Sir Mad Munkee

14 minutes ago, Morien said:

If you don't mind me asking, in what circumstances did they pick up those Hates? Grandfather died in the invasion of the Picts and the Cumbrians? Siege of Carlion for the Cambrians? I am asking because if you start off from South Counties, it takes a bit of doing to get those Hates otherwise...

Yup, Siege of Carlion for the Cambrians, and... now I’m thinking I might’ve screwed up. Searching through the PDF I’m not finding Hate (Cumbrians) anywhere. I’ll get back to you when I’m home and have the player’s notes in front of me...

I’m still learning my way around the regions, their famous people, and their descendants. On my recent run through BoSires, two of my players got some unfamiliar Passions: Hate (Cambrian tribesmen) and Hate (Cumbrian tribesmen).

I know enough (not much) to know Cambria is out west, and Cumbria is up north, but I haven’t quite connected the dots enough yet to be clear on who exactly they hate, in 480 when we begin, and on into significant future encounters.

If your players had these passions, when and where and against who would they come up?

On page 15, first paragraph under “Decision years”:

Shouldn’t “read throughout the previous history” be “read through the following history”? Seems like what’s meant is “keep reading, even if your ancestor dies, because the years after his death may still influence his descendants.” Yeah?

So, taking the “knightly” skills thing out, making it clearly a Cymri default sheet, and adjusting the starting values to match Cymric defaults in BoK&L, and I’ll have a new version up Friday. 🙂 Thanks for the feedback guys!

Yeah, I guess that's true too. I've really been thinking I'd make a few different versions with, for example, the religious traits underlined, so one sheet for each religion. But then why not one for each culture, and then it'd have to be each culture/religion combo, and no no no. What a mess that'd be. But for my (and I'm guessing, most) games, Cymri is a good default.

42 minutes ago, Cornelius said:

Knightly skills: According to 5th ed. all the skills listed on your sheet are considered knightly. Only the skills Chirurgery, Fashion, Industry, and Crossbow are considered not knightly (but you did not place them on the sheet). The 5th ed book says that Stewardship is also non knightly, but I consider that to be an error.

Yeah, I was also considering putting in a marker for "Courtly" skills as well, but really, knowing which ones might be knightly or courtly doesn't seem to make much difference to anything, other than maybe a "pump these skills up" guide for new players. I'll take the bold out.

As far as which skills I've listed, I was also specifically aiming at a sheet for Cymric (Spear expertise) knights in the Early Phase (no tournament etc.), so I've left out a few things. But there's space and checkboxes for skills to be added by hand if needed.

46 minutes ago, Cornelius said:

Chivalry bonus: Although the official books still state that this is at 80+. Greg Stafford himself stated that this should be 96. In my game I use this value.

Yup, just started a GPC run, and 2 of 4 characters ended up with the Chivalrous bonus straight out of the gates. Seems a bit dodgy. I'll put in 96.

Thanks for your feedback! 👍

4 hours ago, 7dot62mm said:

Nice! Thanks! That last page is especially useful.

Cool, glad you like it & hope it proves useful in your game. Let me know if there’s anything missing or any errors anywhere. 👍🏻

Added a Family Record 3rd page, and nudged some details:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/6bxlnfwm2r6s0h9/KAPCharacterSheetv06.pdf?dl=0

The Apart from the problematic character we discussed elsewhere - I looked him over and he mis-mathed the starting & marriage glory - we had these values on our recent run through Sires:

Salisbury grandfather (408-461 died at Wantsum Channel) 3,376 Glory

Salisbury father (433-469 died gloriously at Maisbeli) with 3,367 Glory.

Salisbury grandfather (408-450 died accidentally) with 2,831 Glory.

Salisbury father (433-463 died Night of Long Knives) with 2,218 glory.

And another, where I’ve also just realized something went wrong. Seems I explained grandfather’s starting glory very poorly.

11 minutes ago, Cornelius said:

I always give the player the choice for the son. He can either take the passion or may even choose to pick a lower one or none. It gives some depth into the character. Did you agree with your father or not.

Makes sense as a way to inherit passions in general. But my question was more: does a specific passion targeting a dead person even make sense (while irrelevant), or do you modify the passion in some way, to make it e.g. Hate (Vortigern's line) or something similar?

In this specific case it didn't seem to make much sense, since "Vortigern's line" also includes his son who led the rebels...

Definitely. I've always disliked that first adventure feeling of "Boom! Here you suddenly are in the game world, with no history or context." Compared to that, after just chargen I've now got lots of hooked in details in my campaign:

• The possible return of the PK's father who disappeared in 457.
• Old knights greeting the PKs with remarks like, "ah yes, you're Jareth's boy! Pity we lost him at Maisbeli."
• We got two very high Passions - Hate (Cambrian tribesmen) and Hate (Cumbrian tribesmen) - so I'm looking forward to the first freakouts over the Welsh and Picts. Nice to see, instead of everyone having Hate (Saxons) only, and "the bastards supported that traitor Vortigern at Carlion!" makes a better explanation than "doesn't everyone hate Saxons?"
• One PK was exiled to Brittany, his mother's homeland (I was rolling locations on Table 1.2, if they decided it was a love marriage), and took on a great deal of the culture in his ideas, even requesting ermine in his coat of arms, as it's the Brittany coat.
• One player rolled the ancient bronze sword on the Luck table, and immediately slotted it into the history of who his grandfather had been fighting, and even added it to his heraldry (along with an embattled per fess division, representing the stunning amount of garrison duty dad did).
• We had a rare, lettered grandfather who gave Constans a book (rolled "did something notable" at the coronation in 442 and chose the Read skill), took it very personally when the boy was murdered, and became a Dissident as soon as he could.

And much more. The whole thing added a lot of connections and richness. 👌

Actually, that reminds me of a question: what do you do with Passions like Hate (Vortigern)? I just included it as colour, but he's dead and crispy, so there's not much to pass down to the PK...

God's teeth! How embarrassing. 😬 You are of course completely right, and I was of course mathing super wrong. As he enters his 21st year, our squire would have those skills at 10. So his Hunting would be substantially better than a normal beginning PK, but most skills would be bang on where they should be. Silly me.

Yeah, I meant taking over a squire of age, and making him your new knight character. I was just thinking a player doing that would have a significant advantage over a normal chargen player. A 21 year old squire would have at least 15, probably more, in those 8 skills, whereas a chargen starts with all of them between 2 and 10, before point allocation. Even with point allocation, there's no way a chargen player could get 15+ in all 8 of those very useful skills.

Come to think of it, doesn't even an 20 year old NPC squire with, say, 19 in all of those skills (good annual rolls) have a good chance of kicking a starting PK's mail-clad arse?

NOTE: latest version is KAPCharacterSheetv06.3.pdf

Hello sirs,

Design's my day job, and I thought why not apply it to fun too?

Here it is. Bigger additions:

• Fealty & Homage (not Loyalty) under passions.
• Skills compressed, and starting values de-emphasised (only need 'em once).
• Added squire details from the BoE.
• Added "Squires lost" – the hard-working (and dying) squire does not get enough credit if you ask me.
• Moved all the Glory bits together.
• Added space for the knight's Entourage on the back.

And bunches of little details.

Still working on it:

• The Attribute banners are stolen from the 5.0 sheet. I'd like to replace them, but I'm not much of an illustrator. Are you?
• It's missing some decorative elements that express the KAP atmosphere. See "are you an illustrator?" above.
• I'd sincerely like feedback and will work it in if possible. What are you missing? Do you see any problems?

Hope you like it and it proves useful. If you do use it in your game, let me know what you think!

KAPCharacterSheetv05.1.pdf

I'm working on a character sheet layout that includes BoE changes (among others), and I was wondering how you handle squires and knightly skills...

BoE page 13 says:

Quote

Knightly Skills: These are skills that knights know, and every squire learns them from his knight. The Knightly Skills are: Awareness, Courtesy, First Aid, Hunting, Battle, Horsemanship, Lance and Sword. They start at (Age-11) + Modifier from the squire’s background. It is enough to keep track of just one value for all of them.

So all of their knightly skills would start at 3, since they start at age 14. So how do you handle advancement? A successful roll of under 15 raises all 8 skills, or do you break them out and roll individually? I guess they're squires, and that kind of granular detail isn't worth it, but I have had players take over their squire as a second character...

On 3/3/2019 at 5:54 PM, Morien said:

Out of curiosity, what were the Glory totals the Grandfathers and Fathers ended up with?

The early death was grandfather 6,299 (married very well & died early, but gloriously), and the father was 2,270 (disappeared in 457, he'll be back). Oddly enough that was also the highest for a grandfather in the whole run, despite dying in 439 at Carlion (was mistaken about it being Parrett).

On 3/3/2019 at 7:44 PM, Hzark10 said:

And, just out of curiosity as well, were the players (and you) enjoy the detailed descriptions of their background?

I definitely enjoyed it. With the players it was mixed. 2 of 4 loved it and really got into it, the other 2 seemed bored on & off. People are just different.

On 3/5/2019 at 12:47 AM, Morien said:

Correct. Quick and easy, which means that we can focus more on duels and other feast events. This does show some of my bias as the GM, since I find the Grand Melee (or any other tournament combat) extremely boring, since usually, there are no stakes. And if there are real ransom stakes, then suddenly it becomes way too important, and it takes the whole session to work out. Rather than doing questing or moving the big plot forward.

Given that, I'm curious: do you engage in full-on BoB battles in your campaign? With the infant campaign I've just started running, I'm a little nervous about battles to be honest. Both for the "I'm sure I'll f@#k it up" factor, as well as "won't they other fall asleep / be totally confused?" element. 😝 But battles are such a huge part of the GPC, it seems weird to just say, "nah, missed it. You guys were off saving damosels." Y'know?

15 hours ago, 7dot62mm said:

In my campaign the players are adventuring and holding land in the very North-Eastern part of Escavalon near the meeting point of the Severn and one of the Avon rivers.

Very cool! 👌 So when're you going to have all of Britain done? 😆

18 minutes ago, Morien said:

No, the fires are connected with the siege of Vortigern's tower, and the burning of it, which happens in 468.

Oh, uh, ok, so then the fire description in 467 needs to be removed - it's duplicated in 467 *and* 468. I had thought it happened in 467, and shouldn't be in 468, but I guess it's the other way around. Both of those years seem a bit garbled.

7 minutes ago, Atgxtg said:

I think he means whatever melee weapon they prefer (i.e. Sword, Mace, Axe, Spear)

I do believe you're correct, and I'm a silly man. 😜

16 hours ago, Morien said:

2. Everyone rolls Horsemanship, Lance and Melee, vs. 15.

Is Melee a house rule skill in your game, or did you mean Battle?

Thanks by the way. This is 👌

On 2/4/2019 at 8:16 AM, juha said:

P. 240, first paragraph under Year 467 is duplicated under Year 468, same page. Seems like 468 is correct but 467 should have a description of the Siege of Carlion instead.

Yup, and the roll for Cowardly (big fires) Passion should move back to 467 too.

Hah! Just realized the OP title should be "Family history from 439" 🤪

Wow. Ran the full S. Logres family history from 439 last night. With 4 players it took a LONG time. Whew. And one poor guy's grandad died gloriously in the Battle of River Parrett, in 440, so a fair bit of thumb twiddling for him. But we also ended up with a grandfather/father Loyalist/Rebel family split, a serious war hero, and a Brittany exile who heroically returned with Aurelius Ambrosius, so pretty cool in the end.

2 hours ago, Cornelius said:

The Book of Sires also gives some information on the years preceding 439, so you could look at them and add some events from those years to the list, but this requires some work from you as a GM.

Well, considering we’re starting tomorrow night, and the family history dice orgy is usually a once in a campaign thing, I’m not sure I’ll get to that. 😆