> > > > But then, I'm not really going for the feel of
>> an
>> >> Icelandic saga in my games, so that's fair
>> enough.
>
>> >And if someone is, that would explain why they're
>> >prepared to put up with that level of abstraction.
>>
>> Short answer: to get through a 50 year story arc in
>> a reasonable number of sessions.
>
>Not something I've ever wanted to do in a roleplaying
>system. Economic simulations (like KoDP!), yes, and
>those have about the same level of involvement with
>the characters (what was his name again?)
>
>> >I've always found the Icelandic sagas barely
>> readable
>> >because they're so abstract: "X hit Y", with no
>> >mention of what it felt like or what they thought
>> >about it. You never get the feeling of being there.
Off the top of my head though I can't think of many pre-D&D Fantasies where the exact type of armour people have is a factor. It's nothing at all in the sagas. In Mallory the only mentions are when Lancelot is in nude or in half armour while fighting Gawain's brothers. In the Lord of the Rings then Frodo's mithril is a clear magic item providing a bonus, but how does Boromir's armour compare to Aragorns? Just not part of the storytelling.
>> Assuming you've read the more modern translations
>
>Yes. Beowulf is the only one I've tried in the
>original, and I'm not up to understanding it properly.
>
>> There's a lot of humanity in the stories
>> these people wrote down centuries ago.
>
>Then it's hiding.
>
>> And the characters are more sympathetic than many
>> a modern tale.
>
>Then the translators have missed it out. I've never
>yet found ANY internal view-points, it's purely
>external. A world of NPCs to be viewed, not PCs to get
>to know how they think and feel.
I think that's more to do with the history than the translations. Internal view points are a new idea. You get lots of Shakespeare with internal monologues, but are they in Jane Austen?
There's are more sense of individual characters and motivations in the Sagas than Mallory for example.
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