A PK in my campaign will soon find himself with 5 knights under his command, having just married Lady Indeg. Quite understandably, the player in question has now asked me if he can take these with him on quests and adventures, etc. He's not suggesting they fight for him while he idles around in the background, however I'm certain they will fight alongside him.

I can't think of any realistic reason why he cannot have these knights with him as long as all feudal obligations are upheld. eg even if he wants to take them strawberry picking for 60 days each year, well that's his choice. The question is more one of game balance. Amongst my party of 5PKs, I could potentially find myself with another 5NPKs providing a potent firepower backup. To other GMs - how would you handle this?

I think you should refuse this stone cold. It will destroy the game balance and most scenarios to have a bunch of NPC knights coming along. The argument is this: the feudal obligation is to serve in war and peace, but that service is of course connected to the feudal grant. Running around on quests has nothing to do with that grant. They can serve in garrison duty - three months per year if they are vassal knights and 365 days a year if they are household knights, but they garrison the grant, not the person. And the 40/60 days of service is war. Not feuding, not jousting, not questing. War. There has to be a formal declaration of war. This is not something a mere banneret can do; its higher up in the political system. This is how I do it. I don't know if its "correct", but I think it is a good and fairly reasonable way to keep PCs with vassal from derailing things.

Another way to get a player to accept this is the following. He takes his five knights questing. In the mean time his grant is hit with a raid. No defenders = the whole place is pillaged. Alternatively, his lord gets attacked while hes away. So next court he will ask: "You owe me six knight's service in war. When I needed you there were non to serve. Since you clearly don't care to fulfill your obligations, I revoke your grant. As a landless knight, you can do as you please, but I will give the land to someone that will hold his oaths". Heavy handed, but reasonable, I think.

I think you should refuse this stone cold. It will destroy the game balance and most scenarios to have a bunch of NPC knights coming along. The argument is this: the feudal obligation is to serve in war and peace, but that service is of course connected to the feudal grant. Running around on quests has nothing to do with that grant. They can serve in garrison duty - three months per year if they are vassal knights and 365 days a year if they are household knights, but they garrison the grant, not the person. And the 40/60 days of service is war. Not feuding, not jousting, not questing. War. There has to be a formal declaration of war. This is not something a mere banneret can do; its higher up in the political system. This is how I do it. I don't know if its "correct", but I think it is a good and fairly reasonable way to keep PCs with vassal from derailing things.


An excellent (and believable) solution. Many thanks.

I probably painted myself into a corner by the way in which I've handled Roderick and his expectations of knightly duty during the first eight game years of my camapign. I've been running numerous sub plots and adventures alongside those in the GPC which the PKs have been ordered on to. Escorting dignitaries to Cornwall? Roderick has the PKs as the escort. Countess is barren and cannot conceive? Roderick has them chasing after some pagan cure... etc etc.

An excellent (and believable) solution. Many thanks.

I probably painted myself into a corner by the way in which I've handled Roderick and his expectations of knightly duty during the first eight game years of my camapign. I've been running numerous sub plots and adventures alongside those in the GPC which the PKs have been ordered on to. Escorting dignitaries to Cornwall? Roderick has the PKs as the escort. Countess is barren and cannot conceive? Roderick has them chasing after some pagan cure... etc etc.


Of course, a lord could ask (beg) for such help, and loyal knights might well help outside their obligations. But I think PCs retinue knights should refuse, in the sake of game balance. PC knight's should say yes, to have good stories. Also, escort duty, taking messages etc could be construed as part of the garrison duty part of the feudal obligation. But engaging in sports (quests, tournaments, adventures) never should.

A PK in my campaign will soon find himself with 5 knights under his command, having just married Lady Indeg. Quite understandably, the player in question has now asked me if he can take these with him on quests and adventures, etc. He's not suggesting they fight for him while he idles around in the background, however I'm certain they will fight alongside him.

Some good ideas have been given.
Those are not his knights to control, they are the king's knights ruled by the earl, who is obliged to bring a certain number of knights to the field. The PC has the honor of leading those 5 in battle.

As a GM it was always kind of fun to watch the npc knights drop and get lost along the way, and the pcs soon stopped sacrificing them this way.

I probably painted myself into a corner by the way in which I've handled Roderick and his expectations of knightly duty during the first eight game years of my camapign. I've been running numerous sub plots and adventures alongside those in the GPC which the PKs have been ordered on to. Escorting dignitaries to Cornwall? Roderick has the PKs as the escort. Countess is barren and cannot conceive? Roderick has them chasing after some pagan cure... etc etc.


Not a problem.
These actions you describe are indeed above and beyond your 60-days of service, but they are exactly the kinds of things that the earl would assign to his most trusted knights. These are the opportunities for knights to shine, to do extra, and get extra credit for good duty.
It is how things work, and it seems you did fine.

Those are not his knights to control, they are the king's knights ruled by the earl, who is obliged to bring a certain number of knights to the field. The PC has the honor of leading those 5 in battle.


At the risk of contradicting Greg, while this is certainly how the King would see it, at least in our campaign it is much more personal. Those vassal knights are oath-bound to their liege, which in this case would be the PK. If he tells them that for their 60-days of service, they will ride with him to some quest, there they will ride, or face the music. However... the PK in turn has sworn to -his- liege to provide X amount of knights for 60 days. If he has already 'spent' up his vassal knights, they are fully within their rights to tell the PK to go stuff himself, and leave the PK to scramble to hire expensive mercenary knights to make up for the muster, or otherwise start thinking up a good excuse why the liege shouldn't punish him for not holding up his end of the feudal bargain.

Household knights are nice, since they are in service 24/7/365. However, like people have already pointed out, the main task of the knights is to protect their estates and ride to war when the King summons his vassals. If your household knights are off to adventure, the more unscrupulous neighbors would definitely cast covetous eyes to your unprotected manors. 'Must have been the Saxons.'

Finally, one last thing to keep in mind would be the reactions of the other lords when this raiding-party sized group of knights rides across the border. I mean, bad enough when you have 3-5 knights and the same amount of squires (the generic PK party), but when you double that, then it really starts looking like a threat. The logical response would be to send 20 knights to escort this group to the local lord and have them explain what they are out here to do. Hijinks might ensue (especially if someone has high Pride)!

Summa summarum, there are many ways to discourage the PK from turning those knights into questfodder. However, do not make them useless. They do represent power and prestige, and a good way to make the players appreciate that is to have the NPKs react accordingly. After all, the PK is commanding around one twelth of Salisbury's military might, right? There are probably only half-a-dozen or so men with similar or better status in Salisbury. So it would make sense for his opinion and support to be sought after by the NPKs more than the other PKs.

Alternatively, his lord gets attacked while hes away. So next court he will ask: "You owe me six knight's service in war. When I needed you there were non to serve. Since you clearly don't care to fulfill your obligations, I revoke your grant. As a landless knight, you can do as you please, but I will give the land to someone that will hold his oaths". Heavy handed, but reasonable, I think.


With all due respect, I disagree that this is reasonable, UNLESS you have made it very clear to the player that this is the probable outcome if he takes his NPC knights with him on a quest. Otherwise, I would not blame the player at all for thinking that he has been unfairly ambushed by the GM.

There would be a reasonable way to do this, though... Make it so that all the questing knights need permission from their higher-up. So if the PK wishes to go questing with his posse of 5 NPKs, then make him ask permission from the Earl, and have the Earl deny permission, citing concerns about the defense of the County and the Kingdom. Let him take one NPK with him, perhaps. And this would be reasonable: the Earl wants to know where his knights are, so that not all of them are wandering around Logres when he needs them. And you can ask the PK if he wants his own vassal knights to be unexpectedly unavailable, visiting their sick aunt in Chester, without telling him in advance? I think he would be quite happy to have some control over their movements.

To what degree do the knights' military responsibilities to a banneret align with the banneret's responsibilities to the lord? If, say, the knights owe the banneret forty days of service a year, and the banneret owes his lord the service of six knights for forty days a year, then the banneret can't really have his knights follow him around that much unless he's pretty sure that the king won't need him that year. "Sorry, boss, it says here forty days a year, and you already got your forty. Me and the boys are staying home, thank you very much. Say hi to the count for me."

e: I see that Morien again has said this sooner and better. But if I might add something more:
Even low-ranking knights, it seems, were not above legalistic wrangling when it could benefit them. For example, in the late 12th century, the abbot of Bury St. Edmunds had several knights who served him; however, these knights pitched in together to support another one or two knights who would share their responsibilities, thus reducing the overall burden on the vassals. The abbot claimed that that wasn't kosher, and that those extraneous knights also owed him service as normal, as they were supported on his lands, while the knights insisted that that wasn't so, because they were using their own funds to do this. The chronicle does not say so, but I suspect that the abbot's knights were tempted to get a bargain by taking on a poor or incompetent knight, thus fulfilling the letter of the law, if not the spirit. Imagine if all of a sudden your banneret had not six but ten vassal knights, but four of them almost useless in a fight; nevertheless, the banneret is only entitled to the service of six knights, meaning that suddenly having a posse of vassals on a quest is no longer much of an advantage.


Make it so that all the questing knights need permission from their higher-up. So if the PK wishes to go questing with his posse of 5 NPKs, then make him ask permission from the Earl, and have the Earl deny permission, citing concerns about the defense of the County and the Kingdom.
I disagree; I think that the lord would be overstepping his bounds in this case.

Also, remember the importance of individual distinction in this sort of story. Lancelot is a king, but he goes out with only one or two companions; when Arthur goes questing, he likewise quests with only a small number of friends. It's not so easy to stand out as the hero of the day when there's a small army around you. Neither demand that their vassals accompany them.There may be no I in team . . .

8)

but there's an I in knight

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v240/doorknobdeity/csi_miami_yeah.jpg

Whatever the legal wrangling is, I think it is important give the PC the opportunity to use his NPC followers at some level.

Presumably he earned them in game some how. He should then get the benefit of having some followers, otherwise, what's the point? If he has five followers, having one or two around all the time wouldn't be unreasonable. Feudal charters often added castle garrison duty to the 40-60 day responsibility. Those knights might also want to adventure a bit too. Perhaps a loyalty lord roll would be appropriate.

That said, he probably should still get in a few 'solo' quests. In Malory knights, even the great land holders, usually go question alone or with a couple of friends, but no followers.

I concur with Morien, in that a player-knight's vassals are sword to him alone and fulfill their duty at his command. The PK still is obligated to provide that many knights when mustered for war, and the hiring of mercenaries becomes a necessity for any PK who drags his vassals around while he ranges across the isle. Keep in mind that the forty or sixty days is service spent beyond the borders of one's homeland and at one's own expense, so if the liege offers to foot the bill completely you're obligated by your oath to acquiesce. It may turn out he lacks adequate funds to pay you, of course, but what loyal vassal would question his lord's integrity and insist on seeing the money up-front? Also, since might makes right at various points in the GPC, a vassal who proves recalcitrant might find his liege turning a blind eye when knights from neighboring manors raid. Unless your player-knight wants to risk that, he'd best do as his liege asks. Ah, the joys of the Dark Ages... :)

Alternatively, his lord gets attacked while hes away. So next court he will ask: "You owe me six knight's service in war. When I needed you there were non to serve. Since you clearly don't care to fulfill your obligations, I revoke your grant. As a landless knight, you can do as you please, but I will give the land to someone that will hold his oaths". Heavy handed, but reasonable, I think.


With all due respect, I disagree that this is reasonable, UNLESS you have made it very clear to the player that this is the probable outcome if he takes his NPC knights with him on a quest. Otherwise, I would not blame the player at all for thinking that he has been unfairly ambushed by the GM.


I don't think I would do it like that, but I am blessed with a group that generally accept when I change things. I merely suggested it as a way to rectify things if players need to be told clearly in game why they can't have their vassals following around. And if they persist ...

I do wonder if there is a KAP supplement that I'm missing, "The Intricacies of Feudal Law" perhaps, because without this forum, I would be none the wiser about much of what has been said. Sure I can Google and Wikipedia as well as anybody, but that doesn't always help. Would anyone care to point me in the direction of a good, straightforward, online reference? I'm quite prepared to sacrifice historical accuracy for gameplay, but I adhere to reality wherever possible.

Greg's answer (as ever :)) raised more questions in my mind. I'd always assumed that the feudal structure was maintained all the way down the chain no matter how far down you went. If you're some runt of a knight who somehow gets the fealty of another then it's handled the same as an earl's fealty to his king. In this respect, Morien's comments are more in line with how I'd prefer to play it. Having said that, Greg's comments do chime with Skarpskytten's initial suggestion of simply allowing these NPKs as battlefield backup, not quest fodder. Note: "quest" is probably the wrong word for me to use here. My campaign is still in the Uther phase, there are no chivalrous quests for my PKs to undertake. Instead, along with the large scale macro focused events of the GPC (battles, sieges, diplomacy etc) I run numerous micro focused events too, where the action revolves around my small group of PKs.



Whatever the legal wrangling is, I think it is important give the PC the opportunity to use his NPC followers at some level.

Presumably he earned them in game some how. He should then get the benefit of having some followers, otherwise, what's the point? If he has five followers, having one or two around all the time wouldn't be unreasonable. Feudal charters often added castle garrison duty to the 40-60 day responsibility. Those knights might also want to adventure a bit too. Perhaps a loyalty lord roll would be appropriate.



Very true. Having already downgraded the financial benefit (due to my erroneous understanding of demense and enfeoffed manors) I'm wary of diluting things further. My PK spent 4 years wooing Indeg. He fulfilled two "challenges" for her; seeking a rare truffle, fighting off the boar that found it and winning a hunting tournament in her name (even if he did dope the other dogs in the hunt to put them off the scent - it's Uther phase so I don't press the chivalrous stuff too hard just yet) and spent four years at court, singing, dancing, composing etc to the best of his ability to impress her before besting another knight in a singing competition to win her hand. As you can see, she was not earned lightly.

Regarding subordinate knights in general, I don't see the benefit of having vassal knights over household ones. For example, say you have a holding of 6 manors, all of which require 1 knight's service to the king. Would it not make more sense to have six household knights, pay them 4L upkeep a year (and let's say another 1L per year for a steward) and keep the 1L leftover per manor rather than having 6 vassal knights who would return no profit at all? You still fulfill your obligation of supplying 6 knights to the king and get to make a small profit on top.

Whatever the legal wrangling is, I think it is important give the PC the opportunity to use his NPC followers at some level.

Presumably he earned them in game some how. He should then get the benefit of having some followers, otherwise, what's the point?


The point is status, I think. And Glory. And leadership in war. And a couple of extra voices at court, who will probably back you up. These are all good, in game, uses.

But help in questing, adventuring, doing private errands, I think is bad for the game, overall, and should be used very sparingly, if at all.

A good source on feudalism: http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/sbook1i.html#Feudalism

Bear in mind that feudal law as such was very diverse, very particularistic, not very formally structured, and very disorganized; everything you read about feudalism will begin by saying that it's a bad name that gives a false impression of coherency. I'm of the opinion that you can basically wing it and it will have a good chance of matching up to something, somewhere, at some point in time.

As I understand things, from the lord's point of view, household knights are better than vassal knights because the latter represents a decentralization of the lord's authority; when your knight is so wholly your man, and they eat and sleep in your hall, they are much easier to control, and you could make more demands of them. They work for you full-time, basically.

Vassal knights are, it seems to me, the result of convenience or necessity. Personal generosity was very important, and nobody likes somebody who doesn't give rewards where rewards are due: indeed, a big chunk of the Lancelot-Grail cycle is about how King Arthur nearly lost his kingdom because God was angry that he wasn't rewarding his knights enough. Good work should be rewarded, and sometimes that reward was land: a steady income and a degree of independence.

Likewise, sometimes it simply isn't convenient to run half a dozen manors by yourself, especially without any real bureaucracy and a pre-money economy, where rent is paid to you in food, service, labor, or other inconvenient forms. Sometimes it's better to simply farm it out one of your faithful underlings and have him run it himself, asking only that you continue to benefit from it in whatever ways seem reasonable. Maybe you don't get quite the benefit you would if you ran it yourself, and maybe your control over it is much looser (perhaps to the point where your descendants won't benefit from it at all), but often it's simply the easiest way of running things.

Those are not his knights to control, they are the king's knights ruled by the earl, who is obliged to bring a certain number of knights to the field. The PC has the honor of leading those 5 in battle.

At the risk of contradicting Greg,

Risk? What risk against an old man?
Would you have me sit and rust here just because of my position?
No one became famous by avoiding a joust!

while this is certainly how the King would see it, at least in our campaign it is much more personal. Those vassal knights are oath-bound to their liege, which in this case would be the PK. If he tells them that for their 60-days of service, they will ride with him to some quest, there they will ride, or face the music. However... the PK in turn has sworn to -his- liege to provide X amount of knights for 60 days. If he has already 'spent' up his vassal knights, they are fully within their rights to tell the PK to go stuff himself, and leave the PK to scramble to hire expensive mercenary knights to make up for the muster, or otherwise start thinking up a good excuse why the liege shouldn't punish him for not holding up his end of the feudal bargain.
I agree with this 100%.
Especially early in the campaign, when loyalties are not divided.