Your chance to vote in a settigs poll that will...

[Adept]

Loki has gotten a bad rap.

He's a very complex and even heroic god, and the asgardians are very ungrateful for all the times he has saved their collective butts.

Check out Wikipedia on Loki if interested

 

[homerjsinnott]

The point that I'm trying to make and that doing seem to be getting across is that there is a big difference between a trained, professional combantant and someone who isn't. Most cultures only had a small core of trained warriors (like the Viking Huscarls). The Roamns had one of he first professional standing armies, highly trained and hightly disciplined. Something that you really don't see elsewhere until centuries later.

The Celts vs. Romans thing is interesting on many levels. The celts were the romantic and heroic warrior culture, where as Rome's greatest strengths were effiscient administration, infrastructure and mass production.

The gladius is a good example. The celt's made extraordinarily beautiful leaf bladed shortswords, which the romans copied into the extremely simplified, mass produced gladius. The romans also copied chainmail and the use of soap from the so-called barbarians. The celts even raided Rome herself early early in her future, and after a long siege were payed to leave by giving them practically all the valuables in the city. One does tend to wonder what the world would be like if the celts had destroyed Rome utterly then.

Crap, thats what it would be like now.

The romanticisation of Celts always amuses me, just like the romanticisation of the Vikings does. The idea that one side was Right/good/clever is as poor as the idea that the other was Bad/evil/stupid. Had the Celts had the forsight they would have manufactured swords on a similar scale but they didn't have the organisational skills, too busy raiding and arguing amongst themselves.

One of the reasons that they didn't destroy Rome could be that they weren't more merciful than the Romans but they expected to be able to do it again and again. Why kill the Goose that lays the golden egg?

Many of the tribes on the borders with Rome looked at Rome with envy, eventually settling within its borders with Romes blessing, Who better to keep out the real scum than the semi-scum. :wink:

The Monty Python sketch "what have the Romans ever done for us?" in the Life of Brian is a brilliant example of Romes achievements, not that they did these things first but they did them best.

Not that I am suggesting that the Romans were morally superior to the people that surrounded them they weren't But I think that the Life for the average "barbarian" can be summed up as "nasty brutish and short". and for the average Roman citizen as "nasty, brutish and shortish."

I feel that the Romans at the moment suffer from the same sort of press as the English do around the time of William Wallace "Braveheart", which convenently leaves out the fact that he cold bloodedly murdered one of the other rebel leaders and had helped the English put down a previous uprising.


Anywho, I will step away from my hobby horse and apologise in advance.

 

[andakitty]

No need to apologize. Amongst other bad habits, my ancestors were head hunters. Kill your enemy, nail his head up on your lintel and he would defend your hearth against bad spirits...hmm, sounds like RQ. But that is one of the things they did. The Burning Man, human sacrifice by some Celts, probably occurred from time to time. And any one who could lose the Battle of Alesia...well, what can you say?

Maybe the Neolithic proto-Celts were a gentle, earth-loving matriarchal culture. We'll probably never know for sure. But by the time they were fighting the Romans and Germans they had been suffused by waves of invaders out of the steppes so many times the old culture was diluted so much the Celtic tribes had lost touch with the old ways, to a great degree. I understand that at that time the British were still somewhat like their ancestors. Moreso than the Gauls, anyway.

The above based on reading done a while ago, so don't go asking for sources. I'm too lazy.

 

[homerjsinnott]

No need to apologize. Amongst other bad habits, my ancestors were head hunters. Kill your enemy, nail his head up on your lintel and he would defend your hearth against bad spirits...hmm, sounds like RQ.

Gak! You are right! sounds like The Big T.


So, So creepy.


Having reffed and played Cults of Terror, the big T is right up there with, you know, the one with six legs... Those two make Vivamort look like an ice cream seller. My player would leave town if they heard the big T was about.

 

[atgxtg]

The Celts vs. Romans thing is interesting on many levels. The celts were the romantic and heroic warrior culture, where as Rome's greatest strengths were effiscient administration, infrastructure and mass production.

The gladius is a good example. The celt's made extraordinarily beautiful leaf bladed shortswords, which the romans copied into the extremely simplified, mass produced gladius. The romans also copied chainmail and the use of soap from the so-called barbarians. The celts even raided Rome herself early early in her future, and after a long siege were payed to leave by giving them practically all the valuables in the city. One does tend to wonder what the world would be like if the celts had destroyed Rome utterly then.

You sort of mixing and matching your celtic tribes though. THe ones who invented the gladisu were the Ibernerian (Spanish) celts (or gauls), who were not the ones that invaded Rome.

The sacking of Rome too place early in the history of the Roman Republic, about four centuries before the birth of the Empire. The total descrution of Rome (unlikely consdiering the viewpoint of Ancient Warfare) in 390BC could have had all sorts of repurcussions. I suspect that it probably would have led to either the Etrsucans taking over as the major power in Italy, or that Veii would become the new Rome (something considered by the Romans at the time). The net effect would probably be to make the Romans or Etrsucans (it was a Estrustcan town that the Gauls attacked that started the whole mess) be even more hostil/afraid of the Gauls there they were in histroy.

But, as with all "what ifs?" we will never really know.

BTW, While the term "barbarian" today bring up the image of an half-naked, uncivilized lout with bulging muscles and blodied sword, that was not always the case. Orignailly the term was coined by the Greeks and reffered to the way many foreign toungues (including Latin) sounded like sheep ("Baaar-baar").

It is said that when the ROmans heard of this, they responded by claiming that they couldn't distingue the difference between the other foreign tounges and Greek. Hence the phase" It's all Greek to me."

 

[homerjsinnott]

I thought barbarian meant trouser wearer in Greek.

 

[SteveMND]

"BTW, While the term "barbarian" today bring up the image of an half-naked, uncivilized lout with bulging muscles and blodied sword, that was not always the case.

You know, it's kind of funny. RQIII was the first game or book I ever saw where the term "barbarian" was used to reference anything other thatn that sort of Conan-esque stereotype. I liked how "barbarian" was used for cultures such as feudal England and "civilized" was reserved for things like imperial rome, ancient greece and imperial china. I now look at the term in a completely different light in gaming. [/i]

 

[homerjsinnott]

No really I do! (excuse for a bump )

 

[GbajiTheDeceiver]

"BTW, While the term "barbarian" today bring up the image of an half-naked, uncivilized lout with bulging muscles and blodied sword, that was not always the case.

You know, it's kind of funny. RQIII was the first game or book I ever saw where the term "barbarian" was used to reference anything other thatn that sort of Conan-esque stereotype. I liked how "barbarian" was used for cultures such as feudal England and "civilized" was reserved for things like imperial rome, ancient greece and imperial china. I now look at the term in a completely different light in gaming. [/i]

Well it's the point at which the tribal social organisation breaks down and we get nations with rulers and stuff, rather than chieftans, isn't it? Yes, that was a cool way of portraying it.

There's still a lot of stigma attached to the word "barbarian" though, probably mostly coming from "barbaric".

 

[atgxtg]

Yeah, the siggma comes from the fact that the Ancient Greeks considered themselves the pinnacle of civiliation (probably not far from the truth, at the time), and so anyone who didn't speak Greek was considered inferior. This is sort of a typical attitude that successful cutlures and empires have. Since these outsiders didn't share the shame customs they were considered incilized, inferior, and the term stuck through to today.

Not tough to unbderstand. FOr example, today most poeple would look down on someone who doesn't bath regularly. THe ROmans would have as well.


Many modern words that have a stigma to them actually have rather innocent origins-Heathen for one.

 

[wartorn]

No really I do! (excuse for a bump )

Over the years I've heard from a number of sources that the term barbarian comes from the way barbarian peoples spoke. I've also heard that barbarians (specifically the newly-settled Goth refugees attempting to live alongside and integrate with their Roman 'hosts' after Adrianople) were looked upon with scorn for a number of reasons including their habit of wearing pants (since the Romans preferred loose fitting clothes like the toga). I've never heard that barbarian directly translates to 'pants-wearer' in Greek though it appears that at very least it certainly meant that by association.

 

[SwordSage]

Pretty sure Barbarian basically means "People who say Bar-bar-bar."


Back on topic, I voted "Something Else."

I'd love to see GRR Martin's Song of Fire and Ice as a setting.

That, or Tekamul.

 

[Neo]

hmmm

I'd quite like to see David Farlands "RUNELORDS" setting dones for RQ, I from my experiences playtesting the system think it would be fairly plausible for it to work in the system quite well.

I think something outside of the Fantasy box using the system would be nice too.. be it a Sci Fi or Horror setting..maybe.

 

[andakitty]

SwordSage, I have been playing around with the idea of using Tekumel this week, coincidentally. How would you do the magic? The best thing for it that I know of is Sandy Peterson's RQ3 Tekumel, because I don't really see MRQ rune magic being a very good match. Any thoughts beyond just adopting Peterson's stuff? His monster stats look pretty good, and I guess the MRQ rules would be an easy enough a match with it in general. I guess the question would be how well MRQ and RQ3 match, in the end (if the Peteson material is used).

 

[homerjsinnott]

SwordSage, I have been playing around with the idea of using Tekumel this week, coincidentally. How would you do the magic? The best thing for it that I know of is Sandy Peterson's RQ3 Tekumel, because I don't really see MRQ rune magic being a very good match. Any thoughts beyond just adopting Peterson's stuff? His monster stats look pretty good, and I guess the MRQ rules would be an easy enough a match with it in general. I guess the question would be how well MRQ and RQ3 match, in the end (if the Peteson material is used).

There is RQ stuff for Tekumel? Where oh knowledgeable one?

 

[homerjsinnott]

69 DUDES!






Umm... I mean, sixty nine votes so far, thank you for your participation.

 

[AikiGhost]

Back on topic, I voted "Something Else."

I'd love to see GRR Martin's Song of Fire and Ice as a setting.

That, or Tekamul.

The have both been done already by Guardians of Order using the tri stat system.

 

[homerjsinnott]

Back on topic, I voted "Something Else."

I'd love to see GRR Martin's Song of Fire and Ice as a setting.

That, or Tekamul.

The have both been done already by Guardians of Order using the tri stat system.

Does that matter?