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View Full Version : Purposeful Honor Inspiring ?



Doon
03-02-2009, 05:09 AM
So, can a player agree to a quest, and then publicly declare in court that he will complete the task "on his honor" and then inspire his Honor trait when something threatens the quest?

I know the ultimate answer is "GM decides", but was looking for other people's 3.1415 cents.

D

edsan
03-02-2009, 09:35 AM
I would say yes, in fact IMHO that is sort of what Honor is all about as a Passion.

The knight won't be able to Inspire a skill with his Honor more than once per day and there always a chance he goes melancholic or mad everytime he tries to plus loose Honor (a big no-no for a knight).

Worse, if he fails to sucesfuly complete the quest, not only will he go into Shock, he will loose 3 Honor points for faling to keep to a vow. Make sure the player is aware of that.

All risks considered I'd say putting your Honor on the line to try and get an edge on quests is not only not a threat to game-balance, it is actually in line with the spirit of the game (unless the "quest" is something stupidly easy, like getting a bunhc of flowers to a maiden from a local garden :D).

bigsteveuk
03-02-2009, 09:54 AM
Personally I would say no, I might be generous on the final big bad.

Challenges getting in the way of a quest is not an affront to your honour e.g. I swear on my honour I will bring you the white wolfs pelt. So of your knight goes hunting. The wolf has done nothing, is probably running away till you corner it, I don't see how this can be a smear on your honour.

Now the black knight calling you?re a stinking, spineless coward, now that?s an insult to honour.

Hope this helps,

BigSteveUK

Doon
03-02-2009, 11:00 PM
Heh, two different completely polarized opinions! And both valid. Damn this moral ambiguity! ;D

edsan
03-03-2009, 12:26 AM
Welcome to Pendragon my friend, where moral ambiguity is our daily bread and butter. ;)

DarrenHill
03-03-2009, 12:55 AM
Here's another opinion.

Honour can only be rolled if your honour is at stake.
Failing a quest doesn't cause you to lose honour.
Declaring you will do something and failing doesn't usually lose you honour, unless you make it a vow.
Making it a vow, so you will lose 3 honour if you fail - that would qualify.

You're example of publically declaring that he will do this, going round and telling everyone important and swearing on his reputation as a knight that he will do it or die trying, well, that certainly qualifies. Since if he fails and comes back alive and failed, that sounds like a pretty big honour loss (I'd settle for the 3 points in the vow).

Once a player has done this, I will also make sure there are one or two points within the quest that call for him to pull away from it. For instance, learning that a raiding party is on their way to the liege's private hunting lodge might call for a Loyalty v Honour roll.

I'd also be reluctant to allow the player to roll Honour for inspiration on challenges as part of the quest - only those which directly bear on its success, and if failed, would cause an outright failure of the quest. Most adventures don't have too many of those. But when they crop up, if he has an honour of 16, I might require him to roll whether he wants to or not.

If he did succeed the quest, regardless of how the honour rolls go during it, he'd get an experience roll for honour.

bigsteveuk
03-03-2009, 09:51 AM
lol oh well. :D

Maybe I should clarify my stance a bit.

I would allow:-

A knight returns home his lands burned, his manor in ruins, his wife and child taken and their in the midst of the ruin is the banner of Sir Blackheart. The knight screams at the sky "I will have my revenge, Sir Blackheart will pay for this affront, on my honor I swear".

This is hearfelt and has meaning, it's personal, I would allow him to use Honor and Love Family.

I would not allow:-

Oh now a bear has attacked out lands
"I swear on my honor, I will bring the beast down"

Oh no bandits
"I swear on my honor the bandits be bought to justice"

These are just throw away comments, the bear and bandits don't threaten the knights honor or sensibility, they don't offend his beliefs.

I think when you use traits it's got to have meaning, your family or lands attacked, you Lord about to be bought low by Saxon scum.

It's been emotional,

BigSteveUK

Doon
03-04-2009, 01:27 AM
lol ;D

good comments all!

D

Hambone
03-10-2009, 09:18 PM
These are really good comments. I am just chiming in because I have a question. I thought that for each passion you could only inspire yourself once per :"adventure" or " quest" not everyday. Do I have this wrong? :-[ If so my players will certainly hate me! :D

aramis
03-12-2009, 10:45 PM
I always limited it to a mere "one at a time", and since it remains until one goes mad (fails) or succeeds....

DarrenHill
03-13-2009, 01:27 PM
I believe the rules say, each passion can be4 used once per situation, and no more than once per day.

So, if you are in a quest that takes several weeks, you could easily use Honour multiple times. Of course, this also means, you could fail several times, losing multiple points - whereas if you succeed multiple times, you still only get one experience check.

Merlin
03-13-2009, 01:37 PM
I believe the rules say, each passion can be4 used once per situation, and no more than once per day...


This fits the dynamic of our sessions well. Realisitically it means that each player will call on a passion once per gaming session (we play for ~2 hours a time). This will often be at the climax of a session, something that is built up to during play. If they were used much more than this, I think their impact would be lessened significantly.