I've been working on streamlining and customising the system a little to suit my play style. Some of the PKs have got married and I wanted to give their wives a buit of personality without generating whole characters. Stealing the concept from En garde, I came up with the following table:


Random Wife Table
D20 Special Attribute
1 Wasteful
2 Ugly
3 Flirty
4 Indiscreet
5-9 None
10 Industrious
11 Attractive
12 Dutiful
13 Popular
14 Influential
15 Caring
16-20 Roll twice

Wasteful: -1D3£ income/year
Ugly: -5 Courtesy
Flirty: +5 Suspicious of women
Indiscreet: -3 Intrigue
Industrious: +1D3£ income/year
Attractive: +50 Glory/year
Dutiful: +5 to Stewardship once/yr
Popular: +5 Courtesy once/year
Influential: +5 Intrigue once/year
Caring: Chirurgery 2D6+10

The once/year bonuses can be used any time during the year that the PK likes as long as they can justify why their wife's aid might come into play. They can't be saved up year-on-year but if relevent could be used during the winter phase.
Clashing results are re-rolled, so if a wife is Industrious she cannot also be Wasteful. Husbands of Flirty wives gain the directed trait as long as the marriage lasts.

I'd add "ambitious" to that... because it would be fun for the GM to roleplay such a wife. Imagine the player knight dealing with a wife goading him to improve his station.

I'd add "ambitious" to that... because it would be fun for the GM to roleplay such a wife. Imagine the player knight dealing with a wife goading him to improve his station.


But would that be a positive or negative trait? :-\

Simon Hibbs

I think Industrious is a little too close to the effect of the Gentlewoman's Gift (only really a relevant point if you are using BotM however).

Also 50 glory/year seems a bit strange for having an attractive wife - how about moving 'Attractive' across to the 'Popular' slot (so it mirrors Ugly) and sub the 'Ambitious' suggestion from csperkins1970 into the newly open slot at 11?

As to the effect of Ambitious how about making it a mixed blessing with a d6 roll of some kind each year:

1 -1 Loyalty Lord
2-3 +1 Suspicious
4-5 +1 Energetic
6 +1 Love Family

Regards
Luke

But would that be a positive or negative trait? :-\
Simon Hibbs

Make it "overly-ambitious" and have it be a negative trait.

All good suggestions. There could be dozens of possible traits but I do like Ambitious. It needs to be a double edged sword though. I'll think about it. Fortunately this is the sort of table you can easily change in mid game without any problems as its not really a rule, but a resource.

I might do a similar things with Manors. I don't want to work through a mechanical system at this stage in the campaign as we only have 3 hours of game time each evening, once a week. Maybe roll a D20 on a table for each manor to possibly have some special feature. I'll think about it.

Simon Hibbs

I like this a lot and may implement it in my game, as we're just starting out.

If you've tweaked this at all since your last post, I would love to see your rules as they currently stand.

I've been working on streamlining and customising the system a little to suit my play style. Some of the PKs have got married and I wanted to give their wives a buit of personality without generating whole characters. Stealing the concept from En garde, I came up with the following table:


Random Wife Table
D20 Special Attribute
1 Wasteful
2 Ugly
3 Flirty
4 Indiscreet
5-9 None
10 Industrious
11 Attractive
12 Dutiful
13 Popular
14 Influential
15 Caring
16-20 Roll twice

Wasteful: -1D3£ income/year
Ugly: -5 Courtesy
Flirty: +5 Suspicious of women
Indiscreet: -3 Intrigue
Industrious: +1D3£ income/year
Attractive: +50 Glory/year
Dutiful: +5 to Stewardship once/yr
Popular: +5 Courtesy once/year
Influential: +5 Intrigue once/year
Caring: Chirurgery 2D6+10

The once/year bonuses can be used any time during the year that the PK likes as long as they can justify why their wife's aid might come into play. They can't be saved up year-on-year but if relevent could be used during the winter phase.
Clashing results are re-rolled, so if a wife is Industrious she cannot also be Wasteful. Husbands of Flirty wives gain the directed trait as long as the marriage lasts.


This is a cool system, but should already be handled using extending the existing system.
In the real middle ages there was a conflict between "winners" and "wastrels". A wife who is mainly interested in being a stewardess is going to try to be a winner and extend the value of her own and husband's estates, so she will be frugal (Temperate or try to be in Pd terms she should have temperance at at least a 13+ (something like this: temperance 13+ = £1 less expenses, plus 5s less per point above 13) vs a wastrel wife who will be at least 13= indulgence and add £1 more to expenses, +10s/point above 13 and likely also give one slightly more glory by her high living, say +10 glory per 10s added expense, but her husband is going to have to pay this extra expense every year regardless of the circumstances of his estate and the more he has the more she'll spend, so add at least another £ per level of maintenance. Assuming a 2d10-d10 for random trait rolls for wives 28% will be frugal and 28% wastrels (13+ Temperance or 13+ indulgence). The more prudent wastrels will be likely to be better stewardesses too, so they might also work to produce more income and be given a +1 stewardship skill/ point of prudence above 12 and the same for the winners maybe even more .

The lustful and chaste traits also handle the flirt or not. The lustful wives (lust+13) should have much higher than normal flirting and romance skills and the chaste +13 should have very skill levels in romance and flirting. I personally set any damsel with a 16+ at a base skill of 10 in flirting and romance and give any +13 lustful wife a +5 bonus to these skills. chaste +16 wives should not have any flirting or romance skills above the base levels for women and even the just chaste (13-15 chaste) ones should not be allowed to increase their romance skill at all and their flirting skills should be capped at 10 ( the same as a normal skill capped at 15) and even the points of skills 6-10 should cost d3 points of random skill points to get one point of flirting skill. Of course if I were a knight any lustful 13+ wife would be locked in a chastity belt if I were going on an adventure or campaign or if she was travelling anywhere without me- no false heirs allowed ;)

Beauty and ugliness are really already attributes, any woman at least 13+ is pretty and anyone at least 15+ is beautiful, assuming a distribution based on a bell curve generated by rolling 3d6

13-14 = 36/216 = about 16.67%, while beautiful ones should be rolled for as there are only 20/216, so roll d20
ROLL (SCORE)
20......(18)
17-19 (17)
11-16 (16)
01-10 (15)

Note: I'll a cruel game master and have always used a point system for generation of attributes whether playing dungeons and dragons, runequest, pendragon and other games modified by a d20 roll if the attribute was 15, as I hate characters with vastly inflated attributes and use the same system when generating NPC. For non picked attributes players roll a d20 too with these results 1-10 = 10 and 11-20 =11 for scores. I also don't allow characters to improve attributes in the normal way. They may repair an attribute in the winter phase by +1 up to their natural level (done just as a normal +1 to an attribute cost for an attribute by the book) and can boost their more normal attributes to a max of +4. This makes character creation much easier and faster (expressing my only lazy and prudent traits) and prevented the damnable attribute inflation that is common in most games, eliminates the this player sucks let me roll a new one by players and keeps me from throwing too inflated attribute NPC characters at the players.
PC get to start with two 15+ attributes and NPC based on their distribution

High score of 15+ (20/216=9.26%) = about 1/10.8.
Characters with two high scores = about 1/117
Characters with three high scores = about 1/1,260
Characters with four high scores = about 1/13,605
Characters with five high scores = about 1/146,933
But being lazy I just roll a d10 for up to +4 high attributes and keep in mind that there were never more than about 5,000-6,000 knight in England and that once a High attribute one is killed off there are only limited replacements or maybe none. A NPC at +4 high attributes will be one of the highest attributed characters in Europe and maybe not even exist at all in a kingdom, while a +5 high attribute NPC is the stuff of legends and will only show up once in d6 generations in Europe. The only NPC I would let have inflated attributes like that is someone like Arthur or Charlemagne whom the Narns/Fates/God has chosen to alter the world.

Homley wives (attractiveness 6-7) and ugly ones (attractiveness 5) also need to be considered, double or triple dowries ;).

Ambition is already in the system too. Pride is desire to be superior and will manifest itself as the desire to excel or as ambition, the desire for power or leadership a Modest +13 character is not going to be a leader and will be reluctant to be better than others in skills too= cap their skills at 15 with no willing increase possible beyond 15 and for ladies no battle skill. Proud characters should be more likely to either excel in skills (ones competition being with oneself to be superior) or in ambition ( pride being the desire to be superior to others and lead them or command them) Ambitious wives are likely to have courtesy, intrigue and battle as 10+ skills, while the more internally driven characters will be driven to have higher skills, Knights would be using almost all skill boosts on their combat skills and damsels and dames on their character based skills. Greedy 16+ wives will be rapacious and grasping in their dealings with others. They will certainly gain more income, but at the cost of being hated by hers and her husband's tenants = 20 on d20 is murdered/year or has a peasant revolt that lays waste the estate both due to vandalism and ones tenants running of. Otherwise +£ per point of greed above 12 per year. Of course some knight will want hatchet women like these to grind their peasants or villeins into the ground so that they can either enjoy the high life or compete in tourneys or sponsor them, we're talking about someone with a high indulgence score say 13+ and an only fair just trait (9-12) or even a high arbitrary or greed trait themselves. If the knight has high arbitrary or greed scores (16+) he might be murdered when his wife is, their should also be a chance of a Robinhood or just plain robber visiting. Ones tenants will not care if you're robbed and may actually help the robbers out of hatred of/ her you. On that same that same d20 for murder a roll of 16-19 means all your saved treasure and income for that year is lost unless the knight defeats the robbers. Both the robbers and ones tenants will feel such a couple deserve to be plundered and will will not help in any defense and may even try to sabotage that couples defense.

Lustful 16+: flirting; romance; fashion; courtesy; dancing; tournament; jongleury (play), singing in about that order.
socialites (15+ hospitality) would be concentrating on charm/ popularity so: courtesy; fashion; flirting; tournament if externally driven,
socialites (15+ hospitality would be concentrating on being entertaining, so; courtesy; fashion; jongleury; singing; compose as skills with likely multiple instruments for play if their pride is internally driven. Note: any proud character with a high arbitrary score will be jealous and envious rather than admiring of her rivals and will try to ruin her betters or suppress up and coming damsels and dames, the same goes for proud and arbitrary knights. if they're also cruel use the Queen in Snow white as a model for how they'll behave. fortunately such utter blemishes on both woman and mankind are rare. Lord and kings may also act like this to their distinguished knights suspecting they'll be plotting to overthrow them, e.g king Saul and David from the bible.

Lazy +13 wives should usually have their industry capped at 10 and generate less income, say -5s/ point of lazy over 12.
Energetic +13 wives should generate more income say +10s/ point of energy over 12, but if they don't have stewardship or industry as 10+ skills they waste their energy on something else. wives whom are proud or frugal/temperate are likely to want to be good stewardesses.

Merciful, generous or pious wives will likely want to be nurses, so their 10+ skills are likely to be: chirurgery and first aid as skill choices, medicine too if you're using that too. Unfortunately these same wives will generate less income as they spend your money to help the injured, sick and needy. Woman were also instructed the ones whom instructed children in faith and morals, so a religion skill of 10 whether or not they're pious (assuming they're not +13 worldly). again -5s income per point of mercy, generosity or piety- any of these wives might well lay waste your fief just like a wastrel or course if they're modest they'll obey their husband's instructions not to spend so much on these causes.

Your indiscreet wives would be the Trusting 16+ ones and the scheming ones will be the 16+ mistrust ones will high intrigue scores. People with high trust are always thinking the best about others and the mistrustful ones are always thinking others are just as rotten as them or even worse. People always see the world through the prism of their own character. My own character is high in trust and also high in vindictiveness. though I assume the best about everyone their is a price to be paid for trying to wrong me or anyone in my presence ;) ;D

Failed my energy roll :-[ pretty/beautiful wives +13 should add 300+ 100/point of attractiveness over 13 to their husband's glory when he marries them and have a passive glory of 30+10 per point over 13 glory each year, though double this if 18+ and the homely and ugly ones should have a glory penalty of -300+ 100 for each point of attractiveness below 7 and a passive negative glory too.

Snaggle,

I would not play by the houserules you propose.

I don't recognise the game you are trying to play but it seems restrictive in the extreme, and overly complex.

I am baffled as to why you think a modest character could not have high Battle or combat skills.
you've never heard of Quiet competence?
"Deeds not words"?
"Walk softly and carry a big stick"?

In My personal experience, Braggarts usually lack skill.
It's why they compensate with bullshit.

But I think the crux of the matter is that you fail to understand how the personality traits in Pendragon work.
Go and read them again. Particularly Modest/Proud. It's one of those most often misunderstood.

consider why Modest is a religious virtue for Christian Knights.

it is a Knightly Virtue. ie something which the prevailinng morality of the times admires in Knights.
in a society where knights are required and expected to be dangerous. Preux et Coeurtoise. Skilled (in war) and courtly.

Snaggle,

I would not play by the houserules you propose.

I don't recognise the game you are trying to play but it seems restrictive in the extreme, and overly complex.

Dan Attribute inflation leads to imbalance not opportunity. A character loses any bonus from from them and its damn silly to play when everyone is a 7' tall hulk both PC and NPC. How often do you see polymaths in real life- they're extremely rare, but Pen dragon tends to make all players polymaths. The same goes for traits, worse in a game which is very good and could have been great, every character is growing in their character all the time. dan how often do you see people changing- most of them have changed almost not at all from the time they were infants.

Dan one of the reasons one warrior can beat dozens all alone is that even people exposed to ultra violence never increase their valor, sure they do increase their violence but not even that much for that. Valiant people are special as they have both courage and resolution. They alone really have the power to chance themselves or in real life do critical attacks with every attack (that's what courage gives one. A high trait can be spoiled in real life because of what it's combined with. Ask yourself would a meek character who does not want to fight at all or punish others for the wrongs they've done or are trying to do, even be any good at all in a fight. Being vengeful is what makes one brave,combative. A sir Gandhi even with a 19 valor will never be the stuff that knights or warriors are made of as being meek he'll not fight at all and use his courage and resolve to stay meek, being valiant and meek is a good thing for women, we want them to be good role models for our children and forgiving for the families sake, but meekness is a mortal sin for knights. A knight who enters mortal combat with a likelihood that he'll not survive at all can't be a boy knight giving his foes chances either. He not only has to fight he has to win and to do that he needs to always fight at his full ability. The only chance he should ever give his foes is the chance not to fight or surrender- this is what the knights of the chanson de gestes were like, now contrast them with the boyish knight of the romances.

They're men who fight in tourneys with rebated weapons, think it's cool to be sporting, are caitiffs willing to surrender to their enemies failing their lords, their comrades and God and condemning those their swords were meant to protect. Men who feel it's cool to seduce the bored wives of their lords and comrades and think that faithless women who are betraying their husbands, children and their own parents are prizes worth serving- these men like the women they chase are worthless warriors and men. this conflict between the real knights of the chanson de gestes and the romantic knights was always there in the real middle ages. People even in the same age don't share the same values the tension and conflict between people over whose world will prevail is always their in real life. the chances I suggested were just to make the game more realistic and fun-suspense and conflict are the essence of drama, good stories and good role playing too. Putting oneself in someone else's shoes and trying to think and feel like they do helps one to grow and understand others, as well as, have fun playing them.


I am baffled as to why you think a modest character could not have high Battle or combat skills.
you've never heard of Quiet competence?
"Deeds not words"?
"Walk softly and carry a big stick"?

In My personal experience, Braggarts usually lack skill.
It's why they compensate with bullshit.

This is pretty psychologically obvious. A commander both needs to excel, be and seem superior. Modest characters just want to be accepted and be in harmony with others. They lack both the desire to excel and to dominate others- something vital for a commander or leader. being capable of only being a good fellow and a side kick is crippling vice in a leader. leaders he to be constantly looking for and hiding their own weaknesses and looking for and exploiting their foes weaknesses, as well as, honing their own strengths and making sure their foes weakness faces their own strength. modest foes can't and wont do any of this. " Facta non verba" is a roman saying, the Pagan Romans were not humble men. "Walk softly and carry a big stick" is a Teddy Roosevelt quote- do a google image search and tell me if you think he was a humble man. Braggarts don't brag out of pride, they brag out of conceit. Conceit is really tied and springs from malice, spitefulness, envy and resentment-the arbitrary trait in Pendragon,despite what Greg thinks. A proper warrior like a fine sword needs to be a combination of soft and hard metal with the harness in the right places and the softness in the right places or put another way have the right virtues and vices.

There was also a huge conflict between knights and priests, the later never wanted anyone but themselves to be meek, but their meekness was a liar's meekness. they wanted knights to fight only when and for what they said and were unwilling to risk their own skins or dirty their own hands in the wars they wanted started. A schemer's false meekness is the only meekness these priests valued. I believe the gospel term for them used by Jesus was "thou hypocrites" Piety not combined with justice is sanctimony. even Jesus was not really meek, he was meek on earth, but plans to return as judge of the living and the dead and to throw sinners into hell and punish them forever without mercy... not very meek and forgiving or merciful and just either. vengeance and punishment need to be measured. One is not allowed to do a greater harm to the evil than they did or tried to do to you or another victim and unless they've done something that can't be forgiven, such as murder, one should be willing to give them mercy if they say "uncle" and if they don't give them the full measure of vengeance they deserve.


But I think the crux of the matter is that you fail to understand how the personality traits in Pendragon work.
Go and read them again. Particularly Modest/Proud. It's one of those most often misunderstood.

consider why Modest is a religious virtue for Christian Knights.

it is a Knightly Virtue. ie something which the prevailinng morality of the times admires in Knights.
in a society where knights are required and expected to be dangerous. Preux et Coeurtoise. Skilled (in war) and courtly.


Already answered this, but will add how many Christians do you know whom are really guides by their religion at all. Most are not that pious and the pious ones are more likely to be sanctimonious than people who have and are really molding themselves to the will God or love others. Piety towards God and righteousness towards man was always both The Jewish and Christian ideal, but a man who has piety without righteousness does not love God or man no matter how pious he is and is an abomination to both. Jesus was willing to forgive sinners but not such falsely pious men..it's all about the combination of traits Dan ;)

This appears to be getting off topic.

<<<Not a mod, and requesting taking it to PMs or getting back on-topic.

Snaggle -

I agree with your overall goal of connecting traits and skills, but I think you will find that it is already part of the Pendragon system. Traits already have profound effects on skills, both their use and development.

For example, your lazy wife will fail her Energetic roll and simply not attempt industry. The Knight won't get the benefits; she won't get a skill check and her skill won't increase. You don't need, necessarily, an elaborate system of keeping track of traits limiting certain skills etc. Similarly, a cowardly knight might be a whiz on the practice field when nothing is at stake, but fail under pressure (fail his Valorous) when his life is actually at risk. The bonus of the system at present is that that for which you are looking is built in but flexible with different traits affecting different skills based on different situations.

Snaggle -

I agree with your overall goal of connecting traits and skills, but I think you will find that it is already part of the Pendragon system. Traits already have profound effects on skills, both their use and development.

For example, your lazy wife will fail her Energetic roll and simply not attempt industry. The Knight won't get the benefits; she won't get a skill check and her skill won't increase. You don't need, necessarily, an elaborate system of keeping track of traits limiting certain skills etc. Similarly, a cowardly knight might be a whiz on the practice field when nothing is at stake, but fail under pressure (fail his Valorous) when his life is actually at risk. The bonus of the system at present is that that for which you are looking is built in but flexible with different traits affecting different skills based on different situations.





Hi Eothar lazy wives would still be energetic enough-their laziness would have their greed and pride as opposed rolls to their laziness as far as acting as stewardesses goes.

When creating a campaign one is managing a lot of characters: one needs to have created the king and royal family; all the nobility (there were 50 Noblemen in England, only 15 of them lords) their wives heirs and principle knights, have created the royal court of whomever the king of the campaign is centered on; have created the kings of neighboring lands and at least their chief courtiers (seneschal, constable, marshal, chamberlain and chancellor), have created the greatest knights in their lands, in the home kingdom one has to have created the great knights, the up and coming knights, the great tourneyers, the great beauties in the land, the damsels who frequent tourneys and a basket of villainesses and villains. If you don't have backstage rules to help you create them it will be and seem too much work.

If you don't do your job as a Game master, your world will seem card board. The players have to interact again and again with the same-this both helps bring the world alive to them and helps them play their own characters better. They should be getting news during the winter phase about what's happening in the world, should have friends and people they go to for advice or help, mentors who are training them, women they dream of having and maybe marrying. Enough people they care about that they have to foil villains whom are acting against them. Know who their rivals are: at court in tourneys; in war for glory; adventure and in love. They need complex relationships with their rivals, e.g. the knight who is now their rival for a damsel was once saved their lives, or they were friends during training or on the same team in a tourney or helped them on X adventure. For the villainesses and villains they need backstories with them. They should already know them, know what rotters they are and once in a while have seen their good sides too.

The specifics of the opposed trait roll you choose to use are not important in general. They will vary from situation to situation. I'd opposed Energetic vs Lazy for Stewardship rolls--unless there is a motivation to use Greed or Pride. In the general scheme of things, what matters is whether you get up and do your daily work. Some people just 'get 'er done' because they are hard workers, others don't like sitting around, and other have something they are after. However, a truly Prideful Lady or really Greedy one might use that as her motivation for doing work. She might want something specific as part of the story line.

The point is that opposed trait rolls already provide what you are trying to add, but that they do it in a more flexible, less cumbersome way. You don't have to keep track of a trait limiting this skill or that one, and you can put together tests to fit the situation. You're a total coward but really want that money...Cowardly versus Greed...Regardless, since Cowardly and Valorous have a correlation of -1, you've still included Valorous.

Traits and passions also give the depth of character that you seek. Knights or ladies could have identical skill set, but have totally different characters. In world where 'everyone' is a knight, this differentiation is essential.

I agree that I tend to like a more 'detailed' wife than that presented in BoEntourage, even if she doesn't really enter play at all.

Of course if you like formalizing skill limitations, go for it. You did originally preface you comments with noting that you were making house rules to fit your style of play. I've often thought that there should be some limits on Attributes balancing things like Size and Dex. It just isn't physically possible to be super agile and super big. I also have always used some form of default system among weapons. Both my own 'style of play'.

My real goals were just to have NPC pick their skills based upon their character, it's only a small step from their to limit or expand their skills based upon their traits. I think we need to assume a character is always acting out their trait.

Although the idea of linking traits and skills seems interesting it does not take into account that this can differ from person to person. While someone can be lazy she still can have a high stewardship. Not because she likes to get up early each morning, but because she is driven by her Love(Family) and feels that running a good manor is what is needed. So you will see her often trying to sit on the porch sipping tea and doing nothing, she still gets up to see that the Mill is fixed after it broke down in a storm.
So in the end the skill levels are far less important. It is the motivations you must keep track off. That is the thing that deepens the connection between NPC and PK.

Example: I play Prince Madoc as a brash and rather reckless knight. The PKs have had to help him out several times because of it. Madoc is a competent fighter and battleleader. The PKs have seen this in action. But they also know he failed several times because of his recklessness.