Chaosium Con Australia: A Personal Report

Chaosium Con landed in Australia for the first time on June 8th and 9th this year. Bridgett Jeffries, Mike Mason, and I had the pleasure of being the “International Guests of Honor,” joining local guests of honor as well. From all reports it was a success, and fingers crossed we get to do it all again next year. The event was held at the Moonee Valley Racing Club (fellow Yanks, that is horse racing and like the Brits our cousins down under do horse racing with panache) in lovely Melbourne. It drew Chaosium fans from across the continent. The Stars Were Right under the Southern Cross.

I will leave general accounting of events to others. Here I will just talk about my experience. I was scheduled to run two VIP games—the final chapter of Six Seasons in Sartar and (for the first time in public ever) an episode from the yet unpublished The Final Riddle—and to lead three seminars. Two were RuneQuest specific, “Bringing RuneQuest to Life” and “Writing for the Jonstown Compendium.” The other was more general, as many attendees were Call of Cthulhu and Pendragon fans. “Running Long Campaigns” was the topic, where I focused on my own Six Seasons-Company of the Dragon-Seven Tailed Wolf, my experiences running Masks of Nyarlathotep across three editions, and having run The Great Pendragon Campaign twice. The seminars were recorded and are due to go up on YouTube. Here I will publish my notes for each over a couple of blog posts.

In this installment, I will talk about my journey there, the first game I ran, and my first seminar.

A Word Or Two About My Journey (Skip if you just want to hear about the Con)

I would be flying into Australia from Tokyo, Japan. There are two airports that service Tokyo, Haneda (which is a stone’s throw from where I used to live in Shinagawa) and Narita, which is just over an hour northeast of the city in Chiba. I left Tokyo about a month ago to live out on the coast, an hour southwest of the city, but since Narita was less expensive by far than Haneda, and had a greater selection of airlines, I chose it to depart from. I went with Qantas rather than a Japanese carrier. “When visiting Rome,” right?

There is an express train that runs to Narita and luckily it stops at Ofuna, a station just two stops from mine. It is a reserved seating train with all the works…beverage service, wi-fi, luggage racks, large seats with fold down trays. Since it was two hours to the airport for me, I took that despite the price. The flight was going to be ten hours, so I wanted to get there as comfortably as I could.

Check-in went swiftly, and there was plenty of time for a pre-flight beer (or two). The flight was an all-nighter. We left at 9 PM and landed  7:30 AM. Melbourne is almost due south from Tokyo, so there is only a one-hour time change. I was impressed by Qantas. The food and service was first rate despite my Economy seat. The only complaint I had was with the Airbus we flew down on. It was tighter and more cramped than the Boeings I usually fly on, and

I was met by the Notorious MOB (Chaosium’s Michael O’Brien) and his wife Susan at the airport. Because it was early morning and check-in at my hotel was later, they took me for (much needed) coffee first. You can always tell you are on a new continent by the trees. The trees in North America look nothing like those in South America, or Asia, or Africa, or Europe. Seeing the trees in Australia I knew I was really there. Spotting a group of kangaroos (amusing Google tells me they are called a “mob,” given my host) only underlined the realization.

I didn’t see much of Melbourne, as the airport, Con, and my hotel are all sort of north central, but what I did see immediately reminded me of San Francisco and the Bay Area circa 25 years ago or so when I lived there. A lot of this was the architecture (the two cities were built around the same time) and the eucalyptus…native to Australia of course but unwisely imported to Northern California where as an invasive species rapidly took over the local ecosystems. But despite the chill in the air from winter Melbourne was a warm, inviting place. Once I got situated in my hotel, I had several hours to myself so I wandered the streets, checking out the shops, the parks, and the venue. The hotel, incidentally, was amazing. With a full kitchen, living and dining room, office area, bed and bath (including a dishwasher and washing machine) I was ready to ditch my room in Japan and move in.

Day One

There was a welcome dinner on the eve of the Con (Friday the 7th) for the guests of honor. We ate, drank, and mingled. I was able to finally put faces to several names. One of them was Chaosium’s events coordinator and community content ambassador Bridgett Jeffries, and another was Call of Cthulhu creative director Mike Mason, my two fellow international guests of honor. 

The Con opened its doors at 10 AM the next morning, and I had a busy day ahead of me. I had a three-hour VIP Six Seasons in Sartar game at 10:30, with a seminar about “Bringing Glorantha to Life” at 2:30, another about “Writing for the Jonstown Compendium” at 3:30, and a book signing at 4:30.  

Six Seasons in Sartar: “The Turning”

(spoilers ahoy if you have not read or played the entire campaign, feel free to skip down to “Bringing RuneQuest to Life”)

Three hours is NOT a lot of time to run a session, especially when you are running the epic finale to a campaign and have to introduce the player characters to the setting. I did not, however, want to hand out pre-generated characters (I did for The Final Riddle, but have always felt Six Seasons should have originals). Instead I made a truncated character creation system tailored to the setting. Since the VIP games were limited to four players, I keyed the system for that number.

The first step would determine core personality and statistics:

Step One: How Do You Solve Problems?

1. You like to solve problems with physical force. 

STR: 18    CON: 14 SIZ: 16 DEX: 12   INT: 10 POW: 12 CHA: 10

MP: 12 HP: 15 (Arms 4, Chest 6, others 5) HR: 3 DSR: 3 SSR: 1

SCD: 1D6 DB: 1D6 AGL: +5 COM: - KNW: - MAG: - MAN: +5

PER: - STL: -5

2. You like to solve problems with charm and persuasion. 

STR: 10    CON: 12 SIZ: 10 DEX: 12 I   NT: 14 POW: 16 CHA: 18

MP: 16 HP: 12 (Arms 3, Chest 5, others 4) HR: 2 DSR: 3 SSR: 2

SCD: 1D6+3 DB: - AGL: +5 COM: +10 KNW: +5 MAG: +10.      MAN: +10

PER: +5 STL: +5

3. You like to solve problems analytically and thoughtfully. 

STR: 10    CON: 10 SIZ: 12 DEX: 12   INT: 18 POW: 16 CHA: 14

MP: 16 HP: 12 (Arms 3, Chest 5, others 4) HR: 2 DSR: 3 SSR: 2

SCD: 1D6+1 DB: - AGL: - COM: +10 KNW: +10 MAG: +5.        MAN: +10

PER: +10 STL: +10

4. You like to solve problems quickly and deftly.

STR: 10    CON: 12 SIZ: 10 DEX: 18 INT: 16    POW: 12 CHA: 14

MP: 12 HP: 12 (Arms 3, Chest 5, others 4) HR: 2 DSR: 1 SSR: 2

SCD: 1D6+1 DB: - AGL: +10 COM: +5 KNW: +5 MAG: - MAN: +15

PER: +5 STL: +15

The next step had the double duty of base skills and family history, introducing key NPCs:

Step Two: Your Father/Mother Is…

Your father is Gordangar, the Clan Chieftain... 

- Starting Skills: Ride (any) +10%, Insight (Human) +10% , Intrigue +10%, Read/Write (own) +10%, Orate +30%, Manage Household +30%, Speak Own Language +10%, Cultural Weapon (pick type) +30%, Customs (own) +10%, Shield (pick type) +30%.

- Standard of Living: Noble

- Ransom: 1000L

Your father is Harvarr, the Smith…

- Starting Skills: Art +10%, Evaluate +10%, Bargain +10%, Craft (primary) +30%, Insight (Human) +10%, Craft (secondary) +20%, Lore (any) +10%, Devise +15%, Manage Household +30%, Cultural Weapon (pick type) +15%.

- Standard of Living: Free

- Ransom: 500L

Your father is Savan OR your Mother is Morganeth…

• Starting Skills: Any cult skill +10%, Lore (Cult) +30%, Dance +10%, Read/Write (own) +10%, Orate +10%, Manage Household +10%, Sing +30%, Worship (deity) +30%, Meditate +10%.
• Standard of Living: Noble

- Ransom: 1000L

Your father is Jorganeth Bladesong OR Erinina Copperaxe…

• Starting Skills: Sing +10%, Scan +10%, Battle +30%, All Unit Weapons (including shield) +25%, First Aid +15%, Other Weapon (pick type) +25%, Listen +10%, Tertiary Weapon +15%.
• Standard of Living: Free

- Ransom: 500L

Magic and Runes was next, and an opportunity to introduce the Black Stag and the wyter cult. As Six Season characters are in their first year of adulthood and not yet pledged to cults, there was no need to dig into all that:

Step Three: Your Runes and Magic

Select four Elemental Runes at 70, 50, 30, and 10. Divide 100 points between paired Runes as you like (max 75 in any Rune).

You are all members of the Wyter cult, the Black Stag. You have 3 Rune Points. You have access to all common Rune spells plus three unique clan Rune spells. I explained the Black Stag’s Rune spells here.

All male characters are lay members of the Orlanth cult. All female members are lay members of Ernalda’s. Males pick up to 5 points of the following spirit magic; Bladesharp, Demoralize, Detect Enemies, Disruption, Fanaticism, Heal, Mobility, Protection, Strength. Women pick up to 5 points of Befuddle, Demoralize, Heal, Second Sight, Shimmer, Slow, Strength, Vigor.

Finally we did quick selection of equipment and extra skill bonuses…

You have any weapon your character is proficient in. Assume 3 APs in all hit locations (cuirboilli, layered leather armor, etc). Add 25% to any four skills on the character sheet. Add 10% to five more. 

We ended up with two players—a brother and sister—as the children of Earth priestess Morganeth, one as the son of Storm Voice Savan, and one as the son of Erinina Copperaxe (being a Babeester Gori, we decided she had her son before she changed course and swore to Babeester Gor). 

Another change from the full campaign is that I removed all mention of Kallyr Starbrow and Shah’vask from the episode. Kangharl was attacking because the Haraborn had been aiding rebel warbands in the mountains and evading tax payments. It was enough to have them absorb the Black Stag, the dire situation the clan was in, and all the new NPCs in two and a half hours without all the rest of the campaign’s complexities.

After the game it was time for the first seminar, “Bringing RuneQuest to Life…”

Seminar One: Bringing RQ to Life

(Note: these are my prepared notes, not word for word verbatim what I actually said. Nor does it include the Q&A portion of the seminar. Please watch the Chaosium video when it comes out for the full seminar)

This is a funny little hobby we find ourselves in. Watch a movie or a stage play, pick up a novel or stream something, and you become a participant in a story. A passive participant, however. An observer. Arguably of these only the novel lets you approach active participation, because you are required to create the setting, the characters, and the story in your mind’s eye. But not even the novel comes close to a roleplaying game. Because in an RPG, the act of creation is all on you. As a player you are responsible for bringing your character to life. As a GM, you have to animate all the NPCs and the setting. The story does not exist until collectively you summon it, breathe life into it, give it shape and texture and a voice. No other form of entertainment is quite like it.

About 65 million years ago, when I was 17 years old, I won something called the New York Young Playwrights Competition. The prize was that my play would be produced by a professional director and theater company, and I was to be part of it, to learn the craft. So I met with the director, and he shared his interpretation of the script. Then I attended the casting sessions and rehearsals, watching the actors give their interpretation of the characters. I had written a fair bit of prose by then, including two painfully adolescent novels, but THIS was so much more exciting. Because this was a collaboration. I put the words on paper but they took those words in new directions. I recognized this, because I had been a role player and GM for about 7 years. They were doing a version of what we do at the table.

Far more recently, watching groups like DMs After Dark or the Old Ways Podcast with their play sessions of Six Seasons in Sartar, it was deja vu. Because they were taking my script and re-interpreting it. Changing it. Bringing it to life. More so, in fact. When you write for RPGs you surrender ownership. Your only role is to assist the GM and their players to bring their Glorantha to life.

And that is what I would like to do here with you today.

There are two parts of this, really: bringing RuneQuest to life and bringing Glorantha to life. They dovetail—because RQ was created as a vehicle for bringing Glorantha to life—but are still separate things. Some of the things I’d like to talk about are more player-specific, and some more GM-specific, but useful I think for both to hear.

Bringing RQ to life is reverse statistics. A statistician looks at life and turns it into numbers. You have to turn numbers into life. All the numbers in the game tell a story. Especially the dice rolls. But it is up to you to find the story through all the numerals.

For example, characteristics. 

Your character has a 16 STR…but what does that look like? Feel like? Is it upper body strength, or do you have massive thighs and calves? SIZ and CON can help form a clearer picture. SIZ 10 and STR 16 and maybe you are lean and wiry…or maybe you are built like a fire hydrant, short and thick. CON 10 and STR 16 you can produce fair bursts of strength but get easily winded. 

What about DEX? With your DEX 18 are you a gymnast or the equivalent of of a master pianist? Is it agility or hand-eye coordination? How do you maintain that DEX? Practice the equivalent of Glorantha yoga? Or what about a low DEX. Were you injured as a child falling from a tree and the joints never really healed? Just naturally clumsy?

The same goes for the mental and spiritual traits. High POW and high CHA and maybe you are just naturally magnetic. High INT and high CHA and maybe you are a master manipulator, able to get inside people’s heads. 

Building a character starts with letting the characteristics tell you their story.

And what about Passions? In my upcoming The Final Riddle I have a set of pre generated characters for players who want them. Two of them, an alcoholic Humakti and a young thief both have the Love Passion for each other. But what does that mean, beyond the numbers? Are they romantically involved, or do they love each other as brothers? Your character loves their spouse at 80%…okay, but why? What about them do you love? How did you meet? Same goes for Loyalty. Are you loyal to your chieftain because he inspires you, or because that is what is expected of you? What has he done to inspire your loyalty?

Basically you can sit down with any characteristic, trait, or skill on your character sheet and find a story in it. The more you do this, the more alive the character feels. 

And GMs…all this is true for NPCs too.

But lets ease into the Glorantha part of the conversation by talking about Rune affinities. As we all know, the Runes are the building blocks of Glorantha, the essence. They define and inform every facet of the setting. A fish is Beast and Water. A bird is Beast and Fire/Sky. Seaweed is Water and Plant. Fungus is Plant and Darkness. Etc. When I design NPCs, I start with their Runes. This is good practice for players too. Think about how the Runes inform the character’s personality and appearance.

Let’s say you are playing a Sartarite. They tend to be dark-eyed, dark-haired, bronze-skinned. But a Sartarite with a high Fire/Sky Rune might have pale eyes, grey or even blue. Their might be gold highlights in their hair. With high Air and Fire/Sky Runes they might be proud and violent, but also more thoughtful and idealistic. They employ violence for a cause, an ideal. They are freedom fighters, anarchists, out to reshape the world. Compare this with a character who has high Air and Darkness Runes. Just as violent but cold, cruel, and patient. Pure serial killer material.  

So much can be done with the Runes. What colors does the character wear? What sort of things are they attracted to? What foods do they like? Water people like fish. Fire/Sky people prefer poultry. Air Rune folk are beef and mutton eaters. Earth Rune people—the sensualists—are the gourmands. Darkness Rune people tend to be gluttons…they eat and eat and eat. Moon Rune people are the most likely to fast, or forgo food, seeking liberation from the demands of the body. There really is no end to things you can discover about your character by plumbing the depths of the Runes.

GMs…think about Runes as overall themes for adventures, as well as defining settings. A forest with the Plant and Water Runes is swampy, wet, damp. A forest with Plant and Darkness is brooding, dark, and full of fungal growths. A village with a strong Harmony Rune will be ordered and peaceful. A village with a high Disorder Rune is full of division, crime, and infighting. Superman’s Metropolis has the Harmony Rune, Batman’s Gotham has Disorder (and Darkness!). Stories themselves can be defined by Runes as well. If you are having trouble coming up with ideas, write the Runes on index cards and use them as Tarot-like story seeds. Draw three. Movement, Water, and Disorder suggest a story about piracy on the high seas. Movement, Water, and Truth implies a voyage of discovery and exploration instead. Man, Mastery, and Stasis might suggest a story were a stubborn chieftain or leader must be persuaded to act. Fertility, Disorder, and Fire/Sky might inspire a story about drought. Earth, Disorder, and Movement a terrible earthquake. Single card draws are useful for adversaries and specific scenes. Draw Fire/Sky and the Sun Domers show up. Draw Moon and its the Lunars. 

The more you bring Runes into play, the more the game lives up to its name and the more Glorantha comes alive. Let the Runes define everything from the gods to the landscape. Make their influence omnipresent. Sorcerers already get Runic bonuses (and penalties) for their spells, but why stop there? Fire/Sky is associated with INT, Perception skills (particularly Scan), spears, and bows. On Fireday do these get a little +10% boost? On Fireday in Fire Season is it 15%? If that seems too generous, maybe Fire/Sky Rune affinities get a boost instead, making it easier to augment. Still too mechanical? Tough crowd. Then ask yourself…doesn’t Fireday tend to be the warmest, driest day of the week? Aren’t the shadows just that much deeper on Freezeday? On Wildday, are weird, random events more likely to occur? If the answer to this is “yes,” you are bringing the game to life by making the Runes a constant, consistent presence.

Now, the one thing I am going to spare you is ideas on how to make combat more vivid. 

First of all, I think this falls under turning the numbers into a story, and RuneQuest is already very, very good at helping you do this. In D&D, thirteen hit points is an abstract concept. In RuneQuest, thirteen points to your right leg when you have only four points of armor there is how the game got the nickname “LimbQuest.” The only thing I would suggest, GMs, is to let the players interpret and narrate the damage both that they inflict on opponents and that they take themselves. Let the player decide if that nine points of damage shattered his knee cap or mangled his ankle. You handle the game, let the players provide the gore. Second, bringing combat to life has been discussed time and time again into a thousand RPGs. Let’s discuss something far more interesting.

Breakfast.

You want your players to inhabit their characters? Tell them what their meal is and what it tastes like. Weapons & Equipment—the most woefully misnamed book in the history of gaming—is your Bible for this. Tell your players often enough that they are having flatbread for breakfast fresh from the hot stones and they will soon take over for you. I once had a player, his character discussing battle plans over breakfast, tell me “I pick at my flatbread absentmindedly and think.” I had not mentioned the flatbread in that scenario, but he knew. Don’t stop there. What kind of flatbread? “The maize flatbread is lighter and thinner than the einkorn you grew up eating, and somehow less filling.” Make sure they players know that the barley wine in this inn is watery, or sour. Make sure they know they are drinking it out of bowls. It is tempting to want to breeze past these things. Don’t. Food is where people live. The way to a character’s heart is through their stomach.

Don’t stop with food. How are the drinking bowls painted in this tavern? What toy is the child on the street corner playing with? Describe the character’s bed rolls when they travel. Ask them where they dig their latrines. Connect the characters with as many aspects of their lives as you can. Once players become familiar with these details, they will adopt them, expect them, and inhabit the world when they play, having enough of a sense of it that they can add details themselves.

PENDRAGON, THE 6TH EDITION

THE COMING OF THE KING

Being the Tale of the Road Leading to Pendragon

BY THE TIME I started playing their games in 1982, Chaosium already had something of a reputation.  Though no one was using the term back then, Chaosium appeared determined to be the first real publisher of what we now call "Indie" games.  While most publishers were either trying to "fix" D&D, rip off D&D, or adapt D&D to other genres, Chaosium was cornering the market on deeply literary, art house products, seemingly disinterested in the pop culture trends informing the developing RPG hobby.  At a time when Tolkien and Star Wars increasingly determined the conventions of tabletop role-play, Chaosium was drinking from a very different well.  Just look at the history.   

Chaosium's first RPG was RuneQuest--a game inspired by ancient epics and the academic theories of thinkers like Mircea Eliade and Joseph Campbell.  RuneQuest had no orcs, no knights in shining armor, no recognizable Dark Lord.  There were no jovial halflings, singing elves, or dour dwarves.  Instead, RuneQuest featured a bewildering array of invented gods and exhaustive ruminations on mythology.  The most polite word for this game was "niche." 

Soon after, as the entire point of contemporary RPGs seemed to be accumulating levels and treasure, taking down bigger and badder adversaries, and climbing to greater heights of power, Chaosium followed RuneQuest with a game that  turned all the burgeoning conventions of RPGs on their head. Call of Cthulhu, a game based on the writings of pulp writer H. P. Lovecraft had its characters spiraling into despair, madness, and death.  These weren't heroes, they were investigators, and horrifically out of their depth.  Add to this the fact that in 1981, outside of French academia and those lucky enough to own hand-me-down Arkham House collections, Lovecraft's "Cthulhu Mythos" was practically unknown, and Call of Cthulhu becomes a very art house choice for a company's second RPG. 

Fantasist Michael Moorcock was certainly better known than Lovecraft, but the publication of Stormbringer that same year was yet another example of Chaosium refusing to "just do" Tolkieneque high fantasy like everyone else.  Moorcock--who years later would be nick-named the "Anti-Tolkien"--famously rejected the creator of Middle-earth in his classic 1978 essay, "Epic Pooh." By making Stormbringer their third RPG, Chaosium doubled down on its own rejection of expected fantasy RPG tropes.  

Three years later, at the very height of Star Wars fever, Chaosium yet again zigged while the rest of the industry was zagging with the hard science Ringworld.  Based on the works of acclaimed writer Larry Niven, Ringworld was another example of the emerging Chaosium pattern; go with the literary rather than the cinematic, the niche rather than the popular.

That Chaosium not only succeeded with these games, but in fact became an established brand through them, says something about the times.  Before video games, binge-watching, or the Internet, nerds were bookish.  The first generation of gamers in the 70s and early 80s didn't just read Tolkien, they read Howard and Poul Andersen, Fritz Leiber, Roger Zelazny, etc.  Gygax's Dungeon Master's Guide came with an impressive bibliography.  Thus, when eleven-year-old me first encountered Stormbringer and Call of Cthulhu back in 1982, the first thing I did was go back into the literature, reading every piece of Moorcock and Lovecraft I could get my hands on. RuneQuest had had a similar effect on me.  I read everything from the Iliad to Eliade.  Literature was the primary fuel for roleplaying.

Timing is everything, however, and the moment when Chaosium forever defined itself as a gateway drug into classic literature came in 1985, just as the rest of the hobby seemed to be turning away from literature towards television, cinema, and eventually—in a predictable display of inbreeding—itself for inspiration.  With Dragons of Autumn Twilight sitting on bookstore shelves, marking the dawn of an age when games now produced their own insular literature, Chaosium did exactly what they always did and went in the opposite direction.  Greg Stafford, who had already given us Glorantha, wrote his love letter to Sir Thomas Malory and 15th century Arthurian Romance.  If Call of Cthulhu was Chaosium's greatest commercial success, this game was their greatest artistic one.

It's name was King Arthur Pendragon.   

A winner of Origins awards for Best Roleplaying Game Rules and Adventures, the Diana Jones Award for Gaming Excellence, and an inductee into the GAMA Hall of Fame, Pendragon is ranked 5th in RPG.net's highest rated games, and consistently mentioned by both gamers and game designers as a groundbreaking and seminal work. Stafford himself viewed the game as his "masterpiece."  If you like your games literary, thoughtful, and thrilling, Pendragon needs to be on your shelf.          

THE ONCE AND FUTURE GAME

Being the Story of Core Pendragon, and What Remains in this Edition  

Pendragon is, obviously, a game set in Arthurian Britain.  Given 1500 years of telling and retelling these stories, however, that covers a lot of ground.  Specifically then Pendragon is the unofficial Le Morte d'Arthur RPG.  Despite Stafford's discussions of the English, French, Welsh, and contemporary versions of the cycle (and how to include elements of them in your campaign), what is clear is that Thomas Malory lies close to the heart of the game and defines its parameters.  This means Pendragon is a game about knights; there are no rogues, no barbarians, no clerics, and no magicians...at least not as player characters.  There are no dwarves or elves (again, not as player characters).  Your character is an armored warrior in a feudal system of vassalage, and expected to follow a code of chivalry.  It also means that your character's traits and passions are going to be front and center in the game.  Malory distinguished his bewildering array of knights by focusing on their personalities; Galahad was chaste, Gawaine lecherous, Argravaine a bit cruel.  Lancelot was defined, for good of for ill, by his passion for Guinevere.  Because these things were important to Malory, they are important in Pendragon.  Finally, it means this game is going to be a bit anachronistic.  Malory's work was published in 1485, roughly a thousand years after the period it was set in, and the world he portrays looks a great deal more like his than post-Roman Britain.  Pendragon deals with this in a very clever way, which we will get to in a moment, but players need to be prepared for shining  armor, jousts, and courtly love.

I keep calling it "Pendragon." It should be noted that up until this new edition, the title was fully King Arthur Pendragon, and the 6th shortens it to what we all basically have been calling it anyway. 

Pendragon campaigns tend to cover the same period of time as Le Morte d’Arthur as well; namely from the reign of Arthur’s father, Uther, up through Arthur’s “death” and being spirited away to the isle of Avalon.  This is about eight decades of game play, and to accommodate this Stafford builds in the conceit that player character knights have one adventure per year.  Aside from the adventure itself, there is a year-end winter phase, when the GM and players manage the knight’s estate, arrange a suitable marriage, and go about the business of producing heirs who will then become the new player characters when the original ones are too old for adventure.  A player then might end up roleplaying three of four generations of characters.  It’s not merely a clever way to get through the whole of Arthur’s reign, but also goes to the root of another very authentic Malory concern…lineage.  Arthur’s story is, after all, just as much Uther and Mordred’s as it is his own.  

Pendragon uses this pacing to do something else rather extraordinary.  When the game begins under the reign of Uther, it is very 5th century Britain (or does it? see below).  The armor is a bit anachronistic (Norman), but the character’s estate is likely to be a ruined Roman villa or a wooden motte-and-bailey castle.  Life is Hobbesian; chivalry is not yet a thing and there is nothing resembling courtly love.  Magic and the supernatural are also quite rare.  Yet as the game passes through phases of Arthur’s reign, the arrival of the King unleashes a sort of magic over Britain.  Time accelerates, so that you race technologically through a thousand years of medieval history.  By the end, heavy plate armor, magnificent soaring castles and towers, high chivalry and courtly love all exist.  At the same time, magic increases.  Supernatural creatures and Fae knights make their appearances, as Britain becomes idealized and enchanted.  Of course Arthur’s death will end all of this, and the Dark Ages will rush back in, but for one brief, shining moment, there was Camelot.  Stafford brilliantly made Malory’s anachronisms a feature rather than a bug in a way that also allows groups to experiment with “different” Arthurs…one phase can be the historical Arthur, the next the old Welsh Arthur, later the English Arthur or the French Arthurian romances.  

The system itself is something of an evolution of the classic Chaosium “basic roleplaying” rules. It uses a d20, rather than the BRP percentile, with the player attempting to role less than or equal to his rating in a skill or trait.  A critical success is achieved by rolling exactly your target number; if your skill is 16, rolling a 16 is a critical.  A 20 is always a fumble…unless your rating is higher than 20, in which it becomes a critical.  It’s a clever way of making sure that higher skill matters, rather than a critical being just a roll of a 1.  This universal mechanic handles all die resolutions in the game.

Since the player characters are all knights, they are distinguished from each other though what is probably the real centerpiece of the game, the system of Traits and Passions.  Lancelot was no doubt a great warrior, but we remember him for his love for Guinevere. Likewise, Arthur is revered for his sense of justice more than his jousting score.  To be true to the genre, the same has to apply to the characters in the game.

Characters are defined then by 13 pairs of opposed Traits, the sum total of each pair being twenty.  Pairs include Chaste/Lustful, Merciful/Cruel, Valorous/Cowardly, etc.  If your Chaste is 13, your Lustful must 7.  If Chaste increases, Lustful goes down.  These act as general guidelines how to play the character, unless the Traits rise close enough to 20 that you start earning “Glory” (a form of experience) from them.  Thus, if you are renowned for being a Chaste Knight, and earn Glory for your chastity, acting Lustful will probably require a roll.  If you fail your Chaste roll, you can act however you like.  If you succeed you must be Chaste, or else suffer a penalty (such as the Trait being reduced).

Passions have an even more profound effect on the game.  These can be things like Love, Loyalty, or Hate, usually targeted towards a specific person or group.  Passions can be rolled against to become inspired by the passion, gaining a bonus for a success and a larger bonus for a critical.  On the other hand, failing them, or fumbling them, can drive the character into depression or even madness.  We turn again to Lancelot as the perfect example of this.  His Love for Guinevere (or Amor, before they became actually lovers), could inspire him to fight furiously for her if she is endangered or abducted, but a failed roll could send him years of madness as a hermit in the woods (all of which has happened in the cycle).  This may not seem terribly realistic my modern standards, but it suits the reality of Malory perfectly.

THE LATEST EDITION

In which Arthur and His Knights Learn of what has Changed...

When Stafford and Sandy Petersen returned to the House That Greg Built in 2015, they brought with them a new team and an ambitious agenda. First came the Call of Cthulhu 7th edition, an edition that instituted more mechanical changes in the game than any previous edition. This was followed by RuneQuest Roleplaying in Glorantha, an edition that...instituted more mechanical changes than any edition before. Now we have Pendragon 6th edition which, you guessed it, institutes more changes than any edition before. Don't take my word for it. Take Greg's. He wrote:

This is the sixth edition of the game. Only the transition from first edition to second has had as much updating as this one has. Yet despite the intervening time, even material made for the first edition game is compatible with this one. Sure, it needs a bit of Gamemaster tweaking, but this consistency spanning forty years of writing is a rare distinction in an industry where new editions tend to wipe out previous ones in an effort to force consumers to purchase a whole new set of books. Such mercenary considerations have never ruled my designs.

Pendragon, p. 237

I have seen in a few other early reviews the complaint that the 6th edition has "less" in it than some previous editions. The Core Rulebook covers only the creation of characters from the region of Salisbury, which was also the case in the 5th edition (the sprawling 4th edition covered characters across the Arthurian world). It seems to have removed the--ahem--"woman's character sheet," a conceit in previous editions to allow players to portray female characters in a more authentic medieval way. Instead, it keeps the focus squarely on "knights," and this includes female knights or "dames." There is no bestiary, "no scenarios" (there are, in fact, solo scenarios, generic adventures intended to catch up naughty players who miss game sessions), etc. While it is clear to me that many of these things will likely appear in the upcoming Gamemaster book (and others are the result of design choices meant to speak to 21st century players), Greg's point above still stands. If you have any previous editions of the game, you can still use them with this one. This Core Rulebook, instead, is aimed at new players, who will hardly miss any of the material mentioned above. With the simultaneous release of The Grey Knight, and the prior release of the Starter Set, much of this has already been covered anyway.

But there is a lot that is new in this edition, and it is with some sadness that I read Stafford write:

This is “Greg Stafford’s Ultimate Edition” because it will be my last version, simply because my age requires me to work on new material, not to revise the old.

He goes on to explain what this edition focuses on is detail. In that, it delivers. It takes much of what players of previous editions were simply supposed to know and lays it all out. There is more on knighthood, on what knights do, on the setting, on weapons and equipment, even on generating a coat of arms. And Pendragon 6 takes older elements of the game and expands them. "Honor" is the prime example. It existed in previous editions but here it is highlighted, hugely detailed and expanded, and made as central an element of a knight's progress as Glory is (Glory in all editions served as a knight's general "experience points" measure, their notoriety and fame, etc). It moves from being a detail of the game to a primary concern. 

Skills have been considerably reworked and re-detailed. Converting from previous editions, skills will be where the most juggling is. Yet they are clearer then they have ever been, once again better enabling players to understand what they are for, why they are there, and how they explain the setting and what knights do. To illustrate the differences I am driving at here, let us simply compare the skill "Dancing" from the 5th and 6th editions:

5th Edition

This Skill measures the character’s ability to move gracefully to music, as well as his knowledge of the many styles of formal dancing done at court. This elegant style of dancing depends primarily on experience and knowledge of forms rather than on agility. A success indicates accurate adherence to the accepted form of the dance being performed, while a critical success indicates superb grace, verve, and perhaps spontaneity. A fumble means that the character went the wrong way, probably bumping into other dancers. The Gamemaster may even rule that the fumbler tripped and fell over his own feet. A fumbled Dance roll is invariably a humiliating experience. Glory can be gained from successful Dance rolls if the dancer(s) are the center of attention.

6th Edition

Skill Groups: Courtly, Ladies

Skill Use (what function might the skill use in play, to show off, to gain information, to sway others, etc): Deed, Inquiry

(Can) Glory (be gained): Yes

This Skill measures the character’s ability to know the difference between types of dances and the proper steps for each. Courtly dances are usually performed in groups, with dancers clasping hands and arms, swinging their partners about, and trying to avoid collisions with others. The dance music varies in tempo and duration. A failed roll means the dancer turns in a mediocre and forgettable effort, while a fumble indicates a collision on the dance floor or a similar faux pas.

Courtly Dances

Court dances are always group affairs meant to entertain both participants and observers. These are performed in a courtly setting, with musicians making pleasing sounds and keeping the beat. Dances are not every-night affairs but are sponsored at gatherings and celebrations.

- A Carole or Ronde is performed by a group of dancers arranged in a circle, or sometimes in a chain or procession. A leader sings a song, and the other dancers answer with the refrain.

- A Quadrille is a dance for four couples who stand in a square.

- A Basse Dance is for couples and is slow and sedate.

- The Black Nag, Black Alman, Estampie, and Rufty Tufty are lively yet dignified, with jumping and much bowing andcurtseying. Dancers are divided into couples who face each other.

- A Saltarello is another active dance, with much jumping about and lively steps.

- Commoners have their own dances, but these are obscure to knights and ladies.

This is where the focus of the new Pendragon lies. It brings a level of detail and "life" to the game that was previously missing or exiled to source books rather than the core game.

This continues into what knights can aspire to become. In a game with a single character "class," differentiation comes from personality and what the characters aspire to. We have seen in previous editions, for example, the "religious knight" who puts faith first. But here too we have the "chivalrous knight" for whom the code knights live by is a chief concern, and the "romantic knight," a critical ideal for a genre so often referred to as "Arthurian Romance." 

SIGNS & PORTENTS

In which the Author Speculates Wildly

The sixth edition Core Rulebook is, without question, the definitive guide to playing knights in the world of King Arthur Pendragon. Its sole focus is to take the reader into the setting and show them what it means to dwell there, to be part of that milieu. There is less for Gamemasters, but frequent mentions are made of the upcoming "gamemaster's book" which I am completely on board for. 

More tantalizing, I think, is page 7.

Inseparable in my mind from the game is The Great Pendragon Campaign. Stafford spoke of Pendragon as his masterpiece, but if this were true, The Great Pendragon Campaign was the masterpiece of his masterpiece. This was a campaign book that exemplified and defined everything Pendragon is, taking players from 485 AD to 566, the entirety of Arthur's reign. Later expansions allowed play to start earlier, in the reign of Arthur's father, Uther. This is the book that shows the accelerated march of time, from the post-Roman dark ages to the era of high romance, and ensured at least 100 extraordinary play sessions.

But page 7...page 7...

If you are an Arthurian nerd you know the story goes back much further than Uther. On page 7 "The Pendragon Chronology" begins with Constantin in 415 AD, then goes through the Vortigern, Tyrant, Uprising, and Aurelius periods before we reach Uther. And the page says, and I quote...

The volumes of The Great Pendragon Campaign...expand on these details...

"Volumes," Chaosium? Plural? Are you bringing us the earlier periods as well?

THE LAST ENCHANTMENT

Because the Author had to Work In at least One Mary Stewart Reference...

Obviously, it is a very pretty book.

I say this because most editions of Pendragon have, in various ways, been beautiful, but also because every post-2015 Chaosium production has had jaw-dropping art. There is a wide range of art here, which I have noticed recent RuneQuest tomes have shied away from in favor of a single artist or unifying vision. I think the range fits here, because there is not, nor can there be, "one Arthur." 

I think despite Greg Stafford's name being the only one on the book, credit must go to line editor David Larkins, developer Veli-Matti Pelkonen and David Zeeman, and creative director Jeff Richard for the book. My suspicion is that all bowed out gracefully from credit because this was the Great Man's final work. But the team of artists deserves praise, and the rest who had a hand in the book's lay-out and production.

Ultimately, Chaosium is dealing in 40+-year-old properties that are uncontested classics. Call of Cthulhu, RuneQuest, and Pendragon are "hall of fame" games, undisputed masterpieces of design and execution. This makes it tricky to roll out new editions. What I think we have seen in Cthulhu and RuneQuest, and now especially in Pendragon, is a recognition of what made these games legendary, and a sort of "let's go with that" attitude. They are updated for modern play, to be certain, but anyone sitting down at Pendragon 6 having started with the first edition will immediately recognize the game. At the same time, there has simply never been a better introduction to Pendragon than the Starter Set and this Core Rulebook. You are immediately transported into Camelot's cosmos, and the support the system and content gives you makes you feel you belong there.