This comes from a question in the Grail Christianity thread. The question was raised concerning whether or not the Grail Christianity article on Greg's website was "canonical" as it was written by a different author but published on the designer's website.

It seems to me that KAP really has only the current edition of the main rule book as "canon", GPC is possibly canonical, the various Books of are apocrypha, and everything else is deuterocanonical if it fits your campaign and heritical if it does not fit.

Considering that KAP draws inspiration from the entire corpus of Arthurian literature, folklore, myth, legend, history, scholarship, and popular entertainment, ruling certain bits in or out of play on anything more Han a campaign by campaign basis is likely to be a hopeless task.

The "canon" is made both broader and looser by Greg's attitude of the game being an open sandbox for all of us to play in. We are all free to modify the rules, add or subtract bits of legend, and change things around to suit our taste. There are certainly plenty of RPGs out there with a strict "canon" and an ecclesiastical court in place to rule on any and every element or issue that may crop up in play, handing down "official" rulings that are intended to apply universally to all players of that game everywhere.

I like that KAP is more open. The closest to "holy writ" we get is Greg saying "this was my intent when I wrote this rule and here is how I play it in my game".

I have yet to hear of Greg showing up at someone's house to take away their KAP books because they are playing the game "wrong". I will admit if I thought it would summon Greg to arm my PKs with laser swords, mount them on cyborg horses and send them out to do battle with the minions of Cthulhu I would try it in a heartbeat. I think sending him a plane ticket and a polite invitation is more likely to succeed though.

Like Greg I enjoy seeing people explore different approaches to the rules although sometimes I too shake my head and ask "where is the problem with the RAW, because I'm just not seeing it?"

I think it makes sense to adjust the events of the Great Pendragon Campaign to fit the GM's take on the Arthurian legend (as long as it still makes a good, playable campaign that captures the spirit of "Pendragon").

For one example, if I ever run a Pendragon campaign, I'll leave out Sir Brian of the Isles' raids in the Twilight Period. My own take on the closing years of Arthur's reign (just before the war breaks out when Lancelot and Guinevere's affair is exposed) is that there are no outside enemies left - no robber-barons, no rebellious kings, no giants, dragons, scheming magicians, Saxon and Pictish raiders, etc. The kingdom is outwardly at peace. Unfortunately, that means nothing left for the knights to do, no hope of action except in tournaments, and those are increasingly bloodless pageantry. Hence, the knights finally turn on each other - as much out of restlessness and boredom as out of anything else. (T. H. White's take on it in "The Once and Future King" influenced me a lot, as did the song "Fie on Goodness!" in the musical "Camelot".)

If I run a campagn and reach the Twilight Period, the only adventures available for the player-knights will be tournaments - until they show their first signs of protest. Then Mordred and Agravain (or members of their faction, if the player-knights aren't important enough to gain Mordred and Agravain's direct attention) will approach them, offering them the possibility of solving that problem....

arm my PKs with laser swords, mount them on cyborg horses and send them out to do battle with the minions of Cthulhu

This actually made me realize that most GPC adventures can easily be re-used for other settings. I'd never much considered it, but GPC would actually be a very handy go to source for gaming anything without prep time.



Like Greg I enjoy seeing people explore different approaches to the rules although sometimes I too shake my head and ask "where is the problem with the RAW, because I'm just not seeing it?"


What is RAW?

As for my campaign, I treat the dates in GPC as very loose suggestions. If there are still adventures from the Uther period that won't work later, I'll definetly delay the beginning of the Anarchy. A year here, a year there, it adds up. In my own campaign this has meant that we'll probably see another generation of PKs before the end of things.

What is RAW?




"Rules as written"

Ok well my take on this is I love that Greg is so open minded and has the attitude he does it makes for an enjoyable game to be able to tweak the campaign to fit what you need so long as you keep in the Arthurian style and you run a good convincing game for your players to have fun in. Also their are many books that have influences and different takes Actually like Steven Law heads books on the retelling of the old Celtic legends of king Arthur. But what books that really influence my game are Greg's original works he published and those of green knight publishing I try to stick to the cannon of these books more then any other. I am now compiling from his website all the most resent docs and works he has done just so I can have them in my note book. I like his document on craeting a minor clan and the doc on the Templar's in Pendragon.