Morien

To clarify, in my above suggestion, Syagrius is very much betrayed. Uther is encouraging him to raise an army and fight for his kingdom, and then Madoc goes 'nope, we are going home' (as Uther had told Madoc to do). The nice thing about this is that it matches the betrayal already in GPC, and at the same time, the politics behind the scene make sense, too. You could even include a Frankish embassy to Uther protesting and demanding Syagrius' head in 487 or something like that, to foreshadow this betrayal.

Certainly a valid choice and arguably closer to the spirit of GPC than my alteration. I think GPC makes it pretty clear that Uther and Madoc are more machiavellian here. I vaguely recall that part of my motivation to change it was that I most likely would have lost some PKs to Syagrius' side if I hadn't! And I wanted to avoid that headache. The other issue I have with it is that it is needlessly machiavellian of the two. Syagrius doesn't actually accomplish anything in the Bayeux campaign. They could have come straight out and said: "Look, we know you want to reclaim your lands, but we are simply not strong enough yet. How about we do some raiding and plundering? You get your cut, and you can use that money to keep your entourage in shape and continue to foment rebellion in your former lands. When the time is right, we will help you." If Syagrius disagree, no loss, just land near Bayeux anyway and plunder the city. If Syagrius agrees, great, one pawn to be used later on, too. Alright, I can think of another option, which is even more machiavellian: they are serving Syagrius up to Clovis. The Frankish king obviously doesn't like the idea that the ex-King of Soissons is plotting against him from the comfort of the Logres Court. Historically, Clovis did issue an ultimatum to the Visigothic Kingdom of Toulouse to hand Syagrius over, and once they did, Clovis executed Syagrius. Now, Uther is not about to do that [handing Syagrius to Clovis like a prisoner], rules of hospitality and all that. But he has read Syagrius correctly... give him enough rope, and Syagrius will risk it all on a long-shot. So there is this fiasco of an invasion, Syagrius is left to face the Franks by himself, and even if he survives and flees, he is certainly not going to darken Uther's doorstep ever again; good riddance! And Clovis, a canny politician that he is, will just tip his crown in respect for a fellow monarch, playing the game of thrones.

Oh, I might add a bit here... I don't think Madoc acted against Uther's wishes at all. It very much seems to me that Uther is very pleased what Madoc managed to accomplish: "King Uther and Prince Madoc toast each other all winter. Everyone is happy..." and later, Roderick comments: "After all, his actions were good for Britain." Even when they set out, Madoc is pretty clear that this will be a quick jaunt across the Channel: the knights are supposed to have food just for 40 days. Given how variable the sailing weather can be in the Channel (see the Norman Invasion 1066), Madoc is playing it rather riskily by even intending to stay for 4 weeks, giving himself just a couple of weeks to get back (granted, they probably look loads of food at Bayeux). Also, the fact that they do not specify Bayeux as the invasion goal and just talk about 'one city' hints that Madoc's marching orders from the King is to plunder a city (any city), and get the army back safe and sound. If Uther's orders to Madoc had been "Back Syagrius to the hilt and fight the Franks in a decisive battle.", I doubt that Madoc would have been so keen to ditch Syagrius. After all, he doesn't even ask how big of an army Syagrius managed to raise, and how many Franks they might be facing. Instead, he instantly nixes any plans of helping Syagrius. In our campaign, I admittedly played Madoc and Uther somewhat more honorable, and it was Syagrius who came up short; after all, he already had an army smashed by the Franks a couple of years ago. Thus, Syagrius had been promising a mighty army that would rise up against the Franks at the stomp of his foot, but when Madoc inspected the said army, it was composed of bandits and peasants, old men and young boys, with a mere sprinkling of nobles who had mostly been in exile with Syagrius anyway. In short, an army that would ensure that it was the Britons who would have to do most of the fighting (and dying, as soon as this rabble routed, as they would), and that was not what Madoc (and Uther) signed up for. Nope, this half of an army is needed back home, rather then fertilizing the fields in Gaul.

Again, GPC is a bit confusingly written here: "The army loads the ships with loot, horses, knights, and then footmen. The savage Irish kerns torch the city and come aboard as the flames sweep the entire waterfront, where the sailors slept last night." Bayeux is about 6 miles inland. There is no way that if the fire here is Bayeux, the flames would reach the waterfront, and besides, the sentence reads as if the kerns are boarding right after they put the place to the torch, too. But if this is the village that is acting as the harbor and the landing site for the army, then it suddenly makes sense (save for 'the city' reference): The whole army marched out of Bayeux, and start loading up into the ships. The sailors have stayed with the ships this whole time, sleeping in the seashore village. The kerns are last to load up, and being savage pyromaniacs, torch the village in high spirits, without explicit orders, and then clamber aboard even as the flames consume the waterfront. The other option here is that Greg was unaware of the geography (which would seem unlikely that he seems aware that Bayeux is not by the sea in the landing phase), and that the city is supposedly to be put to the torch. Even then, you have the option that it is the Irish kerns, acting without orders, rather than coordinated by Madoc. Finally, there is the variant that Madoc, his pride pricked by Syagrius' words, decides to torch the city to spite Syagrius (if he wins), or to deprive Franks the city (if Syagrius loses, as seems likelier). Needless to say, I favor the first explanation, and amend the sentence to read: "The army loads the ships with loot, horses, knights, and then footmen. The savage Irish kerns torch the port [village] and come aboard as the flames sweep the entire waterfront, where the sailors slept last night."

In KungFuFenris' campaign (link here: https://basicroleplaying.org/topic/10706-the-pendragon-chronicles-my-attempt-at-the-gpc/ ), he described his players' rolls thusly: "Aldwyn critted first, the Reccared critted a sword roll and finally Aldwyn used the +5 to the Knockdowned Giant to crit AGAIN! That's 25d6 of DMG in two turns. Bai bai Giant." As for the Nukalevee, he switched that out for a Green Knight... I think the GK had the ability to attack numerous times, and hence fight simultaneously against all the PKs, like the Nukalevee, so it was more of a reskin rather than changing the dynamic. But I could be wrong. In any case, the PKs prevailed here, too.

But Merlin heals the guy, so why would it matter? Also, if someone is missing in the Nukalevee fight, then surely the Nukalevee's arms would be as many as the PKs who are present, not the ones who are napping?

City of Salisbury = Town of Sarum, a typo caused by using the modern name instead of the more accurate one (location- and period-wise). "Earl [change to Count] Roderick comes with all his knights [to join the army]". As you can see in Your Home -chapter of KAP 5.2, the knights of Salisbury are usually dispersed quite widely to garrison different holdings in Salisbury (and presumably outliers, too). So I took this to mean that Roderick summons all his knight (perhaps with a few absent to command Sarum and other castles) to join the army. They don't all live in Sarum, especially the PKs are likely to be normally in their own manors, so hence the clarification. I have ran it a couple of times. I think one try ended up in a party wipe against the giant, as they went up on foot and got bashed for their trouble. So it was time for a quick rewind, a prophetic vision of what might happen if they leave their horses behind, and up they went with their horses and killed the giant. I think the second group took down the giant and then the Nukalevee down easily enough, but they might have suffered one major wound on the Giant. Like Username said, the clincher is outnumbering the Giant and killing it quickly. I think mine used Lance charges, a couple of knights at a time, to take it down. Nukalevee only has 5d6 in the write-up in GPC, and that is with a sword. Club (other attacks) is only 4d6. Where did you get 7d6? Ah, I think I know, you used (SIZ+STR)/6, but first of all, this would be 8d6, and secondly, you can't use that since this is not a humanoid; the SIZ includes the horse body, which is not providing the leverage for the swings -> hence 5d6 damage. Armor 5 and HP 45, my 6d6 PKs chopped it to seaweed in a couple of turns. Granted, they had the advantage of using our house rule that a footman attacking the horse of the rider doesn't suffer the -5 height penalty (although the rider still gets +5), and since the Nukalevee is a single creature, the damage down on the horse body is damage to the Nukalevee. The PKs easily enough shrugged off the hits that they got, and the ones that landed blows of their own took the Nukalevee's HP down swiftly enough.

Medium Castle is describing the outer works of the Castle (i.e. walls and towers) and then the keep (i.e. the stronghold: Motte + Tower). So assuming those values are correct, it would have DV 20/10. This is in contrast to Queen's Castle's 10/11 (as it says, the initial 3 are the city walls, with the castle being within those walls). Note: I didn't check if both of these castles count as concentric and hence the Keep would enhance the outer works' DV, too. Also I didn't check if these rules are in agreement with the newest version of rules in Book of the Estate (Revised). EDIT: Oh, you mean why is the Medium Castle even mentioned on p. 29? My guess it is an editing error, and it reflects Sarum much later. See Sarum Castle in 547, p. 296.

Realistically a handful of knights ought to not tilt a battle dramatically under normal circumstances. GMs are of course free to change things in their own campaigns, but it is clear that GPC is more of a default campaign. For instance, despite all the options to steer Salisbury differently during Anarchy, the default is that they ally with Nanteleod and fight on his side at Nentley Marsh. And GPC reflects this with raid modifiers and the like. It is up to the GM to apply tweaks for their respective campaigns. There is also the point that most of the GPC battles are victories for the default PK side anyway. So for the PKs to influence the result, they would have to cause their army to lose! I would actually argue against Boy King: it is already very busy and you risk sidelining the PKs from major events and Battles. Also, Arthur simply doesn't have time during the Boy King to focus his army on Powys: he is busy with Lot and then with the Saxons. There is also the point made in the Tournament of Dreams adventure that implies that Belinans is actually pro-Arthur and is very much enthusiastic about this new tournament idea. That fits poorly, imho, the image of Belinans and Powys being at war with Arthur around the same time, late 510s. The presence of Saxon and Italian mercs needs to be amended as well to run this adventure early. But that is just switching some names and nationalities around.

I could definitely see an argument for STR+Bow to represent the training. Anyway, I needed some kind of a formula for my Middle-earth campaign, where I also had the dreaded Numenorean Steel Bows (max 6d6).

Agreed. Something like Bow damage = Damage - 1d6, max 3d6 hunting bow, 4d6 composite bow and 5d6 warbow (longbow) ought to work. With possibly specialized training (from childhood) giving +1d6 to bow damage (you are more used to drawing bows), which means that the professional longbowmen would be 5d6 damage with longbows and swords, and huns would be 4d6 composite bows and swords.

Mordred is already the Regent while Arthur and Gawaine are off fighting Lancelot. He is the de facto King. So what does he gain from rebelling? A.) The whole thing about being the legitimate heir goes out the window, since now him be the traitor. This also tends to put some people off, who would have been happy to support him otherwise. B.) Arthur and his army comes back to beat him. C.) Even if he wins against Arthur (and possibly gets himself the title of patricide), he still has to deal with Lancelot and Lancelot's army. You know, the Greatest Knight Living? Whereas if he just cools his heels for a year or two, the chances are that Arthur kills Lancelot or vice versa, taking one main opponent off the table. Furthermore, those armies will bleed one another rather than fighting Mordred, making it more likely that he will win in the end. Mordred is supposed to be smart. That is why in our campaign, I favor the 'miscomminication': Mordred got word that Lancelot had won a great victory, Arthur and Gawaine were dead and their army smashed. Mordred claims the crown and rallies support. When the truth is revealed, he tries to sort things out at Camlann, but a snake and a drawn sword completes the tragedy. But if Mordred is a power-hungry, sadistic maniac in your campaign, go for it!

Oh, we played it a pretty long time ago, and my note-keeping was much more haphazard then. But as far as I can recall, we played it pretty much as written, albeit with the following caveat... The initial wrench was that the first battle was a smashing success, the PK Captain criticalling his way through the Battle and Melee rolls, and ended up with Cynwyn captured and shipped off to Arthur's Court to cool his heels for the rest of the war. This also meant that the rest of the rebels sat up and took notice, leading to a rather peaceful first year. The Elfael tribe was even suggesting a marriage of their princess to the Captain's eldest son and back the Captain to become the new King! But alas, the young man decided that the princess wasn't comely enough and the Captain decided not to force his heir into a marriage against his will. So that fell through. Still, the Captain's personal prestige and prowess was enough that the tribes pretty much stayed put for a second year, especially with the gifts being showered at them. However, then the Captain went and died in a side quest (a giant was involved), which meant that the command devolved to his second in command, who was a much less experienced and glorious knight. So the tribes prepared for another push, after sounding him out on a possible negotiated ousting of the foul Tathal. The new Captain declined, so the tribes recoalesced in rebellion (although kept quiet about it). The new Captain then took his garrison out to quell the most rebellious tribe, but they refused to meet him in battle, so he continued pursuing them. Some bad Battle rolls later, the new Captain found himself and his army surrounded by a superior force of unified tribesmen on superior terrain, so he ended up surrendering rather than fight the battle (I think it was something like -10/+10 modifiers). Luckily, Arthur was just wrapping up Powys at that point, so a negotiated dissolving of the kingdom was agreed upon (basically, Tathal kept his own tribe and another loyal one, while the rest became independent kinglets under Arthur's overlordship, and the castle held by Arthur's castellan). I agree very much that a subdivision of duties is necessary. Try to give each PK something to do & decide, and if you have someone that doesn't have anything to do, spring a romantic subplot, or at least the possibility, on them. We had maybe 3 sessions per year, so we had some time for minor side quests, too, to give everyone something to do. The Justiciar got very very upset with Sir Antonio, by the way. There was a pretty epic rant from the player about Italian crossbowmen. I also introduced some personal animosities with some NPCs, leading to some side quests. I did reroll the tribal relationships and what Powys is up to between the sessions, so that I could preplan what would happen during the following year. As for longbows, you don't actually fight skirmishes with the regular combat system, so you wouldn't even roll longbow bow damage in the adventure as written. If you use longbows, remember to use the corrected damage from Entourage (3d6+6) rather than the medieval bazooka from GPC (4d6+10).

Yes, because in my campaign, he is a living, breathing human, not a literary object lesson. In short, his motivation cannot be: 'Oh, I am doing this, because it is the most heinous thing that a writer can think of, and I am supposed to be the most heinous being that ever lived.' I am not approaching this from literary criticism, but from GMing side of things.

OK yeah, vengeance, hatred and strategy to get Lancelot to do something stupid I can buy. Legitimacy by marrying his own, dishonored and adulterous stepmother (a huge no-no by medieval consanguinity rules, tantamount to being a literal MF), further hanging a huge sign on his on incestuous beginnings... Nope, that is the part that I cannot accept.

Yeah I don't know where the legend went from BotW. There is a legend in the Book of Uther, p. 146. @sirlarkins, could that be made downloadable freebie on the Chaosium website? The dead tree = hundred moot (hundred court location) 5-leaf icons = pagan holy site (as you guessed)

That's kinda my point... Guinevere is an adulterous Queen. Sure, Arthur takes him back, but that was forgiveness, not wiping the slate clean. Besides, her lover is none other than the man who has already killed three of Mordred's four brothers, two of them while they were unarmed and unarmored, and at least ten of their closest allies. Whereas Mordred himself is Arthur's acknowledged bastard, his only son and heir. Which by the way means that his rebellion makes even less sense. All he needs to do is to wait for the old man to drop dead or get killed by Lancelot, and he will have it all. Grr. The troubles you get from gobbling together disparate sources! (In HRB, Mordred's rebellion makes much more sense.)

Yes. I was referring more to the default Malory inspired GPC where the False Guinevere, if she even shows up, is already dead and Mordred tries to marry his adulterous, past-childbeating age and childless, mother-in-law. It is the latter that doesn't make sense to me. Young Mordred marrying an acknowledged half-sister of his uncle's wife makes more sense, although we'd still have some issues of age due to Mordred being half a generation younger than Guinevere in GPC. Less of a problem when Mordred is just Arthur's nephew...

Heh, I was just writing my thoughts on that. 🙂

Speaking of False Guinevere, while I do not like that storyline, I could see an opportunity to throw a real twist into the laps of the PKs... Imagine if the two girls have been parent trapping their respective parents on a lark while kids, changing clothing and so forth. The PKs might visit Cameliard in mid-500s (maybe to negotiate with Nanteleod about Salisbury's allegiance) and see the two girls playing together, with the girl in the less fancy dress reacting first to Leodegrance's call and then giggling and nudging the girl in the fancy dress. A switcheroo or the bastard girl being more observant? Then in 510, after Carohaise, you could have a situation of 'the bastard' making a scene, barging to the victory feast and claiming to be the princess. But everyone just explains that she is not right in the head poor girl and she is dragged away and locked up in a nunnery. Perhaps the PKs spot a little smile on the lips of 'the princess', who goes on to marry Arthur in 514. Maybe the PKs do something about it. Maybe they meet the woman later when she tries to escape the nunnery and prove she is who she says she is. At least they might rescue her from her pursuers and perhaps there might even be a romance kindling there. This would work very well with the Evil Guinevere angle: she is actually the False Guinevere from the start and she is a conniving so and so, willing to use and abuse people to get her way. Granted, it would distract some from the Majesty of Camelot, when there is this rot and deceit at the center of it. But this might pave the way for a more sympathetic Mordred, too. Another Guinevere storyline I dislike is Mordred marrying her (or trying to) after she is a convicted adulteress. But having him marry the wronged, real Guinevere might work very nicely in this twist.

William the Bastard was the only son (there was another bastard daughter with another mistress) and while a bastard, he was an acknowledged heir of his father, raised to that role, and had the backing of the King of France and numerous other powerful men. Despite all of that, he spent his youth putting down rebellions, partly fueled by his illegitimate birth. By contrast, the False Guinevere is a bastard of Leodegrance, who already has a legitimate daughter, who in turn is married to the frigging High King of Britain. Granted, if you go with the Welsh sources and make her a full sister, then by the rules of inheritance, they ought to split the kingdom between them. And if you go by Welsh inheritance rules, acknowledged bastards inherit equally there anyway, but as a feudal state, I would expect Cameliard to follow the Anglo-Norman style of inheritance that bars the bastards from inheriting, especially when there are legitimate offspring. If you keep her as illegitimate but acknowledged, it is very likely that Leodegrance would have given her something (possibly by marrying her to one of his barons) to help her ahead in life. Such things would be common for royal bastards, used to create marriage alliances or loyal barons to their royal half-siblings (Joan of Wales and Robert of Gloucester as examples of those). But I hardly expect him to give his bastard with the steward's wife half of the whole kingdom.

Nope. False Guinevere is a bastard and hence not inheriting.

I am not too bothered by either. First of all, the 'no event' result was not that common anyway, and I use the family member roll to see if the event happens in the first place. If you roll a family member who doesn't exist, then the event probably doesn't happen. In Paladin you have some events impacting the whole family in which case it doesn't matter so much who it happens to. As for rumors, those are pretty useless to me, since it tends to be just a matter of asking the family member if they did it and then it plays out the same anyway. Also, the players in my experience are much more inclined to just shrug and ignore rumors while actual events pretty much force them to do something, even if it is a decision to not help.

No. Forget about Elmet, it stays Roestoc. Greg had a habit of playing with different names for the kingdoms, some of them historical, others literary. Bit up to the GM, as 4th edition states outright that Guinevere inherits the kingdom once Leodegrance snuffs it, but some stories do introduce a brother ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guinevere#Origins_and_family ). The way I GMed it, Leodegrance did not have a son, and Cameliard was ruled by Queen Guinevere with her King Consort, Arthur. I.e. a personal union via Guinevere, rather than subsuming the kingdom into Logres. Malahaut would no doubt like nothing better, but after Arthur smacks them around during the Boy King, I think he grabbed some lands there, too. For example, Carduel swears allegiance straight to Arthur, not to Malahaut. So making waves there might send the little kings squealing like pigs being slaughtered to the High King: "Help, help, we are being oppressed!" In our old campaign, Malahaut was very eagerly trying to add some of the minor kingdoms (Rheged, for one) to its lands, whenever Arthur was distracted with something else. Yes, although they are more like vassal kingdoms rather than total reconquest like in the south. Leinster, no. Leinster is its own independent, allied and friendly kingdom. The whole Irish war is to help Leinster. The Pale, I think yes. It was incorporated via marriage as part of Galeholt's Kingdom of the Isles (i.e. Dal Riada), in 520s. Galeholt dies in 550s, so in 540s, it would still be part of his realm. Sure, why not. Adds something extra that the current map doesn't have. Whatever gets your fancy. Hantonne and Silchester (because of the proximity to Salisbury & later Camelot) would likely be most useful for people playing the default GPC.

Again, my caveat that I have not GMed Paladin, and I have pretty much only skimmed the book a couple of times. I think I have mentioned this in passing before, but at least on a glance, I do like the Personal Events and Family Events in Paladin, and I am planning on starting to use them in my Pendragon campaign. Naturally, some minor tweaks here and there might be necessary; for example the Family Event 19 includes a potential promotion of a family member to a count, which even at a Baron scale is a bit too much for my campaign. Also, I am going to use the idea of having a table of actual named family members, rather than the generic tables which include grandparents and parents who are most often already dead at campaign start anyway... As for adventures and solos, I think the introduction in Chapter 19 (Adventures) gives nice GMing advice on how to plan quests and scenarios. Granted, the advice is just about 1.5 pages long, but definitely added value for new GMs. For more experienced GMs, it is stuff that they know, but perhaps have not thought to articulate quite in that way. As for scenarios in the book, the longer scenarios are very much entangled into the Carolingian world, and would take some disentangling... You might be better off just taking inspiration and repurposing scenes and encounters for a different thing. Some of the short scenarios look promising, as they are more general, and one thing I quite like about them is that it is not always simply "bash the guy on the head". Although since this is a game about knights, duels of honors and of justice are possible, too. Some of the short scenarios are tied to the Carolingian characters, but you can probably change the names and such. For instance, using one of the major families of the Round Table, for example the high Love Family Orkney brothers, to object to a treatment of their sorcerous kinfolk instead of the House of Clermont in the Guarding Maugis -scenario. So yes, there is some stuff in Paladin that is of interest for a Pendragon GM. As far as equipment goes, not so much. The armor and horses are basically the same, other than the inclusion of the ring mail as an entry level historical armor. Paladin does the same telescoping that GPC does: "To represent the advanced Frankish time, the entire feudal era of our time gets telescoped into the 46 years of Charlemagne’s reign (768–814)." (I actually dislike the inclusion of the technology creep in Paladin, as I said in the old Forums: I would have preferred having it exist in a more historical setting as far as the armor goes, rather than see knights riding around in full plate by the end of the campaign. In Pendragon, I am somewhat more permissive of this, because a) Arthur and Camelot are legendary and not historical, and b) it is what I am used to. For Paladin, while it is seen through a storytelling lens, Charlemagne himself is an actual historic figure and we have pretty decent sources for him, unlike for Arthur. Sure, the stories are just that, and the Paladin does occupy that fantasy realm where Saracens are invading left and right and magic and miracles happen all around, but for some reason, it simply rubs me a bit wrong way to have that arms race. I simply don't feel Paladin needed to have the same telescoping of the whole medieval period into Charlemagne's reign. I would have been perfectly happy to give them 12th century armor and warhorses (i.e. about the time of most of the epics) and leave it at that. Which is pretty much what the starting point for Paladin Phase 1 is.) (Although let me add that if you are running it as a sequel to GPC, then having it have that similar technological arc might work, thematically. Just that if I were to run Paladin myself, I probably wouldn't bother with the technology increase. For example, the GPC is 480/485 - 560s, about 80 years, and for the first 30 years, you don't really have technological increase at all. And my players were fine with that. As soon as better armor became available, of course they bought it instantly, since who wouldn't? But I am not sure it actually added any particular value to the RP, other than make them a bit more invulnerable. It is 46-51 years before they actually get to partial plate, compared to mere 22 years in Paladin (unless you start at Charles Martel, 54 years earlier). I can understand that players love upgrades and better loot, but I am just saying that I might GM it differently. If you imagine starting the GPC at Boy King (as you could do in 4th edition), then yes, it plays pretty much the same, with about half a century of play and upgrades roughly every decade or so.)