Pendragon

[Thorvald Kviksverd]

Is there any difference between the various editions of Pendragon? I know a store in my area that has all the older editions still shrinkwrapped... None of the Green Knight versions...

They're all pretty similar, though the latter versions include much of the information that was originally found in the earlier supplements. If your gamestore has any of the old Chaosium 4th Editions they're the same as the current edition (as far as I know)--and the only real change to the 4th from the 3rd was the expansion of the magic system.

FWIW, I usually can find at least one copy of the main rule book in any Border's Bookstore that I go to (and they seem to just sit there year after year ).

 

[Kaptain_Kantrip]

Any chance someone could explain the traits, flaws and passions and how they work? Even better, how to translate them into d20 terms?

 

[SHARK]

Greetings!

You know what's really cool about Pendragon? Even if one can't use the mechanics to a great extent, the adventure material alone is worth the price. You'll notice that WOTC doesn't come close to designing adventures with the depth and characterization that Pendragon adventures are designed as a matter of course. The people involved, the personalities, the social considerations that are typical of a Pendragon adventure are so absent in most D&D adventures. This feature alone scores high marks in my book, and always has.

In addition, even if some of the mechanics won't translate easily, *initially*--one can extrapolate from the details given. For example, by making many of the social challenges Diplomacy skill checks, with higher or lower DC's, as deemed appropriate. Knowledge skills, Perform-Dancing, Music, Seduction, Heraldry, Law, History, and so on all can play such essential and vital roles in various Pendragon adventures. I think with some thought, the heart of them can be well translated. In fact, I have quite successfully integrated many of the themes inspired by the Pendragon adventures into my own campaigns. Reading through the various Pendragon supplements will be, at the very least, absolutely inspiring for any decent DM. I love Pendragon Supplements! Hell, buy them all! They're all quite good. Perhaps the two I don't have yet are Saxons! and Land of Giants! (The one about Scandinavian culture) I'm thinking of special-ordering them. Pendragon has so much class and style, and sweet Historical goodness. I'm a History Major, so Pendragon stuff gets me especially excited! You understand though. It's all good.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

 

[Thorvald Kviksverd]

Any chance someone could explain the traits, flaws and passions and how they work? Even better, how to translate them into d20 terms?

Traits occur in opposing pairs, for example...

Merciful/Cruel

During character creation you generate a value for one, and the opposing is equal to 20 minus this value. Thereafter, each time one rises, the other falls a like amount.

Trait checks are made at the DM's discretion, and are not always appropriate. However, if the DM feels that a character is in a situation that would truly put his convictions to the test, he can call for a trait roll.

The player then rolls against the trait that governs the act he wishes to engage/refrain from, for example...

A knight with 14 Merciful/Cruel 6 sees his squire struck down by a Saxon raider and, overcome by rage, he charges and quickly beats his foe to the ground; however, as he prepares to deliver the coup de grace, the Saxon (in a very "un-saxon-like" manner) begs for mercy--the knight quivers with suppressed rage as his ideals battle with his emotions (and the DM calls for a trait roll)...

The player decides he REALLY wants his character to slay the Saxon, so he rolls versus his Cruel trait of 6--if he rolls equal to or less than this value, the knight slays the Saxon (and receives a check to his Cruel trait).

If the knight fails this check, all is not lost, he may then roll versus his Merciful ; if he makes this check, he must spare the Saxon. However, if he FAILS this latter check as well, he is free to act as he sees fit (alternatively, he may roll versus Merciful first, and be free to act if he fails the roll).

Care should be taken that these checks are not overused--thereby making the players feel as though they have no control over their characters.

As to how to implement this in d20...

The basic mechanics would remain unchanged; what would have to change, however, would be the initial generation of values.

Perhaps you could tie this to the character's alignment choice--generating values within a certain range, or giving bonuses to certain traits (I think the bonuses would be preferable--you'll see why in a moment).

Thereafter, should the character fall outside this range, his alignment would change. Alternatively (using the bonus method), the character would have to instead maintain a minimum total value of certain traits that are relevant to his alignment choice (similar to the chivalry and religion bonuses in Pendragon), else his alignment would shift to a more appropriate one.

The reason I think I would prefer the bonus method is that it would allow for flawed characters that want to do the right thing, but must fight against their natures. For example, a Paladin that is a paragon of rightiousness, humility, generosity, and chasteness, yet he must constantly be on guard against his underlying vengeful nature--lest it should drive him from the ranks of Paladinhood.

Anyway, as I mentioned before, if you can find The Book of Knights (for only $7.95), it really is a must buy for someone who wants to see what the system is like. Converting the traits to d20 should be a minor undertaking, and can easily be tweaked to fit the flavor of your campaign.

With the more concrete alignment system that this makes possible, it might even be a good idea to reward some of the more restrictive alignments with certain bonuses (and perhaps assign penalties to some of the less laudable alignments)--something akin to the aforementioned chivalry and religious bonuses (unless, of course, you consider goodness to be its own reward ), perhaps a +1 bonus here or there for flavor.

As another option, if you're not a fan of alignment to begin with, this could replace the alignment system altogether--but totals in certain trait values should still be enforced for certain class eligibility, bonuses, spells, etc. The character could still choose an "alignment" at creation, in order to have some control over the starting values, but would thereafter be free to develop his traits as his character begins his adventuring career. Detect alignment spells and certain abilities would require a bit of tweaking as well--perhaps granting a glimpse of a few traits, or only working against foes whose totals in ceratain traits fall within a certain range.

(Edit: 14+SIX=20; Can't add in the morning )

 

[Voneth]

Pendragon, the campagin that wouldn't die.

In addition to the other fine things people mentioned about the game, there was a series of charts for getting xp to make up for missing a game session. Add to this that I tweaked the game world to include an Order of female knights and I ended up with a few lady gamers who would come over in twos or threes and they would ask for the current game year, roll up the missing time and play a few adventures out of the Boy King suppliement.

That game went on for three years.

 

[Maerdwyn]

Any chance someone could explain the traits, flaws and passions and how they work? Even better, how to translate them into d20 terms?

In adapting traits and passions to D&D, I removed the dice dictating-a-character's-roleplaying aspect present in Pendragon, both becuase my players simply had no interest in trying that out, and because, with chivalry not being as important IMC as it is in a Pendragon Campaign, I wanted the traits to be descriptive, rather than prescriptive. YMMV. Anyway, this is what I did:

**************
Player rolls/sets charisma as normal, but many standard game effects of charisma are ignored. Alignment is scrapped for all non-Outsiders. Instead, things normally governed by Charisma or alignment are handled by this system of Personality traits and Passions, adapted from the Pendragon RPG.

To set personality traits, a player takes 20 points and divides them between each pair of traits. However, the difference between the two values cannot normally be greater than 10 (i.e. One value 15, the other, 5). For each point of Charisma bonus or penalty, that maximum difference is increased or decreased by 2. Thus, someone with a 1 CHA would have all 10s for his personality traits(and will have basically no discernable personality). By contrast, any trait that is 18/2, 19/1, or 20/0 is considered extremely exaggerated – the character may develop a reputation or nickname based upon the trait with the higher value. Having more than a couple of these exaggerated traits may tend to turn a character into a caricature, however.

Passions are similar, but not handled in pairs. One’s CHA score is the maximum starting value for any Passion that a character develops, though a character may choose to set it lower.




Game effects:

Skills involving charisma are now modified by the appropriate personality trait. For example, Disguise is modified by the Deceitful score. Turning Undead is modified by the Hate (Undead) passion


An exaggerated (18-20) score on the Left side of the table will result in increased Enech (This is a measure of honor. See the Celts Historical reference in the conversion library if it gets added again, or my webpage which is apparently down right now - D'oh!), while exaggerated right side scores result in decreased Enech. Which traits fall on which side depend on the character's society. ( In Thuringia (an orcish empire) cruelty is valued more highly than Mercy, so Cruel is on the left side of the table for Thuringian characters. In Kerniw, where rough living conditions make every life valuable, and force neighboring villages to work together closely in order to survive, Mercy is placed on the left side of the chart.)

A score of 18 on a left score score results in +1 Enech; 19 receives +3; 20 receives +5. On a right side score, 18 receives -2; 19 receives -6; 20 receives -10 enech. +10 is the maximum Enech bonus from personality scores; there is no maximum penalty.

Whenever a character’s needs to make a roll that corresponds to a particular trait or passion, the modifier gained from that trait or passion is used, rather than the Character's CHA modifier. For example, Vog (a Half-Orc, CHA 6) has a Loyalty(Cunneda):12. He is charmed and told to attack King Urien of the Cunneda. Rather than an opposed charisma check, which would result in a –2 to Vog’s roll, he uses Loyalty (Cunneda) which results in a +1. If the character has no particularly applicable trait or passion, use the character's CHA modifier instead.

Both Traits and Passions change over the course of the game, as character actions warrant. If someone with Honest 15/Deceitful 5 lies and uses subterfuge consistently over the course of an adventure, Honesty may be lowered by a point, and Deceitful raised by a point, to reflect the drift in personality. If a character with a Loyalty(Cunneda) 8, puts himself at great personal peril to help the tribe, his loyalty would increase.

During an adventure, as the character's actions warrant, the DM directs the players to put hatch marks next to appropriate traits. At the end of an adventure, if there are enough points next to a trait according to the following table, the score changes appropriately. If a character has marks on both sides of a trait pair, subtract the smaller number of marks on one side from the number of marks on the other.

The following table shows the cost (in checkmarcks) to change a score (The number in parentheseis represent movement downward away from 10 - the boards didn't like my original table, which showed this more clearly):

Moving From_____Toward____ Costs # Marks
<10___________10___________1
>10___________10___________1
10___________11 (9)_________1
11 (9)________12 (8)_________2
12 (8)________13 (7)_________3
13 (7)________14 (6)_________4
14 (6)________15 (5)_________5
15 (5)________16 (4)_________6
16 (4)________17 (3)_________8
17 (3)________18 (2)_________10
18 (2)________19 (1)_________13
19 (1)________20____________16

Personality traits cannot rise above 20 or drop below 0. Passions can rise infinitely.


EXAMPLES:

Say you have a player running a Paladin, with a pairing of Merciful 17/Cruel 3. On defeating a group of hobgoblins, a prisoner is taken, and the party is out of danger, and the paladin says "I kill it - he'll probably try to escape anyway." If in the DM’s judgment, the cruelty was particularly out of place, he would also place a mark next to his cruel score.

If being merciful was particularly difficult (if the prisoner had previously killed the character's wife, for example), and he was merciful, you might have him place a mark next to "Merciful." If in this same situation, the paladin kills the hobgoblin, the DM might not place a checkmark next to Cruel, as the action was not particularly out of place.

At the end of the adventure, our paladin, Richard, has three checks next to cruel, and only one next to merciful. Subtracting 1 from 3, leaves two checks next to cruel, dropping his merciful score to 15, and raising his cruel score to 5. He also has, over the past several adventures, amassed 8 marks next to his “Valorous” trait, raising it from 17 to 18, in the process earning +1 Enech and the moniker “Richard Lionheart.” However, should his Merciful score ever drop below 15, he will run afoul of his religious order, and lose his paladin status.

 

[Maerdwyn]

My web page came back up - it has personality traits/passions sheets for characters hailing from different areas of my campaign world. As I had the characters all start from the same basic region, the cultures' values presented are fairly similar, but it's easy to tweak them for your own use as needed.

http://www.gaiatec.com/maerdwyn/Traitset.htm

 

[mmadsen]

As Maerdwyn pointed out, Pendragon's Traits can be both prescriptive ("With a Valorous trait of 20, you will charge the ogre") and descriptive ("Since you didn't kill the prisoners, I'll up your Merciful by one to 14").

If you use traits purely descriptively, you're just tracking how the characters behave. If they've been honest, they'll have high Honest trait scores. By itself, this doesn't do much, but it can be a formal tool for tracking how well a Paladin or Cleric has been following the tenets of his faith.

Pendragon gives different cultures different virtues (traits that are valued) and a special bonus for living virtuously. For instance, a good Christian should be: Chaste, Modest, Forgiving, Merciful, and Temperate. If all five of those virtues are 16 or higher, the character gets a Christian bonus of +6 hit points. A follower of Wotan (Odin) has different virtues and a different bonus. He should be: Generous, Proud, Worldly, Indulgent, and Reckless. If he is, he gets +1d6 damage.

Obviously you could use a list of a virtues for a Paladin's or Cleric's faith, and his class abilities could depend on his trait scores.

 

[Thorvald Kviksverd]

...In Thuringia (an orcish empire) cruelty is valued more highly than Mercy, so Cruel is on the left side of the table for Thuringian characters...

Thuringia?

Orcish Empire?!?

You're saying some of my ancestors were Orcs ?

Considering that this is a Pendragon thread, I've half-a-mind (talk about an opening) to challenge you to a joust a outrance!

BTW, nice job on the adaptation.

 

[hong]

Thuringia?

Orcish Empire?!?

You're saying some of my ancestors were Orcs ?

I would, indeed, be HIGHLY insulted by that. Everyone knows that the Thuringians were kobolds.

You can see this by how "Thurin" means "kobold" in ancient Latin (the language that was spoken in Latin America before it was discovered by the Greeks, who brought modern Latin with them).