Publisher: Nocturnal Media

Author: Greg Stafford

Format: 236-page book

Price: $20 PDF

Greg Stafford's King Arthur RPG has been around since the 1980's. In 2005 he wrote a 5th edition for Arthaus (the White Wolf imprint) along with The Great Pendragon Campaign. Afterwards Nocturnal Media took over the rights and put out 5.1 Edition plus some supplements that Greg had written previously for 5th Edition.

The 5.1 edition is basically 5th edition with errata incorporated and about a page's worth of new material scattered about. As such it is seamlessly compatible with the rest of 5th edition and, since Pendragon hasn't really changed since the first edition, compatible with previous editions.

In King Arthur Pendragon (KAP) you play knights during the era of King Arthur. KAP only supports knights from Salisbury County in Logres starting in 485 AD. Logres is the main kingdom and it includes London and the future Camelot. 485 AD is about 15 years before Arthur's birth and coincides with the start of The Great Pendragon Campaign which in turns runs 80+ years and past the death of King Arthur. KAP only supports the Pagan, British Christian and Roman Christian religions. There is a Book of Knights and Ladies which details other religions and regions where your knight can come from.

Characters

Characters have five Attributes: Size, Dexterity, Strength, Constitution and Appearance which range from 3 to 18. Note there is no intelligence as players are supposed to roleplay however intelligent they want to be.

There are a couple dozen skills which range from 0 to 20 or more. Knights have access to a subset of skills -- non-knightly skills, such as Industry, are frowned upon.

Passions are, as the name implies, things you are passionate about. Loyalty (Lord), Love (Family), Hospitality and Honor are the standard ones. Another common one is Hate (Saxon). Passions range from 3 to 18 or more.

Traits are the most Pendragon of characteristics. There are thirteen trait pairs which oppose each other. For example: Chaste/Lustful, Just/Arbitrary, Trusting/Suspicious. Both sides of a trait pair add up to 20 so if you have Chaste 15 your Lustful must be 5.

Six traits -- Energetic, Generous, Just, Merciful, Modest and Valorous -- are part of a Chivalry Bonus. If each the sum of those traits is 80 or more the knight gets a magical bonus (to armor I think).

Similarly five traits go into a Religious Bonus (the actual traits vary between religions). If all five traits are each at 16 or better the knight gets a magical bonus. Both bonuses help to funnel PC knights into certain behavior if they want the bonuses.

Mechanics

So pretty much all the statistics range from 0 to 20+ so it should come as no surprise that a d20 is used for action checks. Roll equal to or less than the appropriate statistics to succeed. Bonuses and penalties modify the statistic, not the roll.

Rolling the exact number of the statistic is a critical success. Rolling 20 is a critical failure if the modified statistic is less than 20, otherwise it's a critical success. If the modified statistic is more than 20, add the amount above 20 to the roll (e.g. if the statistic is 27 the roll becomes d20+7), making it easier to get a critical success.

For opposing rolls both sides make an action check and whichever rolls higher without failing wins. Note that a critical success is considered a roll of 20 which means that if both sides get a critical success they always tie. This helps lead to the legendary all day combats you read about in Le Mort d'Arthur.

Passion Checks

You can call on a Passion to give you a bonus in a scene. Roll d20 and if you succeed you get a bonus to a skill. A critical success is a bigger bonus. Failure is a penalty and critical failure leads to madness.

Trait Checks

You can use Trait checks to see what your character would do in a situation. This is usually a somewhat opposed roll. Check the higher trait and if you fail check the lower trait. Whichever trait you succeed on is what you do.

So for example if a pretty witch is trying to seduce the PC they can make a Chaste vs Lustful check to see if they succumb. Or the player can just choose an action.

Traits and Passions of 16+

The brilliance of the system comes when you have traits and passions of 16 or more. At that point the GM can force the PC to do something because that PC is famous for doing that thing. In the above example the GM can force a PC with Lustful 16+ to make a check and if successful they succumb to the witch's wiles. Since you get Glory Point (i.e. xp) bonuses for having traits and passions of 16+ you can see how greedy players must accept being forced to do things as the price for getting extra experience.

Glory Points

Knights gain Glory Points for pretty much any significant action. Defeating bad guys is one way. Witnessing or participating in famous events (a battle, a wedding) is another way. Having lots of money or high traits and passions is a third way.

At the end of the year add glory gained that year to the total glory. Every 1000 glory is an advancement, which generally means raising any attribute, trait, passion or skill by a point.

The other way to advance is similar to RuneQuest. Successful trait, passion or skill check means a checkbox is ticked off (each statistic has only one checkbox). At the end of the year roll d20 for each statistic with a check and if you roll higher than the statistic, or roll 20, the statistic goes up a point.

The Campaign

Most adventures are knightly adventures. Knights have horses, armor and weapons and are the elite fighters of the period. Knights don't use magic and there are actually no magic rules in the game (nor I think in any of the 5E supplements). Magic is more of a plot device than a mechanic.

In general you do one adventure per game year. This allows time to pass quickly. PCs are supposed to get married and have kids and those kids grow up to be replacement knights. When a child becomes a knight they acquire the trait and passion scores of their parent.

Women

There are few rules for playing women. One option is to just play them as knights and the KAP book spends a few pages justifying this decision and listing famous women warriors from history.

A second option is to play Ladies. There are a few pages for this. Ladies get a few different character generation tables and have a slightly different skill list. A few pages are devoted to how Ladies can influence knights and otherwise have some control in an Arthurian world.

Background

There are two chapters on background/world information. One is sort of Britain overall and one is for Salisbury county. Enough to get started though this is a rich time period. Read Le Mort d'Arthur for some great, if a bit hard to read, stuff and the book is the basis for KAP.

Summary

I probably haven't justified it, but KAP is the perfect King Arthur RPG. It's a fairly light system which means you can have skirmish and battle systems in the main RPG. The traits and passions really evoke and emphasize that it's just as important what you do as who you kill.

Things I Love

1. 1.No magic
   

2. 2.Light system, supports large groups
   

3. 3.Traits and Passions