Ok I have read and understood and respect why you wrote Pendragon 5th,
the way you did for those who want to read this essay it found here http://www.gspendragon.com/genreandgeneric.html

Really I was ok with 5th but my players weren't they had characters already made up and used to Core Pendragon and yes it provided
pagan knights (to you never happened who were in this case Irish), women Pagan Priestesses (rare, if ever I agree) and a legendary environment where adventure is an acceptable way of life (Yes I agree rare, once again but also fun). I was simply voicing their opinion's and mine that we were disappointed in that their were No Magicians in Pendragon for with that said lets leave merlin out too as well no magic no Merlin no lady of the lake guess what don't work that way does it no it is your setting your game we all have fun enjoying it and yes your word is final this is the end of my postings on this subject just wanted to say I really liked your essay and yes does explain your view points and i respect that.

But there IS in fact Magic as well as Merlin or the Ladies of the Lake in the game. Even in the 5th edition (see page 11/12 for an introduction of Merlin and Nimue- one of the referred Ladies).
Its just, that its not meant to be content for players.

Try to imagine, that this limitation leads to a more mystified view on magic (which adds atmosphere to the game) as well as the rareness of it leads to more powerfull effect of even "simple" magic working.

The point I was trying to make is if their is no magic or magicians Then you have to remove all magic including Merlin and Ni-mane was my point, you can't have it both ways either theirs magic with powerful Enchantresses, Bards, Drudic Wizards, or there none so if theirs none then none of the above would be their but they are. Yes I guess a more mystified view of the gm gets to say hey thier's magic here you can't defend against it no rules to say he cant because the book says he can so lets have some fun really in my personal opinion I don't think so but like

Greg said "As a game designer I have to start with some standard, something that is going to be the target for my writing. I chose the genre to start, and in the WW Pendragon 5th, this genre roleplaying was re-emphasized. The publisher felt the game was stronger, in its core presentation, in its original genre. So that is what I wrote. That’s why the magicians are not in the new edition."

So you will just have to play his way for now with KAP 5, and me and my players can play our way with Core Pendragon 4, and we will all just get along and be one big happy family who agree to disagree ;D.

Forgive me, but I need some more information before a response is possible


The point I was trying to make is if their is no magic or magicians

Will you point out for me where the rule book says there is no magic?
On mine, on page 153, it states "Everyone in the world of Pendragon knows that magic exists..." and goes on to 155 discussing the subject.


Then you have to remove all magic including Merlin and Ni-mane was my point,

Both these characters, and many more magic users, are throughout GPC.


you can't have it both ways either theirs magic with powerful Enchantresses, Bards, Drudic Wizards, or there none so if theirs none then none of the above would be their but they are.

?


Yes I guess a more mystified view of the gm gets to say hey thier's magic here you can't defend against it no rules to say he cant because the book says he can so lets have some fun

Who would ever play with such a GM?

ok first I never said their was no magic in the game of 5th eddtion what i said was if thier was no magic and made me a little up set with both me and my players that the following guidelines is complacently left up the the gm and how it works in the description made me and players a little upset is all.

to quote the rule book on pg 155 2nd paragraph how magic in the game says this in the 2nd paragraph To magic work, the Game master simply says that is works. There is no way for knights to defend against it. This is extremly powerful and game masters are urged to use magic sparingly not corrupting the genera by tainting it with magic at every turn. is what i am talking about I do not like that the gm has total control and knights can't defend against it.


You did do a good out line of magic just no base rules for actually casters to cast it and gm's not be able to abuse it, is all i am saying and that some gm's can abuse their players with it is all i was trying to point out.

and yes you do list the 5 living magicians at the time as well. Also i have played with dm's like that.

Sorry I just have no need for formalized rules for magic because I see no thread in it even if there is a (fully theoretic) possibility that it can be set against a player charakter. As a GM I have no interest in squeezing my fellow players. Its my task to create situations to have a interesting time, not to strike them. And as a player I have confidence in my GM that every situation he presents, can be handled, although it seems impossible.
In no way should rules in a game be meant as weapons between players and GM. They should support a groups play.

I would consider a group that believes to need rules to defend themselfes against ther GM as dysfunctional and a GM abusing his powers as a bad one. In no circumstance would I spent my time with people of such attitude. I would leave such a group and look for another.
Also i have played with dm's like that.And I doubt you had fun with that fact. Am I right?

Right we all decided to leave and start our own group and leave him out now we have a lot of fun with KAP but I still like 4th edition rules for magic maybe if and when the new magic book comes out it will satisfy me and my group. I think what my group missed was we have two lady's in our group one is a noble their other is a pagan enchantress and they felt their characters could not be played under KAP 5.0 so we kept playing 4th edition. Who knows maybe I will run the great pendragon campaign in 4th instead of 5th if I ever get a book on it.

I must say that I first encountered the system in its 3rd edition. And one of the things I liked most was the fact that magic was alien, strange, but most of all in the hands of the gamemaster. When in the 4th edition a magic system was introduced I found that redundant. KAP was for me a game to play noble knights, not playing some classic fantasy game. If you want the latter there are better games if yo u ask me.
As for playing ladies in 5th edition. That is very good possible even without a magic system or she is an enchantress in secret, which would be a great scandal in my games.
Although I may allow a player to play a Lady, I would never allow true magicians as player characters. For me they should be strange and enigmatic, something they will loose if they are played by a player.

True see all of our games very based on our likes and dis likes but wen i said their ladys i meant the players in real life are females.
and I wont let them play knights the have no choice, but too to play a lady or a damsel.

[…] and I wont let them play knights the have no choice, but too to play a lady or a damsel.


Er … would they prefer to play a male knight, or is this their choice?

it's kinda both they don't want to play male knights one once to play as the countess of Huntington Daughter of the earl who is trying to get a knight of her own as in our campaign she is his only hair. and the other one wants to play her Irish Celtic Heritage of being a pagan priestess commanding Irish pagan knight's to do battle against Arthur's knight's and she is a vassalage of the high king of Ireland who supports her way of life and wants to her to use his knights to topple Arthur's knights at his Easter tourney's every year.

That's the kinda of game they want to play so I let them with some real nice adventures out of my books and some I made up.

Plus I have always been if the game allows for a female to be defined in a particular role I think the female players should play this type of role if they want too, and these girls revel in it and they don't play any other rpg game except this one. Take that back they will play Lord of the Rings RPG. But they say d and d and all the rest @#%$^* you get the idea, they say this one is the best out of all of the rpg's out thier.

Right we all decided to leave and start our own group and leave him out now we have a lot of fun with KAP but I still like 4th edition rules for magic maybe if and when the new magic book comes out it will satisfy me and my group. I think what my group missed was we have two lady's in our group one is a noble their other is a pagan enchantress and they felt their characters could not be played under KAP 5.0 so we kept playing 4th edition. Who knows maybe I will run the great pendragon campaign in 4th instead of 5th if I ever get a book on it.


The 4th edition Magic rules are compatable with 5.0 & 5.1. All the side books like saxons and Beyond the wall which give the local magicinas, use the same system
My understadning on reading the essay was that they were left out of the core rules as codified rules were not needed for the story telling narrivate if everyone was a non magical knight or lady.
No codified rules, then PK's are defenceless against the magic? Maybe maybe not, as others have said, depends on the GM.
You have traits and passions, is there much differences rolling Chatse to not be tempted by the buxom serving girl or resisting the love potion. If a curse is used as a plot hook that the Pk must quest to break the curse, is that any different from the King giving a PK a mission. In both cases the PK cannot really defend against it.

Alos consider, in 4th edition a section was there for advance character generation, now not there in the core rules of 5.0/1 as they were not needed if the All PK are Salisbury knights idea is used. it isnt to say people cannot be but with the core runles they focus on the core and the Book of Knights and Ladies expanded the options. The same might be in the works for Magic

um see maybe I am missing something as again I only have the main 5th ed book and not the Great pen dragon campaign book and I bet if iIhad that it would make more sense becuse of how quite possibly the way it was written works that way for the narrative story telling. But Lets for get about other books and just compare 5ed and 4ed magic rules for a moment and also for get about my lunatic ravings from yesterday and let me start a new today with this example.

If Magic is absolute to were this statement is true to quote the rule book on pg 155 2nd paragraph how magic in the game says this in the 2nd paragraph To magic work, the Game master simply says that is works. There is no way for knights to defend against it. This is extremly powerful and game masters are urged to use magic sparingly not corrupting the genera by tainting it with magic at every turn. is what i am talking about I do not like that the gm has total control and knights can't defend against it.

Then when Morgan la fey goes to try and seduce Lancelot their is nothing he can do to win because her magic always according to 5th ed as written to me understanding is he can't defend against it.

Now in 4 ed you would have to make a roll to see if their was enough life force to power the spell if their wasn't she then could not seduce Lancelot with her glamour or her emotion and he could invoke his love for another make his chaste roll and leave. This is a better balance because it gives a chance for the above not to happen that is what i mean in my opinion this rule is unfair to both players and the gm and this is why we went back to playing 4th over 5th., and yes I know all the books are compatible I have most of them from 1st to 4th, and the main 5th rule book and yes I understood after reading it a second time and having a friend tell me that I really need to read the GPC is clears up allot of clarification as to why the rule book is the way it is. but I still think it is unfair and unbalanced rule to say that magic always works and knights can defend against it is nonsense. Again is my personal opinion, and general commonsense of my group that its an unfair rule.

All so yes Greg's setting it is always non magical knights of Salisbury and me and my group never use it we use other earldoms instead why you might ask because were descended from those and want to play are ansesters in the world of KAP. with us controlling and role playing out their dynasty's in kap that's another reason why we play the game, and love the game it allows us to do just that.

Similar matter has already been discussed at yahoo answers. I can post the link if needed

nah I am done ranting about it.

Then when Morgan la fey goes to try and seduce Lancelot their is nothing he can do to win because her magic always according to 5th ed as written to me understanding is he can't defend against it.I would see it in different way. My Handling of Magic uses the presumtion, that magic workers can influence the real word with their magic, but there is no possibility to create things from nothing.
For example: A Lady of the lake may turn an early onset of winter into a blizzard. But she can't do that in hot summer. Or Merlin can turn the face of an existent Uther to that of Gorlois (wich face he know) but wouldnt be able to use a face he dint's know nor can he turn hin to something fully fantastic.
This way, magic is subtle. And I try hard, to be not blatantly stating that there is actually magic at work.

Keeping this, Morgan may use magic to strengthen her seduction efforts. But I would allow a very chaste Knight (Chaste > 16) a Roll on that trait, if the player wants it. And I would allow someone with high Love passion to bring it into play, Like I would for a Hate(Morgan) passion. One of my player has an amulet, wich he includes in his worshipping. That ist also something I would allow to bring into play if wanted. Its just players part to decide, which way they want to go. In most cases my players would just let it happen to see, what they can do with the consequences. Even if they become infatuated, they are not mindless slaves. Something, that ist against their personality may cause them to snap out.

Even when i don't allow PC magicians, I love having the 4E magic system. It gives me a codified and consistent system for Mortal magics. It also gives me (by backhanded extension from the Magician Creation rules) the ability to generate non magician peasants for those (rare) cases when I've needed one as a significant NPC.

It also explained quite nicely the reasons Merlin stops being right up on Arthur... He's sleeping off the Enchantment of Britain.
It also neatly explains why Morgan doesn't do really impressive nastiness with hers... She's unwilling to let her plots and strokes go unprodded while she would be sleeping off major effects.

Having it makes my GMing better for it being present.

I want to appoligize I might have been some what upset at trying to get my point across and the above was not meant as a personal attack on Greg just trying to simply understand why 5th core rule book was written the way it was but I think understand now it was written from the stand point you using magic as a nutritive plot hook so the gm is to use it as such got it I still say that some gm's I know can and will abuse it, with that in mind. I just think thier needs to be more of a balance System in place.

After thinking about it for a while I decided to simply let it go and simply say this is...
How I play and game master the Pendragon Role Playing Game by which was published by Green Knight Publishing orgianlly it was published by Chaosium inc. However, most recently now is published by White Wolf Publishing for KAP 5.1 Core Rule book and the Great Pendragon Campaign.

This game is set in King Arthur's England, where you take the role of a questing knight. You stand up for the weak, bring justice to the wicked and enjoy the pleasures at court.

Lady's can play as romantic lady's as court, Enchantresses of the (Celtic Pagan's), Christian noble lady's who's gift form god was divine miracle of healing the sick and blessing the week, and comforting the wounded. either of these could even become an heiress to an earl or duke the possibilities are endless.

What sets this apart from most RPG's is the dynastic aspect. Since a whole campaign can cover more than 75 years, sooner or later, you will have to step down from the adventuring due to old age; or maybe you'll get killed in battle, die from infected wounds, or get insane. In those cases it's good to have a son who can take over. You can actually end up playing your original character's great grandson.

But in order to have a son, you'll have to get married, and preferably rich. So you'll pursue and court lovely and/or rich ladies and prove your commitment. Write, play and sing romantic ballads, dance and entertain the lady with witty conversation, and wear her colors in the tournament to prove your prowess.

But a Pendragon session does not have to be a demonstration of courtly skills. There are rebellious Saxons, Picts and Irishmen, deceitful witches, evil enchanters, ungodly monsters and arrogant barons to chase. Or maybe you'll encounter the fairies, and see their magical land.

Your personal goal can be to get wealthy and build a mighty castle, to marry a beautiful lady, to earn the reputation of a fearsome warrior or a cunning general, to spread Christianity among the pagans or to find a seat at King Arthur Pendragon's legendary round table, or perhaps become one of queen Gwenivere Knight's.

A Bard who travel's around telling stories and witnessing famous events first hand and writing them down and performing at court.

Actually, it's great fun no matter what path you choose..

Greg Stafford this is how I play KAP under the YGWV rule.