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Built from Birth 2 – Pendragon

Built from Birth is a series on lifepath systems in tabletop RPGs through history. In each post I walk through the lifepath process for a given system and reflect on the experience.

King Arthur: Pendragon is another classic RPG that still gets discussed today. Players create Arthurian knights, who act according to certain personality traits and the rules of chivalry. The game tends to come up in lifepath discussions, though I’ve heard it more often as an example game where a PC cannot be treated like a chess piece and optimal play is not really possible / normalized.

This is my first time engaging with Pendragon directly. I’m using the 5th Edition book from 2005, though some cursory research suggests the character creation hasn’t changed much since the original 1985 publication.

Cracking it Open

There’s a fair amount of reading ahead of character creation, designed to introduce the player to the setting and ethos of Pendragon. There’s a lot of important raw info there, like dates, names, and maps; it also teaches the player how to think within its unique concept of the Arthurian setting. Sometimes that training is explicitly stated, other times the rulebook adopts the voice of the Cymric (Arthur’s cultural group) common sense, and the reader is expected to keep up.

Parsing Pendragon’s Philosophy

At its core, the game is romantic: Arthur is immutably fated, heroic, and doomed. He represents unalloyed Good, and there’s a chauvinism towards other cultures baked into the setting. Magic is real, dangerous, wild, and unknowable, as it is in the Arthurian legend. The player character, as a Cymric knight, cannot help but align with this worldview.

Pendragon also presents itself as historical. The mechanics position PCs as necessarily feudal landowners, constrained by fealty and chivalric honor and class position. The rules frequently pause to emphasize how different medieval life was and how alien its social systems seem to us today.

That historical tendency, though, is strategically ignored in places where the game becomes openly anachronistic. This is used to provide technological progression: the game “begins in the Dark Ages and ends in the War of the Roses, just before the Renaissance,” according to the introduction. Another use for this anachronism is, following T.H. White and others, to portray Arthur as “wise beyond his era, foreshadowing democratic and other common institutions,” contributing to the romanticism of King Arthur as a figure.

Gender

This careful balance around historicism seems to fall apart on the issue of women knights. The assumption that PCs are men runs deep, entwined with the game’s feudal inheritance systems. I can respect the fact that Pendragon, in modeling gendered history and literature, is not trivially made gender-agnostic.

But players want to portray women, and the game anticipates that. The response, at least in the 5th Edition text, is frankly incoherent. The section of the rules which introduces the Women’s Character Sheet (in contrast to the Knight’s) takes a hardline stance on the issue:

Women have roles in the Arthurian world that no man can perform. Still, Pendragon is based on Arthurian literature: To be faithful to the sources, the role of female characters is limited to those roles found in literature and history. The core game does not go out of its way to be politically correct or modern — those concessions appear in later supplements.

Later in the same section, a subsection titled Non-Traditional Woman takes a very different tone. This feels like a later addition to the core rules, informed by a different understanding of political economy and history:

Your campaign may have room in it for female knights, for while highly unusual, such women are not entirely unprecedented.
[…]
In all the literature of King Arthur, no women knights or fighters appear. Keep in mind, however, the fact that the troubadours, minstrels, and balladeers of that period were generally successful because they represented the status quo, and fighting women simply were not contained within the image of society they were expected to convey.

The following subsection, Women Knights in Play, then seems to take a step back towards the original framing of women knights, labeling them a valid “twentieth-century […] extrapolation” to “adapt” the Arthurian legend. This seems to ignore the historical argument of the last subsection and again frame women knights as fundamentally a concession.

I was unsure how much to address these gender issues, certainly not unique within fantasy fiction. But I found they cast a long shadow over my character creation experience. Gender plays an important role in my imagining new characters, and the exclusionary tone which dominates the Women section felt smothering. My mood going into character generation was deeply ambivalent about Pendragon as a space or platform for interesting play, largely due to these issues.

Down to Brass Tacks

The core character creation of Pendragon doesn’t use a lifepath system, and is instead a fairly typical series of point-buy and random roll steps. However, the game also provides a mechanism to determine the history of a PC’s family year by year, with statistical implications for the PC. After character creation, I’ll walk though that process as well.

Step 1 – Personal Data

The first step for a Pendragon character is to name them and determine their context. Some things are always the same for all knight PCs: they are Cymric, they are from Salisbury and owe fealty to its Earl, they are the oldest son of a Vassal Knight, and they are a squire on the edge of knighthood. The player is tasked with naming the PC and their father, picking a religion, and rolling which manor they own.

In naming the character, the question of gender returns. Following my feeling of ambivalence, I decide my character will be somewhere in the area of butch woman / genderfluid / gender non-conforming. I’m a firm believer that these labels are specific to a historical context, and I’m holding in mind the ambiguity of reading historical figures we might consider trans today. I decide to go with she/her pronouns and pick the name Obie from the game’s list of names for women. For her father, I pick the name Berel.

Among the religion choices (Pagan, British Christian, and Roman Christian), I’m most interested in playing a Pagan character. Then I roll on the manor table and determine Obie lives in Shrewton.

Step 2 – Traits and Passions

Pendragon uses a system of opposed traits to represent a character’s personality and behavioral tendencies. Each trait is paired with an opposite, and each pair must add to 20 total. So every point in one trait necessarily removes a point from the opposite one.

Obie has certain “virtues,” traits which begin at 13 because they are valued in her religion. As a Pagan, those are Generous, Energetic, Honest, Lustful, and Proud. (If she were a Christian, she would have different virtues.) All knightly characters start with a 15 in Valorous from combat training. I can also pick a “famous trait” for Obie to start at 16, and I decide to go with Worldly; as a consequence, Pious will start at 4. All other trait pairs begin at 10 each.

Characters also have passions that guide their behavior: Loyalty (to their lord), Love (of family), Hospitality, Honor, and Hate (of Saxons). I’m going to use the family history mechanic, which will determine the Hate passion. All others start at 15, with 3 additional points to distribute. I choose to increase love by 2 and hospitality by 1.

Step 3 – Statistics

Pendragon characters have five primary attributes: Size, Dexterity, Strength, Constitution, and Appearance. For the most part, these range between 5 and 18, though Size cannot be lower than 8 and Constitution may go to 21 for Cymric characters. I’m given 60 attribute points to distribute among these, with a 3-point bonus to Constitution.

I decide to make Obie relatively small, but generally spread out her attribute points evenly across the remaining stats. From there, there’s some basic arithmetic to calculate several secondary statistics.

The final step is to determine Obie’s distinguishing characteristics based on her Appearance. These are meant to make characters of the same Appearance stat (representing their attractiveness) distinctive from one another. At 13 APP, Obie is entitled to two features. I can choose them myself, but there’s also a table provided for inspiration.

Rolling provides detail prompts of Limbs and Facial Expression. For the first, I have a pretty clear idea based on Obie’s size that she should be lean but muscular; I write down “wiry muscles.” For Facial Expression, I take a few passes. Obie is playful and good-humored I think; I consider “constant smirk” (too haughty) and “laughing eyes” (kind of ambiguous), but eventually settle on “mirthful eyes.”

Step 4 – Skills

Characters have a large variety of skills with default values determined by their culture. Then I’m given the ability to modify those values (and Traits/Passions/Attributes from the last two steps) in several different ways. I find this process a little confusing and hard to track, so I’m going to try to be very explicit.

First, several skills can be set to high values, one to 15 and three to 10. I set Obie’s Horsemanship to 15 (the highest value permitted at this stage for any skill), and then set her Flirty, Gaming, and Recognize to 10. I’m really leaning into her Famous Trait, Worldly, and her Pagan worldview that prioritizes Energetic and Lustful behavior.

Next, I can improve four distinct numbers on the character sheet, maintaining all the usual restrictions. If a skill is chosen, 5 points are added. Otherwise, a Trait, Passion, or (non-Size) Attribute can be raised by 1. Size cannot be changed in this step. I choose to:

  • Add 5 points to Awareness
  • Add 5 points to Folklore
  • Add 5 points to Intrigue
  • Increase the Indulgent trait by 1 (decreasing Temperate by 1 as well)

Finally, I’m permitted to distribute 10 additional points among skills, still not exceeding 15 in any skill. I give Obie 4 points in Sword, and 2 each in Faerie Lore, Dancing, and Swimming.

Step 5 – Previous Experience

Right now, Obie is 21 years old, the youngest age Pendragon allows for starting knightly characters. I’m allowed to advance the character’s age by up to five years. The benefits for each additional year are any two of: 1d6 skill points, a Trait/Passion point, and a point to a non-Size attribute.

I like where Obie stands right now, and none of these additional point options seem transformative. So I opt to keep her at 21 and skip this section.

Step 6 – Other Data

This section has a lot of boilerplate character creation that I won’t go through in detail, including: default equipment, the four default horses for a knight, and army size.

This section also instructs me to create heraldry for Obie. I found a helpful website to construct your own coat of arms, and settled on this silver martlet on a red saltire and a black field:

Additionally, there are two rolls which add flavor to a character in this step: an additional belonging and a Family Characteristic. The additional belongings table provides Obie with a courser, a fast horse, in addition to the war horse and pack horses she already has. This is a fun coincidence with my decision to prioritize the Horsemanship stat in Step 4.

The Family Characteristic will be a notable feature for Obie and her patrilineal family. Technically it’s only supposed to be inherited by men, but since I’m rolling Obie as a knight I’m ignoring that requirement. I roll “Natural speaker,” which provides a +10 bonus to the Orate skill. Since I chose to advance a lot of social skills in Step 4, this fits pretty well to solidify Obie and her family as naturally charismatic.

Step 7 – Family History

Following the standard character creation chapter is one called Salisbury Family History. This provides a timeline for a starting PC’s father and grandfather, their time as knights, and whatever Traits, Passions, and Glory they might have accrued. The timeline includes important events for many years leading up to the start date of 485, with random tables determining the role of the PC’s ancestors in those events.

Rather than going through roll by roll, I’ll summarize the life of each ancestor represented in this table and how it affects their child.

Great-Grandfather

Obie’s great-grandfather, Clegis, was among the first native Briton knights appointed by King Constantin in the wake of the Roman Empire’s withdrawal from Britain. He had an average career for a knight of his day, accruing 2000 Glory before his death in 431.

Grandfather

Shortly after his father’s death, Obie’s grandfather Ebel was knighted. His first few years as a knight were uneventful. In the year 439, he survived the long and hard-won Battle of Carlion against Irish raiders. The following year, Ebel was present when King Constantin was killed by one of his own guards. Ebel tried to protect the King, but died in the attempt, gaining the Glory of a hero’s death and a deep Mistrust of Silchester knights on his deathbed. He had 2296 Glory and a passion of Mistrust (Silchester Knights) at 11.

Father

Born in 439 just before his father’s heroic death, Berel inherited the profession of knighthood and Ebel’s Mistrust. He was knighted in 460, and served garrison duty with little or no combat for several years. In 465, following the murder of most Briton nobles in the Night of Long Knives, he married a young widow heiress to the manor of Shrewton. The following year, Obie was born.

In 466 to 467, Arthur’s uncle Aurelius Ambrosius conquered Britain from King Vortigern, the latter of whom had invited the murderous Saxons to Britain. The first Pendragon sieged Vortigern’s army at Carlion, where Berel fought and died gloriously. Berel’s glory upon death was 2345.

Impacts to Obie

Never really knowing his daughter, Berel did not have the opportunity to pass on his Mistrust of Silchester Knights gained from his own father’s death. While most knights have a healthy Hate towards Saxons, Obie also lacks that passion, having no one to inherit it from. However, a family history of Glorious young death has an impact on Obie’s own reputation as a fledgling knight. She begins with 235 Glory of her own, a tenth of Berel’s. Now I can finish the character sheet:

Reflections

I honestly didn’t find Pendragon’s character creation to be as deep or engaging as I’d expected. The core of character creation was mostly point buys, a couple of rolls, and a lot of predetermined steps. There’s just not much there, and if you only did that part of character creation I think it would feel pretty comparable to creating a D&D 3.5 character.

The family history section was where I expected interesting lifepath-style surprises, which didn’t really happen. Obviously, I had an abbreviated experience with it, since both ancestors died very early. But glancing through the years I missed, I didn’t see anything that would have radically altered my experience. It might be that the possibility space is just not wide enough for the kinds of interesting character moments I like; everything is bound within a history fully determined by the text, and nothing can have too much impact on the PC. Particularly, they must still be a landed knight when the game starts.

After this exercise, I still have some interest in Pendragon, but I don’t think it’s focused on character creation. I know that time moves very quickly in game, so maybe the lifepath connection is more in the campaign itself. If I ever play in a campaign of Pendragon, I might return to this question.

But I also find myself wary of the setting and ethos choices in Pendragon; the tightrope of history and romance and tactical anachronism seems very precarious. As a GM, it seems you’d be responsible for making a lot of calls adjudicating between those tendencies, and the gap between your judgment and player expectations could provide a lot of friction. At this point, I don’t think I’d feel confident to run the game. Even to play a PC, I would probably need a lot of personal trust in the GM.

What Can We Steal?

I set myself up in the Traveller post to ask this question going forward, but Pendragon provides a challenge. To be honest, I think for me the game provides more examples of what not to do for a lifepath system. Particularly, the strict requirements on PC roles, the rigid setting history, and low social mobility within the setting are all opposed to eclectic personal histories. Maybe there’s a way around it, but Pendragon’s implementation seems to foreclose a lot of interesting angles in character creation that other lifepath systems afford.

The generational aspect to lifepaths is definitely interesting, even if Pendragon doesn’t really provide what I’d like out of it. Two other games on my list, The One Ring and Glorantha 4e, also have generational lifepath systems. I’m curious to see how the idea is implemented in those games, whose settings may provide more breathing room for idiosyncrasy and variety during character creation.

What’s Next?

Now that we’re in the mid-80s, RPGs are really getting going, and we seem to be entering the first heyday of lifepath systems. Next week, I’ll be working through the Professions system in Warhammer Fantasy Roleplaying 1e from 1986.

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