The Adventure of the Great Hunt - a Quickstart preview of Greg Stafford's "ultimate edition" for the Pendragon RPG

[weasel fierce]

17 hours ago, Baba said:

Perhaps, but... in Malory, all the knights seem to be smiting each other with swords if on foot, or with spears if on horseback. And use shields. That’s my impression, anyway, even though I haven’t counted weapon occurences.

In this case I think I would rather look for inspiration in the stories than in actual historical warfare - and then it doesn’t feel quite right to see the onehanded sword demoted to a fallback weapon.

Also fair. Though Malory fights tend to either be over in one go or last all day. 

The introduction of a "Knights sword" in the mid/late eras that does +1D6 damage would work in my opinion. 

[weasel fierce]

6 hours ago, Scotty said:

I'd like to hear from those who have played in or run the game - how did it go?

We've started using the new rules and reception has been positive so far.

[MOB]

10 hours ago, mandrill_one said:

Are you interested in translations to other languages? I'd love to try my hand at translating the quickstart & preview to Italian. Although, no Italian edition of KAP exists right now...

You are welcome to do a non-commercial fan translation of the Quickstart in Italian, which we can share on our itch-io page. #siamotuttinoi

[mandrill_one]

On 11/4/2020 at 2:18 AM, MOB said:

You are welcome to do a non-commercial fan translation of the Quickstart in Italian, which we can share on our itch-io page. #siamotuttinoi

You even translated #WeAreAllUs! Wonderful! 🙂

[Crabus]

Hi,

Maybe someone have a answer to this question.

Why p9 (in the scenario), the success on a Religion (Christian) (not a passion but a skill) roll grant the KP of an inspire (+5) on a future roll ?

 

Quote

Upon hearing this tale, the Player-knights may each roll Religion (Christian). On a success, they then recall the Panther Sermon ...

This sermon Inspires the Player-knight (see “Passion Results” on p. 3) to find a panther to use against the dragon. The Player-knight may wait to name the Skill or Trait they wish to boost until the search for the panther is under way, or at some point after that.

Thank you

Edited November 5, 2020 by Crabus
Yes religion is a skill not a trait. The question stay the same.

[creativehum]

5 hours ago, Crabus said:

Hi,

Maybe someone have a answer to this question.

Why p9 (in the scenario), the success on a Religion (Christian) (not a passion but a trait) roll grant the KP of an inspire (+5) on a future roll ?

 

Thank you

This is my reading of the text:

The Religion (Christian) is not a Trait roll, but a Skill roll. (Religion is listed as a skill on the character sheet).

The PK who both succeeds in rolling on the skill, and rolls the highest value for the skill, remembers the sermon and Gains 10 Glory.

The PK, upon remembering the sermon, and any other PKs who hear the sermon from the PK who remembered the sermon, are become Inspired by the sermon without having to make a Passion roll.

The logic seems to be that it is the sermon itself which inspires the PKs. The sermon inspires the PKs to find a panther to use against the dragon. Because they are inspired, the PKs can name a Skill or Trait they wish to boost using the Inspired rules (+5) involving the search and use of the panther.

While this may not be the typical method of becoming Inspired, I dig it. The rules of Pendragon are there as tools, and in many cases can be used in interesting ways to mark the significance of objects, people, or events. Using a sermon to Inspire sounds legit to me.

[mandrill_one]

On 11/4/2020 at 2:18 AM, MOB said:

You are welcome to do a non-commercial fan translation of the Quickstart in Italian, which we can share on our itch-io page. #siamotuttinoi

Ok, so thanks to the kind collaboration of MOB, the Italian translations of both #WeArAllUs / #SiamoTuttiNoi adventures are now up on Chaosium's itch.io page:

- La Grande Caccia (2020): https://chaosium.itch.io/the-adventure-of-the-great-hunt

- La Cerca della Lama Rossa (2019):  https://chaosium.itch.io/the-quest-of-the-red-blade 

In both cases, scroll to the bottom to see the download link.
Hope that some fellow Italian GMs and Players will enjoy these two items! I sure had a blast translating them.

Roberto

[Nyorlandhotep]

I am trying to run this quickstart as my first ever attempt to play Pendragon. I am not sure I understand the hunting rules. As written, it seems that the only way to reach an actual confrontation with the Prey (the Abay), is by rolling a 12 on obstacles. Is that correct? That would make the hunt extremely long and a die-rolling fest, so I somehow suspect that if at the end of a contest  one of the participant parties is at the same position as the prey, one should proceed to the Abay, but this is not explicitly said anywhere. Can somebody help me?

[Morien]

30 minutes ago, Nyorlandhotep said:

I somehow suspect that if at the end of a contest  one of the participant parties is at the same position as the prey, one should proceed to the Abay, but this is not explicitly said anywhere.

That is correct. Once you occupy the same position as the Prey (#0 position) at the end of the Pursuit (i.e. after checking if you overcome the obstacle), you move to Abay. That is what "Once hunters have caught up to the quarry," means, but it could have been underlined more.

Just to comment on a related issue:
The Honor loss ought to only apply if the Hunt is an arranged social activity by the Host, to honor a guest. If it is just a bunch of friends hunting together, there is no designated host nor a honored guest, so you wouldn't lose Honor for not waiting. But if this is part of a court visit, the Count throwing together a big Hunt in honor of King Arthur, who is participating, then yes, you should wait!

Edited December 18, 2020 by Morien

[Nyorlandhotep]

7 minutes ago, Morien said:

That is correct. Once you occupy the same position as the Prey (#0 position) at the end of the Pursuit (i.e. after checking if you overcome the obstacle), you move to Abay. That is what "Once hunters have caught up to the quarry," means, but it could have been underlined more.

Thanks for the quick answer! This should really be better explained in the scenario, especially given that it is a quickstart, ie, likely to be read by newer players.

[Frontinus]

My group and I are going to use The Adventure of the Great Hunt adventure as a one-shot to try out Pendragon in mid-January. I’ll be GMing and I recognize one session misses out on a lot of the dynastic/family elements that make the full game famous and distinct, but it should at least give us a chance to try the rules and decide if they want to do a longer term commitment. We’ll aim to use the “preview 6e rules” as much as possible but I have the 5.2 rulebook to fall back on.

 

Has anyone else run this adventure yet? What was your group’s experience?

What are some common slowdowns and dead ends to avoid?

Is there anything that doesn’t fit well? 

 

Also, two things have me curious:

1. Sir Ector riding out to confront the dragon early. I’m thinking of ignoring the proposal of opposed rolling Sir Ector’s competing passions starting at day 15 (“Sound the Hunt!”, p. 10). There is no obvious way for the characters to influence this, especially when Sir Ector tells them he will wait a month/31 days. Further, showing up on time and being told Sir Ector is already dead because of a bunch of off-screen die rolls seems narratively suspect. Am I misunderstanding or misreading this part?

2. The pregen knights don’t have glory totals. Given how Glory is supposed to provide a bit of “chivalric precedence” and rivalry element to knightly decisions, and the play describes plenty of opportunities for small glory awards, I’d like to include it. I figure I’ll have the knights all start at 1500+6d6x5 or something like that, but I can also see an argument for having everyone start at a flat amount so that decisions in play can immediately reward knights jockeying for Glory. Any recommendations on starting Glory?

 

The way I’m reading it, the optimal play through involves getting two animals through courtly interaction (panther and eagle), one animal retrieval delegated to squires (mouse), two through standard hunt mechanics (stag, lion cub-with a possible twist), one through a very non-standard hunt (unicorn), and one with an abbreviated hunt mechanic (crane).

Further I’m seeing a minimum 18 days of travel, plus probably an average 1.5 days for each animal, puts us at 28 days close to the limit of one month/31 days to get a belching panther to Sir Ector’s lands. This sounds about right and if anything goes wrong along the way (most obviously by my guess, not getting the panther from Queen Guenevere or getting injured in a hunt), they will immediately start have to making trade-offs.

 

Two other small tweaks I’m planning: the adventure will start in a manor with Sir Gregor de Stafford, as in Quest of the Red Blade, and on the way to Camelot the knights will be stopped and challenged to a joust by Mordred. That will give them a low key introduction to the charging related combat rules before the opening charge against the dragon.

 

I’m an experienced GM and appreciate the structure is a nice mix of light sandbox elements (variety of challenges, go in the order and to the extent you want) within a soft time limit. Looking forward to giving it a try and will post our experience here afterwards so that others can learn from our victories and errors.

Thanks in advance for your advice.

[Morien]

53 minutes ago, Frontinus said:

1. Sir Ector riding out to confront the dragon early. I’m thinking of ignoring the proposal of opposed rolling Sir Ector’s competing passions starting at day 15 (“Sound the Hunt!”, p. 10). There is no obvious way for the characters to influence this, especially when Sir Ector tells them he will wait a month/31 days. Further, showing up on time and being told Sir Ector is already dead because of a bunch of off-screen die rolls seems narratively suspect. Am I misunderstanding or misreading this part?

"Keep track of the days as they pass. As Sir Ector
indicated, the Player-knights have only 31 days to
gather their menagerie and travel to Berwyn. After
fourteen days have passed,"

I firmly believe that the "fourteen" here is an error and it should be "31". Perhaps a remnant of a previous draft and once the writers/playtesters went in to calculate how many days it would take to complete this quest, they realized that 14 days is not enough, and it should be a month? But the earlier 14 days was not corrected in the third sentence.

In any case, that is how I would GM it in my campaign, for Sir Ector is a man of his word. If he says he will wait 31 days, then he will wait 31 days. As well as other game reasons you mentioned.

Edited December 28, 2020 by Morien

[Morien]

55 minutes ago, Frontinus said:

Further I’m seeing a minimum 18 days of travel, plus probably an average 1.5 days for each animal, puts us at 28 days close to the limit of one month/31 days to get a belching panther to Sir Ector’s lands. This sounds about right and if anything goes wrong along the way (most obviously by my guess, not getting the panther from Queen Guenevere or getting injured in a hunt), they will immediately start have to making trade-offs.

Another potential thing is to split the party. You don't really need EVERYONE at Camelot, for instance. Granted, some of the hunts are much easier if you have more knights present, but in principle, you can easily enough split the party in two if you have two good hunters already. That allows you to lower the travel time to 16 days total, with two hunts (stag+crane, unicorn+lion) for each group, and one group handling the mouse while the other does what is needed in Camelot. Hence, the total expenditure of days can be closer to 20, which would give a week's grace to heal in between if really necessary.

[Nyorlandhotep]

I was running this scenario for the first time today and I was confused again by the hunting rules. During the Unarboring, the Hunters that follow a leader will have their first position defined by the Hunting skill check of the leader. However, this position will change *individually* through an individual movement rate check for each hunter. Fine to this point. But then, during the Pursuit, we are back at the leader doing the hunting rolls for the group and the members members dealing separately with the consequences. This sounds counter intuitive, as during the pursuit a follower can be 2 steps ahead of the leader (due to dealing  better with the movement rate check), but still encountering the same obstacles that the leader encounters, while this leader is several steps behind. Am I reading this well? 

Edited December 29, 2020 by Nyorlandhotep

[Morien]

19 minutes ago, Nyorlandhotep said:

I was running this scenario for the first time today and I was confused again by the hunting rules. During the Unarboring, the Hunters that follow a leader will have their first position defined by the Hunting skill check of the leader. However, this position will change *individually* through an individual movement rate check for each hunter. Fine to this point. But then, during the Pursuit, we are back at the leader doing the hunting rolls for the group and the members members dealing separately with the consequences. This sounds counter intuitive, as during the pursuit a follower can be 2 steps ahead of the leader (due to dealing  better with the movement rate check), but still encountering the same obstacles that the leader encounters, while this leader is several steps behind. Am I reading this well? 

If you want, you can say that if you are following the leader, you cannot ride faster than the leader. Anyone farther forward has to become their own leader, until the main party catches up. Chances are, if they have low hunting, they would fail quickly. On the other hand, most of the staying on track during a chase is actually done by the hounds (you don't actually look for tracks yourself at this point anymore, that was earlier). So as long as you follow the hounds, you should be fine. The quality of the hounds is abstracted by the leader's Hunting, perhaps? This would be one way of simply rolling for the leader, even if one of the followers is several steps ahead.

In any case, I would still roll only one obstacle, since the idea kinda is that if there is a creek that the animal has crossed, then all the hunters need to cross the same creek.

[Soccercalle]

Will ”The Great Pendragon Campaign ” be updated to the version 6 of the game? I am thinking of buying it but can wait if necessary.

[SaxBasilisk]

18 hours ago, Soccercalle said:

Will ”The Great Pendragon Campaign ” be updated to the version 6 of the game? I am thinking of buying it but can wait if necessary.

Here's some information. I don't know how finished this is - perhaps someone else can weigh in?

 

Edited January 2, 2021 by SaxBasilisk

[Nyorlandhotep]

On 12/29/2020 at 2:43 AM, Morien said:

If you want, you can say that if you are following the leader, you cannot ride faster than the leader. Anyone farther forward has to become their own leader, until the main party catches up. Chances are, if they have low hunting, they would fail quickly. On the other hand, most of the staying on track during a chase is actually done by the hounds (you don't actually look for tracks yourself at this point anymore, that was earlier). So as long as you follow the hounds, you should be fine. The quality of the hounds is abstracted by the leader's Hunting, perhaps? This would be one way of simply rolling for the leader, even if one of the followers is several steps ahead.

In any case, I would still roll only one obstacle, since the idea kinda is that if there is a creek that the animal has crossed, then all the hunters need to cross the same creek.

Thanks a lot for the answer. I agree with all the points you are making, that is very much how I ended up interpreting it in the game.  However, this discussion (for me at least, but I do not think I am particularly bad at reading rules) suggests that the hunting rules as written should come with some additional explanation on what they mean in terms of the fiction. 

Another thing that came up during the gaming session was when hunting the lion: one of the knights, arriving first, charged the lion. As I understood the rules, this first attack is unopposed, right? According to the rules, too, in the next round all the knights in the hunting party get to attack oppose by the Evasiveness of the quarry, which means the lion is still getting damage while not trying to fight back. If this is correct, it does improve the chances of success of the knights considerably, but it strikes me as somewhat odd, as the lion is a particularly powerful beast that would do better by attacking than by trying to evade its pursuers...

[Morien]

My Lions (and most other predators and evil-tempered beasts, like boars) tend to attack back after the first round, and even that first round they get to try to evade. But I do want the hunts of such beasts to feel dangerous. Also, if the beast has doubled back (obstacle 20), then it is there to ambush the hunters, not to get surprised itself!

[Frontinus]

Thanks for the timeline clarification @Morien.

Happy to report we did The Great Hunt with one GM and four PKs. It was tight but the PKs kept together and managed to get the leopard belch on day 28 with all animals retrieved. The whole session came in just under 4 hours, which included a quick rules intro at the beginning. Ran on Roll 20 so modifiers and interpreting dice rolls was done automatically by the character sheet roller, which was a nice touch since we were all learning the system.

The PK nearly grievously embarrassed themselves while asking the Queen for a leopard, but I let the Courtly Knight smooth things over with the help from a sympathetic lady's maid attached to the Queen.

The incident I mentioned adding with Mordred jousting the PKs on the road to Camelot was a super effective way to make an instant nemesis! I'm going to reuse this trick in campaign play, as the players lost 2 out of 3 on the joust and upon defeat the group immediately began planning their revenge, though we left that escapade for another day.

The hunting rules were also well received. We had a variety of different hunt roll results, so each hunt felt unique.

One area I would improve if I did it again was the final confrontation with the dragon. The players had collected all the animals, so RAW that should have knocked out the dragon but we were at this point at about the 3 hour mark, they were so excited by my description of them cresting the hill with Sir Ector, arms and armour glinting in the sunlight, and I also wanted to see how a more complex combat would handle. This is where I dropped the ball. I figured give the dragon two rounds of lethargic fighting before it falls asleep (first round at -5, second round at -10). I grievously underestimated how deadly that dragon is, even at -5 on all attack rolls. After the first round, half the horses were dead (only sheer luck that none of Sir Ector or the PKs were killed) and the PKs were scared as heck as they had barely scratched the beast. For round two, one dismounted PK volunteered to hold the line while everyone else retreated. At that point we finished the scene narratively with the dragon grievously wounding the brave rear guard before falling into a stupor and creating the opening for the survivors to properly hack the head off. This whole combat felt really slow compared to the previous brisk pacing, as I found the five simultaneous combats (4 PKs + Sir Ector vs. Dragon Head, 2 Dragon Claws, 2 Tail swipes against the two flankers) a bit of a mental overload for me.

Having them come upon and butcher the sleeping dragon just seemed a bit anti-climactic. I'm curious how other groups have handled this.

Despite my mis-step in the dragon encounter, the players and I had fun and picked up the system (and the deadliness) pretty fast. I wouldn't say it was enough exposure for us to feel ready to tackle a GPC, but we are aiming to do a multi-session campaign later this year (I'm seeing good things about the Adventure of the Grey Knight, anyone else have favourites/suggestions?). 

A big thanks to everyone at Chaosium for making this adventure. It is a great introduction to the themes and rules. Looking forward to exploring the great history of adventures available and seeing what additional awesomeness 6th Edition brings.

Edited February 28, 2021 by Frontinus

[Oleksandr]

On 10/20/2020 at 1:19 PM, Morien said:

"If the loser rolled a Partial Success, they may also apply the Shield or Parry protection value of their shield/weapon." So the answer is "no".

BTW, it's strange. IRL it perfectly possible to parry with both hands simultaneously, putting weapon and shield together (or using crossed weapons, for example in fencing with rapier and dagger).

Also, why dagger has parry value of 0? It possible to parry with it too:

Spoiler

Later on daggers even replaced shiels as main defensive tool for dueling

 

[Morien]

1 hour ago, Oleksandr said:

BTW, it's strange. IRL it perfectly possible to parry with both hands simultaneously, putting weapon and shield together (or using crossed weapons, for example in fencing with rapier and dagger).

KAP is a simple system at heart. Parrying with a weapon only and avoiding getting hit would be either a success with Defensive or a normal success (parry followed by a riposte). Or it could even be a failure if the enemy's follow-up ends up being a successful hit. The opposed roll is not a single swing, after all.

Shield had been the only exception to the rule, as it gave armor bonus on a partial success: you still got hit but with lesser force. Now 6E is expanding that to swords and two-handed weapons: this helps to make the sword the pre-eminent self-defense sidearm, as well as making two-handed weapons more competitive (1d6 dmg Vs 6 armor was not really a great trade). 

[Oleksandr]

Though i still think that dagger should have parry value, at least 2 (maybe as much as 4, after all daggers became defensive tool for being nimbler than sword...)

[Morien]

8 minutes ago, Oleksandr said:

Though i still think that dagger should have parry value, at least 2 (maybe as much as 4, after all daggers became defensive tool for being nimbler than sword...)

Sword-and-dagger styles become more prevalent with rapiers and main-gauches. In Late Medieval, sword-and-buckler was more common. While I disagree with you that even a main-gauche would be preferred to a rapier in a defense* (let alone simpler hilted medieval daggers like bollock and rondel daggers), I agree with the general principle that having anything additional in your free hand would be better than having nothing, all other things being equal. Wrapping your cloak around your left arm as an improvised shield/armor, picking up a stool to interpose against enemy blade... But these are more like swashbuckling moves. Quite suitable for a Robin Hood conversion, but probably not that important for KAP combat. Especially since as a knight, the PK likely has either a shield or at the very least some armor on his arm already. 🙂

I would fully disagree with a medieval dagger being +4 Armor, almost as good as a kite shield.

* By this I mean that if you have the option of fighting against a rapier with a rapier or with a main-gauche, but not with both, you are at a serious disadvantage with just the main-gauche. Whereas you would have an advantage if you have both against a single rapier.

[Oleksandr]

25 minutes ago, Morien said:

 I disagree with you that even a main-gauche would be preferred to a rapier in a defense. 

I would fully disagree with a medieval dagger being +4 Armor, almost as good as a kite shield.

Well, in 16-17thc fencing manuals rapier wery rarely depicted parrying, my friends (HEMA practitioners) explained that it's becoas dagger are simply faster. Though you are right, for lone dagger +1 or +2 seems more appropriate, but i think sword+dagger should provide +4.

32 minutes ago, Morien said:

Sword-and-dagger styles become more prevalent with rapiers and main-gauches. In Late Medieval, sword-and-buckler was more common....  I agree with the general principle that having anything additional in your free hand would be better than having nothing, all other things being equal. Wrapping your cloak around your left arm as an improvised shield/armor, picking up a stool to interpose against enemy blade... But these are more like swashbuckling moves. Quite suitable for a Robin Hood conversion, but probably not that important for KAP combat. Especially since as a knight, the PK likely has either a shield or at the very least some armor on his arm already. 🙂

I seen about half a dozen HMAs pictures with use of wrapped cloak, and couple of once with sword and knife from EMAs*, so idea wasn't entirely alien for this eras. After all, even knights wasn't wearing armor 24/7 (ans early in campaign only chainmail are available).

*and several with dual swords from HMAs. So it wasn't hollywood invention...