Atmosphere
In keeping with the flavor established in the original comics by Hal Foster, the tone of the game should be relatively light, with an emphasis on bold adventure, clever thinking, and roleplay. While gore and erotic content were not part of the strip, the adventures of Prince Valiant were by no means bloodless, chaste affairs: through the course of the chronicle, Val slays numerous foes, learns to temper his anger, and raises a family of his own. While rarely maudlin, in the early strips Prince Valiant is shown his own future by the witch Horrit, who reveals that he will never know peace or contentment in life; he returns home from this vision to learn that his mother has died due to the swampy climate to which his family has been exiled. The comic is no stranger to grief and suffering, but through it all there is maintained a sense of wonder and adventurous spirit.
Lines and Veils
With this in mind, I'm introducing the concept of
Lines and Veils, which you can read about here:
https://goldenlassogames.com/tools
Lines for this game include graphic violence against children, sexual assault, racism, misogyny, homophobia, or transphobia.
Veils include sexual activity, torture, and gore.
If there is any subject matter which you define as a personal Line or Veil, please include it in your RTJ, so that they can be added to the above list.
If you have read all of this, signify your agreement to it by including the phrase "By my troth" in your Request to Join.
Schedule
We will be observing a posting schedule of roughly once per day. At the latest, I plan to respond with turns every other day. Weekends are reserved for personal time, so I won't be posting on Saturdays or Sundays.
The original comic is narrated in the third person present tense. While we can continue with that precedent, I personally find the third person past tense most comfortable to write in. So that's something we should decide before we begin the game.
Pacing
Prince Valiant, the comic strip, moves along at a faster pace than the average play-by-post game. Unless the players specifically want to slow down to focus on individual conversations and interactions - which is perfectly fine! - I'm going to try to keep the story moving along at a fairly brisk pace. My hope is that this will allow us to play through several Episodes in the time it takes most RPOL games to get through a chapter of an adventure.
This is probably something we're going to have to get a feel for through gameplay. As long as everyone's having a good time, that's the most important thing.
This message was last edited by the GM at 06:00, Tue 30 Mar 2021.
