@@bananaquark1164 the Great Pendragon Campaign. It's the entire campaign setup that takes you through the entire saga of Arthur in 80 in game years. From his birth, the anarchy before the sword in the stone is pulled, through the boy king and the romance and tournaments, until the grail saga and mordred's war. You'll play as children of your prior characters and more through the epic. It's phenomenal
As someone who collects too many rpgs, I will say Pendragon 6th really seems like a standout. So many clever design choices to make the game easy to bring to life.
One more book I'd like to mention is "The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights" by John Steinbeck. It's an incomplete novel (the author died before he could finish it), but it's written by the one and only John Steinbeck...so it might be worth your time. I certainly enjoyed reading it.
Excellent walkthrough. Reg. Magic: It is going to be discussed in both the Gamemaster's Handbook (for using it as a Gamemaster against the players) and the Codex Mirabilis (which is *way* down the road - but will have mechanics to make Secondary Characters that can be Magicians)
Hey Dave, just a heads up about the lack of magic - Pendragon is very much a "players will be incredibly lucky to have a magic sword that does slightly more damage." They tried to introduce more magical elements in previous editions (4th especially) and it was NOT FUN so it's largely been dropped as a full system.
Another work that can add so much flavor to the lore of Pendragon and the GM (as well as players) is the roman Perceforest. A very very long and medieval French text, it is a prequel to the stories of Arthur and tries to connect Arthur with Alexandre the Great. Since it is a sort of prequel (since the story takes place centuries before Uther Pendragon), it was never part of the Arthurian Cycles, but I really recommend people check it out. There is a somewhat abridged translation in English by Nigel Bryant.
Yeah, I remember I started off with the last book in the series when I found it in my high school library when I was fourteen or something. Like you over twenty years ago. But it was a great series. I'm not sure if it fits with the sort of idealised setting of Pendragon, but definitely a good read.
I would like to add the A Dream Of Eagles series by Jack Whyte to the list. It takes place in Britain just after the Romans left. The first couple of books cover the founding of Camelot (Camulud in the book) with the rest dealing with Arthur and that whole messy story.
I’m assuming the stuff about giants, fairies, etc are coming in the GM book that hopefully is coming out next year. Cause we still are waiting for the GM book, and Book of Nobles for this edition. (Chaosium is a smaller company, and dealing with two other major lines so publication is fairly slow with them)
Glad to see the Warlord trilogy got a recommendation. I really liked that series. For those who haven't read this series it leans much harder towards a more gritty historical realism than a high fantasy setting. People act like real people, with all their flaws and moral grey areas. There is a lot of conflict between sides, with old pagan/Celtic traditions fighting to maintain a foothold as Christianity advances. It's always ambiguous whether there is any magic or deities. The main conflicts are between the native Celtic population and the invading Angles and Saxons, but there are various factions within the Britons themselves as well.
Hi, I'd add Tolkien's The Fall of Arthur and Phyllis Ann Karr's The Arthurian Companion to the list of sources, the latter in particular is an invaluable reference book. As for the Core Book being incomplete, well magic always was peripherical (and a player option only in the 4th ed.), though I agree that a few lines would have been nice, and the Great Pendragon Campaign without a doubt will provide heaps of scenario hooks and GM's guidance. As for it being an additional purchase, well unfortunately it's always been the case. Lastly, if u read French, Chrétien de Troyes was a XIIth century poet and our Malory equivalent. Have good games all!
The Knights of Last Call youtube channel discord (patreon) community I'm a member of runs a lot of Pendragon games, and many others. It's full of GMs (outnumber players) looking to try out weird systems. I'm in a CAIN game rn for example
If you want more perspective on the setting, and an expansion on more of the fantasy and magic that would fit into Arthurian legend, The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley is incredibly long but is very detailed and well written, in my opinion. It is told from the perspective of Morgan, his half sister, and depicts Merlin as a title in the Druid faith rather than one person, though it is the same person for the length of the story.
For the more literary-inclined, I would also recommend reading the original translations and chronicles of the legend by Chrétien de Troyes, compiled together in the book titled Arthurian Romances. It's really good stuff, and I LOVED reading it in my Medieval Literature class this last semester.
I have a lot of precious books, but maybe the one I treasure the most is a copy of ShadowDark that Kelsey Dionne sent me. It is only 1 of 20 ever made, and she actually sent it to me the day after she won a bunch of Ennie Awards for that game.
@@DaveThaumavore That's awesome! Will you give us your insight and make a video review about Shadowdark too, Dave? I'm excited to hear your insight about the game.
In my long ago game, I used a lot of Crystal Cave series as canon. Mists of Avalon, not so much. I liked the idea of Merlin being the son of Aurelius Ambrosius and Niniane. Not a 'legitimate' son and thus not a legal heir. Not true Welsh law, just a nod to Christianity.
Regarding novels the Merlin/Arthur quadrilogy by Mary Stewart needs to be included. If you are into classic graphic adventures, Conquest of Camelot by Sierra is a great joy, too.
This is definitely a fantastic work... Even back when Mallory wrote More D'arthur, it feels far more to be set in the Middle Ages than in the British Dark Ages.
Great review! I definitely agree about the missing stuff on magic, but I think that will be covered more in the GM's book. Do you plan to cover the Gray Knight or future books?
I _highly_ recommend Lev Grossman's series "The Magicians." Not Arthurian at all, but really good books. Also, he slipped in a reference to the Traveller RPG, so the books deserve your support. ;)
Mists of Avallon (just the first one, lol) by Marion Zimmer Bradley and Warlord Chronicles by Bernard Cornwell are my favorites, but i'm more interested in a "grounded" and "historical" vision of Arthur
Love the game but I think the text in the character creation section is too blocked off (to densely packed with the other columns) so it makes it easy to miss key information. for additional media Mists of Avalon
I got 4th edition. As character creation in 4th edition (and all editions before) include creating the history of ones bloodline, starting with grandfather, I tried once to run a campaign starting with the Grandfather as the players' characters, rather than merely rolling their war achievements. I am still very much a novice game master, and the campaign fizzled out after just a few sesisons... I would love to give it another try, though.
It's interesting that RUclipsrs consistently skip over the combat system, as I think that's where this system stands out. Meanwhile, the traits and passions, while certainly core to the game mechanic, are in direct opposition to what modern stories demand, character agencies.
@@ljmiller96 It'll probably be something like that, yeah! Though I'm currently planning to have the skills of the pokémon listed on the 'trainer' sheet (treating the pokémon's ability to perform the move dependent on the trainer's ability to command it). Maybe I'll rethink that approach.
I'd say it should have been a masterpiece, unfortunately they released it filled with errata, mistakes & typos. Over 3+ pages of posts on the corrections thread on the official forums. I was looking forward to it for years, so pretty disappointed at the poor condition it released in. Hopefully they don't take several more years to release a fixed and revised edition
I both love & hate this game. It's a masterpiece of design and has so many wonderful features - knightly culture, Winter Phase, castles, personality traits, characters from the stories etc. But I love my history and I just can't see Arthur as a Medieval knight. The 'real' Arthur would have been Dark Ages (450-550 CE). Nevertheless, it truly does recreate the world of 'Morte d'Arthur' and other stories exceptionally well.
@@wylde_hunter yes that's true. But that doesn't mean that's when the medieval period started. If you want to say the medieval period starts with plate mail for instance, you would lose almost the entire medieval period as it was made in the high Middle Ages. The medieval period covers roughly 1000 years of history and the dark ages are part of that, simply another name for the Early Middle Ages, and the medieval period according to most historians starts around AD 476
What I'd suggest is don't think of it as our history. Think of it as a game setting like you would D&D's Forgotten Realms or Greyhawk, or like you might a fantasy novel setting such as Tamora Pierce's Tortall series. They also incorporate aspects of Western Dark Ages and Medieval milieu, however with varying degrees of idealism and fantasy elements.
It is shameful for a knight to resort to magic. Also there will be a DMG-like book. I am guessing this is where you will find more NPC related magical stats. Magical stuff should not be in this book.
It's a fascinating system, I'm glad they allowed for female knights be be very rare per the rules rather than trying to shove modern sensibilities down our throats. It's immersion breaking otherwise
@@marssmit84 technically yes, but also not. Like Dragonbane, Pendragon uses a d20, but they are members of the BRP family, just divided by 5. D20 is usually used to denote a D&D derivative since the 2000's at least. I personally prefer the d20 substitution and actually houserule it in CoC and RuneQuest. D100 is TOO granular, imho, lol
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I'm 5 IRL years deep into pendragon and we can't wait to begin the GPC saga again with these new rules!
What's GPC?
@@bananaquark1164 the Great Pendragon Campaign. It's the entire campaign setup that takes you through the entire saga of Arthur in 80 in game years. From his birth, the anarchy before the sword in the stone is pulled, through the boy king and the romance and tournaments, until the grail saga and mordred's war. You'll play as children of your prior characters and more through the epic. It's phenomenal
@@EricVulgaris well you might be able to guess my next question ^^
@@EricVulgaris nevermind already found it ;D
I've been playing Pendragon for 20 years. Passions are a work of mechanical genius for this game.
The Passions mechanism was a genius idea. I love the different passions for Christians & Pagans.
As someone who collects too many rpgs, I will say Pendragon 6th really seems like a standout. So many clever design choices to make the game easy to bring to life.
One more book I'd like to mention is "The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights" by John Steinbeck. It's an incomplete novel (the author died before he could finish it), but it's written by the one and only John Steinbeck...so it might be worth your time. I certainly enjoyed reading it.
Good recommendation. It's more accurate to say that he abandoned it, though. Still, what he did write was substantial and wonderful.
Excellent walkthrough.
Reg. Magic: It is going to be discussed in both the Gamemaster's Handbook (for using it as a Gamemaster against the players) and the Codex Mirabilis (which is *way* down the road - but will have mechanics to make Secondary Characters that can be Magicians)
Hey Dave, just a heads up about the lack of magic - Pendragon is very much a "players will be incredibly lucky to have a magic sword that does slightly more damage." They tried to introduce more magical elements in previous editions (4th especially) and it was NOT FUN so it's largely been dropped as a full system.
Strongly recommend the TV show 'Robin of Sherwood' for a brilliant example of gritty medieval life with rare touches of magic
I absolutely loved that show when I was a kid. Am gonna rewatch it.
A classic!
Your work is the best on RUclips. Always so reliably good
I really liked the Mists of Avalon as well, for Arthurian source material
Another work that can add so much flavor to the lore of Pendragon and the GM (as well as players) is the roman Perceforest. A very very long and medieval French text, it is a prequel to the stories of Arthur and tries to connect Arthur with Alexandre the Great. Since it is a sort of prequel (since the story takes place centuries before Uther Pendragon), it was never part of the Arthurian Cycles, but I really recommend people check it out. There is a somewhat abridged translation in English by Nigel Bryant.
I loved The Warlord Chronicles when I read them 20 years ago.
@@deedoublejay my favorite books of all time
Yeah, I remember I started off with the last book in the series when I found it in my high school library when I was fourteen or something. Like you over twenty years ago. But it was a great series. I'm not sure if it fits with the sort of idealised setting of Pendragon, but definitely a good read.
I would like to add the A Dream Of Eagles series by Jack Whyte to the list. It takes place in Britain just after the Romans left. The first couple of books cover the founding of Camelot (Camulud in the book) with the rest dealing with Arthur and that whole messy story.
Excellent review! Planning to pick this up in the coming weeks.
I’m assuming the stuff about giants, fairies, etc are coming in the GM book that hopefully is coming out next year. Cause we still are waiting for the GM book, and Book of Nobles for this edition. (Chaosium is a smaller company, and dealing with two other major lines so publication is fairly slow with them)
Glad to see the Warlord trilogy got a recommendation. I really liked that series. For those who haven't read this series it leans much harder towards a more gritty historical realism than a high fantasy setting. People act like real people, with all their flaws and moral grey areas. There is a lot of conflict between sides, with old pagan/Celtic traditions fighting to maintain a foothold as Christianity advances. It's always ambiguous whether there is any magic or deities. The main conflicts are between the native Celtic population and the invading Angles and Saxons, but there are various factions within the Britons themselves as well.
Hi, I'd add Tolkien's The Fall of Arthur and Phyllis Ann Karr's The Arthurian Companion to the list of sources, the latter in particular is an invaluable reference book. As for the Core Book being incomplete, well magic always was peripherical (and a player option only in the 4th ed.), though I agree that a few lines would have been nice, and the Great Pendragon Campaign without a doubt will provide heaps of scenario hooks and GM's guidance. As for it being an additional purchase, well unfortunately it's always been the case. Lastly, if u read French, Chrétien de Troyes was a XIIth century poet and our Malory equivalent. Have good games all!
Yeah and take out that Brightsword trash.
I want nothing more than to play this game, but it's so difficult to find players, even online.
:O Hi
There is a subreddit for Arthurian writing, but not this or any game really.
You should consider playing solo.
Have you tried the Facebook group or discord?
The Knights of Last Call youtube channel discord (patreon) community I'm a member of runs a lot of Pendragon games, and many others. It's full of GMs (outnumber players) looking to try out weird systems. I'm in a CAIN game rn for example
If you want more perspective on the setting, and an expansion on more of the fantasy and magic that would fit into Arthurian legend, The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley is incredibly long but is very detailed and well written, in my opinion. It is told from the perspective of Morgan, his half sister, and depicts Merlin as a title in the Druid faith rather than one person, though it is the same person for the length of the story.
I love the cover art for the edition prior to this but I still like the new art.
For the more literary-inclined, I would also recommend reading the original translations and chronicles of the legend by Chrétien de Troyes, compiled together in the book titled Arthurian Romances. It's really good stuff, and I LOVED reading it in my Medieval Literature class this last semester.
So that's how your whole shelves look like, Dave.
Great collection! Which one is your most favorite or most prized one?
I have a lot of precious books, but maybe the one I treasure the most is a copy of ShadowDark that Kelsey Dionne sent me. It is only 1 of 20 ever made, and she actually sent it to me the day after she won a bunch of Ennie Awards for that game.
@@DaveThaumavore That's awesome!
Will you give us your insight and make a video review about Shadowdark too, Dave? I'm excited to hear your insight about the game.
Uh, Mary Stewarts's Crystal Cave series, and The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley.
In my long ago game, I used a lot of Crystal Cave series as canon. Mists of Avalon, not so much. I liked the idea of Merlin being the son of Aurelius Ambrosius and Niniane. Not a 'legitimate' son and thus not a legal heir. Not true Welsh law, just a nod to Christianity.
Great review. Like the list format. Will check out that book by Grossman. Will be interesting to read how the black knight was treated in that era.
Another great video 👍🏽
Regarding novels the Merlin/Arthur quadrilogy by Mary Stewart needs to be included. If you are into classic graphic adventures, Conquest of Camelot by Sierra is a great joy, too.
This is definitely a fantastic work... Even back when Mallory wrote More D'arthur, it feels far more to be set in the Middle Ages than in the British Dark Ages.
You can find a free 5e bestiary at Chaosium -> Resources -> Pendragon Resources -> Pendragon Character Sheets
Great review! I definitely agree about the missing stuff on magic, but I think that will be covered more in the GM's book. Do you plan to cover the Gray Knight or future books?
@@ShastaMcNasty_PabloEskobear not sure.
I _highly_ recommend Lev Grossman's series "The Magicians." Not Arthurian at all, but really good books. Also, he slipped in a reference to the Traveller RPG, so the books deserve your support. ;)
I love this! It looks so cool, but my group doesn't seem too interested which sucks
Mists of Avallon (just the first one, lol) by Marion Zimmer Bradley and Warlord Chronicles by Bernard Cornwell are my favorites, but i'm more interested in a "grounded" and "historical" vision of Arthur
Love the game but I think the text in the character creation section is too blocked off (to densely packed with the other columns) so it makes it easy to miss key information.
for additional media Mists of Avalon
I got 4th edition. As character creation in 4th edition (and all editions before) include creating the history of ones bloodline, starting with grandfather, I tried once to run a campaign starting with the Grandfather as the players' characters, rather than merely rolling their war achievements. I am still very much a novice game master, and the campaign fizzled out after just a few sesisons... I would love to give it another try, though.
For books, how about the Faerie Queen by Edmund Spenser?
It's interesting that RUclipsrs consistently skip over the combat system, as I think that's where this system stands out. Meanwhile, the traits and passions, while certainly core to the game mechanic, are in direct opposition to what modern stories demand, character agencies.
I think it's probably because Passions are (mostly) unique, while nearly every game has combat
Hey! The Electric State RPG (an alternate universe of Tales from the Loop RPG) is out! Will you make a review? This series are really cool
I'm hacking Pendragon to run a Pokemon style setting instead. It fits really well, but I struggle to think of ways to evolve without levels haha
When a skill reaches some value, say 15 or 20.
@@ljmiller96 It'll probably be something like that, yeah! Though I'm currently planning to have the skills of the pokémon listed on the 'trainer' sheet (treating the pokémon's ability to perform the move dependent on the trainer's ability to command it). Maybe I'll rethink that approach.
Seems like a very interesting game. Don't know if I would run it though
These mini figs are top notch. Are they from a specific set or AI generated?
They look ai generated unfortunately
Awesome!!
Fairy horses are traditionally corgis (the dog).
The Arthurian Character encyclopedia... hundreds of potential NPCS!
The 2 part mini series Merlin, starring Sam Neil. Although given the lack of magic shown in Pendragon, may be thr wrong type of film...
I'd say it should have been a masterpiece, unfortunately they released it filled with errata, mistakes & typos. Over 3+ pages of posts on the corrections thread on the official forums. I was looking forward to it for years, so pretty disappointed at the poor condition it released in. Hopefully they don't take several more years to release a fixed and revised edition
I both love & hate this game. It's a masterpiece of design and has so many wonderful features - knightly culture, Winter Phase, castles, personality traits, characters from the stories etc. But I love my history and I just can't see Arthur as a Medieval knight. The 'real' Arthur would have been Dark Ages (450-550 CE). Nevertheless, it truly does recreate the world of 'Morte d'Arthur' and other stories exceptionally well.
You do know that the dark ages are just another term for the early middle ages, aka the medieval period right?
The Medieval period begins in AD 476
@kycool8684 Feudalism, chivalry & knights in plate armour were not invented until centuries later..
@@wylde_hunter yes that's true. But that doesn't mean that's when the medieval period started.
If you want to say the medieval period starts with plate mail for instance, you would lose almost the entire medieval period as it was made in the high Middle Ages. The medieval period covers roughly 1000 years of history and the dark ages are part of that, simply another name for the Early Middle Ages, and the medieval period according to most historians starts around AD 476
What I'd suggest is don't think of it as our history. Think of it as a game setting like you would D&D's Forgotten Realms or Greyhawk, or like you might a fantasy novel setting such as Tamora Pierce's Tortall series. They also incorporate aspects of Western Dark Ages and Medieval milieu, however with varying degrees of idealism and fantasy elements.
The game looks like a labor of love, but not a thing that would interest anyone at my current tables. Sadly.
Regarding your point about money. One £ is an actual pound of silver.
"… and accurate too." :D
Still weird to me how people can play fantasy games and get upset about something like female knights.
Joan of Arc was a historical female knight.
It is shameful for a knight to resort to magic. Also there will be a DMG-like book. I am guessing this is where you will find more NPC related magical stats. Magical stuff should not be in this book.
It's a fascinating system, I'm glad they allowed for female knights be be very rare per the rules rather than trying to shove modern sensibilities down our throats. It's immersion breaking otherwise
Love the lego art of this review, I'm guessing it's to keep the anti-AI troops at bay xD
Woefully convoluted game
all d100 systems are a huge turn off to me. I don't even care for d20 games. I have never gotten into Chaosium games due to d100.
This is mostly a d20 based game
Care to explain? If it's just preference or a means of filtering that's fine, but I am curious.
Must be a maths guy.
@@marssmit84 technically yes, but also not. Like Dragonbane, Pendragon uses a d20, but they are members of the BRP family, just divided by 5. D20 is usually used to denote a D&D derivative since the 2000's at least.
I personally prefer the d20 substitution and actually houserule it in CoC and RuneQuest. D100 is TOO granular, imho, lol
It's a D20 roll-under system