Yes, exactly. Although I note that you haven't actually answered any of the *questions* in my last post...
> Personally, I find people's need to have untarnished heroes odd.
I find people's willingness to put up with the opposite odd. Depending on the degree of tarnishing, obviously - I don't expect heroes to be perfect in every way, which would be boring.
> In
> Pendragon, Arthur orders the judicial execution of his own wife,
> sleeps with his sister, "mercilessly" sacks his own city of Guinnon,
> pillages large parts of Tuscany, and wages a destructive war against
> his own champion. Just to pick a few "bad" deeds of Arthur from the
GPC.
>
> Now does this make King Arthur an evil man?
I haven't read the GPC to get the full context... but it certainly doesn't sound like it makes him a *good* man. Fatally flawed, perhaps.
> > > In my last campaign, Kallyr began as a very distrusted figure.
> >
> > So 'nobody', is your answer, yes? Not a game I'd want to play in, but
> > it's a fair answer.
>
> That's a very strong reaction (but perhaps one that is sympomatic of
> the times).
Well, I'm guessing you wouldn't want to play in my game, either, so that's not necessarily a criticism, just a statement. You give the impression that I'd be constantly going up against the other PCs (because I'd be fighting against Kallyr to the bitter end, and they apparently weren't), which would be tedious for me, them, and probably you, too. Not much fun for any of us in that!
> Does the idea that the Lunar army destroys tribe and
> clan, crucifies men, women and children by the hundreds and thousands,
> or sells them into slavery bother you?
It would if I were playing Lunars that were expected to tolerate that sort of thing, rather than trying to bring down those responsible, absolutely!
> Does the idea that Sartarites
> sell out their own tribesmen when the Lunar army employs the Crimson
> Bat bother you?
Yes, for the same reason as above.
> Does the idea that the ducks of the Upland Marsh may
> have cut a deal with an undead lich bother you?
Depends what the deal is.
> Really? So what does that make Achilles, Odysseus, Olaf Trygvasson,
> Harald Hardrada, Judas Macabbeas, Romulus, or Sigurd Dragonkiller?
> All of these heroes do some pretty downright nasty deeds - and all of
> them embrace that sort of thinking.
Then they're not the kind of heroes I'd want in an RPG. (Using 'heroes' here in the literary sense, not the heroquesting/cultural exemplars sense, since presumably the Kingdom of War, and the Broo, and so on, have Heroes in that sense). And why *should* I play a game that I don't enjoy, regardless of how many literary antecedents it may have?
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