Five Ancient Kingdoms

Arabian Nights Milieu
As I sit here enjoying the single digit temperature and snow of a midwest winter I can escape to a hot desert adventure courtesy of Jonathan Becker's Five Ancient Kingdoms (5AK). The game is presented in three digest sized books titled "Men & Mettle", "Magic & Monsters" and "Dragon Master Secrets". Subtitled "Rules for Fantastic Adventures Of Imagination, Danger, and Romance", 5AK is a rules lite fantasy "adventure game" (Mr. Becker avoids the use of the term role-playing) in the spirit of the white box, but definitely not a simulacrum.
5AK offers the player a choice of four hero types which are very similar to white box Hero/fighting man, Magician/magic user and Saint (Shaman)/cleric and with the addition of the Supplement I Thief/thief. The Hero class allows for "fighting style" to be based on the Brute/strength or the Agile/dexterity. The Magician casts spells from a list that feels quite Arabian Nights-y and must make a roll of the dice to do so correctly. The Saint spells are termed "miracles" and also have a distinctly exotic feel about them. Saints may cast a number of miracles per game session rather than per day as in white box. Thieves choose a number of skills to be good at and can increase their bonuses as they level up. Somehow the Thief seems more at home as a player class in this middle eastern - style milieu than thieves do in white box.
All the character classes have unique abilities and feel distinct. Each also has one or more subclasses if the referee/player desires more variety. Leveling is done by experience and classes differ in experience needed in order to level up. Dice in 5AK are exclusively six siders with ones counting as zero allowing for "zeroing out", the automatic failure in 5AK. Generally one rolls two such d6's in 5AK to determine success whether in combat, spell casting or using a skill. A player may elect to "push" certain dice rolls by rolling an extra die and dropping the lowest, but at the risk of greater failure if the roll does not succeed.
The setting is called Barica and seems familiar when compared to our own ancient middle east, but of course with a fantastic, legendary flair. The names are familiar in the way author R.E. Howard used familiar sounding names that were yet different for his imaginary kingdoms and cities. The list of monsters include several from middle eastern mythology such as jinn, as well as more generic monsters (giants, undead and so forth). Monsters have a number of Hit Dice (HD) that work much like they do in white box. In fact 5AK feels familiar even though it's new and unique...just like the names!
5AK takes the idea of a white box adventure game and re-imagines it through a different milieu and different mechanics. There are many parallels, but little direct borrowing. I really like the idea of a mythic Arabian Nights setting and there is no reason why white box could not be modified to accommodate just such a milieu, the ability to do so being one of white box's strengths. Of course I could always just use 5AK with it's fresh approach to game mechanics.