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

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Trust me, I can inject horror into anything.

I feel like the Venn diagram overlap of the Excalibur and Green Knight movies definitely gives you an Arthurian horror setting.

 

[MGibster]

It is too bad that there is only one well known Arthurian game, because it gives the mistaken impression that "Arthurian" is one thing.

It does. Quite frankly, given RPGs are in and of themselves a niche, we should count our good fortunes to even have Pendragon. When I was in high school, we read several Arthurian stories at different points in our English Literature courses, and in particular I remember reading Le Morte d'Arthur (at least part of it), The Once and Future King, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and some of The Canterbury Tales (I know it's not Arthurian). They didn't let us read The Miller's Tale in high school for some reason.

I understand Avalanche Press, the company behind some questionable covers for their products in the early 2000s, had a great Arthurian supplement in their d20 line. I suspect most gamers aren't into Arthurian games because they favor fantasy species, flashy spells, and a more epic story.

 

[MGibster]

Honesty, you can look at the Beast of Gévaudan for some inspiration for an Arthurian/Ravenloft style adventure or campaign. In a nutshell, the beast was an actual creature that terrorized south-central France in the mid 18th century and more importantly inspired the 2001 film Brotherhood of the Wolf. Was the beast a wolf? A hyena? A dog? Who knows? But this beast allegedly killed more than 100 people in more than 200 attacks.

For an adventure, some beast is killing the peasants and the King has called upon his knights to defend the realm by hunting it down and killing it. Maybe it's not just a simple beast? Or even one beast. Maybe it's those darned Saxons up to no good again. Maybe Morgana is behind it? Lot's you can do with it.

 

[jian]

I feel like the Venn diagram overlap of the Excalibur and Green Knight movies definitely gives you an Arthurian horror setting.

Again, go with Once and Future. Arthur is a death knight. Merlin is a lich.

Or, let’s go back to the stories. Elaine boiled herself alive to seduce Lancelot and give birth to Galahad, the perfect knight bred to find the Holy Grail and destroy Britain. Arthur murdered hundreds of children in the hopes of killing his own baby son Mordred whom he knew was destined to overthrow him. Balin, fated to be Arthur’s greatest knight had he lived, finds the Spear of Longinus and uses it to dolorously wound the Fisher King, giving the land a sickness that would not heal; overwhelmed by remorse and self-loathing, he kills and is killed by his own brother Balan.

 

[MGibster]

Or, let’s go back to the stories. Elaine boiled herself alive to seduce Lancelot and give birth to Galahad, the perfect knight bred to find the Holy Grail and destroy Britain. Arthur murdered hundreds of children in the hopes of killing his own baby son Mordred whom he knew was destined to overthrow him. Balin, fated to be Arthur’s greatest knight had he lived, finds the Spear of Longinus and uses it to dolorously wound the Fisher King, giving the land a sickness that would not heal; overwhelmed by remorse and self-loathing, he kills and is killed by his own brother Balan.

This might be another reason why Arthurian RPGs aren't popular. It's difficult for a lot of players to get into the mindset that seems so very different from ours. "Wait a minute! Arthur, our hero, the dude who created Camelot, ordered a bunch of babies born on May Day to be murdered?" Can you imagine an adventure where the PCs are sent to murder babies?

Edit: I just realized I accidentally created the baby orc problem.

 

[lynnfredricks]

This might be another reason why Arthurian RPGs aren't popular. It's difficult for a lot of players to get into the mindset that seems so very different from ours. "Wait a minute! Arthur, our hero, the dude who created Camelot, ordered a bunch of babies born on May Day to be murdered?" Can you imagine an adventure where the PCs are sent to murder babies?

Edit: I just realized I accidentally created the baby orc problem.

I think it is very Arthurian.

The court & proper knighthood follows the new (but authorized) morality within a 'contained' land. But you have the theme that man can only aspire to perfection, which isn't really possible in the transitory world. The struggle is to avoid a 'fall back' into the old morality. It is possible to do this in a campaign and ditch the Christianity. You could in many ways, do it in a mythological Japanese setting fairly easily.

 

[pemerton]

This might be another reason why Arthurian RPGs aren't popular. It's difficult for a lot of players to get into the mindset that seems so very different from ours.

This generalises to any game set in the past. Not just Arthurian RPGing.

The most straightforward way to deal with it is to just elide that sort of thing in play.

How far you want/need to elide is probably table-relative. Here's some stuff that happened in my own Prince Valiant RPGing:

I had decided to use The Wedding in Green episode from the Episode Book, and so told them that as they rode through the forest they could catch just the faintest hint of the smell of roasting meat. And then they heard a cry not far ahead, and the whinny of a startled horse. As they crested the rise they were expecting to see poachers vs gamekeepers, but instead saw bandits, led by a woman, trying to pull a cleric from his horse. They recognised the rider as one of the abbots who had participated in the sorcery trial from the last session.

Taking the view that a man of the cloth had to be protected from banditry, the younger knight (Sir Justin) couched his lance and charged down the slope. But the outlaw he was charging at was able to leap into the woods where he couldn't be followed (successful Agility vs Riding check). The leader then challenged him to dismount and fight her on foot, which he did - and he defeated her (choosing to disarm her and force her to her knees, rather than killing her). But then a bandit clocked him with a cudgel from behind and knocked him out. (The scenario gave the bandits two "fiat" effects - Knock An Opponent Senseless in Combat, and Hide. This was me using the first of those.)

In the meantime, the squire also decided to charge a bandit, but his player also failed a riding check sufficiently poorly to be tricked by a bandit into clotheslining himself on a tree branch, being knocked from his horse and also hors-de-combat.

That left the older knight, Sir Gerren (Sir Justin's father), who rode down to defend his son and protect the abbot. He slew two bandits from horseback and the remaining one fled. And he took their leader, Mariel, a prisoner. For this effort I awarded him a "Storyteller Certificate" - the system's version of a fate point.

Once the two unconscious PCs had regained consciousness and were ready to travel on (taking an hour or so in the fiction; automatic at the table), they headed off with the abbot towards his monastery - the house of St Sigobert. But at this point, I used the Hide ability, and the PCs (and abbot) were ambushed by the bandits while fording a stream. This was our first use of the archery rules, and the bandits turned out to roll somewhat poorly and so the PCs' armour protected them from 7 arrows. They then drew swords and engaged: the squire was pulled from his horse by one bandit, and Sir Gerren was facing two and having trouble, but Sir Justin defeated two, and then was able to aid his father, killing a third. The surviving bandits fled.

The players decided that it was better for their PCs to accept the abbot's invitation to accompany him to his monastery, rather than hunt bandits through the woods, and they did so. At the monastery, after some legal disputation which was inconclusive (tied checks of Sir Gerren's Presence vs the Abbot's), it was agreed that the monks would try Mariel for violating cannon law by attacking the abbot (the alternative view being that violence on the road was a logically prior violation of the king's law). She insisted that she was simply seeking a priest to officiate over her brother's wedding, and would have let the abbot go safely on his way afterwards (though was more coy about what she would have done with his money - "Everyone knows that you have to bring a gift to a wedding!"). Mariel was duly found guilty, and excommunicated, and then handed over to the knights as the temporal arm to deliver non-spiritual punishment. But they didn't have the gumption to punish her themselves, and so decided to take her to the nearest lord, whom - the abbot informed them - was Lord Murran of Castle Hill. In the meantime the squire helped with various manual tasks around the monastery, while Sir Justin helped care for some of the ill in the hospice, earning the sobriquet Sir Justin the Gentle.

I chose Catlie Hill as the destination because it would take the action closer to the coast, which fitted another scenario I wanted to use. (We are using the map on the inside back cover of the Pendragon volume that I got as part of the Prince Valiant Kickstarter). But the PCs' trip to Castle Hill gave me the chance to use a different scenario - the Rebellious Peasants in the main rulebook. The PCs were riding through a village surrounded by a low pallisade, having entered from the west, only to find the east gate shut against them and a band of peasants armed with pitchforks and crude spears behind them. Their reputation for favouring wealthy abbots over salt-of-the-earth outlaws had preceded them!

Sir Gerren tried to calm the peasants, but the rolled check failed (his Presence is not that strong and at that point he had not developed any Oratory). So his player decided to cash in his certificate to activate Arouse the Passion of a Crowd: his voice grew stronger and more sure, and he explained to the peasants the importance of mutuality and justice between all the king's subjects, which begins with free travel on the roads. The leader of the peasants acknowledged the truth of what he said, and apologised, explaining that it was their hunger that had driven them to such extremes. The PCs expressed sympathy, supped with them on some gruel, and rode on.

Some players might pause at finding themselves in a situation where they are invited to uphold mediaeval - or, rather, pseudo-mediaeval - social relations. But those players would presumably have the same issue with a lot of traditional D&D!

 

[pemerton]

@zarionofarabel

I'm not sure what has shocked you.

But traditional/conventional D&D has a lot of knights, nobles, lords and vassals, hereditary monarchs, etc. And the way the game and its settings are presented, these are often - even typically - presented as social relations to be affirmed and upheld; not as ones to be overthrown (or, at best, tolerated).

A particularly strong version of this is found in the original PHB, which says (p 24) that

If possible, paladins will take service or form an alliance with lawful good characters, whether players or not, who are clerics or fighters (of noble status).​

And as is well known, paladins are, of necessity, LG in that version of the game.

But the same ideas - around nobility, service, a stratified society, etc - are found in a lot of D&D material.