sirlarkins

There will definitely be more Battle Cards forthcoming. 🙂

On 9/29/2021 at 4:55 AM, glassneedles said:

But David just mentioned it as a book he wants to do at some point rather than definitely happening ( @sirlarkins if you wanted to chime in here I’d be very grateful).

That's about the status, still. But I'm not the only one at Chaosium who is very enthusiastic about the project, so I think the odds of it happening at some point are very good.

The Starter Set is in layout as we speak, and art is coming in on the core books; we should be getting those into layout over the winter.

In addition to art and layout, which always take at least as long as writing and editing, we're also dealing with a tremendously messed-up supply chain at the moment, as I know you're all aware, which causes knock-on delays.

The goal is to get everything queued up so that we can release the first wave of 6th edition in quick succession—the last thing we want is months-long gaps between core book/Starter Set releases. At the moment, that means we need to be a little cagey about release dates (other than "definitely 2022"). When you start to see more precise estimates, you'll know that means we're very nearly there! 

In the meantime, keep an eye out for monthly Design Journals (next installment dropping this week) and, as we get closer to release, some sneak peaks at art and other goodies.

Your first instinct was correct, @Morien. Here's the relevant passage (Lancelot speaking):

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"And where it please you to say that I have holden my lady your queen years and winters, unto that I shall ever make a large answer, and prove it upon any knight that beareth the life, except your person and Sir Gawain, that my lady, Queen Guenever, is a true lady unto your person as any is living unto her lord, and that will I make good with my hands. Howbeit it hath liked her good grace to have me in charity, and to cherish me more than any other knight; and unto my power I again have deserved her love, for offtimes, my lord, ye have consented that she should be burnt and destroyed, in your heat, and then it fortuned me to do battle for her, and or I departed from her adversary they confessed their untruth, and she full worshipfully excused."

I'll be writing more about Glory and Honor in a forthcoming Development Blog, but one of the changes in 6th edition is the concept of public vs private Honor: dishonorable acts committed in secret do not lower your Honor Passion until they are revealed, at which point you lose however many negative points you've accrued up til then. (You still have to make Honor rolls against your actual value, though—"It is impossible for a person to hide from themselves" is how it's put in the rules.) There are also rules for defending your own Honor, or the Honor of a loved one or liege.

This is one of the reasons I led with an article focusing on the deep history of the game's development. With 6th edition, I feel like Greg had finally arrived at an iteration of the mechanics that he'd been moving towards since the beginning.

Now, as for Lancelot lying to his king, that could potentially be a 3-point Honor loss, though again it would be a private matter for the time-being.

(BTW, I also think it's interesting that this is the only time Greg paraphrased someone in first person in his marginal notes.)
 

Short answer: yes. 🙂

On 10/23/2020 at 11:36 PM, redmoongoddess said:

You're welcome!

And, do you recall where you might've heard about the Sanctus book?

I imagine I mentioned it in some interview or comment... 

My hope is to get Sanctus and Mirabilis finished and published around the same time, as they're sister volumes. There will be a chapter in the Core Rulebook covering magic and miracles as well, by way of a preview of the expanded treatment those topics will receive in the two books.

As many others have pointed out, women knights have been acknowledged in the game throughout its history. Greg made the decision for this edition to make their inclusion seem like less of an afterthought that it has in times past. That's all there is to it.

Will there be some women knights featured in the art? Yes. Will there be some women knights as Gamemaster characters? Yes. The inclusion of these characters is rooted in medieval legends and tales; I'm really looking forward to revealing more about this as we move forward.

To reiterate: Your Pendragon Will Vary remains one of the guiding principles. The core rulebook discusses how to scale things like women knights in your game. Implications on inheritance laws are also discussed. If you'll allow a bit of drollery, issues of setting may be monomythic, but are not treated as monolithic.

There will be many more details forthcoming in the weeks and months ahead. I'll just leave things off with a quote from the core rulebook, Greg's own words:

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Although the historical medieval Britain is a dismal, violent, and cruel place, with outdated standards of behavior, it was deliberately chosen because it is this exact setting, with its dark overtones, that is inherent in the old literature. In the campaign, the Gamemaster presents the harsh background as the reality within which the characters move. Initially, the Gamemaster’s characters are, for the most part, merciless and brutal. Player-knights may choose to remain in that unenlightened realm of history—they are not penalized, but neither are they rewarded. But they also have a choice to join the struggle to improve the world. Their actions can stand as shining lights of exceptional behavior, breaking the old ways and preparing for a better realm.

The story of King Arthur is about the struggle to improve life. With his faithful knights, he manifests the dream of a better world. The game dramatizes this heroic effort in its play. Great rewards go to those who struggle to improve the kingdom.

King Arthur changes the world, slowly to be sure, but in general for the better. Warlords, selfish sorcerers, even the environment itself in the form of the Wasteland and plagues, all conspire against these changes. The Player-knights are an important part of the struggle for the betterment of Britain.

The improvements in the lives of women and commoners are earmarks of Arthur’s efforts. Ladies make great gains both socially and legally over the course of his reign. They may become knights, gain the power to choose their own husbands, and eventually may inherit their due estates and take care of them without a warden. Commoners are among King Arthur’s earliest supporters, and he even forms Parliament to give them a place to exercise their powers alongside the clergy and lords.

The Gamemaster decides how much resistance hinders these changes. You may of course decide on presenting a fantasy realm that is better than our modern world, with fairness, justice, and goodwill everywhere. However, that attitude significantly alters the stories, and what the stories mean. The best balance is found when the world is medieval, reactionary, and reluctant to change; yet slowly yields under the influence of the Player-knights and their allies working to create a luminous realm.

 

17 minutes ago, Baba said:

 Exalted Passions: Very sceptical. I would have liked to see passions capped at 19 to keep some risk, now you are instead encouraged to get them to 20+ to get those sweet exalted bonuses.

Not to get into what's not in the Quick-Start, but I'll just mention that there's a rule in the full system that makes having too many Exalted Passions a double-edged sword...

1 hour ago, Morien said:

Good spot. I suspect that this is an editorial error, though, rather than a rule change, and it should read:

"Winner: Score a critical success, or a success with a higher final dice roll than the opponent’s. In combat, this means you hit your enemy."

If you look at the tie, it says:

"Tie: A success for both opponents that is exactly the same final dice roll, or both roll a critical success;"

implying that all critical successes are equal in value.

@Morien's rewording (which I bolded) is correct: critical successes still beat regular successes.

1 hour ago, Morien said:

Good spot. I suspect that this is an editorial error, though, rather than a rule change, and it should read:

"Winner: Score a critical success, or a success with a higher final dice roll than the opponent’s. In combat, this means you hit your enemy."

If you look at the tie, it says:

"Tie: A success for both opponents that is exactly the same final dice roll, or both roll a critical success;"

implying that all critical successes are equal in value.

@Morien's rewording (which I bolded) is correct: critical successes still beat regular successes.

Knights' gender is a matter left up to the Gamemaster, and the core rulebook includes a section discussing how to set your preferred version (up to and including "no women knights at all"). The important thing is that options are presented.

Yes, there will be women knights depicted in illustrations in forthcoming material; the default assumption is that some regions of Britain (such as Salisbury, the Red Castle, or Din Eidyn) are more accommodating to trailblazing women knights, while in other parts they are vanishingly rare. Gamemasters can calibrate up or down from that baseline to suit their group's taste.

On 8/26/2020 at 5:15 AM, beardo1976 said:

I love the Book of Uther, will we ever see any additional era books that support the Great Pendragon Campaign?  The Book of Anarchy, Book of the Boy King, etc?

The new edition of the Great Pendragon Campaign is expanding into a multi-volume set, so there will be lots more detail on all the Periods. More stuff on the Silchester Rebellion, the Roman War, the Grail...lots of exciting work already under way. The default start time for Sixth Edition is moving back to Boy King, and the initial focus for the line will be on Arthur's reign, but we have some projects in the pipeline for the pre-Arthurian eras as well (yes, even going back to Vortigern...).

We're also in the early stages of planning new regional sourcebooks, which I'm planning to include region-focused expansions to the basic GPC timeline.

The current situation is addressed in this thread: 

Quoting @MOB

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The license Nocturnal Media secured with the owner of the Prince Valiant IP has expired.

We hope to be able to renew it, but in the mean time the Prince Valiant line is unavailable. 

 

Thanks for doing that @SNaomiScott! Great resource. And thanks for checking on permissions first.

On 5/25/2020 at 7:17 AM, Uqbarian said:

Are the Book of Castles and/or the Book of Salisbury still in the pipeline?

Yes! Right now the plan is to release the Book of Salisbury as part of a larger Resource Pack that will include a GM screen and some other materials, similar to the Runequest "GM Screen Pack". Book of Castles will be a standalone release; Matt Ryan (who did the Castle of the Kite illustration for the "Quest of the Red Blade" scenario) is working on diagrams and floor plans even as we speak.

On 5/25/2020 at 1:33 PM, creativehum said:

Thanks!

@sirlarkins Thoughts on the upcoming changes for KAP6?

Oh, I have many thoughts, and all of them good! 

We'll be addressing plans and changes in greater detail as we get closer to publication, but I'll just say for now that the core rulebook material is all taken from drafts written by Greg, who was working on 6th edition at the time of his passing. He intended 6th to be his "ultimate edition," and we've maintained that vision as we've prepared his text for publication.

Sorry I missed the original post back in December! Always happy to answer questions about the book—feel free to tag me or send a DM.

17 hours ago, Ben Chapman said:

The question for me is why Pyotr is interested in Franziska. I guess that he has somehow worked out that Anna might be Franziska, making it likely that Anna is an imposter. This is probably the result he wanted. Proving that Franziska is dead rules out the suspicion that Anna Tchaikovsky is actually a Polish peasant girl. I don't know what it means to Pyotr that Franziska is alive.

This is correct. Through his association with the monarchist movement and the Sovereign Order of St. John, Shabelsky-Bork is intensely interested in locating any potential survivors of the Romanov dynasty, but like a monarchist Uri Geller is just as interested in exposing the fakes. We can assume he or his contacts have been following the thread of clues as Anna/Franziska moved across Europe. He wants to ascertain if she's alive because, well, if she is and it turns out she's the real deal, he'd very much like to put himself at her service.

(There's some deep, deep background on her story that moves from the Caucuses to Romania and eventually to Berlin but wasn't terribly relevant to what was already a pretty meaty scenario—no pun intended. I'm actually working on a project right now that should expand the background of the Order of St. John and touch on Romanov imposters in greater detail, but for the purposes of this scenario, all you really need to know is that he's a monarchist and counter-revolutionary with an extensive spy network operating throughout Germany and points east.)

18 hours ago, Ian Absentia said:

Genpei was mine, under Arthaus, so that gives you an idea of how long ago that was.  There was at least one later that Greg was coordinating with another author, but that didn't move forward last I heard.  I don't think there's one currently on the books, but now would be a great time to put in a place keeper.

!i!

The manuscript for the medieval Japanese Pendragon adaptation (working title Monogatari, also referred to as Samurai at times) is complete (I should know—I wrote the final version!) and we'll be going forward with it as well, but it's a ways off in the pipeline.

Regardless, all three spinoff games utilize the core Pendragon engine; this certainly wouldn't prevent someone from writing, say, a more historically-grounded BRP game set during the reign of Charlemagne. I'd happily buy it and use it for additional background and adventure material whenever I ran Paladin.

Great topic!

For an adult friend, I'd recommend Steinbeck's The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights.

For a younger reader, Rosemary Sutcliff's King Arthur Trilogy.

For a child, I'd track down the out-of-print books Merlin Dreams and Castles, which I consider companion pieces. Both are gorgeously illustrated by Alan Lee and filled with enchanting imagery and Arthurian tales.

I haven't tried it yet, but there's a ruleset built off the More Core system: https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?35056-MoreCore-Themes&p=319357&viewfull=1#post319357

Alas, like many a medieval tale, the Solo GPC chronicles must remain forever unfinished. We did end up completing the run all the way to Camlann, but life got busy and I fell further and further behind. Now it's been too long and my notes are scattered to the winds...

I'll see what I can dredge up from memory and try to put together a little "continuation" to post here. 🙂

@Morien has the right idea. The intention with including the pre-gens was so that the scenario could serve as a demo, but they're not "organic" to the scenario in the same way you might find with pre-gens in a Call of Cthulhu scenario. A GM could take the pre-gens and use them to start their own campaign, so we wanted to include both Passions for the GM to do with as they wish.

The "King Arthur" and "Camelot" entries in the Current Lord and Current Home entries could be viewed as place-holders in that regard. In retrospect, it might have been less confusing to just leave the spaces blank.

I was recently reminded of a fun little post from (I believe) the Pendragon Google Plus group. With that site now consigned to the memory hole, all I have left is a print-out, which I transcribe below for posterity. My print-out does not include any information on who first wrote this post; if you recognize it and can provide attribution, please do so!

Unlocking Achievements in Pendragon

Each of the following achievements is worth 100 Glory the first time a Player-knight or lady qualifies for it. Each achievement can only be awarded once in the course of a campaign.

A Wonder to Behold — During battle, roll three consecutive critical hits while in the Killing Zone.

As Two Lions — Score three consecutive tied Criticals in combat with another knight.

Borrowed Glory — Be mistaken for a knight of at least twice your Glory, for whatever reason.

Castle Batesmotel — As lord of a castle, institute a strange custom that all guests must satisfy.

Choking It Down — Accept the surrender of an individual for whom you have a Hate Passion of 16 or greater.

Devil Take the Hindmost! — In the Boy King Period, take part in every one of Arthur's battles.

Dunroamin — Obtain or build a castle and give it an evocative name.

First Sight — In the Romance Period, generate an Amor Passion for someone whose name you don't know.

For Jesu's Sake — Defeat a major (typically named) opponent while inspired by Love (God).

Horseflesh — Leave a battle riding the horse of an enemy knight.

Indestructible Bastard — Survive a hit doing 12D6 damage or more.

It Wasn't Me — Perform a heroic, chivalrous deed unrecognized and claim no credit. Glory award for the deed is deferred until the truth comes out (as it always does).

Kinslayer — During the Twilight Period, slay someone that your Love (Family) would ordinarily inspire you to protect.

Nom de Guerre — Adopt a colorful nickname in French.

Payback Time — In the Anarchy Period, seize the lands of a named rival.

Rosalinde de Riveter — As a Lady, accomplish a quest thought to require a knight.

Rule Britannia! — In the Conquest Period, win a title and estate outside Britain.

Smiling for Crockery — During the Grail Quest Period, slay a fiendish knight.

Spanning Generations — Accomplish a quest your parent failed; upgrade to Family Tradition (and double the Glory award) if both your parent and grandparent failed the same quest.

Submit to the Crown — Vanquish a knight and extract an oath that he will present himself to the King and swear fealty.

The Infected — Go mad after fumbling a Hatred Passion roll.

Too Much Time on Your Hands — Bear and faithfully draw a coat of arms with sixteen or more quarterings.

Who Was That Masked Man? — During the Tournament Period, win a tournament you entered incognito.

On 12/6/2019 at 8:18 AM, KungFuFenris said:

So. I just discovered the 10x Glory bonus was only to the knight with most Geniality.
That.... that changes a thing or two among the PKs in my game, as the Feasts have been quite good to them, especially the Aquitanian.
If I had to calculate backwards, it would mean the Aquitanian is 500 Glory ahead of the lowest in the group, as he's been handily winning every Feast by a margin of four to five Geniality.

Also. NPKs at the feast. Yes or no? Because they'll need to be rolled for as well.

When I do a revised version of the Feast mechanics, I'm definitely going to make adjustments to the Glory awards. My assumption was that feasts would be only occasional things (that's how I tend to run them), but folks seems to like to use them a lot more frequently. Which is certainly flattering, but it really throws off the Glory awards. Feel free to adjust the awards to fit frequency in your campaign.

Agreed that NPKs should not be tracked. I like the suggestion of setting a minimum threshold to beat in order to win the feast. Sort of like the quick tournament resolution system. A Pentecost feast at Camelot should have a nigh-unbeatable threshold, and work down from there.

Correct, Geniality is only gained when a card is played, not drawn.

Yeah, I'd go in order of seating, and if that's tied I'd give it to the character with more Glory. Using APP works too, depending on your group's preference.