King Arthur Pendragon: Epic Role Playing in Legendary Britain [Paperback]

This game lives up to it's title. While, perhaps, a bit more gritty than the "Once and Future King" stories, the rules do an excellent job of re-creating the world of King Arthur. I've been Role Playing for quite a while now... 14 years? And this is one of the best games out there, and a very refreshing change from the Monty Haul-ism of D&D and the like.

The emphasis here is on ROLE PLAYING. The rules focus on attempting to become a perfect knight, a paragon of virtue, and a knight of renoun. Unlike other games, this game incorporates a "winter season" that assumes downtime, and allows your character to age. Yes, aging is a part of this game, and perhaps your character's children will get to adventure as well.

The Traits operate on a balance scale of 20 points - The total of these two attributes add up to 20. So you have, perhaps, Merciful 17 - Cruel 3. Passions are things you feel strongly about, your Lord, hate of the Saxons, etc.

This is a sample of the way the rules are designed to help you Role Play rather than Roll Play.

Combat and Magic are taken much more seriously than in D&D. Your character's hit pionts are derived from their stats, and stay that way for the rest of the game (more or less). The most hit points you can have is 39. Armor absorbs damage. Now, what's the most damage our 39 hit point character can do with his sword? 7D6 - that's up to 42 points, with an average of 24/25.

Combat is to be taken seriously!

As for Magic, well. This isn't D&D. There's none of the flash-bang Magic that there is in D&D. In fact, Merlin would be impressed by the magic a 2nd level D&D wizard could do. Spells take a long time to cast. Holy Ground, High Holidays, group ceremonies, etc. have a great effect on the outcome of spells. This is a game where players will spend weeks or months preparing spells, to be cast in holy places, on high holy days. Then spending time resting and recuperating after spells have been cast.

I don't know how supplements handle magic, Faerie, etc. Notice again that the emphasis here is on Role Playing, Storytelling, not FLASH-BANG effects. This game gives you opportunities to describe events, tournaments, adventures, celebrations, not just hack-and-slash fighting.

This game isn't for everyone, even those who it is for may take a while to acclimate. Like Castle Falkenstein, and Amber, this game is designed to help you tell a story. The rules add to the drama, they aren't just a collection of rules on how to create powerful characters and how to fight with them. Role Playing came out of Wargaming, and it shows. This is one of the few games that elevates Role Playing to the status of art. This is a game that returns to us the lost art of Story Telling.

The game mechanics are simple and straight forward with events resolved usually by a skill test on d20 and damage rolled with d6. One element that adds much to the colour of the game are the Personality traits and passions. Personality traits are 13 matched pairs of qualities that define how the character often behaves ( example is Wordly and Generous ) with each pair adding to 20. Knights who posses high levels in certain passions gain fame for their chivralous or religous behaviour. Passions represent oaths and duties to others. Strong passions can aid a character to do impossable feats but can also blind a character to other situations.

This game is a classic that has withstood the test of time for a reason and that is it one of the best games around. I especially like running this game with more mature players who want more than another slasher flick or want a more heroic tale to tell.