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You're joking, right?

Not unless you want to. Remember I just respnded to your claim that the game was perfect as is, and inquire as to what possible changes could be needed. Greg himself never considered Pendragon to be perfect, and always said there was room for improvement, and the he was planning for a new edition. You seem to think that someone is going to run roughshod over Greg's game. In fact, everything that has been offically propsed is stuff that Greg himself had approved. No, it's been that way since 3rd edition! Per KAP 3 page 104: Deterioration: The result when an unhealthy character fails to receive successful chirurgery. 1d6 damage is inflicted from deterioration every week, at the same time as natural healing, on Sunday at noon. This is reinforced by the section on natural healing on Page 106, which has basically remained the same ever since. So if a character has a major wound, he still gets his natural healing. Really, look at the rules. Yes, and PKS don't make atheltic movements. Knights don't sneak around, they do go climbing that much, or jumping about. No they don't always wear armor. But they are not going to go around sneaking all that much either. Maybe a knight might have to climb and sneak during the romance peroid at times to see his armor, but that's hardly justification for DEX by itself. Implementing changes that Greg already worked on and approved of is a turn off? Honestly you were turned off long before this stage, and don't even seem to want to address points such as Greg wanting a new edition and wanting to improve the game, and that everything coming down the line from official sources is all Greg approved changes.

Apologies, to Mister David Larkins, I'll edit the post. I didn't. But since none of that is in the core rules it causes a big discrepancy. The table in 5.2 harks back to KAP, and should be updated. At least as far as married manors not necessarily staying with the husband, and passing down to heirs. In the old days, I had PKs with half a dozen manors. Pendragon can be rather difficult for a GM just to work out where to find a given rule. Everything is spread out over multiple books that often contradict each other. Some sort of standardization and internal consistency would help.

Amen! KAP5s situation left it's supplements as sort of ad-hoc stuff, and stuff that got fixed (or messed up) in a supplement never made it way back to the rest of the line.

No. Per KAP 5.2 page 150 Natural healing occurs at noon every Sunday (within game time): At that point in time, the character regains a number of hit points equal to his Healing Rate. and on page 151 Deterioration affects only unhealthy characters that do not receive a successful Chirurgery roll during the week. Deterioration causes the loss of 1d6 hit points per week (no wound is recorded, and First Aid cannot help). As with natural healing, this damage occurs on Sunday at noon. The net result of the two hit point adjustments may be a gain in hit points, a loss, or nil. What other rule change do you want me to back up? The game has changed quite a bit over the years. It's just that Greg did so carefully and gradually, and kept most of the core elements. The differences between KAP1 and KAP 5.2 are not as radical as say, the differences between Original D&D and D&D 5E. I ran KAP1 and my players recall how much the game has changed. They remember having to spend a few years getting thier Loyaly (Lord) up so they could qualify for knighthood; they remeber when Valor rolls ususally left one or two knights facing a big monster; losing out with a crtical success to a higher roll; getting an income of £2 per year; defeating a knight and getting 1/10th his glory (and the rampart glory escation that came with that); having to make Custom and Langage rolls; rolling Battle instead of their much higher sword skill in a battle. Not according to Greg Stafford. He put a caretaker in charge of the game moving forward so the game could move forward. Greg didn't write all the supplements or come up with all the things that have been added to the system over the years. Just read the credits on the various editions and supplements. Greg did not zealously keep others from Pendragon, he encouraged them to try and improve the game as best they could and would gratefully accept anything that would improve the game, even if someone else came up with the idea. If you want to repsect Greg's legacy should you repsect his wishes? Greg wanted Pendragon to continue to live and grow as a game and for the various changes which he already had planned to include into he game be included.It was Greg who appointed David Larkins the creative director of the Pendragon line. Greg wouldn't have done that if he did expect David to create (thanks Morien ) Yes ans all things that Knights, the primary characters of the game don't do. How often do the knights climb and sneak in your campaign? Mine almost never, especially in armor. Yes, which means that to play in the time of King Arthur a GM needs to get the GPC. One of the things Jeff mentioned is that a GM won't have to go out and buy a 500 page supplmentto run the game. Yes and that forces players to buy additional supplements to get the full campaign, and the full rules. If someone wants plate armor for late in the game, or stats for a horse type not listed in the core rules, he needs to buy a supplement. Keep in mind that most of the changes mentioned by fans here are changes that are already part of the game and Greg approved. The ecomonic system from the Book of the Estate and Book of Warlord went through GReg, as did the updated fortification rules, and the new magic system. So no one is is advocating any changes that were not things that wouldn't have happend in Greg was still with us. Well then I guess it's a good thing you didn't even converse with Greg. Greg always though Pendragon had room for improvement. Greg was always tinkering with the rules (and some times he mistepped, such as with the Book of the Manor). Most of the changes that you like in the latest edtion were thuings that came about after changes were made to the game in supplements. That's why the knight's manor went from £6 income to £10 in 5.2. The random wife dowry and childbirth tables certainly do. Even Greg thought so (he approved a replacement for the former, which is in the Book of the Entrounage, and posted a variant of the latter). As written in the core rulebook, knights just marry, get a manor, kill the wife through childbirth, remarry get another manor, kill the new wife, wash, rinse, repeat until they are a barrette. Now most of that was fixed in the supplements, but didn't make it into 5.2, which is mostly 5.1 with a facelift. (5.1 is mostly KAP 5 with tons of corrections to undue eroors that cropped up in it). Look I guess where you're coming from. I think we all do. Nobody wants the game to be radically revamped and given the sort of overhaul that new editions of game seems to get these days. If Chaosium does a hack job with new trendy rules, throws out the default cutlure for something more acceptable to mainstream gamers, or something like that, I'll drop it as fast as you would. And be quite vocal about why. I dislike what I've seen of RQ4 and hate MRQ1, and have made that quite clear both here and on the Mongoose forums. If the new edtion "isn't Pendragon" I'll fight the good fight along side you. But so far, that's not what's being said. It's mostly incorporating changes that have already been approved of by Greg, and in many cases already implemented in existing supplements, and making things consist across all the books. For instance, currently cuirbouillil has a protection value of 6 in the core book, 8 in Knights & Ladies, the Book of Battle, and and the Book of Armies all Greg books), and is implied to be back down to 6 points, in the Book of Uther, by the Hauberk. Giving it the same value in all of the books wouldn't tarnish Greg's legacy, would it?

I empathize with your position, but that pretty much applies to everything that people do for money. The gas station attendant, the paramedic, the policeman, the lifeguard. They are all getting a paycheck for what they do. Yeah, especially as roleplaying is a form of social interaction among friends. It's like renting a friend. But, I've been to conventions where strangers play and in some of them the GM are paid (not much) to run. And the GMs do the lion's share of the work in most RPG groups.

Oh, I'll worry, but I figure Greg left them in charge for a reason. This isn't like with MRQ when Greg leased out RQ and Glorantha, it's more a case of his picking a caretaker. So far no one's messed it up, and I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt. But I'll always be worried, since Greg isn't around to take care of Pendragon. Doubly so considering I'm not a fan of RQG-so the potential for KAP to go on in a direction I don't like is there.

Sorry, that's just not true. Here are some of the differences between the editions and the game now: Attributes have changed from 3d6 to various other methods, with SIZ being the most changed between editions. Originally a critical success lost to a higher successful roll. Originally someone who was critically inspired always doubled their skill, instead of double or +10. Culture and Custom skills have been removed. Characters who needed chirurgery did not get their healing rate when the chirurgeon failed. Starting cultural skills have changed for the various cultures multiple times, and the culture special skills, luck tables and womens gifts have all been altered and replaced. Armor types, shield types, and their protection values have changed. For example there was not reinforced mail in first edition. Gothic Plate went from 16 points (KAP1) to 18 points (KAP5) to 21 points (Knights & Ladies). Several weapons have been altered over the editions. The method of determining glory awarded has changed considerably, as have the fame categories. Religious bonuses have been altered and new religions added. The battle system has been changed multiple times (in KAP1 you didn't even roll your weapons skill when fighting in a battle). The combat tactics were added to the game, and the two handed strike removed. Overall the power level of the characters has increased. Look at Arthurs stats between the editions. But nothing about Arthur or his era is in the core 5.2 book. KAP3 started mid-campaing to give you the feel of king Arthurs reign. KAP 5.2 starts earlier and adjusts things to the time of Uther, but doesn't go into Arthur or the story much at all. No AP isn't critically important at all. Glory, Courtesy, Flirting and other skills and traits are. APP doesn't factor into any of that. Marry up in station has more to do with impressing the girls father than the girl herself. And even impressing the girl is tied more to the skills and traits than to APP-which doesn't actually have a use or affect a single die roll. SIZ is more useful to a knight who wants to marry well that APP ever is. No it isn't. Can you give me some examples? The only thing that knights tend to use DEX for is to avoid being knocked down when they are afoot. Dex doesn't affect the invite order, as in other BRP games, and the armor worn by knights prevents them from doing most of the other things DEX is rolled for. Except he didn't design it alone. If you look at every edition after the first, Greg brought in other people to help with it. They did indeed make tweaks to the rules, and that's why the game has evolved over the years. At one time Greg contacted me to help with the Book of Castles. It's in someone elses hands now, but Greg wasn't writing the game alone. Even the core opposed roll mechanic came from someone else. Greg noted that he originally had a table to handle the rolls until some else came up with the "blackjack" method that Greg adopted.

Quite a bit. For starters the game is called King Arthur Pendragon yet King Arthur doesn't appear in the game book. Everything is geared towards the time of Uther. Next is the fact that several of the rules have been updated in supplements and it would be nice if everything was consistent. For instance the rules for handling the manor or generating the skill of a NPC retainer shouldn't vary depending on which supplement you happen to own. First off which edition of the rules are you playing with and which supplements are you using? Depending on what you are using I can think of several things that need fixing. Off the top of my head, some of the stuff I'd like to see: the glory awards for titles, incomes and ransoms adjusted to match the current awards and rules in the latter supplements. The stats for various types of armor being made consist throughout all the books. The tiered chivalry bonus and similar bonuses that Greg had been working on Sword breaking non-swords be limited to natural ties. As it is an expert spearmen facing an expert swordsman has a better chance of getting his spear broken that a novice spear man would. APP actually being used for something in game other than distinct features and soaking aging losses-or, alternatively removed from the game. As it stands it is the ultimate dump stat. DEX made somewhat more useful. The DEX penalty from armor modified so that it i actually serves a purpose. As it stands the penalty just lowers the PKs DEX to the point where they don't even attempt a DEX roll. IMO a lower DEX penalty that also applied to, say, fatigue rolls, would be a plus. A reason for players not to max out their SIZ for every player knight. The Hunting rules all contained in one section instead of being split between sections. The return of various stuff from previous editions that haven't made their way into the current edition, like the rules for fortification, prices for latter period gear, a description of the various Periods of the game, getting an audience at court, trained mount. The return of some form of the double feint tactic. Of course all that being said, it's easier to screw things up than improve them, but hopefully the person that Greg left in charge will see that the game is properly cared for.

I think that's a bit extreme. The rules have been altered slightly with every new release, and it sounds like much of what is being done is stuff that Greg had already green lit. I'm taking a wait and see attitude towards it. If they clean up things, fix some of the errors, and make everything consist it wouldn't be all that bad, would it?

Pretty much. I think that's sort of why the anarchy lasts as long as it does. Everyone is weakened after St. Albans, and nobly feels ready to commit to an all out, so they bide thier time and form alliances. Then after a few years some factions start to move, but are countered by other factions. By the time Arthur arrives, the whole thing is a giant powderkeg just waiting for a spark, and Merlin rolls out Arthur, the equivalent of a thermite grenade.

Yeah, that does seem pretty definitive. Seems like they will have sections for each period with the new stuff that gets added and such. This could be the reason for the lack of any releases , they might be bringing all the new stuff up to 6th edition rules. It could be epic if everything get's cleaned, up, clarified, and made consistent between books.

Yup, after a point it makes it harder for Arthur to find an people to lead. I mean if the Saxons unite in the 498 and roll over the county and Arthur has to start and Tintagel and work his way out, it becomes somewhat harder to believe and even more magical. Long before that, though, it will become problematic for the GM, who will have to make some significant diversions to keep things on track. I'd be hesitant of letting the Saxons get too unified, or any one Saxon kingdom get too powerful, as it could lead to their "rolling up Logres" before 510. Although, at least with Aelle, he probably won't take over his allies. He seems to be the most trustworthy of the Saxon kings -mostly due to a lack of association with Hengest. Yup. It comes down to how much the GM is willing to diverge from Mallory and the GPC. There are legends that place Arthur in every other part of Britian, and a GM could just pick one of those alternatives and go with it. A Cambrian Arthur, who makes make Caerleon his Camelot, and moves the" Sword in the Stone" to Glevum/Gloucester.

I think a lot of that, towards then end is because the Saxons realize that they need to start banding together now that the Brits are getting their act together. Now yes, it's possible that Sussex takes over Wessex, but I don't think it's a sure thing just because Sussex, Silchester and Salisbury attack. Cerdic would hav e to commit to a battle for that to happen, and I think the most likely outcome would be rading and skirmishing. Probably becuase he is older, more established king, and not tarnisehd with a reputation fortreachery. Yup., although things can only go so far to esnure that the main timeline can be continued. If the Saxons overrun the place before Arthur appears, things could go very differently. If London falls Merlin would probably need to move the Sword in the Stone elsewhere.

He's not a great leader or reponsible for his victory as first. That's the point. . Part of the narrative of the sources is that Arthur is in way over his head and doesn't have the ability to win those battles. Arthur's early victory have little to do with Arthur (who is mostly ineffective or messes up when he does act-for instance he almost gets killed by Pellinore and only survive because Merlin puts Pellinore to sleep). Badon is really where Arthur starts to get his act together and the Conquest Period is when he comes into his own as a leader. But prior to Badon, Arthur wins only because someone better steps in and helps him. Which kinda makes sense. A 15 year old squire is hardly going to have the skills required to win multiple battles and run a kingdom.

Actually Greg did write differnt things at different times, and, so did the old writers. Depending upon which version of Pendragon you use Merlin is either a Pagan Archdriud, or a Christian ArchDriud, or a Grail Christian Archdrud. And as Morien points out, his parentage is suspect, depending upon which origin story you go with. And even if Merlin is a Christian, he isn't necessarily a good Christian. Yes, esenntially with a scripted batle the modfies are predetermined in order to give the scripted results. If you use the Book of Battle with instead of the Battle System in the core rules, you will want to reverse the modifiers, and apply them to intensity, as lower intensity is better for the PKs. Yes he is. I think in the GPC Greg modeled Uther heavily off of the version from the film Excalibur, and BoU makes him even worse. I think he was made that way to contrast him with Arthur, the "good king." IMO though, I think they made him too terrible. He comes off as only marginally better that Vortigern. His only redeeming features are that he is a brave warlord, and that his is loyal to his trusted friends -as long as they don't have pretty wives. I do think the "Merlin Abducted My Baby" thing was a sham to draw attention to Merlin, who flees Britain, and away from where Arthur was being raised by Sir Ector.. In most sources Uther is quite aware that Ector is raising the lad.

His, or allied? It's also a matter of logistics. It costs to keep an army in the field. If Ulfius has to field an army for more than 40 days then he will have to pay for it. THe "pay" received by solider past the 40 day limit isn't "overtime", it's upkeep for the soldiers and their mounts. Keep an army in the field for too long and the effect ends up being as bad as if you got raided yourself. It's like paying tribute. If it costs more than what you would lose if raided, then why pay it. Just get raided instead. If Aelle pushes too hard, he risks the Brits rethinking this whole alliance thing. He could try but, does he have them over a barrel? I mean based on your description Ulfius is the key figure to the whole thing, and Aelee probably couldn't force more out of him without risking Ulfius allying with someone else and taking Salisbury with him. There is typically a limit to the amount of time you can spend on campaign. It isn't just a matter of rights, but also of logistics. An army on the march gets very hungry and can eat up all the food in an area pretty quickly. Plus again, everyone else is going to find out about this eventually, and realize that Salisubry, Silchester and Sussex are all under defended, and decide to attack them while thier leaders off off in Wessex. That is one of the main reasons why the Saxons don't take all of Britain during this time, or why the Brits can drive the Saxons out. No one can turn thier back on a neighbor for very long. If you really want to have Aelle conquer Wessex you can, but that would probably upset the status quo, and leave Aelle the big player at the table.

I think it looks bad for Wessex. Probably not very bad though. Cerdic will probably get raided, or maybe lose a minor battle -- possible pay Aelle some tribute at the worst. The thing is while three against one sounds bad for Wessex, in reality, everybody is still weak from St. Albans, and they all still need to keep some soldiers at home to defend against raids from others. They can barely hold onto the land they have so I can't see them trying to take over Wessex as it would leave their home counties too vulnerable.And there is only so much Aelle can do in 40 days. Meanwhile Wessex, while of the defensive can have a greater number of it's warriors ready to defend, since it is their home territory, and they benefit form any fortification they have, and can be expected to resist for as long as it takes.. So probably Aelle & Aliies get to do some raiding, skirmish a bit, but not much more than that. But then, that;s probably all they really want.

Especially when most PKS will start with a 15. In my campaign the players rapidly work to get their primary weapon skill to 20. This eliminates the chance of fumbling (barring modifiers), and ensures that they get the 6 points of added protection from their shield. Of the 10 player characters in the game, 7 use sword as their primary melee weapon, one uses a great axe (but appears to be migrating to greatsword), one alternates between sword and mace, and the last uses a magical spear that doesn't break. But after seeing what happens to axe and spear wielding NPCs, most of the players stick with sword and shield.

It is overpowered. Deliberately so. Pretty much all of the weapon bonuses are overpowered or have exceptions or reasons to alter them. For instance mail with padding is actually pretty good at soaking blunt impacts. BTW, all metal weapons do exist in K&L, but with a peanlalty. Well the rules are pretty simple, each weapon has a Weapon Quality (WQ). When the combat rolls tie, the weapon with the lower WQ checks for breakage first. If if doesn't break then the one with the higher WQ checks for breakage. That's about it. I've got a table of Weapon Qualities somewhere. A spear was WQ 13 (so it didn't break on a 1-13 on 1d20) a sword WQ15, and a shield WQ17. It's tricky to port over due to the combined attack & parry and higher crtical chances in Pendragon. Well in the real world the advantage mostly goes away if the combatants have shields, or the swordsman is armored. That's something Morien raised eariler and a good reason not to change things much, since PKs will be shielded and/or armored. Also, realistically, once in close, the spearman would drop the spear and draw a shortsword or knife. Exactly. What tends to happen is the swordman hits the speartip with his shield and just rushes up. The spearman usually can't recover fast enough to maintian the advantage. If you are really keen on seeing how this plays out look up Lindybiege's Long version of his Spear vs. Sword video. He kept score and it shows both how good the advantage is, and how quickly it goes away. It also shows just how much of an advantage spear are in formation. Well in the RAW there in the uncontrolled attack which does just that. The character takes the hit and if he can still attack he does. Yes but the +10 pretty much prevents the spearman from hitting. I think you'd be better off if you gave the spearman a bonus until they close. Something like the +5/-5 advantage. Then the swordsman could either fight normally, with a disadvantage, fight defensively with both at +5, or do an uncontrolled attack to close but take the hit. That would seem to give you exactly what you are looking for with very little rule changes-just a +5/-5 reflexive modifier. LOL! THat's what I meant before about a GM being hesitant about a change. Often the first idea that seems good doesn't work out as intended. It why I try to think things through before introducing a rule change. That way I don't have to change it again if it doesn't work out. Certainly. There is a thread about that in the RQ section. But unless they were in formation the Pike quickly become unwieldy. Exactly. You want it simple, and you want it to give you a particular sort of result. IMO either the evasion rules or a flat +5/-5 reach bonus to the spearman have a chance of accomplsihing that. BTW, if it helps, giants can ingore the +5/-5 from a lance change due to reach. Well historically, if the knights were on foot, they wouldn't really hesitate. Armor and shield will soak the hit -at least long enough to get in close. The spear is more intimating against mounted opponents, since a set spear could prove nasty. Unfortunately horse damage hasn't kept up with character damage over the years. Back in KAP 1 the typical knight did 4d6 or even 3d6 and a charger doing 6d6 was impressive. Now the typical knight does 5d6, and many do 6d6-the same as the charger! Horses need about a 2d6 increase in damage to keep lances dangerous like they used to be. Now if the spearman could do 8d6 with a set spear, the knights would hesitate. Alternately, if the spearmen attack the horses rather than the riders, then the knight could risk loosing their mounts. In fact it's actually tough to get the horses to charge spearpoints because horses aren't stupid. Now just to raise a realsitic objection here, one of the reason why Greg didn't include that in the game is because most spearmen are not disciplined enough to keep in formation when charged. I think that is one of the reasons why the special elite units that pop up in the Book of Armies have great combat skills. They might not actually have a 25 skill, just a 20 with a good situational modifier from their special training and tactics. In game terms the effect is the same.

So does RuneQuest 3. The difficulties in adapting them to Pendragon are: Pendragon combines attacks and parries into one fighting roll, where as BRP keeps them separate. Skill over 20 in Pendragon radically increases the chance of a critical success.

Yeah, I think most of us agree on that. I do like the alternate methods for stuff like battles and such, but would like to see things like titles, income and glory consistent throughout the books. Well that was mostly getting the system refined. If you take a good look at how it evolved, it didn't really change all that much, just expanded to handle more. For example, the intial model, used in KAP1 had knights getting £2 per year for thier maintenance, which hasn't actually changed. In KAP3 it was increased to £6, but that included the wife, and squire. In the Book of the Estate and the Book of the Warlord, it was increased to £10, and even £20, but included the household, army, and retainers. Now the Book of the Manor did cause some problems, but it's not really used for much anymore. Yeah, I hate that. It's not even "old school" as it used to be all together. I think the idea was to include part of it with the introductory adventure in order to make that easier for new GMs to run, but it made hunting more difficult to run for anyone who wasn't running the introductory adventure. I ended up printing off a GM screen with the tables. I think a little hunting supplement with the tables and a bestiary with all the rules and stats collected together would be a viable mini-product.

So it sounds like it "new" for you over there. THat said, you might still wind up ahead of us in the US. There is some talk of making a few corrections and updating some stuff, inclduing Character Generation in the Book of Knights & Ladies, and any changes to the standard chargen might end up in your new edition. But that's just speculation. Yeah, things haven't been all that much better over here. Pendragon and Prince Valiant came back to Chaosium, and we got the Book of Sires supplement, but nothing else has come out, yet. Prince Valiant dropped into licensing limbo, and is out of print again. We've seen a few hints of stuff in the works, such as the Codex Mirabilis (the new magic rules, check out the threat for the new art), but nothing 's been released since the Book of Sires. To be fair to the folks at Chaosium, they were pretty busy producing new editions of Cthulhu and RuneQuest, and were not expecting to have Pendragon back. Nor did they expect Greg's passing so soon. So considering the circumstances, the slow releases are understandable. Better they take their time and get it right then rush something out that isn't ready. Especially since they will have to do it without Greg.

No it hasn't been. There has been some talk on the forums about a 6th edition and what it should be, but most of the focus here has been about the products that are already under development, and when they will be ready for release. Oh, and supposedly the book of K&L is being revised. I doubt that Chaosium would announce a new edition in France and say nothing about it elsewhere, especially in the US. Perhaps the new edition is in French and specifically targeted to French speaking gamers?

I don't think so, although Greg did mention it is some previous editions, and I think there is at least one example in Malory. Basically, early on a respected/famous knight can do it, but latter on it becomes the exclusive right of nobles. Part of the reason is because people don't want a bunch of knights riding around without any means of support, as that leads to problems. Yeah probably. At least early on. The major objections that arose were mostly because if was considered bad form to go around making knights that you couldn't or wouldn't support. It led to more mercenary and robber knights, and made it tougher for the existing family to secure knighthood for their own. But as the estate holder is maintaining those four knights, it would probably be okay. Usually not.