Pendragon Actual Play

[Lamorak33]

Hi

A while back I posted this,

http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/index.php?topic=20909.0

Basically it was me bitching about the GM's style. I have since played a few games and exchanged a number of emails with the GM. These have all been copied to all members of our roleplaying group.

The problem lies in the differing views on how the characters should behave. For example, in one scene we took an enemy knight, who had attacked us unsolicited, as prisoner. Wanting to get on with the game we, as the players, said that we instruct the knight to go to out Lord and present himself as our vanquished foe, upon discharge of this duty he could return home. The GM said that the guy would not do such a thing.  Our next solution was to say we'll kill him then, which would have lost us honour. So there we were not really sure what to do. We then had a debate about dark age morality and interperatation of the literature, which carried on by email.

Whats interesting here is that we as a group (GM included) have difficulty in interacting in this game (which is unashamably sim) due to a lack of a coherent way in which to play our characters, assuming that playing them per 20th century western roleplayers morality is not in keeping with the setting/ rules.

Does this happen in other games?

Regards
Rob

[Lamorak33]

Hi

My apologies, but for those interested in our solution with the knight in the example, we let him go after he made a promise not to bear arms against us for a year and a day. Pussies aint we? :^)

Regards
Rob

[Caldis]

From my experience, yeah.  And it's a large part of what makes sim enjoyable when you can find a group agreed upon solution to that tangled up question of what would these (in your case) Arthurian Knights do that's correct for the source material and our take on it.  Trying to impose your own moral choices on it, or your view of what the characters choice would be rather than the group accepted view, would be a move towards narrativism. 

I think what you are experiencing is either the desire for narrativism in a sim game or possibly a conflict on what the group ideal form of being Arthurian knights means

[Brand_Robins]

A question for you Lamorak: Did you, or the GM, or anyone in the group, ever try to take this to the system? Was the arguing about what would happen abstractly, in terms of what the characters traits and passions were, or what?

[Lamorak33]

A question for you Lamorak: Did you, or the GM, or anyone in the group, ever try to take this to the system? Was the arguing about what would happen abstractly, in terms of what the characters traits and passions were, or what?

It was purely down to the interpretation of the literature. I am a Malory buff and tend to play my character in a way similar to my favourite chivalric knights. The GM, a Early Medieval History of Britain graduate, is influenced primarily by the modern stuff written by people like Bernard Cornwell. The other players are caught in between these conflicting priorities!

I think we are out of the woods, but the flexibility is from me as the GM asserts he can only write for a game under his own interpretation of Arthur, which of course is entirely correct.

What is fascinating is the conflict within a Creative Agenda (sim), rather than between CA's (Sim v Gam). I have found that posting here has been cathartic and I am actually enjoying the process of exploring this in the game. We play tonight so I hope to see how it goes now we have purportedly ironed things out.

I think what this highlights is that by talking without rancor a group can find its way out of the woods.

Regards
Rob

[Brand_Robins]

Lamorak,

I wasn't looking at anything like a conflict between Sim and Gameist agendas. I was looking to see if the conflict was because you all had different ways of using the mechanics of the game, or if you weren't using them at all.

See, Pendragon is a great Sim game because it mechanically supports and underlines Sim agendas. Traits and Passions are wonderful things for getting play to follow a course close to the literature, and using them exactly as the book tells you to will often give you the experience that you are looking for.

However, it seems that your group doesn't want to do that. Rather than use the system to give your Sim coherence in the moments when people's interpretation of literature is different, you go to social arguments and negotiation in order to work it out.

In situations like that the things you are describing are completly at par. If you all have the game to help negotiate conflicts between visions of the Sim space (You to GM: "In the book it says this is an honorable action. Shouldn't he need to roll against his Honor/Valor/Just at this point?" GM to you, "Wow, if you want to murder him I think you need to roll against your Arbitrary") then the negotiations focus around the system, and put everyone on the same page once you work out how you interact with it. But when all you have to bring you together is your joint abilities to agree on something you don't agree on... that can be rough. It's like herding cats.

Trust me, I know of what I speak here, and I know with Pendragon specifically. When I started playing Pendragon (um... 15 years ago, I think) I hated Traits and rarely used Passions. I only really used the system for traditional task resolution (combat, impressing the princess with your dance, etc), and avoided using Traits and Passions as a tool to determine exactly what people would do in situations where we were unclear about what "was right to the literature." The result was the arguments your group is having, almost exactly. When I started actually using the system Greg had given us, and making Traits and Passions the point of play and the thing rolled most often to drive play, all of a sudden the group tightend up and we started getting stories much closer to the literature.

Pendragon is a great sim game because when you use the system it simulates its source material. The problem you guys are having is that you are not using Pendragon's system, you're using your own social preasure to try and simulate the source material with no guidance or mediation. That's cool, but be aware it is a much rougher course.

[Valamir]

Brand's completely right.

I've run many successful Pendragon campaigns (including a recent one that's been on hiatus for too long) and that discussion never should have happened.

What I would have done* is give the player knights all checks on Honor for releasing the knight, maybe even a check for Loyalty (Lord) for their acknowledgement of his Lord's status and sending him to report to him (i.e. a check to their own loyalty for their own Lord as their action reinforced the duty to one's liege).  Checks for Merciful or other Traits / Passions may have been appropriate for different knights depending on their own pre-decision interaction.

I'd have then made an Honor Roll for the prisoner to see if he'd actually follow through, and if not an Honesty Roll to see if he'd come clean about it.  If he'd failed his honor, I'd probably have made a Loyalty (Lord) roll for him as well to see if he'd follow through anyway since his Lord's reputation would also be at stake.  If either had been 16+ I wouldn't even have rolled. 

If the knight had a Passion of "Hatred (you guys)" or something then it would have been a roll off...passion vs. trait...hatred vs. honor.  I probably would have let a player roll on the side of the guy's honor, just because rolling off vs. myself would be kind of lame. 

Boom, done.  No discussion of "would he" or "wouldn't he".  The numbers are there defining his character. That's what they're for.
 
Sometimes there's a gray area (like what exactly consitutes "hospitality") but the texts do a pretty decent job of defining the scope of those things...and in this case, with an action that is so clearly in line with the literature, there isn't any gray at all.

Unless perhaps your campaign was not "Mallory's Britain" but one of the other flavors of Arthur.


* and here "what I would have done" I think is pretty much in line with how the game is meant to be played.

[Callan S.]

Hi Rob,

Was there any talk about this knight taking an honour hit, for not doing the honourable thing you demanded and presenting himself to your lord? I don't think it would change the basic situation much, but it might make it more interesting - yeah, this night would rather lose honour than do as he should.

[Lamorak33]

Hi Brand, Hi Ralph

I always reference my character traits and passions. I can't speak for the GM. I do think that most of the problem is probably interpretation of the genre.

Regards
Rob

[Lamorak33]

Hi Callan

Hi Rob,

Was there any talk about this knight taking an honour hit, for not doing the honourable thing you demanded and presenting himself to your lord? I don't think it would change the basic situation much, but it might make it more interesting - yeah, this night would rather lose honour than do as he should.

The GM ruled that it was not a matter of honour because our request was not appropriate. The dumb ass (joking) :^)

I just didn't see it as a big deal. I am going to read the passions to make sure 'I play right' in future. I just have this huge urge every time I play to play like a character out of Malory. Ho hum.

Regards
Rob

[Brand_Robins]

Lamorak,

So you'd check your scores and be like "I've got a Just at X, so I'd do Y" right?

But do you use them to mechanically solve dillemas like this? Like did anyone ever say "I want to roll my Just against his Deceitful and if I win he has to go, if he wins he can sneak off?" Was there any time at which the numbers on the character sheet were used not just for your reference, but as actual elements of the game that had power to resolve the conflict?

Because just looking at your honor score is just using the scores as a sort of suggestion. Getting into with opposed rolls and full mechanical resolution is what I'm looking at.

[Callan S.]

The GM ruled that it was not a matter of honour because our request was not appropriate. The dumb ass (joking) :^)

Hmmm, I think if it's always his turn to deciding if it's appropriate - well, perhaps suggesting some sort of turn system to decide that instead (could still be heavily favoured to the GM, like 10% chance a random player decides). I'm not sure him deciding all the time is going to add any spin to your game/take it anywhere new.

[Lamorak33]

Hi

Lamorak,

So you'd check your scores and be like "I've got a Just at X, so I'd do Y" right?

Hmmm. Not exactly. The GM was pretty good, so the character represents fairly closely what I'd like to play. Over time I expect my reinforcementof this to make the character scores more acute.

Sometimes, when I don't have a view on what I want to do and there appears to be conflicting traits then I might roll against them to see which comes out on top, and its something that the gm actually enforces. So yeah, I think we got a handle on what the designer was intending. Not that thats the point of course.

Regards
Rob

[Lamorak33]

Hi

The GM ruled that it was not a matter of honour because our request was not appropriate. The dumb ass (joking) :^)

Hmmm, I think if it's always his turn to deciding if it's appropriate - well, perhaps suggesting some sort of turn system to decide that instead (could still be heavily favoured to the GM, like 10% chance a random player decides). I'm not sure him deciding all the time is going to add any spin to your game/take it anywhere new.

My thoughts exactly. He is a fairly autocratic GM. I think he plays D&D and Warhammer FRP, both quite traditional rpg's. My favourite system is Heroquest, and I am more switched on to protaganist play, but I just love the genre and the system of Pendragon. I don't really have a problem, its very cool to be playing.

Regards
Rob

[Brand_Robins]

I don't really have a problem, its very cool to be playing.

Is this really true though?

I mean, if you say it's all good then I'll have to believe you -- but considering this is the second thread you've started about this same game in which you reveal major issues in play and discuss how you were not satsified with what was going on at the table -- I have to wonder if you're really being fully honest. Not honest with us either, honest with yourself.

Because, to get back to your question at the top of the page "is this common" I'll answer bluntly. It is not common with any group I have played with in over 5 years. This kind of stuff used to be common in my groups, until I quit telling myself that it was okay and I was lucky just to be playing. This kind of stuff  is very common with groups that have a dysfunctional social contract and who do not consistantly apply mechanics or system in a fair and even way. Which means, yes, there are a lot of groups that end up no better, and maybe even a lot worse, than your group is.

But is that really good enough for you?

Because if it is, then I don't think we need to spend any more time on the issue. All you've done is vent, because people in games they are happy with don't need help in fixing them. And while venting is fine and good it calls for a different kind of response than that which we've been trying to give you. We thought you actually had a problem you were wanting to fix, and if that isn't the case then we should stop.

And if it isn't good enough, maybe you should try engaging a little harder with what we're telling you. Because honest to God, I don't think you've actually understood anything I've asked you.