Morien

The topic came up in the Discord, and below are some of my thoughts on it. I figured it would be interesting enough a topic to cover here on the Forum, too.

My two denariii...

Given the Honor hit that a noble lady would risk having such a fling, I would GM it slightly differently.

The easiest option is to make her into a pretty serving wench instead. Maybe she has some hopes of improving her station, especially if the PK in question is unmarried and might be interested in a concubine. Or at least she would potentially ensure that one of her kids is a bastard of a nobleman and hence better taken care of. Maybe even helping with his commoner half-siblings later on in life. Or maybe she is already married and even if there is a baby, officially it is the husbands, although she might tell the knight and/or the child at some later point. Maybe she was just swept off her feet by the hero of the day (especially suitable if the PK did some heroics prior to the feast, doubly suitable if the feast is because of the dragon he slayed or similar). Religious reasons might apply, too, if this is a Pagan Court at Beltaine...

Similar considerations could apply to a noblewoman, although as said, the Honor hit makes it less likely that she would risk it lightly. If she is married, then if everything is handled discreetly, any children would be attributed to the husband. But if caught, it would be a huge scandal and cause duels and stuff. Of course, this might have been her intent, to rid herself of an abusive husband or some such, but it would come with the cost of her own reputation and likely harm her children, if any, as well. An unmarried, younger daughter of a knight might be looking to get herself a husband, if the PK is still unmarried. This could be innocent (she is in love and thinks that surely he is too) or more calculating (to get herself a husband above what her dowry would likely allow); rejecting her suit, especially if she finds herself pregnant, would lead into serious consequences with her family.

Which is in the end a long-winded way of saying what David said above: If you want story consequences, you can add them, and if you don't, you don't have to. That being said, I think sidestepping the Honor loss by making her a commoner works better if you are just playing it straight with a simple childbirth roll if Lustful wins. Especially if the PK is supposed to have a chance to acknowledge the bastard. Which in the case of a noblewoman would lead to Honor loss and strife with her family/husband.

4 hours ago, vegas said:

Left open is what constitutes a "light" load. I take it a sword and shield remains "inconsequential", I just wish p 97 was explicit about that. It would have saved me quite a bit of searching. Beyond that it is a judgement if a -5 or -10 DEX mod is appropriate.

My rough rule of thumb:

Unarmored but with a weapon and shield**: no encumbrance, no penalties to DEX, +2 Move

Non-metallic* armor with weapon and shield**: light load, -5 DEX (and +1 Move, house-ruled)

Metallic* armor with weapon and shield**: heavy load, -10 DEX, normal for knights

* These are obviously a bit game-fied statements, as a non-metallic armor can be comparable in weight to a metallic one. Especially if a thick gambeson gets waterlogged. But it is close enough for game purposes. Although I would posit an idea that a 8-point chainmail byrnie (tunic) should be in the -5 DEX category, as should a brigandine doublet when it becomes available. Basically, give those nimble longbowmen an armor that they can still zip around with.

** Depends a bit on the shield, too. A heavy, large shield like the scutum might push you into -5 DEX territory even without armor, and push you into -10 DEX even with a lighter armor. But for the most part, I don't have to worry about it since the PKs usually run around in full armor for -10 anyway.

KAP doesn't do the accounting of every piece of equipment you carry, but simplifies it mainly to the armor you have on. But yeah, I admit that the rules could be clearer here. One reason is that there used to be more rules for being unarmored than just the +2 Movement rate, so there are some legacy text issues.

Anyway, if you are wearing a Chainmail, the DEX penalty is -10 and that is it. This is confirmed by the host of published adventures that quote this rule, and I am pretty sure I can find a Greg quote if I try, too. You have to be doing something else in addition to qualify for more. I would consider -20 if you are hauling another armored knight over your shoulder as well (extra heavy load or something like that), but not for just wearing a chainmail. Also, note that the DEX penalty for armor does not influence your DEX roll to stay on your feet in the case of a knockdown roll.

Since it came up in the Discord, I am just going to copy-paste my comment from here to this thread:

This really should be errata in KAP 5.2:

They tried updating the £6 manors to the £10 manors used in BotE and BotW... BUT they didn't take into account that £4 of that money is going to soldiers & courtiers (apart from £1), meaning that the knight & his family (including horses and a squire) only get £6 for their upkeep (£7, if they spend that extra £1 to upkeep, too).

The charitable reading of KAP 5.2 is that they tried to simplify it by referring to the whole £10 as the knight's upkeep, but then they screwed up the limits for the categories (p. 183-184). The limits should be £3 to qualify for poor, £6 to qualify for ordinary and £9 to qualify for rich, when using £6 upkeep for the ordinary knight. If using a 'total upkeep for the manor', then they should be more like £6, £9 and £12 (i.e. the old limits+£3 soldiers and courtiers, leaving £1 spending money for £10 manor - £9 ordinary).

Also, this bit (p. 183) applies ONLY to the household knights (word added by me):
"Thus, household knights do not get money every Christmas. Instead, the lord spends enough each year to keep each [household] knight up to accepted standards of maintenance. "
The accepted standards of maintenance is generally Ordinary, although hard times may require to temporarily tighten the belt down to Poor, as explained in the Book of the Estate. Vassal knights are responsible for their own upkeep, from the lands granted to them. Yes, if things go very wrong, they may beg the Lord for aid and likely get it (at least keeping them at Poor or perhaps even Ordinary if they are well-liked by the Lord), but it should not be a common thing to need help.

"Christmas" in the above quotation should be changed to "Winter", IMHO, to better draw the thoughts to the Winter Phase where these things are resolved.

4 minutes ago, SirUkpyr said:

Morien, didn't you also have a list that included both Book of Estate + Book of Manor in it?

Uh... not that I recall? I mean, I may have downloaded someone else's at some point, but the one I use is basically a re-balanced BotM with a couple of homebrew things thrown in.

I was trying to move the campaign to BotE steady income investments, but the Players said that they liked the variable income, so...

I created similar knighting packages for my players too, for each periods and 'levels' of wealth. I forget the details but the typical price was around £20 - £30 for a 'normal vassal knight" with the costs sharply increasing in late tournament and especially twilight periods. When the average 1 manor knight would be more likely in the poor category equipment wise.

2 hours ago, Morien said:

If the heir is still with the Liege's household knights when the spare is knighted, it depends if the Liege has space for him; he likely would try to accommodate the spare as well, depending what the situation is. And once the heir inherits, then his household knight 'slot' would be available for the spare.

Just to point out something... In our campaign, generally the eldest son gets knighted with the Universal Aids, i.e. the peasants pay for the equipment, etc. However, the spare usually needs to wait until the father kicks the bucket and inherits the father's old equipment and gets knighted with those, while the eldest gets the manor. Of course if the father has done well and is still around, he could buy the equipment for the second son, which would leave his own equipment to an even younger son (or to the eldest, to make up for the money that went to the knighting of the second son). Anyway, this often means that the second son needs to cool his heels for a while, maybe working as an esquire in the Liege's court, until dear old dad dies and everyone nudges forward a slot: heir household knight -> vassal knight, spare esquire -> household knight.

8 hours ago, vegas said:

A father is a vassal knight. His first son has turned 21 and is ready to be knighted. What happens?

As a general rule (at least in our campaign), the heir would have been squired in the Liege Lord's household, either to the Liege himself, or even better to his own heir, in order to foster those ties of friendship and loyalty. Thus, if the dear old dad is still going strong, the Liege would likely make a space amongst his household knights for the young knight, in order to ensure that that there are no competing ties of loyalty to another nobleman. The father stays on as the vassal knight, until he is too feeble to fulfill his duties as a knight, and even then, the Liege Lord might have him 'retire' as a trusted advisor, or he might retire to a monastery to spend his last few years as a monk to shorten his purgatory stay. As for the 'spare' (second eldest), he'd often get squired the same way, although perhaps not to the liege or his heir personally but some higher ranking knight in the household (marshal, constable, etc), so that he would be in the liege's household still. If the heir is still with the Liege's household knights when the spare is knighted, it depends if the Liege has space for him; he likely would try to accommodate the spare as well, depending what the situation is. And once the heir inherits, then his household knight 'slot' would be available for the spare.

Game-wise, I tend to find it more convenient to dispose of the NPC fathers at a suitable time, a few years into the game, to give new players time to learn the system before they need to even think about manorial management. Also, having them as household knights to the Liege Lord makes it very easy to drag them to whatever adventures I have in store for them. As for former PK fathers, a lighter touch is needed, but given how few of them live to the retirement age, it has not really been an issue. Also, they usually have more than one manor at that time, too, so we tend to just hand over a new manor for the eldest to learn to take care of (and to build on), while the dad continues living in the ancestral home.

I hope this answers your questions, but feel free to ask for clarifications. 🙂

18 hours ago, SirAndar said:

Ok, thanks all, that was helpful.

Here's another one for you: I'm thinking of starting a play-by-post campaign on a forum I frequent. Does anybody have any tips on how they might run that (something in particular I'm trying to figure out is how battles might work)?

I'd suggest embracing the narrative opportunities in battle. Focus on crafting like an interesting encounter or two rather than sweat the round-to-round rolling. Especially if you are using the basic battle system rather than book of battles 2, there is very little that the PKs can actually do in a normal battle round; even if their unit leader succeeds in battle, the choice of fighting or retreating is pretty much a non-choice since unless you are burdened with wounded or prisoners, of course you will fight to gain glory. So you can basically gloss over most of that until you reach some important or an interesting situation. Like a choice between helping an ally or a chance of attacking a higher ranked enemy or stuff like that. Whether to show mercy on a bloodied Saxon youth stumbling before you dazed and unarmed or trample him under your horse's ironshod hooves.

6 minutes ago, Tizun Thane said:

Be careful with the possible end, but why not after all.

Yep. See my earlier post with this warning.

Alright, a couple of things on the ready adventures to warn the GMs about... Most of them are obvious when you skim through the adventure. The Birthday Hunt is most important to check at the beginning of the campaign, if you relocate it to Salisbury, since it has some changes to the Earl's family in 4th edition.

The Red Blade
This adventure is set in Romance/Tournament, so mid-530s works without issues.
Actually, I would be VERY tempted to transpose Sir Gregor of Stafford to the Adventure of the Maiden's Oath (below) as the hospitable host that the PKs will meet in Escavalon. Thus introducing him some years earlier and then have him visit Salisbury to offer this Quest to any Salisbury knights who are valiant enough to assay it (naturally, the PKs ought to volunteer, or the Earl might call upon them by name, even).
Alternatively, the PKs could easily stop by at his place on their way to Sir Ector's Manor in the Adventure of the Great Hunt (below), which would introduce him, and not require changing his home. However, this would mean adding another encounter... but that could work to its benefit, actually, since Sir Gregor could offer some advice to the PKs about that adventure, too.
Finally, Sir Gregor should be the one to recommend the PKs to be elevated to the Round Table at the end of the mini-campaign.

EDIT: Duh, obviously the best place to introduce Sir Gregor is at the Adventure of the White Horse. Just replace the Old Knight of the Wilds with Sir Gregor and you are done! Then he can be a recurring character in the other adventures, having already developed a friendship/mentorship with the PKs.

The Great Hunt
As written, this is set prior to the Roman War, but there is nothing in this adventure that REQUIRES it to be set in that time period. Granted, Sir Ector is getting a bit long in the tooth by mid-530s, but you can easily handwave him being a very young knight in 490s. Especially since this is just a mini-campaign.

The Birthday Hunt (DoB #1)
As written, this is set in 514 and at Tewkesbury, but I am sure that it is using a different timeline from GPC anyway, as it references Camelot (built in 520s) and a war against Maelgwn of Gwynedd (probably in 520s or 530s, definitely not in mid-510s)... In any case, again there is nothing to stop you from moving this adventure to 530s in Salisbury, and use the Morgaine Forest rather than the Forest of Dean as the Faerie Forest. And as I suggested, you can tweak this so that the birthday boy is the eldest son of Earl Robert of Salisbury (remember to make that change at the beginning of the campaign), or he could be the second (not as big stakes). Anyway, you can easily name-change the named people in the Earl of Tewkesbury's family. The location of the Hermit's homeland ought to be changed a bit, but it basically doesn't matter. I would be tempted to make him someone who went crazy at Badon Hill, thus linking it to the adventure below, too.

The Maiden's Oath (DoB #2)
This is set in 519, right after the Battle of Badon, which is referenced in the adventure. However, you can easily enough make the attackers into grave-robbing bandits, who have dug up some buried Saxon equipment that no one was bothered about at the end of that bloody battle. Or, if you want to make it more spooky, they could be actual Saxon ghosts, rising up to fight against their Cymric foes... I think I actually prefer that option. 😛
The last time a host family would have had news would have been prior to the Roman War, or the GM can just keep it vague and let the PKs roll Courtesy, Intrigue and Orate to deliver some gossip and news.

The King of the Red City (DoB #3)
This is already set in mid-530s, so no worries. On a quick look, this doesn't really require any changes. However, since the PKs are most likely all married by now, those heiresses could be still girls and the PKs get the wardship, and can arrange the marriage between their wards and their eldest sons once they grow up. Thus making for a nice dynastic plan there, too.

The Dragon's Hoard (DoB #4)
This adventure works nicely in 530s as well, without issues. You could consider sending the PKs dragon-hunting more on their own initiative, too, which would of course make their liege lord less upset with them, if they return empty-handed, but it is better for some drama if it is a mission from their lord.

3 hours ago, Scotty said:

Can anyone confirm exactly which 5.n edition these are for?

I am pretty sure (like 95%) they were for 5.0. I can actually check real quick. Moment.

Yep, page 6:
5.0: Carr
5.1: Karr (fixed)

Page 10,11
5.0: High King Uther
5.1: King Uther (fixed)

Page 15 Berserker fix should be page 215. There must have been a typo or something there.
5.1 fixes the Greataxe and the shield, and Berserker is simply 'Madman'.

Seems pretty clear to me.

23 minutes ago, Baba said:

Or keeping it, but building it out to somehow making it more personal for the player knights.

As a general rule, I am very much in favor of trying to intertwine personal stakes and hooks into the adventures.

I would not be that keen to make the bear into a knight-killing monster bear since it would break the rationale of sending just squires after it. The Bear Hunt reads as a tutorial since that is what it is. One way to make it a bit more fun would be to introduce a couple of NPC squires who might be looking to hog all the glory and give the players some rivals to test themselves against.

I see your point, Baba, and I explicitly stated that it is the first adventure if you are running this as a mini-campaign. If all you are doing is trying to convince a group of lukewarm D&D players to give the system a chance, giving them older knights to play and dropping them into the Red Blade would work better, I agree. It very much depends on the level of the buy-in you already have from your players, if they are committed to a dozen sessions of a mini-campaign or if they need to be dragged to play it at least one session.

Alright. So the adventures...
Note: I skimmed through them to refresh my memory, so don't expect too detailed analysis (also, I don't want to spoil the players who might be reading this).

4e
The Bear Hunt: Introduction, knighting of the squire PKs. Definitely the first adventure you wish to run if you are running this as a mini-campaign. (If, however, your game group is more like 'meh, I want to be a badass fighter who can Great Cleave his way through goblins', the game might not be for them. Or you could start them off with older, more experienced knights and let them go ham on some poor bandits.)
The White Horse: I would be very tempted to run this as the second adventure, as it teaches the players of the importance of their Traits. (There are a couple of tweaks that I would do, since as people have noted, its rather harsh 'fail and you are out' -mechanic can make it very frustrating for players with poor dice luck. I have discussed this in another thread that I will find and link here in just a moment. EDIT: https://basicroleplaying.org/topic/12763-adventure-recommendation/?tab=comments#comment-198571)

The Red Blade
I would save this one for later, as it is a rather high-stakes one, if memory serves.

The Great Hunt
I would save this for the middle or so, since it basically brings the player-knights into the notice of King Arthur. While it doesn't require terribly experienced characters, it works better if they have some years under their belt, already.

The Birthday Hunt (DoB #1)
Semi-challenging but easily scalable by the GM. Possibly a relatively early adventure, and it would be easy enough to set this into Salisbury by changing a few names around and making the birthday boy the son of Earl/Count Robert. (Do note that as this was intended as a one-shot convention game, one ending sees the affected PK returning to a Britain where a hundred years or so has passed and Arthur is just a legendary foe of the ruling Saxons. I wouldn't be so harsh in a mini-campaign and just make the PK skip a year, returning prior to the next adventure.)

The Maiden's Oath (DoB #2)
This is another good adventure for relatively new PKs. More battle heavy, so maybe have this as the third one, to let the PKs flex their muscles a bit after the slower White Horse.

The King of the Red City (DoB #3)
This adventure involves the PKs in some higher tier politics and bigger battles, and works admirably as the capstone of the mini-campaign, but I won't spoil the ending! (I very much disagree having this as the starter adventure, as the author suggested as an option.)

The Dragon's Hoard (DoB #4)
This adventure has a dragon, as the name implies, so it is a somewhat dangerous one. It would work very well as a penultimate adventure of the mini-campaign, I think.

Alright, so as a quick campaign skeleton:

late 530: The Bear Hunt. Introduction of some wife candidates (who do not have to be heiresses, dangit; see the Helpful Suggestions thread above). The Maid Elianor (see below) ought to be one of them, to introduce her before her adventure comes up.
531: The White Horse
532: * (Getting to know wife candidates and maybe even rescuing one of them from a dastardly rival?)
533: The Maiden's Oath. At the end of this adventure, the PKs should be getting married, perhaps one of them to the eponymous maiden, Elianor! (No problem with her being an heiress here, since the PKs worked for it.)
534: * (Family stuff?)
535: The Birthday Hunt. (Now, if you wanted to have heiresses as wife candidates, this is the time when the grateful Earl/Count might be doling them out. If you do that, you might wish to move this to 534 and have the Marriage (below) fill 535-538 instead.)
536: * (If you wanted to, you could take the Marriage of Count Roderick and repurpose it as a mission to find a suitable bride for the birthday boy from last year's adventure, now that he has been knighted and, hopefully, rescued. This would add some filler into the 536-539.)
537: The Great Hunt
538: *
539: The Red Blade
540: *
541: The Dragon's Hoard
542: *
543: The King of the Red City. The campaign ends with the PKs qualifying for the Round Table, as Arthur has had his eye on them ever since 537. So hopefully the mini-campaign ends with a nice high note of the PKs becoming part of that hallowed brotherhood, with beautiful, loving wives and a few children already growing to carry on the family name in the future.

* = Skip (play a solo) or personalized adventures for the PKs. This gives them a bit more time to get experience under their belts before they start hitting the 'higher level' adventures. This means that the player-knights will be in their early 30s, probably around their peak physical prowess, when they are hitting the latter adventures. I added some suggestions in the above.
 

2 hours ago, glassneedles said:

I think you wrote this specifically for me!

Well, not specifically for you, but people like you, definitely! 🙂

Also, have you seen this thread:

It was written for GMs and players looking to play a 5.2 + GPC campaign, starting in 480 (or 485), but many things there are valid for both 4e and 5.2e.

2 hours ago, glassneedles said:

I've never played Pendragon before but got sucked in through the recent blogposts Chaosium put out highlighting the upcoming 6th edition. Before seeing this my plan had been to grab the Paladin core rulebook and go through the included adventures (and maybe get the additional book for that) as I like physically having the books I'm running from. It would also be Charlemagne rather than Arthurian so I could come to 6th edition fresh. 

Does that make sense? I haven't bought the books yet so not too late for me to realise I'm being idiotic 🙂

Like Voord 99, I think KAP 4e is easier than Paladin as a trainer set for 6e. As Voord 99 surmised, my feeling of Paladin rules is that they are basically 4e+ a host of house-rules, and I am saying this as a guy who has his own set of 50 or so house-rules and tweaks on KAP 5.2. Anyway, my point is that 4e (or 5.2e) is both easier and more 'canonical' than Paladin, when KAP rules are concerned. The difference in rules between 5.2e and 4e is relatively minor. The setting and even the worldview in Paladin is somewhat different, as Voord 99 already said, too.

Also, I wouldn't worry about 'spoiling' the KAP campaign. In fact, I think keeping the introduction and the eventual 6e campaign in the same setting makes it much easier for the players. Also, you can portray the introductionary 530s as an era of peace and prosperity, basically having Camelot as a backdrop where the knights can report on the adventures they have done and bask in the approval of the King and the Queen, and the rest of the court. You don't want to have the Big Plot dominate this introductory campaign, IMHO. By contrast, once the PKs get to this spot in KAP 6, they have probably already gained a lot more Glory and name recognition, and even if they switch to their sons soon enough, the players know what is going on, and that, and the different adventures you'd run from the new GPC book (Romance & Tournament Periods) as well as published adventure and regional books, there will be plenty of surprises all around. It definitely won't feel stale.

One thing I would do, though, is ditch the Family History for this introductory campaign. That can be quite spoilerific as it gives the year by year breakdown of the events and the battles (even though they might be a bit different in KAP 6 than in KAP 4, as they also differed between KAP 4 and GPC). Also, in my experience, the players want to play. Hook them in with nice adventures, and you can worry about the family backgrounds later when KAP 6 is out and you are doing a real campaign. Also, the 4e (and 5.2e) family background was quite Salisbury-centric, still. Book of Sires would give you more options, but the whole idea here is to give you a cheap starter set, not an exhaustive one. Also, by diminishing the importance of the background, you can let the players be freer with their backgrounds and work with them to tie in their characters, even if one is a Saxon and another a French knight (actually still a squire) from the Continent (no doubt picked up by the mentor knight during the Roman War). However, while I advise not doing the Family History for these intro PKs, you ought to go ahead and read through it yourself, to get some idea what has happened.

As all of you likely already know, there is going to be a starter set for 6th edition. But in case you want to play NOW but not commit to getting a load of 5th edition stuff, here is something you can do to get yourself and your game group primed for 6th edition. (Yes, I know that most of the people in this forum already own loads of books and have played/GMed KAP, but in case we have some people who haven't...)

1st thing you need: The Rulebook
Obviously you need the rules to play the game, and some background information doesn't hurt, either. KAP core rules have stayed quite similar from edition to edition, so it isn't a huge deal if you get 3th, 4th or 5.x edition. 5.2 has the most up-to-date rules and is nice and slick with its new art, but I'll be honest here: I'd go for 4th edition if I'd be looking for a starter. My reasons for this are as follows: 4th edition is set to start AD 531, meaning that your PKs will drop down right into the golden age of Arthurian chivalry, romance and adventure. In short, what they expect to experience when you tell them that the game setting is King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table. By contrast, 5.2 drops you in 485, in King Uther's rather more grey-shaded world of might-makes-right (granted, you can use 5.2 to play in AD 531 rules-wise no problem, but the setting info is for 485, which makes it a touch harder for a new GM). Not only that, 4th edition is a thick tome that comes with nice blurbs of information about the various counties and the kingdoms, as well as rules for creating characters who are not the standard Cymric knights from Salisbury, whereas 5.2 would require you to get the Book of Knights & Ladies to get the extra chargen information (and alas, not really tell you all that much about the various kingdoms and counties...). Furthermore, 4th edition pdf is a steal at $9.99 from Chaosium website (link below). There is another reason, and that is the Adventure of the White Horse, but more of that later. Finally, I started with the 4th edition back in the 90s, so it will always have a special place in my heart. ❤️

https://www.chaosium.com/king-arthur-pendragon-core-rule-book-4th-edition-pdf/

2nd thing: The Adventures

There is a nice collection of free stuff out there already. Chaosium has put out two free adventures, The Red Blade and The Great Hunt (link below). There is also the Marriage of Count Roderick (link below) that you might wish to get and retool for finding a bride for the liege's son (if playing 4th edition) or use as a prequel (if playing 5.2 edition) as is. However, the 4th edition comes with its own intro adventure, The Bear Hunt (also included in 5.2), where the player-characters get knighted, and in addition, 4th edition has a very nice adventure, the Adventure of the White Horse, which introduces the players to the system of Trait tests and how not every challenge is won with weapons. Alas, 5.2 edition lacks this adventure, which is a great shame. In addition to the free stuff above (or included into the rulebook), there is also the Dragons of Britain fanzines #1 - #4, available for free at the drivethrurpg.com (links below). They each have a fan-created KAP adventure that you can use.

https://www.chaosium.com/we-are-all-us-free-adventures/

https://www.chaosium.com/content/FreePDFs/Pendragon/NM14 - Marriage of Count Roderick.pdf

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/121452/The-Dragons-of-Britain-1

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/126635/The-Dragons-of-Britain-2

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/130711/The-Dragons-of-Britain-3

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/139056/The-Dragons-of-Britain-4

So in the end, you end up with seven (eight if 4th edition) adventures + the Marriage of Count Roderick to play with as a taster with your friends, just by getting the rulebook. In the next post on this thread, I will give my suggestions on how to weave those adventures into a mini-campaign for your players. (However, that will have to wait for later, as I ran out of time.)

(Since the topic came up in Discord, I figured I'd just cross-post here as well.)

8 minutes ago, Morien said:

I give my PKs a choice: they can reroll the Passion or they can keep the one they have.

Actually, I may have been remembering our old houserule there... Nowadays, I think what we do is to roll a new Loyalty with 3d6+bonuses (like the 1d3 for vassal knight) and then take the average between it and the previous loyalty. So if you were superloyal to Roderick, some of that likely carries over, but not all of it, and so forth.

Granted, it is not really an issue outside of Anarchy in most campaigns.

27 minutes ago, Voord 99 said:

But I personally would have them generate a new Passion.

I give my PKs a choice: they can reroll the Passion or they can keep the one they have. Yes, I know this means that on the whole, they keep the high loyalty and reroll the poor ones, but I am fine with this. Loyalty is one of those nice passions that is tailor-made for the GM to use as a hook, as my players found out having maximised their Loyalty [Prince Mark] during the Anarchy... 😛 All hail Good King Mark!

31 minutes ago, Voord 99 said:

Happy to be corrected on the point, but while Robert can’t yet knight as a child, I believe that he can receive homage and fealty.

I think you are right. That being said, in our campaign, Cornwall had it as a requirement for their help that the knights of Salisbury bend the knee to Prince Mark, "until such time as Robert is old enough to swear allegiance to the King of Cornwall and take his place as the Count of Salisbury as a loyal vassal of the King of Cornwall". Which led to a nice little loyalty conflict when Squire Robert (no early knighting for you!) was captured by Arthur's army in 511... and Arthur promptly released Robert and knighted him, before asking for an oath of loyalty to the King of Logres, "as his father before him".

3 hours ago, The Wanderer said:

They want to get the horses of the fallen knights to sell them and get money to hire more mercenaries to beat the other usurper.

I was going to comment on this... where are they going to get those mercenaries, by the way? You can't just press 'recruit a mercenary knight £1' button in a computer screen and the mercenary to materialize in your army roster.

In fact, pretty much the only way for them to get mercenaries 'on the spot' is to offer clemency for those enemy knights they just defeated. But of course then you can't loot them, or they would not be able to fight for you as knights. Not to mention that their loyalty might be suspect. And finally, those other victorious knights and footsoldiers might be looking for their cut; granted, you might be able to talk at least Gwendolyn's household knights around into supporting this idea to reclaim her lands quicker, and possibly even Ellen's, and then the footsoldiers can probably be bought off by any stuff from the dead/too badly wounded to be worth waiting enemy knights.

3 minutes ago, Voord 99 said:

Honestly, aside from the practical consequences, I’d also think about a 1-point Honour loss (and Selfish checks, obviously).

Yeah, at the very least -1 Honor.

4 minutes ago, Voord 99 said:

One could add a random element to battle spoils

One could, yes. Honestly, just to reduce the overhead for the GM, I would just value everything at 50% and then split evenly, with the understanding that if you own a third of that charger, you will get your £3 d80 eventually when it is sold, don't worry about it. Or some wealthier knight might want a spare/replacement and use some of his loot to trade/buy it from the people owning those shares.

10 minutes ago, The Wanderer said:

I don't understand what is the KV ☹️

Please reread point 1.

10 minutes ago, The Wanderer said:

And I don't know how to calculate the total amount of the loot...

How many enemy knights were captured? How many horses? Most of the loot would be the knights' armor and horses, since they are probably all robber knights without much in the way of family or liege lords to pay their ransom. I mean, technically the usurpers might, but without armor and horses they would not be worth the money to the usurpers.

14 minutes ago, The Wanderer said:

The Knights that go with them owe homage to countess Ellen or baroness Gwendolyn, but have been put under the command of one of the PKs for the campaign. The spearmen are mercenaries.

OK then. See point 4. about household knights. Same would apply to the vassal knights of Ellen/Gwendolyn sent here by their lieges.

1 hour ago, The Wanderer said:

Also, do the loot of the battle (as the pks are the commanders of the army) have to be distributed among the soldiers?

Good way to get a rebellion or a desertion in your hands if you do not. Loot is expected, just like the PKs get loot in GPC's scripted battles even if they do not personally capture a horse, for instance.

Are all of those other knights and spearmen either mercenaries or sworn men of the PKs? Or other allies working on their own? Or are they (and the PKs) sent by the PKs' liege? In the latter case, the liege would expect a cut, too.

Here is the way I'd do it:
1. Calculate the total KV (knight value) of the winning army with a knight being 1, and a spearman being 1/8th.
2. Divide the loot by the knight value: remaining loot / total KV of the army. This is how much each knight gets.
3. Now it gets complicated: Each knight would give 1/3rd of their loot to their feudal superior / employer. (Theoretically the footmen as well, but they are getting such a tiny share that it is not worth it.)
4. Each 'middleman' knight would give another 1/3rd of their TOTAL loot to the Battle commander, who of course has gained his own share and 1/3rd of his own men. In the case of household knights, they would give that 1/3rd to their liege lord (even if absent) and 1/3rd of that (so 1/9th of a hhk's share) to the army commander, although if the army commander is a vassal of the same liege lord, he might consider letting the whole third slip him by.
5. The army commander, if he wants to keep his allies sweet, ought to think about showing some personal largesse, too.

10 hours ago, TrippyHippy said:

Well, it's a point of semantics really. I think to get it right, and authentic feeling, any game involving playing magicians in the Pendragon world is going to quite different to playing Knights.

Depends. Sure, if all the player-characters are magicians, it will by necessity have a very different feel from the default KAP. But if it is more of a case of a single magician player-character acting more as a quest-guide role (a role also often filled by ladies) or as a support character (ditto), then the campaign would play out almost the same. Perhaps a bit more supernatural adventures, but those already exist in the published adventures, as does magic, for instance the Tournament of Dreams.

However, if you play, say, Paladin, you are not going to be playing the GPC, full stop. That is the difference in my mind. It is not the same setting, the same period of the game world. Hence Paladin is a spinoff, but something like Beyond the Wall, Saxons!, Land of Giants or Pagan Shores are add-ons. All those four introduce different societies and settings from the default rulebook, but they co-exist in the GPC world, and while you can run a regional campaign that is pretty much totally divorced from the Arthurian saga, you don't have to. Now if someone were to come up with, say, Beowulf (Land of Giants gets close) or Nibelungenlied that would focus solely on those stories and societies and would have a campaign set there, without any connection to the Arthurian world, then I would call them spin-off games. Or if you take Saxons! and fast-forward it to 9th century with the Vikings (the new "Saxons") and Alfred the Great (the new "Arthur" stand-in), then yes, that is a spin-off game. As it is, though, Saxons! is so connected to the KAP timeline and happenings that it is not its own separate GAME, it is simply looking at the same setting from the different side. Just like in the Old D&D, you had Mystara with its Gazetteer series detailing one country after another, with their own little quirks and societies, and those didn't make them spin-off games. Hmm. Maybe a good definition is if the characters made in one supplement interact and crossover with characters from another supplement, it is an add-on. Whereas if they cannot (without invoking magic or time-travel or dimensional hopping), then they are separate games. Although in AD&D you had the same game and simply different campaign worlds. Same thing is true with GURPS: same ruleset, just multiple different campaign settings.

Anyway, just wanted to explain where I was coming from with these definitions. 🙂