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That kind of thing does happen in real life. The bullet glanced off the skull.

That would depend on the situation. It would probably be Mom. If she's dead then the PKs would be wards of the Count who could either hold onto the lands himself or approaint a regent to do it until the PKS are old enough to run the manor. Perhaps an elder male relative, such as an uncle. There are all sorts of possibilities for stories, dpending on what you want to go with. An overbearing mother who wants to maintain control, a unscruoplous Uncle who would like th inheret and is scheming to get rid of his nephew, a freedy Count who wants to hold onto the income of the lands for as long as possible. All these ideas are possible, if you want to go that way. Or the PKs could just take over thier manors at the end of the year, and everything transitions smootly -it's up to you. A lot of that depends on what a particular GM feels he can handle and how well his players pick up on things, and so on. In my campaign I: When creating characters, I try to give them each a couple of interesting characteristics. Mannerisms, ticks, ways of speech, hobbies, traits and passions. Just something that makes the characters stick out that I can use to roleplay them, and that the players can pick up on and know who they are dealing with. Try not to introduce too many "named" characters at once. That way the players don't get swamped with too many characters to try and keep track of at once. It also makes it easier for me to roleplay as I only need to handle a handful of characters and personalities at one time. This is just liek starting a campagin. It is ususally best to start small and add things gradually. I try to give the new characters a couple of cameo appearances so that the players will get used to their name and their roles before I make them reoccurring NPKs. This can include just namedropping. I once had a master hunstman who was mentioned constantly by various other characters but who was always out in the forest and never seen at court. This went on for quite some time, until the character had become like Norm's wife Vera from Cheers. Mentioned in every episode, never appeared on the show. Well, after six months of gaming, the huntsman actually showed up. Turned out he hated being in "dirty cities", disliked intrigue and just wanted to go back to camping out in the forest. Because of how the character had been itrodocued, the players figred him out pretty quickly and his personality fit. So they remembered him right away. He became a PK favorite. When possible I'll try to showcase one or two NPKs in an adventure to give them more depth and give the players a chance to learn something distinctive about them. I let NPKs show up and develop organically as adventures play out. For instance I had a widow that one PK pursued who had the squire of her late husband around the manor . Part of the conditons for the marriage was that the knight take on the squire, as he was very loyal to the family. The PK agreed and later knighted the squire, and the squire even got to join the PKs Knightly Order. The PKs were wondering why he bought a scorpion (old Roman siege arbalest), until he explained it was for the Griffin hunt. Eventually the squire married a lady with land in Gloucester and moved away. He's shown up intermittently since then, as he is sometimes serving garrison duty at Hillfarm for Duke Eldol. He's even helped to meditate in a conflict between Eldol and Salisbury as he was someone that both sides trusted. But he came up out of a random event and I just added to him as time went by. Also let minor or meek characters fade into the background. For instance one PK married a lady who is very modest, so she rarely says much and just does her wifely duties. She has the gentlewoman bonus, and an alleged magical sword that no one has been able to wield to great effect, but she hasn't said six sentences in over a year of real time. And that's okay. Sometimes I do handouts similar to "The Family and Fatherland" section in the rules or the "Common Knowledge Handouts from RuneQuest, with "What your Character Knows" . That way I can do up a list of the NPKs with short, one paragraph descriptions, Glory totals, coats of arms, that sort of thing. That gives the PKs a "playbill" of the characters that they would know. The players can then add to this list or make notes about certain characters based upon what happens in play.

I don't think it would have to be all that insane. Once again, using the tutors as an example, a character could get a check in any skill for £1/year. So a generic check that requires a read roll might work at the £20-25 range. It might not be all that cost effective for the purchaser but it certainly would be for his heirs. Yes, unless the library has a rating that is purchased, and is either the upper cap to it's effectiveness, or to the chances of success, or even both. For example what if the rating equaled the libra spent on it? So if someone sold part of their library for £10 , it's rating would drop 10 points. But it's just an idea, I'm not sure if I'd prefer it that way either.

What I meant was that while somebody could speed things along to Arthur by skipping over the Anarchy Phase, one drawback to doing so is that it shortens the campaign. Unlike most other RPGs Pendragon has an ending, namely 466. So shortening the Anarchy Phase shortens the campaign. Oh, in realtion to your introductory adventure: How familar are your players to Pendragon? If they are old pros then the intro is more of a refresher and so go fairly quickly. If they are new to Pendragon it will take longer and need more of an explanation. If they come from a more tradtional FRPG it might take more time still,m as you need to get them to unlearn things that don't work in Pendragon.

Yeah but at the expense of cutting the campaign short. That is one of the things that is almost unique about Pendragon, it has a ending. I like how Stewart had Arthur at St. Albans. Uther had wanted to get a look at the son who he hadn't seen as a baby. In the book, Uther is bedridden and had to be strapped to a litter to lead the troops. Arthur is fighting nearby when he loses his sword, and Uther tosses him his own. It was quite the symbolic gesture. I think stuff like that helps to keep the game fresh for experienced players. Do somethin glike drop the Anarchy Peroid and players who know the stroy by heart won't know what exactly will happen. A GM could use any of the other version of the tale for his timeline, maybe go with Bedwry instead of Lancelot, or just go with some other, lesser known variation. There are very few "fixed" events in the legend, and almost every story in it has alternate takes.

Hmm, I wonder if it would be better if instead of noting individual books and skills a character could just build a library that could be used to improve any skill? The library would have a rating that would be it's cap on how high it could raise a skill, and could having an increasing cost. Or maybe just a library improvement to a manor that grants a check to any one skill, every year. with a successful Read roll?

Yeah for someone who really wants to push things forward do what Mary Stewart did and have Arthur grow up while Uther is still alive. Then you can skip the Anarchy Period and go from Uther at St. Albans to Boy King.

White Horse is a nice adventure. Just make sure the PKs have decent horsemanship skills. In my own campaign I started with the PKS riding border patrol and coming across a wine merchant who had been robbed by bandits. They were nice wenough to hunt down the bandits and return the mans's stock, and gave him and escort so he could delieve his wine to the archbishop. This gave them an "in" with the archbishop, which I used as a sprngboard for further adventures. As for magical, one of my early adventures was the Hunting of the Great Black Boar of the Camelot Forest. A Faerie boar with hide as tough as mail, that recovered from wounds almost as fast as they were inflicted (it healed every round). The boar's tusks were magical, and desired by a local pagan priest, who helped the PKS Quest for a magical weapon to slay the boar. This lead to a side quest where they had to get past a giant, and sail to Avalon, where a PK was tested by ther Lady of the Lake. In the end the PK got Rhongomiant, but was told that one day" Why the Giant's Dance in Salisbury. a Chief of the Dragons will appear and the PK must surrender the spear to him or the land will be overrun by enemies." So Rhon is a loaner. It's also good against armor, DV, and is a mixed blessing in battle (It reduces the DV but leaves the PKs in the thick of the fighting). Feel free to adapt any of the above that you like. I got notes and game stats for the Big Black Boar if you want them.

Exactly. Yes, although Pendragon doesn't track that. I'd expect most such tutors to have a 15 when hired or shortly thereafter (1 point per year per Entourage), and then go up another point every 6 year or so. So if if he has a 15 by age 24.; 16@ 30, 17@36, 18@42, 19@48, 20@56. I don't see it being a problem either, as long as a PK can't get a gazillion checks that way. I don't mind the mercs though, either. One subtle perk with this would be that books would count as treasure so it is a way for a PK to save some of his income. It would probably be interesting for a player knight expecting ransom to end up with his very own library! I'm going to have to do that the next time my PKs capture a Roman knight.

Yeah I think we are in agreement here. But again I think it is more of an artifact old KAP3-4 where the French were, well French. Now thay are mostly Franks until the later Periods. Yes, Illumination is another case entirely. In addtion tot he materials it would also take someone with talent, take longer to do which means more man-hours per book., and probably have more more "lost" pages that have to be redone for some reason. So the increased cost reflect that. Overall I'm fine with a player spending a couple of libra for a book. It's only when the book gives a game benefit that I get concerned. I don't want them to be able to buy a perpetual check in a skill for a bargain price. Something like 10 libra, or 3-5 with a required Read roll, seems okay to me. I figure that if the PK has his Read skill up to 15, he could have gotten the skill he is studying up to 15 instead. So this really only becomes useful if he buys multiple books, and by then it's a lot of investment for a skill check.

That's not quite correct: Per "Fight a Leader", BoB 2nd edition page 78: First Round: Players fight bodyguards per the normal unit results. Extended Melee Phase 1: Player fight remaining bodyguard plus additional guards equal to the number of characters still up.. If this is a Battalion Commander he counts as one of those men buy he may sit back, or he may attempt to escape (Which I think is treated like the Run Away Maneuver) instead of fighting, trusting to his guards to hold of the player knights. Extended Melee Phase 2+: Yet another wave equal tot he number of player knights still up joins the fray. If this was the Army Commander's unit he now joins in as per the Battalion Commander last round. Should he be defeated the player knights would then have to fight additional rounds of extended combat in order to Take a Prisoner (page 78). So basically it's tough to pull off and usually requires some players to have to face multiple opponents. It's a good battle round to be inspired. I've only seen players pull it off successfully twice, and both times were in the same battle. One group captured a unit commander and then the other group of PK got the army commander. Rewards were good that year.

Yeah, I think most of the prices are a bit suspect. To be fair, it would be impossible for them not to be. The game encompasses elements of Britian from the 5th century all the way to the 15th. No way to find a price list that works for all those times. I do think though that with books part of the high cost is due to the fact that to write a book you'd need to wipe out a couple of herds of sheep. Well to fair to Greg, the hire someone for £1/year didn't come about until after he did up the price lists. I will say that often it does cost considerably less to keep someone on the payroll that to if you hired someone on short notice to do a specific task. Still £½ a night seems high. While I don't believe such a woman would work every night of the year (or half to), she might work every other night, and that gives her the same income as a estate holder with ten knights! A shilling a knight (12d) is probably more like it. But then maybe she is really uping her price because she knows knights can pay it, and the rest of the time she charges less? I've heard that medieval merchants actually kept several prices lists in their heads tailored to their customers.

Very. For instance the guardian ghosts in the Adventure of the Burial Mound give a -10, but the bodies of said ghosts, with the stats of knights, who keep coming back when slain, do not. Overall I think the valor modifier is mostly a representation of how tough a creature is to defeat, modified a little for how impressive it is supposed to be. On the plus side, it makes it easier for us to tailor the modifier to serve out purposes. Oh, I did update the entry to eliminate unconsciousness and the effects of major wounds. Maybe we can go with a -7 to Valorous? Possibly upped to -10 when it lifts up it's head like a lantern?

Certainly. I used the £20+ price specially for something like the books listed in K&L. Something less fancy with a smaller page count would be cheaper, especially if it didn't give a +3 bonus to a die roll, like the ones in K&L did. There should probably be a minimum size/cost to a book in order for it to be good enough to grant a check, though. Either a fixed minimum, or one tied to how high the book can take you. Yeah, once the printing press comes out book prices drop by something like 80%. So basically 1d per page at that point. So the 126 books @ £113 would have been something like £565 in the old days. Still it's hard to correlate that to Pendragon as historical prices varied considerably over several centuries, and Pendragon uses an approximation for most things. To put it into modern perspective Coca-Cola has been available in a 12 oz. can since 1960, and the price of such a can today is about six times the price it sold for 60 years ago (although with inflation and buying it on sale the relative "cost" has stayed the same).

Yes, a little. But per the OP idea I'd was thinking that: A Read roll is obviously required to get the benefits of the book Possibly capping the book at the character's Read skill. The idea is that someone with Read (Latin) 2 is probably at the "See Cabal run." stage and probably wouldn't be able to read the "big words: or grasp the concepts in a book such as Caesar's Gallic Wars, required to improve Battle 16.

The HRB made Eudaf Hen into Octavious the half-brother of Constatin. Yup. It plays into he Medieval belief in Divine Right, justified his actions in the Roman War, and supports the medeival view that anybody who does anything great must come from the upper crust. It how Robin Hood morped from a yeoman to the Earl of Huntington.

I went with £20+ for a couple of reasons. First off, it matches the price of the magnificent sword and saddle in the Book of Sires Luck Table. Those give a +1 to the relevant skill when used, all the time, whereas the books gave a +3, but required a read roll and time to prepare, so I figure the value would balance out. Secondly, according to KAP 5.2 the standard cost to get something written or copied is 5d per page, and 25d per illuminated page. That works out to £1 per 48 pages (we could round to 50 pages), and that's without any binding or cover, nor any illumination. So £20 can pay for a Clerk, a leather cover, and about 200-900 sheets of hand written vellum, depending on the amount of illumination, and for any pages that got ruined during the copying process. As far a real world Books go, I've read that a relatively inexpensive book, a Latin psalter, in ther 12th century went for about 53 shillings ( about £2 ½) but that was also about the same price as a warhorse, as well as the typical wage for a laborer. Yeah I could see capping a book off it if were to be used for character improvement for I'd require a successful Read roll to get the bonus, and probably grant a roll for improvement rather than a check.

The GPC lists "Phantoms" as -5 to -15, giving us a lot of leeway. . A Banshee is +0 and fills a similar role, a Nukalevee is another "horseman terror" is +0, yet is truly horrific to look at, having no skin. So if you think a -10 fits better, go with it. Ultimately it seems to come down to how tough a given creature is. The guardian ghosts in the barrow mound from the GPC are tougher, and keep coming back. If you think a -10 is more appropriate, go with it.. In play, when the knights confront it, the difference between -5 and -10 won't matter much.

Yes, but in the Arthurian Legend he was the father of Aldornius and Constatin, and thus an ancestor to Arthur, and the one that legitimizes Arthur's right to rule.

What he means is that, as far as Pendragon goes, the HRB is the true history, even when it contradicts what we know to be real events. For instance, Magnus Maximus/Macsen Wledig leaves Britian and fights to become Emperor of Rome, whereas in the real world he is defeated. Brutus comes to Britian, when in real history he didn't. Uther's brother is Aurelius Ambroisu instead of Ambrosius Aurelianus. Whatever the HRB says, happens the way it says, except in the few places where Pendragon shifts the timeline a little, such as the reigns of Constatin and Vortigern.

Knights & Ladies had books on some of the Luck Tables that characters could start off with. A character had to study the book and make a read roll, and then he would get a +3 to a particular skill. In rare cases a book might give a +3 to two related skills. The key things are that the character has to have the time to prepare ahead of time, and make the Read roll. I've been working on expanding the half dozen or so examples from Knights & Ladies using historical books, and came up with some rules that might help: Cost/Value: I went with the £20+ (similar to the items that given bonuses in the Luck Table in the Book of Sires) for a typical book, and £50+ for a book that covers two skills. That is for a decent copy, with a little illumination - a fully illuminated one would cost five times that. Copying: Since they are just books, and nothing magical, I allow them to be copied. This means hiring someone to do it and is assumed in the basic £20+ price. The person coping the book must make a Read (relevant language)) roll to copy the book. On a failure the copy is imperfect and only grants a +1d3 bonus instead of +3. On a fumble the book is riddled with errors and adds +1d6-3 (yes, following bad advice can lower your chances of success). It takes a year to copy a book (usually at one page a day). Translating Books: I also allow books to be translated from one language to another. This requires the scribe to make Read rolls in both the original language and the new one, and use the worse result of the two. Translating a book takes twice as long (so two years). Some examples: Ars Armorica by Ovid, a book of poetry: When consulted, requires a successful Read roll, then grants +3 to Flirt and+3 to Courtesy with women. he Physician's Establishment of Surgery by Hippocrates, a book of Chirurgery: Requires a successful Read (Greek), then grants +3 to Chirurgery Elementa Harmonica by Airistoxenus, a book of Music: Requires a successful Read (Latin), then grants +3 to Compose and +3 to Play (Instrument)

Reasonable quibbles. I'll give you my reasoning for doing it the way I did. Feel free to adjust, when I was statting it up I asked myself the same thing, and just tired to find a niche for it, based on other creatures. But, in the stories it's noting for taking out onlooker's eyes with it's whip, or throwing buckets of blood into thier faces. I doubt that it would need to do that with a -10 to Valor That would zero out all those commoners. Make it bigger. At SIZ 18 it will do 6d6. Nobody ever fights one in the stories though. Maybe even more. Enjoy. In my campaign I'm going to use it at Silbury Hill, along with King Sil, and rather than having it riding about the countryside it will be barring the Pks entry into the mound. Though convoluted means the PKs in my game own a year's (40 days) knight's service to King Bladud, and he is sending them off to Silbury to get something from King Sil., and there are legends of both Sil riding around the area in golden armor, and of a headless rider. And on Samhain, when the viel between worlds is the weakest, the PKs can get into the mound. Whether or not they can get out again is another story.

Yes it's height. Waaayyyy back in KAP 1 towers were measured in terms of height, with each level of height being about 15 feet, if I recall correctly. Taller towers (and walls) cost more and had a little more DV, but their main advantage was that defenders in taller structures could shoot over lower ones. That let's you build defenses in layers, and is usually referred to as a concentric castles, which is possible in the latter periods of the game. There are round towers as well, and they are harder and more xpenseive to build but are harder to undrmine and give a better field of fire, so they have a higher DV that square towers of the same size. Early Pendragon also used to give castles an AREA rating. This was a very abstract way of setting up defenses,. You have to make each new ring of defense cover a larger AREA than the previous one, and there were limits on how many defenders an area could cover. KAP 5 has started equating these Areas to real world distances and measurements so that we can figure out how big a any give castle should be in game terms.

The HRB is a alleged historical account of the rulers of Britian, that modern scholars mostly discount. While the majority of it is about Kings other than Arthur, Book VI deals with the the departure of the Romans (c.410) and how Arthur's grandfather Constatin became High King; how he was murdered; how Constatin's eldest son also became High King and also was murdered;how his brother Aurelius and Uther were were brought to their uncle in Brittany and raised there; how King Vortigern became high King, etc. The majority of the HRB (Books VI-XII) is really a telling of the King Arthur story, and one that predates Mallory's account by several centuries.It's possibly also the first thirteen account of Merlin in the form that we know him as today. So in addition to being a version of the tale that predates the French sources, the HRB is very interesting for giving a solid backstory for Arthur, and in a fairly coherent and chronological fashion that is hard to find in early sources. Most other versions of the tale start with Uther as King or with tale of Vortigern's tower, and Aurelius avenging his relatives and becoming High King. The timeline of events in the HRB are the foundation for much of the timelines used in Pendragon, especially for the early periods, and it is the underlying foundation for the expanded timeline in the Book of Sires too. It's worth a read, and most translations (the original was in Latin) are actually easier to follow than La Morte D'Arthur. There are differences between it and the later versions (it predates Lancelot for starters)but most of the characters are reconginable and similar to the ones we all know.

Just a thought but what if instead of being improved it could be added to? Specifically: A section for GMs new to BRP to help them navigate between the myriad of choices and optional rules. Perhaps with some example applications that use various systems? Something along the lines of one page or two page game settings. Those that become popular could potentially be expanded into full supplements at a later date. You could even recreate simplified forms of pre-existing Chaosium game worlds to use BRP as an intro to other games such as RQ and, CoC. One of the reasons why experienced BRPers can do so much more with the BGB is that we've seen how the various rules have been pieced together in the past. Sections could be added to include the new %-based game mechanics from CoC7, or maybe even a d20 based game mechanic such as used in Pendragon, plus maybe some guidelines for adapting rules and character stats between them all. Oh, and maybe none of this would require a new edition of BRP but instead could be marketed as the Basic Role Playing Companion.