creativehum

@Joerg thank you for the lengthy reply! There is so much to discuss here, but my attention was drawn to one point to start of (a point that had nothing to do with my original question!) You wrote: Can you talk more about this? Is this only for Passions, or also the use of Runes for Augements as well? Are you saying the use of Passions comes too easily with too little cost? Or that unless the Passion is connected to a specific, concrete NPC it feels like a "Gimmee' Button" to be tapped whenever the Player really wants the PC to accomplish something? As for HeroQuests and scripted content: I have some thoughts on this, perhaps nonsensical and pehaps not worthy of being well-received. But here we go. It seems to me that a lot of Chaosium content, going back to CoC and then Pendragon, has been about the Players being put in the position of experiencing the events of the game. Yes, they get to make choices. But if you look at the rules of CoC and Pendragon you find that the game invokes moments of madness or strong behavior (respectively) that overwhelms the PC and asks the Players to "go with it." Further, if you look at the published modules and campaigns for CoC and Pendragon you'll find them often surprisingly "scripted." Moreso than most other published adventures in overall particulars. (The recent Pendragon adventure for #WeAreAllUs states clearly at several points "If the Player Knights make this choice the adventure ends...") Years ago I compared the Adventures found in Pendragon to the Catholic "Stages of the Cross," where a parishioner will walk around the church reflecting on images of specific moments of Jesus' journey with the cross. The story is already known, of course. What matters is what the devotee experiences in the reflection of the image carved on the wall and the moment of the narrative he or she is contemplating. I saw what Greg was trying to do with Pendragon as a whole and the adventures in particular in a similar fashion.* And if you read Greg's commentaries and interviews about Pendragon's design and the purpose of the Great Pendragon Campaign I don't think I can be called out for being too far off. There are moments of wonder and violence and terror and tragedy, and the game system asks you to really consider "How do you feel about that?" and "What does this mean to you?" Because if you don't you'll have no idea which, if any, Traits or Passions apply in this situation. The game seems built to provide a reflective experience. Again, not that the Players don't have agency and can't make choices. But that those choices are there to lead to the moment when the Player must ask, "This is happening... what does this mean to my Player Knight...?" Which of course is attached to the question "What does this mean to me?" CoC, in a similiar vein, puts the Player in the position of viewing and experiencing moments of horror, knowledge of helplessness, a need to press on, overwhelming information, violence, and so on. Like Pendragon's Traits and Passions, the Madness rules can make Investigators end up behaving in ways well beyond the control of the Players -- if only for a short while. In both cases the Players are asked to "ride" the PC and see where he or she leads them. I should add here I'm not saying all tables play the games this way! I'm only looking at the rules and the structures of the adventures and looking at what I consider to be the intended effect. And in the case of Pendragon I have it on the author's word this was the intended effect. Hero Wars was my first encounter with Glorantha. (I missed RuneQuest in my early years of RPG play.) When I read Hero Wars rules for HeroQuesting it was quite clearly a "Stations of the Cross" model. Maybe this is only something someone raised Catholic or raised in a religious tradition with similar rituals would pick up on. But if you look at those rules for HeroQuesting it's right there. A lot of people were (rightfully!) spooked by how "scripted" HeroQuests looked. But as a long time Pendragon fan I immediately recognized the structure and thought, "Oh, it's like a Knight's Adventure in Pendragon. The Player goes on an adventure and experiences these different moments in stages. The point isn't to win, or do it right, or solve it -- but to go through it, stage by stage, and see who you are by the end." With this in mind, I'd like to refer to Joerge's example of Indiana Jones in Raiders of the Lost Ark. It is true that Indy's actions don't change a thing. The Nazis were doomed the moment their arrogance demanded they look up on God. But here's the thing: what matters in that movie for Indy isn't how he changes the course of history. What matters is how the adventure he goes on changes him. (That's a whole discussion, so I'll leave that out for now, assuming that most people see how Indy transforms from a man who only covets old things to a man who needs to draw a line between himself and other would be treasure hunters.) The phrase that matters most in Pendragon is "Yes, you're all knights... but what sort of knight are you?" That's the crux of the game design and the purpose of play. In the same way I would suggest that the HeroQuests of Glorantha are not so much about "changing the world" as they are, like a Knight's Adventure in Pendragon, about changing the Hero in Glorantha. I'll stop here and say I don't know how Ian's Dragon Rise scenario works. I don't know how Jeff is planning on writing the HeroQuesting rules for RQG. I'm only talking about my own expectations of what HeroQuests are in a way that works for me and that I saw worked in rules for Hero Wars. So, for me: The Hero in Glorantha needs to do something, and most likely something pretty damned big. The Hero is lacking in some way... some item, some wisdom, some skill, some way of seeing the world, that will let him or her do the deed that must be done. Significantly, the item (if it is an item) can only be wielded (or wielded well) with some wisdom or way of viewing the world the Hero lacks. The Hero goes on the HeroQuest to become changed by the quest. The change allows the Hero to return to the world, if successful, changed in a way that now gives him or her a shot at succeeding at the task. The question still stands of course: If a campaign lynchpin point is on the table, what happens to Glorantha if the PCs come back after a successful HeroQuest, successfully, and then still blow a random roll in their efforts in the real world. I have two suggestions here, both of them perhaps controversial: First, if you about to make a roll and you (you being the Referee or the Players) are thinking, "I really don't like the idea of a failed roll here," as might be the case in a campaign defining moment, DON'T MAKE THE ROLL. It's a rule of mine at any table I run. Random results provide random results. If you don't want a random result do not roll! If the Heroes have made it through the HeroQuest and have been amazing and interesting, I would simply hand them the last victory they need to successfully finsh the quest. By the same token, in the "real" world if hte PCs have lined up all the pieces of magic and soul to bring about a beautiful plan that should work am I going to make them roll? No. I am not. They have already done the work as far as I am concerned. Second, when there should be a roll, the roll should be about the Heroes -- their souls, their fate -- not about the big event. I turn here to the Great Pendragon Campagin as an illustration and model of what I think Greg clearly meant for people to do with the Hero Wars Campaign structure. I've written my thoughts about how to use the GPC here. The short version is: look at it like the historical structure of WWII if the PCs were soldiers in an RPG about that war. They will not decide the fate of the war. But as characters they will certainly have an implant on the small portion of the war they can effect. And most importantly the war will have an impact on the characters. In this way, with the ironic knowledge of the events of WWII, the Players can participate as their characters succeed or die or transform as the war goes on and finally concludes. In the case of the Hero Wars, the Dragon Rise will definitely occur and the campaign will continue as expected. What matters is: do the Heroes falter, fail, or succeed in who they need to be? Who they wanted to be? Returning to point one above, if it seems like they already are who they need to be to successfully help the Dragon Rise, don't roll. If there is still a question about this, then roll and find out if the PCs can be who they need to be to win. Frodo does not have the strength to climb Mount Doom. But Sam does, and if he was a NPC the PC needed to finish the story, then there you go. Anyway... some thoughts! __________________ * Some links and references about these ideas are in this thread

A custom suggested on page 72 of KAP 5.2 is that if a lady is widowed twice she gets to pick her own husband. (It is in the little biography of Lady Indeg.) i don't know if that is historically accurate, but I do like it. It tells a little story about the lady's fortunes and a sense of possibility opened up through unfortunate events. (Also, "child bearing age" is kind of wish-washy. A specific age would have to be picked for the cutoff point. Yes?)

That is where I bumped. Given that the manors are rolled for and distributed across Salisbury, I wasn't sure if the priest covered all of Salisbury. To use a single priest one could use a cluster of manors to roll from. Or, using the larger area, one could simply provide an extra priest or two.

More questions for kicking things off. KAP core rules says this: I assume this is an example priest for the manor of one of the knights? Or does Fr. Brugyn do a circuit of all the manors in Salisbury? (This character wasn't in KAP 3rd, so not sure how this is supposed to play out!)

I think it will still apply broadly to HeroQuest Glorantha, RuneQuest Glorantha, and the Great Pendragon Campaign... and so worth hearing more about.

Awesome. This is the kind of stuff I'm hoping to see here.

I do expect that the weather gets better and better in the middle Phases of the Campaign! .... only for the lands to become all soggy again as things fall apart.

Thanks! And I googled 'Chivalry & Sorcery Weather' (a good bet for some tables!) and came up with a home brew PDF that contained random weather tables for different climates. http://www.weisskrone.fr/Rules_Book.pdf For now I think that will do the trick for me. I want a method of saying, "It's spring! Here's what the weather is like today!" I'm not looking for the most scientifically or historically accurate information. But something that will put me in the ballpark and produce random results so I'm not putting brain power on it. This will do!

I'm seeing this thread as a hodge-podge collection of items that fall outside the KAP product line, but that folks have found useful for their games. It's all idiosyncratic notions: What matters to one Referee might not matter to another. People can also make requests for details or materials. The KAP-Hive mind is a powerful thing! I'm starting with a request: I'm wondering if there is a solid, easy source for WEATHER in Britain during the time period of of the GPC. This might be random tables that have been published somewhere or something as simple as an Almanac that would be a reasonable representation of the time. (Weather has changed, after all!) I know this might not seem like an interesting detail to some. But I live in Souther California. My sense of "weather" is distinctly not Logres, c. 500 AD. Anything that can help me nail down the texture and feel of the setting for my players is something I'm looking for. Thanks!

To clarify: The "Uncle Plot" would only come about if one of the Players thought of it and asked for it during character creation. (My Players are wonderfully pro-active about creating compilations for their characters!) And no... I wouldn't have this be the case for every PC. I mean... that would be nonsensical.

There is a very good chance the Players won't care. And yet, having spent the time on creating the Family History some of the Plyers might well end up being curious "Hey, who is hanging around this manor I just inherited?" Also, when I was thinking about this, the notion of the Uncle who would rather have had the nephew not inherit did come to mind -- which is why I started thinking about it more.

Can you talk a bit about what was discussed. Any solutions or assessments? (Maybe it isn't a problem?) And thank you for the write up!

A few more questions about first and early sessions (again, assuming 485 or thereabouts, a starting setup as presented in KAP, and players new to the game): The player characters are squires off in training with a manor as part of their family name. While they are still squires who is running the manor? Who is responsible for it until the day they are knighted and assume control. Let's open this up a bit from the KAP core rules, which assumes Dad married so a Lady who had the manor in her family. Let's assume there are other permutations here. What are the possibilities here? An uncle. A regent serving on the Earl's behalf? Mom? I'd love to hear ideas on this. You all are talking about introducing all sorts of Knights and Ladies (and thank you for that). How do you present them? How do the Players keep track of them? It seems to me that if I was introduced to the Earl, Uther, a mentor knight, three competing knights, three ladies or maidens (or more!) after a while I'd remember a few key characters (the Earl, Uther) but some of the other characters might start to blur. Do you do characterizations that are so strong each GM Character becomes fixed in the imagination of the Players? Do provide lists with the GM Character names and details (updated as needed) so the Players can glance down at them to remember who is who? Do you have power point presentations with little portraits of each PC taken from the internet. I know this second point might seem a bit extreme, but I think KAP as a Campagin, is more NPC intense than any other game I've ever looked at! I think putting some thought into how to communicate the NPCs to the Players and come up with ways to keep the NPCs fresh in the players' minds makes a lot of sense!

This is what I friend did when he started the GPC and something I have thought about doing as well. @Tizun Thane thank you for your comments as well! An interesting thing about the Introductory Adventure from KAP is that the PKs mentor has the acquires joust with each other to determine who will be the leader of the hunt. This always struck me as a bit extraneous. But looking at it the other day I realized it warms the Players up to the competition between Knight's that is very much a part of the literature. Who has the most Glory? Who will be the Knight allowed to go on the Quest? Will the Knight's fight for the honor of the Quest, or will one bow out graciously? That sort of thing. The realization that Greg built a well constructed adventure that introduces a great many pieces of play in clever ways sent me down some questions as to how to begin.

I have lost track of what we're talking about. Morien said that if someone wanted to get to Arthur faster they could chop off stuff at the beginning. I said I wasn't interested in that. You added to Morien's point, suggesting that if someone wanted to get to Arthur faster, cutting out the Anarchy Phase would get to Arthur faster. I agreed that this would get to Arthur faster. But , again, I have no interest or need in getting to Arthur faster. From your post apparently we are now talking about cutting things off from the end of the campaign. (I think?) And maybe suggesting that is something I was suggesting? If you had the idea I was thinking of doing something like that, let me be clear: I have no interest in doing that. As stated in the original post, I want to work with the GPC as is. As outlined in the first postI am looking for clues about the first session. Not adventure ideas, but ideas how to structure the framework of play for introducing the Player to the the rules, the setting, points of crisis the character will be dealing with in the first Phase, establishing the ground rules for the campaign as a whole, and deciding what should constitute a "First Session" in terms of pacing (how much adventure, whether we should be striving for one year in that first session.)

For someone who wants to really push things forward, that's probably a really good idea.

Correct. See point 1. in my first post. i am looking for any practiced wisdom for people using KAP and the GPC. You make a good point about the timeline as it picks up pace in 488. But I think a few years for the Players and PCs to get established in the game is a good idea. So, as the GPC suggests, I'll start in 485. I am in no rush to get to Arthur. I simply don't wish to widen the timeline.

Also, @sirlarkins, as someone who has run the game and is probably thinking about how to explain running it to people, curious about your thoughts on this. (Btw, I've read your article about tips for running it. Which is what set me off down this line of thinking!)

Hi @Atgxtg Thank you for the suggestions!

Hi @Morien Thank you for all that. Especially the part about adding more eligible ladies for the PKs to woo. I remember years ago when I tried starting a KAP campaign being baffled as to how these just-knighted young men were going to go about getting the hands of these women with all that land. I think folding in some some women within easier reach of the PKs makes perfect sense. As does your model of having a rival-jerk connected to two of them! As for starting earlier: I'm loath to do that --- though I have thought of starting in 484 for the starting scenario, obviously. My problem with going back further is that we are getting further and further away from the actual story of Arthur. (It is called King Arthur Pendragon, after all!) The first incident that really ties to Malory -- and most versions of the story most people will know -- is Uther disguising himself to assuage his lust with Ygraine. That doesn't happen until 491, at least six sessions into play. My desire, and my instincts, tell me to keep it closer to as is in the GPC. Finally, and again thank you, for the recommend for The Adventure of the White Horse. I'm aware of it, and the host of other possible scenarios waiting to be stitched into the campaign. (I find it compelling how much material there is to run the GPC when you put together all the sources!) I will admit I give a smile whenever anyone says something along the lines of "if you can get access from the 4th edition..." I picked up the 3rd edition as my first version of KAP.... and of course I know The Adventure of the White Horse from that. (For those who don't know, 4th edition is primarily the King Arthur Pendragon 3rd edition and the 3rd edition supplement Knights Adventurous stapled together (rather awkwardly) with the now disposed of magic system on top.) Apart from the magic system, almost anything else in 4th is already in the 3rd edition line.

The following points are a given: I know I can do whatever I want. I'm looking for folks with experience with starting off a KAP campaign who might have wisdom to share. The game would start in 485, per the core King Arthur Pendragon rules and the Great Pendragon Campaign. Although magic is light in the first phases of the campaign, the fact that the world is halfway between mud and the magical is something I want to sew in early into the game. Magic should be extraordinary. But I want the Players to know the world is magical with a taste of it early on so they know what's what. Looking at the first scenarios as presented: The first year of the GPC is a battle. Greg has already stated that was probably not the best way to start the game. (It's a massive subsystem that abstracts a lot of play and maybe not the best way to introduce the game. The introductory session in KAP seems... kind of boring? And yet it does exactly what it is intended to do: It teaches the Players the rules of the game and the subsystems, and tours the PKs around Salisbury and then Sarum, letting them interact with GM Characters, picking up rumors and news at Sarum, and get a feel for the social ladder and where they stand on it. My group tends to get in about 2.5 to 3 hours of play a night My own instinct is to blow off the battle of 485 for the PKs. They are out on patrol and hunting bears because forces are massing for the battle. When they go to Sarum after the hunt and defeat the bandits it is as Uther is arriving and the Earl is preparing to leave with troops for the Battle of Mearcred Creek. The PKs are knighted and will stay behind to provide back up for the local lands. They go to their manors. We spend some time with them getting a feel for the manor, do the winter phase. Or maybe then they go with the Earl after their knighting. It seems kind of lame, if not frustrating, to be knighted and then told, "Now sit here as the men go off to war." So 485 is definitely a two session year... which it might well be anyway! If this is the case there'd be a chance to sew a little bit of magic (like I said, a taste of something either fairie or divine) while they are on the hunt in the woods. Questions: How does the introductory adventure from KAP play out for people? Fun? Engaging? Set the right tone? Did Players make characters in the same session as the introductory or first year adventure? It seems like making characters (especially with the Family History!) could take a while... but maybe not? Was there a separate "Session Zero" for doing all the character creation material? The portion of the Introductory Adventure where the PKs explore Sarum, get the gossip, meet/see the heiresses and so on feels like it could be its own session on it own! Given all fo the above, it seems to me that: making characters doing the hunt and battle with the bandits going to Sarum and getting gossip/meeting GM Characters/getting knighted might well be two sessions on its own. Add in the possibility of Mearcred Creek (which is growing on me as I type this) and its definitely two sessions. How have GMs paced these issues in the past? What materials did you bring to bear? What worked, what did not? Thanks so much ahead of time.

Before we roll off into a big side discussion about history.... Here is a passage from the Designer's Notes from Knights Adventurous. This is the kind of discussion and subject matter I was looking for when I started the thread. Also, the rest of the Designer's Notes is really interesting! Finally, I had forgotten about how much compelling material was inside Knights Adventurous. (Many people will be familiar with the material from the 4th edition, which, for the most part, was a stapling together of KAP 3rd and Knights Adventurous, with the magic system added on top.)

Okay. I see it now. HRB is a garbled mix of myth and history... but in the context of KAP it is all "real history." Sorry for the confusion.

@Tizun Thane, thank you again. Just read the Designer's Notes from Knights Adventurous. I read it years ago, forgot about it, but it was still floating around in my brain. Exactly what was looking for! Certainly collecting Greg's Designer's Notes from various books might be a solid addition to the Pendragon Resource Site!

Without doubt HRB forms the historical spine for KAP and GPC. (In GPC the first information the Referee should share with the PCs is that Brutus came and cleared Giants!) So thank you for this information. What I wanted to do was sort out the phrasing of your first post. Even if HRB serves as the spine of KAP "history" it certainly seems to me to be a garbled fable of mixing myth and history. If HRB is not such a garbled mix, could you offer up an example of something that is a garbled mix of this kind? To provide clarity through conter example? Again, I may be missing the main thrust of your point by misreading what you meant in your first post. If so I apologize.