I'm trying to decide how much to make use of the family tree and family event rolls in winter.

Both are definitely interesting, and have added some nice details to my campaign already.

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For instance the female player ended up with a bastard brother knight - who I decided was very upset that she had inherited the manor over him.

His reasoning is somewhat suspect - he is a illegitimate after all. If she had become a heiress - the manor going to her eventual husband - he would understand as that is the 'proper' line of inheritance. But the fact that they made her a squire (and eventually knighted her) felt like a personal insult to him. (perhaps he fumbled a Love (family) roll or crit on proud, or both)

He confronted her angrily after she was knighted and then during the winter family rolls... he disappeared. (dun dun dun)


One of the other PKs lost his father to a hunting accident during the Salisbury family history phase. While rolling his family tree his uncle also died in a hunting accident, and there were a number of 'accidents' among the female members of the family. The player requested a fear (hunting) passion when his father died.

I sort of wove these facts together (along with the PK's fear of hunting) to create the story of his father having spotted a wondrous white doe in the woods. While heading out to hunt the doe his father was confronted by an old witch woman who warned him that any injury upon the white doe would be "repaid upon you and yours ten-fold!" He ignored the warning. The doe was downed, but a lion leaped from the woods to steal their catch. Both he and one of his wife's brothers were slain, though a varlet managed to drag away the prize doe. It's head was mounted on the wall, a final trophy to remember the renowned hunter. Some years later the PK's sister came to the manor to announce that a wealthy knight had proposed to her. During the celebration the trophy fell from the wall and struck her on the head. She died several weeks later, never having regained consciousness. Also the PK's grandmother died in a freak riding accident when her horse was startled by a hare.

The PK became convinced that his family is cursed. (The player switched his fear from hunting to curses) During the introductory adventure he bravely leapt in front of the bear to defend a downed comrade. The bear obliged this effort by savaging him horribly. He survived only due to his almost legendary constitution. (The bear crit him, dealing 2 20 damage major wounds and bringing him from full health to -4. Only some very lucky first aid rolls by one of the other knights allowed him to survive.) He learned his lesson and is now afraid of both curses and hunting.

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I include those examples just to show that I enjoy the family tree and the events, they have already added to the game quite substantially.

I'm just trying to decide how to handle a slight incongruity. (and in general how precise I really want to be about managing the extended family)

When rolling up the family tree, underage family members are deliberately unaccounted for. This seems like a good rule really - while the underage children of a PK are important, it's not likely that I would really find time to use his nieces and nephews (much less second and third cousins etc). Not to mention the time to actually generate all those underage characters.

So far other than the disappearance of one knight's brother, most of the family events have been births. There lies the incongruity. It seems odd to have a vague and undefined number of underage family members at character generation but then to track further births.

I could just ignore these as 'non-events' basically. Alternatively I could go back and add the previously abstracted children to the tree. I could also just ignore the incongruity - as if it just so happened there were no underage children in their families at campaign start or that none of those children happen to be important. I don't think any of players really noticed. (or at least none of them have said anything)

Actually while writing this post I came up with the idea of changing the birth family event to a "coming of age" event. (that is, age 15)

I'm curious to know how others have handled this, if they even did anything regarding it. (or noticed it for that matter)

Pretty cool background you got there from the family tree generation. :)

Well thank you.
<checks proud>

Unless someone sweeps in with an impressive counter argument, I think I'm going to go forwards with a mixed approach and treat the birth event as a birth/coming of age event. (depending on the 'most directly affected relative' roll.

Unless someone sweeps in with an impressive counter argument, I think I'm going to go forwards with a mixed approach and treat the birth event as a birth/coming of age event. (depending on the 'most directly affected relative' roll.


I think that is a reasonable idea. Back in the day, I think we used the birth in the family roll to add one to the kin number in the army section. Let those numbers build up.

I'd be tempted to work up a 'system' for following the family members, especially the family knights, throughout the years. It... bothers... me a bit that there is really no mechanism in place, currently, to see how the extended family evolves. Sure, there are the expanded family events in the internet (that I happen to use), but nothing really to say when a young knight becomes a middle-aged knight and if he marries or gains in status or Glory. Partially I understand why not, as the PKs are the stars of the story. Still, I don't think it would be too arduous to have a couple of extra rolls to check on the family members.

The new mortality charts in the Book of the Entourage were a step to the right direction, having a mortality roll for each family knight & siblings. It shouldn't be too difficult to add a second roll, just to see how they are getting on with their lives. I might throw something together later, just a first stab in the dark.

The PKs tend to look after their siblings when they have some. Younger brothers are generally pushed to become squires and even knights, thus providing spare characters for their main PK. Sisters are married off, hopefully to deserving husbands. All that is good fun. However, it is the family knights that generally fall off the map, unless something happens to bring them back to the focus, like in adventures to help them. In one case, the sons of a dead family knight became wards of one of the player character, so they are kept in the limelight that way.

Alright, so here is the idea... Keep track of the family knights & siblings age. You are supposed to do that anyway for the Book of the Entourage mortality chart, so that shouldn't be too difficult. Then you can roll on the following table:

1d20 Mortality & Event for a Family Knight
1-10 No Event (or potential death on 1-X, depending on the year's events & age of the person, see the Book of the Entourage)
11-12 Marriage / Birth in the family if already married
13-14 Marriage if already holds an office or a manor / Birth if already married. If not married, a bastard is born (only on 13 for Christians)
15 Needs the PK's help with something (has been captured / vanished, needs to do a quest to impress a lord / a lady, is feuding with another knight). I.e. an adventure hook. Alternatively, might just need the PK to put in a good word (if the GM has already a full plate of adventures) which is good for a roll of 10 being a promotion or a marriage next year. An actual (successful) adventure will pretty much guarantee a promotion or a marriage.
16 Has monetary problems (might be dowry/knighting, personal debts, replacing own equipment) and asks £1d6 from the PK (Generous & Love Family checks?)
17 Nasty rumors abound. Roll 1d6: 1-3 Personal (future rolls of 11 mean No event), 4-6 Professional (future rolls of 20 mean No event). On a re-roll of 17, those nasty rumors are proven false, and the penalties vanish.
18 Good luck in war / tournament, gains £1d6 (repays debts to the PK, if any)
19-20 Increases in status: errant -> household -> minor officer -> vassal -> major officer -> banneret (Note, an NPK should not outshine the PKs, especially NOT without their help.)

Minor officer: a position in some minor lord's service which allows the household knight to marry. Examples being the officers in the £50 estate for example, or overseeing a manor with the underaged heir/ess as a ward, or being rewarded with a widow as a wife.

Major officer: A castellan of a castle, an officer in service of a major lord like a baron or an earl. This is something that should be considered carefully by the GM, as this may make the NPK too powerful in comparison to the PKs. Your Campaign May Vary and all that.

This would require more book-keeping on the part of the players, like a mini char history for all the family members being followed. Some might not like that. On the other hand, it would make the family members come more 'alive', seem like they have a life of their own.

Any comments?

While rolling for every family member would certainly be the most naturalistic method of handling it, I'm not sure I want to add that much additional rolling to the winter phase.

As far as books - so far I'm sticking to just the core book and the GPC. I discussed the book of the estate and the book of battle with my players, but for now we're sticking with what we have. I'm still working on running the core rules correctly before I consider adding additional rulebooks.

I did generate random dates of birth for the members of the family tree, and I'll probably start making some sort roll for older characters eventually.

While rolling for every family member would certainly be the most naturalistic method of handling it, I'm not sure I want to add that much additional rolling to the winter phase.


Lets say on average, each PK has around 4 young knights, 2 middle-aged knights and no old knights. That is 6 additional rolls. Granted, they are a bit more involved than the experience check rolls. But at the moment, the family events table is 2-3 rolls (is there an event, who is involved and rumors roll), and they do not have the same impact, in my humble opinion. I'd estimate that doing those rolls and write down the results could be done in fifteen minutes or so. And that then leads to the question, how often do you have the Winter Phase? If you play one 4h session per campaign year, yeah, I can see how even 15min chunk from that is significant. If you play 4*4h sessions per campaign year, then I wouldn't sweat about a 15 min to keep track of the family. Especially since I think we are already using at least that much with the current family events table rolls.

During a Winter Phase, we do (per PK):
1. Justice event (2 rolls for the GM, 1 roll for the PK, per manor).
2. Around 12-15 experience check rolls (skills, traits, passions).
3. Economic Circumstances: We use Book of the Manor, so this is pretty time consuming.
a) 1-2 rolls from the GM for the general starting weather.
b) 1 roll per manor for Manorial Luck, which might trigger another roll (look up the result).
c) 1 roll for raid effects or plague or whatever per manor. Not always.
d) 1 roll per manor for Concern my commoners.
e) Finally, 1 roll from GM + 1 roll from PK per manor to get the outcome.
f) Total 5-6 rolls per manor, and many PKs have 2 manors.
4. Stable roll: Roll for each special horse (usually around 1 per PK).
5. Childbirth: Calculate and roll.
6. Child survival: Roll for each brat. This can be several rolls per PK. (We use a different table, stopping the rolling at 5 and having a sharp die-off at 1. So we usually only have around 2.)
7. Family Event: We use a different table again, which take a bit longer to look up the result, but yes, 2-3 rolls more often than not. Also, need to decide which cousin or such gets a brat.

So all in all, we are rolling around 30 times per PK. Rolling instead 33 times wouldn't be a big change, especially as it would make my life as a GM much easier, when I don't have to think about what the cousin has been up to in the last ten years that the PK has been adventuring. Granted, it needs a bit more bookkeeping on the PKs part. So definitely something that would vary between the players in question. I have some that keep asking me questions about their cousins and stuff, and some who simply don't care. So whatever works for you. :)

During a Winter Phase, we do (per PK):
1. Justice event (2 rolls for the GM, 1 roll for the PK, per manor).
2. Around 12-15 experience check rolls (skills, traits, passions).
3. Economic Circumstances: We use Book of the Manor, so this is pretty time consuming.
a) 1-2 rolls from the GM for the general starting weather.
b) 1 roll per manor for Manorial Luck, which might trigger another roll (look up the result).
c) 1 roll for raid effects or plague or whatever per manor. Not always.
d) 1 roll per manor for Concern my commoners.
e) Finally, 1 roll from GM + 1 roll from PK per manor to get the outcome.
f) Total 5-6 rolls per manor, and many PKs have 2 manors.
4. Stable roll: Roll for each special horse (usually around 1 per PK).
5. Childbirth: Calculate and roll.
6. Child survival: Roll for each brat. This can be several rolls per PK. (We use a different table, stopping the rolling at 5 and having a sharp die-off at 1. So we usually only have around 2.)
7. Family Event: We use a different table again, which take a bit longer to look up the result, but yes, 2-3 rolls more often than not. Also, need to decide which cousin or such gets a brat.


We too did all this for 2 years, after which everybody felt it took way too much time from role-playing. First we dropped the BotM bookkeepping, then the weather system altogether, and gradually other things as well. 4 years (65 GPC years!) later we only do:

Skillchecks
Aging
Economic (drastically simplified: flat income of £6 per manor, minus the standard of living, minus the army upkeep)
Childbirth
Child survival (simplified)

We never felt much need for family rolls, as I intertwined each family into the story with small premeditated events and adventures. Either way, after some playing each family will probably have almost too much history and lineage: you can only afford so much time for family stuff if you want to progress the main storylines.

We too did all this for 2 years, after which everybody felt it took way too much time from role-playing. [snip]

We never felt much need for family rolls, as I intertwined each family into the story with small premeditated events and adventures. Either way, after some playing each family will probably have almost too much history and lineage: you can only afford so much time for family stuff if you want to progress the main storylines.


I quite agree, it comes down to pacing and the preferences of the game group. We just played through the Winter Phase, and it took us 2 hours to go through. Checking back on the schedule of the updated character sheets, I see my 'rule of thumb' of 1 game year / month in real time is roughly correct. We play around 4h weekly, so we are using around 1/8th - 1/10th of the time on Winter Phase. Granted, we are in the Yellow Pestilence years and the PKs got a bit unlucky with the rolling. Hence we were doing some extra survival from the plague for the family members, which added to the time. Also, we do some 'extra experience checks' towards the end of the year, where the players can suggest a couple of (usually skill) checks that they feel they'd deserve. For instance, if they did a lot of traveling around Britain, I tend to award Horsemanship, even if it wasn't rolled that often. It all adds up, I know.

As for the PKs' families, now that we have the (younger half of the) second generation and the third generation is coming of age, we pretty much have named nieces and nephews and such for the players to keep track of anyway. This varies between the PKs, of course, some have plenty, some less so. As one family branch managed to get a small county in Normandy, and are the liege lords of the (some of the) PKs, the PKs have been running around to attend marriages and such lately.

But I do agree that there is simply no time to do 5 times a family adventure per year and still advance the big plot. Nor do I think anyone would suggest that, generally. Just to keep myself 'honest', I rely a lot on the random family events to trigger family related adventures (with the exception of that liege lord & family, since that was constant political situation that kept evolving and was part of the 'big plot'). Recently, there was a kidnapping of a sister of a PK, which then triggered a rescue mission. However, every time something like that happens, the question becomes, who is this person and where does this person live and what kind of a family he/she has? This might have been easier if it had been followed yearly.

Which is kind of my point, actually. Having a single roll per family knight / 'adult' sibling per year might actually be easier in the long run. Or even in the short run, as at least for me, it can take a while to come up with all the details to fit the random event, to select the person influenced by the random event and so forth. Your Pendragon May Vary, of course.

Thank you both for your input.

I couldn't think of anything particularly relevant or useful to reply with but it has given me some things to think about (some of which are only tangentially related to the original subject)

For instance the female player ended up with a bastard brother knight - who I decided was very upset that she had inherited the manor over him.

His reasoning is somewhat suspect - he is a illegitimate after all. If she had become a heiress - the manor going to her eventual husband - he would understand as that is the 'proper' line of inheritance. But the fact that they made her a squire (and eventually knighted her) felt like a personal insult to him. (perhaps he fumbled a Love (family) roll or crit on proud, or both)

He confronted her angrily after she was knighted and then during the winter family rolls... he disappeared. (dun dun dun)


As it happens, I (as the GM) have a female player in each of the two campaigns I am currently running. Being blessed, it is a different player in each, too. :P In the older campaign, we have gone through two female knights and currently she is playing a lady character. In the other, new campaign, the female player opted to play a female knight.

Now, like Greg says in the rulebook, there are different ways of dealing with female knights. My default assumption is that if it kicks ass like a knight, it is a knight. Given that the two previous female knights both made it to the Cornerless Table, and the female knight in the new campaign is gaining a bit of a reputation for one-shotting people with her mace (one first strike kill hit in a duel, and crushed King Octa's ribs (major wound) with the first blow at the Battle of Lindsey... Having 6d6 damage helps. :P), not many knights are willing to risk it. Still, in the 'unfriendly' courts, they would be talking trash behind the female knight's back and so forth. Thus, in my campaigns, the period of 'vulnerability' for a female knight is those first couple of thousands of Glory. After she has 'proven' herself, there is little to distinguish her, status-wise, from the male knights, and is generally treated as a knight with regards to marriage and so forth. Although granted, in the new campaign, the female knight's sisters were co-heiresses in part: the estate was split £4+£1+£1 between the three sisters, with the eldest (a female knight) taking care of the knight duty. This of course would not have happened if the eldest had been a male instead.

As far as the marriages are concerned, the new campaign female knight is still unmarried and probably ends up marrying her steward or something, thus reversing the usual gender roles of the man adventuring and the woman staying home. The two female knights of the old campaign, when they married, happened to marry bannerets (or soon-to-be banneret, in the case of the first), so there was a difference in status there that made it 'clear' that the husband was in charge... at least in public. But in private, the common issues would be discussed and decided together.

Anyway, what this long prelude is leading up to... Yes, I can very well see the illegitimate son being upset that a woman was made into a knight, when there was a perfectly good candidate, him. On the other hand, if the woman has been made a knight by the Count and especially if he is treating her as a knight and confirming her as a vassal knight under her own right, the bastard is out of luck. As far as the legalities are concerned, that is. Of course, should she happen to die without heirs, who better to inherit than her half-brother? Especially as it seems that he was an acknowledged member of the family.

The female player knight raises enough questions, concerns, issues, and general difficulties for me to make a thread or three. But I don't want to derail my own thread.

But yes, the bastard brother does have a leg to stand on in terms of being put out. That is not to say he is necessarily right - but had he the force of arms to press his claims, he would be close enough for "might is right" to make up the difference.

The female player knight raises enough questions, concerns, issues, and general difficulties for me to make a thread or three. But I don't want to derail my own thread.

But yes, the bastard brother does have a leg to stand on in terms of being put out. That is not to say he is necessarily right - but had he the force of arms to press his claims, he would be close enough for "might is right" to make up the difference.


Start a new thread? :)

These kinds of 'usurpation' storylines are pretty common, especially in Arthurian stories. All those damsels with their evil half-brothers, uncles, brother-in-laws or just good old robber knights. They do thrive in a situation when there is no strong central power nearby, though. Or if they have managed to 'buy' the overlord off.

Since the biggest problem your bastard brother baddie is facing is not the female knight, but the liege lord. If the liege lord has accepted the female knight as his vassal, then, by his oath, he is obligated to support her right to the land and protect her in turn against invaders. Of course, if she is dead, that becomes a moot point. Or if the bastard brother manages to secure strong backers of his own. Levcomagus, anyone? :) Assuming this happens in Salisbury.

His biggest problem at the moment might be the fact that he disappeared during the winter phase family rolls.

To make it even more curious... the next winter he got married.

I haven't decided what is actually going on with him yet.

He 'disappeared'. -> Clearly he went 'underground' to prepare the usurpation; also, this ensures that he doesn't have to listen everyone gushing about 'that b****'.
He married. -> Traditional way of forming alliances.

Oh, here is an idea that he might try to do, a bit similar to the idea one poster here used in his campaign... You could have the bastard brother make a play for 'the head of the family'. That is an internal thing to the family group, so the liege lord doesn't get involved. And he might have the claim as the eldest son and frankly the only son of the previous head of the family. After all, do the other family knights wish to take orders from a 'mere woman', or from a battle-proven male knight? Granted, this probably becomes much more difficult for him to pull off the more Glory the female knight gets. There is a reason why successful usurpations tended to happen when the principal heir was still underaged (or was extremely unpopular).

That's a not bad way to play it, better than what I was leaning towards I think. (more appropriate to the Uther period)

Maybe I will make a post, because her character is 'challenging'. Trying to have the world react naturally and logically to her, without making the player feel 'punished' has not been easy.

I again encourage you to make that post. :) Much easier for others to find the thread if you start a new one and label it with a descriptive subject. I do have some things to say about the topic, but I will wait until your thread. :)

The new mortality charts in the Book of the Entourage


I misremembered. The new mortality charts are in Book of the Estate.