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Yup. I moved away from D&D becuase I felt that skill based games were less restrictive, and did most things better. Wounds were actually a concern, and even a master swordsman could still be killed by a single hit. I never got into CF becuase to me it was taking a step backwards, to the style of gaming I consciously moved away from. But apparently some people were looking for something halfway between D&D and BRP. LOL!. I didn't. Most D&D settings tend to be knockoff of Middle Earth with modern socio-political beliefs somehow shoehorned in. Or, the modern wester world without the tech, but with swords & sorcery. There are some exceptions to this, but the generic D&D settings are too generic for me. GO for it, it will be a nice shake up. One of D&D strength is that just about anybody can make a D&D supplement, so we can get an almost infinite number of takes and views on things. On of it drawback though is that just about anybody can make a D&D supplement, so we can get an almost infinite number of takes and views on things.

Take a look at some of the posts in this thread, that is exactly what some people want and believe the game must do to survive. I have no problem with there being a female knight in the start set or much anyplace else. I am the same guy who worked with you on the APP/2 idea for courtly skills because I felt female characters in Pendragon get shortchanged. I have no problem with there being one female knight in a campaign, or even a group comprised solely of female knights. That up the individual GMs to decide upon. I've had female warriors (but no knights yet) in my own campaign and frankly the knighthood thing hasn't been much of an issue in the pre-Arthur periods. I have a big problem with altering the rules for what is already a fine game just because supposedly some woman out there will supposedly be too uncomfortable with the setting unless women get equal representation in knighthood. There is no need to change the rulebook to accommodate someone who could just house rule things the way they want anyway.

Yeah I remember that thread. The idea was that a Lady could have some sort of knight protector whom they could run as subservient character to fight off bandits and monsters and stuff while the lady traveled about. If I recall correctly, I think Khanwulf was doing something with the idea. There was also some talk on coming up with more ways to get glory through courtly activities and maybe some sort of Influence points to reflect all that courtly intrigue. Basically to try and give ladies something to do other than flirt and look for a husband. It's tough for lady characters since their best stat (APP) doesn't have any real game benefits, and they don't have any real goals to aspire to, other than to find a knight and raise a family.

Yeah I remember that thread. The idea was that a Lady could have some sort of knight protector whom they could run as subservient character to fight off bandits and monsters and stuff while the lady traveled about. If I recall correctly, I think Khanwulf was doing something with the idea. There was also some talk on coming up with more ways to get glory through courtly activities and maybe some sort of Influence points to reflect all that courtly intrigue. Basically to try and give ladies something to do other than flirt and look for a husband. It's tough for lady characters since their best stat (APP) doesn't have any real game benefits, and they don't have any real goals to aspire to, other than to find a knight and raise a family.

Yes. Yes, and if you read the thread there are people who beleive the game must change to be more female friendly and inclsuive. And that is what they want to change. THe want female knights to be commplace, along with female liege lords. Basically the want to improve modern values of beleivf onto the setting. People don't ususally hold thier passion in check to make sure they are ready to go on campaign, or do they always know when they are going to be invaded. As would I. A knight who goes missing for years would probably come home to find someone else running the manor. Injuries and illness affect everybody and are not things that can be ancitipated, or avoided. As long as they can show up to fulfill their knightly duties then they are living up to their end of the feudal contract. A knight is obligated to be loyal , show up , and do thier duty, not to be successful. Of course such a knight would either prove thier worth through other skills (such as Battle) or get captured and need to be ransomed. Excelt that the feamle knight has all of the above limitations too. The point is if half the knights of the realm are female then the number of knights avaialbe at any given time will generally be less than if the knights were all male. Then there are the risks assocaited with if the female knight does try to fight while in an late state of pregnancy. She probably can't wear most of her armor, and a good spill cost cost the baby. In short it will be a problem for the female knight's liege lord, if said liege lord has a large number of female knights. Again, I don't have a problem with the rules as they stand currently, or with having one or more female knights in a campaign. I have a problem with making Arthurian Britain be more like modern Brtitain.

Healing Rate? Not so much. Most monsters heal up "off screen". It might matter for horses though. I think it is far more ideal than the "ho-hum a giant" we'll get in the future. I've already noticed that monsters really aren't all that much of a threat in KAP. Sure they do lots of damage if they win, but they a real do. Even critical hits aren't pink-mist time, for PKs in the old rules are ties negated damage. Now in the new rules tying with a giant is going to be bad news for a PK. But then why reinvent the wheel and use it to replace the once you just removed? It's much easier for those who don't like the -5 per opponent to just use the old rules. I don't. Big monsters tend to get ganged up on in Pendragon, as adventures rarely call for a dragon, and a group of Saxon raiders to fight at the same time. So it becomes the entire group of PKs vs. the monster and that's pretty much the end of the monster. I think the initiative problem has more to do with how fighting defensively counters "all- out attack". But then, I'm of the opinion that "all- out attack" is broken.

I would be. Speaking of the comics, what are the current best reprints now? I haven't seen the Fantagraphics stuff as much online and there are now some sort of hardcover edition. I would like to restart my PV collection one day and get at least all the Hal Foster strips, but I'm not sure what edition to collect. The strips really are one of the best sources for adventure ideas in an Arthurian or medieval RPG.

It doesn't baffle me. When the show runner actually states that he values the show as a political platform rather than for it's actual merits, you get poor quality preachy TV. Yes, but Pendragon has been and hopefully will remain Pendragon. Otherwise it looses the very things that attracted people to it in the first place.

Yeah, I can see dropping the weapon, but shields are stapped, and between the getting up peanlty, and two reamring penalties it seems a bit harsh. It does favor pagans a bit. That +2 Healing Rate from the religious bonus i going to look pretty sweet. IMO it put that bonus solidly in first place- if it wasn't already there. Yup. That is the intention, I think, but the wording, especially the use of the term "capped' isn't clear. More like it allows a skilled knight to cut down multiple less foes pretty easily, or if they fight defensively. I shudder to think what some of the PKs with Sword 30 can do- if not for their 20 Horsemanship. Overall I think I prefer the current method to the new one. Oh, yeah, and that just make it much much worse. Most monster foes have low skills to begin with. The general idea seems to be that the giant will squash you, if it actually wins. But now four or five knights ganging up on a giant means lots of free attacks! I much prefer the idea of letting the giant split his skill and watch the players sweat it out to see if it rolled than one-in-twenty chance of a critical. Giants are going to be more of a yawn now. And I still say. Yuck. You don't need to scale up CON to make hit points reasonable, you need to to make major wound reasonable, and still do. It's not like that 120 HP dragon is wimpy. All this change is going to do is increase the hit points of anything that counts. Do chargers really need 68 HP instead of 46? I don't believe they do. From what I've seen so far this is the rule change I like the least, although I'm highly suspect of the new passion rules. BTW, is it just me or does every PK in the quickstart have hafted weapons at half DEX? And does that mean what I think it does?

Yup, and I might walk away from it like I did RQG, and like we both did from MRQ. If it just me it wont matter much either. If other walk away too, then it might matter after all. P.S. Nice to see you posting again, bug.

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.