How would Fantasy Rome be the villains of a story?

That's absurd and has fuck all to do with romans. I don't fucking know what XIV is nor I want to, but you sound like your villains could be gauls, persians or chinese instead of romans and nothing would fucking change.

Pretty much this.
If you want them to be irredemably evil, just crank the brutally up and maybe through some evil magic in there.
>There are slaves then there are BLOOD slaves.

If you aren't able to make a military expansionist empire a vilains, what the fuck are you doing here?

t. tax evading barbarians

Pre-Constanitine the Roman empire is pretty evil.

They literally killed Jesus.

Easily.

>Auferre, trucidare, rapere, falsis nominibus imperium; atque, ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.

But they literally washed their hands from the whole business.

It's weird considering how much Pilate loved pissing off the Jews

my initial response of "how can you not?" has already been covered pretty well in the thread, but maybe i can contribute a little.

play up the decadence of the actual citizens back in Rome. out in the wilds the Legions are relatively disciplined; at home it's all orgies, drugs, creepy sadistic religious rituals (turn the pagan pantheon into every wicked thing the Christians every said they could be). spoiled, narcissistic citizens crowding into arenas to watch slaves torture and murder each other or be eaten by beasts, while cheering and gambling on the outcome. rampant bribery of corrupt officials, every kind of dirty politics and then paying poets to deliver propaganda and cover it all up. rampant assassination by poisoning eventually devolves into unpopular leaders getting stabbed to death in full view of the Senate. open sewage pits and wild animals roaming the streets. anyone who complains about anything is executed for Treason; then the people who ordered the execution are themselves executed for Treason once their political enemies get into power.

honestly it's hard to invent anything more shitty than the shit they actually came up with themselves, aside from pumping up the Dark Gods and Rituals aspect.

Rome was kind of like Australia, originally populated by outcasts and criminals who had to kidnap and rape women from neighboring city-states to save their dwindling population. you can't overestimate what they did to shape history or the culture they built, but they were never angels.

Sure, when you lay out the story in the most general terms, but the big point is that the Romans represent a more organized empire with better technology, tactics and organization on a war of conquest against much smaller countries more individually powerful but less practiced groups of people who often have to take in secondaries of the groups they conquer to bolster their armies and spend quite a bit of time dealing with internal politicking.

The grinding conquests of Fantasy Rome never end. Every year, their Legions advance their borders a little bit more in your direction. You know they're coming, and their innumerable and disciplined Legions are unstoppable. The last time someone tried, and ambushed three in a forest, they were successful.

Until Fantasy Rome sent fifteen more the next year. And the year after. And the year after. That was twenty years ago, and the Sack of Arventium is still whispered about in taverns and mead-halls to this day, where the Legions glutted themselves on the blood of the people of that city. They killed every male over twelve, and enslaved every woman, girl, and child. They hacked their dogs and cats down. They pulled the city apart stone by stone, timber by timber. They scorched the earth around the place where the city had stood for three miles in every direction. They butchered their cattle and horses in the river, poisoning it for years to come.

This is the price of resistance against the Legions of Fantasy Rome. But if you accept their entreaties to let them be your overlords? If you accept their offers of client state status? They'll help you subjugate your ancestral enemies. They'll fill your nations coffers with untold wealth from trade and merchandise. They'll accept your sons as Legion auxiliaries. And those sons will send their sons into the Legions proper, to earn citizenship. Until all that's left of your civilization is the old men and women, who can still recall what life was like before the Romans came. Until finally, they pass away quietly, too scared to agitate resistance.

"The year is 50 B.C. Gaul is entirely occupied by the Romans. Well, not entirely... One small village of indomitable Gauls still holds out against the invadors."

> represent a more organized empire with better technology, tactics and organization on a war of conquest against much smaller countries more individually powerful but less practiced groups of people who often have to take in secondaries of the groups they conquer to bolster their armies and spend quite a bit of time dealing with internal politicking.
That still covers the Persians and the Chinese.
Because it's literally just "empire stuff" in so many words. And "empire stuff" doesn't really define Rome for the savvy consumer. There were lots of 'em, gimme something that makes it "Rome but in X" not just "Empire in X"

Stat the magic potion Veeky Forums

>their innumerable
Weren't they typically outnumbered?

>tfw you'll never fall in a caldron of strength potion as a child

I mean, the aesthetics, naming conventions, appearance, and general personality is what defines them as Roman specifically.

Locally, I want to say probably. But is "outnumbered" when they can raise another Legion and dispatch it to replace whatever is lost? Over and over?

See: Cannae. "We'll just annihilate eight consular armies," said Hannibal.

"Fuck you," said Rome. "We're going to mobilize the entire male populace, impress landless peasants and even slaves into the Legions, and burn Carthage to the ground."

Does Obelix even have a weakness?

...

Stupidity. Oh, and if he somehow drinks more of the potion he will be petrified.

The Jews have a history of chimping out over the most minor of transgressions to their hyper-autistic way of life, Pilate was desperate to make sure they didn't get Judeo-Roman Revolts Volume 2, Electric Boogaloo.

Jokes on him, they happened anyway, scarcely 60 years later.

Personally, I'd rather see an ERE vs. Sassanid Persia sort of scenario playing out in a Space Opera setting.

It's stated in one of the comic that the potion doesn't make you invulnerable, so technically you could kill him with ranged weapon.

Make PCs christian or jewish

His wife was an Oracle or some shit.
She basically came by and said "don't do this shit, there is something about him that seriously fucks my mojo, at the very least don't be the one responsible for it."
Hence he washed his hands of Jesus' blood and said that he is in no-way responsible for what he's about to do, his actions are that of another who has been ordered to do it.

>Hence he washed his hands of Jesus' blood and said that he is in no-way responsible for what he's about to do, his actions are that of another who has been ordered to do it.

I thought "washing your hands of the act" was another way to describe trying to make yourself not responsible for a crime or atrocity you are totally responsible for.

Grants plot armor. Is cancerogenic

He is still responsible because he could have prevent it. But "washing your hands of the act" it's like when you are a DM and you are fed up by your party bullshit so you let them do something stupid that get them all killed.

Being too cool.
It's a weakness I put on all my resumes.

It'd have to be a ballista or something, can you imagine how much HP he must have?

They're the hyperfanatical conquering empire with an unbeatable war machine consisting of hyperfanatical citizens who believe they truly deserve to conquer others, brutally exploit their conquered enemies, enslave them, break up families, burn entire villages to the ground, worship their emperors as living gods and invented an execution method that was purely made to prolong the suffering of the executed for as long as possible. And let's not forget that they force prisoners to fight exotic and dangerous animals for sport. Making them villains isn't difficult.

Let's be honest, your rhetoric is this way because Rome won. Had Socialism become the world's dominant ideology, chances are you'd be excusing the gulags just as hard. But instead you condemn them, only becaus Socialism lost.

>Let's be honest, your rhetoric is this way because Rome won.

I "defend" them because I owe them all what I am. As you do, probably, unless you're some asian or something. Which is similar to what you said but not the same.

Dude, Socialism is understanding that Capitalism creates a social inequality and that providing relief for that social inequality is the duty of the state and the government. As such, steps should be taken to ensure that people are more equal than that.

You're probably talking about both the illogical extremes like National Socialism and Communism.

This sounds like Commonargh.

Sounds cool but I don't think it'll work. Ultimately the demise of those to groups were less sophisticated peoples. Even before their fall those peoples were a gigantic headache for both empires. But when you reach a certain level of technology savages stop being a threat.

Ermor at it's "about to fall" stage.

>Dude, Socialism is understanding that Capitalism creates a social inequality
And yet around the world, the most economically free socities are also the most prosperous ones. Socialism, especially in its Marxist forms, relies on too much faith in the state, as it it is the infallible equalizer rather than an institution run by corrupt human beings who will abuse any power they're given. Socialism would work in a society where mankind is ruled by a literally angelic elite, but we're ruled by mere humans regardless of system or ideology.

Just play them straight?

Rome was a Lawful Evil society by D&D standards.

Tolkien orcs, as written, seem to be a parody of romans:
>short
>multitudinous
>good at warfare
>have their own sea
>fierce warriors with a lifetime of experience
>good at technology and mass production if they get their shit together
>really good at forced marching and marching in general
>violent
>led by some of the worst tyrants in the world
>seemingly always able to bounce back from a defeat
>their language is a twisted version of the language of civilizaton elvishgreek

Sadly, this is true.
I admit I truly despise capitalism and globalism due to how is does not inspire empathy the only way to ensure that socialism works properly would be by using a policing system of the politicians and government or utopia is achieved through the people on to suddenly growing a conscience.
Or, y'know the people recognizing that they have more say in society than what the people on top are telling them.

That's no surprise, since Commoragh is partially based on by Rome.

Gladiatorial slave pits, corrupt nobles with menagerie courts from all over the land, etc etc etc.

Pilate was in a shitty position. He didn't want t kill Jesus, and believed him innocent, but he knew if he didn't judge him then the Jews would riot and cause problems. So he went along with it anyway

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Development_Index

Truly, mixed market economies are the best for true prosperity.

Just about every country in the world is a mixed economy to one degree or another.

How the fuck is latin a twisted version of greek? Also one of the main traits of orcs is being undisciplined as fuck.

Most of what you said is basically more related to what said. Granted, Romans were THE Empire.

>Or, y'know the people recognizing that they have more say in society than what the people on top are telling them.
Personally I think that attaching (active) citizenship to military service goes a long way in creating a sort of 'common consience' and understanding of the place of the individual in the whole.

True, though many of the same countries that top the HDI list also top the ease of doing business rankings.
doingbusiness.org/rankings
A low barrier to entry in the market does require some state intervention, but only in as far as it prevents the forming of cartels and monopolies.

socialism doesn't require too much faith in the state. it requires too much faith in people. it's basically another take on platonic utopia, where people will willingly suffer for the greater good, where they will live like obedient automatons under control of the best possible form of government.
in comparison capitalism only assumes that people are greedy.
this is why socialism will never succeed.

A friend of mine just wrote his dissertation on Greco-Roman relations from 190-140 BC.
Essentially the Greeks didn't really take the Romans seriously as a threat. They paid Rome lip service, which the Romans saw as bona fide submission. It even became a part of Greek rhetoric to appeal to Rome or act as if one had Roman support.
This caused problems when Greek states started doing things that Rome disapproved of, thinking Rome didn't really care.
Rome didn't really *want* to intervene, but they did because the Greeks weren't taking them seriously when the Romans told them to cut the shit.

Like in other situations, the Roman Republic practised a sort of "defensive" imperialism. They generally didn't set out to take over places, but often it turned out to be easier than dealing with all the dumb foreigners shitting about.

So essentially you set up Fantasy Rome as an Imperial Power that only really takes over places out of exasperation. Maybe stick a little Victorian-esque "Roman Man's burden" to make them a little more proactive. "No guys, stop killing each other. No seriously I swear if this war spills over my border I'm going to invade you so hard. Okay, make a reservation for 2 legions in your capital in a week."

That's also true. Like I said, the most prosperous countries in the world are largely mixed economies. Even the US of A.

Its Final Fantasy Fourteen. And the empire in question most resembles the early roman empire, in particular the way they deal with conquered territories in parts of the world that don't have oodles of magic lying around for god summoning.

Also their social structure and government is explicitly based on the early roman empire since it used to be a small republic in an out of the way place no one cared about until they started fucking shit up left right and centre.

Don't forget its also because that, due to the various impossiby complex mutlitude of economic factors that it is impossible for any centrally planned economy to be able to properly measure and allocate economic priority and resources to any and every industry as apropriate without forcing said planner to have to commit willing and knowing harm against at least several markets. Its impossible to be the perfect Socialist/Communist ruler/entity without being an unfeeling and amoral monster-automaton.

>"The gods decide to help the village, if they can choose the right game system"

Scourging and crucifying doesn't have much washing of hands, except of the blood.

The protagonist isn't a Roman, the Romans want to conquer/have already conquered or occupy the protagonists homeland, blam antagonist.

If you want to make a morally black villain you just need to kill yourself.

Are you seriously pretending that pure capitalism is the best route? Because that's how you get shit like the Great Depression. People starved because they couldn't afford food. Hell, people are still starving because of the price of food. The all-mighty dollar is the worst thing to happen to the world.

invisible hand will decide who lives and who dies
it's the most objective system there ever will be

Capitalism by itself has no moral values. When coupled with the state it produces corporatism, lobbying and monopolies. Libertarianism and its extreme of anarcho-capitalism are the only valid solutions.

> Hell, people are still starving because of the price of food.
despite food being the cheapest it has been in ages thanks to almost all of it being subsidized under the Food Securities Act, which in turn is forcing family farmers out of business due to not making enough money to meet the inflated demand, and so they have to fold over and sell to govt. supported agricultural businesses?

>Great Depression
caused by a combination of rampant overspeculation of the stock market by people who had no idea wat they were doing, combined with over-use of the installment/credit system of spending and banks not limiting their own spendnig and rates. Further need I also remind you that, despite all the work the FDR did in alleviated the problem, that didn't stop another depression from hitting again into the end of the thirties before the US got into WWII

>anarcho-capitalism
I see someone never graduated from college or actually took a damned economics course

This better be bait user.

Mythras/RQ6E

>caused by a combination of rampant overspeculation of the stock market by people who had no idea wat they were doing, combined with over-use of the installment/credit system of spending and banks not limiting their own spendnig and rates.
Market is supposed to magically rid itself of incompetence, isn't it?

>this is what keynesists actually believe

>Market is supposed to magically rid itself of incompetence, isn't it?
It does, if you're alright with it failing a few times.

Well, getting rid of people on a mass scale is what is bad about communism - I don't see how hordes of starving people after market failing is better.

In theory it just fails, that particular way, once.
Communism failed, or intentianaly-ed, a lot more than once.

It will, but just like an ecosystem, it takes both time and a willingess to let people fail on its own. Plus unfortunately te early stockmarket was very much like the real estate market, in that it has a pretty damn heavy turnover rate in regards to punishing people who fail in it.

Really, an economy, especially a "free-ish" market is essentially an abstracted ecosystem. They behave much the same wa, repond similarly to niche competition, as well in terms of population/market mortality and changes in accessory systems and factors.

Ecosystems work best when not being fucked over by over-extensive human interference (though a little can be helpful, such as with the NA Fire Regime) and "correction", and the same can be said of Economies.

Granted though, ancaps are delusional fools as they forget that the key feature of any viable economy/market is the presence of an Institute which makes and enforces the rules of trade. In an Ecosystem the institute can be seen as either the Climate, or more expansively, the basic laws of thermodynamics and conservation. However, since Economies are abtracted from Ecosystems, they require that we implement that Institute ourselves in order to lay the basic foundation for the rules of trade. And since anything that humans make is doomed to be imperfect and potentially corruptible, it is important to insure said Institute is just strong enough to perform its primary function, yet weak and disconnected enough from executive/federal influence so that any issue and corruption that does occur can be dealt with and minimized in a somewhat efficient manner

Hold a minute, will get to that, reached character limit on post

>Well, getting rid of people on a mass scale is what is bad about communism
It's soviet ideology. Gulags weren't extermination camps, they were re-education camps to create the perfect Soviet Man. It's just that a lot of people died there, but they were just dissidents amirite?

>I don't see how hordes of starving people after market failing is better.
Because market failure is inherrent to the system, much like failing crops. Kind of like how you can't dismiss modern medicine because people still die of cancer by the millions. Capitalism isn't perfect, but no system is perfect because we're talking about economies consisting of imperfect actors. This is also the problem with the Chicago school of economics: it assumes consumers always act rationally when they demonstrably do not.

>implying that little shit didn't have it coming

Emperor Tiberius had it right

Till he went all Obi-Wan on the empire.

>It's soviet ideology
Revolutionary legal consciousness is fucking awful.

>Because market failure is inherrent to the system, much like failing crops.
So it's better because there's nobody to pin the blame on?

The difference is that, in a free market its much easier for the market to bounce back with a replacement, and the presence of competing firms ensures there will always be options and alternate niches to fulfill those deficiencies. Further in such a situation there is no particular entity responsible for such a loss, as it is generally caused by the collective of both consumers and producers, meaning the culpability belongs to no one in particular.

In communism, such mas die offs and failures are the direct responsibility and cause of the central economic planning agency, and are often wilfully chosen in order to favor one sector of the nation over the other. Further, since in such a system business competition and niche partitioning is basically nil and must yield to the whims of the central planner, that means that should that particular arm of the economy fail, there there exists no alternatives for the people to pursue after it fails

Going back to the ecological analogy, if the Free-ish market is a wilderness ecosystem, then the socialist/communist system is a farm. The use and productivity of that system in almost completely reliant on a central entity, who can make any and all rules he wants even if they would destroy his own land in the long run (much like what happened in the dustbowl and other similar instances), and should the farm or even a particular crop fail, then really that's it for that patch and often one of the only ways to reclaim the health of said property is to let it go fallow and return to its original state (removing the FarmSocialism with the EcosystemFree-ishMarket)

>So it's better because there's nobody to pin the blame on?
People will starve either way.
People starve less in capitalist societies as opposed to communist ones. How is this hard to grasp?

Are commie trolls leaking from /pol/?

>So it's better because there's nobody to pin the blame on?
That and a free-ish market will often not only be able to quickly respond o fill in the void, but can also have competing industries and froms to ensure that even with the loss of one entity that the market will still survive and provide services.

there's a lot of commies on Veeky Forums. remember all those 8values threads?

If I'm not mistaken, the whole affair was Pilate trying to piss off the Jews. According to some, he bargained for Jesus' life not because he cared about what was going on, but because he wanted to cause the Jewish priesthood as much trouble as possible (telling them to judge Jesus by their own laws, telling them to take it to Herod or trying to get him released instead of Barrabas, simply to annoy the Pharisees and rob them of the "legitimacy" of a Roman execution).

>trolls leaking from /pol/?
Oh no something that happens all the time here on Veeky Forums.
haha you are good at bait I'll give you that

>How would Fantasy Rome be the villains of a story?

Same way any historical military power is villainized, simply apply the moral standards of your own time and place to their culture and actions and utterly ignore the historical context of those

That is how you transform
>founders of western civilization
into
>m-muh bloodthirsty slavery imperialists REEEEEEE

It's easy, and you can do it to literally anyone in history.

Can't do it to the Inuit and the associated tribes.

That was the jews and you know it.

>Same way any historical military power
Inuit, to my knowledge, were never a military power.

Pure capitalism also assumes that all participants in the market will always have perfect information and act purely out of logical, material self-interest. And even then it ignores issues like externalities.

And that is why pure capitalism will also never succeed and mixed-market systems are the way to go.

>anarcho-capitalism

Aka corporate dictatorship. An unregulated market is nothing more than a guaranteed oligopoly or even monopoly. Anarchy is nothing more than a power vacuum,and nature abhors any vacuum.

>It's easy, and you can do it to literally anyone in history.
>literally anyone

The Dorset Culture would disagree, except they are all dead.

>In theory it just fails, that particular way, once.

That theory must assume that all people will perfectly learn from any prior mistakes. If people were that perfect, communism would work just as well.

Basically, he was faced with a new seto of crazies who were pissing of the mainstream of the crazies who wanted him to whack the new sect leader. If he judges the guy innocent, the mainstream assholes will riot. If he judges the guy guilty, his new followers will riot. So in the end Pilate just gave everyone the finger and told them to sort their shit out themselves.

>founders of western civilization
>into
>m-muh bloodthirsty slavery imperialists REEEEEEE

Those things aren't mutually exclusive.

>And yet around the world, the most economically free socities are also the most prosperous ones.
"Economically free" has nothing to do with being some national ancapistan.
Going that way results in shit like the free economic zones in Honduras, where people take care of muh roads by literally filling potholes with dirt and then asking for tips from drivers using them, and pizza places have armed guards.
As user said, mixed econs are the best.

I know fuck-all about Rome. Where would power consolidate after the death of an emperor?

Give it a few years. I'm sure we'll be able to talk about how the brutal savage Inuit murdered defenseless majestic whales, and even more defenseless seals, driven mad with rape lust by their diet of uncooked blubber.

The Senate, or more likely the guy who had the emperor killed.

>or more likely the guy who had the emperor killed.
What if they were a foreigner? Did Rome operate on "You kill it you inherit it"?