There are also passions, skills, and attributes. First, it’s effortless to get into character when you know you’ll be rolling and facing the consequences of failure to follow your character’s natural path anyway. There are several reasons I like this approach as a player and a GM. If I fail, I will roll to see if I score under my Cruel score, if I do, I must behave cruelly. For example, if I want my knight Phillipa to spare the life of a peasant who caused her to be unhorsed and publically humiliated, I would have to roll under her Merciful score on a d20. When a player decides to have their character act against their traits, the GM may ask them to roll. The total score of the pairs must always add up to 20 (e.g., if my knight has a 6 in Merciful, she has to have a 14 in Cruel). Each trait is a matched pair like Prudent/Reckless or Valorous/Cowardly. I’ve never seen a game take a similar approach. One of the things I love the most about the system is the Traits. It’s no wonder there are multiple games in production built from the KAP ruleset, including Paladin: The Warriors of Charlemagne and a forthcoming game set in feudal Japan. However, for me, the system is the other standout element.
So aside from the fact you get to play a knight with the opportunity to make history, build a family and a legacy (all part of the rules), and potentially even join Arthur at the Round Table, there is also a deep and strange connection to Merlin and the magic of faeries. KAP is, surprise, about ancient England and being a knight (male or female) and chivalry and romanticism and magic and a brilliant system for role-playing. I’ll summarize for those who may be unfamiliar. Nothing new here if you are already familiar with perhaps the most excellent RPG ever created. Someone want to build one of those right down the street from my house? I promise to be a faithful patron– please? The kicker? They had the absolute largest RPG section of any store I’ve ever visited in any country. They had a clean and pleasant atmosphere, friendly staff, and space to play (3 RPG sessions going on while I was in the store).
That store in Barcelona had fiction and non-fiction books, RPGs, board games, Magic, and plenty of fun toys. Full-color art and plenty of it, and that cover.
#King arthur pendragon rpg pdf 5.1 plus#
I was lucky enough to flip through the pages of the Spanish versions of King Arthur Pendragon and The Great Pendragon Campaign on a recent trip to Spain, plus a fantastic GM screen that I bought tucked in my carry-on for the trip back to the US (pictured below), and they are all glorious.
It was pulled from the Spanish version of the game, where they also have additional updated products. Once Nocturnal’s offset print run is available, you’ll be able to pick up hardcover copies as well. It’s a decent price for a book this size.
#King arthur pendragon rpg pdf 5.1 update#
I’ll update this post when I have my copy.Īt any rate, for $19.99 you can get the PDF on DriveThruRPG. I can’t speak for the book quality since I’m still waiting on a hardbound copy from one of Nocturnal Media’s Kickstarters I backed last year. KAP runs 272 pages if you include the newly redesigned character sheets in the back. Most of my previous reviews have been of minimalist RPGs who’s rules could be distilled into a few pages if you wanted them to be incredibly dense. The Pendragon book isn’t the most massive RPG book I own, but it’s nowhere near the smallest either. Primarily, the changes relate to layout and art. A few errata have been merged in, but otherwise, the two versions can be used interchangeably. I own both in PDF and 5.1 print-on-demand hardbound, and they contain mostly the same content. That said, King Arthur Pendragon 5.2 is a mainly cosmetic update from KAP 5.1. I’m going to approach this review as if you know nothing about previous versions. I mean, what game has a chance against Nocturnal Media’s King Arthur Pendragon RPG?Īm I giving away the ending? Oops.