DriveThruRPG.com
Browse Categories
$ to $















Back
pixel_trans.gif
Other comments left by this customer:
You must be logged in to rate this
pixel_trans.gif
Arkadia - The Greek Setting for 5e
Publisher: Arcana Games
by michael b. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 07/11/2020 03:32:21

As others have mentioned, the art is great, the content not so much. Unlike a lot of folks who have left reviews, I'm not on the 5e bandwagon, nore was I invested in the kickstarter. I got this purely for the setting information to potentially adapt with a DIY/OSR style, & I was definetly disappointed. Browsing thru the rules material, I also didn't come across anything I wanted to grab as a cool option for my players. There is nothing we all haven't seen time & time again before.

To be blunt, it's a fairly uninspired take of D&D in ancient Greece. It's not bad, but the thing is there are plenty of other products that work from the same motif, but either have a more interesting twist, are cheaper, or both. When it comes down to it, Arkadia is a classic by-the-numbers approach of taking the standard D&D races & classes, plopping them in the setting du-jour, and tossing some additional character options, magic items, feats & monsters on top. Instead of the incredibly rich selection of fantasy races present in Greek myth, we get anachronistic orcs & elves... with all of the actual Greek demi-human options being lumped under the Phaedran option as sub-races... which is canonically defined as a half-breed of human and whatever mythic race you ACTUALLY wanted to play as. Classes are the same deal, they just take the standard set (including the setting inappropriate ones like paladin, druid, & monk) and giving each one a new subclass option. They give you zilch for magic options... you're going to be using whatevers in the 5E-PH.

GM content they give you nothing... you get big blurb of text descriptions of the city states, classes of monster, and the gods/titans (side note on the titans: they lack the standard deity rules blurb). You get a world map. And that's it. No random generation tables, no guidance or advice on how to create content for the setting, no information on the culture & history of real world ancient Greece and how to use that to adapt other content into your campaign. Admittedly, I'm coming from reading thru OSR material so my standards are a bit high... but there's nothing here to empower the GM to save their time or efficently produce cool adventures; so it gets no points.

To emphasize: there's nothing really WRONG with Arkadia, it's just lackluster. But it's lackluster at a $20 to $40 price tag and it isn't worth that, or the 2020 Ennie nomination for Best Setting that inspired a WTF rection in me to write this review. Simply put, if you're looking for a core setting book for ancient Greece/Bronze Age inspired role-playing, you're simply better off looking elsewhere.



Rating:
[2 of 5 Stars!]
Arkadia - The Greek Setting for 5e
Click to show product description

Add to DriveThruRPG.com Order

pixel_trans.gif
Displaying 1 to 1 (of 1 reviews) Result Pages:  1 
pixel_trans.gif
pixel_trans.gif Back pixel_trans.gif
0 items
 Gift Certificates