TerryTroll

Is this going to be available to pre-order and get the PDF ahead of time, like other Chaosium products have been? In which case is April for the PDF or the actual hard copies?

In the Starter Set on Page 44 of Book II where it says "Closing Distance shows how many Combat Rounds it takes to cross each range band." Does it mean if I see an enemy at Long range and I galloping on my horse it takes one 1 to cross the Long range band, or if an enemy is at Long range do I have to take three rounds, crossing short, then medium, then long to cross each range band?

Is it me or is the Pendragon Starter set a little thin when you compare it to the other two starters(at the same price point)? I'm surprised there isn't a fold out map of Britain or of a city, castle, manor or village. The quality of what is there is great but feels a little reduced in scale.

Page 5 of book one makes it clear that you only have one Famous (16+ Trait) at creation, yet the characters booklets often have characters with more than one? Are they advanced characters or is this an error?

I was also wondering after reporting an event, do you hear anything back? How do you know if you've been credited for it?

Thought people might find this British Museum clip related.

Thanks for your detailed response... (also for writing such a detailed and richly researched campaign) So the three generals have done a lot of stuff ahead of the campaign that we don't necessarily see to get all their ducks in a row, which is why it's taken 1000+ years and only now are the conditions right. I see the lama is needed because it's someone not only willing but pure of spirit (I think that's the bit I missed on the first reading, reading PDFs just isn't the same can't wait for a print version), so the cultist can't act directly themselves, as they aren't pure. Still not sure why they can't get just the lama to where he needs to be, just because of "grim satisfaction" seems a little bit risky to involve others if you don't need to. Unless the Tokabhaya are now acting prophecies of their cult, to get the Investigators involved as because it is predicted by the diviniations of the original Triumvirate. Perhaps they predicted the lama would see through any cultists, and so they need the investigators as a buffer. Would the restrictions of a baeyul also mean the Tokabhaya might need to work through the investigators rather than act themselves?

Please don't read on if you don't intend to run Children of Fear and Horror on the Orient Express. Seriously major spoilers follow. I've not finished reading it yet, but one question has been bugging me since the plot synopsis in the Introduction, that I've not found an answer to yet. Why? Why does the cult get the players involved? Why not do it themselves? Why get the lama involved and then wait a 1000 odd years? For the author or the people that have actually got to the end, are these questions answered later on? I remember my disappointment as a player in Horror on the Orient Express, when we discovered that the world would have been safer if we had just stayed at home and not found all the pieces for the bad guys, Children of Fear seems like it will produce the same reaction from the players.

I've found weird issues with the official CoC Roll20 character sheet. Some skills when you roll them it will give you the dice result and the skill value, other times you just get the dice result. For example. Jump, Fast Talk, Persuade all just show the dice roll, which is not a lot of use if your the GM and don't have the sheet open. Where as other skill show the result verse the skill value, and if it is a Failure, Success, Hard Success or Extreme Success. With some playing around just now I've figured out that while it shows the default value for the skill, unless you enter a value your self the comparison doesn't work so you have to manually enter a value for every skill even if it is just writing over the default value. Which is a bit of a pain. I've switched over to using a fan built one that is much better with it's skill rolls even if it doesn't look as fancy. Most importantly you don't need to put the default values in manually for it to give you an actual result. Admittedly there is no Compendium, but then there is nothing in the official sheets Compendium for me (I assume/hope that if you buy the Keepers book that gets filled), as I'm not paying $54.95 for the Keepers rulebook. Shame you can't buy the Compendium separately.

One thing I am going to get a lot of use from even after completing The Children of Fear campaign is the extensive NPC roster in Appendix A. It's nice the have a collection of NPCs in various roles that you have an idea what attributes and skills they might have.

Not really, the book goes as far as to have the detail such as a Mauser Broomhandle C96 it's a nice detail as the China used a .45 C96 as it's service weapon. However it also has the model M1912 pistol mentioned (another nice detail as that version was designed for export to China), yet these models are different calibres (both listed as .45 in the book). Also the .45 Automatic in the Keepers book says 7 bullets in the mag while the Mauser C96 has 10 fed by a stripper clip not a magazine, so not the same gun at all. For the Mauser M1888 are we just to assume the stats of the .22 bolt-action rifle, because the damage is the same, even though it isn't a .22 rifle? The Nagant M1895 revolver is mentioned 1d8 damage so treat it like a .32 revolver? Again it's nice that it is mentioned as it would likely be common in the region, only the Nagant is unusual in that it has a 7-round cylinder. Seems a shame to have researched all the detail to have weapons fitting the region and period (clearly some work has gone in there), but then not then include those details. I thought I had just missed it. If it isn't there fair enough, but using the Keepers Rulebook isn't really the same if you want to use the details provided.

Thought people planning to run The Children of Fear would find this resource useful. https://monovisions.com/vintage-peking-china-in-1920s-historic/

Are the weapons statistics listed anywhere? Couldn't seem to find them listed in the Table of Contents or in the Appendix. The weapons have the damage listed with the NPC stats but nothing else.

First off what qualifies? Does it matter if no one is around to see it? Does it apply on every occasion? Say a knight is off questing, comes across a cottage where an old wise women asks him to chop wood for the fire, so that she may make a herbal brew that will cure his Lord who is dying of some illness. Or a knight is travelling on a Saxon longboat and the crew expect him to muck in. Boating is not a non-knightly skill, but would it count as physical labour? In both cases -2 honour feels a little steep to me. If he was seen tending his own fields because the serfs had left his lands for some reason, then sure -2 honour. Would it make any difference if the Knight was Modest 16, so it might not affect his personal view of himself as much?

What languages are people from the various regions likely to speak at this time? How much trouble would a Saxon have understanding a Briton, etc?

You might want to try https://www.wargamesfoundry.com/ they have a nice range of Dark Ages, Viking, Saxons and Normans plus Medieval miniatures from Early to Late periods.

You might as well remove Glory while you are at it. I wouldn't call that a pro-tip myself. They have pretty much been the driving force behind most of the conflicts and drama in our game so far. Without them you might as well not be playing Pendragon IMHO. I'm not sure Pendragon needs much streamlining to be honest. It is a pretty straight forward system until you use the battle rules or get into the nitty gritty of running an estate (it these if anything that need streamlining).

What if they were assigned to Prince Madoc say for raiding, but the Earl himself didn't go? Would they swear an oath to Prince Madoc at that point, which would last for the time they were on the military campaign, even though they still vassals for the Earl?

Thanks for all the advice, it seems I was in error to give them the Loyalty in the first place. I suspect I gave it when it was technically as oath of Fealty on a campaign under Uther, would that only last for the duration of the military campaign? It hasn't come up much until recently, and I think Loyalty (Roderick) would have been enough to make them consider informing on Cornwall's escape plans anyway. As he is a vassal of Uther and they would know it would make him look bad if it happened on his knight's night watch. So things would have played out the same anyway. On top of that I'll give them all a directed trait of Mistrust Uther as well for what they have witness or know first hand. Also checking his character sheet he had Hospitality 18, so would have attempted to inform anyway. I've recently got the Book of the Estate, which breaks Loyalty down into Homage and Fealty, so I think I will make clearly that they have a oath of Homage (Roderick), they may well have one of Fealty during campaigning to Uther. I'm then planning to keep Loyalty but use that only between fellow knights, no land or even a significant social penalty for breaking it, but it gives an idea of how much trust and friendship or debt there is between them.

I hope so, I like presenting players with difficult decisions. Although I'm not sure how the players feel when Pendragon as a system can take sometimes take certain decisions away from them due to passions, or traits. I kind like when the system forces you into a position you might not really want to be in but, if your the sort of player use to playing Chaotic Good/Neutral in D&D it can be a bit of a paradigm shift, and hard to adjust to.

The PCs are Vassals of Earl Roderick, and have fought in the army of King Uther and Price Madoc on various occasions, but they are vassals of Earl Roderick.He has rewarded them on several occasions, but they have not been given land by him, so not direct vassals. So indirectly via Earl Roderick. So should they not really have any Loyalty to start with? They didn't see the transformation itself but were at Tintagel that night spotted some weird goings on and directly confronted Merlin. The main kicker however was earlier two of the PKs were in the process of courting Handmaids to Duchess Ygraine and one was approached to aid in their leaving London, they were made aware of the King's actions towards Ygraine (who half of the knights had some feelings for one way or another). The group ended up on watch at one of the gates and as Duke Gorlois' party approached they questioned them. "Does the King know your are leaving?" Duke Gorlois was very careful with his answer. "The King has made it plain, my presence is no longer desired here." he did not say that it was by his actions rather than his words. So they knew the Duke left without bloodshed and could see that he left with very little so they could travel faster. Later when King Uther states "The Duke of Cornwall has broken his word and violated our hospitality. His sudden flight from our court proves he is guilty; no other information need be sought. Worse, though, his people slew some servants in their escape, and they stole treasure when they fled." They knew the accusations to be false, and the King's motivation (two of them only helped Ygraine escape for a similar motivation). Yeah they were aware of a lot of it because of their position and relationships with Duchess Ygraine's handmaids, I suspect I made an error granting them Loyalty without an official oath in the first place (first time running), but it set up a nice conflict of interest with his desire for the lady he was courting so. Would it be easiest to just admit it was an error and cancel it as they are not direct vassals?

My player knights aided the Cornwall court to flee London, then heard King Uther declare Duke Gorlois, a traitor, a thief and murder (killing guards and stealing treasure) when they knew this wasn't true. They then went to Tintagel and witness Merlin's magic pressing him for an explanation as to how Duke Gorlois could be in two places at once. They rightly asked considering the events they had witness, would their Loyalty (Uther) drop, some of them would lose out on Glory as their current Loyal is over 16. If it would (and I think it should) how much do you think it should drop, is there any guide for this?

Typical knight does 4d6 or 5d6, with the -1d6 for a dagger, that's 3d6 or 4d6. The weaker knight isn't going to get through armour and shield very often, and needs to roll above average to get through just armour against another knight. Seems it would happen a lot, assuming they even succeed, as their dagger skill isn't going to match sword.

Is the best time to move from manor to estate during the anarchy period where you can just make a quick land grab, or offer protection to your neighbour if they basically become part of your holdings? Marrying your son off to a allied neighbour seems a good move as well, if something were to happen to his sons. On the other hand... I'm currently 490 marrying two of my Player Knights off to maidens from Cornwall as Earl Roderick thought it strengthen the relationship with Duke Gorlois... well if they must wait around so long, they will get pushed into a political marriage. Visiting any holdings they get could be tricky in the future.

Am I correct in thinking most new manors that the players get to expand to having an estate wouldn't actually be adjacent to their existing manor? They marry a widow the chance of that widow's lands being near the knights are low. If they conquer a new area for the king, again it isn't likely to be near their existing manor. Aren't the players likely to end up with little packets of land all over the country rather than vast estates and "huge tracks to land"?