So...

[Wolfpack Six]

...Where does one find the rules for the Prince Valiant story-telling game?

[sirlarkins]

The current situation is addressed in this thread: 

 

Quoting @MOB

Quote

 

The license Nocturnal Media secured with the owner of the Prince Valiant IP has expired.

We hope to be able to renew it, but in the mean time the Prince Valiant line is unavailable. 

 

 

[Wolfpack Six]

Thank you, kindly!

[Hzark10]

I would look at google to see if any used books are out there for sale.  Of course, you might be paying $50 or more...

[Ian Absentia]

23 hours ago, Hzark10 said:

I would look at google to see if any used books are out there for sale.  Of course, you might be paying $50 or more...

...or you may find a disinterested (or kindly) owner willing to part with it for considerably less.  The Internet is a wild and woolly, and occasionally life-affirming place.

!i!

[Atgxtg]

Of course the  game mechanics for PV are very simple and could easily be distilled down to a couple of pages. The system is pretty flexible and adaptable too. It's just the PV IP stuff that's off limits.

[godsmonkey]

On 8/4/2020 at 2:31 PM, Atgxtg said:

Of course the  game mechanics for PV are very simple and could easily be distilled down to a couple of pages. The system is pretty flexible and adaptable too. It's just the PV IP stuff that's off limits.

Someone did just that:

https://www.thealexandrian.net/creations/misc/prince-valiant-cheat-sheet.pdf

 

[Atgxtg]

35 minutes ago, godsmonkey said:

Someone did just that:

https://www.thealexandrian.net/creations/misc/prince-valiant-cheat-sheet.pdf

 

Not exactly the same thing. That cheat sheet has been around for awhile and is really supposed to be a game aide for playing PV. What I was thinking was more along the lines of a version where all referenced to PV are removed and it is a more generic RPG. Not that ti wouldn't take much to turn that PDF into a generic ruleset. 

Now, I'm not sure how well the game system would go over without the setting,or at least a setting, but I do believe that the simple coin toss system used for PV holds up well when compared to modern low complexity, "lite"  game systems. The PV system is sort of a proto-FUDGE. It could easily be adapted to handle other settings and genres too.  

I also think separating the game mechanics from the setting could help even if a deal is somehow made to bring PV back. What inevitably happens with licensed RPGs is that the RPG company looses the licensee and that version of the game dies. Look at the various incarnations of Star Trek, and Star Wars,, for examples. But, in the cases where the underlying RPG system survives, iy can continue on and thrive, which can produce content usual for those with the defunct game. For instance, CoC, Strombinger/Elric, BRP and PEndragon, all came out of the RQ core rules, and continued on even though RQ was basically dead for a decade.

[godsmonkey]

19 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

Not exactly the same thing. That cheat sheet has been around for awhile and is really supposed to be a game aide for playing PV. What I was thinking was more along the lines of a version where all referenced to PV are removed and it is a more generic RPG. Not that ti wouldn't take much to turn that PDF into a generic ruleset. 

Now, I'm not sure how well the game system would go over without the setting,or at least a setting, but I do believe that the simple coin toss system used for PV holds up well when compared to modern low complexity, "lite"  game systems. The PV system is sort of a proto-FUDGE. It could easily be adapted to handle other settings and genres too.  

I also think separating the game mechanics from the setting could help even if a deal is somehow made to bring PV back. What inevitably happens with licensed RPGs is that the RPG company looses the licensee and that version of the game dies. Look at the various incarnations of Star Trek, and Star Wars,, for examples. But, in the cases where the underlying RPG system survives, iy can continue on and thrive, which can produce content usual for those with the defunct game. For instance, CoC, Strombinger/Elric, BRP and PEndragon, all came out of the RQ core rules, and continued on even though RQ was basically dead for a decade.

This was the first I have seen of the game rules, but it was laid out easy enough to understand, and even use as the basis of another game. All that's needed is to change "coin" to D2 (unless you want to keep coins to establish mood in the game) Make a few changes to skills to fit the mood (For example firearms for a modern setting) and add any ornamental rules to flesh out the new game. 

The core mechanics are nothing more than a dice pool system, Im guessing the first of its kind in RPGs? 

Even more evidence of the legacy of Greg Stafford.

[Atgxtg]

2 hours ago, godsmonkey said:

This was the first I have seen of the game rules, but it was laid out easy enough to understand, and even use as the basis of another game. All that's needed is to change "coin" to D2 (unless you want to keep coins to establish mood in the game) Make a few changes to skills to fit the mood (For example firearms for a modern setting) and add any ornamental rules to flesh out the new game. 

Pretty much. It was a very simple system. The core rules only took about two pages in the actual rules. Most everything else was either advice about how to run the game, or about the Prince Valiant setting. 

 

2 hours ago, godsmonkey said:

The core mechanics are nothing more than a dice pool system, Im guessing the first of its kind in RPGs? 

Sort of. One of the interesting things about PV is that it boiled everything down to one number that worked not only as the number of coins to be tossed, but also as "hit points"  to be lost afterwards. It also had some interesting mook rules (probably an early game to do so) where groups of opponents could be handled as a single entity. 

 

2 hours ago, godsmonkey said:

Even more evidence of the legacy of Greg Stafford.

Yup. Pretty much everything he created was ground breaking in some way. 

Greg noted in the book that PV came about because people who stopped over would want to play one of Greg's games, but really couldn't, due to the time it takes to learn the rules, and create a character. PV allowed people who didn't know anything about RPGs to be able to create a character and start playing within a few minutes. It really does a good job of filling the same sort of niche that "basic", "lite" or similar introductory rules do today, and could work for introducing children to RPGs. It's probably about as complicated as, say Hero Kids,  and predates it by 25 years or so.

 

And another interesting thing about PV is that it is another Arthurian RPG, from the same man who created Pendragon, yet it is very different. Whereas Pendragon is based off on Malory, and has a sort of medieval literary feel to it, Prince Valiant captures the look and fell of  Hal Foster's strip, a sort of "Golden Age of Hollywood" look and feel. Greg could have made PV a streamlined Pendragon, but instead remained true to the source material.