Hi all,

I'm thinking of doing a home conversion of the Pendragon rules, 5th edition as those are in print, to Dumas-esque swashbucking.

Odd as it may sound, I think the rules and genre would be an excellent fit.  Rolling your Love:  Mistress or Loyalty:  King for inspiration, time passing would work too, the sequel to the Three Musketeers is called 20 Years After for a reason.

Skills would be slightly, though not necessarily hugely, different and some new skills would be needed.  Some new weapon stats would be needed, rapier, pike, halberd, musket of course are all relevant.

Tone works well, the literary Three Musketeers is much grittier than people tend to think.  Injured heroes take months to heal, people die often nastily.  It is very dark in tone in places, a darkness that is lightened by the humour and honour of the protagonists.  They are heroes not as most rpgs treat their like because they cannot fail, they are heroes because they can fail but act as honour demands regardless even at the very real risk of death.

I would need religious bonuses for Catholics and Protestants, and to give some thought to whether the standard traits need tweaking.  

Otherwise, I actually don't think it would be that big a port.  Skill defaults for the various nations would be one of the harder bits, the French Catholics, the Hugenots, the Dutch, the English, ideally all should have some differentiation just as the nations in Pendragon 4th did.

Thoughts?  I will likely be offline or online only patchily over the next couple of days and shall post more ideas here if there is any interest after that, but the basic concept is set out above.  Dumas-style swashbuckling (not cinematic swashbuckling which is really a very different genre) using Pendragon.  All thoughts and suggestions welcome.

Oh, Glory of course becomes Gloire.  Also necessary would be to think through father's occupations, as they are key to character generation in Pendragon.

Excellent idea.

Off the top of my head, it might well be worth including an acrobatics skill as well some kind of set of religious fervour passions so that you can be suitably enflamed when someone maligns your faith.

Combat would need some tweaking too...  Again, off the top of my head you'd have it that a victorious combat round would be you exchanging blows with your opponent until you find an opening (which would mean that you could keep the damage system as is).

On a not unrelated note, I recently heard good things about Te Deum Pour Un Massacre and splurged this afternoon.  I'd heard middling things about the system in the past but evidently in play it just kind of works.

Quote from: Mr. AnalyticalExcellent idea.

Off the top of my head, it might well be worth including an acrobatics skill as well some kind of set of religious fervour passions so that you can be suitably enflamed when someone maligns your faith.

Combat would need some tweaking too...  Again, off the top of my head you'd have it that a victorious combat round would be you exchanging blows with your opponent until you find an opening (which would mean that you could keep the damage system as is).

On a not unrelated note, I recently heard good things about Te Deum Pour Un Massacre and splurged this afternoon.  I'd heard middling things about the system in the past but evidently in play it just kind of works.

I'd love to see that, or have it explained to me given my limited French, I've also heard very good things about it and the period is a fascinating one.

Where did you buy it out of interest?

You asked me about it ages ago and I think I'd just finished looking into possibly buying it before concluding that the setting and the character creation were great but the rules were a bit odd.  However, I've since heard from someone who has similar rule tolerances to me and he vouched for it so I splurged.

I got it fromL'Antre Du Troll a french RPG shop whom I have dealt with before and recommend as quick, efficient and not unreasonably priced (continental RPG shops are completely shameless when it comes to over-charging for stuff).

Sounds good, B. Lots of rewriting methinks.

Hmmm... just for the sake of genre, it might be cool to think about some "fencing schools" that essentially mirror the different tactical choices that you can make in game.

So rather than fight Berserk you might be a graduate of "Le Marquis de Padeaubon's Academy" or instead of fighting defensively you'd be an adherrent of "La Methode Prussienne".