Mordredly Purposeful Dilemmmas

Arthur's problem is to be a series of dilemmas; Mordred's task is to construct as many such dilemmas for Arthur as possible. That is, we don't want random dilemmas to drop out of the sky onto Arthur's head; they must all be the Mordred's handiwork. It is important that Arthur know that these dilemmas are forced on him by Mordred -- that's what makes the conflict. So let's see if we can list them, based on our earlier musings:

Battlefield Dilemmas
All of these involve a tradeoff between military necessity and personal obligation. Perhaps we should think of it as the good of the group versus the good of an individual. The most obvious of these is the earlier described option of retreating and abandoning somebody. We could also have the "order him to his death" dilemma. There are also many shades of gray here, such as setting up people as reserves or front line, putting them in the center or the flanks, or similar decisions. To accomplish all this, I'll need a rich set of battlefield verbs. But the deeper issue is, how does Arthur get into such situations? How does Mordred get him into these situations? One is for Mordred to goad Arthur into as many battles as possible. Next, he tries to discourage people from coming along, although he himself will occasionally join, if only to demonstrate his manhood. Mordred will also send word to the Saxons to warn them of Arthur's plans; this will lead to ambushes, traps, and so forth. Lastly, Mordred will try some battlefield tricks to upset Arthur's plans. These will not be a matter of sabotage -- that would be too obvious. Instead, Mordred will try to hog the glory, so that he can later claim to have saved the day from Arthur's incompetence.

Justice Dilemmas
These were included in the earlier LMD, and they had their problems. Perhaps it was because there were too many such trials; perhaps it was because they were too cumbersome or too drawn-out. Perhaps if I make a trial a single uninterrupted series of events, it will be more dramatically interesting. In any event, a trial forces Arthur to choose between a complex mixture of parties: accused and accuser, and all the witnesses on both sides.

Acts of defiance
Mordred can goad people into defying Arthur's authority; Arthur must then choose between asserting himself and backing down. The place to do this is the preparation for battle, currently a cumbersome scheme. The options list should consist of a set of "I'll ask Actor#N to join us" verbs terminated by a "That's enough" verb. They'll be arranged in numeric order, so that Arthur can put together any combination of choices. Shades of "High Noon". They can refuse to join in, or send only a portion of their men. Arthur will have some responses to such acts of defiance. Mordred tries to foment them.

By the way, Mordred wants Arthur to win all the campaigns he joins in, and lose those which he spurns.