I had the first version way back and was not impressed. The whole "Written in 73!" gag wore thin and for me was an instant turn-off.

And for all the claims of being sword and sandal rather than D&Ds mishmash. It still comes across as an unimpressive mishmash on its own and not very sword and sandal to boot. Which is weird. The "advanced" version fails even moreso on that count.

I feel I would be remiss if I did not point out the Hercules & Xena RPG.

Quote from: daniel_ream;899760I feel I would be remiss if I did not point out the Hercules & Xena RPG.

That came out when I was in my regrettable snob period of being into pretentious "Serious" games, so I never checked it out. I don't remember anyone else here playing it either.

How was it? Did it handle the swashbuckling camp fisticuffs of the TV franchise well?

Quote from: Just Another Snake Cult;899779That came out when I was in my regrettable snob period of being into pretentious "Serious" games, so I never checked it out. I don't remember anyone else here playing it either.

How was it? Did it handle the swashbuckling camp fisticuffs of the TV franchise well?

Yeah. Though it doesnt feel at all like sword and sandal. It feels like D&D really with a sorta occasional Greek tone to it.

Quote from: Just Another Snake Cult;899779How was it? Did it handle the swashbuckling camp fisticuffs of the TV franchise well?

It ran on the "Legend" variant of the Star Wars d6 engine. (= counting successes instead of adding the dice roll)

There's also Swords & Sandals.

What about Heroes of Hellas.

Quote from: Trond;899667To quote from another thread:



These look pretty decent as far as background info to the Hellenistic period goes (this includes the Roman Republic BTW).
For various reasons, I think this just might be the most interesting part of antiquity to play around with.

Indeed, it's exactly as I wrote a long time ago in choosing the period, it's perfectly set up for something very much like the traditional RPG assumptions with mercenaries (read: adventurers) gallivanting around the place getting into trouble. There's a common "tongue" (Koine Greek) widely used, common currency (looted Persian coinage), reasons for conflict abound. That's before adding magic, if desired.

Quote from: CRKrueger;899634RQ6/Mythras.
It's a d100 system, so is broadly usable with any BRP or Runequest version, especially the award-winning Rome: Life and Death of the Republic, a BRP supplement written by Pete Nash, who also wrote RQ6/Mythras.  Also Pete is currently working on Mythic Greece as we type.

What Krueger said. Given the amount of research work Peter has done on the ancient world over the years, and his personal experience with real hand to hand combat, I would immediately go for something written by Pete Nash for a Sword&Sandals game. Both Mythras and BRP Rome are specifically designed to work well with little or no magic, too.

If I were you, I would go to the Design Mechanism forums and check if there is any offer for playtest packs from Peter. You might be in luck, who knows.

RQ6 if you want to go rules heavy with your new game.

There are some alternatives though (especially from D101 Games publishing):
 - OpenQuest - d100 fantasy, but simple and versatile
 - OpenQuest Adventures - How to use OpenQuest in a Historical Fantasy setting, in this case the Ancient Roman Empire. http://drivethrurpg.com/product/150599/OpenQuest-Adventures
 - Hunters of Alexandria - simple FATE in swords and sandals genre
 - Crypts and Things, especially if you are a dnd guy. There is new version of it in the making through KS at the moment. http://d101games.com/books/crypts-and-things/

Other options:
 - Beasts and Barbarians - for Savage Worlds system
 - Barbarians of Lemuria - I have not read it, but it's supposed to be simple 2d6 system. The new Mythic edition looks quite good. http://drivethrurpg.com/product/144526/Barbarians-of-Lemuria-Mythic-Edition

Quote from: ArtemisAlpha;899631I'm looking for a good sword and sandals RPG. theRPGSite gave me some great recommendations a couple of months ago when I was looking for a swashbuckling game, but this time rather than being a player in an upcoming campaign and wanting to give some system ideas to a GM, I'm going to be running this game.

Another recommendation for RuneQuest6. The core system, RuneQuest Essentials, is a free download, along with some other resources - http://thedesignmechanism.com/downloads.php. This isn't so much a sampler as a complete system at 200 pages long - it does though miss out some important sections - like 3 out of the 5 magic systems, and Cults & Brotherhoods. For this you need the full ruleset, although you could genuinely GM a campaign with Essentials alone, and of course even if you use the full version of the rules your player group can download RQ Essentials for their own reference. I don't think it's necessarily rules heavy or complex - it's more that it's comprehensive and has a front-loaded learning curve, once you have got started, it doesn't get more complex even has PCs increase in power, it only gets faster to play.

For you I would recommend the adventure Sariniya's Curse - which is very much in the style you are looking for (it's a tribute to Ray Harryhausen).
From Fenix magazine the "Die by the Sword?" article and "Gladiators", both by Pete Nash. These are all free downloads.

Supplements - Shores of Korantia, The Taskan Empire, and Monster Island would all be useful for you. Korantia is a effectively a Greek-city-states-island analogue setting, Taskan Empire is a broader setting document leaning more to an ancient middle eastern region, both are in the same campaign world. Monster Island is a sandbox setting stuffed with great ideas. If your game leans more towards weird fiction sensibilities of Conan, Zothique or Lemurian adventure you might want to take a look at this. It provides essentially an expanded example of the use of decadent Sorcery and features fully worked out Serpent People and Lizardmen, as well as a complex "savage" society.

I'd like to thank everybody for their recommendations in this thread.  I'm absolutely going to be checking out RQ6. I'm also going to be taking a look at Heroes of Hellas - if RQ6 is more crunch than my players are looking for, then Heroes of Hellas is probably what we're going to go with.

I do want to point out that what you mean by "sword and sandal" matters a lot.  The original "Sword and Sandal" movies are based on an Italian folk hero named Maciste reimagined as Hercules, and are generally pretty pulpy and adventure-esque.  I mentioned Hercules & Xena upthread tongue-in-cheek, but the original Hercules TV movies were based on those old Italian movies and some of the scenes and plot elements are direct swipes.

My point - and I do have one - is that RQ6 is very historically accurate for Bronze Age combat, which means it's short and brutal and spear and shield rule the battlefield.  While there are well-known hacks to make things a little more action-heroic, the hacks are (IMHO) unsatisfying and are obviously working against the intent of the system.  In addition, the game's lovingly detailed combat system stands out in stark contrast to its pass-fail, low detail skill system, which can encourage players to think in terms of combat as a solution to everything.

I wouldn't run RQ6 for a campaign that wasn't mostly about brutal, realistic combat. YMMV.

I think that's unfair to RQ6, the 5 magic systems? passions? crafting and extended Tasks?, cults, brotherhoods? These aren't pass/fail low detail. I think the fact that combat is potentially nasty makes players far more cautious than a typical low tech fantasy game. What do you mean by the 'well-known hacks?'

I'm a RQ 2e gamer and I loved the game, and joyously remain a devoted Stormbringer fan which FOR ME is the best interpretation of the BRP system. RQ6 is too much crunch for me, and its still deeply deadly which is a feature, not a bug of RQ. However, if the focus of the game is that bad shit happens when swords are drawn, then let's get to the chopping. Of course, there is no reason every combat has to be to the death - in any game, but especially RQ. Even in the earliest edition, we see a play example where Rurik the Restless get wounded and surrender to Trolls who ransom him back to his Temple.

BTW, isn't there some OSR retro-whatever of RQ that streamlines / simplifies the crunch?

Daniel_ream makes an excellent point too about the origin of the Sword & Sandal genre.

Quote from: Spinachcat;900048I'm a RQ 2e gamer and I loved the game, and joyously remain a devoted Stormbringer fan which FOR ME is the best interpretation of the BRP system. RQ6 is too much crunch for me, and its still deeply deadly which is a feature, not a bug of RQ. However, if the focus of the game is that bad shit happens when swords are drawn, then let's get to the chopping. Of course, there is no reason every combat has to be to the death - in any game, but especially RQ. Even in the earliest edition, we see a play example where Rurik the Restless get wounded and surrender to Trolls who ransom him back to his Temple.

Yeah but RQ6's special effects make it far easier, and embed into the rules, ways to end a combat in a non-lethal way. RQ6 is a faster and more interesting system than RQ2/3 which suffered immensely from combat grind.

QuoteBTW, isn't there some OSR retro-whatever of RQ that streamlines / simplifies the crunch?

Probably OpenQuest.

QuoteDaniel_ream makes an excellent point too about the origin of the Sword & Sandal genre.

Sure, but my sword & sandals is the Italian films through the lens of Harryhausen.