I said you most propably don´t like railroads disguised by illusionism.

I totally can see how CoC can turn into badly railroaded hardcore D&D with investigation and Tomb of Horrors.
That's EXACTLY what a game of CoC should NOT be, for me.

Quote from: Settembrini;321747Okay, nobody defends 007 anymore, that´s a start.

Now, Pendragon, I´m told is quite deadly & random.
And in fact, does not emulate the songs of the 12th century, but rather models battles, manors, marriages and births in a rather positivist way. But I´m open to being corrected. I´d fucking bet a hundred € that Pendragon has a hard timeline for the "real rule of Arthur".
Right, totally like a minstrel song. Totally emulated.

Well, Pendragon is pretty much Greg Stafford's straight-on emulation of the Arthurian corpus, primarily Mallory but he includes some Geoffrey of Monmouth and other elements in there.
It is quite deadly and can be quite random, I'll give you that, but its also very fantastical and is a huge paean to the historical source texts.

RPGPundit

@benoist
Ahem. you are being funny, yes?


It´s EITHER hard-core D&D OR an illusionist wank fest.

The only "middle ground" that might exist lies in making a detective game out of it by elongating the investigation part and shrinking the Tomb part (most likely replacing the tomb with a single battle to disrupt the ritual). A sensible, playable approach that DEFINITELY isn´t emulating the genre. Also: repetitive.

@Pundit:
It has maps, and timelines and models for manors and offspring etc., no?

Quote from: Settembrini;321805@benoist
Ahem. you are being funny, yes?

What makes you think I am?

Quote from: Pierce Inverarity;321770How so?

Have you read Malory?

Yes, I have. And I also read the other sources mentioned in the game.

QuoteExactly what kind of text is it, in your opinion, and how, precisely, does Pendragon "emulate" it?

IMO is a generational saga that covers not only the story of Arthur but the story of several other characters with the wars and turmoil of the era as a background. The game emulates the saga by:

- having mechanics for chargen that create a familiar story for the PCs (family is key in the source text)
- having a quick passing of time where an adventure = a year of game, so PCs will get old and die, having heirs to follow the saga.
- maximizing the importance of Passions and Personality Traits with one of the best mechanics ever conceived (if you like those, of course). Anyway, PCs in Pendragon will behave in a similar manner to the characters in Malory's writings.
- having a brutal and deadly combat system, with long periods for healing, emulating the duels and combats of Malory.
- developing a system for massive battles focused on including the elements that you find in the book.
- the Glory system, meaning that your PC's goal will probably be to get as much Glory as possible, as the knights did in the book.
- detailed rules for religious behaviour.
- the game changes as the chronology advances to reflect the changes in Britain as the story advances: magic level, technology and so on. Malory's books are anachronistic, so is the game.

That's from memory only, I'm sure there are other factors that show the emulation of the books and genre.

Now you can get your education and shove it, dipshit.

QuoteWe played CoC like D&D, btw. First, the investigation phase, naturally. And then, Tomb of Horrors.

Good for you. There are still several differences, specially on the Tomb of Horrors phase. In CoC several expeditions to the dungeon to explore, kill and back to town to resting and healing are not possible. So your PCs are not visiting the Bad Place more than once, probably. Not the same experience, and no magic healing or resureections, so don't give me that shit.

Also what Benoist said.

I HAVE read Mallory (and pretty well most of what Stafford has read in preparing the GPC), and I can tell you that Pendragon is emulating Mallory. But the point is you play the pissant Knights in the background, not the big guys who live fated lives.

Sett & co. you guys have fallen for a rhetorical trap; and a pretty big one at that. You're actually finding yourselves trying to argue AGAINST CoC and Pendragon, two of the deadliest games in RPG history where death is all but assured, in a thread where you were supposed to be arguing against RPGs where PCs can't be killed. The Swine have taken you on a wild goose chase.

RPGPundit

Quote from: Settembrini;321805It´s EITHER hard-core D&D OR an illusionist wank fest.

The only "middle ground" that might exist lies in making a detective game out of it by elongating the investigation part and shrinking the Tomb part (most likely replacing the tomb with a single battle to disrupt the ritual). A sensible, playable approach that DEFINITELY isn´t emulating the genre. Also: repetitive.

Well, I will agree that usual CoC game (group of people investigating this or that bizarre event and confronting this or that horror of the mythos) isn't emulating the greatest part of Lovecraft's work: the story of the lonely person experiencing all sorts of bizarre events leading to a descent into madness and the realization of the truth about the nature of our universe. It can be done with CoC, but in solo games, and it takes a keeper and a player on the same wavelength, so to speak.

Could you define "hardcore D&D" and "illusionist wankfest" for me, to see if I understand what I think I understand? That'll help. Thanks!

Quote from: RPGPundit;321810I HAVE read Mallory (and pretty well most of what Stafford has read in preparing the GPC), and I can tell you that Pendragon is emulating Mallory.

In broad strokes, when compared to Chrétien de Troyes, I will agree. There is creative license taken by Greg Stafford though. It's not like a literal transcription of the work in gaming format or anything.

QuoteBut the point is you play the pissant Knights in the background, not the big guys who live fated lives.

That makes Pendragon into...tada! Star Wars extended universe by WEG! or the other way round. And Pendragon is good at that! It´s also a dead game, which everybody choses to ignor, but anyhoo-
If I can´t be Lancelot, it´s FUCKING not emulating the genre. And THAT`S why it´s good.

As I said, the GOOD games take a franchise and expand it to a living breathing world. And this, my dear friends, just as I said right form the start is NOT genre emulation.

Playing a bounty hunter and hunting Rebels is perfectly viable in WEG SW.
Being a shmoe doing accounting stuff and speculative trade, too.

But that is NOT emulating the Star Wars movies.

See, this is not about rhetoric, this is about idiocy. And some guys here insist on being mental lightweights.

Genre emulation leads to doom, there is no way around that.

QuoteThe moment RPGs try to be something else instead of their particular own things, the falter and collapse and destroy stuff around them. The only way to go in established settings is to widen them to the point at which all the artificialities re: death, prodigy Jesus characters, the Trek-bridge crew problem etc. are ironed out. See EU-WEG Star Wars for a good example. In turn, the WEG-SW stopped being true to it´s source material in the Campbellian sense.

That´s why it was playable.
It was a virtue, not a fault.

Quote from: RPGPundit;321810The Swine have taken you on a wild goose chase.

RPGPundit

It's like animal farm!

Quote from: Settembrini;321816As I said, the GOOD games take a franchise and expand it to a living breathing world. And this, my dear friends, just as I said right form the start is NOT genre emulation.

Playing a bounty hunter and hunting Rebels is perfectly viable in WEG SW.
Being a shmoe doing accounting stuff and speculative trade, too.

But that is NOT emulating the Star Wars movies.

That, I completely agree with.

QuoteThe moment RPGs try to be something else instead of their particular own things, the falter and collapse and destroy stuff around them. The only way to go in established settings is to widen them to the point at which all the artificialities re: death, prodigy Jesus characters, the Trek-bridge crew problem etc. are ironed out. See EU-WEG Star Wars for a good example. In turn, the WEG-SW stopped being true to it´s source material in the Campbellian sense.

That´s why it was playable.
It was a virtue, not a fault.

And that is very, very astute. Bravo.

Quote from: RPGPundit;321810I HAVE read Mallory (and pretty well most of what Stafford has read in preparing the GPC), and I can tell you that Pendragon is emulating Mallory. But the point is you play the pissant Knights in the background, not the big guys who live fated lives.

Sett & co. you guys have fallen for a rhetorical trap; and a pretty big one at that. You're actually finding yourselves trying to argue AGAINST CoC and Pendragon, two of the deadliest games in RPG history where death is all but assured, in a thread where you were supposed to be arguing against RPGs where PCs can't be killed. The Swine have taken you on a wild goose chase.

RPGPundit

BTW, just for the sake of clarity, have I been categorized as Swine, now?

Shut up, Aos.

Oink, oink.