thread: 2006-10-02 : Conflict resolution sans stakes
On 2006-10-04, Charles Perez wrote:
What I remember of Pendragon's personality traits actually puts most of a knight's behavior in the player's control. Unless a trait is 15 or higher (out of 20), it won't overrule an insistent player - and it will rise or fall according to how a player has his knight behave. Your knight won't sleep around over your objections without a Lustful 15 or higher, and since a Christian knight starts at Chaste 13 / Lustful 7, it isn't likely at all unless you want it to be. Even if you are stuck with a too-high trait, if you are always trying to act against it, the trait will only go down, never up. The trait- or passion-based compulsion that actually exists in the system allows a Gawain to be tripped up by his lust, or a Lancelot to be affected by his passion for Guinevere.
As for Vampire, I think that something like the frenzy rules would rock on toast if the entire game supported the premise that a player-character vampire's behavior was an honest-to-goodness bone of contention. Instead, along with certain disciplines such as Dominate and Presence, it become a semirandom "gotcha", stroking the game designers' egos at the expense of the players. Or maybe: because Anne Rice never addressed such a premise, it follows that Vampire would only address it superficially. (hmmm ... must sheathe claws) For a literary example of a vampire's behavior as bone of contention, I would recommend Agyar, by Stephen Brust.
How do you behave? Do you control yourself? Does someone else control you? Is your story Agyar? Or is it User Friendly (by Spider Robinson)? Externally controllable behavior can be a dramatic copout, or it can be effective story-meat.
—Charles Perez
