Atgxtg

Yes, somewhat. Only it depends on just how much they are aware of. People, even nobles, don't likethe idea of someone being able to take thier wife away from them, and, if it were a habit, would probably band together against such a ruler. Since Uther's army is mostly comprised of the armies of his vassal, he could easily find himself in trouble if said vassals refuse to support him in this. It then risks turning into a situation of "when will it end" and "my wife/daughter could be next". That's probably why Uther and/or his advisors would try to put the right spin on this. It's much better to paint Gorlois as a rebellious vassal than Uther as an old lech who can't keep his hands off of another man's wife, especially the wife of one of his most pwoerful vassals. That's the sort of thing that led to the Magna Carta. Yes, they were probably quite enthusiastic about it, seeing the battle as a chance for glory and plunder. Remember the common story passed around was that Gorlois slighted the king by leaving court without permission, and then refused to return to court to explain himself. On the surface, Uther is the aggrieved party and Gorlois' is not showing him his due as King and liege. So this was seen as an opportunity.

If you want a potential easier way out of it, you can have the Count get into a money crunch and either need income or more knights for something. THen the PKs might volunteer to give up some manors or keep more household knights to help their liege lord. THe Count can even reward them with postions for thier actions. It's nice because the players aren't forced to give up the goodies, but instead choose to give them away. THen the postions they are rewarded with seem/are nice rewards for the efforts, but won't have the same long term effects.

Certainly. The fact that the true story is documented in various sources suggests that. The problem for Gorlois is that the king "lust looking" is not a valid reason to leave the king's court without permission. It's when the the king makes advances on Ygraine that he crosses the line. But there probably were not a lot of people who witnessed that. Judging from the reaction of the nobles and how they supported Uther once Gorlois failed to return, I think the truth wasn't widely known. Of course it depends on which version of the tale we go by. In some versions Uther died after a battle against rebellious barons, but in Pendragon it is against Saxons.

That was certainly a major factor, but with how the events in the Book of Sires, and Book of Uther play out, it might not have been the only reason. It look like Uther had issues with Gorlois that went back to at least 480 when Aurelius died, and possibly back to 476 or even earlier. However, even assuming that this was mostly due to Uther's lust for Ygraine, it would have been very bad politically for Uther to come out and say that publicly. THat's the sort of thing that can get a king disposed. Even if he isn't, his advisors and friends would know that people are going to ask, and come up with a good answer that serves the King's interests'. Remember that People plead with Uther to give Gorlois a chance to return to court and explain himself, before going to war with him. That really cover's Uther's behind and makes him look like the aggrieved party as well as the reasonably one. Had Gorlois risked returning to court and accused Uther of hitting on his wife things could have gotten very tricky for Uther, but that would have ment Gorlois stepping intot he lion's den. Yup. Considered how many other key figures died while sick or recovering from wounds, Gorlois would just be another drop in the bucket. Maybe all those "Saxon physicians" who kill off nobles in the early years were really Merlin in disguise?

That's true with teh core rule book, but overlooks all the cool stuff that came out in the various Probably not. 6th edition is supposedly in the works, and close enough to completion that all the announced supplements "in the pipeline" are going to be updated to KAP6 rules. So I'd suggest wait for KAP6 unless you want to run with the newest rules, now, in which case get 5.2. But the KAP5 supplements are definitely still worth a look. KAP5 was Greg getting control back of Pendragon after several years of it being owned by Green Knight. The rules are mostly the same as KAP4 but with a lot of editing errors. It really looks like whoever edtited it didn't understand the game, and put in a lot of "common sense" changes to fix loopholes that were actually design features in the game. It's best avoided. 5.1 is essentially a corrected (better edited) version of KAP 5. 5.2 is pretty much the same as KAP5.1 but focused a bit more towards the early peroids of the game. It assumes Uther is King, and Arthur is something for the future. IMO, the stuff worth looking at are the various KAP 5 supplments (all except for the Book of the Manor which can ruin a campaign, and has been mostly superseded by the Book of the Estate). Just how much people like any given supplment varies from Person to person, so it's worth reading the decriiption to see what topics appeal to you. But, as in the past, none of the supplements are vital (The Great Pendragon Campaign comes close to being vital, and tops most people's list for required supplements, but a GM can run Pendragon without it). Also, as in the past, the core game hasn't really changed all that much (and probably won't in the future), so a GM can still run older stuff with the newest rules are vice versa. Who knows? All e really know is that it is in the works, incdlues changes that were mostly dfone by/approved by Greg before his passing, and that all the previously announced KAP5 supplements are going to be for KAP6 rules. Considering the history of the game, I dobut there will be any radical changes, with the biggest differences probably coming in chargen, and possibly making everything consistent with the latter supplements (mostly minor economics stuff- the base manor income has been raised but to base manor upkeep has also been increased, so it's mostly a wash). There are a couple of things that Greg hinted at, like a tiered Chivalry bonus, but we don't know if any of that was finished and going to be implemented in the new rules or not.

Pretty much. One of the things about BRP is that is has a very long skill list, so a lot of skills are not going to be used often, which makes them inherently less useful to the characters. There are so many that is become unreasonable for a GM to expect that the players will be good at all the skills, and has to account for that when designing adventures.. Now both the GM (by adventure design) and players (by character design) get to decide which skills are useful and which aren't. For instance a player who invest a lot of his starting skill points into Sword is expecting to use Sword skill quite a bit in the game. A GM who writes adventures based around skills they know the players lack (for instance an adventure that somehow requires a successful Mineral Lore roll) is setting them up to fail. One of the nice things about combat skills is that they are somewhat interchangeable in an adventure. It doesn't usually matter if the PCs use swords, axes, spear, or maces against the bandits. Just as long as they can fight competently. The advantage of a shorter skill list is that there is a much greater chance of the PCs being competent in any one skill important to the adventure , and less likely that they will lack a skill crucial to the adventure. A secondary advantage is that is also makes it a bit easier for the GM to rotate other skills into an adventure, as there is only a couple of dozen to choose from. The drawback is the risk of characters becoming identical, or nearly so - especially if htey try to mini-max to be most effective. Undoubtedly. But, my main point remains. When resources are scare players will tend to conserve those resources to use towards the things that matter the most. It's why you see a lot more RQ characters with Sword or Spear skill than with Basket-weaving or Pottery. It's not because Swords and Spears are more useful in the setting, only that they are more useful to adventuring characters. You're arguing on both sides here. If award only 3-4XP per session then the player is going to have to decide where to spend those 3-4 XP and thus is either going to concentrate them into 3-4 key skills and so improve quickly, or spread them out over multiple skills and advance much more slowly, and thus fall behind the other characters in his core skills. It's pretty much the same as single classed or multi-classed characters.Of course it depends a lot on how many session get played between improvement rolls too. Possibly. It depends on how many XP you give out, and how often the players get the chance to spend them vs. how easy is is to get check and how often players get to roll for improvement. Generally for a character in a BRP game to get checks in all those skills typically requires multiple rolls with multiple successes, and that's not all that easy for characters until they get good at a lot of things. Not to mention the consequences that go along with failing some of those rolls along the way. One of the ways that XP awards can jump ahead is is long adventures. In a skill check game a character can reach a point where most of the skills he is using are checked already, which virtually caps him out, while XP awards per session can accumulate. That is also one of the ways that lead can to more diverse XP characters, assuming they can't spend more than one improvement per skill at one time.

To some extent. There is aslo a matter of play styles. Things that are easy to do in one campaign, under one GM might be diffiuclt in another campaign, under another GM. 1) That depends on the game being run.Let me give you an example, Some time back when Decipher's Star Trek RPG came out there was someone posting on one of the forums that the game was unbalanced because he could create a security character with nearly maxed out combat skills, and could max them out by third advancement (level) or so. This was pretty much true, but the character was completely useless in a diplomatic adventure. Spo if playing in a D&D style game, the character was a superman, but in a Star Trek campaign more like the TV series, the character was something of a liability. 2) The same is even more true in a XP award system. Basically if a player isn't going to be using a skill why would he waste points to improve it, when he know that he will be using another skill? THen why are you rolling? The idea of a skill roll is that is is required because the situation is important and success matter, and the situation is stressful. My house rule in Pendragon is that s that if it is work rolling for then it is worth a check mark. The write adentures where they are just an important as sword skill. Otherwise they will always go up slower, expeciallyin games where players get limited picks to improve. Except is isn't all that easy in BRP. Typically improvment in one field comes at the expense of others, or with risk. I used to have players who thought that changing melee weapons in combat was a cheap way to get lots of weapon skill checks. What they failed to consider is that changing weapons increases the risk that the bad guys will roll a crit and kill the PC.

Yes, it is an example of cause and effect. If the campaign one one that mostly revolves around combat, then combat skills will get the most improvement. If the campaign uses other skills a lot, then those skills will tend to get improved more. Exactly. That, or in the case of some BRP games, spend a lot of time training. But a lot of that will depend on the GM. For instance, how wasy is is to get a skill check and how much free time characters have to train depend heavily on the GM. I once played in a campaign where the character had a lot of down time travelling from port to port on a ship, and we all had lots of time for training and practice. I've played in other campaigns where we were lucky to be able to squeeze in a week's training. Funny you should mention the James Bond 007 RPG. WE recently started playing that after spending the last year and a half playing Pendragon. One of the big differences between games is just how much control players have over the character's abilities in Bond compared to Pendragon. In Bond you can pretty much build whatever sort of character you want, as long as the points hold out. In Pendragon, you are far more limited in how your starting character comes out. That actually made things a little trickier for my players as they suddenly had a lot more freedom in their character design. - which meant they had to freedom to design characters poorly. Also, while the Bond RPG has far fewer skills than Pendragon, it actually tends to use more skills requiring more diverse characters.

I used them a lot of flesh out the Prequel part of my campaign. I noted some of the events (Pelegian Hersey, Decline of the Roman Empire, the Story of Saint Patrick, the Life of Attila the Hun) and historical figures from those times (General Aetius, Attila the Hun, Germanus of Auxerre, Patricus of Ireland) and found ways to work them into the campaign. It really helped to give structure and narrative flow to the pre-Pendragon phases, especially prior to 439 when the Book of Sires kicks in. I just managed to reach 480, and, per previous request, will post a thread about playing through the Book of Sires, in GPC fashion as opposed to using it for Family History. I will try to point out the hurdles I encounter, how I approached some things, what ideas worked, what ideas didn't work, what I would do differently if I were to do it over, and so on. I short, I can't praise the Book of Sires enough. While there are a few errors in it, and I had to alter a few things due to story flow, necessity, or just personal choice, it's invaluable for giving the GM an official timeline and structure to work with. This is a huge help as almost all the events have alternate versions and dates, and Sires wades though that minefield to form a workable timeline. Even when I chose to divert from Sires for some reason, Sires still gave me something to divert from. It's like a musical solo, it only really works well when there is a solid underlying song to divert from. Without the rest of the song, it just a cool lick.

I've been there, in reverse. In one game Mordred took a viscous critical where he took close to max damage, and was deep into negative hit points. Luckily he was doing something good at the time, along with the PKs and so got saved by the Grail, but it was tricky. As for your situation: 1) Madoc's survival isn't a big deal. He really only needs to die to clear the way for Arthur. It's simpler for you if he dies before Uther, but he doesn't have to. My suggestion would be to kill him off at Saint Alban's. Either during the battle or as one of the many who fall to treachery later.Alternately,he could die sometime before that (in battle, a hunting accident, or maybe in revenge by Gorlois retainers).If you really want to have some fun with this, you could have him live and succeed Uther, only to die before 510. Maybe he falls against the Saxons trying to hold onto Hampshire? Or maybe he falls like Nanteloed, after a somewhat successful campaign. Or maybe he even lasts to 509, and has to be "put out of the way" by Merlin to clear the way for Arthur. Heck, you could even have him around in 510, draw the sword, recongize Arthur as his younger brother, and then fall in one of the countless early battles. It all depends on how much you want to play with thew timeline. In the long run, you know where you are arnd where you want to end up, how you get there is up to you. 2) As for Gorlois, he's a non-issue. He has been declared a traitor by King Uther (where rightly so or not is another thing, but to those who aren't aware of the details he certainly looks guilty) and can be executed for it. Since Uther want's Ygraine, and he can't marry her as long as she is married to Gorlois then that is the most likely outcome. Now Uther might offer to spare Gorlois (in recognition to her past service to Aurelius) if he annuls his marriage to Ygraine on some pretext (that happened back then), but it seems a bit out of character for Uther, especially the Book of Uther version of Uther, and Gorlois would turn down the offer anyway.. SO it's probably off to the chopping block for Gorlois. And probably more whispers by those in the know (Intrigue) about the whole affair, probably undermining Uther's kingship a bit more. Really, the longer Gorlois lives, the more trouble for Uther, so best to get this over with ASAP.

There are four reasons why you can't do it and why it isn't mentioned in the book: 1)The main reason why you don't find it in the book has a lot to do what what "being inspired" means. It's not just some roll you make to get a +10 bonus, but instead represents a character being driven to great deed by some all consuming passion - and you can't be totally devoted to two passions at the same time. One or the other wins out. You can't very well be consumed with you Hatred towards Saxons, your Love of God, Loyalty to your Liege Lord, and Amor to Lady Elaine all at the same time. They are mutually exclusive states. Now what I could see is someone who is inspired having another passion take over, for example if a character inspired by Hate (Saxons) sees his Liege Lord dropped by a French mercenary roll and switch inspirations to Loyalty (Lord) to try and save his Liege, and possibly upping his bonus if he criticals. But he would still be under the effects on one passion. 2) The second reason is that it's basically the same effect and bonus. Much like how you can't lie across two horse to stack the mounted benefits. 3) Common sense. It wasn't mentioned because as the first two points show, it doesn't make any sense. 4) As mentioned by others, it would quickly make the game unplayable. Everybody has passions and the standard game mechanics break down past 38, and double or triple inspired characters would quickly get into the automatic critical range. A fight between two ultra inspired characters at skill 40+ is deadlock.

Yes, the idea of someone with a "magnetic personally" has a high POW. In RQ3 APP worked because RQ3 had categories modifiers which increased the skill scores as well as the rate that the skills improved. But most of the BRP variant games such as Elric! and Call of Cthulhu dropped category modifiers, making APP pretty useless. The few uses for the stat that remained something didn't make sense. For instance the limit on bound magical created made some sense when it was CHA based (it was how many such creatures you could win over or intimidate into obdience) but seems silly with APP (does a fire elemental care if the summoner is cute?).

Not if they are using skills other than combat skills - and that depends a lot of the GM and the stype of adventures being run. If every adventure is something that comes down to a fight, and other skills aren't used, then yes combat skills will run away from the other skills, but if the game is gonig that way the same will certinaly be true in a XP award system, since the combat skills will be so much more important than the other skills. No one will spend XP to raise a skill such as Jump if they are't going to use it. Only if other skills aren't being used. Again this problems would be more pronounced in a game using XP awards, as players won't spend XP on skills they don't use. Your the first I've ever heard claim so. Not only that, but this statement seems to contradict you previous 2 points. If only combat skills are going up and the other skills are lagging behind, then then how did their mage, their and alchemist skills go up? Pendragon uses a mix of skill checks and selected improvements with it's chargen, winter training, and glory awards. What tends to happen is that players improve rapidly in the key skills for a knight (Sword, Lance, Horsemanship) and one or two other useful skills (Courtesy, Awareness, Hunting, First Aid, Tourney etc.) with the other skills (Religion (various), Read (Language), Swim generally going up slowly as they get used in play. The core skills tend to slow down once they hit 20 (100% in BRP), and the players will start to work on secondary and other skills once their core skills are maxed out or nearly maxed out. I think that has something to do with how skills work in BRP games as much as how improvement is handled. Generally speaking, players don't want to fail, and so avoid making skill rolls for skills below 10 (50% in BRP). In other games, difficulties are often scaled. So someone who has Boating +5 in a D20 game can row across a pond with an easy (TN 10) roll most of the time. With BRP games, such situations sometimes have a skills modifier or even a difficulty multiplier but more likely do not, or the modifier isn't as significant a factor. For instance a character with Boating 25% in BRP who doubles it for a easy roll is still failing half the time. This tends to make low rated skills practically useless, and something only used as a matter of last resort. For example, a character trapped on the third floor of a burning building might use Jump 20% to reduce the falling damage, as it a better than nothing, but the same character probably isn't going around jumping over hedges. Since character lives tend to depend more on combat rolls than other rolls, characters usually concentrate any awards into those skills.Skills with a nasty downside (Swim, Bomb Disposal) are particularly avoided when low. Now the skill check mechanics help somewhat with this, as characters who do get stuck relying on a low skill that succeed tend to improve a little. For example a knight in Pendragon who repeatedly gets called upon to tell a story (Orate skill) should eventually become competent as doing so even if he never devotes any practice towards the skill.

It's your choice. Ah, basically the old "skill check hunting" argument.Interesting, except that RQ and BRP games always noted that skills had to be used in stress situations and that the GM was the abriter of what merited a skill check or not. So someone going around making a bunch of frivolous jumps wouldn't work, so no check. Well, it should be easy to spot with an experienced group. My argument is that as improvement roles become scarcer, the more likely players will spend them on their key skills, becuase they improve their chances of survival. A PC is better off with Sword 80% than Sword 40% and Axe 40%. IN BRP, depending on circumstances, players tend to pick up the odd check here and there in a skill that they didn't want to use but were stuck using. But again, it's a matter of preference. Yeah. Personally I'd consider altering the skill bases (say Attribute+10% or Attribute x2% instead of the flat 20%), but even that isn't a huge difference. Okay, so you still have high tech skills that can be used for the job, just not those specific skills. Sounds good to me. I was more concerned about making everything high tech, and losing out on some low tech obstacles.

THe reason why it isn't a middle ground is becuase someone is still choosing. Therefore all advancement is by choice. It depends on how many increases they get. The fewer the awards the more likely those awards will be put towards key skills. Look at some experienced Mythas characters compared to similarly experienced BRP characters and the Mythas characters will tend to be more narrow focused. It's practically a mathematical certainty, since such characters will, on average, get fewer checks, since the GM awards a certain number.

I've toyed with the idea of eliminating attributes and replacing them with a merit/flaw system. The idea being that the vast majority of people are average, and we don't need to track average stats. Everything not average would be a merit or flaw., for example, a character who is strong, could get a +1d4 damage bonus, possibly a +5% increase to certain skills, and lifting.

Eeek! One of the illuminated! Send for the Storm Bulls!

Okay PM me an email and I'll dig it up. You'll need to go over them and probably correct a few things but at least it will give you something to work with.

Floats and rolls. I wonder how many weeks some magician had to sleep to pull that off!

In game, the Book of Sires is probably your best source, although it doesn't ge into year by year detail until 439, it does note major events prior to that. Wikipedia isn't all that bad for a year by year synopsis either. If it helps I did up a set family history tables that cover 410-439, based upon something Khanwulf sent me sometime back. There are a few errors on the table, it's customized for my campaign, and it's not in Book of Sires format, but it's something.

"Our way of hiding in plain sight?" Arghh, you and your Nysalor riddles!

That's not really a middle ground. Let me try to clarify what I mean: In a game with skill checks, the skills that a character improves in are determined mostly by what a character does in the game. In a game where the players are given improvement rolls as a reward for play, then the skills that a character improves in are determined by choice, and limited by number of rolls awarded. That means that a character in a skill check system will tend to improve organically, getting better at the things he or she does. But in a award system (XP) the character will tend to improve only in those things that they (or the GM for a GM assigned pick) choose to improve. This will lead to the character focusing on a handful of key skills to the exclusion of everything else. For instance if a character is supposed to be a warrior, and he is normally awarded 3 checks per session, then he will probably improve his primary melee weapon, primary parry, and primary missile weapon skill each session. Improving anything else comes at the expense of improving one of the big three skills. The end result is very similar to a class based RPG, as anyone who diversifies does so at the expense of their primary skills. Once improvement rolls become resources, they will be treated as such. Maybe this could be broken up in a critical success granted a character a bonus skill check that was outside the normal XP awards? That way the number of improvement rolls would be about the same, and the odd critical would lead to characters improving other skills, either become they got a bonus check in that skill, or one in a primary skill, giving them a "free" check to assign elsewhere.

Yes, but has already been pointed out APP doesn't do much. Compare the benefits of STR 18 in most BRP games ,to those of APP 18. STR 18 is far and away more useful. However in real life APP 18 probably does more for you.

Yes, but it often has no actual effect on play, and it often should. Let's face it, a gorgeous looking character is more likely to talk another character into doing something because they are gorgeous. I'm of the option that if a characteristic has no impact on game mechanics it can, and probably should be, dropped. People can just as easily choose their character's appearance. Yes, it will probably lead to the character being better looking that the norm, but that is sort of self correcting (if everyone is drop dead gorgeous, then looks have less of an effect) and certainly fits in with a cinematic campaign style. After all, we end up tracking lots of data for each character, we don't need to track stuff we won't use. Either that or give the characteristic some actual game use.

That's your choice as the Gm/Designer. I prefer the other direction as I think the XP method leads to what is essentially character classes, with any imporment in a side skill coming at the expense of the main skills. But again, your game, your choice. So the benefit of high Characteristics is solely in terms of improvement. You might want to keep the door open for the low tech approach. You never know when someone might have something done the old way. In a recent game I ran, the PC were going to check out a warehouse. One of the characters is a IT specilaist, and managed to dig up all sorts of information on the warehouse online, including building plans, and access to the warehouse's inventory program via WIFI. Then, their "intrusion specialist" got past the door,...and nearly stepped into the dog's water dish. I was a great moment to play out. THey group were all confident in thier high tech, but overlooked the idea of a guard dog. Turned out the dog was just a pet and went home with it's owner after hours, but that water dish completely altered how the players handled the warehouse.