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Yes, exactly, so why do people want to change that? Yup. In fact I have a woman running a Valkyrie-style warrior right now. She was part of Aruleius' household during the invasion and currently hold the Motte & Bailey castle at Windsor. Before that I even played an Irish Caelieach that scared the bejesus out of the the PKs due to her unforgiving and bloodthristy nature. I'm not against female knights in the game, I'm against the idea that the game rules have to be changed to allow for female knights. I am the guy who started a thread saying that there really need to be more for ladies to do in the game. √ Prudent That assumes that someone bought a hardcopy of the book first. Thew reality is those who don't like an RPG product don't usually buy it. That works out fine if somebody else, preferably more than one somebody else buys it instead. But what I see are a bunch of people who already own and play Pendragon saying that it has to change so that other like minded people will buy it. But if those other people are like minded then they already have it and played it. And if the game is so objectionable to them as is, why are they playing it now?

Indeed. It doesn't matter what type of story you are trying to tell if you tell it badly. But then why are these shows being run by people who can't or won't write good stories?

LOL! That would have to be a short discussion. My point though is that bad unfair settings are part of what make for a good adventure game. RPGs would be pretty boring if the knights rode up to the bad guy's castle, confronted him with his misdeeds and he replied "Gee, I'm sorry, I didn't realize rape, pillage, murder and cannibalism would upset people. I'm sorry. What can I do to fix it?"

Nope. The GM decides. The players can question things, and arguer their points, and even drop out, but ultimately it is the GM who decides what rules. With the exception of troupe style RPGs and RPGs where everyone gets to add to the story line, a GM is run by a GM who is the ultimate authority on their game. Nothing stops you from running your campaign with female knights only. Why do you think the rules need to be changed to throw out the approach they have gone with so far? Are you familiar with the story of New Coke? Trading your existing customer base chasing after new cusmoers only works if the new customers outnumber the ones you lose. Unless of course the younger customers don't take to the product and the companies dies out anyway, just faster., which what seems to be the norm when a customer abandons it fanbase chasing after another one. No they shouldn't. But you assume that this change will be a boon to the game. What if it isn't? Tough. There are a lot of things in life that people aren't going to like. That doesn't mean that those things are going to change just because they don't like them. That doesn't mean that they don't have to accept the parameters set by the game and GM. For instance no one gets to bring a lightsaber into my Pendragon campaign, even though they would enjoy doing so. No, it my my opion, and based on what he wrote, Greg's that Arthurian Britian is a male dominated society. Greg's various statements on the setting and the role of women, as well as the socio-economic factors. These are things that none of the pro female knights faction ever address. How does childbirth affect knight service. While female knights get maternity leave. If so, who fights in their place? That right there is a good reason not to have female knights. Because it clashes with the feudal society. Now if you want to go with a more Celtic version of Arthur, or make such women rare, it not an issue. But if you are going to base the game as heavily upon Mallory as Pendragon does, then it clashes. Pendragon has been successful because it has tried to portray knights and knighthood from a more medieval viewpoint, rather than from the veiwpoint of modern gaming. Once that goes away it will just be just another RPG. I don't. What I care about if when the human player who wants to play Joan of Arc gets the rules changed to suit their wishes. Why does their viewpoint count more than the existing players. I'll bring this up again, I actually do have a female playing in my gaming group, and she is running a female Saxon warrior and may one day run a female knight (not under Uther,m but maybe under Arthur, especially if she distinguishes herself during the early years when Arthur is constantly at war to defend his title). I find nothing wrong with making some accommodations for a player character. It's the whole idea of turning Pendragon into what it isn't that I object to. Greg could have made knighthood unisex back in the 80s. He choose not to do so then, nor in any of the later editions, and he left such things up to individual GMs from KAP3 onward. It's only after his passing that we are getting universal suffrage in Pendragon. Yes, and yet some people say that isn't enough, and that the game needs to do more for female knights. It does transform it significantly from a feudal one. Here are some of the topics that will need to be addressed: 1. If a female knight marries does she still control the land or her husband? 2. Does her land pass down to her firstborn son, firstborn daughter, firstborn child or what? 3. Are allowances to be made for when a female knight is in the family way in regards to her knightly duties? If so, what's to keep an enemy from attacking when the knight of the manor is indisposed? 4. What happens to all those males who would have had land and been knighted? 5. Does the feamle knight get to pass 1/10th of her glory down to someone? Her daughters?, Her sons? As is stands now Glory comes entirely from the father. I'd suggest 1/10 of the higher of the two. I'm not saying that those issues (and other) Can't be dealt with, but I am saying that there will need to be some sort of official way to handle them if female knights become common. Again, one, or even a handful of female PKs won't be a major problem, but if half of Logres is held by female knights then there will have to be a solution worked out for succession. And that solution would significantly alter the setting. No changing the core rulebook would be an overreaction, as all the people who want to run with female knight can already do so. There is no need to change the rules. This is just identity politics sticking in nose into something it doesn't already control. Or better yet, not buy the game in the first place. You see if I buy it then I end up supporting it, even if I don't like it. By not buying it I don't support it. Now if other people buy it, then the game does well and propsers desite my dropping out. If it doesn't, well that tells them something too. Great. If you don't care what other people do at their table why do you want the rules changed, as that would only affect what other people do at their own table. Have you seen how the media's been doing. "Get woke go broke" is a real thing. This may come as a shock to you but the majoity of people are not SJWs. And any business that dumps what it has to get on the bandwagon of whatever the hot topic is today, is going to be left high and dry. In all my years of gaming I've never run into any woman who had a problem playing a male character or with Pendragon being about knights, male knights. Not one. Most of the people I've met at the gamer table were made of sterner stuff that that, and realized that it was all part of role playing. I don't believe that they've suddenly got so insecure in the gender and worldview that they refuse to play a game that doesn't constantly reinforce it. I don't see a legion of women who are just aching to play Pendragon it only it wasn't so masculine. They world hasn't changed the way you think. The TV shows books, music and movies that have changed are all dying off. I'm not concerned about your judgement of me or anyone elses. We are all free to make our own choises and decisions. I do care about what happens to the actual game and rules. Doubly so considering what's been happening in the media an with D&D. I'm sure we are not far from someone stating that the cultural modifiers are racist and that they should be dropped like in D&D. And then we will be left with a bland game flull of bland characters all cut with he same cookie cutter. Then no one will be playing Pendragon and the people who were so adamant about changing Pendragon will move onto trashing RuneQuest, or Traveller, of whatever RPG they can ruin. So do I. I don't care what the players look like, but I do care if their characters fit the setting. No I don't as they would have been hunted down and executed by the church. Tolerance is a modern concept.

Off the top of my head?maybe to run a person who sees how bad things are and it changes their outlook, like Otto Schindler. Keep in mind, it was a Nazi doctor who exposed the war atrocities committed by the Japanese. But I'd be much more inclined to run something were we played against the Nazis, and that has tons of possiblities. Running spies who are working undercover. People in the underground. Being part of the plot to kill Hitler. Lots of good gaming possibles there. But if I did that, then anyone playing a black and/or female character is not going to easily pass themselves off as part of the German military. Not everybody who joins a political party is evil, as few political parties go around claiming to be evil. Much of Nazi ideology was about restoring German industry and p[ride following it defeat in WWI and the Treaty of Versailles. Not that I'm defending the Nazis. Just pointing out that no everyone who joined up signed off on all the atrocities. And, the Soviet Union under Stalin was at least as bad, if not worse.Although that isn't saying much for mankind. I think history is full of peoiple who were as bad as the Nazis, it's just the Nazis had the benefits of industrialization. Since most RPGs tend to revolve around heroic character fighting bad/evil people who do not seem to care so much about "basic human rights" that would seem to eliminate practically every RPG. Oh, and the concept of "basic human rights" is a very modern one. Generally commers didn't have any real rights to speak of. Because you are not your character. From a medieval viewpoint someone from another county is considered to be difference and inferior just because they aren't from around here. That only gets worse when you deal with people from further away, or who look different. Take a good look at what Arthur does in Pendragon. He go off and conquers everyone, in no small part becuase he and his knights are British and thus better than everyone else, at least in thier own eyes and that of those who created and passed down the stories. If you want an enlightened egalitarian society Pendragon isn't it. It is literary a Patriarchy. Exactly. But things would actually be much worse. More like jumping off a cliff. The whole feudal system is based upon certain beliefs, economic needs, and logistical requirements that would be thrown out the window with a significant number of female knights. These things are going to need to be addressed and their effects on the society and manorial system will need to be worked out.

Doctor Who, Star Wars and Star Trek have all lost thier fanbases and no one ics picking up thier mercandise. Trek is doing so strong that they can't get funding for thier series, CBS All Access is failing, ratings for new Trek on brodcast TV are pititful, and all the merchandises have dropped it. Star Wars is going so strong that the last two films have bombed, there have been a power struggle to oust Kathleen Kennedy, and the best place to find Star Wars toys is in the discount bin at the dollar store. Doctor Who is going so strong that people in the UK want to defund the BBC, and the show is now being funded by China. Terminator Dark Fate's total subservience to wokeness, right down to killing off the one person who was supposed to stop Skynet, is what killed the franchise. Yet T3 and Salavation were terrible movies. But is was Dark Fate that killed it. As for T2 is is a a great film, and deserves to be praise as a great film, not because it had a strong female protagonist. A strong female protagonist does not constitute a great or even good film, any more than a strong male protagonist, and that is precisely what's wrong with all these modern woke films and tv shows that focus entirely upon the gender and sexual orientation of the characters.

I dunno. I think elite mounted fighters should know how to ride a horse. I see this more as a lateral move to keep horsemanship skill relevant considering it lost it role is resisting knockdown. You always could damage multiple foes., by splitting your skill. The rule listed in KAP5 was one of many typos. KAP5 was terrible edited and altered a bunch of things that Greg had to address later, and was why we got 5.1. But in KAP5, if you break up you skill between multiple opponents you can damage whichever opponents you manage to beat. The new rule is a bit more consistent with other multiple action penalties, and mostly makes it easier for someone to fight two or three opponents.

That's the best approach, IMO. But then I never understood the reason for Classic Fantasy. I figure if someone wants to play a game like D&D, then they should just play D&D as nothing else is more like D&D than D&D.

Direct conversion/emulation is difficult. Classic Fantasy is probably your best option there as it is designed to try and emulate D&D. But if you don't need to covert directly, you can try to adapt things. Use the same maps, and locations buy adjust the NPC and monster stats to better fit BRP. I've done that a lot, in no small part because most of the games I run are not as well supported as D&D. Often I grab a particular type/style of adventure and then see how much of it I want to use and how much I want/need to change to make it work for my campaign. I don't rate D&D campaign material as highly as you do, though. I find it to be all over the place, as there are so many people producing content, but there is certainly some good stuff out there. Still, it's a lot easier to take the basic framework and important stuff and fine tune the NPC stats to something that is both functional and yet keeps the spirit of the original adventure.

I'm not very worked up. I just do go along with the push by some people to make everything fit modern social views. No but there are several people saying that the game should (or must) change to make it more accommodating to female gamers. Pendragon doesn't have to change at all. It has been and still is quite playable and enjoyable as is. I'm fine with what been officially revealed about thew role of women in the game. It the push to retroactive emancipation that I'm resisting. It neither fits the setting, not will it stop short of completely reworking the setting.

Since the orgins of Arthur as so vauge, it's hard to prove one way or or the other. Although paganism still existed in the 9th century. True. Then again none of the other reglions are like anything that existed at the time. I see your point, but BoS is actually a bit more muddled in that. For instance, Knighthood somehow comes to Britian before vassalage or the manor system. So somehow we had knights who had liege lords but weren't vassals, and who had income but no manors. It depnds on which version of which stories you look at. The Troait Boar, for instance, isn't removed at all. It isn't about female knights either. They are particular pagan, but mostly obscured. PArt ofthe difficulty here is that British Pagan was more semi-pagan, and that many of the Celtic imagery has been toned down, or altered to obscure it's origins. For instance, in a late medieval telling an old woman washing clothes in a stream as a hero goes by is probably just an old woman washing clothes in a stream. In an early version she was a portent of bad things to come. Yes, a lot of medieval thinking seems absolutely crazy to modern people. But that doesn't mean we should throw it all out for a more modern view.

Exactly! Take a look at D&D. It pretty much modern day society in a low tech setting, and there are problems with that. It doesn't fit with the setting, and it wouldn't work economically or logistically. There are a lot of things that we can do today because technology allows us to that couldn't be dome in years past and which played a factor in how pr-industrial societies were structured. Things like the location and size of of cities, and crop yields really dictated things far more than people seem to realize. I'll give another example that is entirely about RPG rules. In D&D spell casters have access to all sorts of spells that essentially make fortifications much less effective, and medical care much better than it was historically. This would affect the setting and culture and lead to it being much different than a medieval setting. Likewise, if female knights become commonplace then there would be major changes to the whole feudal structure. There would have to be. The manorial economic system evolved to support knights. Then chivalry would need to be altered to account for men fighting women, and if women should/need to be rescued anymore. Then the rules for Romance would have to be altered. Can women pursue men now? And how does the church fit into all this? Marriage, inheritance, childbirth, all that would need to be factored in. Ultimately, it would lead to a very different society. In limited numbers female knights are fine, but if the norm, then the setting becomes a very different place and there are a lot of things that would have to be worked out.

Yes, yet in all games people have to accpet the rules and setting that they exist in. Yup. Indeed, and that includes keeping existing customers. Yup, and if they aren't interested in Pendragon already what makes you think they will be if you add female knights? And many are just fine with playing male characters in a male dominated setting. That's yet to be confirmed by the rules., and slightly more emphasis isn't a problem. It the increasing push turn the game into modern day with swords. No, all the existing Pendragon gamer who don't like the change can just go back to playing a previous edition of the game. Unlike other forms of entertainment, RPGers do not have to continue on with the new version to continue enjoying new adventures. Now maybe a version of Pendragon where half the knights are female and there are of LGBTQ+ characters around will sell to enough people to offset the potential losses, but judging from how that trend has worked out for other media, I doubt it.

Yup, I know, and that's part of the problem. 1. If it isn't broken, then don't change it. 2. Because it's another change for change's sake and doesn't improve the game. 3. It requires redoing all the animal and monster stats, for no benefit. 4. It makes animal and creature stats even more different than characters. 5. It makes SIZ even more important that it already is. 6. RQG is full of similar changes for change's sake that make the game much tougher to GM, as you can no longer fall back on the ways things were done for the past 40+ years. The change in Knockdown is a similar bad move. THe rule has been damage equal to or greater than SIZ in every edition and there was no reason or benefit to changing it to greater than SIZ. Yup, and for no reason or benefit. If a GM needed a dragon with 160 hp they could just have a bigger, hardier dragon.

I think an unopposed Horsemanship roll was the problem, as a knight with Horse 20 only got knocked down when taking 2xSIZ in damage.. If the horsemanship roll had been opposed by the damage roll it would have worked. I wonder why the knockdown rule was changed to exceeding SIZ? Yeah, what?! That is usually strapped on. That might not change much, as you still can't get more hit points back from an injury that it caused. In my campaign one player's main characters have the natural healer family characteristic and typically have a character with a score over 20 in First Aid. The player often criticals when treating 2 and 3 point wounds. The rules still favor the mounted character. While I think the rule was poorly worded by "capping skill" the important thing to remember is that the +5/-5 reflexive modifier for being mounted still applies, and can bump the skill above the Horsemanship score. And a horseman should have a good horsemanship skill. Me too. I'm not so sure the new rules are more gentle, as a 3 on 1 situation is now for someone with Sword 10, now means one opponent will get an unopposed attack. I MO the older method of dividing skill was better and simpler. Still the new method is more consistent with how multiple actions are handled. I think the armor rules are the same. Just some of the names used might have changed. THe standard protection for the knights in the adventure is still 12 points with Sir Ector getting 14 points. No, per page 6 : "If the loser rolled a Partial Success, they may also apply the Shield or Parry protection value of their shield/weapon" Good catch, and yeah, that's bad. In fact it is deal breaker bad to me. If hit points become SIZx2, I won't even pick up KAP6.

Jeff, that would depend entirely upon the GM of a given group. Per KAP5.2 page 34, " Each Gamemaster determines the prevailing attitude of Britain toward women during his or her campaign. In some, female knights may be common and acceptable, raising no eyebrows at all. Or they might be strange and unaccepted. Most likely, reactions will vary from person to person," So it really comes down to what a given GM deems suitable in that campaign. If a GM is okay with it then some or even all the knights could be female. If not, then the players have to either accept what the GM rules, or not play. Things like inheritance, marriage, and and how child birth affects knightly responsibilities would need to be addressed (maternity leave?) somehow just because they will come up as Pendragon is a generational game.

Why? That's never been what the Arthruian Mythos or Pendragon was about. There are plenty of RPGs where you can do what you want, and have that. But this is not the setting for such. Historically men fought and women stayed home and raised the children, and it really wouldn't have worked the other way around Also historically LGBTQ+ people would not have been tolerated in a medieval society. Again, there are plenty of RPGs out there where you can have equality regardless of sex/race/social status/religion/etc. But that's not how it was, nor how it should be for a historical or semi-historically based RPG. Why must every RPG be changed to suit modern ideals? Why would it be a good thing? What makes you think that? The mounting evidence, based upon what we are seeing with films, tv, video games, and now D&D is that doing so ruins everything. All these pre-existing settings and stories are interesting as they are, and altering them to make them all fit the modern cookie cutter image ends up destroying everything that made them compelling in the first place. For example, part of the appeal of the Arthurian story to many people, is the illicit affiar between Guinvere and Lancelot. Well, with modern rules and values, Gwen could simply have divorced Arthur. That whole story only works because of the way medeival soceity worked. Even Arthur becoming King does make sense when looked at from a mdoern point of view. Michael Palin was right, " strange women lyin' in ponds distributin' swords is no basis for a system of government! Supreme executive powerderives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony!" That's what makes that scene so funny. Would any person in a modern soceity let someone rule over them as a king because of a sword? 1. If people have been excluded/rejected from a gaming group, for any reason, then they will continue to be excluded for said reason, regardless on what's in print, because it is the other people in the gaming group who exclude or reject them. FYI I have indeed excluded people from a gaming group, but never over the gender or sexual orientation. Usually it was because they were terrible to game with, or could show up on a regular basis. 2. If someone is not attracted to a particular game, well, that's just tough. No one has to rewrite a game to appeal to someone else. There are lots of games out there that I'm not attracted to and I don't play them. For instance, I'm not found of RQG and don't play it. As far as I can tell the game is doing just fine without me. 3. The games are not prejudiced, the settings are. For instance if someone were running a game set during WW2 you won't be able to play someone who is Jewish in the German military, because Nazi Germany was a racist, prejudiced place. 4. If people won't play a game because the genders and sexual orientation of the characters in the game different from their own, then how do they expect to be able to deal with the many setback that will occur during actual play. Or how can they deal with the other people the have to interact with in daily life, especially at the gaming table? Since the vast majority of people in the world are straight heterosexuals, anyone who cannot tolerate that has problems well beyond the gaming table. Then why have the forums become less inclusive and unwelcoming over the last decade? There was a time when people could come to a site like this and debate all sorts of ideas and rules. Now everyone has to cater to those who want "inclusivity and diversity" brought into ever game, regardless if that fits with the setting or not. Ten years ago we'd have a good debate with lots of people chiming in and giveing thier own points of view. Today, we get progressive levels of wokeness (anyone remember how this started with one person just wanting more female knight artwork?). Frankly I'm surprised the thread hasn't been locked down yet. And I cannot help but think that you are horribly wrong. Pendragon is popular today for what it is. If you throw all that away to recast in the the mold of 2020 society, it won't be anymore. Just look at how Star Wars, Star Trek, Terminator, and Doctor Who are doing. All those franchises went down the same path you want Pendragon to go down,. and all have lost most of their fan base and can't sell any merchandise anymore. If someone want's an Arthruian RPG where half the knight and rulers are female, with lots of LBGTQ+ characters sprinked about, then they should write it. No co-opt an existing RPG. IF someone really wants to do that in Pendragon, well they can. It's thier campaign, they can put Arthur, Lance, and Gwen into a threesome, if that's what they want. But you don't really want that, you just want to try and force everyone else to do that.

Oh. I'm less opposed tot hat, although it could be viewed as being sexist. It's not really that valid an option though. Female knights open up a can of worms, though. There was some female warrior art in a previous book that, while nice art, turned out to be poor armor. Oh, okay. From your previous post I though you were pushing for change to make the setting more emancipated. I;m not sure if that is a good thing though. I think that people should be aware of what the game and setting are like coming in, or else they might be disillusioned with the reality of the game. Pendragon is something of an acquired taste, and is differnt from the typical FRPG. I could certinaly see it get a few pages in whatever the KAP6 version of Knights & Ladies turns out to be. I do think that a warning about the consequences- at least in terms of lots of female knights (a one off here or there is no big deal), and and how to handle the passing of generations would be in order. For example, in my campaign I houseruled that new knights get 1/10th the glory of the parent with the highest glory. That way if a knight marries a noblewoman with much more glory than him, the children will benefit from that (which they don't do by RAW). That rule would also help as far as playing the daughters of female knights or warriors. I've considered extending it to close family, to allow for a nice to inherent, as female warriors tend not to have children, as there are often social, religious, and physical complications. No they don't Having enough to fill half the seats at the Round Table would. Neither is any character in a RPG. In the end this is all just "make pretend". A GM has to run characters of all races and genders in a game, all the time, yet a player having to do so is some sort of life crisis? This is a non-issue. It is catering. Pendragon is not a democracy. THe GM is the authroity at the table. That's actually in the rulebook. If the GM says "no" then the answer is no, even if everyone else at the table thinks it should be yes. How do you know that playing someone of a different gender in a RPG is all that differernt from playing somone of a different species? We have no dragons or hobbits to compare notes with. In the end, this is all stuff that we pretend, and is played using the same methods. And it should be. It is a partriacal setting. I wouldn't allow an all feamle RAF fighter sqadron if I were running a game set in Brtian during WW2. No, it actually a near inevitability of the time and place. I know we all are raised with the idea of equality, and I certainty wouldn't want to take rights away from any group of people, the fact is historically most warriors were men for reasons. Childbirth and rearing being one of the major ones. Greater upper body strength being another. Modern society has ways around those problems but pre-industrial societies didn't. And speaking of relics, how about plate armor, warhorse and lance charges. Don't they seem archaic? How about game breaking? Where all these female knights getting their income from? Why isn't some male "rightful" heir running it instead? What happens to the estate when she dies? What happens when she can fulfill her knightly duties becuase she is pregnant? o they haven't. But you are knocking on everyone elses door by stating that the game needs these things to evolve. Pendragon can do just fine without more art of women in armor. Well, Greg made many of his thoughts known, and the guy in charge of the game now was hand picked by Greg, and 6th edition is supposed to be Gregs final vision of the game. As far as getting Greg's ideas on Pendragon from the ground up, they are out there, in various designers notes, articles, and posts. And nothing has really evolved. People think that the ideas of equality and making games more feamle friendly is a new thing, it isn't. Yes, there is a lot of room for flexibility, but that is precisely what you will lose by making feamle knights more mainstream in the setting. A good example of this is the magican rules from KAP4. On the one hand the rules made magican player characters an option. On the other hand such characters didn't fit well into the game. I think that would be false advertising. As it stands a player can play a female knight if, and only if their GM allows it. As far as the extra ifo went, that would reqiure raising a lot of questions, most of which should probably be left to a GM. For instance what would be the proper form of address would female knight use. Sir? It wouldn't be Lady, as that refers to a marries noblewoman, nor Dame as that was the propr title for a landholder Banerettess. And is that a bad thing? Not all change is an improvement upon what existed before. That's why somethings end up getting dropped when they don't pan out-such as the Book of the Manor. Then play it. And I think you're dead wrong. If any GM wants to have female knights in the game, they can. Nothing is stopping them. But to do so they will have to sit down, do some research, and figure out how doing to is going to impact their game. That's the same thing a GM has to do when adding any new houserule or other element to their campaign. But if they aren't willing to put in the effort to do that first, then maybe they shouldn't. What it seems like is that you want the designers to alter the structure of society in the game to accommodate female knights. That means they will decide how all the fiddling details work out, how inheritance is supposed to work, how marriages for female knights work, how childbirth affects knight's service (this is pretty much a killer as the enemy isn't going to postpone a war because someone is in the family way), etc. etc. Now once there is any sort of official sidestep of the feudal structure already in place, then it becomes the new standard, and makes it all the more difficult for a GM to diverge from that interpretation. Yup. As have I. But once again, the door is open for those who want female knights in their game, and there is tons or females in armor pics all over the internet for those who want them. There is no reason for Pendragon to go Woke.

Well, if it were up to me, I'd go with Dodge or a difficult (half) Agility roll.But then there are a few things I'd houserule if I were running a modern BRP game anyway. I'm not all that thrilled with how the game handles grenades to begin with, fragmentation grenades in particular. With those grenades it less about the explosion and more about the fragments. Rather than doing 4d6, I'd probably have then do 1d6 hits for 1d6 each or some such. A flak vest is quite useful against grenades.

Yes, however the vast majoirty play the same in fairly similar ways, which is why we shouldn't alter the core rules to cater to a small subset of players who think that we need more rules for female knights. How about the ones that have been used as the primary sources, namely Le Morte D'Arthur and to HRB. Most everything else in the game has been tweaked to be compatible with those two. Yes they are. It's a tabletop roleplaying game. They don't have to. But that doesn't obligate a GM or a game designer to alter things to accommodate them. If a GM was running a RPG where everyone plays female characters and somebody feels "widly uncomfrtable" about doing so, then they don't have to play. And the GM doesn't have to alter the game just to cater to that player. How do you know? Yes people play for different reasons, but that factors into what they play. I doubt anyone who plays Pendragon lives as a medieval serf, or was married off against their will for political reasons. If that is the sort of BS they had to go through in real life then they probably don't want to play a game sent is a feudal medieval culture. THe thing is, no one is forced to play Pendragon or any other RPG. The see a game, and decide they want to try it. If that game was so objectionable in the first place, then they wouldn't have decided to play it. Pendragon has existed more or less the same for over 30 years. Anyone who is going to play it has fair warning as to what it is and should decide if they are okay with that before they decide to play it. If they don't like something then they can certainly work out changes for their group. But that doesn''t mean the game itself should be changed just for them. Pendragon is what it is, and shouldn't be altered to chase after people who don't want to play it. The core ideas behind Pendragon have remained unchanged. It has been and hopefully will continue to be Greg's vision of an Arthruian RPG. Note that Prince Valiant, another Arthurian written by Greg, is different and reflect Hal Foster's take on King Arthur. No, Lancelot is female fanficion, essnetially a "paperback romance". Galahad is church propaganda for the devout. But then pretty much all the main characters are fanfiction by modern standards. Was the world in a different place when 5th edition came out. Look, Greg could have made the game more "unisex" at any time but didn't do so because it didn't fit. He left things up for each GM to decide for themself, because YGMV. But if you alter the core rules to make knighthood unisex, then you take away that choice. To answer it bluntly, why? Why does Pendragon have to evolve? It has lasted all these years becuase people like it for what it is. There are lots of RPGs out there where people can play female knights. D&D springs to mind again. Furthermore, the door has been open to female characters since at least 3rd edtion, and no one needs to change the rules to play female knights. Any Pendragon GM could start up a campaign tomorrow based around a group of female PKs. Nothing in the game prevents that. So why do we need to change the game? And, if we did change the game, we'd have to tackle the economic, inheritance, and social problems that would come from it, specially: Economic: A pre-industrial society can only support so many knights. In fact, that was why the manor system of land management came about. If you have women knights then you need to figure out what those men are going to be doing. Inheritance: Primogeniture is how inheritance is decided. Once you allow for female knights things get much more complicated. Does the first son or first daughter inherit? Maybe the first child? What happens when two knight marry? Historically, Primogeniture came about to stop the cycle or wars over succession whenever a powerful noble died. Put the daughters into the mix and things would be even less stable than they were. If people want to play in a game where everyone is equal then a game where you have a High King ruling over everyone isn't going to be it, no matter what gender the knights are. King Arthur's count is pretty much the poster child for a patriarchy, and the PKs are helping to support it.

Pagans existed in the 5th and 6th centuries and much of the early Arthruian tales are basically pagan. That not a break at all. Medieval people looked at things through a medieval lens. They pretty much retconned Rome and anient Greece into a Feudal structure. It how people like Julius Cesar and Alexander the Great end up being viewed as Knights. Certainly. I'm all for the exception, provide it remains the exception. I think the occasion feamle knight, or other woman warrior is fine for a campaign, and can enhance things. Matter fo fact I have a woman running a female Saxon now, and she is planning on bringing in another woman to replace her and maybe even become a knight. What I'm against is making the setting cosmopolitan with equal representation for all, as that not Arthurian Britain. But they are all over the place in Arthruian Lore. Look at the orgins of characters such as Gawaine, and Kay, or items such as Excalibur and the Holy Grail. All have pagan roots. But turning the dials in the game books changes where the center point lies. It also causes a lot of problems in terms of economics and succession. It takes a manor with hundred of peasants to support one knight. If knighthood becomes open to women then the whole feudal structure is going to need to be reworked. If a GM wants to alter things in their campaign, that their choice, but I don't think the core rules need to be changed to chase after people who aren't interested in the setting in the first place. For contrast look at D&D. Most D&D game worlds tend to be the same, because all have a sort of cosmopolitan society going on - the same cosmopolitan society. If Pendragon gets altered to bring it more in line with modern values then it will just be another D&D. I don't think the questions are sensitive, just some of the people. Honestly, there is no need or reason to change Pendragon from what it is into some sort of modern socialist state. The Arthurian world is not fair and equal. Not everybody get fair representation in that setting. That goes for the 98% or so of the population who aren't part of the nobility as well as women, and foreigners. If they feel exclused from the game then why are they at the table? Look, when I started up my current campaign, I had a female player who wanted to play, and I laid out some ground rules as far as what was permitted in this campaign- that included no female knights -at least at first, and that she would need to play a male knight. If that wasn't acceptable then we wouldn't have played Pendragon. I don't buy into the whole "feel excluded" argument. If someone wanted to play a hobbit would the feel excluded if the GM refused because there aren't any hobbits in the setting? People watch and read and play all sorts of stories where the main characters differ in species/sex/race/social class/color/religion/economic wealth level/political leanings/favotire food/etc. and do not feel excluded. Yes it is a bit of a hodge-podge, athough there is some undelyng unity. Again, I'm fine with what a GM chooses to do in thier campaign, but I don't believe the game should be altered to try and cater to gamers who aren't interested in Pendragon in the first place. Greg could have made the game gender netural back in first edition. He didn't do so becuase it didn't fit the setting. You eliminated pagans? How to you represent Merlin, the Ladies of the Lake, Faeries and other Pagan elements of the setting? It depends a lot of what sources you use. There were (and still are) a lot of Celtic Pagan and semi-Pagan elements in the Arthurian tales as well as in the historical setting. Such elements remain in many of the stories and also explains why some stories make so little sense to modern readers. These elements weren't really a problem in Pendragon until the KAP5 supplements when Arthurian Britain shifted into a mid-late medieval model.

Okay, in that case: 1. Dive behind cover. Can be dome with a Jump roll (or possibly a Dodge roll) with the protection determined by the cover. 2. If you are already some distance away you can drop prone and hope the fragments go over your head. I'd probably use a Luck roll here to avoid getting hit, and probably adjust the difficulty by range as the further out you are the less likely would would be to get hit. 3. Grab grenade and throw it away, hopefully making it someone else's problem. You might want to use a DEX roll here to get rid of it before it goes" boom" or just a hard Throw roll. 4. Find something to cover the grenade with, such as a helmet or a ally you're not that fond of. Get protection based upon what you put onto of it. I'd suggest double damage to whatever gets sacrificed upon the grenade, but probably no damage to anyone else. I wouldn't tie things to the initiative count. Realistically in a grenade lands at you feet right before/during/after you take a shot, you still have a second or two to react. Otherwise you will wind up with player playing all sorts of timing tricks to get the enemy committed to action so that they can't do anything about the grenade. Instead I'd look at it more like a dodge or parry, namely as a reaction to an attack. I'd make it a hard roll, since you only have a couple of seconds to act, but otherwise not worry about intiative counts. Besides, a combat round is 12 seconds, while a typical grenade will explode in only 4 seconds. Well by RAW it goes off off like any other attack- it explosed on the same Strike/DEX rank as it was thrown. It doesn't just sit there for a full round. THat's why I think it's best to make any sort of reaction to the greande a free reaction similar to a dodge, or parry. It depends upon what version of BRP you are using, but I believe the damage droops off a die every so many meters. BRP Gold Book Grenades to 4d6/4m, and drops off 1 die per additional meter. That's actually much kinder than real life, where the drop off would be more along the lines of 1 die per 4m. BTW, the gold book does have rules for diving prone (Dodge to avoid damage, or DEXx5% for half damage).

That latter is a updated version of a 3rd edition idea.

No, no, no, no, no. The whole point of playing any sort of RPG based upon a particular setting is to play in the world of that setting, not in the world of today. If you "modernize" Pendragon to fit the social and cultural views of today (probably close to the views duJour) it ceases being that setting and becomes something else. There are loads of logistical reasons as to why the men fought and the women didn't, and any sort of pre-industrial society cannot support that many knights And while were at it, I doubt anybody today would really want to live in a country where they are rules under a monarchy where they have few to no rights. But we don't turn Arthurian Britain into a democracy (well, unless your writing the play Camelot). Let Pendragon remain true to it's source material. Greg gave very good reasons for why the role of women is what it is in PEndragon and those reasons are as valid today as they were in the past. How does it make the game more accessible? Are modern role-players so inept as role playing that they cannot play someone of another race or gender? I'm pretty sure I'm not an elf, dwarf, hobbit, dragon, or a female, but I've played characters are all those species and genders at one time or another. The whole point of role-playing is to play someone that you aren't. I disagree. All that would do would be to encourage people to play the game as something different than what it is. It would also cheapen any warrior women that do appear in a campaign, as they would be commonplace.

Whoa! Dinner first. More seriously, I have found some of my old notes including my "Critter Fitter" speadsheet that I used to scale animals from nearest analogs. It might be worth alook, especially if I can find where I put the "Weapon Class" stuff for scaling up damage for bigger critters. Oh, and the Superworld SIZ table would be useful to you too, as it can help to turn real world data into game stats based on a creatures mass or weight. Oh the rough rule of thumb is x2 mass = +8 SIZ = +6 STR & +6 CON, and probably -1/2 DEX. But most creature in BRP have STR equal to SIZ.