I originally posted this over on the TLF forum, but since it is not nearly as active as it once was, I decided to post it here too to get a wider set of opinions.

Admittedly, it has been years since I played Pendragon, and even then I didn't ever play a significant amount of it. So this might come from a romantic remembrance instead  the reality of the game.

That said, I have always liked the idea of the game's Personal traits passions – virtue v vice. 13 different balanced  virtue/vice pairs on a scale from 1 – 20 with 10 being balanced/neutral on that set.  Now the virtues are things like Chaste v Lustful, Energetic v Lavy, Honest v Deceitful etc. Some of them are tied to 'good' v 'evil' but what tends to be good v evil is broken down in part in the virtue v vice

To do something significantly counter to your virtue/vice or avoid doing something significantly in line with your virtue vice, you have to make a check. The mechanic is roll below your value . Say your courage is 14 and you are in a fight, you see an opponent striding through the battle field mowing down any and all common men-at-arms he faces, and you know his crest & realize he is significantly more powerful than you are. You not wanting to risk your PC to a bad dice roll want to avoid that opponent and maybe find someone more at your skill level .... toss the dice and see if are more drawn to standing and fighting or like Brave Sir Robin slink away and find easier pickings.

Now how can that be morphed into a D&D based game ? The mechanic fits for their rules of all check are a d20 and roll below the target. However, it as written does not fit D&D games .

Also, can it / should it replace the D&D based alignment, or can it be used to supplement alignment . A brave religious etc (but worshiper of an evil deity, so say LE) would have applicable high virtues, and possibly only a few vices, but be 'evil' in how they apply those virtues. Similarly a 'good' knight that is a drunk lazy etc like the good Sir Falstaff has more than normal vices but is still good ....

I'm of two minds when it comes to this sort of thing. In general, I'm Not a fan of any mechanics that quantify a character's personality. For a bad roleplayer they can be a useful crutch, but for a good one, they often limit rather than expand character depth.

On the flip side, there's no denying that even good roleplayers tend to play their characters as much more rational than people in their circumstances probably would be. No matter how invested, a player can't really feel the terror of battle, or the conflicting fear of being seen as a coward, or the lust engendered by the dryad's charm offensive, so they tend to do the rational (or sometimes the narratively satisfying) thing, rather than what might be the most strictly in character.

I do suspect that the majority of players would be quite upset if their character got seduced by a dice roll, despite that being something players do to NPCs all the time. But I suppose you could argue that if it's ok to have a willpower check or a fear check, why not a horny save?

EDIT: on the flip flip side, that kind of emotional control is one of those unspoken "hero's edges" like being able to function perfectly fine on one meal of the exact same rations each day and never catching a cold. It's unrealistic, but we tend to accept it because trying to simulate it realistically would be a pain in the ass, and might make the game less fun.

I don't like the idea of having to stop playing the game and check all my values to make sure I'm roleplaying my character "correctly".

Alignment works for me because it's just the right level of complexity. Good - Bad, Order - Chaos. Easy peasy. Plenty of room for nuance. (So internet nerds can argue about alignment until the sun burns out)

Quote from: ForgottenF on May 18, 2024, 04:02:44 PMOn the flip side, there's no denying that even good roleplayers tend to play their characters as much more rational than people in their circumstances probably would be. No matter how invested, a player can't really feel the terror of battle, or the conflicting fear of being seen as a coward, or the lust engendered by the dryad's charm offensive, so they tend to do the rational (or sometimes the narratively satisfying) thing, rather than what might be the most strictly in character.

I agree that players don't play out their character passions well. Even aside from seduction, just something as simple as putting up with the discomfort of sleeping in armor - players will often choose that trivially.

However, the real question is whether adding in random passion rolls will make characters more believable. In my experience, if the player isn't role-playing well, then adding in random passion rolls makes the character even less believable. (I've only played a little Pendragon, but there are similar rolls in Ars Magica and other games.) It comes across like the character is randomly jumping from passionate to rational, which isn't how real people behave.

While it might help with game balance or flavor, I don't think they improve character believability.

I think that it can help for there to be social positives to showing personality and even weakness. NPCs can be more sympathetic to characters who show human feeling and vulnerability, and this can be positive help to the PCs.

I have some old reflections on it here. I might want to update that.

https://www.darkshire.net/jhkim/rpg/theory/personality.html

I am not a fan of either for PC. Alignment makes cosmological sense in the setting but is often a crutch, or irrelevant at the character level. If you want to play a "good guy," play a good guy, it doesn't need to be written on the character sheet and acting like a jerk when playing a good guy will make it harder to do good guy things if the fords responds in a believable and consistent fashion to such behavior.

I think a passion-vice scale makes more sense for NPCs to generate a more natural range of responses. PC decisions are driven by players and the outcomes of actions are driven by dice. What does effect player decisions is mechanical bonuses. If a villainous PC gets to add a villainy modifier to rolls for dastardly deeds, it would effect the player's decision on how to act without dictating it.

Alignment makes sense when you have literal gods aligned with Law and Chaos (and Evil/Good) who are essentially waging a war against each other. Either LOTR style or Michael Moorcock style or Poul Anderson style.

If you don't, it really doesn't.

I think the passions things only really works for Pendragon, because you are supposed to be playing (and simulating, really not just playing) a knight from the Arthurian romances who gets tested with various things. And there was an inherent clash between the original pagan nature of the stories (or at least some of them) and the later Christianized versions (and the Courtly love stuff as well)

Tried importing passions/traits into both D6 Fantasy and OSRIC; you can make it work but in my opinion it did not feel right, my player core is 1e and 2e types, half of which loved/hated 3e, the whole sample didn't like it (it being the importing of this particular pendragon mechanic). Some said it felt like being tracked or monitored too closely, they felt stifled by it, others simply that they'd rather track encumbrance. Unless the campaign is very knightly focused and you've got a murder hobo problem i think it hinders more than helps.