Dungeons & Dragons is a groundbreaking game set in a world of medieval fantasy. While the game cites Lord Of The Rings and Conan as direct influences, there are older tales that also have inspired Dungeon Masters as they build their fantasy worlds. One of the most common are the stories of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table.
Fans of Arthurian lore know there’s one role playing game aimed directly at them. Pendragon, created by Greg Stafford in 1985, allows players to don the armor of legendary knights to get caught up in a world of courtly intrigue and fantasy adventure. Chaosium sent review copies of a pair of new releases hoping to hook a new generation of fans into adding their own spin on these classic tales.
What Is Pendragon RPG?
Pendragon casts players in the roles of knights in the realm of England during the famough reign of King Arthur. They must help the king keep peace in the realm by going on adventures, visiting rival nobles and investigating the mysteries of magic. Their characters rise and fall in power during the campaign with longer stories told through a generational lens.
In addition to characters built around their skills as a knight, they are also defined by traits that reflect their emotional states. Passions like Love and Loyalty can drive characters to accomplish great feats or drive them to melanchoic wandering. Paired traits reflect their reputations and player choices that can lock in aspects of a haracter’s personality during play.
Pendragon Sixth Edition Core Rulebook
The Pendragon Core Rulebook brings the game into a sixth edition. It feature evocative, full color art and everything a player needs to make their own knight. That includes the Winter Phase tables, which turn the game from being about one group of characters into one about their influence as a bloodline.
After every session, players enter the Winter Phase whih details what happens to their characters the rest of the year. That includes good events like new children and squires becoming knights as well as bad things like castles crumbling and reversals of fortune. Characters in Pendragon rise and fall throughout the years, eventually growing old and dying to pass their legacy onto their children.
This edition also marks a shift to a more flexible perspective on history and myth. Previous editions took great pains to follow the protrayal of Arthur’s legend in specific texts. While those texts are still important, the designers in this edition encourage gaming groups to adjust the setting to their liking at their own tables and not worry about being “historically accurate”.
Part of the fun playing with Arthurian legends are remixing, altering and adding to them. One group might want a game that highlights the Game of Thrones style politics between Arthur and the other lords of Britain. Another might want to emulate The Green Knight’s eerie visuals and strange magic.
Pendragon Sixth Edition The Grey Knight
Pendragon comes out of the gate with a story full of supernatural themes. The Grey Knight is a classic adventure for the setting written by Larry DiTillio. DiTillio wrote several screenplays and television episodes but is perhaps best known as the mind behind Masks of Nyarlathotep for Call of Cthulhu.
This edition of the adventure has been revised and expanded. It includes two adventures that introduce players to characters and elements from the main storyline to give players a bit more connection and context. For fans who own Pendragon Starter Set, it offers a connection to the stories in the boxed set that stretches out to a nice short campaign during Arthur’s early years as The Boy King.
The story also highlights one of the strengths of the game by providing plenty of opprtunities for players to meet and interact with legendary figures. They’ll learn about the Questing Beast from King Pellinore and see Arthur get tonngue-tied during his courtship of Queen Guinevere. And that’s all before they have to help the young king face an immortal black knight that threatens the kingdom.
Pendragon Sixth Edition Impressions
I’m very excited to see Pendragon return. It has such a unique approach to characterization and storytelling that’s not found elsewhere. With role playing games the most popular they have been, I’m glad new players are getting a chance to discover a game that’s been well-loved and widely influential on generations of game designers.
I am also excited to see the designers embrace a more fluid approach to mythology and history. The more you learn about the King Arthur myth, the clearer it becomes that it doesn’t fit together perfectly. That’s a great thing for gaming group that want to tell stories in a world they all know but don’t want to worry about games getting sidelined by arguments over what’s official or not.
Pendragon Sixth Edition is available directly from Chaosium, through online booksellers or at Friendly Local Gaming Stores everywhere.
