TerryTroll

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"?

Campaign started in 485, we are currently playing Pathfinder, but when I'm back to running it will be the start of 490, so the knights are going to be 26. The married Knight who got married in 488, has still yet to produce an heir, although he has a bastard son growing up with a farmer's wife (unknown to him or the farmer) in Imber that would now be five. He has two younger brothers, and a much younger half-brother (as his mother remarried after his father died, the step-father has eyes on his manor). One unmarried knight also has a bastard from a knight celebrating in Imber, although the serving maid died in childbirth, and the boy has since come to live on his manor, and another bastard in Frankland from the last campaign. He also has a younger brother. The other unmarried knight has insisted on being Chaste and has not even fathered a bastard in all those years. He two has a younger brothers. So it's not like they couldn't continue the family with a younger brother if they happened to die unexpectedly.

No, I'm not that cruel, really we just like having a laugh at the player doing the voice.

We found that alone was surprisingly significant in our game. We had one character dump stat Appearance, having it at only 6. He ended up with a high pitched, lisp and excessively hairy. We don't make him do the voice all the time, but every now and again when he is trying to do a speech or romance a maiden we tell him to say it again in the proper voice. Inspired from the clip below. Then he wonders why he never does well at orate.

I'm not sure if it is feminist or not, but more down to how much work you want to put into NPCs. After all the Book of Entourage puts no more detail into the Husband for Lady characters than it does for the Wife of Player Knights. Only one of my PKs has got married so far, I think the Lord will need to put pressure on the others soon. The other players have been holding off because of the system in the KAP, which gives a bonus on the roll for delaying, but I'm switching to the rules in the Book of Entourage, so hopefully that will encourage them.

The table in the Book of Entourage seems more generous to me than the one in 5.2 for example from 5.2 9-10 gets you a daughter of a household knight (£1d6 dowry) and only 50 glory 12-20 gets you a daughter of a vassal knight (£1d6 dowry) and 100 glory. but in Entourage 4-10 gets you Eldest daughter of a vassal knight or younger daughter of a rich vassal knight. Dowry: £1d6+6 treasure. and her glory is (5d6+10) × 10 times 1.5 minimum of 225 max 600. 11-12 Eldest daughter of a rich vassal knight or younger daughter of an estate holder. Dowry: £2d6+1 treasure. Her glory is in the range of 225 to 600. 13 and above leads to even better wives with the chance of land even under a roll of 20, where as with 5.2 you need to roll 21 or more to get additional land. Although it is unfair to compare like with like as you roll a d20 (with very few modifiers) on the first table and a d6 (with significant modifiers) on the Entourage one.

I wasn't aware of that, although currently most of the mounted cards don't really suit a tournament. They are things like giving up your horse for your Lord, or getting a lance charge against a ranged unit. I'll have to think about how to influence the battle, with this system I haven't fully worked out the glory awards yet, but it is likely to involve tracking success, failures and criticals which could be used. That or perhaps a modifier to intensity attached to each card.

I hadn't thought of that, obviously you'd want to limit the card deck for a grand melee tournament, remove cards related to being on horseback, ranged attacks, and mystical ones. I think the icons I'm including should make it easy to spot most of the ones that wouldn't be suitable for a tournament situation.

Just to say the links in the original post allow for comments so if you have any questions or ideas feel free to either use this thread or comment on the actual documents.

I spoke in the Better Battles thread about wanting to do a system similar to the Book of Feasts card mechanic but for events in battles. It is still very much a work in progress. Just wondered if it is something people would be interested in, or want to contribute, suggest ideas and the like? The rules for using the cards are in this document Battle Cards Rules while the actual cards themselves are currently in a spreadsheet Pendragon Battle Cards which you can import into Nandeck. The basic idea is you draw an Battle Event card, which sets up a situation (which more often that not will lead to Engaging an Enemy). The event would either award glory or modify the glory of the following engagement. Like the cards from the Book of Feast the event would often involve a test of a skill, passion or trait, this would often be an opposed test. Ideally I want to keep the glory awards similar to what you would be getting under the existing battle system. What this system doesn't intend to do is actually have any influence on the outcome of the battle as a whole as it is designed for the more scripted battles in GPC where the outcome is already known. Cards don't have any fancy frames yet so just look like this

Yeah I think there is a difference honor wise in surprise between sucker punching someone, and out maneuvering or out foxing your enemy on the field of battle. I think just because you are dealing with dishonorable types a knight would still be honorable. So if there was some political peaceful meetings with Saxon for some reason, attacking them when you were under some sort of truce would be dishonorable. Striking one from behind during negotiations and the like would be dishonorable. Although probably not looked on as badly as if it were towards another knight. Having your unit of men lying in wait in woodlands or behind a ridge, and then charging out to attack the Saxon matching line before they have a chance to form up however is just sound tactics.

Thanks for this I wasn't sure what if any of those two to pick up first/at all. I think a broad view like the Estates book seems best for my group too.

"So say we all!"

Thanks for this I am certain to make use of them.

Is there anywhere in the text that says this? I've not spotted it. In standard play the player is free to choose how his character reacts if both rolls fail.

I'm not entirely sure how these cards work. See "Merrily Did He Run!" which is Modest vs Proud. In KAP for Trait Disputes (page 87), you would roll Modest and if that failed, roll Proud. If that also failed you had free choice how to act. Is this how it is meant to be with these cards? If both rolls fail you get to pick? Although they say "wins" rather than succeeds which makes it sound like an opposed roll. Where you roll both traits at the same time, which ever is successful and rolls the highest "wins", is this how they are intended to be played? I assume in this case if both rolls failed then the Knight would get a free choice?

One thing I thought (playing through the early GPC so far), is the result of most battles seems scripted. The PKs are often a small part of the battle, and don't really have much influence on the result itself. I'm thinking of coming up with a system that just focuses on the events around the players that has less of an effect on the battle as a whole. I don't really want a system that calculates a winner or loser of a battle, as that is already determined by the story in a lot of cases.