My campaign is coming up on its first Winter Phase in a few weeks, and a quick glance at the rules seems to make it possible to have some of your family members live...well...forever, unless I am reading it wrong. Are there more involved house rules for rolling on the health and well-being of your family members?

My campaign is coming up on its first Winter Phase in a few weeks, and a quick glance at the rules seems to make it possible to have some of your family members live...well...forever, unless I am reading it wrong. Are there more involved house rules for rolling on the health and well-being of your family members?

I guess this is why it's better to be an NPC than a PC!
kidding.
Well, actually, I noticed this too.
It only took me 27 years too!
The Book of the ESTATE has a set of tables to address this issue
I'll try to get them posted on the web site for everyone soon
I'd do it myself but it's been so long I don't remember how to do html (!) :(

Where is Merlin when you need him? :)

I do not claim to be a html wizard, but a quick googling turned out the following, from http://www.w3schools.com/html/html_tables.asp :


HTML Table Headers

Header information in a table are defined with the <th> tag.

All major browsers display the text in the <th> element as bold and centered.
<table border="1">
<tr>
<th>Header 1</th>
<th>Header 2</th>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>row 1, cell 1</td>
<td>row 1, cell 2</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>row 2, cell 1</td>
<td>row 2, cell 2</td>
</tr>
</table>

How the HTML code above looks in your browser:
Header 1 Header 2
row 1, cell 1 row 1, cell 2
row 2, cell 1 row 2, cell 2

Ah, that's great news! I'm using the Grand Pendragon Campaign and so far we've got the basic rules and the rules expansion that come with the campaign book! I will keep an eye out for that revised chart and if you guys have any other Winter Court recommendations, please let me know!

Not to look a gift horse in the mouth, but next Tuesday is our first Winter Court phase so if you were going to pass that along.. ;D

We're using the Pendragon 5.1 rules along with the expanded stuff in the GPC. Any pitfalls we should know about or tweaks that we should make?

Greg, are these the revised rules that you referenced earlier? Just want to double-check before I use them!

http://www.gspendragon.com/familysurvivalrolls.html

Yes!
That is an excerpt from the Book of the ESTATE
btw.



Greg, are these the revised rules that you referenced earlier? Just want to double-check before I use them!

http://www.gspendragon.com/familysurvivalrolls.html

Are there more involved house rules for rolling on the health and well-being of your family members?

One excellent thing is in the aid's section, there you will find a prg that makes a family tree, when people marry get offspring die etc. If you set that for surrounding family you can project into the future which year they will die then prepare and roleplay it accordingly.

My group have solved it differently:
http://nocturnal-media.com/forum/index.php?topic=312.0
http://nocturnal-media.com/forum/index.php?topic=1419

Our system is that no-named family are sideline and are usually handled genericly.
But named family has a "frailty" value from 1-20. This frailty increases by itself every five years and by major wounds or child birth etc. When sickness or similar strikes a frailty roll is made and people go sick, and if old die. While if young they can be nursed back to health. Unless they make another failed frailty while sick when young die to.
Same system is used for our horses etc.

I dont have a system for handling these issues (the table in the rules is to ridiculous and random to be of any use, apart from generating laughs). I just dont think its worthwhile to roll a kazillion dice every Winter Phase for dozens of NPCs, many who will never be more than a name in the family tree.

Instead, NPCs lives and dies entierly at my (the GMs) whim.

Instead, NPCs lives and dies entierly at my (the GMs) whim.

Wives? Kids? Brothers?

I found that using the original table in the early part of the campaign helps to draw the family tree by introducing cousins, uncles and aunts that the player hasn't done up.

I'll probably use those survival rolls but not as part of the regular Winter Phase as it may add to many rolls.

Wives? Kids? Brothers?


Wives die if the Childbirth table says so. Though I instituted a "saving roll" to keep down the absurd death rate of females. Once they doesn't roll on the Childbirth table anymore, they are mine.

Kids roll Child survival until 15. Then they are mine. And I don't kill heirs or children who look like they might become characters, as a general policy.

Brothers. As above, if it seems likely that they would one day be needed as PKs, they are safe. But if, not, well ...

I find that if you have sensible players (which I hope), you can discuss these things with them. "These four guys are only names on a family three, do you mind if I wack them?"; Since your PK has four sons and live Superlative every year, I can't see that you younger brothers could ever come into play; they are mine now. What do you say?"

On the plus side of this, you can use all those names on the family tree to tell stories instead. You have to old aunt who has seen it all and just never dies, and mistakes Arthur for Uther and and PK for his father. You have the priest trained brother who ran away with that cousin. And so forth ... You can plan it.

Kids roll Child survival until 15. Then they are mine.


I think I read somewhere that our esteemed leader suggests child survival rolls up to 7 and not 15.

Kids roll Child survival until 15. Then they are mine.


I think I read somewhere that our esteemed leader suggests child survival rolls up to 7 and not 15.


Thats too kind! In these decadent times when Superlative knights only get +1 on Child Survival (which is a very good change from +2, ie auto survival) families will get monstrously large with that rule.