granvold@tymix.UUCP (Tom Granvold) (05/30/85)
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As I have promised, here is my review of Pendragon. Pendragon is
a new game by Chaosium (with a name like that they have to be from
Berkeley) that is set in England just before and during King Arthur's
reign.
I am surprised that surprised that someone has not done this
before. Chaosium is best known for their game RuneQuest, now being
sold by Avalon Hill. Their games and supplements have been of
consistently high quality both in the games themselves and in the
there presentation. Pendragon lives up to this quality. Some of the
other Chaosium games are Elfquest, Stormbringer, Call of Cthulu
and Ring World. From what I have heard they are going to concentrate
on role playing games, they have put out board games and miniature
rules in the past. The new games will be in specific settings and
worlds rather than more generic games like AD&D.
The Setting:
Pendragon is intended to be a campaign with the players as Knights
in King Arthur's England. The campaign starts a few years before Arthur
becomes King and ends around the time of his death, 495 AD to 570 AD.
The player's objectives are to first become a Knight, it shouldn't take
too long, and to then become as famous and valorous as possible, by
getting glory points. More importantly the goal is to have fun as
a Knight wandering around England. There will be damsels to rescue,
monsters to slay, ladies to woo and tourneys in which to joust.
Didn't I do some of this as a kid? It still sounds like fun.
As Knights the players are not able to cast magic of any kind and
no mention is made of magical items. This does not mean that there is no
magic in the game, its just under the control of the GM. Player characters
know little or nothing of magic. The world is still new enough and little
understood so that people cannot distinguish between some natural occurrences
and magic. This brings to mind the solar eclipse scene in A Connecticut
Yankee in King Arthur's Court. The only humans who can use magic are women,
and of course Merlin. The rules discuss the possibility of female player
characters, but they will be Knights or squires and therefore not posses
any magic. In sort magic is left in the GM's hands to add confusion,
interest and color to the campaign.
Briefly mentioned is the land of faerie and its inhabitants. This
magical realm and the wild areas lie just beyond the civilized areas.
Leave the castles, towns and farmlands and anything may happen. Elves,
dwarfs and giants are know but hardly ever encountered. There are no
enlandless hordes of strange races; orcs, kobolds, gnolls, lizard men,
broos, trolls, etc.; to be constantly fighting. Very rarely will the
player characters deal with other than humans and common animals; dear,
wild boar, etc.
This is a limited world when compared to some other games. But
because of these limits, it holds together better making more sense
and allowing the players to more involved in their characters and the
world. Cities where I wonder why it doesn't become a war zone due to
racial hatreds or doesn't explode due to the great concentration of magic
there do not exest in this game. The characters are people not fighting
machines and they deal with other people not nameless monsters.
The rules suggest that only one or two scenarios be run for each
game year. This is done so that the whole time span of King Arthur is
used without the campaign taking several real years to complete. It means
that characters will age and die. When a player's character dies s/he can
use one of the characters sons as their next character to play. Unlike
most role playing games, this gives a sense of time passing, history
occurring and the fate of families followed. Of course, this like anything
else may be changed by the GM.
What You Get For Your Money:
For twenty dollars (games are getting expensive) you get an inch
thick box with a very nice cover painting, two books, ten character sheets,
about thirty filled sheets of major personalities and common characters,
a nice 22" by 34" color map of King Arthur's Britain, six six sided dice
and one twenty sided die.
There is a gamemaster's book and a players's book both bound with
staples. The player's book has 88 pages. The gamemaster's book has only
16 pages. These books live up to Chaosium's high standards. They are well
laid out, the illustrations are well done and the text easy to read. All
the information needed to play is given along with a reasonable amount of
background material.
As in some of their other games, Chaosium supplements the main text
with examples and further notes on the sides of the pages in a different
type. The size of this type could ba a bit larger to make it easier to
read. This method works well. The main text is not bogged down in details,
while examples and more detail a right there if needed. Where there is no
need for more text the space is used for illustrations including many of
coats of arms. Those of the weapons could be clearer and beginners would
benefit with the weapons being named.
My biggest complaint is that there is no index! Even though the
information is presented in a logical manner, some details can be hard
to find. For example, try to find the cost of giving feasts. One other
complaint is than one item in character generation, chivalry total, is
not mentioned in the procedure on creating characters. Instead it is
found later in the player's book on page 34. Chaosium already has a
supplement for this game that includes notes for the GM, background,
more detail on the campaign, scenarios and an extended bibliography for
ten dollars. I feel that most of this should have included in the
gamemaster's book to begin with. I fell that I have been taken by
needing to put an additional ten dollars just to bring the GM's
material up to a reasonable size.
The player's book contains the following:
Introduction - some background material and maps.
Character Generation - including women characters, creating coats
of arms and points about love.
Object of the Game - gaining glory, becoming a Knight and
advancement once a Knight.
Game Mechanics - combat, skill usage, movement, health and time.
Personality Traits and Passions - explains these.
Skills - a list of the skills and what they are.
Combat - large battles, weapon description, armor description
and tournaments.
The Knight's World - money, animals and monsters.
The Family - what happens to your family and keeping track of it.
The gamemaster's book contains the following:
Using the Game Rules - introduction for the GM and magic.
Creatures - their stats.
The Plot - the outline of the campaign.
Bibliography -list of books on King Arthur
Beast Quest - an introductory scenario.
Character Creation:
Unlike D&D where I use to be able to create a new character ready for
in a couple of minutes, Pendragon is typical of Chaosium games in having a
more involved process of creating characters. At least it is not as time
consuming and complicated as the third edition RuneQuest. The reason that
Chaosium character creation is more involved is that the abilities in the
skills need to be determined. In D&D all the skills are determined by just
two items, the character class and the level. In fact skills usually are not
written on the character sheet in D&D. They can be looked in tables instead
when needed.
In Pendragon, as in RuneQuest, the beginning skill level depends on
social level and cultural background. These must be determined first and
then the appropriate can be used to copy the value to the character sheet.
Since ability in each skill can change independently, the current level must
be noted on the character sheet. In addition Pendragon has several personality
traits which must be rolled for and recorded. A character generating program
would be useful, but it would need to be interactive to handle parts of
the processes.
The book explains the character generation process well. Note that
how to calculate chivalry total is not given in this section, it can
be found on page 34 of the player's book. A nice section is given on how
to create a coat of arms if your new character is a Knight. This is not
a full blown description of heraldry. It is a simplified guidelines that
is more than sufficient for game purposes.
Characters of course have their main attributes, called statistics
in Pendragon, generated by rolling 3D6, three six sided dice. These are
size, dexterity, strength, constitution and appearance. From these other
attributes are calculated including hit points and healing rate. Just
as important to this game are the character's social and family status and
personality traits. These are created by rolling dice and using tables.
Most new characters will the sons of squires, but there is the
possibility of being a Knights or nobles son. A character may be any of
Saxon, Cymric, Pict or Irish cultures and belong to any of Christian, Wotanic
or pagan religions. The social status, culture and religion determine the
starting skill levels and have some effect on the personality traits. The
culture determines those traits which are considered desirable. Skills
include awareness, courtesy, folklore, hawking, heraldry, cultural
customs, jousting , swimming and weapon skills.
There are 12 personality traits which are rolled on 3D6. Actually
each trait is a pair of opposite traits, such as forgiving vs vengeful
and temperate vs indulgent. The number rolled determines where on the
range between the two traits the character is. In a similar way two
passions are determined using 2D6+6, add 6 to the roll of two six
sided dice. Passions are very strong feelings or emotions that the character
has. the beginning passions are loyality to ones lord and love of ones
family. Other passions will be added as the game is played, such as the
desire for revenge on some person. The personality traits and passions
give a firm foundation of the what the character is like and can make
role playing him easier. I hope that most GM's will allow a player to
modify the traits and passion created in order to get a personality
that they wish to play. This is not to allow the players to create a
perfect character, rather to allow one to play a proud and indulgent
character if one wishes to.
Next the player can age his character in exchange for increasing
skills and personality traits. Each year of age gives either one points to
a trait, passion or physical statistic or 1D6 points to skills. Usually
this is done to meet the requirements to be a Knight. Note that there rules
that give some chance for characters over 35 to decrease their physical
statistics by one to four points. Characters are not able to be active
forever.
Combat and Skill Usage:
A very simple system is used determine if a character is successful
in doing some action. It breaks down into two cases. First is when there
is nothing resisting the characters action, like swimming, first aid and
singing. The player rolls a twenty sided die, it must be twenty sided
not ten, and compares the result with the current skill level. If the die
roll is less than the skill level then s/he was successful.
With actions that are resisted, such as combat and breaking down a
door, again a twenty sided die is rolled. If the roll is less than the
current skill level, the character may have succeeded. The GM also rolls
a twenty sided die for the NPC being found or the door being broken down.
If the roll is above the NPC's skill level, the player character succeeded
and the NPC takes damage. If the GM's roll is less than the NPC's skill
level, then the two rolls are compared and the higher one succeeds. So
you want to roll under your skill level but as close to it as possible.
If the skill level number is rolled exactly, then this is a
critical success. If a twenty is rolled, then this is a fumble, unless the
skill level is twenty or more. The effect of a fumble is to break
or drop the weapon. The effect of a critical is determined by the GM.
There are also rules for fighting with two weapons, unapposed attacks and
fighting from horse back.
Damage does not depend on the weapon used, rather it is determined by
the characters strength and size. The armor value of the character hit
subtracts from the damage done, as in RuneQuest. The results of being
hit may be a minor wound (temporary loss of hit points), a major wound
(temporary loss of a point of a major statistic), being knocked down
or of course death.
The resolution of battles, anything not handled in melee rounds,
is a quick and abstract system. The result of the battle and the effect
on the player characters involved are determined by a few die rolls.
The battle skill of the leaders of the battles effect these rolls. Player
characters can be wounded, killed, lose their horse or be captured. Unless
the GM is good at making up an interesting description of the battle the
process is boring but short. There is the possibility for player involvement
during a battle through heroic actions. For example, the rescue of a
captured or downed ally. Heroic actions are resolved in melee rounds, a
sort of close up against the larger background of the battle. Some players
may not like the lack of control of their character's fate during a battle.
Personality Traits and Passions:
I first saw a version of this method of handling personalities in an
article in Wyrm's Footnotes about how to play RuneQuest dragonnewts. An
unusual race for which there is very little background. In an appropriate
situation either the GM or player may call for the characters action to be
determined by rolling on the trait or passion involved instead of being
the player's free choice. Say a character is alone with a beautiful young
and willing female. Does he remain chaste or does he ignore his religious
teachings and give in to his lust? Say that he has a value of 15 for chaste
and (therefore) 5 for lust. The player rolls a twenty sided die, with say
a result of 16. The roll is higher than the chaste value and therefore he
gives in to his feelings of lust. A checkmark, in pencil, is made on the
character sheet next to lust. Later a roll is made to see if this experience
has lowered his value for chastity. Passions are handled in a similar way.
New passions can be added to a character if the game situation warrants it.
This system restricts the freedom of the player to play the character
as s/he see the personality. On the other hand, it gives the player
something to overcome. One could see their character backslide into
indulgence or feel the sense of accomplishment of overcomming the
characters indulgence. This adds a new area of conflict to the game. There
are the external enemies and mosters to fight and the internal battle to
in control of ones own personality. An interesting new idea, which I hope
to be able to find a game to play in so that I can see if it works well
in actual use.
Increasing Statistics, Skills and Traits:
As characters wander around and do things they will gain glory points.
These are similar to experience points in D&D. Glory points can be gained
by defeating foes ( the amount gained depends on the foes current glory
points), becoming a Knight, etc. Points can be lost by being defeated,
cowardly acts, etc. Also each game winter some characters will get an
automatic increase in glory points, for example because of being a member
of the round table.
These glory points can be used to increase skills, statistics or
change personality traits according to the player's choice. 1000 glory
points will change any of these by one. There are no maximum to what
these can be increased to by means of glory points. To give a feel of
how much a glory point is 'worth', new Knights who are the sons of squires
typically have 100 glory points. Chaosium rates Lancelot at his height
at 38,672 glory points.
Training can only be done during the winter of the game year. Only
one skill or passion or personality trait or statistic can be changed
this way. The increase is one point only. There is one other method
for increasing skills or changing personality traits. That is through
experience. Each time a skill is successfully used or a roll made on a
passion or personality trait, a check mark is placed next to it on the
character sheet unless there is a check mark there already. Then in the
winter of the game year a twenty sided die is rolled. If the roll is
greater than the current value the skill or trait is increased by one.
There are maximum levels that can be reached through training or
experience.
Enough of this review. For those who do not wish to read through
this whole review I am putting the summary as a separate article.
Tom Granvold
decvax!ucbvax!oliveb!tymix!granvold
D&D and AD&D are trademarks of TSR Inc.
Pendragon, Stormbringer and RuneQuest are trademarks of Chaosium Inc.,
I think!