what's a greek urn? not a lot if he's a noble

[evilericuk]

well peeps
i've brought ogl ancients and thought i'd make a male noble warrior from the noble class. 8)
so after rolling dice, choosing skills and feats, it came to buying equipment. this is where the problems started, no where in the book, can i find what the starting wealth of a male noble is, it's got that noble warriors should have the best equipment but without any cash i can't buy it. :?
unless cash is no concern for a noble as he has so much that he can get everything at least once. :shock:
could someone out there please help as i just don't know what to do

 

[Jack Steel]

My first post here, salutes to all

I've been taking a look to these forums and I think they are very empty.

My response: well, the female noble has as starting wealth 5d4x20 silver drachmas, so I suppose that the male would have the same. I don't know.


One question about adquiring items for war: I don't understand how the warrior equipment works, must they buy his own equipment or the city pays everything? If I understand well, the warrior noble must spend his wealth to obtain his weapons and armors. You are right, evilericuk, I think too that they should obtain more wealth. It's strange to me, every noble should have some advantages of the Aristocrat. I don't know, there is something that I don't understand here.

Am I correct?

 

[evilericuk]

hooray peeps

got a reply from the rulemasters :shock:

they state that the starting wealth for male nobles is 5d4x20 + 1d3 slaves much like the female noble

well i'm off to the shops to spend some cash glad i've got some slaves to carry my gear :lol:

 

[Seroster]

One question about adquiring items for war: I don't understand how the warrior equipment works, must they buy his own equipment or the city pays everything? If I understand well, the warrior noble must spend his wealth to obtain his weapons and armors. You are right, evilericuk, I think too that they should obtain more wealth. It's strange to me, every noble should have some advantages of the Aristocrat. I don't know, there is something that I don't understand here.

I don't know what the intentions of the authors were...

Regarding your question about the warrior class -

Historically, in classical times, soldiers had to provide their own equipment. It might be passed down within a family, because it wasn't cheap. But people tended to be expected to serve according to what they could afford.

At Athens, the richest people could be appointed to command ships as "trierarchs". The ships were usually built by the state, but the trierarch had to provide food and supplies for the ship. Possibly pay as well? I forget. It was very very expensive for the trierarch.

Anyhow, the cavalry would be made up from those people rich enough to be able to have and provide a horse - the upper class. The hoplites, the infantry, were the middle class. Poorer people might serve as skirmishers or as an oarsman in the fleet.

 

[Jack Steel]

That's a good answer.

The problem is that, with all this money (5d4x20), they don't own enough money to pay all the equipment they should carry into the battle. So I suppose that low level nobles are sons who own just a little of goods and they should earn great quantities making associations with Aristocrats or collecting his own money with battle loots or with bussiness.

Yes, I think that in these kinds of games, taking count of money and the action of buy and sell goods is very important.

 

[Seroster]

Well, to each their own. Counting money certainly comes up in the D&D game I'm playing in. But the other game is a superhero game, in which money is just not the focus of the game at all.

Note the rules in OGL Ancients for using cash to determine reputation level in mythic games. "The worth of an item in the mythic era is given only so that a character can measure his own wealth, which then determines his Reputation... characters do not use wealth to buy things." (p94)

If I was using OGL Ancients to run a general Greek mythology game, the players having low amounts of armour and equipment to start might be all right. Armour isn't that prevalent in the stories of Heracles and Theseus and so forth. Although essentially in one of Heracles' earliest adventures, he acquired a set of very powerful armour (the hide of the Nemean Lion).

If I was running a Trojan War scenario with noble warriors... there is simply no way on earth that any noble would allow his son to go off to war without a set of armour.

The rules should support the game and campaign; not the other way around.

 

[Anonymous]

Note the rules in OGL Ancients for using cash to determine reputation level in mythic games. "The worth of an item in the mythic era is given only so that a character can measure his own wealth, which then determines his Reputation... characters do not use wealth to buy things." (p94)



The rules should support the game and campaign; not the other way around.

Oh! Ok, I didn't read well this rule: I thought they "only" barter with goods and wealths. I was wrong, at least in the mythic era. That happens when I read the book between the large sessions which consist on preparing my exams

Thanks for your posts. I see the ting clearer.

 

[Jack Steel]

The guest was me

 

[hassanisabbah]

I suspect it depends on where they are from. Most Greeks could expect to be slaves, or even worse greek women (unless spartan). Although many of the nations trade, money isn't the big decider in the early history it will become later. Infact money isn't status (money lenders and bankers being slaves, a task not suited to Citizens).

Money is important, but ownership of a means of production is actual wealth (ie Fields, factorys, brewers), as really its not until the development of protestentism when money becomes a core form of currency and social definition. Outside of the main population dense centres money probably has little value (after all you can't eat, drink or use gold to ward off wild animals). Essentially if you can't exchange the coin for something, its of no use. Typically this is why explorers load up on trickets, garments etc rather than coins. Also in a gold rich nation (such as the mayan) its very unlikely that gold is anything other than an ornimentation.

Within trade, gold becomes a standard for coins, and their value is by weight, rather than value. Gold also doesn't go off, and is more portable than a pig (which has a very serious depreciatory value).

 

[Seroster]

I suspect it depends on where they are from. Most Greeks could expect to be slaves, or even worse greek women (unless spartan). Although many of the nations trade, money isn't the big decider in the early history it will become later. Infact money isn't status (money lenders and bankers being slaves, a task not suited to Citizens).

In the Roman period, yes. I think in the Greek heydey - say in Athens - metics (resident foreigners) tended to be the ones dealing in finance. Agriculture was THE respectable source of income... there's a story related to a coup in Athens and the appropriation of property(?) belonging to a metic who had an armour "factory".

P.S. slaves made up maybe a third of the Greek population, not a majority.

 

[shadowdragon]

Where is the section on starting wealth? I had a quick look and couldn't find it in the equipment or character classes section? Is it located somewhere else?

 

[Seroster]

There isn't one in the book, so far as I know.

MAYBE it was in the material that Mongoose cut from the book. I've pretty much lost faith that that material will be released as a PDF.

 

[redlaco]

Hey Seroster, keep the faith! I've been waiting for a long time for Mongoose to post the missing map from "B5 - The Fiery Trial", but they did it. So keep asking politely and they will publish it in S&P or as a free download. Have you e-mailed Old Bear or Matt about it ?

 

[Seroster]

Well, no, because I don't really know who is who, except that Adrian Bott wrote the book. OGL Ancients was the first book that I bought from Mongoose.