Anyone got any thoughts on Pendragon...

This. The passions and virtues are a brilliant idea, as is this. The basic mechanics, though, are just wearisome after a while. For medieval-Arthurian I actually like his related game, Prince Valiant. Nice, simple mechanics and possibly the first narratively focused game ever published. (Someone can correct me on that. I'm not gaming historian.)

Everything is excellent except for the combat.

Which is unfortunate because combat is a genuinely important part of the setting and game

Are there more games with fief management systems and the like? From what I've heard it's Pendragon or Birthright. I'd like my players to run shit and I'd like to see the systems available.

Mostly because they upped my hours at work and my homebrew system will never get finished at this rate.

I think Warrior, Conqueror, King does.

drawshield.net, for all your heraldic needs

Pendragon is good. But I prefer the older editions where all characters where male knights in Arthur's court rather than allowing people to play as spellcasters and women.

ACKS (Adventurer Conqueror King Sysem)
An Echo Resounding (most other Kevin Crawford games also has some tools and a level of support for GMs that would be useful for this)

I really like it. It’s fairly simple and works well in its setting. Combat is a tad too simplistic to my taste, but it’s deadly as hell and healing rates are realistic (healing takes fucking forever). If you played CoC or Runequest, you’ll have no problem playing Pendragon. Also the Passion system is pretty similar to Delta Green’s Bond system.

So, I haven't played and probably won't run for a couple months, since I'm taking a little GMing break. Which gives me time to read a new system, hence the thread.

Is the combat system that hard to fix, for some reason? It feels like the combat abilities are almost entirely modular, and you could probably dig in as much as you needed to in order to get it working.

So at that point, you could port the flavor-mechanics stuff over to Mythras no problem, because they're overriding bolt-on systems and the changes are so easy to see (remove the stats that Stafford removed, and Bob's your uncle). Then you get Mythras combat.

Or you could stick with the d20.

Is this something someone else has already done, or is there not much point?

I ran the entire great pendragon campaign over a year and a half a little while ago. It was amazing, and pendragon is probably my favorite roleplaying game. I would love to answer my specific questions you have.

The only big question at this point is about combat. I don't typically enjoy combat in games as a GM and I know I can hurt the experience for my players by not wanting to play it through. I've heard enough complaints about the cost from people who otherwise praise it, that I'm hoping to understand some way to mitigate any problems that would bring.

(Well... That and not being certain I can trust my players to be remotely serious.)

As a fellow GM who hates it when combat is a slog, I can tell you that combat in pendragon tends to go very quickly. It certainly isn't an overly complex system, and while like that one user said above it can feel like a race to who crits, we really found that that only started to happen near the end when people had the best armor available.

Is there any particlar aspects of the combat system you are worried about?

Is there any timetable for future supplements? Book of the Castle would be pretty handy, and I'd like to see what else is in the pipeline since most of the recent books focus on the Early stage.

What wargear does the average squire have? The older ones at least are expected to fight in support of their knight, and all have to brave the battlefield to deliver fresh horses and such. As future knight's they also would have to learn to fight in heavy armour.

Three ideas suggest themselves to me but feedback would be great.

1. 8pt Haubergeon, possibly upgrading over time similar to Esquire at Arms (brigandines seem likely). £1 pay gap between a squire and Esquire is due to the latter riding chargers and being fully trained warriors instead of adolescent trainees. Has the advantage of training the squire in use of maille and means that esquires will continue to use the same equipment they did as squires with the addition of a charger now they are frontline fighters. PC squires can function as demi-knights.

2. 6pt hard leather. Fairly cheap heavy armour that makes them better equipped than most infantry but below full knights and mounted sergeants.

3. 4pt gambeson. Basic and cheap armour on par with commoner infantry. Provides protection but makes very clear the squires are auxiliaries not meant for heavy fighting.

I'd lean towards option one for older squires to prepare them for service as knights or sergeants, while the youngest get either two or three to defend against stray arrows until they are old and strong enough for a haubergeon (16 as transition point?)

A squire's equipment is owned by his knight, unless his family pays for it, and will be returned on leaving the knight's service unless it is given as a gift to the new esquire. Wealthy knight's may outfit their body squire at least with better wargear.

how much do the player characters end up being bystanders for the big dramatic stuff that's happening? i've heard that, for example, with the search for the holy grail it's 100% just "how long can you keep hanging out with lancelot on his quest"

The game is actually pretty good about involving the PC's in comparatively small but still meaningful ways. No, you won't be getting the grail itself, but you'll be going on a side quest to obtain information/thing that Lance will need to obtain it, or dealing with problems on the way that he doesn't have the time or ability to handle. Or, they'll just be off doing their own thing, unconnected but still important.

The squires in our game were outfitted in leather armor most of the time, the older ones would have a mail shirt in the later periods of the campaign. Never thought of the Gambeson, but I would say it makes sense for the older squires in the earlier periods.

As for a release date on upcoming books, I'm afraid I don't really know, their really isn't anything concrete on the official forums.

the explanation of Pendragon I heard was "you suck, however, if you play your cards right then your great-great-grandson might suck less" how accurate is that?

Not at all. You don't start out as one of the greats, but you do start out competent and have the ability to get better.

I'm playing in a game at the moment and i'm having fun.

better than i thought, then, although still not quite the style i'm into

oh well, i'll probably end up running it at some point anyway, thanks

4th Ed best Ed

It's not to everyone's taste. I think everyone should try at least playing it once, though, to see it in action. Like it or not you can't fault its laser focus on replicating the genre in question. Stafford loves the subject dearly and it shows in the design and research put into the game.

I really hope this new PALADIN lark doesn't mean Pendragon is put on the back burner for the next few years. There's a whole raft of supplements needed for the Middle and Late phases, since Estate & Warlord etc only go up to 518.

Just get the older versions. They convert easily since the system hasn't changed that much between editions

No, just worried because the criticism that it became impossible to hit and a slog kept coming up.

4th seems divisive. Some people have complained about the addition of wizards as PCs, for example. What makes 4th preferable over 5.2?

Oh hey, a Pendragon thread. Are there rules for character religious conversion anywhere? A British Christian character got married to a Pagan lady, and 4 years in he's pretty-well having a lot more fun with the Pagan religion and wants to convert.

>difficulty: we're still in the pre-Arthur period, so being non-Christian doesn't get the Inquisition called down on you

If you stop going to Church and start attending strange rites in the woods your DM might let you change your religion.

Talk to him about it.

Not him, but I've had it go both ways. I'd say about three quarters of the time it went quickly and smoothly. That last quarter, though, could drag like you wouldn't believe. The biggest problem by far comes in the later period when heavy armor comes into play. Two knights in full plate going at each other can take for bloody god damned EVER to actually get anywhere because the damage reduction negates so much that it's not only possible but likely that a successful blow would wind up doing nothing at all.

This. I took a quick look in my book and there's really nothing about it that I could find. If the character is truly sincere in their change of faith then the GM might have you change their religious traits to match, and deal with any social consequences (not likely to be many) in-game.
Keep in mind, though, that simply marrying someone of a different faith isn't actually reason enough to convert. You're looking at it from a modern perspective. You have to look at it from an Arthurian perspective, though. Faith isn't just a matter of going to church/sacrificing a goat every Sunday and otherwise forgetting about it, it's an absolute, unquestionable FACT that permeates every aspect of your life even if you have a low belief attribute. There are no atheists or even agnostics in the Arthurian world, and the holy powers are provable and demonstrable. Think long and hard before making a change like that, because your character certainly, assuming they even considered such a thing in the first place.

On the upside your difficulty isn't a concern. There's no Inquisition to worry about. That's from a later period in history.

I believe the technical term is "grognardery". The rules were tightened up a bit and changed here and there, although nothing major, but the big difference is that 5th ed is point buy rather than random. (Personally I prefer PB, but each to their own. There is something to be said for letting chance help create your character.)

As for magic, that was added in either third or fourth ed, not fifth. I think it was fourth but don't hold me to that.

Addendum;
There were more splats for fourth, allowing more character customization, but they work just fine with fifth so it's not a huge loss

>On the upside your difficulty isn't a concern. There's no Inquisition to worry about. That's from a later period in history.

So be fair, so heraldry, and these threads tend to devolve into "your shit isn't historically accuate" with depressing regularity.

Yeah that's what I meant. Someone said they didn't like how fourth added wizards (and women, but I have it to understand they were present in earlier editions).

pendragon isn't balanced for point buy, unfortunately. let everyone choose their stats and they're all going to max out strength and size with just enough APP to avoid dying of ugliness after a couple of winters. I'd rather have a more varied party of player knights even if some are a bit stronger than others - that's going to happen naturally anyway as the campaign goes on and you start seeing characters of widely varying wealth and experience levels.

Anything else that you (or others) would recommend not to listen to 5e on?

Well they're right, playing a wizard is completely against the spirit of pendragon.

5th does support playing a woman, either as a lady knight or a traditional gentlewoman, and while the latter requires a lot more work to fit the game around them they're both totally appropriate for playing a chivalric romance.

Pendragon 5th gives the best possible rules for using magic in a game of chivalry which is that it clearly sets out the sorts of things a witch or enchanter might be able to do, and says they happen when the GM requires that they happen.

In the section on lady knights, 5th says that more rules will be in a forthcoming supplement, but I've never seen them. Have I missed it?

Well there are more rules for playing women in The Book of Knights and Ladies.

You don't need extra rules for playing a lady knight, you just make a standard character and change the gender. Oh and I think women have different caps for a few stats, just don't make her the strongest knight to ever live and you'll be fine.

Of course that will give you a character who was essentially raised as a boy. The one time I played a female knight I went a bit off the book (clearing it with the GM, naturally) and took the basic skills package of a gentlewoman and used electives to train in weapons, horsemanship and so on. The concept was she was my previous character's awkward half-sister who took to riding about the fief in armour after all the grown men in the household died to the vicissitudes of the campaign. The result was a character with quite a few deficiencies as a knight, at least initially, but it was fun being the only PC with a score in Fashion.

How does a lady knight have kids though

In the winter phase. That's actually like the least critical problem of all. Winter phase can be easily fluffed as anywhere between 6 and 10 months in length, and it's really just "the whole rest of the year you aren't adventuring or at court or war."

Then why's it called the winter phase if it's not supposed to only last 3 months?

As a new parent like. There's no WAY my wife could go back to adventuring a month after giving birth.

As was said above, the easiest way is just to say "it happens during the winter phase". If you want to be particularly picky about it, just have the character in question be out of the next year's adventure as well (they can participate in court sessions, but not the adventure or any mass battles, if they occur).

How we're handling it is as follows:
Winter Phase Year 0: player makes statement that they want to try to have a kid the following Winter Phase.

Adventuring Season Year 1 happens as normal. Maybe the last part of the year has the character adventuring or in war while slightly pregnant. Nobody cares. It's not worth dealing with the minutae.

Winter Phase Year 1: make childbirth roll for the PC in question. If no baby, no problem. If baby, player needs to have hired a maid/nanny specifically for child care until the child is 8 (1/2£/year, or 1£/year to give kid a single attribute die reroll during its stat generation once that's rolled for).

Adventuring season Year 2: If PC's CON is

Actually, I disagree with . Pendragon is perfectly well balanced for point buy if you take into account the need for character utility. Having skills beyond fighting, especially social skills, is hugely important and players who insist on speccing purely for combat quickly find that they're pretty useless for anything else. It tends to be a self-correcting problem. And, if the player in question doesn't mind and just wants to be a combat monkey, then that's not really a problem either. Everyone has things they enjoy more than others. If the players likes being the strong but socially inept type, more power to them.

Some people bitched and whined about the magic, it's true, but others were quite happy to have the option. That's why Stafford added it, because some people did want it. It's an OPTION, though, not a requirement, and those that complained were only doing so because "not muh Pendragon!".

Either it happens in the winter phase as the others mentioned, or more likely if she truly wants to be a knight, she simply keeps her legs closed until she's done adventuring. The game is designed for generational play. The average knight won't go on that many adventures before retiring. Between how time progresses in the game and the social pressures on her if it's known that she's a woman, Sir Fem is likely to go on even fewer adventures than a man, so avoiding children for a time wouldn't be that hard. And, if for whatever reason she winds up having kids after all but still insists on questing, that's what nannies are for. Most likely she'll simply abstain from having any children, though. The complications of that and married life for a woman would realistically make being a woman knight too impractical. She can be a woman or she can be a knight. Trying to do both is highly impractical.

The Pendragon system is essentially a simplified version of Runequest ported over to a d20, so it's essentially automatic to convert them. It's a great fit, and I highly recommend it.

That's a really good middle ground to handle it. I haven't liked the relentless "never be female" vibe these threads get, but at the same time some nod towards the facts of biology are nice in a game where childbirth is a major plot point. Thanks user.

>I haven't liked the relentless "never be female" vibe these threads get
You mean the "Don't be a female FRONTLINE FIGHTER if you want to be a MOTHER" vibe?

I agree. In fact I like playing women in the game at times, and not as questing knights. I think the winter phase can be the best part of the game, and playing socially oriented characters in it is a lot of fun. And, in the world of Pendragon, that's women. Men can be socially oriented, of course, but they can't afford to specialize in it the way women can.

Nah, I think he means the /pol/ level "Hurr durr get back in the kitchen -12 strength never trust anything that bleeds for seven days and doesn't die misogyny isn't real!" attitude the topic tends to engender. Rational people just say sure, you can do it but there's legitimate problems attendant on the idea. Be aware of them. All too often, though, their voices get drowned out by the idiots.

I was running the GPC, and all my players died at the Feast of St Albans. As a result, they all had to play their wives, during the Anarchy. Which meant they didn't have the high glory/statted knights of Uther, and had to actually pay the tributes, only skimping twice, taking the hit on their estates. They still got raided and ransakced a couple of times. I find Anarchy can be easy for veteran knights, who just battle roll their way through the Saxon raids, even with book of battle hits on troop quality and outnumbered.

Seeing them have to play the courtly game against various suitors of Ellen, and still avoid insulting (which would result in raiding) was really interesting for them. Especially when one became pregnant outside of wedlock, and they had to cover it up against a group of nosy young knights who wanted to control Ellens court and resented the power the three held by virtue of men-at-arms and knights that were sworn to them.

This guy gets it

Best was Sir Lochllan and Irish pagan, who critfailed a passion roll on the raids led against the Saxons by Madoc. He ran off into the woods, and was replaced by the player as a Christian knight focused on the courtly game.

He returned at the Sword in the Stones Tourney, with three wives, a Chariot, the blessing of the king of Uliad, and the spear of Cu Cuchllan, with godlike fighting stats, full out pagan beliefs (20 in every religous trait) and a devout hatred of Sheep. He critfailed another passions roll 2 battles later, after having been personally acclaimed by Arthur for breaking the lines of the 1st battle arthur leads.

Misogyny absolutely is real, but more often than i'm comfortable admitting it's a justified response to the rampant misandry about these days.

bump

Oh, no doubt, but in this case it's usually just spergs and trolls doing their thing.

>Multiple wives
>Hatred of sheep
If only he had only been Welsh the jokes would write themselves

Welsh jokes are some of the oldest parts of Arthurian literature. The first chunk of Chretien de Troyes' Perceval is one long gag about comically backwards and thick the Welsh are. Trouser wearing barbarians the lot of them.

It's funny to see how 800 years ago, so many of the jokes and regional rivalries are the same. Here's what a monk from Cambridgeshire wrote about those gits across the border in Norfolk:

>I have crossed the seas and transversed every land, but, to tell the truth, there is no province so detestable as Norfok. The Soilis sterile, the people deceitful. When Satan fell from heaven, Norfolk was the first place he blighted. The people of Norfolk are stupider than beasts... So let us pray, with devout mind, that God corrects the vices of these men, or destroy the people and the county together!

:D
Familiarity breeds contempt.
There's no enemy more detestable than your neighbors.

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Anyone ever done miniatures of their PCs before? Share pics?

There's another great story about a lord granting a charter to emancipate two of his serfs and make them freemen. Being Norfolk men born and bred they took the wax seal on the charter and used it as a candle. A 13th century East Anglian would be right at home with modern ribbing like "Normal For Norfolk".

Pretty much everyone after the Romans leave hates the Welsh though. There is a huge body of Anglo-Norman literature detailing just how terrible they are, which picks up where the Saxons left off. In Pendragon of course the Cymry are on top and the Saxons backwards barbarians. Keeping the style and spirit of Anglo-Norman chauvinism but switching the targets to the proto-English and continental foes is fun and in-character for our chivalric heroes.

I've got the foot and mounted minis done for 5 of our 6 players (the last guy insisted on doing his himself), so if the thread's still around when I wake up tomorrow, I can set up some lights and maybe take some pictures that won't look *terrible*.

In the meantime, here's the campaign chronicle for my GPC game so far. Read it and enjoy it. Or don't. I'm not your leige.

>The downside to starting a new game group (of adults) in October is that you're into the holiday season almost immediately, and you end up with a huge break in the game. Very much looking forward to picking back up next week.

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Can somebody please break down, step by step, the procedure for combat? I can't find any reference to "who goes first", for example. There's just the phase where everybody declares their actions, and then everybody resolves them, and then the losers of rolls take damage. But who makes their attack rolls first? Is it by Dex?

I'm sorry for what is probably a stupid question but I'm having a really hard time wrapping my head around the order of operations in this game's combat system.

The Green Ronin ASoIaF game

It's all simultaneous.

If you wanted to declare a "turn order" or "initiative" it would be fitting with the theme of the game to order it by the glory of the individuals involved.

talestoastound.files.wordpress.com/2014/12/pendragon-ck-cheat-sheet.pdf

>that backwards rainbow

Don't you know it's VIB G. YOR?

A commie mutant traitor spy from Beta Complex, I see.

EAT LASER!!!

Familiar with /procedure/, are we?

*ZOT*

And then they realized that they were both wearing what was, to the other guy, high-level reflec armor, leaving them completely unharmed.

"Well, want to go get a B3 and chat?"

What are the biggest, most detailed maps of Pendragon Britain out there?

and have it correct. The big problem is that there's no declarative order. That is, "who declares their actions first"? The usual house rules are in ASCENDING order of earned Glory and in order of Dex. Dex tends to work better, because most enemies don't have a listed earned Glory score (just a Glory Reward).

So in a combat with 3 Saxons (Dex 11 each), 1 Saxon Wotan's Man (Dex 9), and three PC knights (Dex 10, 12, 15), the standard rules have the problem of not telling who declares 1st. So the knight facing the 3rd Saxon and the Wotan's Man might want to fight defensively, but until declarations are made, nobody knows who that person will be. So ordering the declarations by DEX score can somewhat help with that. Declarations would be in this order:

Wotans Man (9)
PC Knight (10)
3 Saxons (11)
PC Knight (12)
PC Knight (15)

All RESOLUTIONS are still simultaneous. And FWIW, the reason it's in ascending order and not descending is so that the PC with the best Dex can see what everyone else does before his declaration. Thus gaining the advantage. (If resolutions weren't simultaneous, then the high Dex would go first and be able to resolve his action completely before moving to the next person.)

As promised.

>Heraldry and everything
Nice.

Oh, this was you a few threads back? Nice job translating the images to the shields.

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She must be one of those damosels who incite adventure. Can't swing a cat without hitting one of them.

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I've heard the crit system is broken and results in TPKs from a single roll.

You heard wrong.

The thing about Pendragon, though, isn't that you're running a terrible game if you have ladyknights. You're running a terrible game if you have any female players at all, since they don't and can't understand chivalry.

So there is no reason to listen to you as you are wrong about everything.

But he's not wrong.

Said the faggot who is wrong.

He's not wrong. It's a rare woman who can get into the chivalric mindset, and damages the atmosphere of knightly camaraderie to have female knights.