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<blockquote data-quote="Aldarc" data-source="post: 8247557" data-attributes="member: 5142">Possibly, but that doesn't mean that analogs to alcoholism or such flaws don't exist in the adventure fantasy genre, both contemporary and older forms. For example, we can look at characters like Elric, whose physical condition has made him at first dependent on sorcery and drugs and then, later, on the soul-sucking sword Stormbringer. &quot;He can quit Stormbringer anytime he wants to.&quot; He knows that what he does has a moral dimension to it and that it often wrecks his personal life. But he repeatedly falls back onto using the sword for his personal fix, which often gets his friends and loved-ones killed. It's not alcoholism but it is definitely a hinderance that creates narrative complications.In Arthurian fantasy we may see flaws like &quot;lust&quot; (e.g., Arthur, Lancelot, etc.) and these flaws lead to fracturing of the Round Table and leads, quite literally, to Le Morte d'Arthur. This is what games like Pendragon and Prince Valiant attempt to emulate. In Greek epics, &quot;hubris&quot; often leads to the undoing or hinderance of many of its most valiant heroes. Odysseus does eventually get back home, but his own hubris (and lust) is personally responsible for prolonging this journey: &quot;Cyclops, if any one asks you who it was that put your eye out and spoiled your beauty, say it was the valiant warrior Odysseus, son of Laertes, who lives in Ithaca.&quot; Oops.Do you not agree that there may be a conflict of interest at play between at the player's rational understanding of optimal play and the irrationality of a character's in-fiction actions? This is a point, were we playing Fate, that I would ask the player (1) &quot;why did you pick this as your Trouble, if you didn't want to see it regularly come up into play?&quot; (2) &quot;how did you envision this Trouble would work out in play for your character?&quot; and (3) &quot;would you like to take the opportunity now to change your character's Trouble?&quot; In Fate a character's Troubles can (and are even encouraged to) change. If a character's trouble involves their long lost brother, to borrow from a discussion from another heated thread, then that may Trouble will naturally change once that brother is found, whether they are living or dead.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Aldarc, post: 8247557, member: 5142"] Possibly, but that doesn't mean that analogs to alcoholism or such flaws don't exist in the adventure fantasy genre, both contemporary and older forms. For example, we can look at characters like Elric, whose physical condition has made him at first dependent on sorcery and drugs and then, later, on the soul-sucking sword Stormbringer. "He can quit Stormbringer anytime he wants to." He knows that what he does has a moral dimension to it and that it often wrecks his personal life. But he repeatedly falls back onto using the sword for his personal fix, which often gets his friends and loved-ones killed. It's not alcoholism but it is definitely a hinderance that creates narrative complications. In Arthurian fantasy we may see flaws like "lust" (e.g., Arthur, Lancelot, etc.) and these flaws lead to fracturing of the Round Table and leads, quite literally, to [I]Le Morte d'Arthur[/I]. This is what games like Pendragon and Prince Valiant attempt to emulate. In Greek epics, "hubris" often leads to the undoing or hinderance of many of its most valiant heroes. Odysseus does eventually get back home, but his own hubris (and lust) is personally responsible for prolonging this journey: "Cyclops, if any one asks you who it was that put your eye out and spoiled your beauty, say it was the valiant warrior Odysseus, son of Laertes, who lives in Ithaca." Oops. Do you not agree that there may be a conflict of interest at play between at the player's rational understanding of optimal play and the irrationality of a character's in-fiction actions? This is a point, were we playing Fate, that I would ask the player (1) "why did you pick this as your Trouble, if you didn't want to see it regularly come up into play?" (2) "how did you envision this Trouble would work out in play for your character?" and (3) "would you like to take the opportunity now to change your character's Trouble?" In Fate a character's Troubles can (and are even encouraged to) change. If a character's trouble involves their long lost brother, to borrow from a discussion from another heated thread, then that may Trouble will naturally change once that brother is found, whether they are living or dead. [/QUOTE]

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