# Running the Era
*Rome DCCIV AUC, The Edge of the Republic, Rome and the provinces in 50 BC. Source: https://oldwest.exodusnds.com/era-books/rome/running-the-era*
Use this chapter to plan a session around patronage, an arena show or a battle. It covers the ledger, the difficult subjects of the era and the choices the approaching war puts before the players. Look up rules by heading in Era Rules, The Arena and the Games or Legion Battles. Rome, Alexandria, and Gaul and the Provinces supply local hooks. For dates, see The Era and Powers of the Republic. For campaign tables, see Places and Campaign Tools.
## The GM's Approach
### What the Game Is About
Someone above the characters has what they want. Ask what that person needs done in return. Three parts of the game put that bargain to work.
| Engine | What drives it | Rules | A session built on it ends with |
|:--|:--|:--|:--|
| **Patronage and rank** | Favors owed up and down the ladder; an election or a lawsuit at the end of it | Era Rules, Patronage and Rank; Law and Courts | A Favor paid or owed, Dignitas won or lost, a verdict or a vote |
| **Legion battles** | A campaign in Gaul or the East: the march, the camp, supply and the line | Legion Battles | A unit standing or broken, a decoration, a march ordered |
| **The arena** | A dead man's munus or a magistrate's games: the editor's money, the lanista's men, the crowd | The Arena and the Games | A man spared or killed, a purse in a peculium, an editor's standing changed |
Build a session around one engine and draw complications from the others. A patron has money riding on the gladiator's bout. A centurion on leave comes to Rome to petition for his discharge land. A senator needs a show and a gang to win an election. By the end, change what one person owes another.
### Accuracy and Rolls
Use the rules as written. Ask for a roll when failure has a cost, such as a patron's refusal, a lost Clash or a client's conviction. Consult the legend boxes for stories the sources cannot prove. When the record leaves a gap, supply what the scene needs.
### Pressure Without Death
Use the failure the rule gives you. The patron takes offense, the court condemns a client, a Debt falls overdue, the unit breaks or the fighter loses his bout. A fever can cost a character the Senate vote he came to Rome for. Favor setbacks in money and standing over a character's death.
## Running the Three Engines
### A Session at the Door: Patronage and Rank
Start at the morning greeting, the *salutatio*. The clients are in the atrium at dawn when their patron calls in a Favor from the ledger (Era Rules, Patronage and Rank, Calling In). Give that Favor a job. Carry a letter, find a witness or bring in a vote.
Give each Petition one scene and one audience (Running Social Scenes, below). Use what the audience demands in return to frame the next scene. Close in public where people can see Dignitas change. Take the characters to the Forum, to dinner, to a trial or to a vote.
**Elections.** Spread the canvass across sessions. One month's work happens in the background of each session, and you roll for it at the end (Era Rules, Patronage and Rank, Elections). After the vote, open the next session with a witness to a bribe.
### A Campaign Session: Legion Battles
Begin a campaign session with a choice on the march. Pick a route or a ford, or requisition supplies from an ally. Roll the week's supply check early (Legion Battles, Ground, Numbers and Supply) so it matters when the armies meet. At dusk, build the camp (Camp and Siege Works). Spend the night with a centurion, a deserter, an envoy from Gaul or someone taken ill.
Leave the last third for battle and its aftermath, including losses, decorations and orders. A siege can fill weeks with sallies, foraging and quarrels over the work before the armies fight again.
### A Show Session: The Arena
Who pays for the munus, who supplies the fighters and who judges? Put the editor, lanista and crowd in play. Give each character something at stake, from a bout or a bet to an editor who is also a patron or a rival hoping the show fails.
Use the days before the games for legwork. Someone hides a fighter's injury, offers a bribe to change a pairing or stakes the payment of a Debt on a bet. Save the set piece for the show (Running a Munus, below).
## Pacing a Session
Give the five beats about four hours.
| Beat | What happens | About |
|:--|:--|:-:|
| **The dawn** | The called Favor, the week's news, the date; at the first session, each character names his patron, his owner or his people | 30 minutes |
| **The business** | Two or three scenes of legwork: a Petition, a market, a letter, the camp, the ludus | 60 minutes |
| **The complication** | What the players did not know: a rival's client, a witness who has been bought, a fever, a second claimant | 30 minutes |
| **The set piece** | A bout, a battle, a verdict or a vote | 75 minutes |
| **The ledger** | Favors and Credits changed, Dignitas moved, purses paid, Debts falling due; the hook for next time | 30 minutes |
Keep fifteen minutes for a break. Cut the complication if time is short. In a longer session, add a set piece only if it uses a different engine.
Rules of pace:
- **Cut the road.** Give the travel time (Era Rules, Travel), then open at the destination.
- **Show the clock.** Point out the next court day, festival, end of sailing by the sun (Era Rules, Travel), monthly canvass roll or payment date.
- **End on a decision.** Leave a choice to make, a letter to read or a verdict pending. Resolve the roll before you stop.
- **Allow quiet sessions.** A dinner and a will can carry a session without a fight.
## Running Social Scenes
Track Favors, Attitude and Dignitas. Write down the changes as they happen (The Scene Card, II).
**The ledger.** Make a card for each relationship. Write the name, Favors owed and Credits held. Players keep their own cards and the GM tracks the NPCs' side.
**Attitude.** Set it before the scene for the audience in the room (Era Rules, Patronage and Rank, Attitude). Tell the players when one reads the room. Keep the same Attitudes for that scene and set fresh ones for the next audience.
**Dignitas.** Have the player add 1 or 2 Boon Dice to open social checks when the character acts as himself (Era Rules, Patronage and Rank, Dignitas III). Record changes in the ledger beat.
##### TERMS: THE SCENE CARD
I Prepare each social scene on five lines.
| Line | What it says |
|:--|:--|
| **Audience** | Who decides: a doorkeeper, a praetor, a crowd, a council |
| **Markers** | Up to three, each with its Attitude step |
| **Want** | What the audience's master wants, in one sentence |
| **Pressure** | The clock: a court day, a ship sailing, a rival already inside |
| **Exit** | Two ways the scene ends and what changes in the ledger for each |
II After the scene, write down only what changed: a Favor, a Credit, a point of Dignitas, a door now shut.
### Sample Audiences
Adjust these starting points to fit the house, town and year.
| Audience | Markers to name | Starting Attitudes | What moves them |
|:--|:--|:--|:--|
| A senator's doorkeeper at dawn | The patron's client; Ordo; a stranger | Client Welcome 1; a stranger of lower Ordo Wary 1 | A letter from someone the house respects (a patron's word) |
| A praetor's tribunal on a court day | A party to the case; a faction; Ordo | Neutral; the rival faction Wary 1 | Preparation and Credits (Law and Courts) |
| A crowd in the Forum | A deed; a faction; a trade (gladiator, moneylender) | Neutral; a man the city saw do a service Welcome 1 | Games given; a public victory |
| A legion's camp | Soldier; Gaul; moneylender | Soldier Welcome 1; moneylender Wary 1 | A centurion's word; pay on time |
| An Aeduan council at Bibracte | Aeduan; Roman; a noble house | Aeduan noble Welcome 1; Roman Wary 1 | An Aeduan's word, never a Roman patron's (The Enslaved, the Freed and the Peregrine) |
| The court at Alexandria | Roman; Greek of the court; creditor | Greek of the court Welcome 1; Roman creditor Wary 1 | A courtier's word; a debt forgiven |
## Running a Battle in Under an Hour
Plan for four or five Clashes. In each, make one Opposed Check for every pair of engaged units (Legion Battles, The Clash).
1. **Rate the units before the session.** Put the three ratings and applicable ground rows on a card for each unit (Legion Battles, Units and Ground, Numbers and Supply). Use two to four units per side.
2. **Run one stretch.** Focus on the players' part of the line. Roll one Clash for each other stretch and send a messenger with the result (Legion Battles, The Clash, VI).
3. **Take Actions before the roll** (Legion Battles, Characters in the Line). Add up their Boon Dice on the unit card.
4. **Read the results in the order of the Clash steps.** Stop at the break and describe what happens elsewhere.
Between Clashes, use an ordinary check or narration for anything outside the Actions, such as carrying the standard, finding a wounded friend or taking a prisoner. Resolve the unit's fate in the Clash.
## Running a Munus
1. **The hire.** Have the editor name the pairs and pay the lanista (The Arena and the Games, The Editor). If a player character gives the show, check the lex Tullia before spending.
2. **The procession.** As you describe the *pompa*, call out each pair once. Give the crowd and the bettors names to shout.
3. **The bouts.** Set out the Crowd Favor track and play the bout a character fights or has most at stake in, round by round. Give the other pairs a sentence apiece.
4. **The decision and the price.** Check the loser's Crowd Favor (The Editor's Decision). Pay purses, settle bets and update the editor's Dignitas.
Budget about five rounds and fifteen minutes for the bout. That leaves time to describe three other pairs in the set piece. If a man dies, state it briefly and turn to the cost and the witnesses.
## Running a Trial
Spend a session preparing the trial and resolve it with one roll (Era Rules, Law and Courts).
- **Set the court's temper first** and tell the players. Use Friendly if the jurors' orders owe the defendant's friends, Hostile if the prosecutor's patron sits beside the praetor, and Fair otherwise.
- **Play the preparation as legwork.** Give each scene a witness, a document or someone who will vouch for the defendant. Go to court after two pay off.
- **Name the advocate.** If no player character pleads, play a separate Petition scene to ask a patron for his defense.
- **Roll the verdict at the end of the session.** If the jury divides, continue the trial next session. The defendant stays in Rome and remains in danger.
- **Check the calendar.** See when the court may sit (Gods and Religion, The Roman Year).
The law takes evidence from an enslaved witness under torture (Era Rules, Slavery, Status). Name the witness, state what the evidence says and play its consequences.
## The Slave Economy at the Table
The doorkeeper, the secretary who reads a letter, the people in the fields and the fighters at the games can all be enslaved. In 50 BC they are present throughout play. Give them names where it matters and aims when they act. Run anyone bought in play as an NPC (Era Rules, Slavery, Buying and Selling).
### Enslaved and Freed Player Characters
Give an enslaved character choices with consequences and duties that let him act on his own authority.
- **Acting for the house.** Send a steward, physician or agent on a consequential errand. If he carries his owner's letter or seal, use his owner's Dignitas (Era Rules, Patronage and Rank, The Enslaved, the Freed and the Peregrine).
- **The owner as a patron.** Give the owner aims, debts and enemies. Use them when he calls in a Favor.
- **The peculium and the Credits.** Put purses, fees and gifts into the peculium. Award Credits for services performed unasked. Track both so the player can see a way to freedom (Era Rules, Slavery, Freedom).
- **Flight.** If a character runs, pursue him. The campaign can follow the fugitive.
- **Freedom.** Update the Origin, name and ledger (Character Creation and Roles, The Enslaved Person). The freed character keeps a patron and can soon take on clients of his own. Eros has.
- **One player owning another.** Have both players agree to the tie's terms at creation. Keep those terms in play.
State the owner's punishment as an outcome and continue with its consequences (Era Rules, Slavery, The Owner's Power and Flight).
## Peoples and Faiths at the Table
Name the people involved in a scene. An Aeduan and an Arvernian each have leaders and aims, as well as their own quarrels with Rome and their neighbors.
| People | Name them as | Who leads them in 50 BC | What they want | Where they are written |
|:--|:--|:--|:--|:--|
| The Gallic peoples | Aedui, Arverni, Sequani, Remi, Treveri and the rest | Their own councils and nobles, under Caesar's army | Their lands and nobles back, their hostages home, Roman friends who keep their word | Gaul and the Provinces, The Peoples of Gaul |
| The Germans | Suebi, Usipetes, Tencteri and the rest | Their own chiefs | Gallic land and Roman pay | Gaul and the Provinces, The Germans |
| The Judeans | Judeans, and the Jews of Rome and Alexandria | Hyrcanus II as high priest | Peace under Rome, the Temple untouched, the Temple's due carried safely | Gaul and the Provinces, Judea; Gods and Religion |
| The Egyptians | The court's Greeks of Alexandria, and the Egyptians of the Nile | Cleopatra VII and Ptolemy XIII | A kingdom kept, its grain and its debts out of Roman hands | Alexandria |
| The Parthians | Parthians, at the court of the Arsacid house | Orodes II | Syria, a buffer in Armenia, Crassus's standards kept | Powers of the Republic, Powers Beyond the City |
- **Faith is a marker.** A worshipper of Isis, a Jew or a druid before a Roman audience carries a marker the GM sets (Gods and Religion, Religion at the Table). No rule gives a god's emblem, a priest's dress or a rite any power (Gods and Religion, No Magic in the Rules).
- **Rank is shown in the people's own signs.** A torc marks an Aeduan noble as a broad stripe marks a senator; a Peregrine uses his own Dignitas with his own people (Era Rules, Patronage and Rank, Dignitas II).
## Real People at the Table
Show the great men of 50 BC through their doors, clients, letters and armies (Powers of the Republic, The Great Men in 50 BC). Refer to them in the third person. Keep their deaths on the recorded dates by default. Give them neither dialogue in play nor a stat block.
1. **Use the office, not the officeholder.** A lictor, a quaestor's clerk or a fictional freedman secretary speaks for the great man and carries the scene.
2. **Use the letter and the crowd.** Report orders, read a letter aloud or post a decree. Speak as fictional clients of Pompey or veterans of Caesar.
3. **Keep the dates.** Let characters stand nearby, carry news or deal with the consequences. The historical event still takes place.
4. **No killing, no changing.** By default, stop a plan to kill or turn a great man before his date before it reaches him. Play the consequences for the plotters (Era Rules, Law and Courts and The Approach of the Civil War, below).
Vorenus and Pullo of *Rome* are real centurions (Gaul and the Provinces, The Army in the Field); at this table they never speak either.
## The Approach of the Civil War
Close the map year with the Senate vote of 1 December 50 BC and Pompey's levy (Powers of the Republic, The Last Year Before the War). Caesar crosses the Rubicon on 10 to 11 January 49 BC (The Era, The Record Beyond the Map Year). By default, keep the war and the deaths on their recorded dates. The players decide where to stand. Use the ruling here if the table agrees to change history.
- **Make sides a choice the players make.** Give each character a patron, debt or friend on both sides. Have both patrons call in their Favors in one session when the war comes.
- **Let neutrality cost.** A character can refuse both calls. Apply the cost from the ledger.
- **Play the year as its own campaign.** Give the censors' purge, Curio's vetoes and the legions at Capua a session each (Powers of the Republic).
| If the players try to | What the record says | Advice |
|:--|:--|:--|
| Prevent the war | The Senate's vote for mutual disarmament is set aside on 1 December 50 BC | Let them win a local point: a vote delayed, a legion's officers persuaded, a letter carried. The crossing still comes |
| Kill or save a great man early | Each dies on his recorded date | The attempt fails short of him; the consequence falls on the plotters |
| Change sides mid-war | Men did, and their patrons remembered | Yes, and every Favor owed to the old side comes due |
| Stay in Rome | Pompey and the Senate abandon Rome; Caesar holds Italy in about sixty days (Plutarch) | A campaign of Rome without its government: debts, property and the people left behind |
| Play past 49 BC | The record runs to the Ides of March 44 BC and beyond | Use The Era, The Record Beyond the Map Year; the record holds unless the table has agreed to leave it |
## Setting Difficulty
Look up difficulties for Asks, court temper, canvassing, illness and sea travel in Era Rules. For other checks, use the Core difficulties and the Roman examples below (Core Rules, Resolving Checks, Assigning Difficulty).
| Difficulty | Roman examples |
|:--|:--|
| **Simple** (no roll) | A Role's ordinary work; finding a public building; buying food in a market |
| **Easy** | Finding a named man's house in his own quarter; recalling a festival's day; passing a clerk with a letter of introduction |
| **Average** | Finding a man in the Subura by asking; reading a will's Latin; driving a cart through the city at night; tracking a runaway along a road |
| **Hard** | Forging a seal that a clerk will accept; getting past a lictor without the right; finding a witness the other side has hidden |
| **Severe** | Reading a senator's sealed letter and resealing it unseen; crossing the lines at Alesia at night |
| **Extreme** | Turning a crowd that has come to burn a house; swimming the Tiber in flood in mail |
## The Anachronism Guard
Where a film, series or painting departs from the record, follow the record at the table.
| The screen shows | In 50 BC | At the table |
|:--|:--|:--|
| The Colosseum | No Colosseum in 50 BC (The Arena and the Games, Games in 50 BC) | Shows in Rome are in timber stands in the Forum or in wooden theaters (The Arena and the Games, Venues) |
| Thumbs up, thumbs down | No Republican source shows the gesture (Legend: The Thumb) | The crowd shouts; the editor decides from Crowd Favor |
| Gladiators fight to the death | No death rate survives for the Republic; a dead man costs the editor the lanista's price | Most losers walk out (The Arena and the Games, How Often the Sword Falls) |
| The net-and-trident fighter | Not attested before the Empire | The four types in The Arena and the Games |
| Segmented plate armor | Segmented armor (lorica segmentata) does not exist in 50 BC; the earliest fragments are from Dangstetten, a camp of 15 to 9 BC | Legionaries wear mail (Legion Battles, In 50 BC) |
| The rectangular curved shield | Imperial | The oval scutum of the Republic |
| Stirrups | Centuries later | Riders sit without them (Gear and Prices, Riding Without Stirrups or Shoes) |
| The straight-arm "Roman salute" | No Roman text or image shows it; the gesture comes from David's *Oath of the Horatii* (1784) and early film (Winkler) | Romans greet with words, a raised hand or a clasp of hands |
| Everyone speaks Latin | Greek is the language of the East and of the learned; Gaulish, Aramaic, Egyptian, Oscan and others are spoken across the map | Tongues decide who understands whom (Skills and Talents, Tongues) |
| Togas everywhere, white marble everywhere | The tunic is everyday dress; the city is tufa, brick and painted stucco | The Era, The Timeline (In 50 BC) |
| "Hail, Caesar" to an emperor | There is no emperor; Caesar is a proconsul and his name is a family name. The famous "Hail, emperor, those about to die salute you" is recorded once, from the condemned men of a mock sea battle before Claudius in AD 52 (Suetonius), never from gladiators | Caesar is addressed as any proconsul is |
| Green and Blue chariot teams | The racing factions of this period are the Whites and the Reds | The Arena and the Games, The Chariot Race |
| Slaves in collars and chains | No slave uniform and no collar; chains on some estate gangs | The Era, The Slave Economy |
| The Triumvirate as an office | A private pact with no law behind it | The Era |
| Police and a fire brigade | Neither; a citizen calls his neighbors, his patron or his slaves | The Era; Rome |
| A daily free bread dole | A monthly grain ration for registered citizens | Powers of the Republic; Rome, The Grain Dole |
| A slave revolt brewing | Spartacus's war ended in 71 BC; Italy's fear of it did not | The Era |
| One king of all Gaul | No king of all Gaul; most peoples are ruled by councils of nobles, some by kings (Caesar says Vercingetorix's followers hailed him king in 52 BC, and names Ambiorix and Commius as kings) | Gaul and the Provinces |
| Magic that works | Belief, rites and omens, told as belief | Gods and Religion |
##### LEGEND: THE THUMB
Which way the thumb turned, and what it meant, is not known. Juvenal, writing about AD 100 to 110, says the showmen kill whomever the crowd orders "with a turned thumb"; Pliny says pressing the thumbs shows favor. The thumbs-down picture comes from a nineteenth-century painting by Jean-Léon Gérôme. Some scholars argue that the closed fist meant mercy and the raised thumb death, and that the editor, not the crowd, gave the verdict.
## Campaign Variants
Pick a premise, its engines and cast, and either hook. Use the Era Rules for every variant and change campaigns when the table wants to.
### A Legion Campaign
**Premise.** A century of a legion in Gaul in the last years of the command, from the revolt of 52 BC to the summons south. **Engines.** Legion battles first; patronage in the camp and on leave. **Cast.** Septimius, Banona as the general's envoy, Eros as the moneylender who follows the army. **Hooks.**
- A century's pay chest arrives short, and the quaestor's clerk swears it was full in Cisalpine Gaul.
- A deserter from the camp is found among the Bellovaci, and he says the centurion sold him.
### A Senatorial Intrigue
**Premise.** The house of a senator of an old family in the last year before the war. **Engines.** Patronage and rank, courts and elections; the arena as a candidate's tool. **Cast.** Fabia, Chryseis, Sulpicia, Papirius as the house's street ally or enemy. **Hooks.**
- A candidate wants Papirius's men at the voting enclosure and the house's name kept clear of it.
- The house's physician is offered her price by a rival house that wants what she knows.
### A Gallic Envoy
**Premise.** An Aeduan embassy in Rome, asking the Senate for lands its people lost after 52 BC. **Engines.** Patronage and rank, with the Peregrine's two Dignitas tracks; travel between Bibracte and Rome. **Cast.** Banona, Fabia as her Roman patron's daughter, Kallias, Egypt's envoy, as a rival for the Senate's day. **Hooks.**
- The Senate's day for Gallic business is given to Egypt, and only a tribune can move it.
- A letter from Bibracte says the council has changed its mind, and the envoy has already spoken.
### A Gladiator's Rise
**Premise.** A school at Capua and its fighters, hired to shows across Campania and in Rome. **Engines.** The arena, with patronage through the lanista and the editors. **Cast.** Bithys, Fabia's house that once owned him, Eros as a bettor and lender, Papirius as a buyer of fighters for his gang. **Hooks.**
- An editor wants a man killed in the arena and will pay the lanista's price to see it.
- A free volunteer signs on to clear a debt, and his creditor is in the stands.
### An Egyptian Court
**Premise.** An envoy of the joint rulers in Rome, or Roman agents in Alexandria, over Egypt's debts and its grain. **Engines.** Patronage and rank across two courts; travel by sea. **Cast.** Kallias, Eros as a banker's freedman, Chryseis as a physician trained in the Alexandrian learning. **Hooks.**
- The last ship of the season leaves Alexandria for Italy, and a letter must be on it.
- A Roman in Alexandria has killed a cat by accident, and a crowd is gathering.
## Advanced Tips
- **Make the ledger the plot.** If you need a session hook, choose a Favor someone can call in.
- **Give the players clients early.** Put NPCs at a character's door with Petitions of their own (Era Rules, Patronage and Rank, Calling In, V).
- **Let one engine feed another.** An editor brings the Dignitas from an arena victory into his election. A decoration in Gaul opens a door in Rome. Hiring a gang for a vote (Bribery) can end in a trial.
- **Let the street be political.** Clodius is dead and Milo is in exile. Their men still hold the crossroads (Powers of the Republic, The Streets). Put Papirius on the ledger as a patron or client who deals in protection, loans and votes.
- **Do not count small money.** Record the sums that change hands in play (Era Rules, Money and Credit).
## Running the Cast
Play the fictional Era Cast as patrons, allies or rivals here. Find player sheets in Pregenerated Characters and Papirius's statistics in Adversaries.
| Cast member | Run as | Wants | Will not |
|:--|:--|:--|:--|
| **Aulus Septimius Crispus**, centurion | Player character, ally or officer | His discharge land, his men paid, the roll correct | Forgive a lost shield; leave a man behind |
| **Fabia Tertulla**, senator's daughter | Player character or patron's agent | Her father's house kept in the Senate; its letters answered | Raise her voice; let a debt to the house be forgotten |
| **Banona**, Aeduan envoy | Player character or envoy NPC | Her house's lands returned by the Senate | Bow; let a Roman speak for the Aedui |
| **Lucius Cornelius Eros**, freedman merchant | Player character, lender or creditor | Paper on every street; his agents in Ephesus left alone | Lend without a price; forget his patron |
| **Bithys**, Thracian gladiator | Player character or a lanista's man | His price in his peculium | Show pain; yield unhurt |
| **Sulpicia Maxima**, Vestal Virgin | Player character or keeper of wills | The hearth kept and the order's secrets safe | Be touched; give up a lodged document without the right order |
| **Decimus Papirius Rufus**, street boss | Adversary, broker or employer | Votes, loans and corners that pay | Pay his men late; take a public insult |
| **Chryseis**, physician and midwife | Player character or house physician | Her freedom, bought with her skill | Offer an opinion unasked; leave a patient |
| **Kallias of Alexandria**, court envoy | Player character or rival envoy | Egypt's debts left uncalled | Say plainly what any court does not want to hear |