What makes Arthurian fantasy its own genre, different from more traditional D&D-ish medieval fantasy? What are some Arthurian-style plots?

[TiQuinn]

SOTH LIVES! They really screwed up on Inza.

As soon as I can find my stylus I'll try to create a map of some sort.

Yeah I’ve always felt Soth was perfect for Ravenloft.

 

[aramis erak]

So basically one of my horror go-tos.

(Like I said, I can make anything horror. And I love fey.)

That you say it that way shows you probably didn't get the concept...
The fey aren't there to be scary.

They're dangerous as hell, because they think of the knights as toys to be played with and/or lab rats to be experimented upon.

For example, one of the tales is of Sir Gawaine being tempted by a fairy maiden, as radiant as Guenevere... there is no horror for his companions. To him, the internal struggle may be horrific...
... that the maiden fey will kill the others if they attempt to prevent Gawaine's temptations isn't horror; it's simple helplessness. In the tale, Gawaine resists by prayer, and barely so. The maiden then indulges one of the others in his band who desires her. Then, she releases them, unable to find her abode again.

 

[Faolyn]

That you say it that way shows you probably didn't get the concept...
The fey aren't there to be scary.

They're dangerous as hell, because they think of the knights as toys to be played with and/or lab rats to be experimented upon.

For example, one of the tales is of Sir Gawaine being tempted by a fairy maiden, as radiant as Guenevere... there is no horror for his companions. To him, the internal struggle may be horrific...
... that the maiden fey will kill the others if they attempt to prevent Gawaine's temptations isn't horror; it's simple helplessness. In the tale, Gawaine resists by prayer, and barely so. The maiden then indulges one of the others in his band who desires her. Then, she releases them, unable to find her abode again.

OK. Look. You haven't played in any of my games. You don't know how I run either my games or my fey. Also, it's Ravenloft, in domains that have an Arthurian feel, not an actual Arthurian legend or a game like Pendragon.

In a Ravenloft game, the fey maiden wouldn't kill others if Gawaine resisted her. She'd steal Gawaine's shadow and take it back to the Shadowlands to turn into a changeling slave, leaving his real body behind, a shadowless and nearly mindless automaton. Then when she got bored with the changeling, she stick him in a room with all the other changeling lovers she's abducted over the millennia. (The adventure might be the players, who are presumably his acquaintances, learning about him becoming sicker and sicker, realizing his shadow is fading, and then finding out the cause.)

 

[RealAlHazred]

You can totally run Arthurian in Ravenloft, but some of the focuses have to shift. Vampires don't really fit with Arthurian elements, so I'd de-emphasize Strahd. On the other hand, werewolves are very Arthurian, with one knight (Sir Melion) being cursed with werewolfism.

Using a D&D variant for the game, I'd focus on literature that emphasizes the superheroic aspects of the knights. For example, the Mabinogion tells of knights like Henbedestyr, who could run faster than any thing either four-footed or two-, and Sgilti Yscawndroed, whose knowledge of trails is so good he can hand-deliver a message to the Lord. Those sound like D&D guys, probably.

Sorry if these points have already been covered, I didn't have time to read the whole thread yet.