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Review of Fantasy Gladiators
The game gives you two options - fantasy play, or Roman-styled historical. The games share the same gameplay, only the racial options (all historical are human, obviously) and weapons are different.
Fantasy Gladiators takes about five minutes to create a character, from the staple of fantasy races - humans, orcs, elves, halflings and dwarves. Each race has its own benefits and drawbacks - much like you would imagine. For instance, elves are better at ranged weapons than the other races, and orcs hit more powerfully with double-handed weaponry.
The game requires only a few stats to worry about - Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence, Constitution and Popularity. The first four are no strangers to most gamers, and popularity determines how many lives a character has (!) - the more the crowd likes you, the more likely they will be willing to forgive a loss. (But not necessarily TWO losses.)
There are three character types to take into the fight: fighters, who are the best in armed combat; mentalists, who are spell casters, and martial artists, who excel in unarmed combat and eventually get magic-like improvements through their self-disciple. Each character becomes more powerful if they can survive fights, and the path of advancement can take each to the peak of their gladiator skills. Or, it can leave them to die on the bloody floor of the arena.
The game includes a wide list of armors and weapons to equipment your gladiators with - from bastard swords to leg greaves and basic cloth. For even more fun, the book includes information on further races to use against the gladiators - from minotaurs to lions to packs of goblins, you can throw all sorts of stuff at your gladiators.
The book is pretty basic. There are a number illustrations throughout, no pictures. The layout of the book is, at times, a little strange - training and advancement points are listed before combat is explained, for instance. The Table of Contents is pretty straightforward, so you can find the rules easily, even in the middle of a fierce combat. The included character sheet has room for all of the information needed to play.
Not everything is well explained in this game - advancement is pretty unclear, as are the restrictions on the character classes. It states clearly that martial artists can only wear cloth armor, but mentalists have no such stated restriction. Neither does it mention weapon restrictions for either. (I am somewhat unsure about a martial artist fighting with a pair of flails, but that's just me.) Finally, combat is badly worded. The hit procedure is stated as DEX+STR+Adjustments (which I presume is APV, the enemies armor protection)…but the higher the score, the lower the roll needs to be. I take this to mean that you SUBTRACT Adjustments (and APV seems to be one a very few) in order to get the correct score. Either that, or you subtract your enemy's APV from your damage. This is not explained at all. Good luck figuring out your only method.
Luckily, the historical game does not suffer as much - the characters are more streamlined, and come pre-equipped. There are rules for chariots included, but these will cause you more grief than fun if you try to use them - they raise more questions than they are worth.
Once you get past these problems, gameplay is pretty smooth and easy. The game is played on a hex mat, and gladiators tend to beat each other senseless fairly quickly. Hitting in the game is relatively easy, as is wiping the floor with your opponents. Just watch out when your foes want to play with lions…
Overall, Fantasy Gladiators is decent game. It could certainly benefit from some clearer rules and a few examples, but you should be able to sort it out and enjoy it. After all, who doesn't enjoy the thrill of gladiator combat?
Style: 3 (Average)
Substance: 3 (Average)
