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That would work, escept that if it functioned like a skill it would almost always get better when low. In BRP terms I think POW and the SAN rules seem to work out the best. Get shot at a lot and you could suffer from shell shock. About the only thing I think it needs is the possibility of a POW gain roll. Don't forget Valorous/Cowardly

I don't think it really should be INT based. Morale isn't "tactical awareness" it's if someone has the will to fight on after seeing their allies get mowed down. If it were about Intelligence then the bright people on one side of a battle would be taking off after the first round. Take a look at right lift combat statistics. Most of the actual fighting is done by a small percentage of the army, while most people either duck behind cover and don't shoot back, or just shoot in the general direction of the enemy. Niether of those things are particular intelligent, but it's not just the dumb people who duck for cover.

One of the things that gets brought up around here a lot is that most BRP games, Pendragon included, have a bit of a learning curve that can make them intimidating to new Game Masters. People feel that if they don't know a lot about Glorantha, the Cthulhu Mythos, or Arthurian Lore, then they feel too intimidated to run RuneQuest, Call of Cthulhu or Pendragon. The BRP Big Gold Book was a similar case. It gave you most of the rules and variants that Chaosium ever did, in one book, which was great for an experienced BRPer, but made it tougher for new GMs, who now had to mix n' match a ruleset before they could start. What Pendragon might need would be some sort of "Pendragon Lite" intro that makes things more approachable to novices. Something like what the original BRP did for RuneQuest. Just cover the basics of rules and setting in a 16 page booklet or so, including a short solo adventure for a squire or newly knighted character. The maybe a short supplement for starting up a campaign, how to adapt things for inexperienced characters, and so forth. Most of us GMs do that sort of stuff automatically, but it might not look so easy to someone new to the game. Unlike many other RPGs Pendragon doesn't come out and tell you what sort of characters are needed for any given adventure, and adventures are not "balanced" in the classic RPG sense (i.e. rigged). In my own campaign, when I ran White Horse, one of my players was upset because the trait tests involved were very difficult for a pagan character to pass. He griped that "The adventure is designed so that I'll fail." I replied "No, it's just not designed so that you will succeed. They are not the same thing." That's something that people coming from other RPGs aren't prepared for, but probably should be alerted to.

Most of the published adventures are two hard for only two knights, especially to starting characters. Maybe there is potential for a supplement designed for starting characters and players? Especially for those who don't want to start back in the Uther Peroid.

I think it sort of harks back to my previous post. Generally speaking, in Pendragon, as well as in most other RPGs, the more interesting and setting specific adventures tend to required more experienced characters and seasoned players. Once it becomes an introductory adventure for novice players with new characters the GM needs to reduce the difficulty, but then risks making the setting seem to easy. It sort of like playing Star Wars and running a new group of PCs into Darth Vader or some other famous baddie. In a straight on scenario, the players will probably get their heads handed to them. If the GM nerfs it so that they can survive Vader, then there is the risk that the players will get the wrong impression about their relative ability compared to such a major character. The Adventure of the White Horse is nice in this regard as most of the major tests are personal in nature with the players success or failure not reflecting upon anyone else. About the only opposition the speak of in the adventure are the knights that force the PKs to joust, and their abilities don't reflect upon anyone else. The overall adventure is so offbeat that the GM could adjust the difficulty without it coming back to haunt the group later.

I'll second White Horse, although the PKs will need to be good horsemen to reach the interesting part. It's nice in that the consequence for failure aren't live and death (for the PKs anyway). It has more of a Celtic feel than a King Arthur feel, and might be a bit hard on new players.

Hmm. It's hard to think of something that works as a good introduction and capture the spirit of the game, and cover romance. Ususally the intro style adventure are set in the earlier Periods when things are more direct and simple. The more interesting Arthurian adventures kinda assume the players are up to speed and their characters are somewhat more seasoned, and would probably chew up a pair of new characters/players. My advice would be to start with the bear hunt introductory adventure from the rule book (print out the hunting tables in advance to make running the hunt easier). If you want to add a more Arthruian feel to it, add something else to it, such as Merlin showing up and sending the squires off on some side quest. You just need to consider the limitations that come wih two inexperienced characters being run by two inexperienced players. There is only so much you can expect them to pull off. Frankly, for what you want, you'd probably be better served with the Prince Valiant RPG. It has the feel you want but is much more forgiving.

Major wounds would be the obvious example. Still, I could see going with HP= SIZ for undead with the idea being that since they are not actually alive they can shrug off a lot of injuries that would incapacitate or outright kill a normal being. In gneral you could probably get away with using SIZ in place of CON for things like major wounds. Bigger body means more flesh and bones to cut through.

I don't, but the outcome of any "battles" or skirmishes that take place during the siege can affect the course of the siege. Only relevant to the specific assault, if at all.Since most siege based fighting is location goal specific (attack a potion, etc.) most fights won't have a decisive outcome in terms of the overall battle. For instance is the knights sally forth and attack the enemy siege engines or supplies and then retreat, their action won't affect intensity per say, but could reduce the enemy's DV and supplies (during a long siege I might start tracking how many man-days/man-week/man-months of supplies each side has), and that could affect how the siege plays out, as might any casualties. The intensity might mater in terms of how thick the enemy is though, and I'd apply modifiers for things like a surprise rally, and the spread out nature of a besieging army (they might start off with only half their intensity and get an additional 1d6 or so), but only if the defender chose to open the gates and fight a pitched battle. My overall approach is to: 1) Run the long term siege using the siege rules, as a sort of backdrop. 2) Add in some events such as sallies, breeches in the walls, treachery that can be played out and will affect how the rest of the siege goes. In my current campaign, which I started very early, in the year 410, and is just now reaching 480, I've had two major sieges. The first was the Siege of Uffington, in 425AD when some knights were sent by Count Salisbury to help Lord Uffington defend against Baron Sparrowhawk of Marlborough. The knights took a roundabout route there (to avoid going through Malborough's lands) and one PK, who was Salisbury's Deputy Marshal, ened up in charge of the defenses when Lord Uffington got wounded. During that siege the PK in charge had to worry about supplies, keeping enough trained soldiers to man the defenses, and keeping the walls intact so as to keep out the much larger attacking army. Player events consisted of a couple of well timed sallies, including one which took out most of Sparrowhawk's siege engines, and throwing back attackers when they assaulted the defenses. In the end the defenders won because they were able to destroy Spaarrowhawk's siege engines and draw out the siege past 40 days, when Sparrowhawk had to start paying his men-something that quickly gets expensive. So he had a costly army that couldn't get past the defenses. Note that this siege was open ended in the outcome. It didn't matter to the timeline, and the die rolls and player actions really determined how this one played out. The second one was the Siege of Aquileia, in 452AD where the PKs found against Attila the Hun under General Aetius of Rome. In this siege Atilla had the upper hand in terms of troops, and Aetius was mostly trying to slow him down. Most of the action consisted of the PKs manning the walls to keep out attackers, and riding to various breaches and trouble spots to try and keep the Huns out of the city. In the end Attila took (and destroyed) Aquileia, but a good number of Aetius' men (as well as the PKs) managed to escape - thanks in no small part to the timely arrival of General Marcellinus who sailed up the Adriatic with some catapults and elephants and surprised the Huns long enough for many to escape the city to the lagoons (where they will eventually found Venice). This siege, in contrast to the first was scripted. That is the outcome was predetermined (by history). The PKs action therefore mostly determine their own fates and glory. While it might have been possible to defeat the Huns or even to kill Atilla - it wouldn't have been all that difficult for my campaign to have Atillia die off in 542 since he dies anyway in 453, it wouldn't have been all that easy. The PKs had a previous history will Atilla, though (their father's helped saved his life) and they might have been able to intercede (something then ended up doing later on at the Pope's request). I hope that helps to illustrate what I meant by mixing in the battle and skirmish rules with the siege rules.

I don't. Id characterstics don't mean much then there is no reason in tracking them in the first place; ever PC having a combat skill over 100% just covers for the weaknesses in the combat system. No, Stormbringer and CoC had already done all of that, years ago.. Elric! just copied and pasted from previous work.

Certainly. It's mostly a matter of opinion and fine details anyway. At one time I used to run a hybrid of RQ3 and Stormbringer. RQ had a lot of stuff that SB lacked, and it wasn't all that tough to port over and adapt the Stormbringer magic system to RQ. And that was pre-Elric!. Post Elric! it would be even easier.

Yeah that is true as far as adventures go. The Romance Period is when GM have the full assortment of story ideas to use in their adventures. With Chilvary and Romaic Love there are more layers to work with. It's also the Period that is probably closest to what most people imagine when they think of King Arthur.

Well all hope. But I wouldn't say the current era has surpassed the early-mid-80s yet. Having stuff "all back home" isn't really true. Sure the company name is the same, but the people running the show aren't the same, nor, sadly, could they be. Oh it started to fizzle out long before that. Most of the problems were due to AH running the show. Okay. I'm still not all that sure I agree with you though. I pretty much consider Elric! to be mediocre all across the board, "tightness" included.

WoW! I guess we disagree on that. I think the Elric! was one of the low points of the BRP rules. A bunch of characteristics that meant little and every PC with a skill above 100% in their primary weapon. I suspect it reached it's apex back in 1985. RuneQuest, Stormbringer, Worlds of Wonder, Questworld, Superworld, Call of Cthulhu, Ringworld, Elfquest, Thieve's World and Pendragon were all out by then. Chaosium was never as innovative as they were up until then. Post 85, Stormbringer kinda faded from the scene only getting occasional support, RQ sort of fizzled out under Avalon Hill, then the RQ4 sex scandal and splitting up of the company into three separate entities, followed by Chaosium pretty much focusing almost exclusively on CoC with the, a occasional reprinted of older stuff. So yeah, a very very long downward slope. It's only relatively recently that Chaosium's been doing innovative stuff again. RQG and CoC7 are both innovative and mark the first real changes to the game system from Chaosium in decades. Almost all of which was sourced from previous products such as Strombringer, CoC, and RQ.

Yeah. The main prblem with the siege rules, IMO, is that sieges are pretty long drawn out boring things where a knight has little chance to make a difference. So to make them interesting and get then to "work" in the game I use the pre-existing siege rules (basically I use the ones from the GPC, but roll for each ring of defense) and marking off supplies/morale as a sort of weekly backdrop, and then spice things up with sallys and breaches in the walls and such. It was a way to handle the breaches in the walls and sallys and such. The idea was that the results of the mini-battle would affect the siege, with the knights reducing the enemy forces, stealing or destroying supplies, taking a tower or ring of defense, or conversely the opposite if they lose. I was wonder if sieges could be handled a bit more like normal combat with opposed skill rolls and a damage roll? Both commanders would roll their battle skill Damage dice would be based upon the commander's skill (say skill/4 in d6?) and how aggressively both sides fought DV would act like armor and/or maybe a shield DV, men, morale, and supplies would act like hit points Just brainstorming here.

I've generally failed back on a mix of early siege rules (Nobles Book/Lordly Domains), the quite rules in the GPC, the battle rules from the Book of Battle (Assault a position, etc.), and some home brew stuff (sallies, supplies, morale). It kinda works, but mostly because I customize things to fit each siege and make it playable. I try to keep in interesting for the player knights with opportunities for personal heroics. Ultimately, I could see siege rules being run as some modifiers and special maneuvers for the standard battle system, probably with an adjustable time scale. I don't have Paladin and have wondered just how much of it would be worth porting over to a standard Pendragon campaign. From what I've seen so far , I think I prefer Pendragon's rules to Paladin's for my campaign, but then I never knew about the "Advanced siege" stuff.

Then just how useful that might be would depend on how much of a penalty was placed upon the broken weapon. If a broken greatspear counted as a spear with a -2 modifier or even -2/+2 it might still be useful when pressed, but not preferable to an unbroken weapon. Perhaps a damage die reduction might be better than a skill penalty?

Which is intrinsically different that what demon represents in Moorcock's multiverse. The Crimson Bat would work nicely in a Moorcock setting, though. Exactly. While it can be done, I'm not sure if it would be worth the heavy lifting. In many cases the GM would have to write out the very elements that make an SB/EC adventure stand out, usually leaving behind a lesser adventure than what you started with. I think your adaptation of Rouge Mistress is inspired, as you found enough Gloranthan analogues to replace the multiverse feel with a Gloranthan one, and the result seems to fit with the setting. I don't that that would be as easy with adventures such as Black Sword. The GM would need to find Gloranthan analogues to the major characters and places, species, and gods/cults in the adventure. Probably the biggest changes would be with the magic. SB magic, especially early edition SB magic is very powerful compared to RuneQuest magic. One bound demon from SB with a wardpact against swords could be a serious threat to a group of Humakti, especially if it has a high POW.

I don't recall seeing many demons in any RQ supplement. Except that a SB sorcerer with bound demons could mop the floor with most Gloranthan characters. Demon armor would make the sorcerer all but immune to Gloranthan weapons, and a demon would would cut though protection spells as a minor annoyance. I think it would take some serious rewriting to get most SB adventures to work

It's an interesting idea, but theEC multiverse and Glorantha are so different that a lot of SB stuff would be hard to adapt. For example, a sorcerer going around with bound demons is not going to be all that popular in the Dragon Pass region, and probably hunted down by the various anti-Chaos cults.. Rogue Mistress might adapt to Glorantha better than most Stormbringer adventures, as it isn't tied to the Young Kingdoms or Tragic Millennium Earth.

According to the hints and statements seen on the net including some videos and statements from members of Chaosium, there will be a new edition, including a new French edition, but we do not know all that much about it, or when it will be released other than it will be mostly the same with some changes Greg had already approved of, and that it will be out when it's ready and not a moment before.

You could go to listen to people from various game companies, ask questions,shop in the vendor's room, catch up with old friends who live to far away to see on a regular basis, or maybe watch anime. Yes, these days all those things can be done without going to the convention, thanks in large part to the internet, but there are still things to be said for face to face meeting. That is probably true of a lot of pre-"RPGs are mainstream" gamers. In the old days it was nice to be able to mingle with people who shared a similar intrest and wouldn't look down upon you for liking SF, fantasy, wargames and RPGs. I'd tend to agree. It's always better to have choices. In my experience it was sort of both ways. On the one hand there were plenty of games to play, on the other about 90-95% of them were D&D. I'd usually go to con to play something else, but since I gamed with the people running the con, I'd end up writing half of the non-D&D adventures and spent most of my time running rather than playing. Amen. I've never gotten to play RQ as when we play it I end up being the GM.

True, but I'd espect most knights to have a sword with them and swords generally don't break. Which a broken weapon would. By RAW it's pretty much as Morien runs it. Broken = "unusable". No so much. A knight could always drop a broken weapon and draw his sword. In fact the weapon breakage rules make the sword very appealing compared to other weapons. MOst players would probably rather fight defensively and rearm than fight with a broken weapon at some penalty and get hit.

That makes sense and is what I assumed was meant. If anything a greatsword would be more likely to break than a sword, not less. The same leverage that makes a greatsword hit harder also works against it as far as breaking goes. It's the same reason why ancient bronze swords tended to be shortswords. Everything else being equal (and everything else never is equal), the longer the blade the more likely it is to bend or break.

Yeah, but the intent would be clear if not for you use of brawling. It would be closer to an improvised weapon. Yup. I could see a little table that you'd roll a d20 on to see how much of the weapon is left that would determine the weapon type, and modifiers. Maybe something simple like half weapon = half skill or some such. Yeah, it's not something that would come up all that often in the game. It would generally mean a knight wielding a breakable weapon without a squire or backup weapon, or the ability to get another weapon.