[ATTIKA] A Principia Hack
Scott Oden:
Hi Ron,
Thanks for the encouragement, and I do hope you enjoy A Day in Old Athens. I consider myself fairly well-read on matters of ancient Greek history, but the way William Stearns Davis brought the city crackling to life was an eye-opener for me. Coupled with Mary Renault for inspiration (especially The Praise Singer or The Mask of Apollo), it makes for a powerful look into the heart of ancient Athens.
That's my primary design parameter, as well: bring a Mary Renault novel to life; allow players to take part in symposia where great philosophical questions are answered, where character-assassination is high art (and comes with very real social ramifications), and where bloody rivalries can be formed from a misspoken word to a young lover. Let them orate and try to sway public opinion in the law courts or in the Agora, to save themselves or their friends from ostracism or worse. They can take part in the great festivals and contests, such as the spectacle of the Olympics or the Greater Dionysia, where characters might be sponsors, actors, or athletes, and where more secretive deeds can be done by night, such as bribery or blackmail (or even worse). Resident foreigners and women take their parts in all this, too.
But more than witnessing history, I need to make sure there are enough active hooks to hang some interesting plots on. Maybe a friend of the PCs is in trouble and needs their help -- hints of murder, threats of being sold into slavery, etc. Maybe one of the PCs is entrusted with an embassy to a foreign city and his friends come along to see to their own interests. Maybe one PC gets saddled with an expensive task, such as sponsoring a tragedy in the Dionysia, and the other PCs band together to share the Glory or the ruin (and hopefully take down a few rivals along the way). And maybe even some "smaller" stories (smaller in scope but not importance) dealing with love, fidelity, and the like. Davis' text has quite a few hooks embedded in it, and the great historians, poets and tragedians (and even the comic authors) can supply many, many more.
I'm keeping character creation very simple -- as per Principia. Player chooses gender and position (citizen, metic, wife/widow, or hetairai), choose three advantages that inform the character's role or skill-set and three conditions they play off of (with corresponding twists and fallouts), write down two facts and three drives, choose a name and off they go. Players need to describe how such a diverse group interacts: perhaps one player is a citizen, another is his wife, sister or hetairai, a third plays a friend from a foreign city . . . that sort of thing. And coming from a staunch traditionalist play-group, this sometimes seems very odd to me ;)
Thanks, again, Ron!
Scott Oden:
I've created a rough draft of the character creation section of ATTIKA on Google Docs, if anyone would care to take a look. It still needs some work, and the setting info is not included, but the basics are there. At this stage, a good ancient Greek encyclopedia would be a good idea . . .
Here's the link: https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=true&srcid=0B0vtjR2fba5qNzZlZDQyYzUtZGJjNS00YmUxLWFlZWYtZjY0NmVjYzU5ZTA4&hl=en_US . Any feedback, comments, or whatnot would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks in advance!
Scott Oden:
Hi all,
Giving this a bit of a bump in hopes someone will try out the character creation portion and post their results and their opinion. I'm going to try and have this ready for its publication to coincide with the release of a novel I'm writing (due out in 2013) with similar subject matter -- part of the novel is set in Athens after 480 BC. It might be an interesting exercise to see how the publication of one impacts the other and vice versa.
Thanks!
Scott
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