All —

Just a quick note to update you one what's been going on behind the scenes with our favorite game.

After the last three new titles — ENTOURAGE, ESTATE and WARLORD — we came to realize that there were certain inconsistencies with the economics models that are more or less shared across all three titles. Too, there were issues of scalability that were causing a little heartburn in the community. To be fair, these books have a lot to unpack in them, and they were written over the course of four or five years, so we see a sort of evolution in the thinking over that span of time. This is the "meat and potatoes" backbone of the setting and we really want to settle these issues before moving on to tackle new material.

To address this we recruited some of the best and brightest from the community to really dissect these books and help us better align them, and that's what we've been working on for the last several months. The work is ongoing and likely to continue for a little while yet, but we should have updated and/or revised version of all three of these volumes available this Spring.

If you purchased the PDFs, you'll of course get up the updated versions for free. If you purchased the Print-on-Demand versions and want to replace your copy, we'll be offering the new versions at a deep discount. Since there are hard costs, including printing and shipping, we can't replace these for free, but we'll discount them as much as we can.

If you've NOT purchased any of these books yet, you may want to hold out a bit yet — especially if you want a printed version. If you're only interested in the PDF, why not go ahead and buy now? You'll get the updates for free.

In addition to all this, we've been quietly working on the Book of Uther, which is shaping up quite nicely. Some very exciting stuff in this one. The book should be available by mid-summer, if all goes according to plan — but all dates offered here are speculative, as always.

Finally, we're looking at a long list of products in the pipeline and we're having a hard time deciding which one to tackle next! So the future still looks bright for King Arthur Pendragon!

Thanks for hanging with us as we work through these issues. The alignment of these books is going to be a significant milestone in the history of the game and we're looking forward to getting them in your gauntlets!


Best,


T.

Thanks for the update! It takes time and dedication to come out with quality products and for myself I am extremely grateful that you spend so much time and energy on things. I have never yet been disappointed by a Pendragon product!

SNIPPAGE
If you purchased the PDFs, you'll of course get up the updated versions for free. If you purchased the Print-on-Demand versions and want to replace your copy, we'll be offering the new versions at a deep discount. Since there are hard costs, including printing and shipping, we can't replace these for free, but we'll discount them as much as we can.
MORE SNIPPAGE
If we purchased a hardcopy of the book, can we receive a free PDF update instead of buying a new hardcopy?

Yes, SirUkpyr, that is the plan. I should have been more explicit about that in the OP.


Best,


T.

Hey guys,

Weren't there talks at one stage about an upcoming Book of Salisbury?

Has it been superseded in the publication schedule by the Book of Uther?

Yes. UTHER is ahead of SALISBURY. But it's still in the queue... perhaps after UTHER? It's on the short list, fer sure...


T.

What about releases for later phases of the campaign? Anything planned? :)

What about releases for later phases of the campaign? Anything planned? :)


We have nothing on the short list for later phases, but we have plenty on the long list. Perhaps more accurately, we have a lost of books that will offer material that spans more Periods, starting with the Book of the Entourage, Revised that will provide troop types through to the Twilight Period. Like the Book of Castles will span all Phases etc. The focus on the Uther Period pretty much stops with the Book of Uther. But that's not to say that there still won't be Uther-Period material in upcoming books. At least that's how things look as of this writing...

T.

In fact I do plan to have books concerning the Middle and the Late Phases, which concern King Arthur's reign. Like Book of Uther these will have more details about the politics and military, plus information that is not needed for playing the Great Pendragon Campaign, but which gamemasters may find useful when his clever players step outside of the charted campaign.

What about releases for later phases of the campaign? Anything planned? :)


Taliesin and Greg have spoken about new releases / revisions in their answers, but I would like to take this opportunity to point to some old supplements that you may find useful. In particular, Savage Mountains (Cambria), Perilous Forest (Cumbria) and Blood & Lust (Anglia). All three concentrate on different 'outlying' regions and have maps, background information and adventures specifically for later periods, Romance and Tournament. Savage Mountains is explicit that it is best played in Romance or early Tournament at the latest, and the Cambrian War scenario there is good for keeping your players occupied easily for three years or so.

Will the Book of the Manor be remade in the same fashion as Book of the Estate? I mean, using the updated economic rules & co to make it "compatible" with the new approach taken in the Book of the Warlord?

That would make a trio of books : BOTM/BOTE/BOTW usable for every "level" of character progression in the game.

Will the Book of the Manor be remade in the same fashion as Book of the Estate? I mean, using the updated economic rules & co to make it "compatible" with the new approach taken in the Book of the Warlord?

That would make a trio of books : BOTM/BOTE/BOTW usable for every "level" of character progression in the game.


As far as I know, no plans are in the works to update Book of the Manor. However, the revised Book of the Estate will show a£10 manor as well, as before. And I see no reason why one couldn't use the rules for Estates in BotE as far as raids and so forth for £10 Manors, too.

The question about combining BotM and BotE has been asked before, and my answer was here:
http://nocturnal-media.com/forum/index.php?topic=2578.msg19385#msg19385

Make sure to read the follow-up here, too:
http://nocturnal-media.com/forum/index.php?topic=2589.0

Thanks, Greyblade.

That's not exactly the way it works. As it turns out, the division between MANOR and ESTATE is not so much by levels, but by time periods.

ESTATE is suitable for £10 Knightly Manor. In fact, it is Greg's preferred way of handling manors in the Early Phase. The reason? Mainly because he wanted something more streamlined that didn't have as many fiddly rolls to determine income (weather, good/bad luck, etc.). Also he wanted to remove in the possibility of peasant revolt. His ongoing studies made it clear that the income for landholders wasn't that variable due to harvests, etc. In the event of an economic downturn, the lord just took more out of is peasant share — without reducing his standard of living. In turn, peasants didn't start revolting until about the 14th century (IIRC) because they were too dependent on their lord's protection, so they more or less accepted their lot. It wasn't until the Plague came along and conspired with War and Famine to significantly reduce the workforce that the peasants started understand their own power.

So really, we should be thinking about the economics systems across the three Phases of the GPC, now classified and Early, Middle and Late. ESTATE and WARLORD are meant to cover the Early Phase, explicitly. There is a chance that MANOR will see get dusted off and given new life in the future, with a focus on the Middle and Late phases. Similarly, ESTATE and WARLORD could have a Middle and Late Phase counterpart in the way of a BOOK OF THE BARON. But it's best not to speculate too much on such things, as neither are going to happen any time real soon.

So if you're playing during Arthur's reign, you may want to use MANOR, or just the Income and Peasant revolt bits of MANOR while using ESTATE for all other aspects of landholding.

Hope that helps.


T.

Yup, that makes sense guys, thanks very much for your answers.

Eventually, it will look like a 6th edition is needed to merge all the different economic rulesets we have seen over the years, and harmonize the system.

But I know it is far far in the future, and I'm not one to complain, I find 5.1 extremely cool & pleasant to play.

Well keep an eye on these forums because we're just about to release ENTOURAGE: REVISED, which, although lacking all the trappings of a "proper" 2nd Edition, sports extensive updates throughout. We will be following this closely with updates for ESTATE and WARLORD, as described previously, that unifies all three of these into a more seamless experience. The alignment of these three books is really gonna be valuable and you'll definitely want to check them out, if you haven't already!

T.

I will do indeed, and when it is time for Arthur & the Round Table, I will dust off my 4th edition books :)

Hopefully, the Book of Salisbury will cover all eras and thus create (well, more than it is already) a mini-campaign setting within the larger GPC :)

Oh, and I have to write it here : Pendragon is maybe the most fun I've ever had running a game, been in love with this game since the box I bought on the cheap back in the early 90's, and this game, through its different iterations, has never dissapointed me. IT IS the ultimate campaign game! :)

Maybe I got lost in the threads and missed this answer. But I got the feeling the updates had been published? I realized that I bought book of warlord as both pdf and hardcopy, but only bought book of estate as a hardcopy (no pdf).

Any news on the discounted hard-copies and pdfs?

Hello Gilmere,

You should have received an email push from us via DTRPG with some details about getting the upgraded copies, but perhaps your email notifications from Nocturnal Media are turned off (tsk tsk!). Drop me an email directly at info/nocturnal-media/com and I'll take care of you.

Where PDF copies are concerned, all of the recent upgrades are free, so all you need to do is log into DTRPG and download the new version.

And Greyblade, the most incredible campaign game indeed!

Excuse me Sir, I received a mail from Nocturnal for the update of the Book of the Warlord but I have not received any e-mail for updates of the Book of Entourage and the Book of the Estate. Can you help me? Thanks. Your humble servant.

Hello Vortiporio,
Do you mean notice of updates to the PDFs? You can log into your account and download those updates for free. If you need help with hard copies, then please write to me at info/nocturnal.meda/com.

As always I'm greatly looking forward to anything and everything KAP! Of all the games my friends and I have ever played, KAP is the one we always come back to.

Drop me an email directly at info/nocturnal-media/com and I'll take care of you.

Done! I think...

It's all ok. Thank You