2003: Pax Gladivs

1974 is an important year for the gaming hobby. It is the year that Dungeons & Dragons was introduced, the original RPG from which all other RPGs would ultimately be derived and the original RPG from which so many computer games would draw for their inspiration. It is fitting that the current owner of the game, Wizards of the Coast, released the new version, Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition, in the year of the game’s fortieth anniversary. To celebrate this, Reviews from R’lyeh will be running a series of reviews from the hobby’s anniversary years, thus there will be reviews from 1974, from 1984, from 1994, and from 2004—the thirtieth, twentieth, and tenth anniversaries of the titles. These will be retrospectives, in each case an opportunity to re-appraise interesting titles and true classics decades on from the year of their original release.

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The idea of using the Internet to deliver a roleplaying game was still new in 2003. Deep7 was one of the pioneers, publishing a series of mini-roleplaying games via what would become DriveThruRPG.com. This series was the 1PG line, a line of simple roleplaying games each focused upon a particular genre and specifically, the cinematic version of that genre and a cinematic style of play. Each entry in the series was—and still is—low preparation, easy to learn, and easy to grasp because each leaned into a cinematic genre. These factors were enhanced by the format which limited a particular aspect of each roleplaying game and its genre to a single page each. Hence the ‘1PG’ name. Thus, the rules of play fit on a single page, the rules for character generation fit on a single page, the advice for the Referee fits on a single page, each scenario fits on a single page, and so on. The 1PG series did espionage with Agent S.E.V.E.N., pulp action with Dime Heroes, and Irwin Allen-style disaster movies with Disaster!, and more.

Published in 2003, Pax Gladivs: Epic Sword & Sandals Adventure was Deep7’s entry into the Swords & Sandal genre of epic stories set in Ancient Rome, inspired by such films as Gladiator and Ben Hur—and that is really all that the players need to know. For the Referee, play is intended to be epic and exciting, but never slow, with quick and dirty intrigues in the villas of the rich, blood spilled on the sands of the arena to cheers of thousands, chases back and forth across the empire by the emboldened barbarians, and so on. Every story should have a good villain and the action should first, the rules second. This amounts to the advice given in Pax Gladivs, which boils down to stick on the soundtrack to Gladiator, describe the scene, and let the action and the drama begin.

A Player Character in Pax Gladivs is simply defined. He has four stats—Vigour, Splendour, Scheming, and Acumen. Both these and the roleplaying game’s various skills are rated between one and three. In addition, a Player Character has Spirit, his charisma and your mental and physical bearing; Guts, which is his courage and bravery; Blood is his Hit Points; and Esteem, which is a measure of his fame and respect. To create a Player Character, a player rolls a three-sided die for each stat, assigns between four and six points between skills, rolls to determine how much Spirit, Guts, and Blood he has, and then rolls against each stat to gain a point of Esteem if successful. Lastly, he rolls for money and for Background and Provenance. Background is his status and occupation, such as Senator or Gladiator, whilst Provenance determines where he is from. Both Background and Provenance provide a mixture of bonuses to stats, skills, and secondary factors.

Name: Albus

Background: Slave Provenance: Rome

Vigour 3 (Drinking 1, Running 1)

Splendour 2 (Etiquette 1)

Scheming 3 (Con 2, Dodge 2, Sneaking 1)

Acumen 3

SPIRIT 2 GUTS 4 BLOOD 19 ESTEEM 3

Mechanically, as with other 1PG titles, Pax Gladivs is simple. To have a character undertake an action his player chooses the appropriate combination of a stat and a skill and attempts to roll equal to or under the target number the combination creates on a single six-sided die. Rolls of one always succeed, whilst rolls of six always fail. Fear is handled via a Guts check, and if failed, the Player Character loses a point of Spirit. Losing all Spirit means losing heart and the will to adventure. The only way to recover Spirit is to survive until the end of a scenario and assign Character Points earned then. Contests of will are rolled against Spirit, but a player can add his character’s Esteem. Combat is only slightly more complex. In combat, the Fighting skill is used for melee, Archery for ranged attacks, and Dodge for evading them. Rolls are made by those involved in the fight simultaneously, with the combatant who makes the roll by the widest margin succeeding. Ties go to the defender, but if both opponents are attacking, ties mean that both attacks succeed. Damage for each weapon type is a set value, for example, five for a short sword and fifteen for a ballista bolt! The attacker’s Vigour value is added to the damaged for melee attacks and all damage is deducted from the Player Character’s Blood value, and armour reduces the damage suffered—one point for thick robes, two for leather, and three for mail or scale.

Beyond this, Pax Gladivs adds rules for genre in the form of the Circus Maximus. It suggests making use of vehicle combat rules in The 1P Companion for chariot races and combat, but the Referee can get by with what is given here. In the arena, Esteem can be used to add a Player Character’s Spirit to the Fighting skill or Armour Value, gain more Blood, invoke the crowd to temporarily increase Guts, turn the crowd against the atonement, or increase the Dodge skill. This only lasts a round and the point of Esteem is lost for the day. If a Player Character uses a point of Esteem to inflict a killing blow, it is not lost. It is permanently lost if a Player Character is defeated, but not dead, and he pleads with the Emperor to spare his life, which requires a Performance check. Wins in the arena will earn a Player Character further Esteem, and if he can earn enough Esteem in this way, he can gain his freedom and become a Freedman, but not a citizen. That requires service as a soldier. A Player Character who begins play as a Gladiator does so with Esteem, but anyone sold into service as a Gladiator loses all of his previous Esteem and has to begin again.

The rules for Pax Gladivs amount to just four pages and the character sheet actually contains two sheets. The rest of the roleplaying game consists of six scenarios, each a page long. Together, they form a mini-campaign, which begins with dramatic fashion in ‘The Iron Lion’, when a lion with iron-shod claws is unleashed on the streets of Rome to attack a particular senator! Who would engineer such an attack? The senator rewards those that helped save him—that is, the Player Characters—by taking them into his employ and quickly they discover that his life is still in danger. The plot continues over the Alps and into Southern Germania where the senator is due to enter into treaty talks with the barbarian tribes across the border. The overall plot is fairly simple, but complicated with double-crossing action back and forth and lots of attempts to stop the senator. The players and their characters need not think too much about the plot, but go with it for the action and the drama.

Physically, Pax Gladivs is cleanly and simply laid out. Bar the cover, it is not really illustrated and the roleplaying game as a whole, very much needs a good edit. Some of the phrasing and terminology is inconsistent, but it is easy to work out how every thing should play.

These smaller games often get forgotten given how old they are, but many of the 1PG titles are worth revisiting or visiting for the first time because they deliver what they promise—cinematically styled, genre focused mini-games that are easy to prepare and run, all with scenarios, some of which form mini-campaigns. Pax Gladivs: Epic Sword & Sandals Adventure was there in 2003 for a quick, dirty, and simple pick-up game set in Rome and it pretty much still is in 2023.