Episode Transcript
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Iain (00:07):
Welcome to Roll2Save the
RPG history podcast, pendragon.
Hello and welcome to anotherepisode of Roll to Save the RPG
(00:30):
history podcast.
Now, I don't know about you,but I've got a bit of a thing
for perfect games, not gamesthat are popular or games that
sell well, or even games that Ipersonally love to bits Paranoia
.
I'm looking at you.
(00:54):
I'm talking about games thatare just right, games where
every single piece fits togetherso perfectly that you can't
imagine them being any other way.
Now, sadly, there aren't manyof them.
To be honest, most RPGs areeither compromises, bodge jobs
or brilliant ideas held togetherwith sellotaping good
intentions.
But every now and thenlightning strikes and someone
(01:14):
creates something that's justflawless for what it's trying to
do.
King Arthur Pendragon is one ofthose games, in my humble
opinion.
Arthur Pendragon is one ofthose games, in my humble
opinion.
I first encountered it back inthe late 80s and, I'll be honest
, I thought it sounded a bitrubbish.
Medieval knights, chivalry, allthat courtly love, nonsense.
I was much more interested inmy grimdark Warhammer fantasy
(01:38):
roleplay campaigns, thank youvery much.
But then recently I actuallyread it and wow, this wasn't
just a game about knightshitting things with swords.
This was something elseentirely.
You see, what Greg Stafford didwith Pendragon was create the
first RPG that was genuinelyliterary, not fantasy literature
(02:00):
, actual literature with themesand character development and
proper dramatic structure.
It's a game where yourcharacter's personality isn't
just flavour text, it's theactual engine that drives the
story.
A game where time matters,where your actions have
consequences, not just for youbut for your children and your
children's children.
(02:20):
It's also a game with one ofthe most troubled publishing
histories in the entire hobby.
Over its 40 year lifespan it'sbeen passed between publishers
like a game of musical chairs,almost killed by collectible
card game disasters, rescued byfans with their own money and
subjected to some of the mostexploitative business practices
you'll ever hear about.
(02:41):
But throughout it all, the gameitself has remained brilliant.
So today we're going to diginto the whole messy,
complicated, occasionallyheartbreaking story of King
Arthur Pendragon, how it wasmade, what is so bloody good and
how it nearly got lost forever.
(03:07):
So let's start at the beginning.
It's 1985, and if you're intoRPGs, you're probably playing
D&D or maybe RuneQuest if you'rein the UK.
Everything's high fantasy,everything's about killing
monsters and taking their stuff,and that's fine.
(03:27):
But it's also getting a bitsamey, isn't it.
Then along comes Greg Staffordwith this mad idea.
He wants to make an RPG basedon Mallory's Le Mot d'Arthur you
know that massive doorstep of abook from the 15th century that
most people have heard of butnobody has actually read Well,
except poor souls like me whohad to slog through it for their
(03:48):
English degree.
Trust me, it's not exactly apage turner.
And he doesn't want to juststick some medieval flavour on
top of D&D.
He wants to create somethingthat actually feels like you're
living inside Arthurian legend.
Now, starford wasn't just somenobody having a go at games
design.
This is a guy who created runequest and founded ksem.
(04:11):
He knew what he was doing, buteven so, this was ambitious
stuff.
He's looking at the sourcematerial and thinking right, how
do I make a game that capturesthe tragedy of these stories?
How do I make players careabout honour and chivalry when
they're used to optimising theirway through dungeons?
His answer was to throw outalmost everything else everybody
(04:35):
thought they knew about RPGdesign.
So let's talk about the basicsystem, because this is where
Stafford was genuinely ahead ofhis time.
System because this is whereStafford was genuinely ahead of
his time.
Pendragon uses a D20 foreverything Skills, traits, the
lot Roll under your targetnumber.
Job done.
If you roll exactly your targetnumber, it's a critical Simple.
(04:57):
Now it might not soundrevolutionary, but back in 1985,
games seemed to love usingevery polyhedral die they could
get their hands on.
Roll a D4 for this, a D8 forthat, break out your unloved D12
for something else.
You needed a whole bag of dicejust to play most games.
Stafford looked at that andthought what if we just needed
(05:19):
one die for everything?
It's the same maths as basicroleplaying, obviously the
system that Stafford had to helpcreate in the first place.
But he'd simplified it down toits absolute essence.
Instead of having a 50% skill,you got a 10.
Instead of rolling under 25%,you're rolling under 5.
It's the same maths, obviously,but psychologically it's
(05:42):
completely different.
Players could easily get theirheads around the probabilities
without needing a calculator.
Plus, every single pointmattered more.
Going from a 10 to an 11 feelsmuch bigger deal than going from
50 to 51.
But the really clever bit, thebit that nobody had done before,
was the trait system.
(06:03):
Stafford gave every character 13pairs of opposing personality
traits Things like chaste versuslustful, generous versus
selfish, that sort of thing.
And these weren't justsuggestions for roleplay.
These were actual gamemechanics you had to roll
against.
Picture this You've captured anenemy knight and your GM says
(06:23):
right, make a merciful rule.
If you succeed, you show mercy,because that's who your
character is.
If you fail, you end up beingcruel instead, because that's
who your character is.
The dice are literally decidingyour character's moral choices
for you.
Now I know what you're thinking.
That sounds like it takes awayplayer agency.
Right, but here's the thing itdoesn't.
(06:43):
It creates player agencybecause, right, but here's the
thing it doesn't.
It creates player agencyBecause you're not just deciding
what to do, you're discoveringwho your character really is,
and better.
Yet these traits change overtime based on how you play.
Be merciful enough times andyour merciful trait goes up.
Be a bastard often enough andyour cruel trait increases
instead.
(07:04):
It was the first RPG system thatmade character development
actually about characterdevelopment and not just about
getting better at hitting things.
Then there are passions thingslike love, loyalty, honour, that
kind of stuff, which basicallywork like supercharged traits.
With a high enough passion, youcan get massive bonuses, which
(07:25):
lets you pull off genuinelyheroic feats.
But fail, a passion roll andyou fall into melancholy because
you've acted against everythingyou believe in, or you might
even go mad, and this is pureArthurian tragedy.
Your greatest strength becomesyour greatest weakness, and the
story is Lancelot's love forGuinevere makes him the greatest
(07:47):
knight in the world, but it'salso what ultimately destroys
everything he cares about.
But the thing that still makesPendryan unique is the winter
phase.
At the end of every game year,you roll dice to see what
happens to your character duringthe months between adventures.
Do your skills improve?
(08:08):
Do you age badly?
Does your wife have children?
Do any of your children die ofthe plague?
It's a bunch of steps of pureanxiety.
Basically, you might spend anentire session building up your
character only to have thewinter phase age them horribly
and then kill off their favoritehorse.
But it also means that in thisgame, time matters in a way that
(08:32):
it doesn't in any other rpg.
Most games your character existsin this weird timeless bubble
where nothing changes, unlessthe gm specifically makes it
happen.
In pendragon, every year thatpasses is another year closer to
death, another year of yournight getting older and creakier
, another chance for tragedy tostrike.
(08:54):
And when your character finallydies whether that's from old
age and battle or just bad luck.
You carry on playing as theirheir.
Your new character inheritstheir lands, their glory, their
feuds, their mistakes.
I've heard of campaigns whereplayers ended up playing the
great, great, greatgrandchildren of their original
characters and the whole thingfeels epic and like you're
(09:16):
living through an actual history.
The influence of all this stuffcan't be overstated.
Vampire, the Masquerade'shumanity system that's basically
Pendragon's traits with fangs,ars, magica's generational play
Straight out of the Pendragonplaybook, even video games like
Crusader Kings that I have lostway too much time to owe a debt
(09:39):
to what Stafford was doing backin 1985.
But at the time nobody knew ifany of this would work.
Stafford was basically makingit all up as he went along,
trying to solve problems thatmost designers didn't even know
existed.
Now the first edition came outin 1985 as a box set, because
this was the 80s and everythingcame in box sets back then, and
(10:03):
it was immediately obvious thatStafford had created something
special.
The reviews were absolutelyglowing.
Ken Ralston in Dragon Magazinecalled it the best designed,
most attractive and mosteffective RPG he'd ever seen.
White Dwarf gave it a ravereview, despite the price being
(10:23):
absolutely mental for the timenearly £25 for a game which in
today's money is about £100.
But people paid it because thegame was worth it.
At the 1986 Origins Award, thefirst supplement won Best
Roleplay Supplement, which waspretty good going for a game
that had been out for only ayear.
(10:44):
Chaos AIM followed up with athird edition in 1990.
They skipped the second editionentirely don't ask me why and
that won Best Roleplaying Rulesof 1990.
By this point Pendragon wasgetting the recognition it
deserved.
The fourth edition in 1993tried to be all things to all
(11:04):
people.
Suddenly you could play Saxons,the Irish Picts, scandinavians,
basically people from all overEurope.
You could even play wizards,though the magic rules were
partly rubbish and everyonepretends they never happened.
Some people loved thismulticultural approach.
Others felt it diluted whatmade Pendragon special.
(11:28):
Personally, I think Staffordwas right to give it a try.
The game had always been aboutmore than just the Christian
Knights from Salisbury, but theexecution was a bit all over the
place.
Still, throughout this period,the game was building a devoted
of small following.
Throughout this period, thegame was building a devoted of
small following.
These weren't casual playerseither.
Pendragon fans were obsessivein the best possible way,
(11:51):
running campaigns that lastedfor years and talking about
their characters and theirchildren like they were real
people.
Seriously ask a devotedPendragon fan about their
character and you will get thechronicles of their family.
Sadly, all of this made whathappened next all the more
tragic.
So it's the mid-90s andcollectible card games are the
(12:14):
new hot thing.
Magic the Gathering has madeWizards of the Coast a fortune
and suddenly every game companywants in on the action,
including KSCM.
Now, to be fair to them, theirCCG Mythos, based on Call of
Cthulhu, was actually rathergood.
It won awards, it hadinnovative mechanics.
(12:36):
It was everything a CCG shouldbe.
The problem was the follow-upproduct, the Mythos Standard
Game Set.
Now, I've talked about thisbefore on our Call of Cthulhu
podcast, but let's go back intoit for new listeners.
This was supposed to be anentry-level product Two
(12:57):
pre-built decks that beginnerscould buy and play straight away
Non-collectible, reasonablypriced, sensible stuff.
It was a pretty good set.
I owned one myself and it waswhat got me into Mythos.
However, chaosium printed thisat collectible card game levels,
expecting massive sales.
That never materialised.
(13:18):
The results were catastrophic.
We're talking hundreds ofthousands of dollars worth of
unsold inventory sitting inwarehouses, pallets of the stuff
that they couldn't shift, andCCG failures don't just lose you
a bit of money, they lose youstupid amounts of money Because
print runs are massive and themargins are tiny.
(13:39):
Krcm nearly went under.
From what I've heard, most ofthe staff got laid off and by
1998 there were a whole bunch ofpeople not actually getting
paid.
And what did they try to do tosave money?
Well, they cancelled basicallyeverything except Call of
Cthulhu, pendragon, elricNephilim poor, poor Nephilim.
(14:01):
That never got the attention itdeserved All gone.
But here's where Pendragon'sstory gets interesting, because
into this disaster steps a guycalled Peter Corliss.
Peter was a fan of Pendragonand when KSE were going through
the financial crisis, heactually lent them money to try
(14:22):
and help keep the company afloat.
When they couldn't pay him back, he said right, I'll take the
Pendragon rights instead.
Just think about that for aminute.
A fan of the game literallybought the rights to keep the
game alive.
That's either incredibly nobleor completely mental, I'm not
sure which.
(14:42):
However, corliss founded GreenKnight Publishing in 1998 and
spent the next six years tryingto make Pendragon profitable
again.
He published new supplements,reprinted old ones and even got
a fiction line going.
But he was fighting an uphillbattle.
The RPG market was stillrecovering from the CCG crash
(15:02):
and Pendragon had always been abit of a niche product.
Anyway, the fiction line didalright, turns out there is an
audience for Arthurianliterature.
But the game itself struggledand by 2004 Corliss threw in the
towel and sold the rights toWhite Wolf.
One thing I will say forCorliss he was a genuinely
(15:23):
decent bloke.
When he found out the KSAM hadnot paid various freelancers and
artists over the years, heactually paid them out of his
own pocket, even though he hadno legal obligation to do so.
The industry could absolutelydo with more people like that.
Industry could absolutely dowith more people like that.
Anyway, white Wolf published astreamlined fifth edition in
2005 with Greg Stafford himselfback at the helm.
(15:47):
This was Pendragon returning toits roots no more multicultural
knights, no more terrible magicrules, just pure Arthurian
legend done properly.
But the real masterpiece ofthis era was the great Pendragon
campaign all 432 pages of it.
This thing is huge and it'scrazy in the best possible way.
(16:10):
It's basically a year-by-yearguide to running an Arthurian
campaign from 485 AD to 566 AD.
Every single year has events,gossip, adventure, hooks the lot
.
Just consider that for a moment.
Every Single Year, if one yearis one game session, that means
(16:35):
you're getting at least 85 gamesout of this bad boy.
It's enormous.
It's broken down into eightdistinct periods, each with
their own feel.
The Uther period is all aboutserving Arthur's dad and dealing
with the Saxon threat.
The Anarchy period is Britainfalling apart after Uther dies.
The Boy King period is Arthurestablishing himself through
(16:59):
bloody conquest.
The Boy King period is Arthurestablishing himself through
bloody conquest.
The Conquest period is Arthurexpanding out across Europe.
The Romance period is knightsbeing all chivalrous and courtly
and the Tournament periodbuilds on this flowering of
knighthood.
The Grail Quest period iseverything starting to go wrong
and the Twilight period is theinevitable slide towards the
(17:20):
battle of cameron.
What's brilliant about this isthat it gives you the full
emotional arc of the Arthurianlegend.
You start with young knightsfull of hope and ambition and
you end with something liketheir great, great great
grandchildren watching the dreamfall apart.
It's tragedy on an absolutelyepic scale, but it's a tragedy
(17:43):
you will have lived through stepby step.
Stafford said it wasaccumulation of 40 years of
research and 20 years ofdevelopment, and it shows.
This is not just a gamesupplement.
It's a love letter to Arthurianliterature, written by someone
who genuinely loves both thestories and understands how to
make them work at the gamingtable.
(18:05):
It won the Diana Jones Award in2007, and rightly so, I'd argue
.
It's one of the best RPGsupplements ever written.
In 2009, white Wolf soldPendragon to Stuart Weak, and he
set up Nocturnal Media to keepit going.
They did solid work.
(18:25):
They updated 5th edition acouple of times and even tried
to create a spin-off game calledPaladin, which was all about
knights serving Charlemagne.
Paladin was actually quite good, but it kind of sank without a
trace, Turns out, nobody reallywanted oh, it's Pendragon, but
French, you know, which is fairenough.
Then, in 2018, both Greg andStuart died within months of
(18:48):
each other.
The hobby lost two genuinegiants, and Pendragon found
itself orphaned once again.
Fortunately, ksem stepped inand brought Pendragon home.
Stuart's brother, steve, put itall rather poetically.
Those of us who remainnocturnal have tried to keep the
Pendragon fire lit through thenight, but it's clear that for
(19:12):
the fire to become a bonfire,the wheels should turn full
circle and Pendragon return toits origin, which brings us to
the sixth edition that KSEMreleased, and it's been
something.
Now, first off, let's get thisout of the way, the sixth
edition includes female knightsas standard player characters
(19:35):
and, surprise, surprise, somepeople on the internet had an
absolute fit about it.
There were angry posts, therewere accusations of woke-washing
, there were claims abouthistorical accuracy the whole
nine yards.
This is mental for severalreasons.
First, female knights have beenin Pendragon the game since
1990, this isn't new in the gamesince 1990.
(20:04):
This isn't new.
Secondly, you're playing a gameset in 6th century Britain
where knights wear 14th centuryarmour, fight with medieval
weapons and regularly encounterthings like talking animals and
magical swords.
If you can accept all of thatbut draw the line at female
knights, you might want toexamine your priorities.
Your complaints are not comingfrom a place of historical
(20:25):
accuracy.
They're coming from a muchdarker place.
We all know where they'recoming from.
Thirdly, medieval literature,the actual source material
Pendragon draws from, is full offemale warriors Bradamante, the
Order of the Hatchet, loads ofothers.
This stuff isn't moderninvention.
It's in the bloody books.
That is the source material.
(20:47):
Greg Stafford himself wasapparently fine with it too.
Somebody once apparently toldhim that they wouldn't play
Pendragon until they could playa lesbian Jewish knight, to
which he said fine, come overnext Tuesday and we'll see what
we can do.
Look, the RPG audience haschanged massively since 1985.
Being Jewish Knight to which hesaid fine, come over next
Tuesday and we'll see what wecan do.
Look, the RPG audience haschanged massively since 1985.
(21:09):
Women make up a huge portion ofplayers now and, frankly, a
game about the highest ideals ofknighthood and chivalry should
probably live up to those idealsby including everyone who wants
to be included.
The mechanical changes don'taffect the themes of honour,
chivalry and tragic heroism.
They just let more peopleexperience them.
So let's be clear femaleknights are not a problem.
Let's talk about the actualproblems with the 6th edition,
(21:31):
because there are plenty of them.
This release has had itsproblems from start to finish.
There was a quick start put outin 2020, promising that the
full game was imminent.
Then they released a starterset in 2023, again saying that
the core book was nearly ready,and the core book finally
(21:52):
appeared in 2024.
Those of you who were aroundfor the Call of Cthulhu
Kickstarter will be intimatelyfamiliar with KSCM's rather
erratic release schedule.
However, let's look at theproducts themselves.
The starter set is lovelyBeautiful production values,
(22:12):
proper medieval manuscript feel,excellent introductory
adventures.
If you want to get intoPendragon, it's a great place to
start.
But if you actually want to runa campaign the core of what
Pendragon's about yeah, goodluck with that.
It has no rules for all thegenerational stuff that makes
(22:34):
Pendragon so great.
There's a proviso that youwould buy the main rulebook for
that.
But when we look at the corebook, it's missing lots of stuff
too.
This feels much more like theplayer's handbook for D&D.
There is no GM advice, there'sno beast to read, there's no
starting adventures, there'sbarely any equipment to speak of
(22:55):
the battle system for massbattles that's actually in the
starter set, but not the corebook, which feels kind of
bizarre.
Estate management one of thecore systems of the game that's
relegated to a future supplementwith no release dates.
It feels like they've taken onecomplete game and chopped it up
into three or four products tomaximise sales, which would be
(23:19):
annoying enough if all theproducts actually existed.
But they don't.
You're being told repeatedly tobuy books that haven't been
written yet.
And here's the real kicker.
In the Appendix A there's anote from Greg Stafford and he
refers to this as GregStafford's Ultimate Edition.
Ultimate as in the finaldefinitive, complete version of
(23:42):
Pendragon, except it's notcomplete.
It's kind of the opposite ofcomplete, it's the eventually
we'll finish this edition.
One reviewer put it perfectly.
They said this feels like aproduct for people who own
previous editions of Pendragon,which is a shame.
If you're a newcomer trying toget into the game, you're
(24:04):
basically stuck.
If you compare this to the 5.2edition, which gave you
everything you needed in onebook Character stats for major
NPCs, background on thepolitical situation, enough
material to run a campaignstraight out of the box the
(24:27):
sixth edition gives us charactercreation, the core rules and a
promise that other stuff iscoming soon.
And it's deeply frustratingbecause when Pendragon is firing
in all cylinders, it's one ofthe best RPGs ever made, but
right now it's kind of hard torecommend this to new people.
However, all that aside, here isthe thing about Pendragon.
It proved that RPGs could bemore than just tactical combat
(24:50):
simulators or power fantasies.
It showed that games could havegenuine literary merit and that
they could explore themes ofhonour and duty and sacrifice in
meaningful ways.
Most RPGs, even the good ones,are basically about accumulating
power.
You get stronger, you get morespells, you get better gear, you
fight bigger monsters.
(25:11):
That's fine, but it's also kindof shallow.
Pendragon is about loss.
Your character will grow oldand die.
Your kingdom will facechallenges that can't be solved
with your sword.
Your greatest victories willcontain the seeds of future
tragedies, and somehow thatmakes the triumphs more
meaningful, not less.
(25:32):
The influence of this approachcan be seen all over modern game
design, story games, narrativemechanics, character-driven
campaigns.
Pendragon was doing all of thisstuff in 1985, when most
designers were still arguingabout whether or not thieves
should be able to backstabdragons.
It's also influenced actualliterature.
(25:54):
There are novelists andscreenwriters who've cited
Pendragon as an influence andhow they approach their writing.
When you consider that thefourth edition spun off a whole
line of Arthurian literature,you can realise that the game
didn't just adapt the legend, ithas become part of it.
(26:15):
So where does Pendragon go fromhere?
Honestly, I'm not sure.
Ksm clearly believes in theproperty they wouldn't have
brought it back otherwise butthe 6th edition launch suggests
that they haven't figured outhow to quite make it
commercially viable in themodern market.
Maybe that's okay.
(26:36):
Maybe Pendragon is destined tobe a niche product for people
who want something deeper thanthe usual RPG fare.
Maybe it's enough that itexists that new players can
still discover it and have theirminds blown by what RPGs can
actually do when they're doneright.
All I know is that once you'veexperienced proper Pendragon,
(26:58):
once you've played through agenerational campaign and
watched your night's childrengrow up to face the same
challenges their parents faced,it's hard to go back to games
where death is just aninconvenience and time doesn't
matter.
Pendragon is the holy grail ofRPGs beautiful, elusive and
utterly transformative for thosewho find it.
(27:19):
Here's hoping it survives longenough for the next generation
of players to discover what allthe fuss is about.
(27:52):
And that was our deep dive intopen dragons brilliant but
troubled history.
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(28:13):
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(28:33):
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