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King Arthur Pendragon 5.2
Relive the grandeur, romance and adventure of the greatest of all legends — the story of King Arthur. Assume the role of a knight starting his career in the time of Uther Pendragon, undertaking quests and perilous adventures for your lord, for your lady-love, for the Church, or for your own glory. Win great renown with your laudable deeds and feats of arms, perhaps even winning the right to carve your name into the Round Table itself as the story of Arthur and Camelot unfolds around you.
With its innovative rules, including the distinctive traits and passions system designed to help you in determining your character's behavior under any circumstances, King Arthur Pendragon provides a unique roleplaying experience laid out against the richest tapestry in Western literature.
This Edition 5.2 offers hundreds of corrections to Edition 5.1 which itself updated the redesigned and reorganized 5th Edition. This book also contains new material and rules changes for 5th Edition by Greg Stafford, the creator of the original game.
With its innovative rules, including the distinctive traits and passions system designed to help you in determining your character's behavior under any circumstances, King Arthur Pendragon provides a unique roleplaying experience laid out against the richest tapestry in Western literature.
This Edition 5.2 offers hundreds of corrections to Edition 5.1 which itself updated the redesigned and reorganized 5th Edition. This book also contains new material and rules changes for 5th Edition by Greg Stafford, the creator of the original game.
276 pages, Unknown Binding
First published November 1, 2005
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
June 11, 2017
An absolutely awesome RPG to embrace Arthurian literature and Stafford's gaming masterpiece.
A longer review may be coming in the works later but consider this a place holder.
OVERALL GRADE: A minus.
A longer review may be coming in the works later but consider this a place holder.
OVERALL GRADE: A minus.
March 21, 2020
I'll write a longer review when I get a chance to run a game.
Pendragon is a venerable game obviously based on the venerable and robust BRP system that is probably more familiar to players of classic Call of Cthulhu. Here, the d% system of CoC is simplified to a D20 'roll low' system, but in most other respects the core mechanics should be familiar to experienced table-top RPers.
The game is tailored to recreate the experience of Mallory's 'Mort D'Arthur' and medieval romance generally. It therefore combines the gritty realism of medieval social life and politics with the high adventure of epic fantasy as it was envisioned centuries ago. It is unabashedly pre-modern in its setting which may or may not be welcome depending on how comfortable you are with playing out a setting that does not in the slightest adhere to modern ideals of social or gender equality, and whose protagonists are - as in Mallory - rarely very admirable in their virtues or are at least highly inconsistently so.
Play is dynastic. You don't so much play a character as you play a leading member of a family which, if slain, is assumed to be replaced by a close relative. This is presumed to happen somewhat frequently, so the vibe here is very much 'Game of Thrones' - sudden extreme violence and just as sudden sexual trysts are very much as true to Malory's ancient tale as they are to GRR Martin's more recent one.
The key attraction of Pendragon, and part of what has made it so enduring, is it is a foundational game in the Narrativist aesthetic of RPG play. That is to say, it is a system very much concerned with not only creating a story through the transcript of play, but in challenging the players and their characters dramatically. It does this by making the characters different Virtues - whether Honor, Honesty, Chastity, Courage, Energy, Justice, or Humility - just as much a part of the character's character sheet as their ability to swing a sword skillfully, perform acrobatic feats, or endure violence. Players are expected to see their character's virtue tested as much as their combat skills, and roll with results that indicate a character has failed tests of honor as much as tests of skill.
The result is likely to be a novel and educational experience, though I do wonder whether or not an update to GRR Martin's setting of Westeros or perhaps easing the settings faithful adherence to medieval social mores with respect to nobility and the role of women might be necessary for a lot of modern groups.
Pendragon is a venerable game obviously based on the venerable and robust BRP system that is probably more familiar to players of classic Call of Cthulhu. Here, the d% system of CoC is simplified to a D20 'roll low' system, but in most other respects the core mechanics should be familiar to experienced table-top RPers.
The game is tailored to recreate the experience of Mallory's 'Mort D'Arthur' and medieval romance generally. It therefore combines the gritty realism of medieval social life and politics with the high adventure of epic fantasy as it was envisioned centuries ago. It is unabashedly pre-modern in its setting which may or may not be welcome depending on how comfortable you are with playing out a setting that does not in the slightest adhere to modern ideals of social or gender equality, and whose protagonists are - as in Mallory - rarely very admirable in their virtues or are at least highly inconsistently so.
Play is dynastic. You don't so much play a character as you play a leading member of a family which, if slain, is assumed to be replaced by a close relative. This is presumed to happen somewhat frequently, so the vibe here is very much 'Game of Thrones' - sudden extreme violence and just as sudden sexual trysts are very much as true to Malory's ancient tale as they are to GRR Martin's more recent one.
The key attraction of Pendragon, and part of what has made it so enduring, is it is a foundational game in the Narrativist aesthetic of RPG play. That is to say, it is a system very much concerned with not only creating a story through the transcript of play, but in challenging the players and their characters dramatically. It does this by making the characters different Virtues - whether Honor, Honesty, Chastity, Courage, Energy, Justice, or Humility - just as much a part of the character's character sheet as their ability to swing a sword skillfully, perform acrobatic feats, or endure violence. Players are expected to see their character's virtue tested as much as their combat skills, and roll with results that indicate a character has failed tests of honor as much as tests of skill.
The result is likely to be a novel and educational experience, though I do wonder whether or not an update to GRR Martin's setting of Westeros or perhaps easing the settings faithful adherence to medieval social mores with respect to nobility and the role of women might be necessary for a lot of modern groups.
April 27, 2011
Just realised that I had failed to add this classic to my Goodreads.com bookshelf. It is without doubt my favourite rpg. Full stop (or for my American friends, 'Period').
At its heart is a simple rpg system. Roll a d20, aim to roll under or equal to a target number (your skill etc.). If you manage this you succeed. If you roll equal to your score, that is a success. If the roll is opposed (eg. in situations where two characters are competing against each other) the higher succeeding roll wins (unless one is a critical, ie. exactly equal to the target number) as this is a higher rated success.
What makes this game so special, however, is the way it marries the system to the genre the game is set in: Arthurian legend (primarily Marlory's take on it). Its introduction of Character Traits and Passions brings personality to the fore and reinforces and encourages playing in a style that accords with the source material. Love, honour, glory and even fits of madness are the heart of the game, rather than combat or spell lists.
The Fifth edition is more streamlined than the somewhat bloated fourth edition, and along with the Great Pendragon Campaign provides in my humble opinion, a perfect example of great game design.
At its heart is a simple rpg system. Roll a d20, aim to roll under or equal to a target number (your skill etc.). If you manage this you succeed. If you roll equal to your score, that is a success. If the roll is opposed (eg. in situations where two characters are competing against each other) the higher succeeding roll wins (unless one is a critical, ie. exactly equal to the target number) as this is a higher rated success.
What makes this game so special, however, is the way it marries the system to the genre the game is set in: Arthurian legend (primarily Marlory's take on it). Its introduction of Character Traits and Passions brings personality to the fore and reinforces and encourages playing in a style that accords with the source material. Love, honour, glory and even fits of madness are the heart of the game, rather than combat or spell lists.
The Fifth edition is more streamlined than the somewhat bloated fourth edition, and along with the Great Pendragon Campaign provides in my humble opinion, a perfect example of great game design.
June 13, 2017
Fascinating system and as a rule book a nice historical primer.
March 12, 2020
This game has a lot of rolls in it. If your idea of a fun role playing game is a dark fantasy version of the Arturian legends with lots of magic and as many rolls as Pathfinder, this game will likely do the trick nicely. The author claims to have created this game because there were elements of a fantasy world that he wanted to explore that he did not see in existing games and this particular game certainly offers a complex experience that involves rolling a lot, acquiring glory through putting oneself at risk in a bloody and violent age and dealing with the struggles of court life and complex religious struggles between heathen ways and two types of Christianity, and in dealing with the complex matters of love and marriage (which may not be united in the same person). If you don't like rolling dice a lot, you are not going to like this game, but if you do enjoy lots of dice rolls and being a knight in the Dark Ages in a world full of mysterious magic, brutal violence, and courtly love, then this game certainly has something to offer an experienced or dedicated role player.
This book is a large book of about 250 pages or so of material. The book begins with an introduction that discusses the various versions of the Arthurian myth and the Celtic culture the game is based on. After that the author discusses the Pendragon Realm in what is now England (1) along with famous people, knighthood, feudalism, and customs and laws. After that comes a discussion of character generation that includes a discussion of squires and women as potential player characters (2). This leads to a look at family and fatherland and a lot of rolls to deal with the life and career of one's grandfather and father to provide the inherited glory that one begins with (3) as well as a look at one's home in the area of Salisbury. After that comes a discussion of stats and skills, including directed traits, and a variety of descriptions of traits, passions, and skills (4). After this comes a look at game mechanics, including resolution, time scale, experience, movement, glory, and what one does in the winter phase (5). There is then a discussion of various aspects of combat (6) as well as ambition and faith (7) and the roleplaying of matters of wealth and being nobles (8). Finally, the book ends with appendices about the future (i), characters and creatures (ii), scenarios (iii), battle (iv), tournaments (v), glory awards (vi), as well as suggested reading, notes, an index, and character sheets.
I must admit that even though I found the game to look a bit exhausting that the gameplay did look compelling. I thought it was very clever how the book set up the character to be a young knight with a (hopefully long) career ahead of him with the idea of playing generations of characters in the same family and dealing with the reality of the death of spouses, the tension of introspection at one's love life, the danger of death and capture in war, and other hazardous aspects of early medieval life. Likewise, I thought the way that the author viewed traits as existing in parallel with others so that the combination of the two would lead to twenty and that one would have to play to both sides of areas like lust and chastity and the idea of having one's own standard of living to upkeep that one could increase through marriage to an heiress is also appealing. This is not a game for those who want a casual experience, but if you want a very deep dive into a fascinating world that has a lot of similarities with our own then this particular book and this game have a lot to offer in a very long and melancholy campaign that is centered around the doomed struggle of the Pendragon dynasty against the Saxons and other enemies.
This book is a large book of about 250 pages or so of material. The book begins with an introduction that discusses the various versions of the Arthurian myth and the Celtic culture the game is based on. After that the author discusses the Pendragon Realm in what is now England (1) along with famous people, knighthood, feudalism, and customs and laws. After that comes a discussion of character generation that includes a discussion of squires and women as potential player characters (2). This leads to a look at family and fatherland and a lot of rolls to deal with the life and career of one's grandfather and father to provide the inherited glory that one begins with (3) as well as a look at one's home in the area of Salisbury. After that comes a discussion of stats and skills, including directed traits, and a variety of descriptions of traits, passions, and skills (4). After this comes a look at game mechanics, including resolution, time scale, experience, movement, glory, and what one does in the winter phase (5). There is then a discussion of various aspects of combat (6) as well as ambition and faith (7) and the roleplaying of matters of wealth and being nobles (8). Finally, the book ends with appendices about the future (i), characters and creatures (ii), scenarios (iii), battle (iv), tournaments (v), glory awards (vi), as well as suggested reading, notes, an index, and character sheets.
I must admit that even though I found the game to look a bit exhausting that the gameplay did look compelling. I thought it was very clever how the book set up the character to be a young knight with a (hopefully long) career ahead of him with the idea of playing generations of characters in the same family and dealing with the reality of the death of spouses, the tension of introspection at one's love life, the danger of death and capture in war, and other hazardous aspects of early medieval life. Likewise, I thought the way that the author viewed traits as existing in parallel with others so that the combination of the two would lead to twenty and that one would have to play to both sides of areas like lust and chastity and the idea of having one's own standard of living to upkeep that one could increase through marriage to an heiress is also appealing. This is not a game for those who want a casual experience, but if you want a very deep dive into a fascinating world that has a lot of similarities with our own then this particular book and this game have a lot to offer in a very long and melancholy campaign that is centered around the doomed struggle of the Pendragon dynasty against the Saxons and other enemies.
May 13, 2020
Valoración: 4
¿Era posible extraer toda la esencia de la cultura caballeresca y del mito artúrico y convertirlo, junto con una serie de reglas finamente equilibradas y prácticas, en un juego de rol? Greg Stafford pensó que sí era posible y debo decir que lo logró de manera magistral. Es que las partes de ambientación del libro sirven incluso como seria introducción al mundo medieval, su cultura y sus valores.
El gran inconveniente que tiene «Pendragon» es, por un lado, la necesidad que tienen todos sus potenciales jugadores de empaparse previamente en la cultura caballeresca, los valores medievales y el mito artúrico. Sin esos conocimientos previos no merece la pena intentar jugar a «Pendragon»; con toda seguridad, las partidas se convertirían en meras sesiones de espada y brujería. El otro inconveniente es la limitación de los tipos de personajes, que deben ser todos ellos caballeros para poder sacarle el máximo rendimiento al juego. Existen excepciones, claro está, pero hay que utilizarlas con extrema cautela para no desequilibrarlo.
Precisamente el aspecto del equilibrio, es el que resulta tan fascinante a quienes nos entusiasma «Pendragon» y tan aburrido a quienes no les convence. Si director y jugadores se mueven dentro de ese ecosistema tan frágil y bien pensado, la experiencia puede llegar a ser gloriosa. Por eso este juego tan sencillo resulta tan difícil de jugar bien y, por tanto, de disfrutar.
¿Era posible extraer toda la esencia de la cultura caballeresca y del mito artúrico y convertirlo, junto con una serie de reglas finamente equilibradas y prácticas, en un juego de rol? Greg Stafford pensó que sí era posible y debo decir que lo logró de manera magistral. Es que las partes de ambientación del libro sirven incluso como seria introducción al mundo medieval, su cultura y sus valores.
El gran inconveniente que tiene «Pendragon» es, por un lado, la necesidad que tienen todos sus potenciales jugadores de empaparse previamente en la cultura caballeresca, los valores medievales y el mito artúrico. Sin esos conocimientos previos no merece la pena intentar jugar a «Pendragon»; con toda seguridad, las partidas se convertirían en meras sesiones de espada y brujería. El otro inconveniente es la limitación de los tipos de personajes, que deben ser todos ellos caballeros para poder sacarle el máximo rendimiento al juego. Existen excepciones, claro está, pero hay que utilizarlas con extrema cautela para no desequilibrarlo.
Precisamente el aspecto del equilibrio, es el que resulta tan fascinante a quienes nos entusiasma «Pendragon» y tan aburrido a quienes no les convence. Si director y jugadores se mueven dentro de ese ecosistema tan frágil y bien pensado, la experiencia puede llegar a ser gloriosa. Por eso este juego tan sencillo resulta tan difícil de jugar bien y, por tanto, de disfrutar.
October 25, 2020
This is the only RPG book I've ever actually read, and it was so much fun! Rarely have I seen a system that is so informed by the source material. I also love the quotes from Arthurian literature that help explain aspects of the system, and can be explained by them. Just brilliant work.
December 1, 2022
After a somewhat unfocused 4th Edition, the 5th Edition of Pendragon did a magnificent job of bringing back the tight focus the game benefits from. Full review: https://refereeingandreflection.wordp...
September 8, 2025
It does, what its supposed to do perfectly. I know few games who can better simulate the arthurian myth and struggle. Love it. Bad organization of info though, a lot of looking over tables that are spread around. Could use some work up. And no, 6E isn't that much better, only in more colour.
May 2, 2020
Looks interesting. Can't wait to try it out!
August 26, 2016
In one word: Amazing!
I read the 4th edition many years ago, but it failed to catch my attention amidst a lot of other games I was playing at the time. The current version is the 5th edition of the game, and the author trims it down to its barest essentials. This is a game with a laser-focus: you are a Cymric knight, period! You earn Glory in the Arthurian age. And yet, the game is so faithful to the literature, so masterful in how the mechanics encourage proper behavior, that I can only categorize this as a masterpiece! And I don't use this word often and lightly.
Make no mistake. This game sets to do one thing and he does it like no other game: to emulate Arthurian stories of greed deeds and tragic events. In its time, it was an inovative system and it still does a couple of things no other game does. For once, you play, not only a knight, but an entire dynasty. Your first character starts young, it will grow old, and eventually die, but you continue playing as his son (if you are lucky to get married and have an male heir). You play this new knight through the ages until he dies and his son continues, and so forth. You manage your estate (it sounds more boring than it is) and try to expand it. In the meantime, you go on all the adventure that make up a good Arthurian tale: stories of princesses, and black knights, of enchanted woods and faries, of Saxon invaders and Pictish raiders.
The system itself is rolling a d20 to try and roll equal or under your traits, attributes or skills.
One inovative mechanice (for its time) was the paired Traits. These were thirteen pairs of traits like Merciful / Cruel, Forgiving / Vengeful or Generous / Selfish. They are quantified with values. In certain situations, a roll may be required that will force the knight to behave a certain way (you fight Sir Brolf who killed your sister and win, will you kill him or forgive him?), or they can be used as general guidelines when you are not sure how your knight would decide in a certain situation. They encourage behaviour within the Arthurian genre. And they can be increased under certain circunstances. When certain combinations of traits reach a certain value you receive additional benefits to simulate how a certain knight becomes a paragon of the chivalric code.
There's an extensive section dedicated to explain how the feudal system works, what are the obligations of lord and vassal and how women fare in this society. Even though the game is about male knights, the author makes some concession as to the existence of female knights (very rare, indeed) and backs it up with real world examples. There are rules for skirmish combat (anything from 15-20 combatants up to 200 combatants) and for really large battles (up to thousands on either side). There are rules for tournaments and courtly love - an important feature in the stories where a knight professes his undying love to a lady (married or not) and goes on merry quests to earn her favor (and certain mechanical benefits).
I could go on and on, but I'll sum it up: this book is nothing short of amazing, it's not long and it's self-contained, although you can play it with The Great Pendragon Campaign (and who wouldn't?) for greater depth of story. It is tightly written with a clear and concise language and one of the best examples on how a system can go a long way into emulating a certain genre.
I read the 4th edition many years ago, but it failed to catch my attention amidst a lot of other games I was playing at the time. The current version is the 5th edition of the game, and the author trims it down to its barest essentials. This is a game with a laser-focus: you are a Cymric knight, period! You earn Glory in the Arthurian age. And yet, the game is so faithful to the literature, so masterful in how the mechanics encourage proper behavior, that I can only categorize this as a masterpiece! And I don't use this word often and lightly.
Make no mistake. This game sets to do one thing and he does it like no other game: to emulate Arthurian stories of greed deeds and tragic events. In its time, it was an inovative system and it still does a couple of things no other game does. For once, you play, not only a knight, but an entire dynasty. Your first character starts young, it will grow old, and eventually die, but you continue playing as his son (if you are lucky to get married and have an male heir). You play this new knight through the ages until he dies and his son continues, and so forth. You manage your estate (it sounds more boring than it is) and try to expand it. In the meantime, you go on all the adventure that make up a good Arthurian tale: stories of princesses, and black knights, of enchanted woods and faries, of Saxon invaders and Pictish raiders.
The system itself is rolling a d20 to try and roll equal or under your traits, attributes or skills.
One inovative mechanice (for its time) was the paired Traits. These were thirteen pairs of traits like Merciful / Cruel, Forgiving / Vengeful or Generous / Selfish. They are quantified with values. In certain situations, a roll may be required that will force the knight to behave a certain way (you fight Sir Brolf who killed your sister and win, will you kill him or forgive him?), or they can be used as general guidelines when you are not sure how your knight would decide in a certain situation. They encourage behaviour within the Arthurian genre. And they can be increased under certain circunstances. When certain combinations of traits reach a certain value you receive additional benefits to simulate how a certain knight becomes a paragon of the chivalric code.
There's an extensive section dedicated to explain how the feudal system works, what are the obligations of lord and vassal and how women fare in this society. Even though the game is about male knights, the author makes some concession as to the existence of female knights (very rare, indeed) and backs it up with real world examples. There are rules for skirmish combat (anything from 15-20 combatants up to 200 combatants) and for really large battles (up to thousands on either side). There are rules for tournaments and courtly love - an important feature in the stories where a knight professes his undying love to a lady (married or not) and goes on merry quests to earn her favor (and certain mechanical benefits).
I could go on and on, but I'll sum it up: this book is nothing short of amazing, it's not long and it's self-contained, although you can play it with The Great Pendragon Campaign (and who wouldn't?) for greater depth of story. It is tightly written with a clear and concise language and one of the best examples on how a system can go a long way into emulating a certain genre.
May 7, 2023
An absolutely brilliant work, the late Greg Stafford really knew his Arthurian lit. Pendragon captures the stories and time period astoundingly well. So why only 3 stars? In many ways, Pendragon is more high concept than is realistically playable. Yes, I am sure there are groups that have managed to play through the entirety of the Arthurian saga. However, I highly suspect that the number of groups who have accomplished this is less than 100. There are very few gaming groups who can pull this off. Still, it’s an important work for the hobby and I’m glad that it exists.
December 24, 2022
Patched version of the 5th Edition, with improved layout and art. Full review: https://refereeingandreflection.wordp...
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews