Your challenge is to make Rome as immoral and decadent as possible. Every Roman vice should be taken to the extreme and as many new ones to be acquired as possible.
What am I missing, evil robots?That's dystopian?
What am I missing, evil robots?
A non-Christian (or Mithran or any such "ethical" type Rome) Rome survives and eventually discovers various drugs and Rome becomes extremely hedonistic.
Rome wasn't a hippy commune you know.Maybe we're talking cross purposes, but when I hear 'immoral' and 'decadent', I think good food, late nights and lots of mind-altering substances and kinky sex.
Rome wasn't a hippy commune you know.
No, I'm completely ignorant about Roman culture.
Look, what the first poster said was to create a dystopia that maximised every Roman vice. He emphasised immoral and decadent. I can't see how that could make Rome dystopian, given that it was Roman virtues that made life hell for so many people.
The original poster is me. Are you arguing a dystopia is not defined by how outsiders see it, but only by it's internal morality? Slavery and execution by burning, by eaten by wild beasts as entertainment, etc may be acceptable to Romans but certainly immoral a priori.
The original poster is me. Are you arguing a dystopia is not defined by how outsiders see it, but only by it's internal morality? Slavery and execution by burning, by eaten by wild beasts as entertainment, etc may be acceptable to Romans but certainly immoral a priori.
Your challenge is to make Rome as immoral and decadent as possible. Every Roman vice should be taken to the extreme and as many new ones to be acquired as possible.
I think that when people refer to "Roman decadence" these days, they are mainly referring to the high level of casual brutality in late Republican and early Imperial society, with gladiator fights and mass public executions being favorite spectator sports, and economy so heavily dependent on slavery and so brutal in its treatment of slaves and conquered peoples, etc. Some people would consider some of the more hedonistic behavior to be decadent also, but I don't think that's Rome's main fault in most people's minds.
That makes no sense at all.At this point, Romans become even more decadent and immoral, whose leadership itself is so obsessed with orgies and the pursuit of immoral pleasure (as if they weren't enough in OTL) that they become ineffective, and law-making begins to break down.
That's not going to do it. Sadly, the fashion in the first few centuries AD was consistently away from Hellenistic hedonism and joie-de-vivre towards an ideal of asceticism, strict self-control and savage punishment for transgressions of any kind. It had some good effects in the early years, but it was pretty unpleasant in the long run.