Wednesday, January 5, 2022

Retrospective: Heroes of Olympus

In the nearly half-century since the publication of Dungeons & Dragons, a great many roleplaying games have followed in its wake. Odds are good that you probably haven't heard of most of them, let alone had the chance to play them. That's certainly true in my case, for lots of reasons, including the youthful TSR fanboyism that limited my field of vision for too long. Consequently, I regularly encounter RPGs of which I'd never heard previously and that represent a part of the hobby's history that is otherwise obscure to me.

Heroes of Olympus was completely unknown to me until very recently. Written by Dennis Sustare – author of Bunnies & Burrows and Swordbearer, as well as originator of the druid as a playable character class – and produced by Task Force Games in 1981, Heroes of Olympus, as its name suggests, is a roleplaying game steeped in the mythology of ancient Greece. That's a subject that's received far less attention than one might have expected, given the importance of those legends not just to Western culture as a whole but to popular adventure fiction (including RPGs). 

A couple of months ago, a friend of mine indicated that he had long wanted to play this game and offered to start up a campaign, if a few other mutual friends and I were willing to participate. I was initially reluctant, to be sure, mostly due to the fact that I already participate in quite a few other roleplaying game campaigns and wasn't sure I could justify another. At the same time, I was very intrigued, both by the subject matter of Heroes of Olympus and aspects of its design. Having now played in it since late last year, I'm glad I set aside my reservations and did so.

Heroes of Olympus is explicitly modeled on the stories of Jason and the Argonauts, which are probably as close to RPG-style adventures as you can find in Greek myth. Character generation includes both random and point-buy elements, starting with one's ancestry, which is random. Most Heroes of Olympus player characters will be the sons of gods/mythological beings (e.g. nymphs) and/or royalty of one of the petty kingdoms that dot the eastern Mediterranean. For example, my own character is Eurymachos, son of King Autolykos of Imbros and the Muse Euterpe. Players allocate points among combat skills (sword, club, wrestling, etc.), physical attributes (great strength, excellent vision, etc.), and other skills (seamanship, riding, etc.). Game mechanics largely rely on percentile dice rolls, hence skills are rated 1–100.

As one might expect of a Greek-themed RPG, Heroes of Olympus involves lots of maritime travel between the lands of Greece and Asia Minor and the myriad islands of the region. Having a galley, as my character does, is thus a huge benefit, since it makes traveling from place to place easier. The general "time period" of the game is the immediate aftermath of the Trojan War, with the heroes doing great deeds during this tumultuous era. Many of those deeds involve fighting, which explains why the game includes three different combat systems, one of which covers naval battles. The other two cover duels between individuals and battles between heroes and "normal" men. These systems involve the allocation of points between attack, defense, initiative, and trickery (special maneuvers). It took me quite a while to wrap my head around the way these systems work, but, once I did, things ran more smoothly. They're still a little clunky and even tedious at times, especially when compared to simpler systems like those in D&D, but there's nevertheless a certain fun to be had in the way they handle battles. 

Magic does exist in the game, though it seems mostly to be of divine origin. This makes sense, if one looks to the source material, where Greek heroes rarely rely on sorcery to achieve their ends. Still, a character favored by Hecate or Hermes might gain access to spells (as is the case for one of the PCs in the campaign in which I'm playing). Much more information is given about the gods themselves, as well as the various sorts of mythical beings one might encounter. It's all useful stuff, if limited in its scope. I imagine Sustare assumed referees and players alike could easily seek out information on Greek mythology to create their own material.

No one should forget that Heroes of Olympus is more than four decades old. This is not a modern RPG on almost any score and, even by the standards of the time in which it was written, it's, by turns, unclear, incomplete, and occasionally contradictory. Yet, it's also a great deal of fun – or at least that's been my experience. The Greek myths are a primal fount of adventure stories. Having the opportunity to play in that particular sandbox is a blast, even with a game whose rules are not always up to the task. I'd never argue that Heroes of Olympus is a lost classic of roleplaying game design, but it's got a lot to like about it, not least being the way it uses its ancient Greek inspirations as the basis for engaging sword-and-sandal exploits in a world full of gods and monsters. I wish I'd known about it sooner.

13 comments:

  1. I cannot tell you how many times I would pull this game box off the shelf at my FLGS back then, read it over and say "if I don't find something else I've wanted, I'm going to buy this". But I always found something and I just never did pull the trigger on HoO.

    I saw it a store I visit in recent years while on vacay at the CT /RI shore- each time, I found some other items (like a 1st print Monster Manual or other rare items of the 70s/early 80s) that caused me to put it back. And of course, it finally sold.

    I wonder if we will ever see a reprint/PDF- I'd like to check it out after all these decades. I absolutely love the Greek Mythologies and the old Harryhausen films, but I was really disappointed in most game systems of the time that tackled the genre. I hated Lee Gold's "Lands of Adventure", and "Man, Myth, and Magic" was great on flavor but just did not jive with my group.

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  2. I had this years ago, never played it. As I remember, it was very wargame-y, with lots of chits and maps and pre-made wargame scenarios. The only other thing I remember was that Chaosium's Thieves World had conversion notes, in what had to be one of the odder crossovers I've seen.

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    1. The 2nd edition of Heroes (I had first) included the conversion notes from the Chaosium boxed set as well. I suspect they were originally written by someone connected to Heroes and presented to Chaosium with a sales pitch about how having stats for this hot new game coming out from TFG would improve TW. They both came out in 1981 originally.

      It's not quite that weird a crossover. IIRC some of the stuff with Tempus (who was unaging) took place in a setting that had a vague Grecian feel.

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  3. Played this one for most of a year back in high school, so I have some nostalgia for it. As said, it's clunky in spots, and yes it has some wargame elements (but so does D&D, especially since 3.0), but it's not a bad little RPG for some lightweight adventuring in Mythic Greece. These days there are much better choices for game engines (Mythras springs to mind, and I think GURPS has a Greece book) but I'd be willing to play this again given the chance. Task Force brings back almost as many fond memories as GDW does, although I won't pretend their quality was as consistently high.

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  4. FWIW, TFG did a number of these light-RPG-with-heavy-board-game-elements boxed sets in the early 80s, including Musketeers, Supervillains, Delta Force, and Crime Fighters (a police RPG). Heroes was probably the best of the lot as a proper RPG, but I haven't played Crime Fighters so I might be wrong.

    Supervillains was absolutely terrible. Not worth a dollar even in mint, unless you're trying to collect bad games.

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  5. I always had the impression Chaosium was trying to build a non-TSR coalition although I think they got TSR into Thieves World as well perhaps I'm wrong.

    I thought the traveller stats were the oddest addition to Thieves World.

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  6. Oh, and if you actually wanted to expand your game, the third issue of Nexus devoted a fair amount of page space to extending the game into Mythic Egypt, at least as seen through a Greecian filter.

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  7. I love hearing about these mysterious games that I only saw in Dragon magazine ads. How is the interior art?

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    1. That seems to be the most common situation with rules from that era. Jorune appears to be an exception, from what I've seen online.

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    2. Jorune probably had the best art of any RPG in the decade, but it wasn't lavishly illustrated by modern standards. There were a few other games that had decent art in terms of both quality and quantity. Palladium was putting on books from 1981 on, most of which were competently illustrated (something that improved steadily in the 90s). Talislanta was gorgeous, and is probably Jorune's closest rival in this beauty contest. The 1986 Warhammer Fantasy RPG had a lot of art, all with a grungy fantasy feel that really fit the game's tone. Lace & Steel deserves mention for its black & white art, which against was very evocative of the game's odd setting.

      But yeah, mostly the best you could hope for was a nice cover and competent but sparse interior art. Often you didn't get either. Different times...

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  8. You supplement your Greek mythology game with this free game.

    http://mazesandminotaurs.free.fr/revised.html

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  9. I always wanted to play this one! Still have an unpunched copy waiting for the right time.

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