I am not even sure if it should be in this forum.

I played Pendragon years ago and am looking at buying the books (or pdf's or a mix of them) to run the game, I was wondering if anyone could give a rundown of what beyond the core 5.1 is a must have for the game?

I ask as the PoD cost will make this expensive to buy books I may never need.

I would say the Great Pendragon Campaign is the single most important "must have" item, even more so than the 5.1 rules themselves.

The rest will depend on what you want to emphasize and what you need. I'm very happy with the Book of Battle, Book of Armies, Book of Knights and Ladies, and Book of the Manor but you don't absolutely need them to run the GPC. Of the four, I'd say the Book of Knights and Ladies is the most useful, but it will depend on how you want to run your campaign.

I am not even sure if it should be in this forum.

I played Pendragon years ago and am looking at buying the books (or pdf's or a mix of them) to run the game, I was wondering if anyone could give a rundown of what beyond the core 5.1 is a must have for the game?

I ask as the PoD cost will make this expensive to buy books I may never need.


A lot will depend on what you want to emphasize or expand on in the campaign.

GPC (Great Pendragon Campaign) - a framework to hang activities off of. Also a great resource for establishing the generational and long-term scope of a Pendragon campaign. (I concur with the other comment about this probably being the "must have" additional resource.)

Book of Knights and Ladies - useful for expanding backgrounds. With this knights can be from a much wider background than the core book default of Salisbury. Essentially the 5.1 implementation for other cultural backgrounds; though with some interesting additional extras such as a cultural skill.

Book of the Manor - useful if you want to go for more intimate handling and customization of manors and holdings. Instead of a manor just be a location and some standard income it now has characteristics, harvest (income) is affected by events and play, etc. The GPC has a truncated short version, and this book has a short version and a more complicated version of doing manor effects and improvements.

Book of Battle - useful for expanding the options in battle for the player knights. Plus a wider variety of foes encountered as well since the battle tables are expanded to vary by opponent and period. So you get a more complicated battle system, but also one where the player knights decisions and rolls can have a greater effect on the outcome as well.

You don't have to have any of them. But they each do provide options to explore a facet of the knightly life in greater detail.

Sounds like core and GPC are a good first step, then see where (if) the players want to go, no point getting anything else till they know which direction to go in.

Thank you!

I'll echo that the core book and the GPC are the "essentials".

Out of the other "new" publications I'd put the Book of Battle (and it's companion the book of Armies) as being of more use to me and my campaign than the Book of the Manor and/or the Book of Knights and Ladies.

The Book of the Manor and the Book of Knights and Ladies have added some nice colour and background but I don't use them in my campaign (players all play stock Cymric Knights and I use the manor system from the GPC, that's enough details for my game).

On the other hand the Book of Battle has come into its own during the anarchy phase. It's in this phase that the players have wanted to fight battles with various people and the system allows for them to be involved and to have a hand in deciding who wins. The rules in the core books don't really work well for that and fit in better with more "scripted" battles when you know who you want to win for plot reasons or where the players are small parts in a massive battle. Come the anarchy period the players are probably going to be Knights with a long service history and become big players as far as Salisbury is concerned, so having them more involved and influential was something that I needed.

There are also other older supplements available on Print on Demand and out of those I'd particularly recommend the Saxons! book as once again during there anarchy phase it's been very very helpful. This is both in terms of getting a bit more flavour about the Saxons and also with the mechanics of understanding their numbers and the areas that they live in.

I'd echo what others have said here:

Complete Game = KAP5 + GPC. I wouldn't know how to run a game without the GPC.

I consider Book of Battle a must-have. It is really useful almost inevitably unless you know you're going to avoid the battle-filled years before King Arthur's reign. It just adds a whole other level to the game that makes it more interesting. IMO the battle rules in the main book/GPC aren't fun or interactive, while the Book of Battle rules are awesome and occupy a major portion of the game before the real birth of chivalrous adventures later in the GPC (so I hear, I haven't gotten that far). The trick is to scale up the complexity after playing Book of Battle for awhile, and do a test run of the rules by yourself with a fake set of knights. Then you can narrate the battles as adventures where no one knows what will happen and much glory can be won. (Also, definitely make the Errata/update change from the forums that Battle Size affects Unit Intensity, not Battle Intensity.)

I have Book of Knights and Book of Manor, and these add alot of options my players enjoy and streamline the character creation system in KAP5, which I like. We've had fun with these, but I wouldn't say they're "core."

Seriously, get the Book of Battle. It makes Pendragon twice as good (once you get a handle of how to run it). Read the forums here to for necessary advice, but otherwise, yeah, buy it too.

I will not repeat the good advice others have given already. But if you want or need to expand from the basic mentioned above:

There are a few good regional books from the 4th edition that give some background on the areas (Savage Mountains = Cambria, Land of the North = the North, Saxons! = saxon coast (sussex, essex and kent), etc). Aside from the fact that they give background there are some inspirational ideas for adventures as well.

I'd like to add that an-all new edition of the Book of Battle is in layout right now, as is the new Book of the Estate.


T.

I will ditto with has been said, and add:

As a game-master, I would say: core + GPC, then Book of Battle are absolutes.
Most useful then would be: Book of Armies and Book of Knights and Ladies and Book of Manor.
Good resources: any of the old regional books for background (Saxons, Pagan Shore, Savage Mountains, & Beyond the Wall). Of course, depending on the time of the campaign, some of the old scenario books would be invaluable as well.

As a player, I would definitely want the Core and Book of Knights and Ladies (and maybe one of the regional books) that would fit with my character.

Robert Schroeder