@jason_king Hm… I never tried Purple Reign. I can see how keeping it at personal could be a challenge. And I can now vouch that writing purely political scenes can get boring fast – that’s the problem I’ve been having with the Frankmarch branch. (Fortunately I’m closing in on the end of it now, and I’ve found some ways to keep it personal.) But I’d love to see an author with a really strong sense of political/personal tensions in a particular period (like Elizabethan England or Augustan Rome) try to write a politically-focused game. Won’t be me, though! (:
@WulfyK I’m deliberately not including any “real” historical figures, and now that I’ve learned my lesson from Frankmarch, I’m also hoping to avoid including anything that doesn’t have at least some connection to actual Arthurian legend. I agree that the way to make a doomed-to-fail assassination interesting would be to give it some other consequences, maybe something the reader wouldn’t expect. If I can find a way to make that happen, I will. (I do have a few ideas.) Guen will determine whether Arthur lives or dies in part 7 – he can survive – but I’m not sure yet if she’ll be able to kill him directly herself, or if that role will fall, as it traditionally does, to Mordred. There will be a Battle of Camlann.
@Verand Thank you for the encouragement! I need it! (: @Sylfaen @Elfwine I’ve very deliberately tried to write Lancelot, and the kiss, in a way that would be open to a lot of different interpretations (thereby allowing a lot of different possible reactions and consequences), so I’m thrilled to see that that’s what’s happening. @Wonderboy’s different interpretations of the victory trophies are exactly the kind of thing I was hoping to allow for – maybe fighting for Guen’s glory is vain or passive aggressive or even disrespectful of her wishes, or maybe it’s (as Lancelot claims if Guen asks) a legitimate means of coping for someone who would otherwise feel debilitatingly helpless.
If Lancelot kisses a Guen who did not want to be kissed, he definitely does not expect her to be okay with it. He knows, almost immediately, that he made a mistake. Even if she forgives him, he may never forgive himself. (That’s why, if she attacks him until the sword gets stuck in the tree, he just hands it back to her, and he doesn’t dodge if she punches him.) If Guen makes him promise never to touch her again, he’ll keep that promise (whether out of vanity or whatever other motivation is up to you to decide), and he literally will never touch her again for the entire rest of the series, even if it costs him his life. And regardless of how Guen reacted, he’ll never kiss her or do anything else like that again if he has any reason to think she doesn’t want it.
In any case, Guen will be able to make Lancelot very miserable in more than one way, so the people who don’t like him can look forward to that. (:
@Pepper Probably nothing quite on Red Wedding scale… It’s just not that kind of game. (: But over the course of the series, Guen will be able to eliminate certain people if she thinks they’re a threat, and the body count could add up by the end. Will she magically transform into Myley Cyrus? Only time will tell… (:
@Ponku Good point; I was considering dropping the “-e,” but I guess I’d better not. (: Thank you!
Or he felt he owed it to Arthur to at least try not to.
