[@Letter Bee]

Right then, let us add my two cents, and make four cents; I apologise again if this gets to sound like a rant, it honstly isn't meant as such.

You, like Monkey, seem to be labouring under the misapprehension of exactly what I would expect of the players if this RP was to go ahead; that being, from what I can tell, a precise knowledge of every minutiae of the Classical world and the setting they are in, as well as a strict adherence to the [b]actual[/b] and factual events of the Peloponessian War.

I'm not sure where this comes from, but I'll just clarify here that I'm not going to make anyone stick to anything past the setting and the general actions of the time. Athens need not be the loser by the end, and as for Anthony...if someone wanted to discard Cleopatra, I'd tell them to go for it! Oddly, I'm not a professor of history, nor am I that much of a pedant that I'd demand strict adherence to the true events of the timeline. Think, if you will, of a game of Total War; you begin as a nation, in a period of time, but once the actual game begins it is up to the player to then forge their own path through that period of history. [b]That[/b] is what I'd expect from my players.

How does this give you a lack of freedom? Unless you want to blatantly tear up [i]everything[/i] of past events, which kind of nullifies the entire point of a historical RP, there are any number of options open to you. I, personally, do not see this lack of freedom.

On to your next point, I'll ask a question in return: why can you not be "a 'good' nation as well as an 'evil' one, with shades of grey optional" within a historical setting? History is actually full of such characters, full of such cultures, and yet you believe this option too is only available in a Fantasy setting?

What would you consider the Roman Empire to be, for example? It certainly had an 'evil' to it, as well as a 'good', and I'm certain there were shades of grey throughout - I don't need to create a nation for that.

Classical Sparta, perhaps? Enslaved their neighbours, yet were a state of supposed equality and relative freedom toward their womenfolk; once again I'd say that all three options you mentioned could be applied to them as well.

As for [i]magic[/i], I'd agree that if you're doing high fantasy then this might work, but let's look at ASoIaF or Tolkien's works, or the Conan stories, all of which are supposed 'fantasy' settings with magical elements to them. Yet in each of them there is a need for survival, there are atrocities, and there is slavery to be found.

This is [b]not[/b] a counter[i]argument[/i], as I don't believe I'm [i]arguing[/i] at all, simply stating what I believe - that is that everything can be found in history that you can create in a fantasy setting (minus the fireballs and dragons and so forth) and, while there [i]are[/i] certainly easier elements to just imagining your own cultures and the like, what has actually happened in our own world is no less interesting for RP purposes.