Arthur Q8: Gaming

NeilNjae

How would you bring these stories to the gaming table? What features of them would you consider important in an "Arthurian" game?

King Arthur Pendragon is the archetypal game of Arthurian romances, and that is characterised by having mechanics for personality traits and passions, and having players roll against them to see how their character acts. Is that a good representation of what happened in these stories?

RichardAbbott

Not having played it, but I would expect that a player would be rewarded or penalised by the extent to which he or she fulfils things they have said (even casual things that were spoken in passing) and so would be constantly held accountable for these words by the GM or NPCs.

kcaryths

@RichardAbbott said:
Not having played it, but I would expect that a player would be rewarded or penalised by the extent to which he or she fulfils things they have said (even casual things that were spoken in passing) and so would be constantly held accountable for these words by the GM or NPCs.

The tension of setting two equally important tasks is always fun to present to players in a game. You have told someone that you will meet them at midnight at the tavern to make an important trade, but then a little girl comes along and tells you that Timmy has fallen in the well. You can only do one of the two actions. Which do you choose.

We saw a bit of this in the Yvain story, and it worked well. Would be an interesting mechanic to explore more in a game (maybe this already exists) I have not played King Arthur Pendragon, so not sure if that's sort of how it works.

NeilNjae

@kcaryths said:
We saw a bit of this in the Yvain story, and it worked well. Would be an interesting mechanic to explore more in a game (maybe this already exists) I have not played King Arthur Pendragon, so not sure if that's sort of how it works.

Yes, there's a fair bit about balancing different Traits and Passions. One example in the book is when a knight is faced with some Saxon non-combatants. Does his "Hate Saxons" passion urge him to kill them, or does his "Merciful" trait stay his hand? If one or both is high, dice are rolled to determine which prevails.

@RichardAbbott said:
Not having played it, but I would expect that a player would be rewarded or penalised by the extent to which he or she fulfils things they have said (even casual things that were spoken in passing) and so would be constantly held accountable for these words by the GM or NPCs.

Pendragon emphasises Honour as a quantifiable trait, and has strict rules about what acts increase and decrease it. One of the main ways of gaining Honour is to swear a vow to do something, and you get an Honour increase when you do it (and an Honour loss if you fail).