King Arthur Pendragon Returns To Chaosium

Pendragon, the Arthurian game of chivalric knights, created by the recently passed Greg Stafford, was originally released in 1985. Over the years there have been various editions, and the game has been owned by Chaosium, Green Knight Publishing, White Wolf Publishing, and Nocturnal Media. Now it's returning to Chaosium, it's original publisher.

Greg Stafford died this year. He considered King Arthus Pendragon to be his masterpiece -- "Pendragon is my masterpiece. It's a role-playing game in the world of King Arthur."

Here's the full announcement:

"Chaosium Inc, original publishers of Greg Stafford's King Arthur Pendragon roleplaying game (KAP), will once again become the owners and publishers of the game, it was announced today.

All rights to KAP and the Prince Valiant story-telling game have been transferred from the ownership of Nocturnal Media to Chaosium.

Greg Stafford, founder of Chaosium and creator of both games, passed away in October this year. The return of these titles to Chaosium has the blessing of Greg Stafford's wife Suzanne and his children.

Steve Wieck speaking for Nocturnal Media on the transition of Pendragon back to Chaosium:

"There’s a story behind this story. In the early 1990’s, the staff of Chaosium were celebrating with a feast at Mader’s Restaurant in Milwaukee after a successful Gen Con. At the table next to them, the White Wolf staff also feasted on haunches of meat and steins of beer. My brother Stewart and Mark Rein Hagen, founders of White Wolf, stood and toasted Greg Stafford and the Chaosium crew, “Hail to Chaosium, the pioneers, the seers, the shamans, who ignited the flame of storytelling in our roleplaying hobby”, and the White Wolf table cheered their respect.

Naturally, one cannot possibly out-do Greg Stafford, the creator of Pendragon, in matters of feasting etiquette. Thus Greg rose and toasted back with supreme humility, “We were merely keeping the fire lit through the cold, dark night, for we heard in the distance the howl of the wolf and knew the wolf would come to turn the flame to a bonfire.”

It would be years later that White Wolf would end up acquiring Greg’s King Arthur Pendragon game (which had already travelled from Chaosium to Green Knight Publishing). And still later, after White Wolf merged with CCP, ownership of the Pendragon game travelled back to Stewart’s new company Nocturnal Media. Stewart immediately started collaborating with Greg to publish a new edition and supplemental material for the game.

Then both Stewart and Greg passed, and it’s been a bit of a cold, dark night. Those of us who remain at Nocturnal have tried to keep the Pendragon fire lit through the night, publishing new KAP supplements and the Paladin game, but it’s clear that for the fire to become a bonfire, the wheel should turn full circle and Pendragon return to its origin, return to Chaosium. We pass the torch to our friends at Chaosium, knowing that greatness awaits. The Boy King is ready to become a Conqueror. Long live the King."

​

Earlier this year at Gen Con it was announced that Chaosium was assisting Nocturnal Media in release and distribution of its products, and would help with the fulfilment of several of its Kickstarters. That assistance will continue.

Going forward, KAP and Prince Valiant titles will be available from Chaosium.com, and at Chaosium's page at DriveThruRPG. David Larkins, who Greg Stafford announced as his KAP line editor at Gen Con this year, continues in this role, now working for Chaosium"

 

[Myrdin Potter]

That kickstarter has not come close to fulfilling all the materials promised. They reprinted the hardback of the rules (with all the errors caught in proofreading still there, like the size for Ducks), but they owe almost all the older supplements which are year(s) behind schedule with updates maybe every few months with new promises that are then broken.

 

[TrippyHippy]

That kickstarter has not come close to fulfilling all the materials promised. They reprinted the hardback of the rules (with all the errors caught in proofreading still there, like the size for Ducks), but they owe almost all the older supplements which are year(s) behind schedule with updates maybe every few months with new promises that are then broken.

The various PDF supplements to the Classic game were included as stretch goals for add-on purchases. While the process of delivering all of these has been frustratingly slow, the process itself wasn't actually given any stated schedule beyond initial estimates. From my count, out of the 14 stretch goals for add ons listed, there remains 5 still to be delivered.

 

[Myrdin Potter]

The various PDF supplements to the Classic game were included as stretch goals for add-on purchases. While the process of delivering all of these has been frustratingly slow, the process itself wasn't actually given any stated schedule. From my count, out of the 14 stretch goals for add ons listed, there remains 5 still to be delivered. The core materials of the campaign were delivered a long time ago.

That is quite disingenuous. Paid add-ons that are going on 3 years to deliver in PDF format and an error riddled hard-cover that was crowd sourced and corrected and then printed with all the errors still in it (except for the leather version) is more accurate. In frequent updates and promised delivery and it will get better not being met. Many of the "14" are short and several pages long. The larger (and more expensive) add-ons are still outstanding.

This was one of my first Kickstarters I backed (I have well over 100 now) and Runequest 2e had a special place in my heart as it was the first non-D&D RPG I had played. There were lots of promises about the new management (this was one of the first after that happened), but I have not seen real improvement. Chaosium has such a bad reputation on Kickstarter that they are not offering products there any more.

In the case of Pendragon (and others), the Kickstarter principal passed away and they are still being fulfilled. Where issues were identified in the original PDFs, they were addressed. They are super delayed but slowly each one is coming out and there are more frequent updates. This news is actually delaying them even more.

 

[TrippyHippy]

That is quite disingenuous. Paid add-ons that are going on 3 years to deliver in PDF format and an error riddled hard-cover that was crowd sourced and corrected and then printed with all the errors still in it (except for the leather version) is more accurate. In frequent updates and promised delivery and it will get better not being met. Many of the "14" are short and several pages long. The larger (and more expensive) add-ons are still outstanding.

This was one of my first Kickstarters I backed (I have well over 100 now) and Runequest 2e had a special place in my heart as it was the first non-D&D RPG I had played. There were lots of promises about the new management (this was one of the first after that happened), but I have not seen real improvement. Chaosium has such a bad reputation on Kickstarter that they are not offering products there any more.

In the case of Pendragon (and others), the Kickstarter principal passed away and they are still being fulfilled. Where issues were identified in the original PDFs, they were addressed. They are super delayed but slowly each one is coming out and there are more frequent updates. This news is actually delaying them even more.

Stating the facts as they are is not being disingenuous.

Stating that this news has any negative impact upon the delivery of Paladin, Pendragon or Prince Valiant, or that the production of Classic RuneQuest supplements has any bearing on the matter, is. As a backer of all of these, I already have recieved most of it. Paladin is in it's final stages, and is due sometime next month.