So I got curious about how people play the game. Here are a few questions that came to mind, a poll of sorts.

1. How long is a session?
2. How often do you play?
3. How many real-life hours is one game year in your campaign?
4. How is the game year structured?
5. How much time do you spend on the Big Plot (GPC, Uther, Arthur & RTK) and on the little plots (family-related, PK-centric, etc)?
6. Do you use published adventures or make your own?
7. How quickly do the characters develop?

Now granted, all of those depend a lot on what period you are playing, varying from year to year. But ballpark?

I am GMing currently two GPC campaigns:
A) started in early 2000s and still going on (started 503, now 551).
B) started last autumn in 485, now 491.

1. I GM 4h sessions in both campaigns, both due to my own endurance as with the fact that people have lives of their own, too.

2. Ideally, we'd play once a week (campaign A) and Sat-Sun biweekly (campaign B), due to schedule constraints. As life is rarely perfect and schedule conflicts and unforeseen circumstances happen, the average is probably closer to 3 sessions per month for campaign A and 2-3 sessions for campaign B (as a missed weekend wipes out two sessions in one go).

3. I'd say that it we spend between 16-24 hours per game year in campaign A. In campaign B, the average is slightly lower, probably more like 8-12 hours per game year. Partially this is due to the Period, as during Uther period, there are less 'chivalric adventuring' than in latter periods, which tend to take more time. Also, I am deliberately trying to keep campaign B advancing on a faster pace, as there is so much to cover.

4. Ohboy. Depends a lot on the year, but generally speaking:

Campaign A:
- 'Spring' is deemed to start around mid-March or so, which gives the PKs around 2 months to do something before Pentecost. This can be a 'short' adventure, or dealing with the family events that cropped up during last Winter Phase. Usually, this takes between one and two sessions.
- Pentecost happens in late May, and usually takes a session to play through, depending a bit how much happens during it.
- 'Summer' is usually saved for 'Arthur's assignments' or the main adventure of the year, generally taking two sessions or so, and between two and three months game time.
- 'Autumn' tends to be wrap-up, catching up with family and local politics, maybe do a small tournament, and then Winter Phase. One session.

Campaign B:
- We tend to start with the King's Spring Court, which lists out the assignments for the year. Usually it involves fighting the Saxons, no surprise there. This takes usually around half a session or so.
- Beating the Saxons. This tends to take a session or so, possibly split between two sessions.
- Celebrating/licking the wounds. Taking care of family/local business. Potentially a small encounter/adventure. 0.5 - 1 sessions.
- Winter Phase & family stuff, half a session.

5. Depends seems to be my usual answer. :P While both campaigns follow GPC, campaign B follows GPC's events much more closely. Partially this is because there is more for the players to do in all the battles and such, whereas in late 540s, the 'Big Plot' tends to involve Lancelot and happen mainly outside Camelot. Instead, in campaign A, the Orkney - De Gales -feud has been a major plot point for the last couple of years, as the PKs are sworn to Earl Agravaine of Salisbury. :P But to quantify these... hmm... I'd say the campaign B is maybe around 75% Big Plot and 25% something else (or even 80/20), while campaign A is probably closer to 33/67 or 25/75 with occasional flare-up of 50/50 or 75/25, depending a bit how you disentangle the big and little plots. For instance, if the quest is from Arthur, but it is stand-alone with no major impact for the big plot, is it a big or a little plot? I'd classify it as a little plot, while the Orkney - De Gales feuding that mainly happens off-scene in Mallory, I'd classify as a big plot, even if the actual events are from GM's head mainly, as it has a big impact on the Round Table and the famous knights in general.

6. Both. I rely pretty heavily on published adventures for the chivalric adventures in the Arthurian phases, whilst trying to modify them to make sense within the campaign itself. The main adventure of the year is often, although not always, a published adventure. Partly this is because I do have a life of my own and simply don't have the time to be creating my own 'long' adventures, although I occasionally do that too. And partly it is convenience; since I happen to have the adventure available, why not use it? Most of my 'own adventures' tend to be coming up with situations and politics for the players to meddle with, the reactions and rivalries from the NPCs, or expanding on the situations mentioned in the GPC, like making a timeline for the siege of Bayeux and allowing the PKs to interact with the landing, patrolling and finally storming the gate.

7. Another tough question:

In Campaign A, we give glory for all sort of things, including passions and traits, so the PKs netting between 200 - 300 'passive' glory is pretty much the norm. Depending on the year, they gain another 100 - 400 from adventure/tournament glory, with potentially another 100 - 200 from defeating exceptional enemies / serious duels. Glancing through the character sheets (not counting marriage glory), it seems to be around 400 - 700 / year. As for experience checks, they gain maybe around 5 trait, 1 passion and 10 skill checks per year on average. Sometimes more, sometimes less.

In Campaign B, we don't give any benefits from Chivalric, as it is still 'might makes right', prior to the Enchantment of Britain (that's my excuse and I am sticking to it). The PKs thus gain around 100 'passive' glory. They gain perhaps another 100 - 200 from skirmishing / adventuring and another 100 - 200 if they get lucky and beat a Saxon Berserker or a Chieftain in a fight. However, the super-bonus was the Battle of Lindsey, where they managed to capture King Octa, and gained on average 1000 Glory. That was pretty swell. :) Looking at the character sheets... if one discards marriage glory and that one big battle, the average seems to be around 300 glory / year. As fewer sessions are played, they usually end up around 3 trait, 1 passion and 7 skill checks per year.

However, we use unspent Glory Points (the bonus point you get at each 1000 glory) as 'fate points' (allowing the players to 'overrule' bad dice rolls, for instance an enemy landing a critical hit on them), so the skills & stats of the PKs are actually lower than their Glory would indicate. The Best Swordsman in Campaign A has Sword 21 and Glory around 13000 now, I think, while in Campaign B, I think the best Sword is 19 or 20, with Glory 3000... This is due to all of those Glory points going to keeping Major Wounds and defeat at bay. The same is true to Campaign B, too, of course. Maybe even more so, as poorer armor means those GPs get used more often.

My campaign hasn't been going very long, so I don't know how useful my answers will be.

1. How long is a session?
4 or so hours.

2. How often do you play?

In theory we were going to switch off between Pendragon and another game, so once every other week. The other GM ceded his session to me 3 times a in row though and eventually put his game on hiatus. So for now it's 1/week.

3. How many real-life hours is one game year in your campaign?

It varies a bit... I'm trying to slow down a little actually because I blew through 4 years in the last 2 sessions.

4. How is the game year structured?

Nebulously! I'm trying to get a better grasp of the knightly year. It's still not clear to me when the various courts are held. (Easter court in spring with Earl Roderick, royal court in summer, and then Christmas court at the end of the year?)

5. How much time do you spend on the Big Plot (GPC, Uther, Arthur & RTK) and on the little plots (family-related, PK-centric, etc)?

So far I have some little plot stuff, but I haven't really succeeded in working it into the game very well. One of the players romanced Lady Elaine though.

So mostly Big Plot stuff.

I missed the note about raid by Sir Blains in the main book, I regret missing that campaign thread.

I wanted to work in a Saxon rival plot but I haven't found a good way to do so.

6. Do you use published adventures or make your own?

Most game systems I never use modules, but for Pendragon I'd like to work in some additional published stuff. I'm not sure what's available for the Uther period though.

7. How quickly do the characters develop?

Relating this to my recent thread - too slow I think. They're 25 now the only one that has broken 2000 glory is the one that got married. None of them has hit 17 sword skill yet.

They tend to only earn 2 or 3 checks a year - so I've been giving out 3 or 4 extra checks to assign as they will. I'm going to try to give out more checks from now on.

1. How long is a session?
I have about 2-3 hours in an evening. That is effective playtime. there is a tendency to divert from the game a bit.

2. How often do you play?
Biweekly. So every other week one evening. It is a slot that I use for more than 2 decades for RPG. Started with other systems, but since a 2012 I started a GPC. We are currently starting year 498.

3. How many real-life hours is one game year in your campaign?
At least 6-8 hours. So two or three sessions in a year.

4. How is the game year structured?
The year starts with the spring court. Since 495 they are officers of the earl and as such in essence running the show. so I introduced some hooks for each officer to deal with during spring court. the chancellor has to decide what to do with the tribute requests, the marshal has some military matters to tend to. the master of the Hunt has some information on the security of the realm and the Justiciar has to deal with legal matters. Lastly the chamberlain takes care of the Earl.
Then there are three seasons (spring, summer, autumn) in which they can have adventures. This ranges from a small encounter to large scale plots. Usually there is one big plot in a year.
We finish the year with the Winter. During this time family events are dealt with and they see how their manors are doing.

5. How much time do you spend on the Big Plot (GPC, Uther, Arthur & RTK) and on the little plots (family-related, PK-centric, etc)?
As I am in the anarchy phase of the game the players have a huge say in what will happen. I give them some options to deal with and they decide what to do during the spring court. For 498 they have decided to help Devon in resisting the Cornish horde.
During the Uther phase there were involved in the large plot, but now they are more in the little plots. I am trying to keep a balance between them. The game should evolve around the PKs.
I am spinning out a larger plot around a nemesis (a redcap). Who first helped them, but last year abducted the wife of one of the PKs and left a string of dead bodies. To get his wife back the PK had to make a deal with the devil (or in this case Arawn).

6. Do you use published adventures or make your own?
I use published material as inspiration for my own adventures. But I like to flesh out my own.

7. How quickly do the characters develop?
Characters get about 200-300 glory a year and about 5 checks.
I have changed the passive glory so they only get about 30-40 for that. So glory from play is about 150-250 on average.

1. How long is a session?
4 hours.

2. How often do you play?
Weekly.

3. How many real-life hours is one game year in your campaign?
To answer this, I had to calculate some campaign stats. I keep a campaign log on our forums, so it was easy:
Sessions: 185
Game years: 65
Average: 2.85 sessions/game year
Average playing time used for each year: 11.4 hours

More yearly session stats:
Min: 1
Max: 12 (oh that crazy year of 515!)
Median: 2
Mode: 1

4. How is the game year structured?
This varies tremendously, because it's usually the players who decide what they *need* to do that year. I try to steer their interests towards the things I have prepared, sometimes without much success :)

I don't care about any events (Pentecost, Christmas etc.) unless I have something special for players. Timescale is vague ("some time during the summer") and often not linear ("oh, let's return to the start of the year when you did this...").

Time is precious, so I almost always skip to the meat quickly, sometimes in one sentence ("After travelling for a long time and having some mediocre adventures on the road you arrive to Gaiholm to <INSERT MEAT HERE>").

5. How much time do you spend on the Big Plot (GPC, Uther, Arthur & RTK) and on the little plots (family-related, PK-centric, etc)?
At every chance I got, I try to involve PCs directly in the Big Plot. Therefore, they have had their hands in some fantastically epic events, like the theft of Excalibur (wherein one knight dueled king Arthur to the death and the other donned the fiery cape), the whole Tristan+Isolde debacle and the murder of Lamorak, only to name a few. Next stop: to attain the Grail ;)

Even with my valiant efforts, we still do "small-time" personal stuff at least 50% of the time.

6. Do you use published adventures or make your own?
Premade adventures rarely fit to our campaign style (something that has been descibed as "moral tragedy with satirical elements") so I (sometimes) modify them, or (usually) create my own stuff.

7. How quickly do the characters develop?
I have no idea, I rarely look at their sheets besides the total glory amount. No one has ever complained, so I guess quickly enough! Between 5 players, 7 PCs have had 8k glory, 5 of whom were Round Table knights and the highest having 15k glory.

I'm trying to slow down a little actually because I blew through 4 years in the last 2 sessions.


Yikes! I'd definitely put on the breaks! But then again, I am the guy using as many sessions as it takes to get through an adventure, which can occasionally snowball to several.



Nebulously! I'm trying to get a better grasp of the knightly year. It's still not clear to me when the various courts are held. (Easter court in spring with Earl Roderick, royal court in summer, and then Christmas court at the end of the year?)


I generally skip the Spring & Christmas courts, unless there is something interesting there. And yes, I believe you are right as to the timing, although I have the Royal court usually in (late) Spring, so that the Summer campaigning season can be utilized fully for war.



I missed the note about raid by Sir Blains in the main book, I regret missing that campaign thread.


Don't worry, as far as I know, it doesn't actually have a date attached, so feel free to spring it at your players at a later year. :)



I'm not sure what's available for the Uther period though.


I have noticed the same lack of Uther period adventures. Partly that is because the earlier editions focused on post-530 (4th Ed) or post-510 (The Boy King) periods, so most of the adventures published are from 510 onwards, tending to assume that Arthur is the king and chivalry is established and so forth.



Relating this to my recent thread - too slow I think. They're 25 now the only one that has broken 2000 glory is the one that got married. None of them has hit 17 sword skill yet.

They tend to only earn 2 or 3 checks a year - so I've been giving out 3 or 4 extra checks to assign as they will. I'm going to try to give out more checks from now on.


I think your fast pace has a lot to do with this... With less 'side quests', the PKs have less opportunities to get checks and Glory. That being said, if you are handing out around 7 checks per year, that is not terrible. I hand out about double that, but we do play a lot more per game year. You have remembered to give the players the yearly Training & Practice, right, and pointed out that they can increase one 15+ skill by 1 point? At least in our campaign, Sword+1 is very common pick, although if your players have avoided that, maybe they have high stats / other skills, then. :)

The year starts with the spring court. Since 495 they are officers of the earl and as such in essence running the show. so I introduced some hooks for each officer to deal with during spring court. the chancellor has to decide what to do with the tribute requests, the marshal has some military matters to tend to. the master of the Hunt has some information on the security of the realm and the Justiciar has to deal with legal matters. Lastly the chamberlain takes care of the Earl.


I'll need to keep that in mind for when the Campaign B hits the Anarchy. I definitely see the PKs populating the officer corps of Salisbury and having to deal with the running of the county... *Evil GM laughter*



As I am in the anarchy phase of the game the players have a huge say in what will happen.
[snip]
The game should evolve around the PKs.


Quite agreed and probably why Anarchy is perhaps my favorite period in Pendragon.

At every chance I got, I try to involve PCs directly in the Big Plot. Therefore, they have had their hands in some fantastically epic events, like the theft of Excalibur (wherein one knight dueled king Arthur to the death and the other donned the fiery cape), the whole Tristan+Isolde debacle and the murder of Lamorak, only to name a few. Next stop: to attain the Grail ;)


I might do that theft of Excalibur, if I have a suitable PK knight hanging about. I have tried to keep my players entertained with the Big Plot, for instance they were with Tristram to pick up Isolde, and like mentioned earlier, they are quite well entangled with the Orkney-De Gales feud. One of my favorite moments of canon-rewriting was one young PK 'kill-stealing' a Roman general from Gawaine. :P Battle of Autun, Petreius Cocles or some such, killed by Earl Boso in Mallory. Since no player had any idea who 'Earl Boso' was, I intended to use Gawaine in that role, and as it happened, one PK was disengaged when Gawaine was putting his knight 'wedge' together to punch through to the Roman general. As it happened, the PK managed to get there first, and killed the general after a fierce struggle. Gawaine was a bit miffed as the PK gained the Glory and all he got was an 'assist' in helping the PK to get to the duel.

Of course, probably my favorite thing was Wotan coming to the aftermath of the Battle of Badon to finish off the PKs who had been 'a thorn in my side for far too long'. :P (In my defense, I was moving across the country and the campaign was going on a hiatus... this was before we discovered the wonders of online gaming.)



I have no idea, I rarely look at their sheets besides the total glory amount. No one has ever complained, so I guess quickly enough! Between 5 players, 7 PCs have had 8k glory, 5 of whom were Round Table knights and the highest having 15k glory.


At Battle of Badon, the top guy had I think 17k, with additional 1000 Glory for dying on Wotan's spear. Reaching the Round Table is pretty common in our group, although not a sure thing, especially not any more when there are not that many open slots. Generally, to qualify you need loads of Glory (10 000+), be Chivalric, have high Honor (16+ is a bonus but not strictly necessary), have an RTK sponsor to recommend you, and perform a quest for Arthur. The quests tend to be quite risky, of course. Having prior family members in the Round Table is a bonus, too, as there is a bit of a 'blood will tell' nepotism in play there, quite respectable in a medieval society.

In Campaign A...
1st generation: 5 PKs of which 4 made it to the Round Table. Granted, we had some plot armor in use: Rather than death, the PKs took 3 major wounds but survived. Highest Glory 18k.
2nd generation: 6 PKs, of which 2 made it to the Round Table, with four dying prior to it (one specifically during the 'entrance exam' quest). I think the highest Glory was a bit shy of 15k when he died.
2.5nd generation: 7 PKs (one lady), of which 2 made it to the Round Table, and 2 more are getting close. 1 has died. Highest Glory around 13k.

It seems to take around 10 years of active adventuring career to accumulate enough Glory to be considered, with possibly up to 5 years or so before finally dotting all the i's and crossing the t's and for a slot to open to induct a PK into the Round Table fellowship.

Between 5 players, 7 PCs have had 8k glory, 5 of whom were Round Table knights and the highest having 15k glory.


Oh I forgot to include the total number of player knights: 33.

5 are alive and active, 1 retired because of old age (my own seldom used PK), 10 because of other reasons (5 escaped possible treason charges, 3 because the player left). 17 met a violent end. Game of Thrones vibes?

1) How long is a session?
Depends on our schedule and (lack of) energy. An average gaming session usually lasts around four hours, but we have sometimes held day-long Pendragon marathons during lazy weekends, especially when we had more spare time :P

2) How often do you play?
At the beginning of our current campaign, it used to be almost four times a week, back when everyone lived in the same town and our schedules were fairly matched. Nowadays we consider ourselves lucky to be able to play twice a month.

3) How many real-life hours is one game year in your campaign?
Varies enormously. Sometimes it has been 1 session/1 year, but one particularly eventful year took five sessions to be completed.

4) How is the game year structured?
Usually it goes something like this:
- the court session
- the adventure
- vassal service (if any important/noticeable)
- spare time (includes feasts, romances, tournaments, hunts etc.)
- land and family
- number crunching (experience checks, glory)
Once again, this is far from a strict structure. Sometimes a hunt or a tournament is the onset of the adventure, so the year actually begins with the 'spare time' events. Also, we sometimes have filler years with no adventure whatsoever, with PKs being free to pursue romances and participate in tourneys etc.

5) How much time do you spend on the Big Plot (GPC, Uther, Arthur & RTK) and on the little plots (family-related, PK-centric, etc)?
I like to mix the little things with the big plot, and the two often get entwined along the way. I also like to replace characters from the GPC with PK's and their family members, so the two are often fairly interchangeable. That being said, I nevertheless tend to sideline minor family events in favour of the grand story arc.

6) Do you use published adventures or make your own?
I mostly make my own, but I like to throw a published adventure into the mix from time to time, or either borrow heavily from one. I usually switch characters to better suit my ongoing campaign and story arc.

7) How quickly do the characters develop?
Quite quickly. I allow the PK's to have 5 skill points/training session instead of the d6 roll, so they tend to be a bit more powerful skillwise than a by-the-book PK. However, I am more stingy when it comes to Glory. A famous trait/passion only nets 5 annual glory, while a fanatic one (20+) gets 10. Since PK's tend to develop high traits and passions, this prevents the exorbitant glory-hogging through traits and passions that characterised my first Pendragon campaign.

Great topic, Morien. Sorry for the late answer, this thread really deserves more answers!

Well, my current campaign is more or less defunct, due to me having moved to Norway. But I hope to pick it up some day. We have reached 499, so things have settled down.

1. How long is a session?
Four to five hours.

2. How often do you play?
We did play once a week, but now it's more like once per quarter.

3. How many real-life hours is one game year in your campaign?
I try to keep to the one session - one year format. Haven't quite made it. Nineteens session and fifteen years. It's ok. Might have to do a two-year session or two in the future, if there is one.

4. How is the game year structured?
Well, as I have explained here (http://nocturnal-media.com/forum/index.php?topic=1382.0) it is my philosophy to vary the years a lot; and since my session are rather short, I try to get to the good stuff quickly nowadays. I generally plan some five to seven scenes in advance, and try do keep each year focused on one or two major story arcs. So a session may start in spring, mid-summer or late in the years, with no attempt what so ever of doing the whole year justice. Feasting, hunting, socializing, even making war are often skipped over in a sentence or two: "Your army spend thirty days ineffectually skirmishing with Idres' troops, but one day ...".

5. How much time do you spend on the Big Plot (GPC, Uther, Arthur & RTK) and on the little plots (family-related, PK-centric, etc)?
Well, it varies a lot between sessions, depending on focus, but since Gorlois rebellion and now during the Anarchy, much time is spent on the Big Plot, or rather, the interactions between the Big Plot and the Middle Plot, i.e. the local barony. But there are time for personal stuff, and the odd adventure and so forth.

6. Do you use published adventures or make your own?
As has been said above, there are few printed adventures for the early eras. There is also little need for them, as warfare and politics fill a lot of the time. So the few adventures I have run, I have made up myself. For the Big Plot, I keep pretty close to PGC, if nothing else to keep things simple. Oh, but I run a Jagent campaign, so most of the Salisbury stuff is irrelevant.

7. How quickly do the characters develop?
Well, I do not give out Glory for Traits and Passions (I do for Ideals, but no PK has made one so far, they have focused on Combat skills, Attributes and Skills), and given the short sessions/years, its a low Glory campaign. It is not uncommon to get below 100 Glory per year, though I think that 200 or 300 is a good target and there have been a few years were one or more PKs have scored over 500 Glory. I have old characters alive and at age 36, 35 and 34 respectively, these knights have 5104, 3451 and 2365 Glory (the last one has missed a lot of session, so with no Annual Glory - and I don't use BoM, he falls behind in the rankings). My last campaign suffered for Glory inflation, and I am very happy with the pace at which Glory accumulates.

As for checks, I don't keep tabs, but my goal is that a PK should get three to five increases from checks each year. Some players fall far short of that some years, but overall I would say that they get roughly that many increases. Looking at the tree old characters Traits, Passions, Attributes, Skills and Combat skills, I feel that PKs develop at the right pace for my taste - that is, PKs are far better than most NPC knights, but they will never be as good as the really great knights (Lancelot, Gawaine, Lamorak etc).

I've started in year 485 AD and we are now going to year 491 AD. We started playing one session / month with one session equal to one game year. However, as of late, I have begun expanding the years so that we may take 2 to get done with that year's story. This doesn't mean we play every event as detailed in the GPC, or that we take things slow. It just means we have lots of stuff to do and I don't think one session (we play around 4-5 hours) would do the game justice. I also try to make it as branching as possible.

I've told my players that the major events of the campaign, i.e., the stuff that's written down in the GPC are events that may or may not be witnessed but are there to create a narrative flow and thread to the campaign. Here's an example of the what I intend to do for year 491 AD:

Uther is going to war against Gorlois. During last year's Winter Phase, one of the players rolled that his sister was missing. She had married some years earlier to a knight. When the session open, Earl Roderick will ask his knights for counselling. He will want to follow Uther against Gorlois. Past events in our campaign dictated that, through the PK's actions, Uther allowed Lady Jenna to marry the Duque of Lindsey - two of his major supporters as High King of Britain. She is not married yet, but will be in a few year's time. Anyway, during this small scene, which is about letting the players decide what to do, Roderick will ask who wants to go against Gorlois and who wants to stay on patrol (no point in leaving all the lands undefended). This will force the players to make a decision as some will want to go after Gorloi and one of the players will want to go find his sister.

What happens next is everyone's guess. Perhaps they all decide to go to war and I'll keep the missing sister in the background or she disappears completely from the story. Perhaps they decide to go patrolling (and go after the sister) and find that she was abducted by a giant, taken to Forest Sauvage and they have to save her (only she doesn't want to be saved - long story). Much of this happens naturally as consequence of the PK's actions. Some of it is of my own devising, some is from the GPC.

As for character development, I go with my gut. Some PK have already earned more than 3000 Glory, others have around 2500 and has only 1500. Not all players show regularly and the game makes it easy to miss a few sessions. My players don't mind if some have more Glory than others (and they shouldn't). As for checks, I give them whatever they earn as long as it's important to the plot and the current scene. It's all instinct.