Character Role-Playing Inspiration

The Ladies of Mandrigyn, etc.
I saw this book, The Ladies of Mandrigyn by Barbara Hambly listed on the Recommended Reading list at the back of RuneQuest 6 and hunted it down at a local second hand book shop. The copy I have says First Edition 1984. I recall seeing the eye-catching cover on book shelves before, but Ms. Hambly has not been one of the authors I have read before and I always passed it by...until now. I find books that appear in the Recommended Reading, or whatever the author calls it, books which have obviously made the short list with the author of the game in which they appear, are often good reads, especially if the game book is one I enjoy. Like minds and all that...
The Ladies of Madrigyn is good inspirational reading for any referee or RPG enthusiast. It is choked full of great characters and memorable settings. The plot is somewhat unique and I won't spoil it other than to say it involves "the ladies of Mandrigyn" and a certain "gifted" mercenary captain. Caught your attention? Good! Read the book.
The Ladies of Mandrigyn is notable for a specific reason a bit beyond being a good fantastic tale in the number of strong female characters which make up the cast. Certainly one way to role-play in our hobby is to loosely base one's character concept on a person from a work of fiction, a character in a book, play or movie, someone we can ask ourselves, "What would that character do in this situation?" and have some background material to draw from.
In my earliest days of playing White Box, I had a lot of characters with names of characters from such books, such as "Conan", "Kull", "Corwyn", Lythande, etc. My actual "role-playing" of the character was rather weak and the name association and possibly the "portrait" I drew was the only real connection the character had with the original source. Gradually, however, I started to talk for my character and wonder occasionally what the "real Conan" might do in a given situation?

By the end of 1981 I was reading the excellent Thieves' World short-story anthologies written by a talented team of authors using a common setting and shared characters, characters who also appear in Chaosium's adventure supplement by the same title released that year which includes character stats for NPC/PC use. My group each chose a favorite or two from the stories to occasionally play as our characters in the City of Sanctuary prompting at least a few discussions of whether certain in-game actions were in keeping with the character from the stories. Looking back, I see that as an exercise in role-playing.
About 1986 I ran across an RPG titled The Hidden Kingdom by New Rules Inc. in which the players take on the role of various literary personalities from the legends of King Arthur and role-play scenarios as presented by the referee (there is a digital reprint currently available). The characters are usually known entities such as Arthur himself, or Morgan LeFey, Lancelot, Parsifal, etc. The players are given the character's beliefs and values indicating how they are guided in thought and action. The scenarios include various political, romantic and religious situations and presents players with a much different game experience than the typical combat oriented game of the era. At the time I was greatly drawn by the King Arthur theme, but found the system challenging...not because it was difficult, but because it was so different from the early wargaming RPGs.
The Hidden Kingdom did get me thinking. Call of Cthulhu also had me thinking about what other kinds of stories our group could explore other than discovering monsters, killing monsters and taking their stuff (not saying that I have ever completely tired of that game ). As we struggled to "master" the game, character development gradually became something more than "leveling up". My PCs started to have "personalities" distinct from my own and among our group the chant of "play your character not yourself" was often heard.
"What would King Arthur do?" we asked.