I'm working on a short series of tables that will allow me to more or less create a fully realized NPC knight on the spot. There are only a few variables that need be rolled to get to this, all of which drive you to a typical knight "template" (already provided in KAP) that can in turn be easily modified to give a little more detail and variety. I'd like your advice on the frequency of these attributes, thinking on a percentage basis. I will share the fruits of my labors with all of you, naturally.

Let's start with an easy one: Age.

Extrapolating from the character creation process in KAP 5.1, we see that any PK can has a 1 in 6 chance for an Old Knight in his family, a 4 in 6 chance for 1-4 Middle-aged Knights, and a 6 in 6 chance for 1-6 Young Knights. Using this as a guide, I think this statistically works out to:

Old Knights (55+): 9%
Middle-aged Knights (35-55): 36%
Young Knights (20-35): 55%

If we want to round the numbers for simplicity's sake, we could argue 10/35/55.

So now if I meet a knight at a crossroads, or in the lists, or at a feast, one simple roll of percentile dice reveals his age (or age category—we could always come up with additional frequencies to determine the exact age, based on a category, if we had a mind, but such accuracy would not affect our generation process since our variable profiles aren't any more granular when considering age than Young, Middle-aged and Old).

Who's with me so far? Does this seem a reasonable extrapolation of ages based on known and official data?


T.

This sounds useful to me and your reasoning also sounds good. It may make sense to adjust the age chances based on the period (less old knights during the anarchy, more during the latter periods), but that may not be that important.

This is less important, but I would consider using a d20 for the roll as well, just to stick with the base mechanic of the game:

1-2 old knight
3-9 middle age
10-20 young

Thanks, HW! Didn't think about using the d20. Good idea!


T.

One thing, for clarity's sake: See those generic NPC Knight profiles on p. 176 of KAP 5.1? I'm assuming that "Average" here is really synonymous with the "Middle-age" category. Why? Because Greg lists these three first, instead of sorting them by power with the other types. Since these first three start and end with Age, it is logical to conclude that Greg intended for the Average profile to apply to those "Middle-aged" brothers that are generated in chargen. I mean, he has "Young" and "Old" knights, correct. This one seems slotted in-between from a power perspective, so it makes sense to me.

So I'm thinking of "Young Knight" as the average profile for young knights, "Average" for the average profile for middle-aged knights, and "Old" as the average profile for old knights. But note that their can be variations, that will encompass what I'll call "Quality," namely "Notable," "Famous," and "Extraordinary." but more on that later.


T.

It may make sense to adjust the age chances based on the period (less old knights during the anarchy, more during the latter periods), but that may not be that important.

Okay, I've not read far enough ahead yet in the GPC to really understand the campaign dynamics, but let me hazard a breakdown:

DURING THE REIGN OF UTHER
1-2 Old
3-9 Middle-aged
10-20 Young

DURING THE ANARCHY
1- Old
2-9 Middle-aged
10-20 Young

DURING THE REIGN OF ARTHUR
1-3 Old
4-12 Middle-aged
13-20 Young

Does that look right? We don't need more granularity, I hope. I'm happy to make adjustments till we reach a consensus.


T.

You might be interested in this thread:
http://nocturnal-media.com/forum/index.php?topic=1162.0

There is a link in the replies to the web-enabled version that Jesper threw together from my IDL code.

As for the age spread, let me see what I ended up using in my code...
Ah, looks like I selected a simple 4:2:1 ratio for young:middle-aged:old knights. Simple mathematically, that is, although not as elegant as 1d6 in real life. Still, it works out almost exactly the same as your Reign of Arthur category.

That being said, the way I tend to use the web-version in our campaign is simply to roll 10 knights and see who fits the bill. For instance, if I am looking for a villain, I am looking at bad traits, and then looking at age and skills to see if he would be an appropriate enemy for the PCs. On the other hand, if I am rolling for a roadside challenge, I am likely looking for young knights with something to prove, so probably I would not pick an old knight unless I really want to make that into a hook as to why he is there...

You might be interested in this thread:
http://nocturnal-media.com/forum/index.php?topic=1162.0

There is a link in the replies to the web-enabled version that Jesper threw together from my IDL code.

I'm well acquainted with that tool, Morien. I have it bookmarked and I think it's great—I recommend it to anyone. I wasn't sure about how the frequency for things like age and wealth were being calculated, so I started thinking about how I would build one. I also find the output a little hard to parse out, but that's a minor quibble. I'd like to understand more about the calculations and such. Is there any active development going on any more? Maybe we should PM each other so we don't have to bore everyone else to tears.

Best,


T.


[/quote]

I basically made up some numbers. :P

I am going to take that part of the discussion back into the program thread itself, so that people will find it easier.

There is no active development going on for that program that I know of. Naturally, many things could be added to it, but often if I really need to I just adjust by hand. But sure, PM me if you have some ideas you'd like to discuss!