cultures together that match. They could do it chronologically by releasing a book on Egypt and Nubia first, maybe expanding to the Hittites. Later they could have an expansion featuring the Greeks and the Persians. Expansions in the middle would introduce Mycenae and maybe even Israel, or a plethora of other cultures. You could have a lot of cultures, avoid privileging two specific ones that aren't even contemporaries, and have more books to sell. Just my two bits.

For all my complaining though, it's all moot if you make it a "mythic" campaign. Then you can throw real world history out and make something that fits. Or you could just play one or the other, or play one while the other is alternatively primitive or past its prime. So again, maybe my historical complaint is more specialized.

The final complaint is mixed. There's an extensive set of rules for Constructs. These constructs bear only superficial relation to the constructs of standard d20. There are no animated golems (that's a Hebrew thing, anyway). A Construct in OGL Ancients refers to a mechanical marvel. Something Daedalus would have made. Or, millennia later, Da Vinci would design. The gaming possibilities are instantly accessible for such a ruleset. You could have a mythological/classical steam-punk game, for instance. Forget Victorian England, we're sending Amazons and Apophis to Mars. Well, maybe not that far, but you can certainly design engines and vehicles and weapons that mimic this genre in a much more archaic setting, and that expands the options dramatically and allows you to do so much more.

The problem, however, is that the rules for constructs are mind-numbingly complicated. Not only is creating a construct more work and more detailed than actually creating a character, but it's more complicated than building a GURPS character and doing all the point balancing involved. You can't get it all on the first read. The mechanics for creating an OGL Ancients construct demand three or four reads just to get the gist of it. You'll still have to use it at that point as a reference to make the constructs.

What's more, there are no example constructs. And that really marks some points against it. It'd be one thing if you had to go through these complicated rules and still had a guide and several pre-built constructs to help you get through it. But it's quite another that you don't have anything at the end, preferably several somethings, that let you know that you finished the work correctly. That really hurt the section.

So while the idea is really cool, and adds so much to the game, the execution, at least in the book, is fairly poor.

Now, I know I've spent a few hundred words talking about the problems there, but I do that so your final impression is a good one. There are problems with this book, but the first two, are insignificant, especially if you aren't picky about your history or your linguistics. The third, well, that's a bit more annoying. It's a major issue that can't be ignored completely without dropping that section of the rules altogether. But The rest of the book is very good.

The class set is creative, with a lot of diversity. There are a number of classes that focus very highly on skills, and not combat. In fact, most of the classes, by level twenty, have only a +10 bonus to hit (the same as a Wizard in d20 -- the weakest of the combat classes). There's a lot of focus in this game on skills and alternative solutions to problems than combat. Some of the classes have abilities that are a little bit odd (I'm thinking specifically of the Courtesan) that aren't very compatible with working in a party. But on the whole the classes provide usable and varied options for building a character, if most aren't particularly fascinating.

One of the innovations where the game really shines is the new feat class of "Formation Feats." These are feats that have to be used by multiple characters to be effective, but they're very cool, adding all sorts of bonuses in a variety of combat types for characters who are willing to stick together. These feats will actually influence the way that warrior characters play out their combat and help players work as a team. It's a great development in the way d20 combat works.

The magic system is also changed to something a little more usable. Instead of spells per day and spells known and so on, OGL Ancients treats magic as a skill. Actually three skills, and what class you choose affects the access to those skills. One thing I don't like about it is that the Witchcraft skill is affected by the time of the month (lunar phases) and I don't think most people keep track of that. You would have to introduce it into a game that uses witchcraft in most cases. However, magic as a whole much easier to track and provides a lot more options for the spellcasting player.

One of the triumphs of the book is the history provided. There isn't a long narrative, just a timeline that goes on for more than a half-dozen pages, which helps you correlate all the major historical and mythic events of Greek and Egyptian history. Unfortunately, actual cultural information is limited, and I did notice some changes for game playing purposes (for example, mummification took more than a month, not just a day), so you should be encouraged to research what the culture was like if you want it to feel authentic, but if you have a rudimentary knowledge of ancient cultures and a general idea of what was involved in such events as the Trojan war, this timeline puts everything into perspective and is useful especially for knowing when to set your game.

The exception to the lack of cultural information is with equipment. Every equipment item is described, and in most cases, specific application and time it was used is also explained. Thus, for weapons and armor at the very least, reading this section should give you a good grounding in what it was like. To be clear, there is information at various points about social class relations and roles of different types of professions, but there is no crash course on the subject.

I'm not sure how I feel about the combat system. I feel that d20 had established a good balance between complexity and realism to make a playable combat system where your imagination could cover the details. Mongoose always changes it, however, and the typical "armor absorbs damage and doesn't make you harder to hit" rule is in place here. In addition, they've made every combat roll opposed to either a passive defense, a dodge check, or a parry check. The options involve the player in combat more, I suppose, but it also means a number of additional calculations and is sure to slow combat a bit more. Roleplayers should make their own decisions about whether this is an annoyance or an enhancement to the game.

On the whole, the game is worth the price, and I recommend it. There are certainly limitations, however, and it's not the best OGL book out there. If you're a fan of Greek or Egyptian history or culture, however, this is the best chance to game in those cultures I've seen yet.

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Written by SaintEhlers on August 18th, 2004