Log in

View Full Version : An Example of Roleplaying your Characters



Zaknafien
10-20-2007, 16:47
I posted this in the guides forum, but wanted to put it here too for folks who dont venture there. Im not sure its even an AAR, and I probably wont continue it, but here is just an example of how to roleplay your characters in EB going by their traits and backgrounds.


Salve, everyone. I was playing a campaign on 1.0 that just got rather interesting with political interplay,and was inspired to write a story about the characters involved. In doing so, I hope to show how you can portray your characters by role-playing them according to their traits, to spice up your game a little. All of these characters involved are real game characters, NO cheating involved in getting them any of these traits, I just play it how it comes. And so, here is the first installment:

Note: for the reader's convienence, I am using the Julian calendar even though it is inaccurate for this perod.


PRIMVS INTER PARES

https://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e286/Alhazenalrashid/Picture1-16.jpg

In 199 BCE, The Roman Republic was on the ascent. It had concluded the Second Punic War some 10 years previously, and had only recently settled peace agreements between the Antigonids and other Hellenic states in Achaea, after tromping a Consular legion through the Peloponnesus and rasing the siege of Athens itself, punishment for Macedonia's alliance with Carthage during the war. The Republic had established client kingdoms of allied tribes on both sides of the sea, with both Iberians in the west and royal Dalmatian and Illyrian clients in the east. In 203, however, migrations of Dacian tribesmen, repulsed from the northern steppes and forests by fierce Germanic peoples, again turned their attentions southward, and abutted against the newly established Roman client states on the Adriatic coast. At first small bands of radiers and bandits would attack trade caravans and outlying smallholdings, and then more notable war chiefs and their followers began to move south west in force. The Illyrian soldiers proved inadequate to supress such a widespread movement, and thus, in 200, the aedile Numerius Julius Caesar was given a Consular Tribunate imperium, and given command of two legions of seasoned veterans of the Punic War to settle the issue with the Dacians. Caesar was a war hero and had served in both Hispania and Africa, and took command only after being promised the Consular Tribunate by the Seante, seeing as he would miss his chance to run for the Praetorship in the following year. Meanwhile, in Rome, the man of the hour is another Numerius, of the Cornelli Scipiones. Numerius Cornelius Scipio, another hero of both the Punic and Macedonian wars, was amassing great influence and wealth for himself both by his family's name and his new clients in Macedonia. Insulted at the Senate's denying him command in Dacia, he contemplates and broods, which in the near future will bode ill for the fate of the Republic...

https://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e286/Alhazenalrashid/Picture5-1.jpg
Roma, Latium
Italia
Nones of September, 199 BCE

"For my part, I will do my duty as a general; I shall see to it that you are given the chance of a successful action." --Lucius Aemilius Paullus (c.228-c.160 BCE)



"I tell you, Marcus Porcius, it is absolutely not fair." Numerius Cornelius Scipio said, with all the assurance of a man used to getting his way. He was young and influencial, from the most noble of aristocratic families, and, at the age of 34, had already commanded legions in defense of the Republic, earning him the praise and trust of the people of Rome, yet the scorn and unease of its Senate.

He stood, slipping on his sandals and moving to the portico, rain drizzling at his feet. The night air was cold, uncommonly so for the season, and a dark front of clouds flecked with the occasional flash of lightning cast a pall over the slumbering city of Rome.

The view of the city was good, as their domus was perched on the Palantine, directly adjacent to the Forum on the corner of the Clivus Sacer and Clivus Orbius. To the west he could see the lightning flashes reflected off the bend in the Tiber as it snaked its way through the city beyond the Aventine and out to the sea. The cold air filled his lungs and the rain fell on his brow, cooling him.

"Numverius Cornelius, you are being over-dramatic, I think." Marcus Porcius was not so a fortunate son as Scipio, and their friendship was an unlikely one. Porcius--who had taken to calling himself Cato recently, was a Plebeian eques from an obscure Tusculum family of local renown only, and was considered a new man within the Senate after having won both a quaestorship previously and an aedileship this year, he was one of Scipio's partners in running for the Praetorship the coming spring.

Cato did not like the rain, nor the late hour at which his friend had called upon him.

"Am I?" Scipio asked, turning dramatically. He had had a bit much to drink, it was obvious. "Here I am, reclining with businessmen and builders in the Forum, while Caesar is out in the provinces heaping glory upon himself. My father was Princeps Senatus! I tell you,it should have been I that was granted command against the Dacians."

"And what of it? My friend, there are always more wars to be fought. You, despite your age, are undoubtedly among, if not the-- First Man in Rome--You, you are the conquerer of Macedonia, the Subjugator of Athens! Your name is like wine on the lips of the capite censi--you are a shoe-in for the Praetorship next year." And, Cato knew, his attatching himself to Scipio would work wonders for his own political career.

"Let Caesar have his sloppy war against some insignificant tribe of barbarians.. will the people remember that?"

"Not when I'm finished, they won't." Scipio said, quietly.


*******

Roman Camp, Serdike
Dardania

The city of Sardika, or Serdike, was an ancient Thracian enclave established by a tribe known as the Serdi. It had for some time been occupied by Phillip of Macedon and Megas Alexandros himself, and in recent years had been invaded and occupied by some Getic chieftan, of whom no knowledge was to be had. Its walls were crude by civilized standards, Caesar thought as he rode the length of his own battlements, his palfrey courser pausing to graze now and again.

Caesar did not mind, it gave him the opportunity to study his enemies all the closer.

The city butted up against an ancient black crag of rock and was generally raised in all directions by earth and stone, ringed by a stout stockade of wood and sharpened spikes atop stone mounds. Crude towers here and there gave overwatch over the river vallies, and only a few narrow cart-paths led up unto its barricaded gates.

Assault, then, was out of the question.

His own army, the remnants of two legions he had already marched the length and breadth of Illyria and only in the spring had moved into Dardania proper, was encamped directly opposite the city, controlling the trade routes from the south. The Roman fortifications were simple and laid out in a standard way, ditch and mound with a palisade of their own to discourage the enemy from launching a counter-attack.

As it stood, Numerius Julius Caesar decdied, he had not the men nor the methods to launch a full-scale assault on this stronghold, and thus siege was the only option.

And so, he would wait.

https://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e286/Alhazenalrashid/Picture6-1.jpg
Caesar's two reduced legions


TO BE CONTINUED...


https://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e286/Alhazenalrashid/Picture3-3.jpg https://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e286/Alhazenalrashid/Picture4-1.jpg
NVMERIVS CORNELIVS SCIPIO et

NVMERIVS IVLIVS CAESAR

Pharnakes
10-20-2007, 16:51
Saw that in the guides already, very nice Zaknafien.:2thumbsup:

Dram
10-20-2007, 16:56
Respectful brute? i've never seen that trait before, whats that about?

Zaknafien
10-20-2007, 17:00
Caesar is pleased to do the bidding of the Seante, he basically is brutal when the situation calls for it, but he repsects the rule of law.

Warmaster Horus
10-20-2007, 17:02
Very nice indeed!

Landwalker
10-20-2007, 17:02
Wouldn't Numerius Cornelius Scipio's "Unselfish/Pessimistic/Loyal" traits make him disinclined to stir up trouble in the name of personal gain (as it seems he is planning to do)?

Cheers.

Zaknafien
10-20-2007, 17:05
possibly, but he's also a Restless Warmonger, Suspiscious, Pessimistic, a Self Publicist, and "Slick".

Zaknafien
10-20-2007, 17:07
This thread, btw, is for people to discuss different roleplaying opportunities, and how they would play my characters, i.e., giving me (and others) suggestions or advice of how they interpret traits and actions based on what I post from the game

Landwalker
10-20-2007, 17:16
Ah, I somehow managed to skip over Restless Warmonger--one of the most infuriating traits I've run across (-100% to bribe cost?!?!). In any case, I like it--I iwsh I could get more into the RP aspect of my games...

Cheers.

bovi
10-20-2007, 18:42
Landwalker, consider him employed but looking for another job which has more need of his qualities, and ready to take any offer to get out of the dreary position he's in now. Such as leader of the Dacian campaign, or at least something else that he could gain glory from.

If it were possible, he should have trained assassins and sent them to remove his rival. But RTW doesn't allow assassinations of own people.

Boyar Son
10-20-2007, 18:51
Landwalker, consider him employed but looking for another job which has more need of his qualities, and ready to take any offer to get out of the dreary position he's in now. Such as leader of the Dacian campaign, or at least something else that he could gain glory from.

If it were possible, he should have trained assassins and sent them to remove his rival. But RTW doesn't allow assassinations of own people.

actually in vannila, my spy was in another factions city, and he was among the choices i could choose to assassinate! i dont remember if i actually tried that though.... really the spy was a choice...

Zaknafien
10-20-2007, 19:36
cant you ALT-click and assassinate your own guys?

bovi
10-20-2007, 21:02
Oh. I never knew that. *Adds another trick to use later*

Zaknafien
10-20-2007, 21:33
OK, Ive decided I havent got time to invest fully into writing a story for this, with work, EB work, etc. But, I will udate for anyone intersted in the campaign. After this, Im going to move this into the AAR forums. Please drop by there and give feedback if you're so inclined :help:



PRIMVS INTER PARES:

Part II

198, BCE
Pannonia & Dalmatia

The year 198 BCE was a tough one for High King Zusidava of the Thracian Getae. He was attempting to unite his people under one banner (his own), and had been doing so well until he had run across the foul side of the Roman Republic. Everywhere he turned, Roman diplomats were offering his vassals more money, his lieutenants more land, and his client tribes a grim choice--subservience or destruction. Not only that, Roman-paid assassins were attempting to take his life..thus far, unsuccessfully, praise gods.



https://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e286/Alhazenalrashid/Picture1-17.jpg
Getic High King Zusidava, holding court in Naissos


https://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e286/Alhazenalrashid/romanadvancement.jpg

The Roman Imperator Numerius Julius Caesar and his tribune, a man called Blasio, had succeeded in pushing his warbands back across the river, and had captured both Serdike and Sigidunum, two of his prize cities and centers of trade. Not only that, Caesar was a brutal conquerer---once captured, he ordered all of the citizens enslaved, marched off in chains and sold at great auctions by merchants that followed the Roman armies, and then, razed both cities to the ground. Everything that could be destroyed was, burned,
stripped, and torn. The fields were left standing, only to feed Caesar's troops while his people--the old and infirm not fit for slavery, were left to starve.


https://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e286/Alhazenalrashid/geticsdevestated.jpg

The year had went well for Caesar himself. With the word spread of his victories, he had been elected Praetor in abstentia, an almost unheard of feat in the day. How Scipio must have steamed when he found out, Caesar smiled.


https://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e286/Alhazenalrashid/caesarpraetor.jpg

Not only that, he narrowly avoided death in battle:


https://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e286/Alhazenalrashid/caesarbattle.jpg

Pharnakes
10-20-2007, 21:54
Brilliant pic:laugh4:

Zaknafien
10-20-2007, 23:12
maybe ill just make an EB comic book lol

TWFanatic
10-21-2007, 01:45
--Lucius Aemilius Paullus (c.228-c.160 BCE)
Is this a different Paullus than the one who died at Cannae in 216 BC? His son or something?

Zaknafien
10-21-2007, 03:34
come on man, seriously. THE Lucius Aemilius Paullus, conquerer of Macedonia? Perhaps the greatest Roman general of all time?

Zaknafien
10-21-2007, 15:22
PRIMVS INTER PARES:
Part III



Numerius Julius Caesar prosecuted the Dacian War until its bitter completion, using a strategy of sacking and burning cities while starving their inhabitants to force the ambitious barbarian King to come to the negotiation table. Romans, however, do not negotiate---they dictate terms. In 197 BCE King Zusivada accepted the now undeniable, that his feeble tribal forces,un-united and dispersed, could not withstand the effectiveness of a centralized and well equipped Roman military machine. In the Treaty of Segestica, Winter, 196, the Dacians accepted their fate, and Caesar presided over the surrender of arms and banners from the Dacian chieftans.

As part of the terms of the agreement, the Getae would pay Rome an annual indemnity of 1,000 talents worth in gold, and land conquered by Zusivada would be redestributed to form buffer states around the warlike clans. As such, Serdike was handed over to Macedonian power, and his eastern lands added to the lands of the Boii kingdom.

The Dacians were defeated, but as a result of this harsh treatment would harbor a festering resentment for the ascendant Republic which would haunt them in the future. King Zusivada would die an old, broken man, but his sons would live on with a hatred of the Sons of Romulus.




https://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e286/Alhazenalrashid/Picture1-18.jpg


POLITICS IN ROME AND TROUBLE IN HISPANIA

197 through 194 were quiet years overall, in Rome business much as usual went on. Numverius Julius Caesar returned from Dacia a conquering hero, but once the accolades and triumphs were completed, retreated to a more contenmplative life of scholarship and oratory. He was undoubtedly one of the most august leaders of the Senate, and turned his attentions to more political pursuits and effective legislation. Often among his closest friends he would claim he was weary of war and battle, and had seen too many men killed and others wounded horribly.

Caesar brought on an orator and author to his household, Quintus Fabius Pictor, whom he sponsored to write histories in Latin and Greek of both the Punic Wars and the Dacian Conquest, both of which were quite favorable to the character of Numerius Caesar, of course.

In 194 BCE, Caesar was elected as Senior Consul for the year, while his rival Numerius Cornelius Scipio, whom had satisfied his warlike urges chasing Gallic bandits in the north for the past year, was finally accpted into the Praetorship.


https://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e286/Alhazenalrashid/Picture2-3.jpg

https://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e286/Alhazenalrashid/Picture3-4.jpg

https://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e286/Alhazenalrashid/Picture4-2.jpg
The Roman World in 194 BCE



THE SECOND MACEDONIAN WAR, 194--190 BCE

The King of Macedon had long coveted the lands of his southern neighbors, and intermittent warfare had plauged Achaea for decades. Again, in 195, the Macedonians renewed their war on Greece, marching into the Peloponnesos with an army some 100,000 strong and capturing both Athens and Corinth in one summer.

The Senate was loathe to act in this matter, as the Dacian war had just concluded and no one was eager for another long confrontation, except the young magistrates eager for glory. Numerius Caesar gave an impassioned speech in the Senate house on Rome's involvement in foreign affairs that had nothing to do with her or its people, and claimed that Rome herself had created most of these situations by meddling in other nations' politics.

Most of the Optimates would have nothing to do with such speech, and Caesar was shouted down. His old rival, Numerius Cornelius, responded in kind, not only in the Senate itself but later in the Forum. The cities of Greece had long ago turned to Rome for alliance and assisstance against their northern aggressors, he reminded the people. The Hellenic city-states paid tribute to Rome, and saw Rome as their protector. How could Rome now abandon them? And so, with his allied Tribunes called a meeting of the Comitia Centuriata, Scipo was granted command of an army by popular acclamation, his mission to invade Macedonia, and restore freedom to the oppressed Greeks.

With a quaestor and 12 tribunes at the head of an army of two seasoned legions fresh from the Dacian wars, Scipio disembarked from Brindisi on 12 May 194, BCE.

https://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e286/Alhazenalrashid/Picture5-2.jpg

The Arcadian Campaign was the first and probably most decisive battle of the war, in which the Macedonian puppet Astrabakos, tetrarch of the Peloponessos, brought his army of mercenaries and foreigners to oppose the landing of Scipio and the Republic. Scipio turned the phalanx upon itself and routed the Anatolian mercenaries in a crushing defeat for the Macedonian aggressors. It is then, historians believe, after the victory, that Scipio's agents purchased some of the captured Macedonian officers...




https://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e286/Alhazenalrashid/Picture6-2.jpg

https://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e286/Alhazenalrashid/Picture7.jpg

https://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e286/Alhazenalrashid/Picture8.jpg

Scipio won victories one after the other for the next four years. First Corinth fell after a protracted siege. Then Athens, from treachery within its walls. The army crossed and moved upon Demetrias, storming it after two months and slaughtering the Macedonian garrison who would not surrender. In 190, with the Macedonian armies that remained stuck in Asia Minor, and the path to Pella open before Scipio's veteran legions, the King of Macedon opened peace talks.

Scipio demanded full subservience from the mere King, for he was a Praetor of Rome. In a humiliating treaty, Macedon was required to disband most of its armies, return its captured lands to their proper Hellenic natives, take apart its amassed navy, and pay indemnities to the Roman Republic. Furthermore, Macedonia was not permitted to make war outside its borders without explicit approval by the Senate of Rome. Essentially, the Kingdom of Alexander was made a client state of Rome.

Pharnakes
10-21-2007, 16:03
the Getae would pay Rome an annual indemnity of 1,000 talents worth in gold,


You managed to get the AI to give you 60,000 manai? per turn? how? or were you just making that up for the story?

Zaknafien
10-21-2007, 16:10
just a little artistic license :) I did make them pay a one time settlement of 1000 though.