Sunday, February 1, 2015

[Pendragon] The Great Pendragon Campaign: Year 527 - The Roman War

We actually pick up at the end of 526 and the little matter of the Battle of Saussy. After that trifle is dealt with, we continue to follow Arthur's campaign trail as he wages war against the Roman Empire in his bid to be recognized as Emperor.



Featuring:

Des
Jade
Dave S.
And…Edie the Dog

The campaign's wiki can be found here.

27 comments:

  1. This comment has been removed by the author.

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    1. One day I will learn how to post comments!

      I was only listening to the promised battle wrap-up so I'm not finished yet. Still, I accept the challenge of the shirt: http://tinyurl.com/MorienShirthttp://tinyurl.com/MorienShirt

      I do really like the observation that every round, 5% of each army should be lost to people falling off their horses. Probably slightly less for the horse masters among them who can't fail.Still it is a sobering reminder that no matter how cool you are, if you are played by Dave you will end up looking like a punk in battles.

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    2. Jake comes through again! I'll have to open a Cafe Press store at the end of this campaign with all the sundry in-joke designs available on shirts, mugs, and mouse pads. I'll make a mint!

      As for people falling off their horses, it actually makes sense now that I'm thinking about it. I mean, imagine a crush of mounted men fighting over the course of an hour. You'd have dozens of guys spilling their asses! Just look at the much more civilized example of polo...

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdQfR6oqJ_M

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    3. Out of curiosity how dead were you? You'd taken a lot of little wounds, so were you just reliant on incredibly lucky First Aid rolls to get back up, or did you explode like you had been hit by Edern?

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    4. Reliant on lucky First Aid rolls. They would have had to be very lucky, like double crit lucky.

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    5. Could have happened though. You should always leave a little room for your luck to change. Heavens know it'll be due one of these battles. I thought your squire was in the sweet spot this year so that he at least couldn't have fumbled.

      Also once again Jen appears to have missed a session with some possibly truly phenomenal Glory awards. Though Edern's was at least probably boosted by becoming a Round Table knight it's still a little unfortunate. Glad she appears to have gotten a warm welcome on her return.

      Meanwhile an old man commands his fleet of horses and family men to slowly drag a statue of an Elephant across Europe towards Britain....

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    6. My squire couldn't fumble his Squire rolls. His first aid skill, on the other hand, remained a 15.

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    7. In an attempt to prove a point, possibly to myself, I made what was going to be the first of five First Aid rolls to see if you could have survived.

      I immediately rolled a 20. Point proven.

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    8. Jake, you just did the gaming equivalent of playing Bloody Mary and Hitori Kakurenbo at the same time.

      ...why would you do such a thing? You now need a shinto priest, a buddhist monk, and a young and old priest. Also, spray salt water on all of your dice to cleanse them.

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    9. Well, I was at work and had used my die roller on my phone which I'm told is a minor sin in and of itself. These people have never had to roll for my Shadowrun character.

      Still I'll heed your warning. I'm sure there must be some sort of adorable exorcism app I can download. I'll get right on that, just as soon as my phone stops displaying eldritch runes and bleeding a thick, blackish blood out of its speakers.

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    10. That's only the first of the many sinister signs. You've got time.

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  2. You sounded disappointed that you didn't have more luck killing people. Remember the knockdown rolls in battle - being unhorsed is dangerous, and I think there's supposed to be a chance of being separated from the unit. Chirurgery rolls are also a place where characters can die.

    On a happier note, though, you all laugh about knights taking audio tours, but having read a bit on medieval tourism, it's all surprisingly modern. Travel books and everything.

    And on one other note, I think you're mistaken about the 4e family history rolls. The grandfather can't survive past the Battle of Winchester (which I think is Netley Marsh in the GPC), and the father is doomed at the Castle of Bones. The continental campaign is dangerous, but not that bad.

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    1. I just worry that things aren't challenging enough. My damage rolls were truly abysmal last night. Could barely roll anything more than 2 pips on any given die.

      Yes, being unhorsed is potentially disastrous! With my pitiful damage rolls, of course, no one was ever really in danger of it, but perhaps in future battles... ;)

      There's a Pendragon supplement (Perilous Forest) that actually has a medieval-style tour book as a handout.

      Good catch on the 4e family history rolls. I remember there being a good chance of eating it during the Roman War, but obviously overinflated the odds in my memory...

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    2. It's hard to judge when things are challenging in RPGs, because since there's so much reliance on dice rolling a relatively unpowered minion can get lucky and take out a highly experienced character and vice versa. If you try to swing too far into the challenging territory then you accidentally create an encounter that there's no way to overcome. Also as people pointed out, you killed a character each session, and managed to incapacitate another today. It seems like this war met the challenge threshold.

      It's like the difference between the Troit Boar and the Skeleton Dragon or the Dolorous Wyrm. The Boar was a massively powerful enemy so it came down to hoping you crit and it didn't in order to deal damage, and it wasn't as interesting an encounter. Their dragon/wyrm fights have been against equally powerful enemies, but it involved a lot of planning and fun techniques so they were a lot more interesting to listen to even though the fight seemed to be a lot easier.

      So in summary you have no way of judging beforehand whether your fight will be challenging. Such is the curse of a GM.

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    3. My experience is that it's worth it to run a wide mix of types of fight. Sometimes a big monster with a weakness, sometimes a crowd of weak enemies (say, 2-4 per knight), sometimes a mob of enemy knights, sometimes a big monster where you just have to pray it doesn't crit. Knights and bandits make good enemies to try really tough fights, because even if you lose, you'll likely survive to be ransomed. But anyway, I think that the most exciting fights tend to be kind of like that 2nd one in the Three Musketeers, where people look up after they handle their own enemies and try to decide who they need to go help.

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  3. It'd be fun to have Arthur take back one of the Roman monuments that we know to have existed, but which doesn't survive, explaining its absence. I await eagerly the episode in which our heroes put Trajan's Column back...

    Just out of curiosity: are you going to interpret all these new Hate (Romans) passions as only applying to Romans in Italy, or do they apply to Romans back in Britain? Presumably the matched sets of burghers that the knights keep acquiring are Romans in the second sense.

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    1. I imagine the explanation for how Trajan's Column ends up back in Rome is the same as the explanation for where all those castles go, or why people forget about plate armor for the next 800 years, after Arthur's reign ends. ;)

      The Hate (Romans) passion could certainly apply to anyone in Britain with the "Roman" cultural signifier. Per the Book of Knights and Ladies, that would include people from: the Broadlands (Anglia), the City of Caerwent (Escavalon), the City of Carlion (Escavalon), the City of Cirencester (Escavalon), Dorset (including the City of Dorchester), the City of Eburacum (Malahaut), the City of Glevum (Gloucester), the City of London and the surrounding county of Thamesmouth, the City of Norwich (Anglia), the City of Silchester, and Yarmouth (Anglia). Oh dear...

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    2. Cynrain is probably not even slightly surprised to see Silchester on that list. He always knew there was something fishy about them.

      Wait, if Arthur is now Emperor of the Romans and you are all his subjects....

      Dave, you are the Romans. They've been you the whole time. Someone might argue that logically a conditional proof is not bidirectional, but you know who invented logic like that? THE ROMANS (probably).

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    4. It just occurred to me that my previous comment verged on a spoiler. I apologize.

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    5. As long as I'm not the Saxons, too.

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  4. You know something to remember. Sir Edern is the seventh son of Cynrain and I believe Edern has or is close to having a seventh son of his own which will mean a seventh son of a seventh son.

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    1. Oh yes. This has been duly noted by both Jade and I in conversations. I'll have to figure out some suitable rules if she plays that character. I think Mythus had something...

      ::starts rooting through PDF collection::

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    2. Glad to here though eve if she doesn't play him I would not mind the character making waves as it were.

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