RPGaDay 2025: Day 05

5. Ancient

I own several commercially published role-playing games that focus on the ancient world (Valley of the Pharaohs, Heroes of Olympus, Man, Myth & Magic, various GURPS source books, maybe some others), but the greatest role-playing game of that vast and loosely defined genre is, in my opinion, Mazes & Minotaurs. That's right, Mazes & Minotaurs. Eminently playable, excellently atmospheric, and still free.

(I may have mentioned it in a previous RPGaDay article exactly two years ago...)

[For more information on #RPGaDay (or #RPGaDay2025 specifically), read this.]

RPGaDay 2023: Day 05

5. OLDEST RPG you've played

The oldest role-playing game I've played is Mazes & Minotaurs. No, that's not true (although I wish it were). The oldest RPG I've played is, of course, Dungeons & Dragons, the first commercially published RPG in the world. Everyone reading this knows what D&D is, but I think fewer readers know about Mazes & Minotaurs.

Mazes & Minotaurs, by Olivier Legrand, answers the question: What if the first role-playing game had been inspired by Ray Harryhausen's Jason and the Argonauts and Homer's Odyssey rather than fantasy fiction? Based loosely on the rules of the third edition of D&D, it is a brilliant interpretation of a further fictionalized mythical ancient world, and it's free.

Both versions of Mazes & Minotaurs (the 1972 Original Rules and the 1987 Revised Rules) are available as PDFs and are far superior to most role-playing games on the market. And again, they are free.

[For more information on #RPGaDay (or #RPGaDay2023 specifically), read this.]