Delving into Greg Stafford’s Pendragon

So during my holidays last month I managed to go to an actual physical, brick-and-mortar and everything, game store again. And I decided I’d spoil myself and buy myself a shiny new game. And so ventured to buy myself the new Pendragon rulebook.

And my reasoning was: I have been skulking around Pendragon for decades now, but I never thought it was worth the price for a game that is so very, very specific in it’s topic, as it tries to emulate specifically Arthurian fantasy. And as nice as that is, trying to play Arthurian fantasy instead of your normal run-of-the-mill generic fantasy (I don’t want to call it Tolkien-like, because Tolkien had a very specific variant of that) seemed somewhat daunting. And I have looked at previous editions of the game before and actually liked what I saw, but it is one of those games that demands lots of player buy-in to get it working.

But also, crucially, I wanted a game that was completely playable in a single book, and did not demand me to buy multiple other books for it to be usable.

Unfortunately I was betrayed by my reliance on previous editions of Pendragon, as it turns out that this “definitive” 6th edition of the game now has been split into a Player-centric Core Rules part and a GM book that was not released yet.

Which makes me kind of wonder if they know what Core Rules is supposed to mean. I would assume the GM-sections of the rules belong to that.

That said, one other reason why I didn’t even think these parts were missing is the size of the book: a book that thick should contain every rule for Pendragon: It’s easily twice as thick as the previous editions. But here we hit the brickwall of luxury: yes, the book physically is thick, but the page count is suprisingly low, and even then is lavishly illustrated, with huge margins (containing actual marginalia). It’s the paper that bulks the whole thing up, with the publisher clearly choosing a thicker, more luxurious option, to give the book a semblance of an illustrated manuscript, belying the generic cover illustration. It’s a hardcover as well, which most previous editions were not.

It certainly is a feast for the eyes I have to say. But I still feel stupid for not checking reviews beforehand to notice that they are nickel-and-diming their customers with that.

That said, lets talk about Pendragon: The game first came out in 1985, and it was quite innovative for the time. It still feels quite innovative in places, although the specific ways stuff work together gives it the feel of someone hacking together the Call of the Cthulhu Rules with some modern narrative game. Which wouldn’t be far from the truth, the rules are a variant on the Runequest/Basic Roleplaying Rules, stripped off some of the extraneous bits, and given a system of skills and passions that fit the characters you are supposed to play: knights. Arthurian knights.

In the core rules specifically knights only from the county of Salisbury, with rules for further regions even in the same kingdom promised for later supplements.

By the way, the Starter set they released went as far as having a Byzantine knight in the pre-generated characters, most likely to show what’s possible. But the Core Rules itself focus on Salisbury, which always has been the starter region for Pendragon. Just down the road from Camelot. (which by the way is identified with modern day Winchester in accordance with Malory)

In fact, come to think of it, Pendragon might be the only game that broadened the character options possible for a single edition (4th, which was 3rd plus a supplement), before going “let’s not do that, it’s a stupid idea” and sticking to it.

Pendragon is a game about knights. Male and female knights, as the book labors to point out, but still only all different shades of knights. Not thieves, not clerics, not magic users. Not even non-knights unless they are also squires and intending to be knights. This is a game about knightly personages struggling against their enemies and their own passions in a setting that is not quite real England. It isn’t some sort of hardcore historical RPG, instead it’s… well, if Malory still was alive it would be licensed to him, although some parts are clearly inspired by either T.H.White’s books, or movies like Excalibur.

This makes for an interesting, and decisively non-standard gameplay. Characters are knights, and during the warm months they might ride out for adventures, but they will be back to their own manor for winter. The implication is that every year they have one, maybe two adventures, then return for the Winter phase. Despite the narrative approach of the rest of the game, this brings in some hardcore simulationism into the mix: yes sure, you are supposed to ride out, rescue princesses and slay dragons, but you also are supposed to get glory, honor, land, and a spouse that can give you an heir. And if the campaign takes long enough that heir will take over your mantle when you die. Because most longer campaigns in this system span multiple generations and you are supposed to have the kids take over at one point.

I am thinking about playing at least a short campaign of Pendragon at one point. So lets see if I can get a game off the ground for that.