Kaptain_Kantrip
First Post
Hijack away! 
Pendragon
If you enjoy D&D's alignment system but want to track character behavior a little more closely (esp. for Paladins and Clerics), you can use just two trait pairs:
Good/Evil
Lawful/Chaotic
Start Good characters at Good 15/Evil 5, Neutral characters at Good 10/Evil 10, and Evil characters at Good 5/Evil 15, and bump their traits up or down depending on how they behave. Do the same with Lawful/Chaotic.
The trait pairs in Pendragon are:
Chaste / Lustful
Energetic / Lazy
Forgiving / Vengeful
Generous / Selfish
Honest / Deceitful
Just / Arbitrary
Merciful / Cruel
Modest / Proud
Pious / Worldly
Prudent / Reckless
Temperate / Indulgent
Trusting / Suspicious
Valorous / Cowardly
The passions are open-ended; there isn't a set list. Chivalrous knights though have Loyalty (Lord), Love (Family), Honor, and Hospitality. Those things are all very important (in game) to a chivalrous knight.
Green Knight
First Post
I definitely like the traits. Very nice.
Thorvald Kviksverd
First Post
mmadsen said:
I like this
Maybe the ranges could be something along the lines of the following...
If a value is greater than 12, the character gains that alignment aspect.
If neither value in an opposed pair is greater than 12, the applicable alignment aspect is considered to be "Neutral".
I chose the values so that Neutral would correspond to the range of 8-12.
This could then be used as a prescriptive/descriptive tool (as you mentioned earlier), or simply as a more tradional descriptive one. Even if only used descriptively for PCs, it could still be useful for helping determine the actions of NPCs when the DM isn't sure what they would be.
Perhaps a chart could be made listing +'s and -'s for various acts--something similar to the honor tables found in many oriental flavored RPGs--rather than simply using the experience check method of Pendragon.
(EDIT: Fixed an inconsistency I noticed while doing the house rules thread.)
Last edited:
Ayrk
First Post
Pendragon was great for showing me how to do an adventure without combat.
Nothing like your fully armored and armed knight getting caught up in some courtly intrigue which can't be solved with the thrust of a sword.
Also, as was mentioned above, women seem to flock to Pendragon. Last GenCon I did some demos for Green Knight and I had at least one, often two ladies in each of my games. Something about the romanticism of the Arthurian mythos is my bet.
The Book of Knights is a great way to get a feel for the environment. Its opening little story does more to establish atmosphere than pretty much any game fiction I've read. Even if you have no desire to run a Pendragon game, that little book will fire up your regular D&D game (at least it has mine).
So why are you still reading this? Go out and get the Book of Knights. Go, now!
Erik
Nothing like your fully armored and armed knight getting caught up in some courtly intrigue which can't be solved with the thrust of a sword.
Also, as was mentioned above, women seem to flock to Pendragon. Last GenCon I did some demos for Green Knight and I had at least one, often two ladies in each of my games. Something about the romanticism of the Arthurian mythos is my bet.
The Book of Knights is a great way to get a feel for the environment. Its opening little story does more to establish atmosphere than pretty much any game fiction I've read. Even if you have no desire to run a Pendragon game, that little book will fire up your regular D&D game (at least it has mine).
So why are you still reading this? Go out and get the Book of Knights. Go, now!
Erik
Thorvald Kviksverd
First Post
I like that notion a lot better than Raise Dead.
That's not so bad in a system that doesn't rely on ablative hit points quite so much. D&D characters are guaranteed to get hit and take damage; they just have so many hit points an so much healing that they don't mind.
I can see wanting some variety over time, but what's wrong with a campaign of knightly deeds of derring-do? Frankly, how many people have played a real knight even once in D&D? (Weird, isn't it?)
Similar Threads
