I think there is something wrong with me. I love RPGs with social systems that reduce player agency and boxes players into certain values, almost like you are part of a civilization that has certain mores, customs, and ways things are supposed to be done. Games like Legend of the Five Ring with its very rigid social system appeal to me. Therefore, it is only natural that I would be drawn to this.
Pendragon is about semi-mythical, romanticized Knights of the Arthurian tradition. Like Samurai, Arthurian Knights had a code of servitude they were supposed to live by. They had a social role in society of warriors and protectors. They serve a lord and in exchange are taken care of by their lord. The lord provides food, shelter, housing, and equipment in exchange for service and acts of bravery and violence. Knights must follow their lord, and interestingly, protecting the weak is at best secondary and is often not even part of their job.
If you have read a lot of Arthurian folklore and legend you know that knights are big personalities full of foibles and swings of passion. They are not like Samurai in that regard, who are supposed to be supremely stoic. Knights are figures of romantic (in the literary sense) character and that brings bouts of moodiness, melancholy, and madness. Knights were full of feelings about their duty, chivalry, and courtly romance that they expressed in the literature.
Before we get too far, know that this is a hefty tome! It is a nice, full-color hardback with 251 pages of details. There are a few ribbon book marks built into the spine. I think those will be necessary to keep track of key parts of the book. It is clear that the author Greg Stafford knows a thing or two about Arthurian lore, both literary and historical. They are clear that this is not a book about the actual time period of the Dark Ages, but how the Arthurian Legends that have been passed down to us in literature.
So, let's take up our lance, sit astride our chargers, and prepare to go on a quest into these rules......
Things I Liked
There is a lengthy discussion at the beginning about what a knight is, and what a knight isn't in terms of Pendragon. It has some detailed discussion about female knights, and cites some literary and historical examples. It also discusses why you may come across knights doing bad things or things they should not be doing. This is followed by an idea of the themes of the game, and how it should be played. This is necessary to help ground the GM and players into the game system and what it is trying to simulate. This is not the world of Dungeons and Dragons, not even close.
I think my favorite part of this game is the Opposed Traits system. There are a list of "Knightly Traits" that are opposed to each other. These Traits are split so they add up to 20. For example, your two traits are 13 Merciful/Cruel 7. The GM will call on you to take dice tests to determine how your Knight will respond to various situations, so they might call on you to make a Merciful check to spare a fellow knight in battle. You roll a d20 and try to get below the dice check required, if passed you get to act Mercifully, if failed you make a dice test on the Opposed Trait to see if you act the opposite. In this case a Cruel 7. If you roll under 7 you act Cruelly towards the fallen knight. If you roll above, you can dictate your action. Therefore, you can give your Knight preferences for how they will act, but in the heat of the moment they may act in a way outside of their normal character. This can lead to great melodrama and tragedy, actually codifies knightly conduct in the rules, and fits in nicely with the Arthurian theme. However, some players may not like this as it removes some "player agency" from the game.
An extra wrinkle to the Traits system, is that Knights often have certain "Passions" that they can call out to temporarily boost a Trait. These Passions help further differentiate Knights from each other, and they fall into various categories based on the nature of the Passion. Things like Homage to their Lord, Love of Family, Passion for their gods, and Hate for a Foe fall into these categories but diversify the longer you play. Failure on Passion related checks can lead to bouts of madness and melancholy.
One key component of Pendragon is that everyone dies! However, there are detailed rules for playing not just a Character, but a family line of Knights. Therefore, if your first character falls, but has an heir you can continue the adventure with their off-spring or close relative taking up the mantle. There are rules for passing on Glory, Passions, and other details down the family line. This type of play is encouraged, and finding a spouse and having heirs is a key part of the game play IF you want to follow the full Arthurian myth cycle from the very beginning to the end, as it covers 150 years or so of time!
Things I Did Not Like
The dice mechanic for resolving basic tests and opposed tests is somewhat convoluted and non-intuitive to me. For starters, it is a d20 system but it is a roll under system. Never a fan of roll under, but I understand why here. Crit failure is a 20. Crit success is if you roll the exact number of your stat. In addition, if it is an opposed roll you will need to roll lower than your stat, but above your opponent. The good thing is that this can lead to a variety of success states, but ultimately is not intuitive to recall at all! This is before we get into Passions and other variables that can be applied to rolls. This leads to some convoluted sets of modifiers that I think I will need a cheat sheet to keep track of what does what, what is a success, partial, failure, etc. for a while when playing this game.
Combat uses the basic system mentioned above with skill checks. The hardest part if cross-referencing the Crit Success, Success, Failure, Fumble chart. There is also distances and weapon damage, knockdowns, etc. A QRS will be needed until you get the hang of it. It is also important to note that combat can be rather brutal with people dropping weapons, weapons breaking, and getting knockdown a lot. Plus, a Knight can't take that many hits without being knocked out. To make it worse, healing can take a long, long time in this game because there is no magical shortcuts. Healing is done on a weekly basis. Therefore, fighting is common but can get deadly relatively quickly. Thankfully, most Knights are more valuable alive as ransom to their fellow knights or are fighting to the first blood.
The book is very comprehensive and has a great table of contents and a list of key tables. I really liked the Key Tables contents page. However, the book does place rules in some strange places and there is a mix of flavor text and rules in some parts. I think this will make it challenging at times to play.
The Core Rulebook references a lot of other rulebooks and they are not covered in this book. I was a bit surprised by this, as I expected to get the rules for the game. Apparently, this is more of the Player's Handbook, with different books for Gamemasters, Estates, and other details. Supplements are fine for a game, but I feel the naming of this book is a bit misleading. I would therefore not call this a complete game because a lot of key ideas are touched on, but not covered. SAD!
There was no introduction scenario to help GMs and Players get introduced into the setting and the game. That disappointed me. I am left not exactly sure how to introduce my players into this world or how to even get a grasp on creating adventures for this game. Double SAD! I guess for that I need to get the Starter Set too?
Meh and Other Uncertainties
All players start as Squires. In order to become full-fledged Knights there are a few mechanical things they need to do. This includes hitting certain thresholds of Skills and Glory mechanically. There are also some other Role-Play aspects such as age, having a Lord, etc. Therefore, this game starts with young adult characters and follows their careers as they age, grow old, die, and then carries over to their heirs! Each adventure is one year in the longer campaign, and the end of each session has a "Winter" phase where characters update for the next year. This includes aging, skill development, etc. It reminds me of an "End Phase" in wargaming. Keeping track of the year, and how it corresponds to the Arthurian timeline is relatively important in this game.
The game uses Glory as the main metric for determining success, well; there are a lot of ways to measure success. You can level up certain traits to become various types of Knights like Chivalric, Religious, etc. You can level up and down your Honor rankings. There are a lot, but the main mechanic is Glory. As you complete adventures and tasks you earn Glory. It is also something you use to measure against other Knights you encounter as well.
This game has dedicated rules for solo play. I think this system really works well with that format. I have to admit, the big appeal to me of RPG is the social group aspect. Take that away and I might as well play something else. However, the way this game is structured made me question my own thoughts on solo-play. It is more about "discovering what happens". However, it speaks to the somewhat abstracted nature of the game compared to some other RPGs out there.
There are three chapters dedicated to arms, armor, and horses (?). Horses are actually a pretty big deal in this game and not the disposable things you see in most Fantasy games. I think one of my favorite tables is the Horse Personality table, as players as expected to role-play their mounts as well! The game has several pages dedicated to creating Heraldry for your Player-Knight. Of course, it is just a short primer on a topic that whole books have been written on. However, even this small sliver is very interesting.
Final Thoughts
This is a relatively crunchy game that leans more towards Simulation than it does Narrative. However, the simulation is focused on a fictional world of the Mythical King Arthur cycle. Therefore, it is not for the feint of heart. I really enjoyed how the game "codified" and "systematized" the conduct of Knights and this is one of the few games I have seen that have managed to codify such a behavior based system into rules.
In some ways, this is a bit of a throwback design to things that were popular in the 80s. RPG Design has moved a lot in that time. There are some things that are very detailed and focused on, but other very important aspects are just handwaved. In addition, a lot of outcomes rely solely on dice rolls.
That said, like Legend of the 5 Rings; this is not an RPG for the newbie role-player. This requires a couple things to work. You have to be willing to engage with it for what it is. This is not a rules-lite Narrative heavy game. This is a crunchy outcome generator for Arthurian legends. If you come to this game with the wrong thought process, it will be very disappointing. Come at it in the proper context and interest in Arthurian Legend and you will have an amazing time.
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