Not so much a rules or gameplay question... just a musing. A serious problem for my game, that I can't think of any solution for.

Just wrapped up the Uther period and my biggest problem at the moment, the one that threatens to end the campaign is simply 'errant probability'.

One of my players cannot roll anything. Complementing this - I cannot, not, crit him.

His wife died, his children die in droves, he gets knocked out in the first round or 2 of every battle. He took 2 major wounds in the first session. (and has suffered several more since)

His main character is actually still alive because he has 20 con (21 now actually). If he didn't he would probably be even worse off because he would be on character 5 at least by now. (and of course each new character would mean a reset in sword skills) Actually this is probably proven because he went into battle with his secondary character and died. So yeah.

He's not having fun, because his character never succeeds at anything. And it's not anything identifiably wrong with the system... he just rolls badly. And I always roll well against him.

d20 is a fickle mistress, this is known. :)

Some solutions to the problem from our houserules:

1) Less Criticals: Reroll a critical hit. If it is a failure, then the critical is only a 'half-critical', doing x1.5 damage (or +2d6, see below).

2) 'Weaker' Criticals: Instead of x2 damage which tends to pulverize the PKs if hit by a lance or a bigger critter (like a Saxon berserker with a great axe), criticals do +4d6 damage regardless of the base damage. Makes those damsels with their daggers a bit more effective, too.

3) Introduce 'Fate Points': In our Campaign, we allow players to 'bank' their earned Glory Points (the extra points you get to spend each time you have managed to accummulate another 1000 Glory). These Glory Points can be used normally to increase a statistic/trait/passion/skill, or used as a 'Fate Point' to alter the rolled result. For example, the usual way to use them is when the enemy rolls a critical. The spent Glory Point turns the enemy roll into a failure, and your roll into a success (NEVER critical), thus saving you from suffering a critical and hopefully dealing some damage to the enemy instead. It CAN save your life, and the players try to have one point saved for the rainy day (or a critical when they are already down in hit points). This does increase the PK survivability but at the same time, reins in high skills/passions (which as a GM I am totally fine about) and means that those enemy criticals still hurt (by forcing the player to expend those Glory Points). We do allow Glory Points to be used in Child Survival rolls, too, although I think Childbirth is allowed only for the Lady characters.

Now you could divorce 'Fate Points' from Glory Points and simply give each PK 1 FP for each 1000 Glory they earn, in addition to that Glory bonus point. Feel free. Note that it does decrease the PK mortality by quite a lot, since it is actually rather difficult for a PK to die against normal opponents, unless they crit against an already badly wounded PK. And those fate points get rid of those criticals. You could make the Fate Points 'lighter' in effect, for instance, make them simple rerolls rather than cheat codes for winning the round (we felt that Glory Points ought to give something significant). It still would make enemy criticals much rarer, but might not save the PK from getting hit. Also, you could allow these rerolls to be used to keep wives and children alive, as well.


Then some other perspectives...

Wives die in childbirth. The chance is around 10% / year / wife. If you have five players, on average, they are burying one wife amongst them every 2 years. And likely, their wife will croak in the next 10 years. If your players are unhappy with that, you could fiddle with the probability, give the wife like 50% chance of survival on the death in childbirth scenario (or make it a quest to find a way to save the wife? Deals with Faeries, strange watery tarts, old mysterious strangers who always speak in riddles?). That cuts the rate in half and means that a wife will likely survive as long as her husband is active. Note that his is actually BAD for the marriage game, most often than not, since one of the easiest ways to get money and lands is via Dowries. Especially when you have already gathered Glory for 10 years or so, and are a bona fide hero, worthy of being rewarded with an heiress. One of our players got very 'unlucky' with his wife, who just wouldn't die. Which meant that this famous Round Table Knight who would have had a pick of beautiful heiresses in Salisbury was still stuck with the woman he got married to when he was like wet-behind-the-ears 19-year old.

Child Survival (& birth) improve dramatically when you can afford higher standard of living (and if you follow GPC, the chances of getting loot shoot up when you start getting Battles). This is actually good, in my opinion. There is almost NO good things coming out of childlessness, as far as the PKs are concerned: it cuts the family line, it delays the secondary characters and is an all around pain to come up with new cousins and stuff. Let them multiply, I say! Each son is a drain on the family coffers to outfit as a knight, and each daughter needs a dowry! The more, the merrier, says the GM! :P You can easily allow the players to 'buy chunks' of the next maintenance level, say +£1 to get better Child Survival & Birth from Rich Knight, +£2 for Superlative Knight (I have posted about this in the house rules section... http://nocturnal-media.com/forum/index.php?topic=2338.0 see the Simple system in the first post). And of course, the same thing about the quests apply as with the wives. However, since there are more kids than wives, the questing will rapidly become simply insane: the knights are doing almost nothing else than running on sidequests to save each others' wives and children. Fun the first time, but it swiftly becomes a very annoying chore. Better to let them improve the Child Survival with cold cash, in my humble opinion, and then if the tyke is still dying, you can spring the Quest to Save the Brat.

I'm aware that your wife dying is actually a 'good' thing... which is kind of bizarre really. It might just be unavoidable, short of perhaps limiting glory for multiple marriages. Given the way the design of the system tries to match mechanical awards with what characters would find desirable it stands out a bit. (In most games XP is purely a meta consideration, but in Pendragon glory is very nearly literal, for instance)

I guess it's a good thing there isn't too much a knight can do to 'improve' the chances of his wife dying 'naturally'.


I don't know about fate points though... pendragon is novel (to my group) largely because it lacks such mechanics.

Previous to the current pendragon campaign we were actually playing FATE. (GMed by the currently dice cursed player) It's a fun game, it definitely creates some memorable moments. But there is no risk really. You literally cannot die unless you choose to. I dunno, there is a lot I could potentially say about FATE if I got my thoughts straight on it, but it's also off topic anyway. I'll just say that I had a lot of fun with FATE, and laughed incredibly hard on more than one occasion. But it also left me feeling a bit unsatisfied.

Granted of course, the cruelty of fickle dice is exactly why such systems exist.

Never mind the glory! Think of the Dowry, man! Heiresses with huge tracts of land! :)

You say the bad dice luck is a serious problem in your game. Well, those were a few ideas that have worked in our game. They do not make the PKs invulnerable, and bad luck can still ruin one's day. But it makes it a bit less likely that a simple bad roll will snatch your character away, gives the player a bit more control over it.

As for Childbirth & Child Survival, if those are messing up the enjoyment of your players, feel free to change them. Other than acting as a money sink (and as the GM, you already control the amount of loot), there is no actual reason why you can't change the rules. Talk with your players, hear what they say?

Quick suggestion, though, if you are making the Child Survival 100%, use Greg's modified Childbirth tables from his website, and be careful with positive Childbirth modifiers. Otherwise, you will be neck-deep in brats in no time. :P

Heh, if anything my players have too much land. All except for poor Sir Bridget, whose husband is in no danger of dying. He's not a knight, she chose somewhat... questionably... to marry a rich commoner.

It's the anarchy period, if they want more land they can conquer it. (and then Arthur will make them give it back...)

The game is, if anything, not lethal enough. Only one death in 10 years, and it was just a secondary character.

I could have, maybe should have, killed one of the knights at the feast, but that seems like such a... I dunno. I'm not sure I can bring myself to plot-kill a player character. If there was someone to blame it on so that his son could get nice juicy hate passion for it, I might have.

I thank you for your input though. I hope I don't come across as ungrateful.

The game is, if anything, not lethal enough. Only one death in 10 years, and it was just a secondary character.


Weeellll... Opinions vary as to how much of a PK casualty rate is a good thing. And it is very dependent on how many adventures the PKs go to and how tough opponents the GM pits them up against. Which is obvious, of course.

Things that increase PK mortality:

1) Number of enemies: outnumbering specifically as hits start coming in without the shield interposing itself, and two strikes can land at once, taking a wounded but still healthy character all the way down to dying even without a critical. The more enemies are rolling, the more criticals will turn up, too.

2) Skill of the enemies: obviously, the more skilled the enemies are, the more often they wound the PKs rather than vice versa. Also, once the skill goes above 20 (whether due to a passion or advantageous positioning), criticals become much more common.

3) Damage of the enemies: 4d6 spearman is not that dangerous. Even without a shield, he just manages to poke through chainmail. By contrast, 6d6 Saxon Berserked with Wotanist bonus (+1d6) and a Great Axe (+1d6, +2d6 vs. shield using 4th ed which we find easier than the new shield protects at 1d6 rule) is simply made of murder. Even on a normal hit, the damage is enough to take your average knight (CON 14) into Major Wound territory. My players hate these guys, by the way. :P Actual monsters with damage of 10d6 or more can kill a healthy knight with a single blow and should, in my opinion, used only with great care.

4) The willingness of the enemy to accept surrender: another good reason (in my opinion) to use human opponents who might be interested in ransom, rather than simply cut throats of the unconscious PKs, or who would not accept surrender. Another reason, in my mind, to make monsters rare, as they tend to eat any fallen PKs which can easily lead to Total Party Kill. Which tends to end campaigns, in my experience.

5) Number of the combats in a year: if you have one adventure with one fight scene in a year, and it is not especially tough one, the PKs are much more likely to survive than if you put them to fight against a big band of Saxon raiders in Spring, fight a war in Summer, and hunt a Dragon in Autumn.

My personal observation is that yes, the risk needs to be there for the heroics to have some meaning. At the same time, it is a pure pain to need to make a new character every couple of years, especially once you start running out of brothers. There is one player in our group who tends to be a bit unlucky with dice. Unfortunately, he tends to take some heroic risks at times, which is suitably genre-appropriate... but unfortunately, his rotten luck with dice tends to ensure that his characters have a tendency to die more often. Which means that he is lagging behind in Glory and status and all that, not to mention that it sucks as far as the generational play is concerned, as he doesn't have time to get his kids to grow up. The latest one actually got 'lucky' in a sense that he didn't have any surviving kids, so his younger brother, the new PK, could step in and take over the family without the need to worry about any child heirs growing up and 'usurping' him and his future children. (It needs to be said that we play 'slowly', taking several sessions to get through a game-year, so the characters tend to die more often per game-year and it takes longer for the heirs to grow up in real time.)



I thank you for your input though. I hope I don't come across as ungrateful.


No worries. I admit being a bit curious that you identify in your lastest post the PKs NOT dying enough for your liking as the problem, whereas in the beginning you stated: "...my biggest problem at the moment, the one that threatens to end the campaign is simply 'errant probability'." With regards to the one player's abysmal luck with dice.

EDIT:


I'm not sure I can bring myself to plot-kill a player character.


Funnily enough, I think the most memorable PK deaths and the ones that the players remember as 'cool' was the plot-kill of the whole party at the Battle of Badon Hill by Wotan himself. Perhaps because that added meaning to their deaths (and the campaign was going on a hiatus anyway, so lets end with a big bang, I thought). Most of the other deaths have been 'bad dice luck', usually an enemy rolling a crit when the PK has already been wounded. My wife is still castigating herself for 'stupidly' allowing her first character to die in a very avoidable duel (her character decided to take offence on something that was said in a party and challenged), by continuing to fight after being majorly wounded, and then taking another critical hit and dying.

No worries. I admit being a bit curious that you identify in your lastest post the PKs NOT dying enough for your liking as the problem, whereas in the beginning you stated: "...my biggest problem at the moment, the one that threatens to end the campaign is simply 'errant probability'." With regards to the one player's abysmal luck with dice.

Sir Araimis started with 18 con. He survived a crit from the bear during the first session, taking 2 major wounds in one round.

He's up to 21 con now. The one thing he has going for him is that anyone else would have died 5 times over. That might well account for the low death rate on it's own.