Whilst waiting for 6th edition: Having your own starter pack on the cheap

[Morien]

As all of you likely already know, there is going to be a starter set for 6th edition. But in case you want to play NOW but not commit to getting a load of 5th edition stuff, here is something you can do to get yourself and your game group primed for 6th edition. (Yes, I know that most of the people in this forum already own loads of books and have played/GMed KAP, but in case we have some people who haven't...)

 

1st thing you need: The Rulebook
Obviously you need the rules to play the game, and some background information doesn't hurt, either. KAP core rules have stayed quite similar from edition to edition, so it isn't a huge deal if you get 3th, 4th or 5.x edition. 5.2 has the most up-to-date rules and is nice and slick with its new art, but I'll be honest here: I'd go for 4th edition if I'd be looking for a starter. My reasons for this are as follows: 4th edition is set to start AD 531, meaning that your PKs will drop down right into the golden age of Arthurian chivalry, romance and adventure. In short, what they expect to experience when you tell them that the game setting is King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table. By contrast, 5.2 drops you in 485, in King Uther's rather more grey-shaded world of might-makes-right (granted, you can use 5.2 to play in AD 531 rules-wise no problem, but the setting info is for 485, which makes it a touch harder for a new GM). Not only that, 4th edition is a thick tome that comes with nice blurbs of information about the various counties and the kingdoms, as well as rules for creating characters who are not the standard Cymric knights from Salisbury, whereas 5.2 would require you to get the Book of Knights & Ladies to get the extra chargen information (and alas, not really tell you all that much about the various kingdoms and counties...). Furthermore, 4th edition pdf is a steal at $9.99 from Chaosium website (link below). There is another reason, and that is the Adventure of the White Horse, but more of that later. Finally, I started with the 4th edition back in the 90s, so it will always have a special place in my heart. ❤️

https://www.chaosium.com/king-arthur-pendragon-core-rule-book-4th-edition-pdf/

 

2nd thing: The Adventures

There is a nice collection of free stuff out there already. Chaosium has put out two free adventures, The Red Blade and The Great Hunt (link below). There is also the Marriage of Count Roderick (link below) that you might wish to get and retool for finding a bride for the liege's son (if playing 4th edition) or use as a prequel (if playing 5.2 edition) as is. However, the 4th edition comes with its own intro adventure, The Bear Hunt (also included in 5.2), where the player-characters get knighted, and in addition, 4th edition has a very nice adventure, the Adventure of the White Horse, which introduces the players to the system of Trait tests and how not every challenge is won with weapons. Alas, 5.2 edition lacks this adventure, which is a great shame. In addition to the free stuff above (or included into the rulebook), there is also the Dragons of Britain fanzines #1 - #4, available for free at the drivethrurpg.com (links below). They each have a fan-created KAP adventure that you can use.

https://www.chaosium.com/we-are-all-us-free-adventures/

https://www.chaosium.com/content/FreePDFs/Pendragon/NM14 - Marriage of Count Roderick.pdf

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/121452/The-Dragons-of-Britain-1

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/126635/The-Dragons-of-Britain-2

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/130711/The-Dragons-of-Britain-3

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/139056/The-Dragons-of-Britain-4

 

So in the end, you end up with seven (eight if 4th edition) adventures + the Marriage of Count Roderick to play with as a taster with your friends, just by getting the rulebook. In the next post on this thread, I will give my suggestions on how to weave those adventures into a mini-campaign for your players. (However, that will have to wait for later, as I ran out of time.)

 

 

Edited May 16, 2021 by Morien

[glassneedles]

I think you wrote this specifically for me! I've never played Pendragon before but got sucked in through the recent blogposts Chaosium put out highlighting the upcoming 6th edition. Before seeing this my plan had been to grab the Paladin core rulebook and go through the included adventures (and maybe get the additional book for that) as I like physically having the books I'm running from. It would also be Charlemagne rather than Arthurian so I could come to 6th edition fresh. 

Does that make sense? I haven't bought the books yet so not too late for me to realise I'm being idiotic 🙂

[Voord 99]

Paladin is more uncompromising than Pendragon when it comes to wanting you to play from the perspective of the source material, especially as regards religion, so I’d be prepared for that — I think Pendragon is an easier on-ramp in that respect.

The mechanics aren’t identical, but are very similar.  Paladin tends to be a little more complicated than 5e Pendragon.  Paladin feels to me in some ways like it might incorporate things that started as house rules for Pendragon.  6e will apparently add complexity, so this may not be true when comparing Paladin to 6e.

[Morien]

2 hours ago, glassneedles said:

I think you wrote this specifically for me!

Well, not specifically for you, but people like you, definitely! 🙂

Also, have you seen this thread:

It was written for GMs and players looking to play a 5.2 + GPC campaign, starting in 480 (or 485), but many things there are valid for both 4e and 5.2e.

2 hours ago, glassneedles said:

I've never played Pendragon before but got sucked in through the recent blogposts Chaosium put out highlighting the upcoming 6th edition. Before seeing this my plan had been to grab the Paladin core rulebook and go through the included adventures (and maybe get the additional book for that) as I like physically having the books I'm running from. It would also be Charlemagne rather than Arthurian so I could come to 6th edition fresh. 

Does that make sense? I haven't bought the books yet so not too late for me to realise I'm being idiotic 🙂

Like Voord 99, I think KAP 4e is easier than Paladin as a trainer set for 6e. As Voord 99 surmised, my feeling of Paladin rules is that they are basically 4e+ a host of house-rules, and I am saying this as a guy who has his own set of 50 or so house-rules and tweaks on KAP 5.2. Anyway, my point is that 4e (or 5.2e) is both easier and more 'canonical' than Paladin, when KAP rules are concerned. The difference in rules between 5.2e and 4e is relatively minor. The setting and even the worldview in Paladin is somewhat different, as Voord 99 already said, too.

Also, I wouldn't worry about 'spoiling' the KAP campaign. In fact, I think keeping the introduction and the eventual 6e campaign in the same setting makes it much easier for the players. Also, you can portray the introductionary 530s as an era of peace and prosperity, basically having Camelot as a backdrop where the knights can report on the adventures they have done and bask in the approval of the King and the Queen, and the rest of the court. You don't want to have the Big Plot dominate this introductory campaign, IMHO. By contrast, once the PKs get to this spot in KAP 6, they have probably already gained a lot more Glory and name recognition, and even if they switch to their sons soon enough, the players know what is going on, and that, and the different adventures you'd run from the new GPC book (Romance & Tournament Periods) as well as published adventure and regional books, there will be plenty of surprises all around. It definitely won't feel stale.

One thing I would do, though, is ditch the Family History for this introductory campaign. That can be quite spoilerific as it gives the year by year breakdown of the events and the battles (even though they might be a bit different in KAP 6 than in KAP 4, as they also differed between KAP 4 and GPC). Also, in my experience, the players want to play. Hook them in with nice adventures, and you can worry about the family backgrounds later when KAP 6 is out and you are doing a real campaign. Also, the 4e (and 5.2e) family background was quite Salisbury-centric, still. Book of Sires would give you more options, but the whole idea here is to give you a cheap starter set, not an exhaustive one. Also, by diminishing the importance of the background, you can let the players be freer with their backgrounds and work with them to tie in their characters, even if one is a Saxon and another a French knight (actually still a squire) from the Continent (no doubt picked up by the mentor knight during the Roman War). However, while I advise not doing the Family History for these intro PKs, you ought to go ahead and read through it yourself, to get some idea what has happened.

[Morien]

Alright. So the adventures...
Note: I skimmed through them to refresh my memory, so don't expect too detailed analysis (also, I don't want to spoil the players who might be reading this).

4e
The Bear Hunt: Introduction, knighting of the squire PKs. Definitely the first adventure you wish to run if you are running this as a mini-campaign. (If, however, your game group is more like 'meh, I want to be a badass fighter who can Great Cleave his way through goblins', the game might not be for them. Or you could start them off with older, more experienced knights and let them go ham on some poor bandits.)
The White Horse: I would be very tempted to run this as the second adventure, as it teaches the players of the importance of their Traits. (There are a couple of tweaks that I would do, since as people have noted, its rather harsh 'fail and you are out' -mechanic can make it very frustrating for players with poor dice luck. I have discussed this in another thread that I will find and link here in just a moment. EDIT: https://basicroleplaying.org/topic/12763-adventure-recommendation/?tab=comments#comment-198571)

The Red Blade
I would save this one for later, as it is a rather high-stakes one, if memory serves.

The Great Hunt
I would save this for the middle or so, since it basically brings the player-knights into the notice of King Arthur. While it doesn't require terribly experienced characters, it works better if they have some years under their belt, already.

The Birthday Hunt (DoB #1)
Semi-challenging but easily scalable by the GM. Possibly a relatively early adventure, and it would be easy enough to set this into Salisbury by changing a few names around and making the birthday boy the son of Earl/Count Robert. (Do note that as this was intended as a one-shot convention game, one ending sees the affected PK returning to a Britain where a hundred years or so has passed and Arthur is just a legendary foe of the ruling Saxons. I wouldn't be so harsh in a mini-campaign and just make the PK skip a year, returning prior to the next adventure.)

The Maiden's Oath (DoB #2)
This is another good adventure for relatively new PKs. More battle heavy, so maybe have this as the third one, to let the PKs flex their muscles a bit after the slower White Horse.

The King of the Red City (DoB #3)
This adventure involves the PKs in some higher tier politics and bigger battles, and works admirably as the capstone of the mini-campaign, but I won't spoil the ending! (I very much disagree having this as the starter adventure, as the author suggested as an option.)

The Dragon's Hoard (DoB #4)
This adventure has a dragon, as the name implies, so it is a somewhat dangerous one. It would work very well as a penultimate adventure of the mini-campaign, I think.

 

Alright, so as a quick campaign skeleton:

late 530: The Bear Hunt. Introduction of some wife candidates (who do not have to be heiresses, dangit; see the Helpful Suggestions thread above). The Maid Elianor (see below) ought to be one of them, to introduce her before her adventure comes up.
531: The White Horse
532: * (Getting to know wife candidates and maybe even rescuing one of them from a dastardly rival?)
533: The Maiden's Oath. At the end of this adventure, the PKs should be getting married, perhaps one of them to the eponymous maiden, Elianor! (No problem with her being an heiress here, since the PKs worked for it.)
534: * (Family stuff?)
535: The Birthday Hunt. (Now, if you wanted to have heiresses as wife candidates, this is the time when the grateful Earl/Count might be doling them out. If you do that, you might wish to move this to 534 and have the Marriage (below) fill 535-538 instead.)
536: * (If you wanted to, you could take the Marriage of Count Roderick and repurpose it as a mission to find a suitable bride for the birthday boy from last year's adventure, now that he has been knighted and, hopefully, rescued. This would add some filler into the 536-539.)
537: The Great Hunt
538: *
539: The Red Blade
540: *
541: The Dragon's Hoard
542: *
543: The King of the Red City. The campaign ends with the PKs qualifying for the Round Table, as Arthur has had his eye on them ever since 537. So hopefully the mini-campaign ends with a nice high note of the PKs becoming part of that hallowed brotherhood, with beautiful, loving wives and a few children already growing to carry on the family name in the future.

* = Skip (play a solo) or personalized adventures for the PKs. This gives them a bit more time to get experience under their belts before they start hitting the 'higher level' adventures. This means that the player-knights will be in their early 30s, probably around their peak physical prowess, when they are hitting the latter adventures. I added some suggestions in the above.
 

Edited May 17, 2021 by Morien

[Baba]

Are you sure about starting with the bear hunt? I wonder if it‘s not the most inspiring start - it feels a bit like a tutorial to me. I think I would recommend dropping it, and jumping right to something more meaty.

Or keeping it, but building it out to somehow making it more personal for the player knights.

One obvious trick, if family history allows it: Maybe the father (or older brother) of one of the player knights went out to slay it, but has not returned. They can find him dead before they find the bear.

[Morien]

I see your point, Baba, and I explicitly stated that it is the first adventure if you are running this as a mini-campaign. If all you are doing is trying to convince a group of lukewarm D&D players to give the system a chance, giving them older knights to play and dropping them into the Red Blade would work better, I agree. It very much depends on the level of the buy-in you already have from your players, if they are committed to a dozen sessions of a mini-campaign or if they need to be dragged to play it at least one session.

Edited May 16, 2021 by Morien

[Morien]

23 minutes ago, Baba said:

Or keeping it, but building it out to somehow making it more personal for the player knights.

As a general rule, I am very much in favor of trying to intertwine personal stakes and hooks into the adventures.

I would not be that keen to make the bear into a knight-killing monster bear since it would break the rationale of sending just squires after it. The Bear Hunt reads as a tutorial since that is what it is. One way to make it a bit more fun would be to introduce a couple of NPC squires who might be looking to hog all the glory and give the players some rivals to test themselves against.

Edited May 16, 2021 by Morien

[Voord 99]

Important fact about bears, and by “fact” I mean something that is not at all a fact, but that people in the Middle Ages believed — they are born head first and so have weak and vulnerable heads.  This is a good bit of lore for the squires to discover and use to defeat the bear to make the adventure more interesting.

Also, for God’s sake, change Sir Jaradan’s reference to the bear possibly being a “chipmunk” to something that actually exists in Britain. 🙂  But you can use the idea that no-one believes it’s an actual bear to justify squires rather than knights being sent after it.  And people should be impressed that they killed a bear.  It’s a big deal — bears were not normal everyday wild animals in medieval Britain, so this is very possibly the first bear that anyone in Salisbury has ever hunted.  The game is set at about the time when they were probably going extinct.

Edited May 16, 2021 by Voord 99

[Leingod]

1 hour ago, Voord 99 said:

Also, for God’s sake, change Sir Jaradan’s reference to the bear possibly being a “chipmunk” to something that actually exists in Britain.

I'd go with a badger, personally.

[merlyn]

The"chipmunk" business reminds me of a mention in "The Boy King" of Merlin having a pet raccoon - another animal native to North America rather than to Britain.  I recall bringing that up on an old "Pendragon" mailing list years ago, and someone else insisting, over and over, that the raccoon should stay on the grounds that it was charming and that medieval Arthurian romances featured lions and unicorns in Britain.  (Not a perfect analogy, in my opinion, since lions and unicorns were part of "Old World lore", and chipmunks and raccoons weren't.)

[Morien]

Alright, a couple of things on the ready adventures to warn the GMs about... Most of them are obvious when you skim through the adventure. The Birthday Hunt is most important to check at the beginning of the campaign, if you relocate it to Salisbury, since it has some changes to the Earl's family in 4th edition.

The Red Blade
This adventure is set in Romance/Tournament, so mid-530s works without issues.
Actually, I would be VERY tempted to transpose Sir Gregor of Stafford to the Adventure of the Maiden's Oath (below) as the hospitable host that the PKs will meet in Escavalon. Thus introducing him some years earlier and then have him visit Salisbury to offer this Quest to any Salisbury knights who are valiant enough to assay it (naturally, the PKs ought to volunteer, or the Earl might call upon them by name, even).
Alternatively, the PKs could easily stop by at his place on their way to Sir Ector's Manor in the Adventure of the Great Hunt (below), which would introduce him, and not require changing his home. However, this would mean adding another encounter... but that could work to its benefit, actually, since Sir Gregor could offer some advice to the PKs about that adventure, too.
Finally, Sir Gregor should be the one to recommend the PKs to be elevated to the Round Table at the end of the mini-campaign.

EDIT: Duh, obviously the best place to introduce Sir Gregor is at the Adventure of the White Horse. Just replace the Old Knight of the Wilds with Sir Gregor and you are done! Then he can be a recurring character in the other adventures, having already developed a friendship/mentorship with the PKs.

The Great Hunt
As written, this is set prior to the Roman War, but there is nothing in this adventure that REQUIRES it to be set in that time period. Granted, Sir Ector is getting a bit long in the tooth by mid-530s, but you can easily handwave him being a very young knight in 490s. Especially since this is just a mini-campaign.

The Birthday Hunt (DoB #1)
As written, this is set in 514 and at Tewkesbury, but I am sure that it is using a different timeline from GPC anyway, as it references Camelot (built in 520s) and a war against Maelgwn of Gwynedd (probably in 520s or 530s, definitely not in mid-510s)... In any case, again there is nothing to stop you from moving this adventure to 530s in Salisbury, and use the Morgaine Forest rather than the Forest of Dean as the Faerie Forest. And as I suggested, you can tweak this so that the birthday boy is the eldest son of Earl Robert of Salisbury (remember to make that change at the beginning of the campaign), or he could be the second (not as big stakes). Anyway, you can easily name-change the named people in the Earl of Tewkesbury's family. The location of the Hermit's homeland ought to be changed a bit, but it basically doesn't matter. I would be tempted to make him someone who went crazy at Badon Hill, thus linking it to the adventure below, too.

The Maiden's Oath (DoB #2)
This is set in 519, right after the Battle of Badon, which is referenced in the adventure. However, you can easily enough make the attackers into grave-robbing bandits, who have dug up some buried Saxon equipment that no one was bothered about at the end of that bloody battle. Or, if you want to make it more spooky, they could be actual Saxon ghosts, rising up to fight against their Cymric foes... I think I actually prefer that option. 😛
The last time a host family would have had news would have been prior to the Roman War, or the GM can just keep it vague and let the PKs roll Courtesy, Intrigue and Orate to deliver some gossip and news.

The King of the Red City (DoB #3)
This is already set in mid-530s, so no worries. On a quick look, this doesn't really require any changes. However, since the PKs are most likely all married by now, those heiresses could be still girls and the PKs get the wardship, and can arrange the marriage between their wards and their eldest sons once they grow up. Thus making for a nice dynastic plan there, too.

The Dragon's Hoard (DoB #4)
This adventure works nicely in 530s as well, without issues. You could consider sending the PKs dragon-hunting more on their own initiative, too, which would of course make their liege lord less upset with them, if they return empty-handed, but it is better for some drama if it is a mission from their lord.

Edited May 18, 2021 by Morien

[Tizun Thane]

21 hours ago, Morien said:

EDIT: Duh, obviously the best place to introduce Sir Gregor is at the Adventure of the White Horse. Just replace the Old Knight of the Wilds with Sir Gregor and you are done! Then he can be a recurring character in the other adventures, having already developed a friendship/mentorship with the PKs.

Good Idea. This NPK had a strong "Greg Stafford" vibe anyway ^^

21 hours ago, Morien said:

those heiresses could be still girls and the PKs get the wardship, and can arrange the marriage between their wards and their eldest sons once they grow up. Thus making for a nice dynastic plan there, too.

Or, there is no heiress at all. Only the Red City to fight for.

21 hours ago, Morien said:

The Birthday Hunt (DoB #1)
As written, this is set in 514 and at Tewkesbury, but I am sure that it is using a different timeline from GPC anyway, as it references Camelot (built in 520s) and a war against Maelgwn of Gwynedd (probably in 520s or 530s, definitely not in mid-510s)... In any case, again there is nothing to stop you from moving this adventure to 530s in Salisbury

I played this adventure in the Wuerensis county, and it worked very well. Be careful with the possible end, but why not after all.

[Morien]

6 minutes ago, Tizun Thane said:

Be careful with the possible end, but why not after all.

Yep. See my earlier post with this warning.