Ive not read it but there is a Pendragon supplement called Paladin set in the Kingdom of the Franks (lands of Charlemagne)
Paladin is, and I hate to say this, a really piss-poor take. Anyone who knows me knows I'm not at all pro-poltical-correctness... but Paladin is so un-woke it'd need to go back to the 70's to be acceptable.
Pendragon mechanical Basics
The game is, at it's heart, derived from RuneQuest... during the RQ 3e era.
The mechanic is changed from a 1d100 to a 1d20, and from per session/per character-month to per character-year experience rolls.
Damage is somewhat different, too.
Attributes: 5 of them (STR SIZ DEX CON APP), typical Chaosium range 3-18, and 8-18 for SIZ.
Skills: 24 non-combat, a dozen or so combat skills (including Horsemanship).
Personality Traits: 13 pairs 0-40 range; if the higher is below 21, the other is 20 - (opposing trait); if the higher is above 20, the opposing is 0.
Passions: 5 nearly universal, no formal limit. The universals: Loyalty Lord, Amour (n.), Love (n.), Amour (Guenevere), Love (deity). Deity for Christians usually written as Love (God). Landholders also have Loyalty (Vassals).
One's culture modifies attributes, traits, and provides starting skill bases.
Most actions are opposed rolls - highest successful roll. Rolling the adjusted skill exactly is a crit.
One form of unopposed roll is very common, and part of it's evocation of the feel: Inspiration. If you can justify a passion firing you up, and don't mind risking madness, nominate the skill to benenfit, the task to be accomplished to fulfill it, and test 1d20 for passion or less: on a success, treat it as 10 higher! On a fail, treat it as 5 lower. If you fail to accomplish the action, or fumble the check to inspire, You're an NPC for a bit while off ranting.
Traits and Religion
Players are required to pick a religion, but religion is not a huge factor in actual play; living up to the religious virtues, however, is. Each religion has a set of preferred traits, which, if they all are at 16+, then grants a bonus. Christians get 6 extra HP. Wotanics get an extra die of damage.
The place of religion in play is as a background element, and a defining element of the mechanics; it is not normally making anything about attendance.
If a character also has a certain set of traits, the Chivalrous Traits, high enough, summing to 81+, they get the Armor of Chivalry - 3 points of natural armor, and it's good vs falls, too... which means a normal jousting fall won''t injure.
Traits are used in 5 ways:
1: to earn the religious bonus, the chivalry bonus, and the romance bonus. These all carry bonus glory, too.
2: to earn annual glory - any trait at 16+ is worth its score in annual glory. It adds up quick.
3: to determine the response to a situation. Either the GM or the Player can request the roll. If the trait is 16+, the GM is allowed to assume that response unless the player chooses to roll.
4: to resist some condition. Entering Combat requires a Valorous Check, or one hesitates, and might flee. Staying awake for a night after a full day, for example, requires an Energetic check. The evil sorceress tempting one to delights not PG is, of course, Chaste. If the player chooses to give in, or fails the test, the opposed trait might get raised at the end of the year.
5: to see if the character's behavior has them worthy for some supernatural situation.
6: To resist one's own passions.
4th ed also adds:
7: to determine magical power. The religious traits determine just how big a spell one can cast, and how many dice of magical power one can draw on the attempt.
Traits can be awarded checks by the GM for playing to them, or against them, even when no roll was made. If you retreat in my KAP campaigns, and it's not because you were ordered away or major wounded, check that cowardly experience box...
Combat
Melee is almost always opposed rolls. Damage is done based upon the wielder... Str + Siz determines damage. Typical knights are 3-5 d6 damage. two-handed weapons get an extra die, small weapons lose a die. Armor's pretty tough - leather is 6 points! Chain is 10-12 (by era).
Knights generally don't do ranged combat. Bowmen typically do 3d.
Lances use the horse's 4-8 d6 damage, not the wielder's 3-5.
Solo Adventures:
Solos are a significant part of the game; two of them are used by players often, even when present for session, those being
Your Own Land &
The Lover's Solo. Others are there for players who missed the session, or for players who get injured and recover but not in time for the rest of the adventure.
At the Crossroads is just that - joust all knightly comers.
A Hunt is just that - ride into the woods and hope to come home with dinner; this also can be used as part of a longer adventure.
Landholding
it's common for knights to acquire lands; if they have just a manor or two, the corebook simple holding rules (
Your Own Land solo) can be used. If they get too big, then it's time to grab the landholding rules for whichever edition you're using... Noble's Book for 1E, Lordly Domains for 3e/4e, Book of the Estar and Book of the Manor for 5th ed..
Setting Concerns
The setting is 6th C Brittain. Greg Stafford did his research, and placed Arthur entirely post-roman, building on Mallory, Nennius, TH White, Vulgate Cycle, and even A touch of MZB.
There is little magic; outside 4th edition, there is no PC magic whatsoever.
There are some magic weapons, and some potions, but those are NPC made, and usually heirloom. (in 4th, making a potion costs the lady doing so a year of aging!)
The basic conceit is that PCs start as either about to be knighted or just knighted household knights, usually in Salisbury. They do knightly things, having one adventure per year, and then at end of year, finding out what they learned from the year's adventure.
Once PCs become landholders of note, it often becomes a handful of mini-adventures and one major adventure per year - the mini-adventures being random fief events. (The tables for which differ by edition, but overall, all editions provide for same, but not in core in any)
Pendragon 4e and 5e explicitly include permission for female knights; 4th also includes female non-knights gentlewomen in the core. Both also make note that there is a celtic warrior woman tradition.
A typical session is either a task from the liege, a battle from the timeline, or a proper knights vs the magical weirdness of Arthur's Britain.
The Great Pendragon Campaign &
The Boy King
GPC is 5th edition's masterful 80 year long campaign. It has 4-5 actual adventures in schematic per 15 year span, 2-3 adventure hooks per year, and advice for court for each year. If using it, it's easy to weave in one's own adventures and quests, too. Not every knight gets taken on the quest for Rome, for example - PCs might be those their Liege left to guard the wife and the heir.
Boy King is the same timeline, but fewer details; it also provides pre-arthur character options.
Either of them can be used with any edition just fine.
Magic
In the stock play mode, magic is limited to a few magical items, inspiration, and maybe a wife providing a potion.
Pendragon 4e also includes a magic system and magician character gen in the core... the
Book of Knights does not include them, despite being a light 4th ed core. Magicians can be stupidly powerful... my last campaign, the wizardess transformed into a dragon at the Battle of Rome... and also added fire breath... but she was asleep for the trip back... and because she was unwilling to risk aging saves by being active, the party wound up lost at sea, and died of starvation. TPK, lost at sea...
But Rome did surrender damned quick! (And Arthur was, rightly, quite peeved at her.) Wizards have never been a problem in my campaigns, because the cost is weeks of downtime...
