Q: What's with my attitude about Pagan Chivalry anyway?
It looks like I hate them or something, because it's so hard for them to become chivalrous!
How come?

PAGAN
KAP is set in the pseudo-historical literary world of medieval western Europe. It has no interest or intention of being generic or meeting the imaginations of modern interpretations of the literature. The roles available in this RPG are of then, not now.
Yea, right.
For the couple prepublication years that I test played it I met a number, surprisingly large, of people who would just not play the game if their character had to be Christian. Personally, I think this is pretty small-minded--though not as narrow a view as the true idiots who think RPG is satanic. But while I have abandoned all public dialogue with the latter batch, the former group included friends of mine who, other than their prejudice, wanted to play.
KAP draws upon, and is partially set within, ALL the settings in which the hero appears, including grafts onto his story from before the man was ever born. When I look long enough behind King Arthur I see the Sleeping King, the Waking King; the celestial bear circling the pole; the prehistoric bear cult that stretches from Britain to Siberia and America; perhaps even the Son of the Mother, Lord of Three Worlds. Many of the KAP adventures are taken from the Mabinogi, a new coat made out of old, old patches.
So, sure, there is room for Pagans here!
I mean, after all, they are in the literature, right?
Hm
Excluding Wolfram's Pagans, who are pseudo-Muslims, they appear in Perlesvaus,, and are all wicked, of course--almost as wicked and cruel as the Christian hero, who cuts the throats of all the captured men, collects their blood in a cauldron, then suspends the bound bad guy by his feet and drowns him in their blood. If this is a good Christian, then there certainly are good Pagans too!
OK, Pagan knights are in.

CHIVALRY
In large part the complaint about Pagans and Chivalry is that "it's not fair to Pagans." That in itself holds no weight whatsoever. It isn't fair to a lot of people, on purpose.
Here's my designer's reasoning.
Knights are a historical event. Chivalry is historical. I don't think anyone of us believes Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar were knights.
Knights and chivalry are both Christian in nature, both of them being developed in Christian lands during Christian times by Christian people who no knowledge, hence no desire, to change.
Chivalric ideals were the highest form of behavior for knights. One exponent of the loftiest interpretation of this was Geoffroi de Charny who wrote books on it and more--he lived it. He bore the Oriflamme, the sacred war banner of France; and is also the first known owner of the Shroud of Turin. He requires a knight to be pious and uphold the ideals of honorable behavior because God gave him his position and powers. Geoffroi is a perfect example of chivalry because he carefully separates this piety from the Church and its officials. Piety is not about the religion, it about the man.
Christianity is not just Paganism with a new mask, though it plenty of that. Christianity introduced some new ideas to humankind, and developed some new models for behavior. These are so integrated into our culture today that we accept them without question. We even commonly imagine that Paganism included such concepts as equality, individual liberty, or individual worth.
Yes, indeed, and glory be I agree that paganism had such concepts. It's hard to find a better model for modern spiritual life than some of the Neoplatonic philosophies. But those were local, urban beliefs. The remnant of European tribal paganism shows no clear proof of such ideas. It is easy to project these upon the scraps of information we have about the druids, for instance; but there is no proof that I have found for those ideas. Thus, while I do believe that the tribal elites were caretakers of a highly evolved philosophy, it didn't include those highly specialized beliefs.
One of the distinguishing Traits for Chivalry is Modesty. Its opposite, Pride, is a normal everyday standard of life among tribal people. It is required of important people, and self identification had become a trope--a standard upon which leaders built, like art.
This is a "clash of cultures." The pair of Traits, Humble/Proud, is one distinguishing difference.
Now, as the designer I could have designed around this. Flick of the fingers, really. But I decided not to, to specifically emphasize the difference between the two Traits, because Humble/Proud is also a conflict of character outside of the religious one.
Finally, the real complaint about Paganism and Chivalry is that a knight cannot get both bonuses at one time. This is a minimaxer's complaint, who is going by the numbers more than the spirit of the story.
And that is OK with me.

he real complaint about Paganism and Chivalry is that a knight cannot get both bonuses at one time. This is a minimaxer's complaint, who is going by the numbers more than the spirit of the story.
And that is OK with me.


The thing is, under the published rules, it is perfectly possible for a knight to be both pagan and chivalrous. It's true that christians have it easier. I've seen more than my fair share of pagan chivalrous knights. I think changing it to exclude pagan knights is a mistake.

Some people say chivalry is too easy to get as it stands. Maybe - this varies dramatically depending on the character design method used. If you roll traits, one person can luck out and have all christian traits so high that it seems inconceivable they'll ever lose it, and another player might have 20 or more points to make up if he wants it.

If you want to make chivalry harder, more challenging to acquire, then I would suggest:
* reducing the variation on character design - random rolls are good, but the variation here is too much IF chivalry is supposed to be hard to get.
* make the acquisition of chivalry also related to some ingame event or deed, and require it to be repeated - so that just having high traits is not enough, and even with very high traits, it can be lost (temporarily)

But please, please, please - don't make it completely incompatible with paganism.

But please, please, please - don't make it completely incompatible with paganism.


No, no, such is not my intent or desire
I am confident my household will keep me in line on that one :)

But please, please, please - don't make it completely incompatible with paganism.


No, no, such is not my intent or desire
I am confident my household will keep me in line on that one :)


That is good to hear! I follow the logic of your earlier posts Mr Stafford, but I particularly like some alternative takes on Knights as pagans -- Mary Stewart went as far as to make Arthur himself a pagan. I realize that may not be the default version, and Malory and other Christians whos views of pagans would not yet have been challenged by Gibbons et al., but it can be a fun alternative.

I think the ideals of Chivalry are more difficult in game for Pagans to achieve because the ideals of Paganism have less in common with the ideals of Chivalry than do the ideals of Christianity. I see no real problem with this.

Just as the values of Saxon culture are different to the values of Cymric culture. Why should everything in the game be equally available and equally achievable to all characters? Is there any thing in life that is truly equally achievable by all?

The historical fact is the ideals of Chivalry developed in a Christian culture. Could similar ideals have developed in a Pagan culture? Possibly. Did they? Not in a way that has had as lasting an impact on European culture and legend.

Is the idea of a pagan King Arthur interesting to explore? Absolutely. Is it historically possible, if not plausible? Yes. Does it make some great changes to the common Arthur of legend? Yes. Would I play in a version of KAP where Arthur was Pagan and the roles of Christianity and Paganism were reversed? Possibly a Pagan Arthur holding out against Christian Roman invaders. yes, I certainly would. I think it could be quite an interesting game.

I do think that it is worth reminding people rather frequently that both he Christianity and the Paganism of KAP are not the Christianity and Paganism of today, and to some extent not even the Christianity and Paganism of history. They are literary constructs for the purposes of a role playing game based on Arthurian legends. I have met both Christian players of Pagan knights and Pagan players of Christian knights. For the most part they have accepted it as part of their characters, the same way they accept elves and dwarves in a fantasy game or aliens in a science fiction game.

I did once meet a D&D player who refused to play Clerics because his character "was not going to worship any pagan deity". This seems to be a similar mindset to refusing to play KAP if your character has to be Christian. It is a made up, fictional persona, it is not real and it certainly is not you.

Personally I think Christianity is fairly central to he Arthurian Mythos. But, the game would lose a lot of richness and more than a few interesting sources of drama and intrapersonal conflict and tension if pagan knights were to be done away with. It is certainly possible to downplay and minimize the religious aspects of the game world and game play if that is what a group desires, but I don't think it is a desirable ideal to turn the Arthurian Dark Ages setting of the game into a progressive, egalitarian all accepting society such as some modern day people strive for. That does a disservice to history.

That is good to hear! I follow the logic of your earlier posts Mr Stafford, but I particularly like some alternative takes on Knights as pagans -- Mary Stewart went as far as to make Arthur himself a pagan. I realize that may not be the default version, and Malory and other Christians whos views of pagans would not yet have been challenged by Gibbons et al., but it can be a fun alternative.


I'm completely in favour of people developing alternative takes on the Arthurian stories and using KAP as a basis for doing so, but I also think KAP should strive to be true to it's primary objectives. By having a clear focus and implementing rules optimised for it's objectives, it serves as a template showing how such games can be designed.

This inevitably means that to adapt it to a different take on the Arthurian mythology, the rules themselves will need to be adapted. I think that's a better situation than one in which the rules try to be all things to all interpretations of the legends, and is best suited to none of them.

Simon Hibbs

That is good to hear! I follow the logic of your earlier posts Mr Stafford, but I particularly like some alternative takes on Knights as pagans -- Mary Stewart went as far as to make Arthur himself a pagan. I realize that may not be the default version, and Malory and other Christians whos views of pagans would not yet have been challenged by Gibbons et al., but it can be a fun alternative.


I'm completely in favour of people developing alternative takes on the Arthurian stories and using KAP as a basis for doing so, but I also think KAP should strive to be true to it's primary objectives. By having a clear focus and implementing rules optimised for it's objectives, it serves as a template showing how such games can be designed.

This inevitably means that to adapt it to a different take on the Arthurian mythology, the rules themselves will need to be adapted. I think that's a better situation than one in which the rules try to be all things to all interpretations of the legends, and is best suited to none of them.

Simon Hibbs


Just for the record, I fully agree. Nothing Greg said about the 'penalty' being largely against min-maxers is a problem to me either -- there are higher goals for a game then pleasing every possible person.

Just for the record, I fully agree. Nothing Greg said about the 'penalty' being largely against min-maxers is a problem to me either -- there are higher goals for a game then pleasing every possible person.


I made very little attempt to make every option balanced
I do not really care that pagan players might be displeased that pagan knights have a more difficult time achieving a Christian ideal*
This is a role playing game
see my essay about genre versus generic

*and before all you witches and neopags go off on intolerance or anything else, please look up Modern Pagans, by V. Vale and John Sulak, REsearch press

Excluding Wolfram's Pagans, who are pseudo-Muslims, they appear in Perlesvaus,, and are all wicked, of course--almost as wicked and cruel as the Christian hero, who cuts the throats of all the captured men, collects their blood in a cauldron, then suspends the bound bad guy by his feet and drowns him in their blood. If this is a good Christian, then there certainly are good Pagans too!
OK, Pagan knights are in.


Greg you do realize that being hanged upside down over a cauldron and having ones throat cut by a pretty blonde in her linen underwear (so that she would not stain her woolen clothes) was the normal fate in store for warrior captured by Teutonic pagans and that this "cruel" knight is just doing to pagans what they would have done to him. doing unto others what they would do onto one is not exceptionally cruel, certainly not worthy of denoting a knight as cruel anyway. Wotan/Oden/Odin was the god of death and sacrifices of captives were offered to Thor (the god of victory) and Tyr (the god of war) too. Letting a pagan Teuton live was just condemning fellow Christians to death. Charlemagne was a good example of a medieval king who changed his policy towards Saxons after dealing with the real ones. I think any knight would have been at least tempted to just kill Saxons even the merciful ones (prudence and mercy as opposed rolls).

Excluding Wolfram's Pagans, who are pseudo-Muslims, they appear in Perlesvaus,, and are all wicked, of course--almost as wicked and cruel as the Christian hero, who cuts the throats of all the captured men, collects their blood in a cauldron, then suspends the bound bad guy by his feet and drowns him in their blood. If this is a good Christian, then there certainly are good Pagans too!
OK, Pagan knights are in.

Greg you do realize that being hanged upside down over a cauldron and having ones throat cut by a pretty blonde in her linen underwear (so that she would not stain her woolen clothes) was the normal fate

Please send me some sources concerning this "normal fate"


in store for warrior captured by Teutonic pagans and that this "cruel" knight is just doing to pagans what they would have done to him. doing unto others what they would do onto one is not exceptionally cruel, certainly not worthy of denoting a knight as cruel anyway.

I am sorry, but I am unaware of a Christian virtue of "Do unto others as they would do unto you"
Crusaders performed plenty of atrocities with Papal permission and blessings
But there is such dispensation in KAP
and to have the greatest achiever of Christiandom--the Grail Knight--perform a Pagan sacrifice to revenge his family
is a Fail.
I consider Percival to be overly extreme for proper Grail behavior on one end of the spectrum
And Perlesvaus to be overly extreme on the other
His actions are, in my measure for gauging KAP Traits, Cruel and Merciless, and Vengeful


Wotan/Oden/Odin was the god of death and sacrifices of captives were offered to Thor (the god of victory)

Intersting
I have been studying Norse Mythology and religion for 40 years but must have overlooked something
Please do give me a reference for Thor as the god of victory


and Tyr (the god of war) too. Letting a pagan Teuton live was just condemning fellow Christians to death.

Nonetheless, using a Pagan rite to do it constitutes cruelty


Charlemagne was a good example of a medieval king who changed his policy towards Saxons after dealing with the real ones. I think any knight would have been at least tempted to just kill Saxons even the merciful ones (prudence and mercy as opposed rolls).

I don't think Charlemagne changed his mind about his willingness to butcher the Saxon devils
He had plenty of reasons to do it before he personally discovered their tenacity and loyalty to the Old Gods
I don't deny the common sense of killing one's enemies--my Early Phase player knights always seem to be in that boat
But it is on the Cruel side of the Merciful/Cruel spectrum

Excluding Wolfram's Pagans, who are pseudo-Muslims, they appear in Perlesvaus,, and are all wicked, of course--almost as wicked and cruel as the Christian hero, who cuts the throats of all the captured men, collects their blood in a cauldron, then suspends the bound bad guy by his feet and drowns him in their blood. If this is a good Christian, then there certainly are good Pagans too!
OK, Pagan knights are in.

Greg you do realize that being hanged upside down over a cauldron and having ones throat cut by a pretty blonde in her linen underwear (so that she would not stain her woolen clothes) was the normal fate

Please send me some sources concerning this "normal fate"


Germanic Pagans were still acting like they did in Tacitus' Germania and annals in 6th century France, only the throat cutters had become Young beauties rather than old hags, will dig up some references for you Greg.


in store for warrior captured by Teutonic pagans and that this "cruel" knight is just doing to pagans what they would have done to him. doing unto others what they would do onto one is not exceptionally cruel, certainly not worthy of denoting a knight as cruel anyway.


Greg both Christianity and the church were never all that forgiving, even Jesus in the gospels was pretty unforgiving. he was only willing to forgive sinners whom repented and submitted not those who did not say uncle.He said something like if a "village rejects you, you are to leave it and shake the sand from it off ones sandals and it will be better for Sodom and Gomorrah than for that village". See his actions to the priests, scribes, Pharisees and momey changers for how meek and forgiving he was ;)


I am sorry, but I am unaware of a Christian virtue of "Do unto others as they would do unto you"
Crusaders performed plenty of atrocities with Papal permission and blessings
But there is such dispensation in KAP
and to have the greatest achiever of Christiandom--the Grail Knight--perform a Pagan sacrifice to revenge his family
is a Fail.
I consider Percival to be overly extreme for proper Grail behavior on one end of the spectrum
And Perlesvaus to be overly extreme on the other
His actions are, in my measure for gauging KAP Traits, Cruel and Merciless, and Vengeful


Have you read "thou shall not suffer a witch to live" or Jesus' plans for sinners. these pagans are witches or witch helpers, the children of Satan. Percival did not perform a "pagan sacrifice" he just did unto them what they did unto others protecting others from them. witches and witch helpers were both beyond redemption in late medieval Christianity



Wotan/Oden/Odin was the god of death and sacrifices of captives were offered to Thor (the god of victory)



Interesting
I have been studying Norse Mythology and religion for 40 years but must have overlooked something
Please do give me a reference for Thor as the god of victory

and Tyr (the god of war) too. Letting a pagan Teuton live was just condemning fellow Christians to death.


Nonetheless, using a Pagan rite to do it constitutes cruelty


Maybe, but justice and mercy are suppose to be combined, doing justice is always vengeance, but vengeance moderated by "mesur" rather than unrestrained passion.




Charlemagne was a good example of a medieval king who changed his policy towards Saxons after dealing with the real ones. I think any knight would have been at least tempted to just kill Saxons even the merciful ones (prudence and mercy as opposed rolls).


I don't think Charlemagne changed his mind about his willingness to butcher the Saxon devils
He had plenty of reasons to do it before he personally discovered their tenacity and loyalty to the Old Gods
I don't deny the common sense of killing one's enemies--my Early Phase player knights always seem to be in that boat
But it is on the Cruel side of the Merciful/Cruel spectrum


Charlemagne was a traditional warrior king not too different from the barbarian kings who worshiped Oden (Swedish form of Wotan vs the Norse one of Odinn). What was he doing barbarously conquering them and forcing them to convert in the first place? He was like my other ancestors a true son of Oden whether pagan or Christian ;) :(

(Edited by Merlin to untangle nested quotes to aid clarity)

Snaggle

At the risk of appearing boorish, I feel obliged to instruct

Your responses here make it appear that you have not understood the game rules
Most of your points are not actually relevant
or if they are, I am unable to understand how they are
hence
I have no inclination to respond

Perhaps the Q&A method of a forum is not the optimal place to make your points
Please, slow down a bit and consider what you have written before submitting it
work it small bits so that this weak, old mind can comprehend

Thank you

You're surely not boorish Greg. I actually do understand the core rules very well. I read them many times; put them all together in open office documents; thought about them again to consider whether or not they were: sound; weak; dumb or ignorant. My general impression is that you created a great game with lots of flaws. This forum is I assume mostly frequented by game masters or players thinking of becoming one, at least for me I'm trying to help them brain storm and show them what I did. I don't expect them to adopt or adopt unthinkingly them.

You're surely not boorish Greg. I actually do understand the core rules very well. I read them many times; put them all together in open office documents; thought about them again to consider whether or not they were: sound; weak; dumb or ignorant. My general impression is that you created a great game with lots of flaws. This forum is I assume mostly frequented by game masters or players thinking of becoming one, at least for me I'm trying to help them brain storm and show them what I did. I don't expect them to adopt or adopt unthinkingly them.


my comms professor always tell me text is the least accurate medium of conveying interpersonal messages so i will try not to offend. when Greg suggested you may not understand i get the impression he meant intent not letter of the rules. i have a player in my group that thinks as you do and tries to make the game more...honest...i guess is the word. but even in the Anarchy the game doesn't reflect our history it's not meant to. i think the game you want to play can work in PD. but it's not PD

i would not presume to question one understanding of scripture, religion or assume anything of that nature. i wonder if you see the traits as idealism or pragmatism in the philosophy sense of metaphysical ethics? they are as i understand it the former.

the final thing to ponder is British Christianity is idealized Pelagianism. Pagans are therefore not "as wrong" as the real history church might have acted. also neighboring Aquitaine and most the western PD christian world is Arian. both beliefs are more inclined toward Monolatrism, perhaps even as far as henotheism in areas where the Druidic tradition is strongest. look at the conversion of the vikings as a historical example, or the irish. look at Japan as a modern example of this theme.

my $.02 if you'll have it. i hope i have expressed my message as an attempt to add to the conversation and not as a troll :)