Stay tuned in the coming days for a major announcement about the King Arthur Pendragon RPG

[TrippyHippy]

51 minutes ago, Mugen said:

RQ2 was chosen because it was still the most beloved version of RQ among Glorantha fans. As far as I know, Pendragon players don't have that kind of attachment to KAP 1st edition, so I'm not sure it would be such a success.

It remains to be seen, although the beauty of doing it as a Kickstarter is that if it fails to register enough interest it doesn’t happen and Chaosium lose nothing from trying. However, although I think you are right that it doesn’t have a beloved edition status in the way RQ2 does, I think there are still a number of fans who like collecting classic editions to make it happen. I wouldn’t be surprised if Worlds of Wonder gets a kickstarter too in the near future. 

[Luca Cherstich]

2 hours ago, redmoongoddess said:

@Luca CherstichIMHO, calling lady knights "she-knights" is insulting and borderline sexist. You've already complained and moaned about women being able to be knights somehow meaning that magically everyone has modern morality in Pendragon. So give it a break. Woman Knights are knights.

Anyways, I personally hope we see new regional setting books later down the line, since those were my favorites of the older supplements. IIRC Larkins is doing an Cornwall campaign as a podcast ATM. Does that mean anything? I say yes. But we'll just have to wait and see.

If the word  "she-knight" is insulting I beg your pardon.

I'll stop using it.

As a non-native English speaker (and maybe also as a non-English/non-American, living in a different context, where these issues are felt in a way more relaxed way) I did not realize the amount of sexist offense that word implies for you.

From now onwards I'll call them "female knights" but, frankly, I do not feel I'll speak again about it soon,, since tones here have been over-exagerated on that topic.

It is not really worth discussing it anymore.

 

On the other hand, if you really think that my different opinion was just "moaning", please, check the number and length of my posts above.

I was the first person raising the problem, but I just stopped replying when I've seen there was no point in speaking about it.

I just accepted that my opinion on the matter will not change anything for anybody in Chaosium.

And now again:  I'm eager to see KAP 6, I'll just ignore what I dislike and enjoy the rest.

 

[Tizun Thane]

18 hours ago, Voord 99 said:

Also, this is a bit parochial (I’m from Ireland), but I am not really a fan of official Pendragon Ireland, and since presumably there will be an Ireland supplement book, that’s an area where I think there’s room for significant changes without it having to disturb much else.

I don't know how to handle Ireland myself. Except Tara (530), my players never go adventuring there. I am not a fan of the colonization of the island as portrayed in the GPC.

I am not a fan of France either. The GPC tried to mix the arhurian legend (with Claudas), the historical merovingian kingdoms, and the hundred years' war. It's a mess, and not a good one.

I especially dislike the fusion of Claudas and the historical Clovis.

In each case (Ireland and France), the british knights look like dirty imperialists full of themselves, raiding and conquering. They look like the villains of the story.

I would much prefer the arthurian version. You have a king of Gaul, Pharamon, vassal to the Emperor of Rome. You have king Claudas of the waste land, a regional king, and his sworn ennemies of Benoit and Ganes.

[Morien]

5 hours ago, redmoongoddess said:

RE:Asians. The GPC has the Twilight era suddenly see flintlock rifles invented, which is something I've always wondered why Greg put in. Chinese gunsmiths coming across the (now ruined) silk road would help explain why they suddenly showed up. Only issue, why did they go to Britain and not any of the many other countries along the way, namely, the entirety of the Sassanian and Byzantine Empires? 

Not flintlock rifles. Smoothbore matchlocks (arquebuses). As I implied in my previous answer, the sorcerer in King Mark's service is possibly a Chinese alchemist (I made him explicitly so in our playthrough of GPC). So you get the whole Battle of the Engine during the Grail Quest, so clearly gunpowder exists. I didn't introduce arquebuses straight away. Instead, part of the peace deal with King Mark (in early Twilight) was that he handed over the secret of cannon-making and gunpowder, and what do you know, Mordred was placed in charge of the Camelot Cannonworks. Fast forward to Camlann and...

Quote 7:
"Where did Mordred get all these cannons?!" - Sir Caedmon's player
"You do recall that he was in charge of Camelot's cannonworks, right? What do you think he has been doing this whole time?" - the GM.
Quote 8:
"Oh, you got to be kidding me..." - Sir Caedmon's player, as handgonners move to the front of Mordred's line and get ready to shoot on the charging knights.
"He has been a busy little beaver, hasn't he?" - the GM, referring to Mordred's armament project.

Anyway, by making King Mark's sorcerer basically a rogue alchemist, I got my introduction to gunpowder and then just let the accelerated timeline of KAP take care of the rest. Why aren't there cannons in Byzantine or Sassanids Empires? How do we know they do not have those? Maybe the gunpowder is an imperial monopoly in China and this guy worried that if he stays closer to the Silk Road, he will be assassinated. Maybe the Sassanid rulers felt that gunpowder was unchivalrous and refused to have anything to do with it (or even worried that it might be beneficial to the more technologically savvy Byzantines, and had the first alchemist killed). Maybe Justinian sending two Nestorian monks in 550 to China is not just an attempt to get the secret of silk manufacture but also the gunpowder, since he is paranoid and doesn't trust the turncoat (or had just the rumors from the Sassanid Empire via his spies). In any case, since the story is focused on Arthur and Britain, it hardly matters what is going on in Constantinople.

[Leingod]

12 hours ago, Tizun Thane said:

I don't know how to handle Ireland myself. Except Tara (530), my players never go adventuring there. I am not a fan of the colonization of the island as portrayed in the GPC.

I am not a fan of France either. The GPC tried to mix the arhurian legend (with Claudas), the historical merovingian kingdoms, and the hundred years' war. It's a mess, and not a good one.

I especially dislike the fusion of Claudas and the historical Clovis.

In each case (Ireland and France), the british knights look like dirty imperialists full of themselves, raiding and conquering. They look like the villains of the story.

I would much prefer the arthurian version. You have a king of Gaul, Pharamon, vassal to the Emperor of Rome. You have king Claudas of the waste land, a regional king, and his sworn ennemies of Benoit and Ganes.

Well, with France it's not as bad, since after the Roman campaign the ones spearheading that are the de Ganis family, who you can argue have just as much of an inherent right to the place as the Franks, at least the parts of it south of the Loire. So IMO if you contain it to Aquitaine it can be more about the de Ganis reclaiming the land of their fathers, albeit with the aid of British knights who themselves mostly just want land, loot, and Glory.

Ireland, on the other hand, yeah, I'm with you there. Even if it's drawing a lot more on the historical Anglo-Norman stuff that eventually led to the assimilated "Old English" rather than the much worse stuff the later British Empire got up to, it's still something I'd be iffy on running as-is.

That said, I think it could be something I personally would be more comfortable running with a few tweaks to just make it less lopsided and more of a case where a canny local ally is benefiting from his alliance. See, what I'd do is greatly play up King Anguish and his role in all this. He's not just the local ally, he's the whole reason this setup exists. He made the deal with Arthur about "speculative land grants" because he wanted to extend his reach without spending his own manpower and resources on it. If you take and hold land in Ireland (and of course Anguish's men will helpfully point you towards the best targets - 'the best for who?' Does it matter?), per Arthur's agreement, Anguish is the lord you're holding that land from, not Arthur or any other British lord. And all Anguish really had to do in return was pledge fealty to a different High King  and open himself up to some very lucrative trade with Britain.

Basically, you're not the mighty imperialists coming in to claim these lands in the name of Arthur, you're foreign mercenaries (paid in land) that the local magnate is using to extend his power for basically no personal cost. Your PKs still get their adventure, land, and Glory in Ireland, but King Anguish is the one who's really making out like a bandit as a result of their efforts. Because not only does he get more sword arms and more tax revenue, he's creating an excellent buffer zone for his core territory with all these foreign knights building fortifications to hold off their acquisitions against all comers.

Of course, that's just how I would put it more in my own comfort zone, if that's still not something you'd be eager to run, that's fine.

Edited October 29, 2020 by Leingod

[Morien]

In our campaign, I made the distinction between the 'old mercenaries', the FitzGeralds, and the newer ones (Butlers, de Ganis). This was useful as it also made it easier to showcase the friction between the newcomers and King Anguish with his in-laws (I had Gerald marry Anguish's OTHER daughter, although on hindsight, having Maurice marry her would have been better. Oh well, I was following history on that one.). Anyway, this animosity is important, as it explains why the de Ganis blame Anguish for the death of Sir Hugo, and hence set up the situation for Tristram to champion Anguish, and thus win the hand of Isold for King Mark.

I agree that Arthur's speculative landgrants are somewhat iffy, and I probably would ditch the whole Justiciar option and basically have Arthur be hands-off on Ireland. That makes any de Ganis operation there a purely mercenary one, just an attempt to landgrab and establish themselves as a new landed aristocracy. Arthur does stay hands-off Ireland anyway, but of course the historical parallel here is the Plantagenets expanding their power to Ireland. Then again, the other option is that the speculative landgrants would only apply to Irish kingdoms which choose to continue fighting against Arthur rather than submit to him in 530. That would make it more justifiable, as it could be argued to be more defensive in nature, using those self-funded mercenaries to keep the hostile kings busy and hence safeguard the Pale.

[Voord 99]

For me its not so much the morality of all that, at least in some Pendragon campaigns.  

There’s no doubt that Carnahan’s nationalist framing in Pagan Shore results in a version that’s a weird fit for an Arthur who’s supposed to be this wonderful positive figure.  But, then again, in a way that’s an interesting little piece of subversion that puts its finger nicely (among other things) on the whole oddness of having language about how unaggressive and un-conquer-y the Cymri are, when they’re modeled after the Normans, of all people.

And this is something that could jibe nicely with some Arthurs, especially the versions in which it’s not Lancelot-and-Guinevere that bring everything down, it’s that Arthur conquers too much.

And I’d also be fine with the right version of a Pendragon hack set in actual Ireland in the 12th-13th centuries, if handled with sufficient care and sensitivity.

But at the end of the day,  I don’t really see what you gain for the mainstream Pendragon game that’s so valuable by mapping the real history of the Anglo-Norman/English* invasion onto Pendragon Ireland in the first place.  

You already have the problem of reconciling the “Ireland” of medieval romance (mostly the Tristan material, obviously) in which Ireland is pretty much exactly like anywhere else, with an imagined historical Ireland in the C5th-C6th, at the cusp between pre-Christian and Christian periods.  That’s a big enough headache.

Dragging in a third Ireland from hundreds of years later mucks this up worse, forcing you to do unnecessary things like introduce the Hiberno-Norse.  And the way in which actual real people from the 12th century like Maurice FitzGerald travel back in time to be inserted into the narrative in the same historical positions - I find that horribly clunky.

My single preferred option is probably foreclosed by the “historical” Arthur element, but it would be to run with the bit about Arthur the Briton in Acallamh na Sénorach and mash up Marhaus, Iseult, and co. with the idea that Arthur was a contemporary of Fionn mac Cumhaill.  The Fianna are really very PC-ish.

*It is a somewhat fraught question in medieval Irish history what you call them.  Amusingly, the recent New Cambridge History of Ireland has two completely separate parallel chapters on the invasion, one for each of the two positions (which are obviously connected to larger disputes about how to frame the narrative).

Edited October 29, 2020 by Voord 99

[weasel fierce]

I always felt that the 4e takes on Irish and Picts felt like an odd attempt to stick to Roman-era outlooks, while the rest of England is getting on with high romance and gothic armor. Not a huge fan and it doesn't really feel at home with Malory either. 

[Luca Cherstich]

7 hours ago, redmoongoddess said:

Saying that it's not worth discussing anymore and then going on to claim how you totally weren't moaning about it is not helping your case, just saying. Thankfully, you've decided to stop whining about it, which is good enough for me.

Listen, I'll stop using whatever word you feel it's offensive but, please, I never accused anybody of "moaning" and  "whining" only because they have different opinions.

 

[Mugen]

On 10/29/2020 at 1:19 AM, Leingod said:

Well, with France it's not as bad, since after the Roman campaign the ones spearheading that are the de Ganis family, who you can argue have just as much of an inherent right to the place as the Franks, at least the parts of it south of the Loire. So IMO if you contain it to Aquitaine it can be more about the de Ganis reclaiming the land of their fathers, albeit with the aid of British knights who themselves mostly just want land, loot, and Glory.

That is, if you agree with the choice made by Greg Stafford to associate the Ganis family with Aquitaine.

I understand why that choice was made because of the connections between Queen Alienor's Courts of Love and the ideal of the Courtly Knight (Lancelot being the perfect example). But traditionally, that family os associated with places north of the Loire.

[Tizun Thane]

22 hours ago, Mugen said:

hat is, if you agree with the choice made by Greg Stafford to associate the Ganis family with Aquitaine.

Yes, this choice of Greg Stafford came from Malory, but to be clear, I don't like it either.

Traditionnaly, the kingdoms of Ganis and Benoic are smaller, like the old Poitou (or Anjou?) cut in two parts. So, their rival, the kingdom of Claudas can be smaller too. And Clandas can become a vassal of the "king of Gaul" (his capitole is supposed to be Bourges in the Berry region), himself.

In my campaign, I kept the Occitan Part, and I realized latter it was a mistake.

[Voord 99]

On France, you could go full Richard Blackmore and have Arthur be motivated by appeals from the subjects of the French king to liberate them from a tyrant who is literally worshipping Satan.  

Or maybe not.

(Amusingly, a somewhat fictionalized Clovis actually appears in that version, and he is the most perfect person imaginable.  Because he’s half-British.  I mean, obviously.)

[Leingod]

For my part, I'd keep the Aquitainian de Ganis thing, because I like it. To line things up with historical events better, in 507 when Clovis takes over Aquitaine, Ban and Bors surrender and become vassal sub-kings, possibly before Toulouse even falls. This has the added benefit of explaining why none of the de Ganis family ever fled to or sought aid from their fellow Visigoths in Hispania; Ban and Bors's actions were seen as cowardly if not outright treasonous, so they'd get no friendly reception there.

In 511, when Clovis dies, he splits up his inheritance among his four sons, with Aquitaine and Soissons going to Chlothar (497-561), who we can assume wouldn't be happy if fully half of his kingdom (and worse, a half very distant from the other half) was being controlled by two non-Frankish vassal kings. He might consider things like their helping Arthur to be signs of planning for a future rebellion and, in 518, decides to crush them both (likely with some help from one or more of his brothers) and thus takes up the role of being the "King Claudas" of the stories. This also adds credence to the ease with which Arthur briefly conquers the Franks in the Conquest Period; the brother-kings are currently on the outs with each other and keep trying to undercut each other even in the face of a foreign invasion. Which is actually a neat contrast with the de Ganis clan, who are always completely ride-or-die for each other.

Edited November 4, 2020 by Leingod

[jmberry1s]

Yeah, if I was dealing with France, I'd rewrite the situation similar to how Book of Sires dealt with the Welsh Genealogies, starting out as history or folklore describes but changing to match the Romances as time goes on. To wit:

-Clovis wouldn't be Claudas. While this is a popular association in Arthuriana and shows up in "Dark Age Arthur" style stories, it works there because those stories put Arthur around 480 or so. Clovis is dead by the time Arthur gets going in the GPC, so that association doesn't work in KAP.

-Instead, assuming one keeps Clovis (and I admit, while writing this I came up with some other ideas), I'd give him only two sons: Claudas, replacing Choldomer (so that he can have Bourges and a border with Ganis), and Faramon, replacing Childebert (So that his lands can have a border with Brittany for Tristram to cross). Chlothar and Theuderic's inheritances won't matter, since Aquitaine is ruled by Ganis here and Germany apparently does its own thing in the Romances.

 

As for whether Arthur should conquer France ... no. I'd have Claudas be as he is the source material, a constant enemy, but one who is chivalrous and friendly. I'd go with Vulgate France rather than a mock-up of the HYW.

[Mugen]

On 11/4/2020 at 6:22 PM, Leingod said:

For my part, I'd keep the Aquitainian de Ganis thing, because I like it.

And that's the best reason to do so.