So I've been burning time in the weight room listening to the Iliad on audiobook. It's fun, if incredibly repetitive, but the fact keeps kicking me in the balls: these are terrible, terrible people.
Some examples.
Odysseus and Diomedes are sneaking about at night. They meet a Trojan, Dolon, doing the same. He surrenders, offers a ransom for his safe return to the trojans, and Odysseus agrees not to kill him if he tells them about the Trojan line of battle. Dolon does, Diomedes cuts his fucking head off, and all is well. What a good action by our valiant heroes, punishing a coward!
Diomedes challenges the Trojans. Glaucus answers said challenge. Quoth Diomedes "Who the fuck are you?" Glaucus gives his lineage. Diomodes: "Well that's alright then, we're old family friends! Here, let's have some fun together. Go kill my friends and I'll kill yours, K?" Glaucus: "Sounds good to me!"
Actually, that's the biggest thing: no one gives a shit about anyone not important enough to get an epithet.
Yeah, yeah, we've all read Frank's Tome of War; morals were different then, and we see their morals in our D&D characters, stripping our enemies' armor and cutting down their minions without a second thought. But that doesn't make me feel good hearing about these guys. What games focus on heroism, the way that D&D focuses on Bronze Age mentality or WoD focuses on horror, that doesn't make me feel like a terrible person for liking my character?
I'd say Exalted, but then again Exalted is about as popular as Loren Coleman here.