The Late Republic Era

The more I read the GURPS: Imperial Rome book, the more derivative Star Wars feels. The Late Republic Era, the end of the Roman Republic and the beginning of the Roman Empire, is one of the best untapped settings in gaming. You get tough, violent revolts, riots, conflicts between social classes, the inflow of immigrants, and generals marching on Rome to take over the government.

This is a period of Civil War, and it is far better than the muddled, confused, pop-culture mess we get in Star Wars. Soldiers loyal to generals rather than the state? Armies that could decide politics, and used political murder and seizing property as a tool? When a commander left Rome, another would siege the city and take power? Slave revolts in the tumult?

The whole system was breaking down. The Republic was never meant to run a Mediterranean Empire, leading to local generals who became as rich as kings with huge personal armies. Murder and confiscation became commonplace, making compromise harder. Corrupt tax farmers and a massacre i

And Caesar marched on Rome to "restore the republic" and was assassinated, opening the door for an empire? The people grew tired of the chaos and chose an emperor. Just. Fix it.

And the system turned on him.

And they got worse.

It sounds like today, with "lists of undesirables" being shared (be they landowners, rich, the opposition, and so on), and the angry and starving populace set loose on them by proxy. Personal armies of the wealthy run private security. Groups and street thugs formenting riots and civil violence. And the current government couldn't care less and lets the chaos and blood run free on the streets. Those who share the news are factionalized along each side. All this is out of ancient history.

They don't teach this anymore because it is being used as a playbook.

And if the Republic does nothing to stop it, the populace becomes more receptive to dictators to fix it. Letting chaos foment plays into the hands of those who wish to seize power for themselves.

Read history. All of this happened before.

Every Star Wars movie needs to end with the same set of scenes and repeat the same story beats. The entire Star Wars genre isn't a story anymore; it is a formula for a soda or breakfast cereal. I don't get these stories there. It has become a repetitive, predictable, beat-for-beat formula creation where action figures are shaken around in play fights and nothing ever matters. They use history to seed the idea, but they refuse to give us any of the good stuff.

Mithridates VI Eupator was their "Darth Vader" and existed outside the Republic, slaughtering hundreds of thousands in the provinces and waging war on the Eastern flank (in the Black Sea area, again, sounds familiar). This was also the origin of the archetype of the Eastern despot who used poison, mass violence, spies, assassins, and intrigue.

This set up a multi-year series of wars which trained generals in civil war, where generals got the idea they could rewrite the political map. Strongmen inside the Republic were created, setting up the roadmap for dismantling the Republic. The system ended up eating itself.

And forget doing this in D&D 5.5E. If someone doesn't throw up the X sign, the players will gate out to the planes and walk away. There are so many races everyone will be a fantastical outsider. Character builds outshine the setting. D&D is really only good for telling character-centric D&D stories.

GURPS gives me the configuration, control, and historical data to do this type of story right. I can limit magic. I can control backgrounds. The character design system supports campaign connections. Players must engage and interact with the campaign world. GURPS is a dream come true compared to the alternatives.

I am not fighting the system to tell a story like this.

This is how you fall down the rabbit hole of history. You find an era that fascinates you, that pop culture weakly tries to rewrite, and you find the real thing. The imitation now looks illiterate, and the real thing that actually happened is so much better.

Because it is all happening again.