TheRPGSite

Outremer:  http://www.nwi.demon.co.uk/outremer/index.htm

Ancient Rome:  http://descarte.pbwiki.com/Draft%20character%20creation%20rules%20Pendragon%20Rome

Ian Young did a good Japanese one that I have saved down at home, but can't currently find online.

Anyway, thought these might interest people.

Quote from: BalbinusOutremer:  http://www.nwi.demon.co.uk/outremer/index.htm

Ancient Rome:  http://descarte.pbwiki.com/Draft%20character%20creation%20rules%20Pendragon%20Rome

Ian Young did a good Japanese one that I have saved down at home, but can't currently find online.

Anyway, thought these might interest people.

OOoh! Thanks, Balbinus! I love Pendragon's default setting, but the Outremer setting looks awesome! :D

-clash

Its not going to be using the rules-set for Pendragon, but my upcoming Chinese Historical campaign set in the "Three Kingdoms" era will be using rules for family and personal maintenance that were heavily inspired by Pendragon's whole "winter period" mechanic.

RPGpundit

That does sound like a great game, have you written up the relevant rules?

Oooh... shiny.  Pendragon's actually a very flexible system.  You can do practically any pre-industrial setting with it with minimal amounts of tweaking thanks to the fact that the rules channel realism rather than heroic fiction.

Do y'all know about PenDragon Pass?

http://www.pensee.com/dunham/pdp.html

Quote from: BalbinusThat does sound like a great game, have you written up the relevant rules?

I have, but I'm a little reluctant to post them here since a couple of my future players are on here, and to me these rules are for GM-eyes only.

RPGPundit

Quote from: Mr. AnalyticalOooh... shiny.  Pendragon's actually a very flexible system.  You can do practically any pre-industrial setting with it with minimal amounts of tweaking thanks to the fact that the rules channel realism rather than heroic fiction.

You think? My take on the rules is that they model heroic warrior societies nicely, but they're not highly realistic. And I think the Traits and Passions need considerable tweaking once you step outside a European paradigm.

No, they're not "realistic" but they are incredibly brutal.

I'm playing Pendragon at the moment and combat generally goes

- GM rolls
- I roll
- I succeed more
- I roll damage dice
- NPC loses a limb

One of our characters this week got so profoundly fucked up he couldn't talk without taking damage, let alone continue with the adventure.

It's nicely gritty and I think that while the passions would need slight tweakage the model of love X, hate Y and then familiy and something like pride or honour or shame or respect make for a passion system that's pretty much universal to human experience.

What I meant was that it would have been easy to try and make Pendragon cinematic or action-packed like D&D at the time with characters taking loads of punishment but instead the combat's deadly whether you're a king or a viking farmer.

Quote from: Mr. AnalyticalIt's nicely gritty and I think that while the passions would need slight tweakage the model of love X, hate Y and then familiy and something like pride or honour or shame or respect make for a passion system that's pretty much universal to human experience.

Passions aren't too hard, but I think there's a Christian morality built into the Traits (in the selection and ordering). For something like Japan you'd need to strip it back and build customised Trait-pairs

QuoteWhat I meant was that it would have been easy to try and make Pendragon cinematic or action-packed like D&D at the time with characters taking loads of punishment but instead the combat's deadly whether you're a king or a viking farmer.

The king usually has more armour, but yeah, PD combat is hard and fast. I remember introducing some GURPS players to PD and they were a bit culture-shocked. From tap-dancing and pussy-footing to "HYAHHH!"

Quote from: droogPassions aren't too hard, but I think there's a Christian morality built into the Traits (in the selection and ordering). For something like Japan you'd need to strip it back and build customised Trait-pairs

  I really don't think so.  The pairings are fairly neutral, what makes someone a Christian or a Wotan worshipper or a Jew is which traits are seen as being more important than others.  I'm normally the first guy to get a whiff of assumed christianity but I don't get one from Pendragon.

Quote from: Mr. AnalyticalI really don't think so.  The pairings are fairly neutral, what makes someone a Christian or a Wotan worshipper or a Jew is which traits are seen as being more important than others.  I'm normally the first guy to get a whiff of assumed christianity but I don't get one from Pendragon.

Okay, I'm going to get analytical. Here are the Trait pairs:

Chaste/Lustful
Energetic/Lazy
Forgiving/Vengeful
Generous/Selfish
Honest/Deceitful
Just/Arbitrary
Merciful/Cruel
Modest/Proud
Pious/Worldly
Prudent/Reckless
Temperate/Indulgent
Trusting/Suspicious
Valorous/Cowardly

Chivalric Traits are bold; Christian Traits are underlined.

First thing we notice is that all the 'good', 'Christian' Traits are lined up on the left, in good alphabetical order; while the 'bad' opposites are defined out of order, only in opposition. If your culture values a Trait on the right, it does so as a deviation from the natural order of things.

Note that the Chivalric Traits are all left-hand ones. Several of them coincide with Christian Traits; no other religion has such a favourable starting position.

Finally: we can see that by no means does the list of Traits cover all human possibilities. Hence the list of a dozen or so we have is selected for the purpose of modelling Malory. And what is the society in Malory? A barbarian warrior society with an overlay of Christianity. So, the closer to that you are, the more comfortably the game as it stands will handle it.

Genpei, Ian Young's Japanese variant, does change the traits to a degree and to great success.

Quote from: droogFirst thing we notice is that all the 'good', 'Christian' Traits are lined up on the left, in good alphabetical order; while the 'bad' opposites are defined out of order, only in opposition. If your culture values a Trait on the right, it does so as a deviation from the natural order of things.

  The point that there's more overlap between the virtues of christianity and the virtues of knighthood than between knighthood and any other religion might well be valid.  It makes sense up to a point seeing as knighthood was a christian thing but you could well be correct on that one.

  However...

  A) Symbolism aside, it really doesn't matter whether your culturally favoured traits are on the left or on the right.  That's just a presentation issue.

  B) Being a knight is quite a christian thing and as such if you aren't a part of christian medievel culture whether or not you have knightly virtues isn't really going to make a lot of difference to you as a character.  If we're talking about adapting Pendragon to other cultures and times then the overlap between christianity and knightlyness ceases to become much of an advantage.

  C) Admittedly those traits were selected to model Mallory but they seem pretty flexible to me in terms of coverage.  Bear in mind that personality tests tend to break down into fewer sets of opposed traits than your average Pendragon character has.  The only thing I can't really see catered for is how conservative/respectful of authority you are.

Balbinus - can you remember what modifications the Japanese variant made because I'm really not seeing the problem here.

I'll post them up next week.  I'm not saying there was a problem that needed fixing, but they did work well.

I think Fatalism was one trait, Ambition was another, those two might have been paired and it worked very well when I ran it.

Thing is, do you need to change the traits?  Not really IMO, certainly not for Outremer.  Can it help to tweak them?  Sure, for some settings it can.

I'm a pragmatist, I've run Ian's variant a couple of times and it worked really well, so for me the question of whether his changes were necessary or not is by the by, in play they worked well.

The left/right thing, I mean Droog's right technically but I never noticed and it's never affected my play of the game so I really don't think that matters at all.

It's a symbolism thing and he's right that it does scream "This game is for playing christian knights" but ultimately what it's just symbols, which are abstracted from in play anyway.

Ah yes, the ambition thing... I remember you talking about Dan's character who was an ambitious coward.

Yeah, i can see a case for including it but I see that kind of thing as being embedded in the Energetic/Lazy divide anyway.  If you're an energetic young go-getter you're more likely to want to put effort into succeeding but if you're some laid back unmotivated type all you're going to want from life is pretty much what you have right there... climbing the ladder being too much effort.

Quote from: RPGPunditI have, but I'm a little reluctant to post them here since a couple of my future players are on here, and to me these rules are for GM-eyes only.

RPGPundit

Well, maybe you could post them in a thread with a big PLAYERS OF MINE DON'T READ THIS advidce. I'm very very interested.

Quote from: Mr. AnalyticalIt's a symbolism thing and he's right that it does scream "This game is for playing christian knights" but ultimately what it's just symbols, which are abstracted from in play anyway.

I think that signs and symbols are very important in communication. I think that a different list of Traits is going to say something different – and keep saying it while you play the game.

EG:

Ballsy/Chickenshit
Cool/Geek
Cool/Wired
Fair/Unfair
Generous/Tight
Nice/Mean
Sexy/Cold
Smart/Dumb
Smart/Gullible
Smart/Weird
Soft/Harsh
Straight/Bent
Trustworthy/Untrustworthy


But I don't want to overstate the point.

Quote from: ImperatorWell, maybe you could post them in a thread with a big PLAYERS OF MINE DON'T READ THIS advidce. I'm very very interested.

Clearly you are unfamiliar with Jong.  Jong would whore out his own mother to get any snippet of information that would give him an edge in a game.  :p

I'll gladly post the rules... once the campaign is either over, or so well on its way that Jong has already figured out the rules (and by "figured out" I mean "scaled my apartment at night, broken in through my window, bypassed my computer's security and stolen the rules file").

RPGPundit

Quote from: RPGPunditClearly you are unfamiliar with Jong.  Jong would whore out his own mother to get any snippet of information that would give him an edge in a game.  :p

I'll gladly post the rules... once the campaign is either over, or so well on its way that Jong has already figured out the rules (and by "figured out" I mean "scaled my apartment at night, broken in through my window, bypassed my computer's security and stolen the rules file").

RPGPundit

Hey! At least he isn't lackadaisical about it. Nice to know a player really cares!

Also nice to test out those Grimtooth's traps in real life! :D

-clash

Oooh... I've just remembered.  I seem to remember seeing a variant based on the Wars of the Roses floating around somewhere.  I think there might even have been talk of developping it as a proper supplement.

Quote from: droogMy take on the rules is that they model heroic warrior societies nicely, but they're not highly realistic. And I think the Traits and Passions need considerable tweaking once you step outside a European paradigm.

Ian Young here.  As Balbinus pointed out, this is, in fact, what I did with the Trait pairs, and I think that for any non-European setting it's exactly what should be done.  For those of you who were asking, here are the changes I made:
   Fatalistic/Ambitious
A Fatalistic person is resigned to one's externally ordained fate.  To the Fatalistic character, personal desires are inconsequential in light of the view that one's lot in life is dictated either by karma or by duty to one's superior, and more likely both.
To be Ambitious is to possess a desire to improve one's lot in life.  The ambitious individual is the master of his own fate, constantly aware of any opportunity to get ahead, ready to seize them as they appear, and possibly at the expense of others.  Ambition may still be reconciled with karma, as one's lot in life may well be to rise to the top.

Merciful/Cruel
To be Merciful is to display ninjō, or compassion for others.
A Cruel person is disdainful of the feelings of others.

Proud/Humble
To be Proud means that your character derives satisfaction from recognition of his deeds, his ancestry, and his station in life.  However, he is boastful only on the battlefield or when prompted.  Excessive pride and unsolicited boasting implies arrogance.
Humble means that your character is quiet and does not seek self-glory in recitation of his deeds, satisfied merely to go about his routine.  A Humble character recognises his simple station in life and derives no glory from it.  Very Humble people are called reserved, perhaps even shy.

Sincere/Deceitful
A Sincere character is one who maintains the steady appearance of being honest and forthright, as opposed to the act of being honest and forthright.  This isn't to suggest that one may lie outright as long as appearances are maintained.  However, in the complex world of intertwined and often conflicting allegiances and obligations, a Sincere character is careful to fulfill the letter of the obligation, if not the intended spirit, as to offend none of the involved parties.  Shrewd interpretation of obligations must be coupled with the appearance of sincere intent in fulfilling those obligations.
A Deceitful person is prone to lying, prevarication, and breaking promises.  Feudal Japanese society holds lying, oathbreaking, and defaulting on obligations in low regard.  It is a profound dishonor to be caught or even implicated in such a situation.  A very Deceitful character has little regard for such dishonor.

Note:  The paired traits Forgiving and Vengeful are not used.  In feudal Japanese society, forgiveness is superceded by fatalism, the willingness to overlook slights and transgressions as the inevitable product of fate.  Vengeance is common among the feudal Japanese, but is a product of either wounded pride or thwarted ambition.
Now, I agree with droog that there is an obvious left-right divide, with the supposedly "good" traits being lined up first on the left, but I think this can be viewed as another in-character conceit -- these are the traits that the characters' society prefers or idealises, not necessarily the one's that we as players idealise.

To complete the adaptation of the Traits, I bashed out the followign religious bonuses:

   Buddhist - Chaste, Merciful, Humble, Pious, Temperate (+/- 3 on Passion or Trait rolls)
Shinto - Chaste, Generous, Sincere, Temperate, Worldly   (+/- 3 on either Aging roll or Family roll during Winter Phase)
...and here are the Traits with the Bushido ideals:
   Chaste / Lustful
Cautious / Reckless
•Energetic / Lazy
•Fatalistic / Ambitious
Generous / Selfish
•Just / Arbitrary
Merciful / Cruel
Pious / Worldly
•Proud / Humble
•Sincere / Deceitful
Temperate / Indulgent
Trusting / Suspicious
•Valorous / Cowardly
The Traits that exemplify the code of Bushido are Energetic, Fatalistic, Just, Proud, Sincere, and Valorous, noted by a bullet ("•") on the Traits list above.  If the sum value of all six traits equals 80 or more, your character receives a +3 Bushido Damage Bonus.  Unlike the +3 Chivalric Armor that Arthurian knights receive, which represents a sort of spiritual protection for the truest knights, the + 3 Bushido Damage Bonus represents a samurai's total commitment to the way of war.  Rather than shielding himself from the inevitable cause and effect of battle, he focuses himself upon engaging and defeating his opponent.

Enjoix,
!i!