Gaming with Prince Arthur in Greg Stafford’s Pendragon, Part 2

Today’s post takes us into the heart of Pendragon’s system for resolving conflicts and combat. The
major innovation here: By far the most interesting and important resolution rolls concern the inner state of the characters and not their external accomplishments.

The Mechanics of Personality 

Chapter 4 (“Stats and Skills”) wastes no time in getting to the heart of Pendragon’s innovative role playing system. Understanding the skills side of the equation is straightforward and familiar to RPG players, but in Stafford’s game, the character’s personality is constrained by its own set of statistics, and there is a mechanics in place which forces your character to take (or not take) actions based on relevant personality traits.

Those familiar with Call of Cthulhu or other horror games where sanity is tracked will have an inkling of what is involved in Pendragon, as will those who have played with character alignments.  But Stafford’s system cuts much deeper. Sanity is one trait, as is an alignment. That all seems like child’s play when compared to Pendragon, which has no less than 26 personality traits and 4 passions (actually 5 when you count the default “Hate”).

Here is just one taste to give you a sense of just how bold and relentless Stafford is about this aspect of the game:

“Personality Traits and Passions define the way your character feels and acts. During play, various emotions are revealed and Traits and Passions may thus receive experience checks, just like Skills . . . Passions may also be reduced at the Gamemaster’s option.

Over time, characters’ Traits and Passions come to reflect the story of their lives. The system allows characters to record the changes in their attitudes and behavior accurately and
Consistently.”

In other words, your character’s decisions are sometimes going to be out of your control:

“Since Traits and Passions define character personality, they must be consulted whenever the Gamemaster feels them necessary. In crises, it is assumed, individuals act according to their character, not spontaneous and ambiguous choices. Custom and training triumph over instinct.
Players may not want their characters to do something dictated by a die roll, but free choice is not always possible.”

I’m intrigued by the system, and I’d be willing to dive into the challenge. I realize that many players would balk at the constraints, seeing them purely as negatives: They would look at them as dictating what your character cannot do. But the set-up also provides guideposts and opportunities for role-playing, and inventive, creative players would use them as opportunities for immersing themselves in a character.

A Game about Morality . . . and Glory!

Staffords system of Traits and Passions also sets up an intense examination of morality and ethics. In Pendragon, what I as a player might want to do is now constrained by what my character can and cannot do. But it goes even deeper than that. The game is also about the attainment of Glory, which is another statistic—really, it’s the statistic above all others, the idea that all knights should be trying to attain. So there may be instances when my character’s personality trait might be at cross purposes with the attainment of Glory and/or at cross purposes with a character’s sense of what might, in practical terms, be another “better” option.

“The chaste knight will be able to maintain his chastity, the drunkard will remain a drunkard and the courageous will be courageous even sometimes against his better judgment.”

To further complicate matters, Stafford has another term, reputation, which is related to Glory, but isn’t the same as Glory. Reputation is Glory’s doppelganger: It is a concept which, unlike Glory, doesn’t receive a quantifiable number (it doesn’t even get a nod in the index), and it can run counter to what society considers proper. Thus, I might have a character with a reputation for Cruelty, but that will run counter to the attainment of Glory:

“It is important for players to understand the fact that, since Glory measures not reputation but status, successful evil knights may attain the same Glory as some chivalrous knights. Evil knights lose reputation, not Glory, for their vile deeds.”

And elsewhere:

“. . . reputation is critical in the game. Everyone is a knight, but the kinds of knight one portrays can vary greatly from one’s fellows. A character’s actual behavior is always up to the player, but certain behaviors earn more Glory than others.”

There is some ambivalence here: Elsewhere, Stafford suggests character’s behavior might not always be entirely up to the players. Clearly, there needs to be negotiation between the Gamemaster and the payers.

Glory over XP! 

This social dimension leads to another revolutionary concept. Glory is what the characters ultimately are after: It is Pendragon’s equivalent of XP. But the rule is that Glory is gained through the judgment of the other players (including the Gamemaster):

“King Arthur Pendragon is a social game; Glory represents the respect of one’s peers, not something palpable like gold. Thus, to a great extent, Glory is dependent on the reaction of the Gamemaster and the other players to your roleplaying. . . . If you impress everyone with
your character’s actions, chances are that he receives some Glory.”

Remember that this is coming out of an era when RPGs were tying XP to the discovery of gold coins and to the slaying of monsters. Stafford is charting a very different course here. He is boldly tying the “goal” of the game to the interactive play at the table, and he is motivating the players not simply to defeat foes and grab treasures but to role-play in a way that will win the appreciation of the other players at the table (and the characters whom they are playing).

Selling Out and other Acts of Self-Betrayal

Other delirious wrinkles: If you roll a trait and fail the roll, you then roll the opposing trait, and if you succeed on that roll, your character acts according to the opposed trait!

So, let’s say Eric the Merciful is deciding how to punish the poor peasant who stole bread from the miller, and let’s say he rolls on his mercy, but, as luck has it, he fails. He then rolls against cruelty: If he succeeds on this roll, he would behave with cruelty. And Stafford also takes into account situations where two traits might come into play with a situation which makes for internal conflict.

Similar perils and rewards attend the passions: A player may become inspired upon rolling a critical success, which will offers great advantages during the time of inspiration, but failures of passion can lead to melancholia and even madness with attendant disastrous consequences.

Passions can go up or down during play. I was amused by the Dishonorable Acts Chart which lists the commonly agreed upon distaste for certain deeds. Performing physical labor as a knight, for example, incurs a -2 to honor. And the worst dishonorable deed, going beyond killing a kinsman, is to learn to cast magic spells, which gives you a -8 to honor!

 What I see is a game focused on moral choices, character emotions, and internal conflicts.  Much of the play is going to be about the multiple demands that weigh on a person’s soul—with self-interest, social expectations, ethical constraints, personality traits, bonds, etc. all waging a relentless war on the character’s soul. This does not make a player into a mere puppet, but it is going to make the player constantly aware of the perilous moral road he or she walks. The possibilities are rich and complex.

After an Adventure comes the Winter Phase

Pendragon envisions that 1-2 play sessions will be devoted to playing out some type of scenario or adventure . . . but that doesn’t end the eventful developments for a character. After all, a knight has other pressing demands: finding an eligible spouse, improving oneself, raising a family, maintaining the lands and the stable, dealing with nasty rumors, and considering the inevitable grind of aging. Stafford has a Winter Phase in the game which consists of nine steps to consider all of these less heroic but no less important aspects of the knight’s life.

The Winter Phase or other extended times of rest are also needed for healing and rehabilitation, and characters will need that! The fifth chapter of Pendragon concerns combat, and to my eyes, it is a standard approach clearly based on the miniature wargaming background of other fantasy RPGs of the era. But Stafford is insistent that injury be dealt with in a grim and sober manner: “Violence in King Arthur Pendragon should be realistic and terrifying, never casual or routine, and the best way to achieve this is to make injuries a serious matter.”

So that takes us through the basic mechanics of the game. The final chapters take up matters of Ambition, Faith, and Wealth along with the appendices.