Tizun Thane

1 hour ago, Username said:

Clovis was willing to sacrifice a city and a token force to get him while Uther gets the plunder and maybe some discount Frankish mercenaries in his next campaign.

Maybe Bayeux was not loyal to Claudas in the first place

27 minutes ago, Username said:

I think it would be most exciting if he fought against them.

You convinced me. It's dramatically appropriate, and good foreshadowing of things to come. Besides, it's a good "hero" to fight against.

19 minutes ago, Atgxtg said:

One thing that I do have some misgiving about, concerning the BoB is that due to the higher Unit Intensity, a Unit Commander really needs a Battele skill over 20 (25-30) to avoid a lot of "Attack vs. Two" results. With the typical Battle Intensity starting off at 20, and the Zone Modifier being +5 or +10, the PKs are typically facing a unit Intensity of 25-30 in the second and third rounds, leading to a lot of Unit Intensity critical. This leads to a lot of automatic "Attack vs. Two" results or, if the Unit Commander is good (or lucky) a Surprise. 

Yes, that's the downside. Attack vs. two became boring after a while.

32 minutes ago, Morien said:

You could even include a Frankish embassy to Uther protesting and demanding Syagrius' head in 487 or something like that, to foreshadow this betrayal.

Yeah, or even an embassy just before the battle of Bayeux.

The Syagrius mess... In the GPC, it's heavily implied that Syagrius was deceived. He thought it was a war of (re)conquest, and it was just heavily raiding for loot from Uther's part. I like the dilemna between honor and loyalty to the lord.

I also like the suggestion there is some kind of agreement between Uther/Madoc and Syagrius, when they "give" him to Claudas to meet his fate.

By the way, there is two stories told in the GPC, confused in one:

• In the Vulgate, king Uther (with the help of king Ban of Benoic and his brother king Bors the Eldest) ravaged the whole kingdom of Claudas, which became "the lande déserte"  or "Land Laid Waste" after that .
• the historical Syagrius "the last roman", who was conquerred by the historical Clovis, a famous Frank king, and the first "french" king.

The mess came, IMHO, from the confusion beetween the mythical Claudas, and the historical Clovis. I dislike this choice, but it deserves its own thread.

On 1/25/2020 at 8:49 PM, Atgxtg said:

I've only seen the player knights alter the course of a battle once, and that was a combination of high skills (Battle 29 and most of the PKS main weapon skills in the 25-30 range), tactics (repeatedly attacking the enemy from the rear)

Once they understood this tactic, and have a good leader (battle 20+), PKs became very effective in battle. A little too much...

On 1/25/2020 at 4:17 AM, Redmoongodess said:

I found it odd GPC never depicts an single battle that's ending depends on the rolls done by a Player or GM despite the default rules allowing for it.

Therefore I can easily imagine the War In Cambria being an good addition to a GPC after tons of "railroaded" battles where your players are just pawns.

My first impression was for it to be in the Conquest period (considering...it's a conquest period) or the Tournament period (Original assumption in Savage Mountains)

The GPC depicts the results of battle, if players don't have huge influence over it. But it's a guideline, not a bible. In my campaign, for example, the king Lot was killed (by a a young PK, no less) during the battle of Bedregraine.  I feel the Tournament Period is effective. There are very few battles in the GPC, and my PKs are hungry for more battles (and glory and loot of course).

And by the way, I loved the Wine adventure too.

Back to the topic, my players befriended Dodinas le Sauvage and his best "bro" Sagremore. Dodinas, a RTK, is also the son of the king of Sugales, aka Belinan. So I am wondering how Dodinas will react when his lord go to war against his father. Take a side? Go neutral?

Thanks both of you!

1 hour ago, Username said:

Playing it right now. It's just as much book keeping as you think. I've created some documents to reorganize things as we played if you want to have them I can share them.

Lucky you. Of course, i'm interested.

1 hour ago, Username said:

he players will definitely want to reach out to other groups than those listed. And I would allow that.

Do you mean Brycheiniog, Ystrad Tiwy, Cardigan ? My players are friends with the kingdom of Merionnyd (!), so I suppose they will try a new alliance against Sugales.

1 hour ago, Username said:

Maybe one person manages castles, one the army, the other diplomatic relations and etc.

I will definitively do that.

1 hour ago, Username said:

The challenge in my mind to Cambrian conquest is holding the land and dealing with guerilla warfare not defeating the armies which should be relatively small.

Guerilla warfare is very difficult to portray, especially in Pendragon.

58 minutes ago, Morien said:

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).

I use the old 5d6 damage for the longbow, and it's working just fine. Your campaign inspired me (the marriage, the minor quest, etc.). Antonio looks especially fun to play

I just love the Cambrian War scenario described in the Savage Moutains. Did someone play it?

I think I will play it during the 540' (to remplace the King-napping of Arthur), and I hesitate to play it as written (with lots of abstract book keeping) or give more life to each tribe king, etc.

Any advices?

51 minutes ago, Username said:

Double post, sorry. I agree it works at any time, but I think the game works best if you experience the Anarchy for a few sessions. The depressing soul crushing defeats. The being repeatedly beat down and assaulted on all sides really primes the ground for Arthur's rise. If you haven't experienced that, then you may not "feel" the joyous return of a king. It was rough watching the players suffer through the Anarchy. But man, they were so excited when Arthur smacked down all comers in their first few years.

Oh yeah! I agree. Anarchy especially is awesome, and the best part of the GPC. But.

But. I saw so many promising campaigns when players lost interest during the Anarchy (after Uther's reign), without seeing Arthur. It's so sad. If you want to play knights in shining armor, you can begin with Arthur, not Uther.

I saw in recent posts some people trying to insert moderns (progressives) ideals into their KAP game under Uther's reign, because they were respecting the timeline. If you want to do that (which I found a bit strange, but hey, it's your game!), do it with Arthur, not Uther.

16 hours ago, SaxBasilisk said:

That is the major impact of the adventure. I'm not too worried about covering that one, as it's explicitly mentioned at the end of "Marriage" - but now it's mentioned here as well.

It could be interesting that the ambush was not from Levcomagus, but from a third nefarious fellow trying to add fuel to the fire.

2 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

This made the feud more personal and intense, and culminated in the PK's forces accidentally besieging Levcomagus.

accidentally? 😀

On 1/18/2020 at 4:38 AM, jeffjerwin said:

The one advantage of having scattered holdings is that it helps to finesse the occasional mentions of some Round Table knight having a manor or castle in the middle of nowhere in the Lancelot-Grail (Agravaine, for example, has a tower and manor in Norgales, the De Ganis clan has holdings scattered across Britain - in Ergyng, in Cornwall, and of course, in Garloth).

It can be useful from a narrative perspective. Your PKs can stumble upon a friend's or foe's manor everywhere. But otherwise, it doesn't serve any purpose in my game.

On 1/15/2020 at 10:12 AM, Redmoongodess said:

Sadly, I won't be able to run this for a long time due to the fact I don't have an active Pendragon campaign currently, but I am curious to see if people on this forum think any of what I've typed is a good idea, or if I am stupid for typing this crap and I should be ashamed for writing it. Maybe it's in a middle column. I just want validation for spending a ton of time on my ramblings made out of boredom.

It could be a good adventure!  But it's a bit difficult to "force" love on characters, for a non-descript "lady of the launds". You have to make her alive and attractive to players to make the adventure works.

42 minutes ago, TerryTroll said:

Does it matter if no one is around to see it?

It's the old question of internal versus external honor. The rules are murky. In my game, honor is internal, so it does not matter if someone else watches it or not.

42 minutes ago, TerryTroll said:

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. 

In my opinion, you never lose honor for cutting wood. A squire can do that without shaming himself, and so a knight can do it, in case of dire need.

To understand what labor is, you have to understand the 3 orders of a medieval society.

1) Clergy. They pray

2) Nobles. They fight

3) Commoners. They work.

They have no honor. They count their coppers.  If you behave like one, it's logical you lose honor.

"Some commoners, I suppose, are good people, but..."

42 minutes ago, TerryTroll said:

In both cases -2 honour feels a little steep to me.

It's -5 in my game (And I felt it was RAW). I think it's logical. If you are doing commoner's work, you are not a noble, but a commoner. Go with your filthy friends, and leave us in good company!

Honor is very different from courtesy, and chivalry. Killing a desarmed knight? Bad, but understandable (-1 en honor). Raping a noble lady (-2 honor)? Disgusting, but alas, things happen during war... Killing a foe with a sword? What a man! Killing a foe with a crossbow? What a coward (-3 honor)!

As you can see, honor is a very primitive Code of honor for a knight.

42 minutes ago, TerryTroll said:

Would it make any difference if the Knight was Modest 16, so it might not affect his personal view of himself as much?

No in my opinion. What you think is not really important. It's about society expectations. Even peasants will lose any respect they have for the knight.

7 hours ago, stryker99 said:

Hampshire: Earl ?, Earl ? collegium legate in Winchester, Hantonne port for royal fleet, soon to be conquered by Cerdic and I assume the Earl and any heirs are killed?

They probably all died. After 518, Hampshire became the personal estate of Arthur.

4 hours ago, jeffjerwin said:

Derfel is Corneus' nephew.  GPC, p.92. Why Lucan and Bedivere didn't inherit, at best guess, is because they were illegitimate?

In my campaign, Derfel became Corneus grandson and Bedivere/Lucan became little brothers of the unnamed Derfel's father.

6 hours ago, Morien said:

Marlboro: Renamed Gentian. The likeliest guy here is young Charles (the heir of Marlborough castle) and his mother, Joene, who is a regent to her son. (Unfortunately doubling the dynamic of Salisbury.)

During the 530', it became a barony.

34 minutes ago, creativehum said:

As far as the railroading goes (and I say this as someone who hasn't used the GPC in play yet) I would love to hear more about this. What instances are in the book?

The beginning of the campaign especially. The first years...

34 minutes ago, creativehum said:

I think the notion that Kay, thinking he had done a great thing (finding the giant "asleep," hacking off its head to keep it dead), unwittingly beheads Loholt with the same stroke, That Kay is so proud In his deed only to discover a terrible error is very Malory. 

It doesn't appear in Malory. The only source is in Perlesvaus (from the famous Anonymous). Loholt slayed the giant. He felt magically asleep just after (some kind of "post-berserker" magical sleep). Kay came and killed by treachery the brave Loholt in his sleep. It was no accident of course.

9 hours ago, SaxBasilisk said:

One item I'm still debating whether to include is Arthur's Irish campaign.  GPC's presentation of Arthur as a just and righteous king (most of the time, mind you) doesn't quite square with the long and problematic history of Anglo-Irish relations.

I downplayed this part too, as Morien suggested, with only the 530 campaign to teach Irish a lesson. There was decades of piratry too to punish.

6 hours ago, Username said:

My biggest gripe is Gareth's non-mentioning. Definitely the biggest to me. Though I'm also not fond of Kay's treatment in the end.

The whole adventure is supposed to happen in 532? I read it somewhere (in the old forum?).

I think it's wonderful to see each GM adapting the GPC to his own needs, and it's still working.

I love the GPC, but of course, nothing is perfect. 3 things I dislike and will never use in my campaign:

• The horrible railroad sometimes. My players want freedom, and KAP is especially about choices.
• The betrayal of Sir Kay. I despise this plot twist. It's from Perlesvaus, a fun book, but non-canonical with the rest. I love the canonical Kay, full of sarcams and bravado, but ultimately loyal to Arthur. A gray character and a fun one. #NotmyKay
• the Kidnapping of Arthur by Annowre.

24 minutes ago, Atgxtg said:

Even Mallory was guilty of it to some extent, with Arthur fighting the Saracens.

He probably confused them with Saxons. Weirdly, in many arthurian sources I read, the word sarracen is used as a synonym for pagan.

As a matter a fact, even the Saracens of the Chansons de geste are not muslims, but polytheists.

29 minutes ago, Qizilbashwoman said:

The inhabitants of now-France all spoke varieties of Romance, they just weren't the same varieties. The Gascon language is one of the lengas d'òc, that is to say a non-French Romance language under the Occitan umbrella. During this time period it would have just been a dialect of Occitan, which was a highly-prestigious literary language in the Middle Ages. There are also Basque (Euskera) speakers in Aquitania, a non-Indo-European language.

Indeed, Basque people had (and still have) their own language.

The historical Wisigoths should speak their own proto-german language, whereas the local native of the VIe century should speak their gallo-roman (Vulgar Latin?) language who will evolve in the langue d'oc you are speaking about.

23 minutes ago, Bill the barbarian said:

Let us not forget the native language of Bretagne (Brittany) called Amorica in the day,  which I am guessing would be related to the celtic languages across the channel. Wasn’t there a bit of travel and migration across the channel in this period.

As Qizilbashwoman said. In fact, it's even more complicated because there was two britonnic languages. The Breton, and the Gallo, a mix beetween the Breton and old french (langue d'oïl). Of course, their was no french at the time, but a bunch of Gallo-romans,  Franks and other germanic tribes, with their own language.

Gallo is now extinct, like many other regional languages in France.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gallo_language

By the way, did you know that Conan is a breton name, like the famous Conan Meriadoc?

In the game, everyone speaks the same language. It's easier that way and it's faithful to the sources.

Of course, in reality, there was many languages and many variants, and people had trouble to understand each other.

On 12/27/2019 at 4:29 PM, KungFuFenris said:

You can take a -5 Modifier to step carefully on the ship, ignore it and roll DEX if you miss with an Attack roll as to not fall in the water. Same goes for Knockdown; that will send you off the boat into the drink. All of those could be countered with a successful Boating check at the start of the Battle

I love this little houserule, especially the boating check. In my campaign, I remember only one occurence when I asked for a boating roll.

On 12/31/2019 at 7:30 PM, Morien said:

As people have pointed out, Ireland might be a fertile ground to take the campaign to a slightly different path, by allowing the PKs to take the place of the conquering Anglo-Normans / Cymric knights in GPC.

Otherwise, you could play irish characters fighting for freedom against this evil bunch of imperialists.

On 12/30/2019 at 9:46 PM, Redmoongodess said:

Do you have any good ideas on using the Geas things? Personally I've got this idea of the players needing to give themselves ones in exchange for some sort of great power in order to defeat some kind of magical villain who isn't killable by plain ol' stabbing. Maybe a fairy court that only allows people who give out their Geas in?

I suppose you have to pillage the cycle of Ulster for inspiration. Otherwise, many arthurians stories can be reused. For example, the quest in Culhwch ac Olwen seems perfect.

11 hours ago, Redmoongodess said:

Sorta unrelated but: I always wondered what exactly the way they came up with coat of arms back in the day was? Was it just picking what felt right for the lord based on meanings and deep symbolism? Or was it just whatever materials of paint they owned and what ever came first to their brains that felt good? I would imagine probably a little bit of column A and B. 

There is also the concept of canting arms (fr. armes parlantes).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canting_arms

For example, the cities of Lille or Florence both have a fleur-de-lys in their arms (lily, lilium in latin), because it sounds the same or evokes the flower in the name.

1 hour ago, SirUkpyr said:

Fast forward - PKs have taken Pig Boy to the Castle of the Crane, where one of them tells King Garan "I think all of Cadwalader's son's were named Pig Boy - since he planned to eat them".

They left PigBoy at the castle of the Crane with king Garan ? Like in my campaign... This guy is really becoming powerful!

1 hour ago, SirUkpyr said:

Evil king screams "kill those miscreants and FIND PIG BOY!!" - at which point one PK takes a spear and throws it at the king - critting - and killing him with one shot.

Despite the cover (-5), his partial plate and everything? Poor evil king...

I was puzzled like you. The second answer looks more logical and less deadly.

I like the old style of your maps. A cambria map will be especially useful, I agree.