Pendragon (role-playing game)

Like several other RPGs from Chaosium (most notably Call of Cthulhu), Pendragon has a literary basis, in this case the fifteenth-century Arthurian romance, Le Morte d'Arthur. It studiously avoids fantasy RPG cliches in favor of its source material. This has caused it to become something of a cult game, even within the narrow confines of the RPG market.

Adventures are often political, military, or spiritual in nature, rather than dungeon crawls, and are often presented as taking place congruently with events from Arthurian legend.

An important part of the game is the time between adventures, during which player characters manage their estates, get married, age, and have children. Typically, the characters will have one adventure per year, and campaigns often carry over across generations, with players retiring their character and taking the role of that character's heir. This is quite different from most role-playing games, where one set of characters is played fairly intensively, and there is typically little consideration made of what happens to their family or descendants. The influence of this idea can be seen in the Ars Magica RPG, which also encourages stories taking years or decades to unfold (and which is also set in medieval Europe).

The default Pendragon setting is a pastiche of actual fifth- and sixth-century British history, high medieval history (10th to 15th centuries), and Arthurian legend. The political forces are roughly those actually present in sub-Roman Britain: Celts fighting Germanic, Irish, and Pictish invaders in the wake of the collapse of Roman authority. However, Technology and many aspects of culture progress in an accelerated fashion, such that King Arthur's Britain is depicted as thoroughly feudal. Knights bear unique coats of arms, joust in tournaments, follow chivalric customs, and pursue courtly love. In effect, many trappings of the milieu in which the Arthurian romances were composed are projected backwards. Many of the campaign events and personalities come from the great mass of Arthurian literature composed from the Middle Ages to the twentieth century. That being said, it is also possible to run a Pendragon campaign set firmly in the Dark Ages or in a more fantastic vision of Arthurian Britain.

The rules system of Pendragon is most notable for its system of personality traits and passions that both control and represent the character's behavior. Otherwise, it uses fairly traditional game mechanics for normal play, based to some degree on the Basic Role-Playing (BRP) system,.[1] It also has a set of charts and tables for determining what happens to a character's family in between adventures. The characters' ability scores are based on the BRP standard, but skills are resolved using d20, rather than d100.

The first edition was a boxed set published by Chaosium in 1985, and was designed and written by Greg Stafford. Chaosium planned a second edition, with minor changes to the rules, but this was never actually released.[3] They released a third edition, with rules revised by Stafford, as a single softbound book in 1990. The fourth edition, published by Chaosium in 1993 and reprinted by Green Knight Publishing in 1999, was also released as a softbound manual: the core rules remained consistent with the third edition, but the book was expanded to include rules for player-character magicians and for advanced character-generation (the latter had originally appeared separately in the third-edition supplement Knights Adventurous). Green Knight Publishing also released a cut-down version of the fourth edition aimed at beginning players, The Book of Knights.

Original designer Greg Stafford produced a much-streamlined fifth edition, which was published as a hardcover book by White Wolf in December 2005. The most notable supplement for this edition is The Great Pendragon Campaign, a massive (432-page) hardcover scenario book which details events, adventures and characters from Uther Pendragon's reign in 485 through to the end of the Arthurian era. In Ownership passed from White Wolf to Nocturnal Media. In 2017 Nocturnal Media Kickstarted Paladin: Warriors of Charlemagne!.[4] Using the Pendragon rules system, it is set in medieval Europe with players playing young Frankish squires or knights in the service of Charlemagne. The Pendragon line returned to Chaosium in 2018.[5]

In 2020, a Quickstart preview for a sixth edition was published by Chaosium.[6] In June 2023, Chaosium released a sixth edition boxed starter set.[7]

In the December 1985 issue of White Dwarf, Graham Staplehurst gave an effusive review, saying despite the very high price (£25.95) Pendragon "looks to be one of the best systemised role-playing games around." Staplehurst liked the fact that the Arthurian background was generally known by players already, and lauded the research done in order to produce a timeline, and British folk beasts. He called the character generation system "adept." Staplehurst gave an overall rating of 9 out of 10, saying, "I would not hesitate to recommend the game to any rolegaming aficianado... were it not for the dreadful price."[8]

In the March 1986 edition of Dragon (Issue 107), Ken Rolston was effusive in his praise, calling it "in subject, mechanics, and presentation... the best designed, most attractive, and most effective traditional role-playing game I have ever seen. The process of playing the game, from the reading of the Player’s Book through the creation of a character to the playing of a simple introductory scenario, was one of the most satisfactory role-playing experiences of my life." Rolston noted the simplified combat system, saying "Pendragon has attractively simple and streamlined versions of conventional RPG combat mechanics while offering innovative mechanics supporting role-playing and character development. (If you are interested in the wargaming aspect of fantasy role-playing, you may prefer another system with greater detail in combat mechanics and with player-character magic.)" He concluded by recommending it: "In presentation, Pendragon is attractive and pleasurable reading. The Pendragon boxed set is an excellent value, certainly one of the most important RPG releases of 1985, and belongs on every serious fantasy role-playing gamer’s shelf.[9]

In the February–March 1987 edition of Space Gamer/Fantasy Gamer (Issue No. 77), Steven List recommended it, saying, "It presents ample opportunity for both desperate combat and imaginative interactive play, with an orientation different from the typical fantasy campaign."[10]

The Games Machine reviewed Pendragon and stated that "In Pendragon Greg Stafford and friends have produced a truly outstanding game, treating their theme with all the respect and thoroughness it deserves. Any gaming group with an interest in the Arthurian theme should give this game a try."[11]

Andrew Rilstone reviewed Pendragon 4th Edition for Arcane magazine, rating it a 9 out of 10 overall.[12] Rilstone comments that "Every rule and every bit of background meshes together to produce a game in which you can't help but think and act and even feel - like one of King Arthur's knights. Running a full campaign, and seeing the young squires from the first session growing up to be the veterans in the final battle, has been one of the best experiences in my roleplaying career. And, contrary to popular belief, you won't have to push the pram a lot."[12]

In 1996, ten years after its publication, in a reader poll of the top 50 role-playing games of all time in Arcane magazine, Pendragon was ranked 12th. Editor Paul Pettengale commented, "Pendragon is a game with a huge amount of charm. It's extremely character orientated, and so players have the opportunity to spend time developing a separate persona, rather than having to deal with too much action. It has intrigue and complicated plots, but these are geared around the characters instead of merely being an excuse for the characters to do something."[13]

In 1999, Pyramid magazine named Pendragon as one of The Millennium's Most Underrated Games. Editor Scott Haring said, "Pendragon is one of the few RPGs that has a moral point of view ... And it's a great melding of game system with game world."[14]

In 2006, Gaming Report called the 5th edition of Pendragon one of the "Best Retreads" in 2006.[15]

In 2007, over twenty years after its publication, Pendragon was given a place in the book Hobby Games: The 100 Best. Shannon Appelcline stated, "King Arthur Pendragon could be lauded as a top RPG solely based upon the innovation it brought to the industry. Its concentration on epic storytelling and its traits mechanic were both notable and original when the game was released in 1985. However, even today, Pendragon remains vital. It provides a picture-perfect model of literary knighthood and, through its well-crafted and well-considered design, effortlessly conjures its theme — so successfully, in fact, that few other publishers in the last 20 years have even tried to bring another Arthurian roleplaying game to market. You just can't improve on perfection.[16]

In a retrospective review of Pendragon in Black Gate, John ONeill said "Pendragon had lots of interesting ideas. The game mechanics included ways to trigger powerful passions — love, hate, and loyalty — in your player character, which could in turn produce feats of valor, acts of mercy or cowardice, cruelty, and much more."[17]

• At the 1986 Origins Awards, the supplement The Pendragon Campaign won "Best Roleplaying Supplement of 1985."[18]
• At the 1991 Origins Awards, the third edition of Pendragon won "Best Roleplaying Rules of 1990."[19]
• In 2007, the revised and retitled supplement The Great Pendragon Campaign won the Diana Jones Award for "excellence in gaming."[20]

The Pendragon fiction series was a trade paperback line that offered reprints of "lost" classics of Arthurian fiction, as well as original novels and anthologies. First published by Chaosium, the line was taken over by Green Knight Publishing when they acquired rights to the Pendragon role-playing game in 1998. Scholar Raymond H. Thompson served as consulting editor for the entire series. Green Knight hired James Lowder to direct the line as executive editor in 1999.[21]

• Hunter, Jim (1997). Percival and the Presence of God. Green Knight Publishing. ISBN 978-1-928999-14-0. CHA6201.
• Frankland, Edward (1998). Arthur, the Bear of Britain. Green Knight Publishing. ISBN 978-1-928999-15-7. CHA6202.
• To the Chapel Perilous, by Naomi Mitchison. (GKP6203, Green Knight Publishing, 1999); reprint of the 1955 Allen & Unwin edition.
• Kinsmen of the Grail, by Dorothy James Roberts. (GKP6204, Green Knight Publishing, 2000); reprint of the 1963 Little, Brown and Company edition.
• The Life of Sir Aglovale, by Clemence Housman. (GKP6205, Green Knight Publishing, 2000); reprint of the 1905 Methuen & Co. Ltd. edition.
• The Doom of Camelot, edited by James Lowder. (GKP6206, Green Knight Publishing, 2000); original anthology.
• Exiled From Camelot, by Cherith Baldry. (GKP6207, Green Knight Publishing, 2001); original novel.
• Karr, Phyllis Ann (2001). The Arthurian Companion (2nd ed.). Green Knight Publishing. ISBN 978-0-7394-2163-5. GKP6208. Expanded and corrected edition of Pendragon fiction series CHA6200 The Arthurian Companion (1st ed.).
• The Pagan King, by Edison Marshall. (GKP6209, Green Knight Publishing, 2001); reprint of the 1959 Doubleday & Co. edition.
• The Merriest Knight: The Collected Arthurian Tales of Theodore Goodridge Roberts, edited by Mike Ashley. (GKP6210, Green Knight Publishing, 2001); original collection of Roberts' stories, including previously unpublished material.
• Legends of the Pendragon, edited by James Lowder. (GKP6211, Green Knight Publishing, 2002); original anthology.
• The Follies of Sir Harald, by Phyllis Ann Karr. (GKP6212, Green Knight Publishing, 2001); original novel.
• Faraday, W. Barnard (2002). Pendragon. Green Knight Publishing. ISBN 978-1-928999-29-4. GKP6213. Historical novel of Celtic Arthur's resistance to the Saxons and Picts.

One additional title in the series — a reprint of William Henry Babcock's 1898 novel Cian of the Chariots — was announced for 2002, but has not seen print.

• Official website
• RPG Encyclopedia entry for Pendragon
• Greg Stafford's archived Pendragon page
• Chaosium resources for Pendragon