"Mediterraneo" - First Edition
Mediterraneo is a Role Playing Game set in Greek/Roman Myth. Players assume the roles of heroes of the classic age and have to face monsters, perils, legends, and capricious deities.
The game system is based on the difference between two 6-sided dice: characteristics range from -5 to +5 and are at the same time the bonus/malus used in checks. The system is taken from the first iItalian gamebook "In Cerca di Fortuna" and used here for the fitrst time for a RPG. It will be later klnown as "Qui comincia l'avventura".
Mediterraneo has been used not only by regular players looking for something different, but also as an introduction to RPG’s in schools and libraries for kids as young as 7 or 8 years old. But first of all, Mediterraneo has been conceived as a game for players, not for educational use. Anyway, "Mediterraneo" and its spin-off "Orlando Furioso" have been a successful tool for teachers and librarians, and they helped to silence the very few that tried to attract the attention of media upon themselves importing foreign criticisms about supposed dangers of RPGs.
The rulebook appeared as a bonus booklet attached to issue 5 of the bi-monthly Italian game magazine E Giochi, in January 1992. It includes a general introduction to RPG’s, rules, a Character Sheet, a complete adventure and a monster selection to help the Game Master to write further adventures. The introductory one, "L'isola delle amazzoni" ("The Amazon's Island"), has a lightly humorous tone: It is a simple rescue of a magic item on a small Greek island with all the ingredients of the classic myth, from syrenes to cyclopes, from a forbidden city to an oracle and so on.