The Grey Knight

[SaxBasilisk]

I'm getting ready to run this adventure. I think it's generally well-regarded, if it does seem a bit like a railroad (which I think is less of a problem for a short adventure, I think).

Has anyone run it, or thought about running it? What worked well and what didn't?

Also, it seems there's material in The Grey Knight - character bios, the color shields on the back cover, etc. - that isn't in Tales of Mystic Tournaments. Any suggestions of which to use?

[Morien]

I'd use ToMT, since it should be more correct for the later editions. I forget if it still has the suspiciously low 1e stats for npc knights. But you can certainly steal some bios and other material like that from 1e adventure. 

[Tizun Thane]

15 hours ago, SaxBasilisk said:

if it does seem a bit like a railroad (which I think is less of a problem for a short adventure, I think).

it's an epic quest. All epic quests are railroaded ^^

I played it during the 540s, without any difficulty. I don't think the adventure MUST be played in 515 (?).

I changed the beginning. The intel to look into the wastelands came from a paramour of a PK (because it was appropriate).

The Wastelands were the highlight of the adventure. My PK felt the despair of the wastelands, and the holity of the queen of the wastelands. During the mass, 1 PK (christian) critted his spirituality roll. So he had a vision of the Virgin Mary,and his baby Son, during the Communion ^^

One other thing was the chronology. I let them counted the days, because there was a timeline. i added a few encounters "en route". And the fake damsel in distress/witch was the twin sister of the wife of one PKs. She (falsely) told she was made prisonner years ago, because I am a nasty GM.

But the fake damsel could also be the sister of a PK for exemple, not a random damsel.

Edited September 22, 2022 by Tizun Thane

[Morien]

I repurposed The Grey Knight as a continuation of The Tournament of Dreams, since the PKs at that time were sworn to Cornwall, and not at all friendly with Arthur. So the Grey Knight was actually a former PK who had fallen for the former Queen's wiles, acting as her champion to try and oust King Belinans. It was Sir Dodinas who took up the challenge (instead of the default version's Gawaine), and the PKs needed to get the whetstone in order to get through the enchantments woven on the Grey Knight. It worked like a treat, and the Faerie section let me play around with the timeline to add a sense of urgency.

[SaxBasilisk]

Our first session is complete. Writeup on the campaign thread to follow.

Initial thoughts:

• I didn't dive too deep in either version, but I'm not sure which one I prefer. The Tales of Mystic Tournaments version does provide the stats for the knights (not sure if they're 1e or not), the character of Diarmiud to work better with pagan knights, and a full version of the poem on the Thirteen Treasures (probably also available online). I like the color shields on The Grey Knight, and I even used the cover illustration, which went over well.  I also do like the organization with the rolls in the margins, although it's not close enough to 5.2 to actually use.

• I was going to swap out Ryons for a dead PC, but apparently I had built up Ryons enough in previous sessions that people were impressed enough with him. (And one of the players explicitly guessed the dead PC when the figure first showed up...)
   
• This highlights a weird dichotomy in the scenario. The beginning scenes seem to be written to anticipate that the players are relatively new and want to interact with mythological figures - but then it wants to make the off-screen death of an obscure Arthurian character the centerpiece. I'd lean more into one or the other, depending upon how knowledgeable the group is about Arthurian lore and where they are in the campaign.

I'll see how the second session goes.

 

[Morien]

The skills are way too low, Gawaine's (and the rest of the Orkneys') skills are not even match for most starting PKs (apart from DMG). And Sir Kay is a SIZ 9, 3d6 weakling, even though he is only in his mid-20s. Sir Gaheris probably shouldn't even be knighted yet, given that Gawaine was only knighted last year (technically possible, if Gaheris was knighted way early), even Agravaine is a bit debatable.

In short, I would ignore those stats for the canon characters.

There is a designer's foreword (at least in the 1e Grey Knight) saying that he was going to use King Lot as the Grey Knight, but was overruled by Greg. Make of that what you will.

 

[SaxBasilisk]

9 hours ago, Morien said:

The skills are way too low, Gawaine's (and the rest of the Orkneys') skills are not even match for most starting PKs (apart from DMG).

Agreed - although when one person has to fight three of them, I have less of a problem with it. I didn't mind the stats for Tor and Agravaine so much, as they're brand new even if they're famous.

From what I can see, the stats for Kay and Griflet seem roughly in line with The Boy King, so they're a bit more recent. One desired addition to 6e for me would be stats for more of the knights outside of what's in that odd PDF GPC expansion.

9 hours ago, Morien said:

And Sir Kay is a SIZ 9, 3d6 weakling, even though he is only in his mid-20s. Sir Gaheris probably shouldn't even be knighted yet, given that Gawaine was only knighted last year (technically possible, if Gaheris was knighted way early), even Agravaine is a bit debatable.

In my timeline, Agravaine was knighted early in 515, and Gaheris will be knighted next year, so he hasn't technically "appeared" yet.

9 hours ago, Morien said:

There is a designer's foreword (at least in the 1e Grey Knight) saying that he was going to use King Lot as the Grey Knight, but was overruled by Greg. Make of that what you will.

Lot is better than Ryons in terms of obscurity, but not by much for a new group that hasn't read Malory recently. I feel there's another fix, but I can't figure out what it is.

Edited October 3, 2022 by SaxBasilisk

[Morien]

49 minutes ago, SaxBasilisk said:

Lot is better than Ryons in terms of obscurity, but not by much for a new group that hasn't read Malory recently. I feel there's another fix, but I can't figure out what it is.

Well, if the Players are playing through the GPC, they have met Ryons twice in battle (well, once pre-battle, captured), and Lot several times. They ought to be familiar with both names. I admit that Ryons makes little sense thematically, since he has nothing to do with the May Babies, while Lot would be very much involved with that theme.

[SaxBasilisk]

2 hours ago, Morien said:

Well, if the Players are playing through the GPC, they have met Ryons twice in battle (well, once pre-battle, captured), and Lot several times. They ought to be familiar with both names. I admit that Ryons makes little sense thematically, since he has nothing to do with the May Babies, while Lot would be very much involved with that theme.

Sorry - I was thinking about the focus on running this as a one shot.

Lot does turn up more in the GPC and is more memorable than Ryons, although I think both of them could use some enhancement. I tossed in some details beforehand from the Post-Vulgate - e.g. Ryons is fourteen feet tall and wields a huge bronze-wrapped club, an elephant bone shield, and the sword of Hercules (yes, that Hercules).

Then I had the characters, one of whom had squired for Balin, meet Balan for the delivery of Ryons. That way, Balan could tell them what happened and introduce the Lady de Vance in the context of Malory, with Ryons traveling with a small group to visit her when the twins jump him.

And, given that Ryons doesn't officially die in Malory or in GPC, the GM should make sure that happens beforehand, too.

My players remembered at least some of this, and more when I prompted them. One even recalled independently that Ryons had a brother, which I think is pretty good for player recollection of side information from previous sessions.

Edited October 3, 2022 by SaxBasilisk

[SaxBasilisk]

Another general piece of advice for GMs: you might consider how your players (not the PKs) might react to the encounter with the abbey in the Wasteland. I can see the lack of agency involving alcohol and a sexual encounter being a problem for some players. Your group's mileage may vary, of course.

Edited October 3, 2022 by SaxBasilisk

[Tizun Thane]

To kill Saxons and bandits? Pure fun!

To have a sexual dream? No way!! ^^

[AlHazred]

I think it's the lack of agency that's the bigger problem.

[SaxBasilisk]

We made it through, and the players enjoyed it! Writeup here and here.

Thoughts:

• The players figured out the whetstone as a goal rather quickly, commenting that many of the others seemed to be about food. They did briefly consider bringing back multiple items, although this proved to be too much.
• I was indeed concerned about the lack of agency at the monastery. It might be good to think how it works with the group. Everyone in mine said they were fine.
• I find the giant a bit problematic for larger parties - I couldn't bring myself to use a regular-sized giant, as even with a low hit value, 15d6 damage is a one-shot. It would be nice to have an small-to-medium giant. More troublingly, usually giants are figures in folklore that are defeated by trickery, but there doesn't seem to be a way to do so.
•  Most of the material between Inapercu and the final confrontation seems to be filler. I actually think this is a good thing - you can use or cut it to accommodate session length.
• I did use Gilegra, but I turned the Emotion spell into a simple conversation between the raven warrior and Gwf, trying to call in Nerys' favor to Morgan. I didn't think it would work, of course, but I thought it would be better as a character beat.
• For the final fight, it feels better to work in "the squire can interrupt the combat" fact in an earlier session. Maybe at the tournament, a squire jumps in waving to make sure their knight's helmet is properly tied. Once I mentioned that the squire was there, they figured they could ask him to intervene.

Thanks, everyone!

[Tizun Thane]

On 11/23/2022 at 2:24 AM, SaxBasilisk said:

More troublingly, usually giants are figures in folklore that are defeated by trickery, but there doesn't seem to be a way to do so.

My PK tricked Sangnoir anyway... They lured him outside, and the more discreet knight stole the horse. 

[Morien]

2 hours ago, Tizun Thane said:

My PK tricked Sangnoir anyway... They lured him outside, and the more discreet knight stole the horse. 

My PKs tried to make a deal with the giant and got betrayed. Leading to the immortal words of "I can't believe we got outsmarted by a giant!" (The PKs proved victorious in the end by force of arms.) 

Another campaign, I think they managed to lure the giant down, pretending that the squires has just left the horses to graze there. Whilst the knights were ready in the cover of the forest with their lances.