Has anyone done it? I think it would work really well if it focused on something like the Gondorian Nobility or one of The Rangers of The North.

I can't even begin to get my head around this as an idea. Good luck to anyone that tries it, though.

It's an interesting concept, particularly if one is going with a Middle-earth campaign NOT at all associated with the War of the Ring. Gondor would be a good fit, because it's the most "knights in shiny armor" kingdom of the Third Age, but you could also do it with Arnor and the Second Age.

My recollection is that the game has two distinctly different components:
(1) The RPG has a focus on the characters and events from the King Arthur storyline.
(2) The Pendragon campaign is built to allow a person to run a decades-long campaign where you play knights and then their children.

I think that either could be used in Middle-earth, but the style would be different depending upon which was chosen.

I guess what makes it work for me is that the line of kings in Gondor is mostly a bunch of names, but no personalities. If a person used a Pendragon concept (I'm thinking the Pendragon campaign, not the King Arthur RPG specifically) one could have a game that moved a year at a time and a single quest per year and slowly work through one king and then the next. If a person wanted to use the King Arthur characters (now I'm switching to the main RPG, not the Pendragon campaign) then one might focus on a smaller time range.

Actually, since the whole point of the Arthurian mythos is the rise and fall of the Perfect Kingship, combined with the quest for a holy relic that allows the salvation of what can be saved from the fallen kingdom, I'd go back a little earlier: I'd set the game in the reign of Ar-Pharazon, the last King of Numenor, who overthrew Sauron in the Second Age only to bring him back to Numenor, where Sauron's evil counsels eventually convinced the Numenoreans to wage war on Valinor in order to obtain immortality -- thus causing the destruction of the island and the Bending of the World.

To make it more of an Arthurian story, play a little with the backstory of the last Kings (the Akallabeth in The Silmarillion is your go-to source here), so that Ar-Pharazon isn't quite as much of a, well, a dick as he's presented in the source material. Your PCs could be the last knights of Numenor, seeking to find, perhaps, one of the Silmarils, which has been prophesied to be key to saving the People of Elros Tar-Minyatur. Merlin could be an Eldar friend of the throne who helped Tar-Palantir, Ar-Pharazon's predecessor, reinstitute the old ways of worship of Eru; Morgana could be a Numenorean princess turned sorceress given one of the Nine Rings; Peredur is a lieutenant and liegeman to Elendil in the last days of the Empire....  You know, the more I think about this the more I think it could work.

The idea of Pendragon isnt to necessarily to retell King Arthurs story perse, but rather use it as a stage decorations surrounding the player's and thier dynasty. The family is the character. So there doesnt need to be a merlin character, but rather its more important how your player knights react, and what story they tell. So have Sauron be the mage advisor, and see where that takes him. Just remember to twist it so every thing he says sounds like good sound advice and follows thier moral code, its just the out come corrupts them.

Quote from: finarvyn;1092507It's an interesting concept, particularly if one is going with a Middle-earth campaign NOT at all associated with the War of the Ring. Gondor would be a good fit, because it's the most "knights in shiny armor" kingdom of the Third Age, but you could also do it with Arnor and the Second Age.

I can't believe I am going to be this guy, but the Kingdom of Arnor is also Third Age. As to the rest, one thing that makes KAP work is a general familiarity with the source material. A group generally familiar with the Silmarilian could make a First Age game work. The Second Age and the rise and fall of Numernor would be harder because, as said, it's mostly just names. Third age Arnor or Gondor could work, but would be greatly helped with the filling out of details found in the old MERP supplements. I think the time before the fall of Athendain to Angmar would be particularly appropriate.

I always assumed Aragorn was just a version of King Arthur re-skinned for Lord of the Rings. Complete with broken sword that needs to be made whole.

Quote from: Stephen Tannhauser;1092518Actually, since the whole point of the Arthurian mythos is the rise and fall of the Perfect Kingship, combined with the quest for a holy relic that allows the salvation of what can be saved from the fallen kingdom, I'd go back a little earlier: I'd set the game in the reign of Ar-Pharazon, the last King of Numenor, who overthrew Sauron in the Second Age only to bring him back to Numenor, where Sauron's evil counsels eventually convinced the Numenoreans to wage war on Valinor in order to obtain immortality -- thus causing the destruction of the island and the Bending of the World.

To make it more of an Arthurian story, play a little with the backstory of the last Kings (the Akallabeth in The Silmarillion is your go-to source here), so that Ar-Pharazon isn't quite as much of a, well, a dick as he's presented in the source material. Your PCs could be the last knights of Numenor, seeking to find, perhaps, one of the Silmarils, which has been prophesied to be key to saving the People of Elros Tar-Minyatur. Merlin could be an Eldar friend of the throne who helped Tar-Palantir, Ar-Pharazon's predecessor, reinstitute the old ways of worship of Eru; Morgana could be a Numenorean princess turned sorceress given one of the Nine Rings; Peredur is a lieutenant and liegeman to Elendil in the last days of the Empire....  You know, the more I think about this the more I think it could work.

I got nothing to add, except to mention that's probably the best "Hey I have a Middle Earth campaign idea" pitch I've heard in a while.

If it's any vindication, a friend of mind has been running Pendragon 5e for a Silmarillion campaign for going on a year now. It works super, super well.

//Panjumanju

Quote from: Panjumanju;1092930If it's any vindication, a friend of mind has been running Pendragon 5e for a Silmarillion campaign for going on a year now. It works super, super well.

//Panjumanju

Did he change the Virtues/Vices at all?

I used Pendragon as the core system for a 3rd age middle earth campaign. It was excellent. My subsequent middle earth campaigns have used other systems (earlier GURPS and BD+D; more recently, TFT), but Pendragon really provided a superb ME experience. If I had a group that was enthusiastic about the idea I'd run it again in a heartbeat. There are many strengths: the system of traits and passions provides very rich descriptions of characters and natural ways of framing things like the influence of the shadow. The scaling of character physical powers and skills and their abilities in combat results in fights that feel like middle earth sorts of conflicts (i.e., mostly quasi-realistic and dangerous, but with the potential for great extremes in power and deadliness). The basic 'tech level' feels right. Elves that feel like elves. I could go on; basically, it is a nearly perfect match with the setting. Much better than any of the licensed games I've played.

I've been thinking about doing this for a long time, but could never find a group that was interested. I think I would go with Pendragon 4th ed. because it gives you wider range of possible characters. With information from the Saxons, Land of Giants, and Pagan Shores supplements it would be pretty easy to have campaigns focused on the Rohirrim, the Northmen, or the Dunlendings if you didn't want to do Gondor or Arnor. For Gondor, I think I'd be tempted by the Kinstrife as the setting era.  Of course, I'd drop 4th edition's magic rules.

Years ago there was an attempt to create a Middle Earth game drawing heavily on Pendragon, it was called Song of Arda. It was never finished, but you can still find some of the materials created for it through the Internet Archive at http://web.archive.org/web/20030130102017/http://song-of-arda.net/. It might be worth looking at.

It's difficult to say which edition is the best place to start. 4E is by far the largest and most complex, so you will find spread across its supplements lots of character generation processes and magic sub-systems you can draw on to emulate things from the setting. On the other hand, none of them are really all that close to what you want and the rules as a whole are bloated. It isn't very useful to you that there are dozens of pages devoted to explaining how knights from Britany are different from knights from Logres.

I think the best approach might be to start with the most pared down edition (1E) and add what you need to differentiate among characters from the various nations. It requires 10-20 pages of house rules, but you'll be more satisfied with the end result. Plus I think writing 10 pages is a lot cheaper, easier and faster than buying, reading and assimilating 10 books.

Well, that's true. As it happens I have most of the material for Pendragon 4th ed. and I've read it, though a long time back. It also is more open to female characters, IIRC, which could be a plus depending on your table. I also think that Saxons could be a useful sourcebook for anyone who wanted to focus on the Rohirrim, since they are sort-of Anglo-Saxons on horses. I'm not thinking so much of the rules on character generation, etc., but details of culture which you could adapt or steal. The same perhaps for Pagan Shores and the Dunlendings, inasmuchas as they are vaguely Celtic in conception. But you obviously wouldn't need all that; you could get by with any version of the Pendragon rules and your own extrapolations based on Tolkien.

For that matter, I wonder if Dave Dunham's old Pendragon Pass rules would do the trick; they were designed to employ Pendragon to play Orlanthi. I imagine they are out there on the internet somewhere.

Quote from: CRKrueger;1092945Did he change the Virtues/Vices at all?

No, nothing needed changing at all. It fit really well. I played in 3 or 4 sessions and it was great.

//Panjumanju