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Much of my disappointment stems from the fact that GURPS Imperial Rome is what it says on the cover: Imperial Rome, meaning "Rome with an emperor" (excluding republican times) rather than "Rome with an empire" (including at least the late republic). Before you start criticising me for bashing GURPS Imperial Rome for something it doesn't want to be, allow me to quote from the introduction: "This book describes Rome from its humble beginnings through the Republican days, the rise of the Empire, and the days of its division and downfall." This is simply not true. Of course, the "humble beginnings" are mentioned in the timeline and the chapter on the Roman Legions focuses on the "Republican days" (because that's where Hannibal happened, and nothing of note afterward), but the author places a heavy emphasis on "fun with Mad Emperors(TM)", too heavy for my tastes.
Plainly, you can't squeeze a thousand years of Roman history and society (and that's not counting the Byzantine Empire, which lasted another thousand years) into a 128-page book. In my opinion however, the author made a few mistakes in selecting what to include and what to drop. For one thing, Carella should have left out most of the historical facts, which, opposed to bare bones presented by GURPS Imperial Rome, get a much better treatment even in a children's history book of the How and Why-type. This would have saved enough pages for information about the republican institutions, which remained in place for quite some time into the imperial period. Just consider Augustus, who wasn't emperor but only incorporated enough powers (like the consulship, leader of the senate, and the powers of a tribune of the people) to be a monarch, all this in order not to annoy the republicans. Hence, the republic plays a crucial role in understanding imperial times. Moreover, it is a fun aera for political intrigue.
Talking of political intrigue, popular view of Ancient Rome focuses on three aspects: Bread and Circuses, the Legions and the "Friends, Romans, Countrymen"-stuff. While Carella gives us Ben Hur and Hitting Germans over the Head, the political game is hardly ever mentioned, and when it is, the author reduces it to a point where it becomes unrecognisable. He doesn't mention the cursus honorum, the traditional progress of a politician through the offices, and makes a hash of the consulship. The praetor, quaestor and censor don't even appear in the glossary, while the senate and the tribunes get a few measly lines in a sidebar. But what really sets my teeth on edge is that he rolls the patricians, the nobility and the senate into one big fat ugly Character Type, the Patrician, which is to do with Status and Wealth. This isn't just a gross oversimplification, this also cuts down on the role-playing opportunities, because it leaves out the wealthy people trying to get into the Senate or patricians who have the birthright but lack the required funds to join, e.g. young Sulla. All this could have been presented in a few pages, in my opinion. Carella gives us a nice, if short, explanation of the patronage system, why didn't he do likewise here?
Setting aside my personal preference for the late Republic, what GURPS Imperial Rome lacks most is a psychological profile of the Romans, which would allow the GM to present plausible NPCs. The Roman mindset is quite alien compared to that of 21st Century Man. You can catch the occasional glimpse of what it is to be a Roman in GURPS Imperial Rome, but the way of thinking which, in my opinion, explains much of the rise and fall of the Roman Empire remains obscured by page upon page of history.
One of the parts of the book which are just too short is the section titled "Lands and Peoples". It doesn't do much besides prove that you can't squeeze the Roman Empire into eight pages, and should have been left to external sources, e.g. a How and Why book. And the adventure seeds in the sidebars go from bad to worse. With the exception of those for Greece and Spain, they are so vague and nondescript that any GM could come up with them by himself. The impulse to provide an adventure idea for every country mentioned leads the author to stupidity like the Asia Minor entry, whose ten lines could be summed up by "the PCs are in the area mentioned". And then there is the Danube entry. I hate authors trying to be cute! Ooh, who is that pale stranger teaming up with the PCs ("they have little choice but to agree" — hah!)? The one who is only available at night (which, in my humble opinion, contradicts the bit about teaming up)? Where do all the corpses come from, and why are they drained of blood? Ooh? — Argh!
The most interesting part of GURPS Imperial Rome are those ten pages (the "Games" alone take up 14!) not covering historical facts, i.e. "The Roman Campaign" and the last two pages of "Myths and Religion", which deal with (the rather limited) magic in a Roman campaign. The rest of the section is wasted with a summary of the Roman pantheon — again too short to be useful and readily available elsewhere. "The Roman Campaign" puts all of the information given in the book together to create Rome as a specific campaign background. Necessarily, in doing so most of the space available is spent summing up the previous eleven twelfths of GURPS Imperial Rome. There are two short campaign settings ("Rome 2000 AD" and "Fantasy Rome"), however, as well as a few nice adventure seeds and a smattering of campaign crossovers in the sidebars ranging from the trivial (time travel — press Reset on a TARDIS and it'll flash "Rome, March 15 44 B.C.") to the weird (GURPS Blackus Opus!?).
Frankly, I wonder whom GURPS Imperial Rome is written for. Players who are genuinely interested in Ancient Rome will probably have read the odd history book. What new information they will find in GURPS Imperial Rome will likely be tangential or anecdotal. Players who have watched Gladiator and just think that it would be nice to play Hollywood Rome for a change will be better served by a children's history book, not only because it has four-colour illustrations.
Apropos illustrations: While most interior art is typical GURPS style, GURPS Imperial Rome sports a few 19th century engravings which, annoyingly, have a rather loose connection to the surrounding text. This looks like the staff having some fun with a clip art book trying to find cute pictures. Another borderline case of cuteness are the sidebars, which have a (archictectual) column as a background image. Due to the column's bases and capitals, the column body is narrower than the column of text superimposed. Granted, it's readable, but barely.
I'm not saying that GURPS Imperial Rome in itself is bad. It's a GURPS book after all, so overall quality is high. The facts are (or at least seem to be) correct and researched and it is a pleasant read. Judging by my total lack of interest in gladiators and chariot racing, I'm surprised to see that the sections describing a typical day "At the Arena" and "At the Races" are the ones I enjoyed most, I think. But even if the author occasionally puts together old information in a novel and pleasant way, the fact remains that the information presented is effectively old news — either known, readily available, or of no consequence.
This is a pitfall of all historical role-playing games or settings, in my opinion, and it can only be avoided by focussing on the game. With a good bibliography or reading-list, history can be summed up very briefly, and the remaining pages ought to be filled with advice for the GM on how to give a plausible and coherent presentation of the setting and its society, how to play convincing NPCs (and for the players, "true to form" PCs), how to come up with adventures "typical" for the aera, and so on. GURPS Imperial Rome, however, gives us too much unnecessary data in a form too condensed to be worthwhile yet too spacious to leave room for bringing them to life in the role-playing "conversion" of the setting.
A note about the ratings
Style is clearly below par for a GURPS book, which I place on the fence between "average" (3) and "classy and well done" (4) in order not be inflationary on the (4)s. This makes GURPS Imperial Rome average (3) only.
Substance, well... depends. On the one hand, if I had paid more than the ten Euros for it (thanks to George W. Bush's ideas of economics) I would have had some thoughts about money wasted. On the other hand, GURPS Imperial Rome is a solid GURPS book, research and all. On the gripping hand, all that research goes to pot for reasons I hopefully made plain above, so I'll give it a 2 (sparse). Go buy a textbook for the same amount, or a children's history book for less, or use your local library and save the money for next GURPS night's pizza!
