Morien

I think Prometheus878 meant that if he is doing a solitaire play (i.e. using a GM emulator, with himself as the solo player), would it be better for him to run a party or just a single PK. I have to admit that I don't find solitaire play that interesting. I need someone to bounce off from and share the fun, so my energies would be diverted more to finding someone to play with, even online, and taking turns to GM or running a GM-PC as a sidekick (either another knight, snarky Dinadan-type to Tristram, or an actual career squire like Prince Valiant, Lancelot & Tristram have). If I were to run a solitaire play with a single PK, I would very much recommend making the PK tougher than the normal PK in group play. Like giving him extra 10 years of training without aging him, right off the bat, and tossing the 15-starting-skill cap away. I would likely also give him a career squire, who is experienced in things that the PK isn't, such as make him a Hunting 15+ expert so that the PK doesn't have to spend points there. Fortunately, a lot of the combat encounters in Pendragon adventures are already scaled with the number of PKs (such as "3 bandits per PK"), but I would certainly look over the encounters and maybe tweak them a bit to make sure that they are usable in single play, too. Giants and such are very very deadly if you are trying to solo them.

Archery is something that the commoners compete in... See Robin Hood. He doesn't shoot against knights or pretend to be a knight himself. That being said, if you want to keep it simple, you can run it as a simplified tournament: roll Bow and if you crit, you win. Glory should be low, like a neighborhood tournament. See the rules for tournaments in GPC. If you want to make it more complex, you can do it with opposed skill rolls, the higher success wins and earns like 1-2 glory. Opponent skill 10+2 per extra round. If you win 7 rounds, you win the archery event and get extra champion archer glory (see previous).

Very good answers already. I don't have anything to add.

See Chapter 15. It is similar to how GPC is divided into Periods, telescoping the technological advancement into Arthur's/Charlemagne's reign, with the knights potentially going from chainmail hauberks to full plate during their lifetimes. From what I understand, they start as squires, and are knighted* once they have been aged and trained to qualify for the knighthood. Unlike in Pendragon, the manors in Paladin are not automatically inherited, and indeed, are usually given only for the life of the knight so honored. So even if the father would be landed or even a lord, it may not be automatic; also note that in the lord case, the birth order is 1d6, so you are unlikely to be the eldest anyway. Although the Franks tended to split the lands amongst the sons, anyway; case in point Charlemagne and his brother, or Charlemagne's sons (only one survived him, so no split after all), or his grandsons (three way split). * Actually, if you run the introductory scenarios, the Player-characters start as squires and remain squires until the middle of the second adventure, when they are knighted. While I didn't see with a cursory glance if they would get a household knight position, it would probably be easiest to assume yes, although it depends what adventures the GM wishes to throw their way and what the players want, too.

Well, KAP 5.2 says: "This Madness may occur at once, or once the relevant action is over (at the Gamemaster’s discretion)." Melancholy also results only after the action is over. So you have some leeway as the GM on how to do it. One thing though... Madness isn't 'flying into rage'. Only if the Maddened or the Melancholic character is the target of 'Snap Out of It' is the rage a possibility, and this would be the case if he is hassled by the Saxons too. It is all in how you play it. Let's say that the player is trying to use Hate Saxons and fumbles. The PK tried to pull on the memories of all the wrongs the Saxons have done, raids, relatives killed, etc. But in his heightened emotional state, his thoughts skip to his family and their fate if the Saxons get to them. Must make sure that they are safe, right now! Run away! But some part of the knight realizes that by riding away from the battle, he has abandoned his friends, so at the same time he cannot bring himself to actually return home, so he is now in the forests, guarding 'his family', a clump of trees. One thing to keep in mind is that the Passions aren't really realistic and as such, some suspension of disbelief is needed. 🙂 I am a big proponent of having Madness also on a failed critical inspiration: you are critically inspired to do something, but if you fail in whatever it was, you are driven mad by your failure. We had a situation in our campaign where a PK was critically inspired by Hospitality to protect his host. Alas, the host was beheaded by a critical strike, and while the PK managed to kill the murderer (I didn't impose the Madness until after the fight was done), he was then found by the other PKs, trying to put the head of the host back on the body, sobbing: "It won't stay on... it keeps falling off..."

I would say yes. Trait rolls can be a bit tricky, though, since they are actually two-sided. Passions, Attributes and Skills are easier to modify. So with Traits, I would probably modify EACH side by -5, when it is rolled, making it less likely to succeed in either side of the trait-pair. The alternative would be to modify both traits towards 10, i.e. -5 to whichever trait is higher. But it is a bit of a mess, so I might just ignore it for Traits. But I would apply it to new Passion rolls, yes. If you are already depressed, it is harder to get fired up again.

One thing I often do, especially if I don't want to bother with the logistics of the ransom, is to have the PKs give their ransomable captives to their liege. The liege pays a 50% "captor's fee", and then arranges for the ransom, keeping the other 50% himself. The PKs get the money almost right away, but it is just 50%, which helps to 'buffer' the impact that the ransoms can have, especially at a higher than vassal knight level.

Always possible. 🙂 Reminds me how in our Middle-earth campaign, one PK rolled critical Flirting and Dancing with King Anarion's daughter. I decided that meant that sparks were flying between them, and even though the PK was just lower nobility (still, about banneret-level), Anarion begrudgingly gave his permission for the two to start courting. I think it took about 30 years of courtship before they finally were allowed to marry (but these were Numenorean-born Numenoreans, living 200+ years, so it wasn't as big of a deal).

Saxons! says: "Unlike good Christian knights, Saxons neither pay nor ask ransoms for captured foes." and "A Saxon whose cynnsman is improperly detained by foreigners will simply seek his healthy return, plus bot for the kidnapping." (Bot = compensation) So that would indicate 'no'. KAP 5.2: "Saxon Warriors: These foes try to kill the knight. If captured, they can be sold into serfdom (£1 each). " So no ransom there either. However, Book of Battles 2, p. 83, does have ransoms for higher ranking Saxons (Heorthgeneat and higher). That's probably what you were after?

Since shield armor is gained only on a partial success*, and the missile attack is unopposed, the defender doesn't roll and hence cannot get a partial success to get the shield armor value. * The exception is against an Uncontrolled Attack, which explicitly says that the defender does always get the shield bonus (Paladin p. 128). This matches how it is handled in KAP 5.2, too, although KAP 4 did not have this additional note. (We have houseruled it so that if the defender fails in their own attack roll first, then they do not get the shield armor bonus themselves. It seldom comes up, though.)

This one I was aware of, but thanks for the reminder anyway. 🙂 Ah, no wonder it missed it, since I was scanning the Places and Hexhamshire is just mentioned in the Hexham -entry, with Hexhamshire missing its own entry.

On a quick look, Sir Quintus of Camboglanna might be the closest hit in Perilous Forest? Could be that I missed him in a cursory look, though.

Of course. With a family and a small farm inside the walls of the fort or something. I probably could even fudge it so that any contradicting information in Beyond the Wall or Perilous Forest would be simply reflecting the situation a couple of generations later, if I were to run this kind of a thing in 485.

Yes. Also if memory serves, Julian is guarding the wall against the Picts. In KAP he would be guarding against Gorre, mainly. But maybe it is doable. After all, Valiant's Picts are not KAP Picts. I am actually less bothered about the chronology. It is easy enough to add a generation or two without really changing the character. Even better, actually, making him even more 'immortal' when he has been around for almost a century... You know, now I am wanting to run an adventure of a Roman Ghost Knight of Vindalonda or something like that. 🙂

Oh yes, I am aware. We were part of Russia for over a century, after all. 😛 Our most revered* general, Mannerheim, was fluent in French before really starting to study Finnish after the Independence. (* Imagine if Washington was the ONLY Founding Father, and you get the idea. Keeping the Russians from overrunning Finland during the WWII does that to you. And he became the President after the war, too.)

Just out of curiosity... I don't know, but I suspect... that this might be especially a thing in Britain & Ireland (i.e. the areas where the Norman French aristocracy was stomping around), and much less so in USA, Australia and Canada. I would expect that Canadians would be giving a side-eye to Quebec right about now, while in USA, it might evoke more of a Louisiana Cajun vibe. Although I expect that there is a secondary split between those who are into Medieval literature (including Le Morte) and those who are coming from a non-literary background, too. For Finns, there would probably be a similar thing with Swedish nicknames, given that the Swedes ruled over Finland from the Middle Ages to the Napoleonic Wars, and most of the 'local' nobility is actually of Swedish (or German via Sweden) extraction, with Swedish or German surnames. Then again, since many Finnish-speaking Finns detest having to learn mandatory Swedish in school, it would probably take some convincing to make them use it even in a roleplaying game. Mind you, if it were a historical setting, then yes, bring out Svens and Eriks. But I doubt we'd mix Finnish names and Swedish nicknames. It is one of those things that when it is your own native language, it sounds... weird.

And that would be the best reason. 🙂

And for us who are already playing with a foreign language, adding another one into the mix is a bit too much for this GM. I am going to stick with English nicknames. After all, all those Norman knights with their Norman French nicknames had their nicknames in their native language... so since English is pretending to be the native language in the game, it is good enough for our nicknames, too. Added bonus, we can all understand it without the need for online translators. 😉 But don't let me rain on your parade. I like using 'ethnic' names for Cymric, Romans, Saxons, French (Franks) and so forth... It is a nice shorthand to establish where the character is from. But I think I would still stick with English nicknames for the ease of use, as much as it might grate in some ears to have a French name followed by an English nickname...

Yes, definitely. Although also see below... Totally agreed. Actually, what I would probably do is keep Uther in the North, as he does in HRB after Mt. Damen, which also gives the PKs a possibility to stay there as well, and meet King Lot etc. to start laying down the groundwork for his role later on. Or even have some adventure in the North that they would be likely to miss if they stayed in the South. I would be quite tempted to steal Julian the Immortal from Prince Valiant, the Guardian of the Wall, although he does not work quite as well in KAP environment than in Prince Valiant. Another option would be to move the Adventure of the Horned Boar here. Of course, if the PKs stay in the north, I would move the Skirmish at Allington to another year. Another option would be to have the 485 be more focused on the landholdings that the PKs are just inheriting. The Skirmish at Allington would work quite nicely here, too, in particular if the PKs manors are close by. Or even have that attack be on one of the PK manors. (I tend to cheat and ensure that they are all in the Eastern Salisbury to ensure that they are first in line vs. Levcomagus and Wessex during Anarchy.) As for Mearcred Creek, I'd have it as a 'meanwhile', same as Essex, regardless where the PKs are, just to give them a break from all the battles, or even drop it altogether if the PKs are in Salisbury, and use Uther's stay in the North as an excuse why the army is not there to protect Essex. Anyway, choices, choices. 🙂

Also, just in case that we have some new GMs looking over this thread, I am linking my other 'advice' thread here:

Finally, I wanted to comment on the Family History, or rather, when to do it. Traditionally, you do this thing perhaps even prior to character generation, or at least after it. Now if your players are KAP veterans or are already familiar with Historia Regnum Britanniae (and Le Morte d'Arthur), then they might actually get a kick out of doing BoSires family history as the first thing, and let it inform their character generation. However, when dealing with new players, I am not convinced that this is the best possible idea. IMHO, it becomes very easily a bit of a grind and a long infodump, and stalls the session. This is especially the case with KAP 5.2, where it can very easily happen that one PK's grandfather dies like the second year, while another survives for another decade or two, meaning that the first player is basically just twiddling his thumbs until the father is old enough to start doing the history. Book of Sires is much better in this regard, but it will still take time to run the families through it, especially if they are from different regions. Instead, I would get the new players playing as soon as possible. One nice thing about 5.2 chargen is that it is quick, you can probably do that in half an hour and then have the rest of the session for the Intro (Bear Hunt). Frankly, I would even allow tweaking their characters a bit after the Intro, if they are unhappy with the choices they made. As for the background, I would keep it simple. Something along the lines of: "In your Grandfather's time, Tyrant Vortigern seized the throne and imported Saxon mercenaries. He married a Saxon princess and gifting Cymric lands to the Saxons, favoring them over his own people. The Cymri rebelled, and were betrayed at a peace conference by the Saxons." "In your Father's time, the true heir, Prince Aurelius, returned from exile with an army and killed Vortigern. Aurelius became the new High King. He defeated the Saxons but was unable to push them off the island completely. Skirmishing and warfare against the Saxons has continued for a decade, with High King Aurelius' brother and heir, Prince Uther, acting as Aurelius' right-hand man. Aurelius' confidant and his best friend is Sir Gorlois, the Duke of Cornwall." I'd then follow up with a quick show of the map of Logres and the Saxon kingdoms (and the surrounding ones), and then information on Salisbury and Count Roderick, including his unmarried status. Then onwards to the Intro adventure. Naturally, if you allow non-Salisbury backgrounds, things can get more complicated, but the intro pretty much assumes that all the player-characters start as squires in Salisbury. So even if the family is from somewhere else, the player-character has ended up as a squire in Salisbury, whether due to a friendship or a familial connection (like mother's side of the family?). The details can be sorted out later. As for when I would do the Family History from Book of Sires... It depends a bit how the players are feeling after the first year. If they are all fired up to know more about the world and their family background, sure, I could do it then. Alternatively, I would be happy enough to delay it until after the Battle of Eburacum, and basically have the PKs raise their toasts to the victorious dead (their fathers, older brothers) and reminisce about the lives of those who have passed, talking about their families' glories. By then, the players are much more familiar with the world, and better able to follow all the names and places. (As for the Inherited Glory, you can easily just give them 100 Glory at the beginning, and then give the rest when you finally do the Family History.)

So how would I actually start the campaign? Here is a quick summary of my thoughts on that: 479 Autumn: Bear of Imber, including the Count's court (using Book of Feasts?), followed by the Winter Phase (no knighting yet). 480 Early Spring: Visiting Baron Gwylon and Lady Ellen (The Marriage of Count Roderick). (As squires still, the PKs would be attending their knights and probably have less opportunity to roll for events during the visit, but I would be tempted to have them roll Courtesy and Intrigue anyway, the first to see if they perform their duties with panache and the second if they pick up any gossip from servants & local squires.) 480 Spring: Spring Court. Pretty much as described in BoU, although see later. 480 Summer: Battle of Salisbury. PKs participating as squires, attending their knights. I would have the knights badly wounded/die in round 6, and have the PKs help them to the rear of the battle (maybe Sword/main weapon rolls, +5/-5 for mounted, to see how well they extract their knights from the battlefield). That puts them in with the Reserves, and Duke Gorlois, all bloodied up, rallies the Reserves and invites 'all men who can hold a lance' to charge with him. PKs join in on a glorious lance charge (+10 for charging against Saxons on foot, who defend with -5, since I would just give them axes or spears, not great spears). After that, it is another round of swordwork at +5/-5 thanks to being mounted, and the battle is won. The PKs are knighted by Duke Gorlois, who would have some personal praise to each of them depending on how well they did, or words of consolation if they didn't do so well. In short, make him a sympathetic, heroic figure that the Players like. (Since I am an EvilGM like that.) (As for the equipment, as the PKs are already at the cusp of knighthood, I would have them in chainmail already; either father's old one (if the father is dead), or the father has already bought a new one in preparation for the PK's knighting. This also makes it less likely that an unlucky hit kills a character outright. As for opponents, regular Saxon warriors would do fine, no need for berserkers this early in the game...) 480 Summer: Aurelius' Funeral, followed later by Uther's Coronation & Feast. Time to use the Book of the Feast. Remember the Intrigue rolls to see how Uther humiliates Gorlois. (I'd be tempted to give this information out even if none of the PKs succeeds in Intrigue, maybe have one of their surviving mentor knights points it out.) 480 Winter: Winter Phase. Remember all the Glory the PKs gained. For the Battle, I probably would not give them glory for the rounds that we 'skipped', but I would give them Glory for the rounds where they actually fought (saving their knights, lance charge, final rout of the Saxons). Again, the Count's Christmas Court might be a good opportunity for the PKs to look for wives, as you want to get them married off quickly and producing heirs sooner rather than later, as I would recommend. (Remember, NO HEIRESSES for freshly knighted PKs, unless you need that to happen as part of bringing a foreign PK into Salisbury, as suggested in Book of Sires.) As for the actual sessions, I am a 'slow' GM. We generally take 3-4 sessions per game year rather than the 1 session per year that is oft quoted. So something like this: First session: The Bear Hunt intro scenario and Christmas court in Sarum, introducing the Sarum court. By the way, a very nice idea I have seen some people using is including Madoc as 'just another squire' in 479, part of the same group of squires as the player-characters. This will give them instantly a personal connection to Madoc, for good or for ill. His parentage is not known until the next year, so there is no need for the Players to know yet that he is actually a prince... heck, Madoc himself probably doesn't know it, either! Second session: Visit to Windsor to meet Ellen. Spring Royal Court. Madoc acknowledged. Camaraderie of Aurelius and Gorlois. Talk of the coming battles & the background for the players (possibly delivered by the fathers). Possibly some minor squire adventure depending on time; connected either to Madoc, or Gorlois or even both. Third session: Battle of Salisbury. As said, I'd gloss over most of the battle, maybe a single sword roll, and then take things to Aurelius' death and make the PKs part of Gorlois' charge. Then the aftermath of being knighted by Gorlois, funerals, coronations, homage. Likely finish off with winter phase. Of course, it depends a lot on how many players you have (6 for me, which is a lot to handle, to be honest) and how much you hurry along. Given that the assumption is that this is a new group with new players, I would rather take it slow than overwhelm them. Speaking of the Knighting by Gorlois, a question I was asked was 'Why does Gorlois do this rather than the Count'? Well, because I wanna. 😛 But there could be in-game reasons. Perhaps Gorlois, Aurelius' right-hand man and the highest ranking noble present and current commander of the army feels that it is his right to hand out battlefield knightings, in the absence of the king. Perhaps Roderick got badly wounded at the Battle, so he is unconscious at the time and Gorlois decides that the valor the still-squire PKs showed ought not wait to be acknowledged. Which actually might fit to Gorlois' personality as well. He tends to think that he knows best, such as continuing his own war in 473 or protecting his own lands against raiders rather than answer the King's summons in 484. In any case, Roderick's reaction to this is up to the GM, although obviously I would not make him react badly to the PKs themselves, who would still swear their oaths to Roderick as Roderick's household knights (since I want to keep the campaign in Salisbury, not in Cornwall).

Hi all. So this is a bit of a compilation thread of my various musings (although feel free to chime in) about starting the GPC campaign already in 480 rather than 485. You'll need Book of Uther or the standalone GPC Expansion (included in BoU) for this, of course. Also, get The Marriage of Count Roderick. It is a freebie, but adds some events for 480-483 that you can use. I already made a post about this in the old Nocturnal Forum: http://kapresources.wpengine.com/Pendragon%20Forum%20Archive/index.php/t-2552.html A lot of what I wrote there (and other people commented on) is still valid, but I have had some other thoughts as well. Also, most of the new players would be in this Forum, not trawling through the old archive. 🙂 So, let's start with why I think 480 start is better than 485 (IMHO and all that, of course). It pretty much boils down to having 5 extra years to play with and laying more groundwork: 1) The whole conflict/rivalry with Uther and Gorlois has some additional depth, when the Players can witness it fraying. And you can especially introduce Gorlois as a very nice guy at the Battle of Salisbury and have him knight the PKs personally, which will make this whole Uther-Gorlois thing hit all the harder. 2) Octa and Eosa get some additional depth in 484. Sure, they are defeated, but at least the PKs will have some personal exposure to them and hence perhaps something to prove in 490 and later 495. 3) You have additional sessions to bring the new players up to speed, so once they hit the Sword Lake, they understand better what is going on and why it is such a big deal. 4) Speaking of new players, you can easily keep the PKs' fathers alive for extra 5 years and have them die in 484, and thus delay the manor management stuff until later. (Or, perhaps even easier, as it doesn't require you to mess with the fathers' fate... If the PK father is dead at the game start, then the PK is the second son (AKA the Spare), and the older brother is the current vassal knight. Then the GM can just kill him off, childless and wifeless in 484 to allow the younger brother, the PK, to inherit the manor without problems.) 5) The PKs will have 5 extra years to get married and establish their families. This means that they are very likely to have adult sons by the time Anarchy is ending, just in time to start earning big Glory with Arthur. (This is also why I would allow the PKs to marry whilst still household knights; their fathers/brothers support the wife out of the Discretionary Funds of the Manor, in order to get the family going. Also, No Heiresses, as I commented in the above archived thread.) 6) That extra 5 years of advancement means that the PKs are more able to be the leaders in Salisbury during the Anarchy, being in their late 30s rather than early 30s. 7) Also, those extra 5 years means that the PKs have a better chance of catching Uther's eye at some point and more opportunities to interact with Uther's court. Especially if the GM introduces Madoc as just another squire in 479, which will put the PKs possibly in Madoc's orbit as well, giving them additional exposure to Uther's court. This means that you get some extra use out of all those NPCs in Book of Uther, some of whom are already dying in 490. And Madoc's death will hit that much harder, too.

Well, if it were just two archers shooting at one another, I might go with a simple Bow vs. Bow opposed roll to see who hits the other first, assuming that both are actively trying to avoid getting hit themselves. Alternatively, you could give the melee fighter an active block, using his weapon skill to try and actively interpose the shield, making it your Bow-6 vs. his Melee Weapon skill, as I suggested in the previous post about Homeric javelin exchange. Sure, this makes it much harder for an Archer to hit a guy, but there is a reason that shields were ubiquitous until you got a full coverage armor that was nigh impervious to arrows. Also, the archer shouldn't just be standing there, waiting to be charged, but run away and try again once he has opened some more distance. He can attack, the melee monster can't, until he has closed the range. Skirmishing is life for an archer, a slinger, or a javelineer/peltast.

Nice thing about Homeric heroes is that they are very much fighting duels against one another, which simplifies things. Just off the top of my head... Setup: A and B having Javelin 16, and carrying shields (Armor +6). A. Under normal KAP rules, this would be two unopposed rolls with skill 10. Which, I agree, is a bit boring. Also, at higher skills, it would be even more likely that BOTH combatants get hit, which is kinda opposite what you'd generally expect from Homeric exchange of javelins. B. You could do it as a simple skill vs. skill opposed roll, which might work fine enough, although it might not model the usual 'both blocked' result well enough, and indeed, means that the more skilled the fighters are, more likely it is that one of them takes a javelin hit. C. You could do it opposed rolling, but let the 'defense' skill be 16 and the 'attack skill' be 10 (i.e. modified by the shield). Thus, if A rolls 9 and B rolls 15, B misses his javelin (or hits the shield more like, 15 > attack 10 but < than the unmodified 16) but manages to actively block A's javelin (since 15<16 and 15>9), too. I have not crunched the numbers, but given the disadvantage of -6 on the attack, I think this would probably favor mutual miss/block more than one getting hit, even at higher skill levels. You could rule that a draw in successful attacks is a mutual hit, which keeps it rare but possible. You could even allow the highest weapon skill to be used as the defensive skill, i.e. if the guy has Spear 20 and Javelin 16, he probably should be blocking with 20 instead of 16. D. You could separate attack and block into their own rolls. A throws javelin with skill 10 vs. B, who defends with 16. And then the same with B's javelin. Resolving it with two opposed rolls instead of just one. Also, see above about the other, higher skills. Just on a glance, I think C might be the way I'd go. If there are multiple javelins in the air (what is this cowardice!?), then I'd apply the -5 to the defense skill for 2 javelins and so forth. Also, Defensive would be an option if you focus on blocking all the javelins flung at you, rather than throwing your own javelin.