Ringan

Let's say some PK(s) have put Agravaine or Mordred in their crosshairs.  Avoiding skullduggery, they want to honorably duel them to the death.  Unlike other RPGs with super-strong "bosses", the PK(s) might be strong enough that they have decent chances.  These villainous deaths could seriously mess with the story.  What kind of options might a GM take?  Starting off with a few of my thoughts:

• Roll with it: simply plan to adapt the plot without these villains--almost no one but Arthur is essential
• Forbid Round Table Knight infighting: If the PKs are also RTKs, then their vows forbid them from fighting the villainous RTKs.  However, maybe there options like being too rough at a tournament...?
• Direct Pleas or Edicts from Arthur: Maybe Arthur intervenes directly to demand the conflict is ended?
• Villain is unavailable: PK is just never able to get access to the villain to make the challenge.  We could try to leverage a Kafkaesque bureaucracy of status and etiquette in support of this.  However, what if the PK publicly calls out the villain?
• Post-combat Villainous Escape: PK defeats the villain but is unable to kill him.  See relevant TV tropes.
• Magic?: In the case of the Orkneys, maybe it's some kind of magic from Morgause/Morgan le Fay that helps them dodge the bullet.  For other villains, we could contrive analogous allied sorcerers.

Really curious to hear how other GMs have approached this.

In David Larkins' Matter of Britain campaign (Esoteric Order RP podcast), Sir Blaines of Silchester raids the Salisbury PK manors during the Uther period, and the players counter-raid his Silchester manor.

 Greg et al. talk about some of the details of raiding here, and Greg speaks of raiding Britons and raiding in the Uther period as expected things. On raiding during the Anarchy, Greg says:

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Please allow me to do a bit more [explaining].
The Raiding that is done in the Anarchy scenarios of GPC is not just a manor or two going off. It is a part of a long, on-going war where these things happen all the time. Large bands of men--a couple of dozen knights and couple of hundred footmen go off to pillage their neighbors.
Smaller raids, on neighbors, should net smaller rewards.

There is some good discussion of raiding (including during Uther period), by Greg, @Morien et al. here.  Morien says:

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This is how we have handled these question Ín Our Campaign (IOC) (and also some dirty tricks that the enemies have indulged in):

1. Cooperation between the manors: Definitely! If there is time. And if the knights are home. And if the enemies are not cooperating as well, like attacking all the manors at once. Or if they are not out in overwhelming force that could defeat the responding contingents in detail. All of which have happened in one time or another.

2. Collective raiding: Sure, I'd allow a collective group raiding. In fact, that is what the PKs tend to do. Of course, that means they will also have to share the loot, and a bigger group is easier to spot, and it would likely invoke a bigger response. Also, enemy can cooperate as well, like the point 1). One big raid allows them to focus their attention to it, while 5 small raids forces the enemy to decide what to respond to (or split their forces, of course).

3. Earl's help: Sure, the Earl will help. That is his part of the feudal bargain, to defend his vassals. Ultimately, though, if the knight is screaming for help at every small raid, the Earl might get a bit miffed. After all, the vassal's part of the bargain (as I see it) is to protect the manor as well. If he is unable to do that, perhaps the Earl starts hinting that a better man should be found. Also, I -do- see it as a time issue, too. Depends on the location, of course, but IOC the PK manors are right on the Levcomagus border. There is very little warning before a raid can reach them, and by the time the word reaches Sarum, the raid is probably already in progress. Assuming it is a bigger one, it will take the Earl some time to call enough vassals up, and then they must ride to the border. All of this can easily take a couple of days. Which is IOC the reason why the previous generation spent some money building moats and palisades, to give them a fighting chance to survive long enough for the Earl to arrive. If it is a smaller raid, well then, the enemy is hardly going to wait long enough for the Earl to arrive in any case, now are they?

4. How will a county react: IOC, badly. Granted, there can be extenuating circumstances. If the knights involved have a genuine grievance with one another, the neighbors (especially) and the higher ups might shrug and leave them to it, figuring it is personal and hence unlikely to spill over to the other, uninvolved, people. Occasional small raid might get chalked up as 'boys will be boys' and only get a stern fistshake. But if the raiding is large-scale or continuous, why then it is hurting the county. The neighbors start wondering if next year it will be them in the crosshairs (as the other manors are getting picked clean) and the Earl/Duke looks weak for not being able to protect his vassals. Also, he is losing knights, as the manors being raided get theirs killed/wounded/bankrupted/too scared for the safety of their manor to answer the muster. It will simply not do.

5. Repercussions: Apart from being the target du jour for any enemy county knight on the road, these PKs would swiftly become very unpopular with the Salisbury knights living close to the Silchester border. 'Oh, so you guys raid, get loot, stir up the hornet's nest and then leave us to be stung? Thank you so very much, ********!' Good for internal County politics right there. Also, nothing prevents enterprising Silchester knights to stir up trouble elsewhere... After all, if they can do it to Silchester, what is preventing Somerset or Dorset from doing it to them? With some extra knights from Silchester willing to help pro bono. Finally, if the PKs make a habit of raiding their neighbors, the Anarchy will be quite fun for them... They will find allies very hard to find, and the Saxon raiding parties might have Silchester knights riding with them, gleefully torching Salisbury. Also, if they are making too much of a nuisance of themselves, remember that Silchester is bigger than Salisbury. If it comes to all out war, Salisbury is going to get stomped. The Earl knows this. The retaliation 'raid' might not be a small raid of 1 knight and 50 peasants, but an actual army of, say, 100 knights and 200 footmen, turning the Eastern Salisbury to cinder. The Earl has a big incentive to prevent things boiling over to that.

EDIT: Oh, they are planning up on stirring Marlborough and Silchester BOTH? Well, good luck for them in Anarchy. With Cornwall in the West, Marlborough in the North, Silchester in the (North-)East and Saxons in the South(-East), they will have their work cut out for them. Add some counter raids from Dorset (egged on by SIlchester) and they will certainly reap what they sow. 🙂

Related discussion from the old forums here.

Thanks for the substantive insights, @creativehumand @Morien!

When does a knight face an honor penalty for running away from a fight?  I see the explicit penalty of -1 for "Desertion from battle or military service".  But is any running away considered desertion, or only something as egregious as never showing up in the first place?  Here are a few possible places one might draw the line; would there be an honor penalty for these situations?  Or would the penalty simply be the failure to attain glory?

Without even engaging in combat, running away from:

• A dragon or other monster requiring a Valorous check
• A horde of enemy knights vastly outnumbering your group
• A single enemy knight
• An engagement, after hearing family/lord/etc. in danger

Sometime in combat, running away after receiving:

• A major wound
• A moderate wound
• Any wound at all
• Realizing that you could take a moderate wound in the next round

Curious to see how you reconcile these situations with tracked PKs' honor.

You might find this thread from the old boards interesting: Nerfing SIZ

14 minutes ago, Voord 99 said:

The way I look at it is is, RPGs often tend to reward people who are on their guard and suspicious...It’s important to get players out of that mindset.

Great point, especially in Arthuriana.  There's the prominent example of the knights who swear to immediately do a favor, without even asking what the favor might be.

What kind of meaning do you assign a success on a suspicious roll?  Does it simply mean that the character is suspicious?  Or does it grant the character actual insight into the reality of a situation/conversation (like the "sense motive" skill from D&D).  To what extent does a suspicious success result in, say, a false positive vs. a true positive?  Thinking about the inverse, can a character with high trusting recognize someone is probably lying, but incline to trust them anyway?

2 hours ago, Voord 99 said:

Let’s have a Mordred who’s Arthur’s nephew.  There would probably be no Morgause, since she exists essentially to replace Anna.

Might Cornwell's Winter King series be a good inspiration if we went in this general direction, especially as they have a more historical flavor?

On 9/10/2021 at 4:04 PM, sirlarkins said:

(BTW, I also think it's interesting that this is the only time Greg paraphrased someone in first person in his marginal notes.)

Thanks very much for the clarifications, gents! The first person was what tripped me up--I read this as Greg's personal voice, not a knight's voice, and was wondering about his conviction 😄  Excited to see more about public & private honor...

Greg wrote a note: “Gwen is honorable & I’ll kill anyone who disagrees.”

I am open to this interpretation, but the case is not immediately clear to me.  Can someone argue this based on the game rules?  I am looking at 5.2 since the "Great Hunt" preview doesn't substantively speak to honor.

In 5.2, the dishonorable acts list includes "Breaking an oath" (-3, marriage?) and  "treachery against a member of your family" (-5, infidelity?)  Even if her infidelity is of lesser magnitude than what these acts refer to, it seems relevant.  Are there some affirmative actions she takes that nullify this? 

2 hours ago, Voord 99 said:

I assume that the Latin Reeve and Wright print for “then” is tunc? 

Right,

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Tunc, inuitatis probissimis quibusque ex longe positis regnis,

Page 204 in the paperback for anyone who wants to look it up later.

On 2/18/2021 at 6:25 AM, Voord 99 said:

I’m curious as to what Reeve prints in his 2007 critical edition, if anyone has access to it.

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That spring, Arthur returned to Britain, restored lasting peace throughout the land and remained there for twelve years.

Then Arthur began to increase his household by inviting all the best men from far-off kingdoms and conducted his court with such charm that he was envied by distant nations.  All the noblest were stirred to count themselves as worthless if they were not dressed or armed in the manner of Arthur's knights.  As his reputation for generosity and excellence spread to the farthest corners of the world, kings of nations became very frightened that he would attack and deprive them of their subjects.

Without surnames, how do you denote a family in your campaign?  Using the "Titles" section of KAP 5.2 as a reference,

• If we use "of <place of origin>":
  • Is this the character's homeland?  How geographically-specific do we get?
  • How does this reconcile with what the character might rule?  Especially if the character eventually gains a title like Count of Rydychan?
  • Confounding example: the de Gales family are well-known, but what if a new, semi-prominent family arises in Gales?
• If we use a patriarch's name, what about related family that do not have the patriarch as their father?  Do we use something like cadet branches?
• Epithets (e.g. "the bold") are nicely unique, but they only describe an individual

On 12/28/2020 at 2:41 PM, Voord 99 said:

It’s an obvious point, but the mere fact of having the most noble descent tends to create a presumption from the medieval perspective that Pellam is morally a better person than everyone else, and this was still to a certain extent true in the Victorian era when Knowles wrote.  I am far from certain that a reader in either period would have felt inclined to look for evidence to validate the king’s character in the way that we do.  

This was a good reminder to me that I am viewing the story through a 21st century American lens, thanks.  And great clarification on the meaning of "worshipful".

On 12/28/2020 at 6:59 PM, merlyn said:

Maybe a bigger question is how the Holy Graiil could tolerate Garlon's presence at Carbonek, something which, as best I can tell, Malory and his predecessors never addressed.  Certainly he seems to have been an utter disgrace to the Grail Family, without facing the consequences, until Balin tracked him down.

(Might the Dolorous Blow have been, in part, Pellam's punishment for overlooking his brother's crimes, with Balin as an unwitting instrument for divine retribution?

Yes, the Grail's implicit acceptance of Garlon's presence was really bugging me!  Thank you for this alternate interpretation of the stroke.

@Voord 99 I also appreciate your integration of player character adventures into what might otherwise be solely background machinations.

Yes, I think that Pellam is quite justified in retaliating against Balin.  But in terms of holding him to a higher standard, and to your point about the Orkneys, it seems that Pellam is seen as remarkably moral or "worshipful", where, say, Agravaine is certainly not.  Is there text to be found, or rationalization to be offered, that point to particularly noble qualities of Pellam, aside from his descendancy from Joseph of Arimethea?

Sir Garlon behaves just about the most shamefully of any knight in the literature, running around invisible and arbitrarily assassinating knights and ladies alike.  When Sir Balin attacks him, King Pellam, as I've seen written in some Pendragon materials somewhere, chooses Love(Family) over Hospitality in siding with his brother over Balin.

What I always struggle with is the narrative heaping of praise on Sir Pellam, given his enabling of his horrible brother.  For example, Sir James Knowles calls Pellam "the truest and most worshipful of living knights".  While I understand the contemporary values prize loyalty to the family, is that true even in this most extreme circumstance?  How can we reconcile the assertion of Pellam being some sort of British paragon given that the only major behavior he exhibits is defending his infamously dishonorable brother?

Sorry to necro this thread, but for the sake of posterity, I wanted to add two more timelines I had found. 

I'm attaching a spreadsheet of adventures ordered by year that was made by folks in the Pendragon Yahoo group.

Nightbringer has another timeline that uses a different start date (410) but you should be able to essentially add a century to all dates.

Pendragon Adventure Order.xls

After hearing that the new Malleus Monstrorum was finalizing, the wheels started turning in my head about adding some Lovecraft to Logres.  I was digging around, and found this thread of interesting ideas.  Some highlights:

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Lancelot's lapses into long bouts of madness take on a whole new, even freakier edge, and the fact that such lapses come when he thinks of Guinevere? One dreads to think what the Queen did to inspire such fierce reaction.

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The Holy Grail is instead an ancient cauldron forged of strange metal in ages beyond memory. They say that that if you place the bodies of the dead within the cauldron and boil away their flesh till only bones remain, they will rise again to fight.

Best part: this is based on the Celtic cauldron myth (the skeleton part less so, but the resurrection bit) that may actually be connected with the myth of the Holy Grail.

Anyone have any other dark thoughts? 🐙

Post acquisition by Verizon, Yahoo abruptly announced it would end its Yahoo groups service 😭  Groups are now no longer accessible to the public, and there was a KAP players' group dating back to 2001 that was affected. 

The good news is that Yahoo is allowing users who had belonged to the group to download its data until the end of January, which encompasses:

1. All emails sent to the group.
2. The list of useful URLs the group had recorded.
3. A number of player's aid files, including things like maps, house rules, compendia, etc.

I was a member of the group, and was able to obtain it.  The Chaosium forums seem to be the new hub for KAP players, so does it make sense to share the files here?

I've only recently started running a game too.  The traits and passions really set Pendragon apart from other systems.  Be sure to engineer moments where two or more different traits/passions conflict when the character's making a decision.  Bonus points if they are 16+ values, because there's an extra element of compulsion.  Each of these situations will accumulate, year over year, allowing the player to make their character their own.

On 7/8/2019 at 4:52 PM, Scotty said:

Yes, however it's a lot of work and it will be likely a volunteer project after all the publications are done. 

It looks like the forum may not be indexed by Google currently?  I tried a Google search using "site:http://kapresources.wpengine.com/" and no results came up.  Is there a robots.txt or something that can be configured to have Google index it?

Is the volunteering Chaosium-only, or could some hypothetical grassroots Pendragon-playing IT folks take it on?

BTW, great free resource on medieval beasts online: The Medieval Bestiary

Appearance is one’s exterior look, being visual and thus entirely outward and superficial. Appearance provokes deep responses in human beings, automatic and normally outside of our awareness, never mind being within our control. (Exceptions exist, but not among knights.)
APP Interpretation
01-05. Ugly. See below
06-09. Plain, unattractive, flawed
10-15. Handsome, pretty
16-20. Superlative; beautiful (women) or spectacular (men); gorgeous, dazzling. See below

Appearance is only useful when it can be seen. It has no affect when men are clad in concealing armor.

Superlative Appearance
Gorgeousness has its advantages, and disadvantages.
In a crowd of equals, the most handsome person will be addressed first, as if he or she is the leader (since handsome people have Honor, the most handsome is the most honorable!).
Everyone is always watching, especially when the beautiful person is not watching. Thus it is very difficult for them to do anything in secret, including whispering at a feast, speaking to anyone, and even how long is spent with him, or her, or that group over there.

Appearance Bonus
Each superlative APP point (16+)grants a +1 bonus to the following:
Flirt: Natural attraction makes it easier to Flirt.
Intrigue: The handsome fellow, giving even just a little bit of unusual attention to the staff, gets information much easier than usual.
Orate, Singing, Play, Dancing: People prefer to be entertained by pretty people, because even if the performance is not as good, at least they had a pleasant evening observing the attractive performer.

It does not affect Romance.

Ugly Appearance
Ugliness carries a taint with it. Commoners lack Honor, and are thus less appealing to the noble eye.
OPPOSITE OF ABOVE--text not complete
Ugliness has its advantages and disadvantages.
In a crowd of equals, the ugliest person will not be addressed. At all if possible.
If something goes wrong, the ugliest person is always blamed first.
Nobody looks at you. In a crowd you are practically invisible, able to stand nearby to whisperers, or in a room perhaps entirely unseen, as if you are one of the servants.

Honor

It's a Ming dynasty conversion instead of Three Kingdoms, but you may find useful material in the Great Book of Pendragon Treasures, page 27.