Ancient Greece as a Points of Light Setting

A while ago I wrote a post about the size of Ancient Greece and the incredible amount of
history, mythology and culture that came from this small area.  Well, I was thinking more about it and realized that Mythic and "Dark Age" Greece was a points of light settings.  Now, I know this isn't a knew thought and others have probably written about it elsewhere but it just dawned on me.

 

Lets look at it from the perspective of the heroic age of Greek mythology.

 

You had well established towns which were bastions of (sometimes capricious) law and order.  Athens, Sparta, Mycenae, Argos and Thebes to name a few.  In these walled and guarded enclaves you were safe from the depredations of the wilds, from the bandits and the beasts and the monsters.  Of course, you still had to watch out for scheming aristocrats and paranoid kings but that was something else. 

 

Between these towns, however, all bets were off.  Let's take Theseus for example.  When he was planning his initial journey from Troezen to Athens, he decided to make the journey by land instead the "easy" sea journey.  Troezen to Athens is approximately 100 miles.  He met and defeated six foes during the journey: four famous bandits, an monstrous wild pig and a murderous king.  So that's a trip of just over 16 six mile hexes with an encounter about every two and a half hexes.  That's quite the trip!

 

Sea travel wasn't any better.  Jason and Odysseus faced monsters of various sorts, both on land and sea, navigational dangers and hostile islanders.  They also faced foul and dangerous weather.  So sea travel could be just as perilous.

"Dark Age" Greece could be difficult, too.  Just remove the supernatural dangers and you are still left with bandits, pirates, weather and hostile inhabitants.  Not fun.

 

So, to state the obvious, Ancient Greece can be a great setting for points of light adventure. 

 

MSJX Blog

Today I want to mention Matt Jackson's MSJX blog. 

 

MSJX is full of fun gaming stuff.  Little games, small maps, compact character sheets, actual game plays.  I always enjoy reading it.

 

Two of my favorite things are the maps of Burrowmoor and Willowford that Matt did.  These maps focus two areas in James Spahn's mini setting Willowford Valley that appears in his White Box Omnibus.  The maps help flesh out the setting in a nice way.

 

The blog is here. 

Character Creation Challenge 2026 Recap

Well, what can I say?

 

- I did it!  31 characters in 31 days.  I didn't complete the Challenge the last time I attempted it. This time I fell behind once but pulled through.

- I did some prep work ahead of time but even though I tried to stay ahead of the game it wasn't easy.  I pretty quickly chewed through the pregens.  Once or twice I got a couple of days ahead but it didn't last long. 

- Although I did repeat a couple of systems, the majority of the characters were from unique games. 

- My preference for rules-lite games helped.  Most of the games had a simple character creation process. 

- Speaking of rules-like games, I probably could've created 31 character using just The Black Hack variants alone. 

- One of my goals was to introduce people to interesting but somewhat obscure games.  I hope I succeeded.

- I really do like creating characters.  This exercise has reinforced that I do prefer systems where the creation process also aids building the characters backstory. Once again, this is why I love creating characters for Barbarians of Lemuria and the games in its family.

- And thank you for looking at my posts.  Knowing that someone was reading them helped keep me motivated.  

Character Creation Challenge 2026 Day 31: WEG Star Wars 1st Edition

I have created a couple of character using WEG Star Wars for this challenge.  So, I decided to finish off the challenge with one.  

 

Star Wars, for me, will always be the original trilogy.  The first three movies I saw in the theaters.  Star Wars before it was "A New Hope", that sort of thing.  WEGs Star Wars, all editions, came out before the prequels did and created a whole universe that all Star Wars games and media drew on until recently.

 

My Star Wars does not really include the prequels.  In fact, after all these years, I haven't watched all of the prequels.  I've seen the sequels and although I enjoyed them to a certain extent, I was disappointed with them. 

 

I don't know why I writing all of this other than maybe it explains why I like WEGs Star Wars so much.  It focuses on my Star Wars. It's not that I reject everything else (except midichlorians), I just know what I prefer and have the most fun with.

 

As a side note, there are several threads on RPG.Net and other forums speculating on what the Star Wars universe was like if only the original trilogy existed.  Or if only the original movie existed and then speculating on the characters, the old republic, the Jedi, etc.  I really enjoy these threads. 

 

 

Character Creation Challenge 2026 Day 30: Lasers & Feelings

Lasers & Feelings is a simple, free one page RPG based vaguely on a famous 1960s television series that boldly went were no man had gone before.  

 

The mechanic is extremely simple.  Each character has a single Number that ranges between 2 and 5, player's choice.  The higher it is the better you are at Lasers: that is technology, rationality and action.  The lower it is the better you are at Feelings: intuition, diplomacy, passionate action.  If you are trying a Laser action, you try to roll under.  A feeling action, over.

 

There's a bit more to character creation, too, but not much.  You also assign a few descriptors to your starship to personalize it a bit.  The game also includes an adventure generator. 

 

Lasers & Feelings has been hacked dozens of times into almost every genre imaginable.  S&S, Westerns, other types of SF, Superhero, Spy, Noir, vanilla Fantasy. You name it, it's probably been done.  And most of them are one page and most of them are free.  I even took a whack at it with a Heroic Greece take called Doratas & Philosophia.

 

I've made two characters.  One for Lasers & Feelings itself.  One for a sword & sorcery hack called Sorcerers & Sellswords.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Character Creation Challenge 2026 Day 29: Dungeon Crawl Classics Part 2

You’re no hero.
You’re an adventurer:
a reaver,
a cutpurse,
a heathen-slayer,
a tight-lipped warlock guarding long-dead secrets.

You seek gold and glory,
winning it with sword and spell,
caked in the blood and filth of the weak, the dark, the demons, and the vanquished.
There are treasures to be won deep underneath,
and you shall have them...

Grobland survived!  Mechanical statues, giant snakes, animated clay statues, he survived them all.  And even came out of it with with several weapons and a bit of gold.  Unfortunately, only a few of his 20 companions lived.  The village lost a large percentage of its population.  Through the terror and the pain, Grogland discovered he enjoyed smacking things with his shovel.  Crushing heads, breaking limbs.  He liked it.  When he returned to the village, digging graves just wasn't the same.  He wanted to fill them. 

 

So he sought out an old warrior to train him.  His companions sought mentors, too.  Soon they would be ready for another adventure.  But much better prepared this time.  Grobland heard that the village of Hirot and its jarl are having trouble with a savage beast.  They plan to travel north to look into it.

 

 

 

 

Character Creation Challenge 2026 Day 28: Dungeon Crawl Classics Part 1

Dungeon Crawl Classics is the oddball cousin to D&D and OSR games.  You know the one.  Part of the family but kind of askew and random.  But boy can it be fun.

 

DCC was the first place I encountered the character funnel.  Instead of creating a fully formed 1st level character and sending him off to his death, you instead create four of five average schlub 0 level characters and send them off to their (sometimes hilarious) deaths in what is called a character funnel.  Many go any, few come out.  If one of your characters survives, you fully flesh him out and he becomes your 1st level character. 

 

To create a 0 level character, you roll your six attributes down the line using 3d6s.  The Attributes don't match the classic six one to one.  Instead you have:  Strength, Agility, Stamina, Personality, Intelligence and Luck.  (I rolled well for this character!)  You then roll for Hit Points.

 

You then determine your Lucky Sign.  This only impacts your character if your Luck is high enough or low enough to have a modifier.  One of the Luck Signs is The Bull, which affects your melee attack rolls. 

 

You then determine your everyday, normal occupation.  This will also determine your race:  Human, Dwarf, Elf or Halfling.  It also determines your starting weapon.  Usually something like a shovel or a pitchfork..

 

Choose an Alignment.  Law, Neutral or Chaos.  Most people tend to be Neutral.

 

Roll to see how many coppers you have.

 

Get a bit of equipment with your paltry number of coppers.

 

Go off to die.