On the relationship between the layers of history and myth, while I’m usually not a fan of ripping stories from their cultural historical context and transposing them somewhere else, I find that I don’t mind this in the context of ‘Pendragon’. This is probably related to the fact that I know a lot more about late medieval England than I do about post-Roman Britain and so the employment of a lot of Malory’s material suits my personal knowledge base and subjective preferences. I still find ‘Excalibur’ with its pastiche of 15th century culture and aesthetics a more engaging interpretation of the stories on film than those that adhere more closely to ‘the history’.
I’m conflicted about mechanics that compel negative consequences on characters. On the one hand, I dislike mechanics that seek to compel me to do things that I should want to do in a game without that compulsion. If I’m playing in a world of ‘courtly love’ then I should want my character to explore the tension between duty and honour, loyalty and love. Any mechanic that tries to force the issue will inevitably be more limiting than simply engaging with those themes and consequences as they emerge through the narrative of the game. And if I don’t want to explore those things, then making it a mechanical necessity just sets up a tension between system and play style. I feel the same about the ‘hunger’ mechanic In ‘Vampire’. If I’m playing VtM as a game of personal horror, then I don’t need a mechanic that compels my character to face the nightmare of what it means to be an immortal predator. But if I’m playing it as a game of ‘supermen in flouncy shirts’ then I’m going to resent or ignore that mechanic anyway. On the other hand, I accept that my preference for playing flawed characters and then torturing them with a series of intractable trolley problems is, perhaps, a rarified taste and game designers who want to inculcate a certain tone that is, perhaps, at odds with ‘heroic’ RPG culture must sometimes mechanise it to achieve their goals.
Sounds like you ought not run Arthur's entire life then.
On the relationship between the layers of history and myth, while I’m usually not a fan of ripping stories from their cultural historical context and transposing them somewhere else, I find that I don’t mind this in the context of ‘Pendragon’. This is probably related to the fact that I know a lot more about late medieval England than I do about post-Roman Britain and so the employment of a lot of Malory’s material suits my personal knowledge base and subjective preferences. I still find ‘Excalibur’ with its pastiche of 15th century culture and aesthetics a more engaging interpretation of the stories on film than those that adhere more closely to ‘the history’.
I’m conflicted about mechanics that compel negative consequences on characters. On the one hand, I dislike mechanics that seek to compel me to do things that I should want to do in a game without that compulsion. If I’m playing in a world of ‘courtly love’ then I should want my character to explore the tension between duty and honour, loyalty and love. Any mechanic that tries to force the issue will inevitably be more limiting than simply engaging with those themes and consequences as they emerge through the narrative of the game. And if I don’t want to explore those things, then making it a mechanical necessity just sets up a tension between system and play style. I feel the same about the ‘hunger’ mechanic In ‘Vampire’. If I’m playing VtM as a game of personal horror, then I don’t need a mechanic that compels my character to face the nightmare of what it means to be an immortal predator. But if I’m playing it as a game of ‘supermen in flouncy shirts’ then I’m going to resent or ignore that mechanic anyway. On the other hand, I accept that my preference for playing flawed characters and then torturing them with a series of intractable trolley problems is, perhaps, a rarified taste and game designers who want to inculcate a certain tone that is, perhaps, at odds with ‘heroic’ RPG culture must sometimes mechanise it to achieve their goals.