Nearly every element that has kept me engaged in this hobby originates from or was inspired by Greg Stafford's designs. He showed us that role playing games could be used to play out more human, more personal stories. He showed us that you could focus on individual characters rather than just the group gestalt. He showed us that mechanics could address the emotional dimension as well as the physical. Thank you Greg Stafford!
On the "emotional dimension" - in Prince Valiant there is a discussion of modifiers, like bonus dice for arms and armour, bonus dice for attacking from behind, all the usual stuff. And then there is also discussion of bonus dice for influence checks (eg from wearing fine clothes or carrying a jewelled sword). And then there is this, in the middle of the page in alphabetical order:
MORALE
Psychological factors such as love, hatred, faith, loyalty, hope, and even sheer desperation are important in real life. Such factors are reflected by morale modifiers in Prince Valiant, the Storytelling Game. The modifiers may be both positive and negative.
Morale can affect both Brawn and Presence. Apply a modifier of 1 when the emotion or passion is strong in intensity. Apply a modifier of 2 for extremely powerful psychological factors.
The players will enjoy the game more if their acting is rewarded with an occasional positive modifier based on morale factors. The Storyteller must use common sense and his instinct for drama to determine the morale modifier for a particular situation.
For the purposes of storytelling, cowards, liars, and villains should often receive negative morale modifiers, representing guilty terror, apprehensiveness, and general confusion. Heroic characters should sometimes receive positive morale modifiers to represent love, confidence and faith, or other grand emotions.
No angst about "metagame". No angst about "magical mind control". Just straightforward mechanics that put the emotional, the psychological, the physical, the dramatic, all on the same level from a system point of view.
There are similar examples in other parts of the rulebook, but this is probably the clearest and most striking.
