Anyone regularly plays, or ever tried playing with lady characters? To expand more: one of the players is interested in playing something "different" for a change. My main focus is on knights and their deeds but I could accomodate his wishes if only on a limited basis. I am considering letting him create, say, the wife of an existing Player-Knight who is also played by the same player. Instead of letting the player play two characters at the same time (which I don't will be fun at all), I am thinking about letting him play the "wife" on certain court scenes or lady-oriented scenes and switching to the PK when the rest goes adventuring.

This could all happen in the same session: for instance, the PKs all go to Camelot or Salisbury with their wives. In the court scenes, the player would be playing the wife (letting her get a few checks in Courtly skills), then the playwe would use his PK in the "adventure" portion of the session. This is all very experimental and I told the player I'd be willing to try it but, if things didn't work out, we would go back to "classic" Pendragon with the focus on knights.

Anyone tried this? What other alternative ways of using Ladies in play do you suggest? Should I insist the player focus mainly on the Lady, letting the husband become as much a secondary character as a wife is to a PK in the normal way of playing?

For the time being, I don't want any women warriors in my game for a variety of reasons so this post pertains only to Ladies (not female knights).

The only concern is if the same player plays both the PK and his wife, there is 100% cooperation. None of the possible misinterpretation of what the PK meant or will do. Your idea is fine, but let him play the wife of another knight.

Now, you could do the alternative of letting the husband fade into the background, but if you can't go out as a lady warrior, then only in the court sessions you would shine. And, in most games, the knightly adventure takes more time than the court scenes, unless the players like them.

Go ahead and try it, let me know as well, but explain to all involved what you are trying for.

It would have to played like one plays court scenes where a PK goes with his NPC wife to Camelot, the PK just fades into the background. Admitedly, I'm still weighing my options but the focus of my campaign is PK and their adventures. So, a Lady-Character (LC for short) would have to be played in very specific scenes. Court scenes are the most easy to manage, as would be weddings, banquets, and such. I would have to tailor specific scenes like important negotiations, pilgrimages, hunts, manor management (Your Own Manor, for instance) or defending the manor when the PK is away. But these would have to be, by necessity, short so as not to bore the other players who are not playing, nor do they want to play, LC.

I also recommend having the lady character to be the wife of another player's knight. Much more fun that way. (Needless to say, the other player needs to agree, too.) (EDIT: Or sister.)

In our first concluded campaign, we had for about 30 years a lady character joining the knights on adventures. She was the party healer, of course, but thanks to her high court skills, she could also be useful in smoothing over ruffled feathers in social situations. Granted, if the session was combat-heavy, then the player ended up twiddling her thumbs for most of the session. In any case, due to the fact that she outlived most of the knights (having not personally participated in the fighting if she could in any way avoid it), she managed to accumulate quite a lot of Glory as well as being able to get the (younger) knights to do whatever "Aunt Llinos" wanted them to. So one could say that towards the end, she was the party leader as well.

If the player is fine sitting out the combat situations, then a lady healer role might work. Also, if the lady is a heiress/widow or of higher rank (younger daughter of a lord, perhaps?), then she might have some authority over the PKs as well, which would give her more of a say during adventures, too. Depending a bit what kind of adventures you are running, of course. If they are simple "go there and kill the giant" then a lady has much less to contribute, whereas if they are more talky (social heavy) or brainy (figure out who the real villain is), then the player lady has more scope to contribute as well.

The one thing I would make clear to the player from the get-go is that assuming there is 1 lady character amidst 4 knight characters, it won't be reasonable for the player to expect that the lady character will be useful 100% of the time. There will be fighting in which the other 4 players get to shine, too. At the same time, as the GM who has allowed this kind of character, I would try to do my utmost that the lady character will get her chance to shine on occasion, too. And not just by rolling First Aid and Chirurgery after the fight. One way to do this is to lean more heavily on the social interaction side: the lady character could tap into the ladies' gossip circuit that the male knights would be unable to access. Also, by introducing some female friends, you can later on use them and their connection to the lady character to pull in the PKs in to do adventures and such, to help. Or vice versa: the player lady needs some help and cashes in those IOU counters, and those NPC wives will kick their knightly husbands up to go and help. Suddenly, the player lady has half a dozen knights as a private army to help in whatever scheme she was cooking... This doesn't mean that EVERY session should be about the player lady, but she should definitely have something to do each time.

Dwarinpt, I see just one major problem with your intended approach: the PK player could legitimately decide to ignore almost all courtly-related skills of his/her male PK, since he will not be involved in any significant court scene. So the male PK can concentrate on combat and similar skills, while the wife takes charge of more socially-oriented tasks. This seems unfair towards the other PKs, who have to carefully balance their skill advancement choices in order to be reasonably successful at courtly scenes AND at combat ones.

My 2 cents!

I also recommend having the lady character to be the wife of another player's knight. Much more fun that way. (Needless to say, the other player needs to agree, too.) (EDIT: Or sister.)

That might a problem right there. Everyone is married, but even if someone wasn't it, it requires a degree of comfort that just isn't there.


Dwarinpt, I see just one major problem with your intended approach: the PK player could legitimately decide to ignore almost all courtly-related skills of his/her male PK, since he will not be involved in any significant court scene. So the male PK can concentrate on combat and similar skills, while the wife takes charge of more socially-oriented tasks. This seems unfair towards the other PKs, who have to carefully balance their skill advancement choices in order to be reasonably successful at courtly scenes AND at combat ones.



That could be a problem, yes, although we could agree to alternate scenes between the PK and LC, but at this point, I don't see that happening. That game could become too confusing. The player just wants to try (this being the keyword) something different. He suggested a lady-knight, but since a) my focus is on knights and b) I would treat her as any other male-knight without any additional problems of sexism, being a female knight among male knights, issues of acceptance, etc because that's not my campaign focus, I suggested the Lady-Character. However, the campaign was built from the beginning to go with an all-male knight group.

That might a problem right there. Everyone is married, but even if someone wasn't it, it requires a degree of comfort that just isn't there.


Which is perfectly understandable. Hence a sister or a cousin might be possible. Or, alternatively, an heiress of some sort. That actually would be easy. Since you said the player wishes to try something else, it would be easy enough to introduce (depending on the period) an heiress looking for help against an evil usurper, and the PKs are it. That would give the characters a good motivation to go off with the lady, and the lady would be a central character, knowing the other characters in this drama (the NPCs) as well as the local situations. Easy enough to give her stuff to do.



That could be a problem, yes, although we could agree to alternate scenes between the PK and LC, but at this point, I don't see that happening. That game could become too confusing. The player just wants to try (this being the keyword) something different. He suggested a lady-knight, but since a) my focus is on knights and b) I would treat her as any other male-knight without any additional problems of sexism, being a female knight among male knights, issues of acceptance, etc because that's not my campaign focus, I suggested the Lady-Character. However, the campaign was built from the beginning to go with an all-male knight group.

How is all-male important if all female knights get treated the same as the male ones? Surely the gender would be a non-issue, then?

That aside, what you are describing above is not a player who wishes to play a lady character (that was the GM's suggestion), but 'something different'. Time to really talk to the player and find out what that 'something different' is. '
Why was the player suggesting a female knight, if they are getting treated exactly the same in the campaign?
Was the player hoping that there would be some issues for the character the deal with?
How about playing a foreign knight?
Or a Saxon knight?
A commoner who has been knighted?
A squire who is not knighted YET?
What is it that the player is actually hoping to get out of this?

How is all-male important if all female knights get treated the same as the male ones? Surely the gender would be a non-issue, then?

That aside, what you are describing above is not a player who wishes to play a lady character (that was the GM's suggestion), but 'something different'. Time to really talk to the player and find out what that 'something different' is. '
Why was the player suggesting a female knight, if they are getting treated exactly the same in the campaign?
Was the player hoping that there would be some issues for the character the deal with?
How about playing a foreign knight?
Or a Saxon knight?
A commoner who has been knighted?
A squire who is not knighted YET?
What is it that the player is actually hoping to get out of this?

Echoing Morien, it seems the main item is that the player is looking for a way of standing out in some fashion. This is not unreasonable: if you've got a five-player table and everyone is a knight it's not far mentally to reach for "make me different" in order to clearly stand-out.

Playing a female character in an explicitly male setting either means you as a table decide it's not such a big deal (which Pendragon goes out of its way to accommodate through things like the order of female knights and the like), or you all decide the female character contributes differently (traditional roles, NPC husband).

But ultimately the player wants to know that there are going to be scenes and situations that he (she?) can and will shine through in. We've probably all seen tables and campaigns where one or another player/PC lagged behind in participation and development because of a combination of table personalities and dice. My personal experience is that this can lead to very bad places, and along with Morien I really encourage you to have a separate talk with the player (even, each player) and determine what their enjoyment/character goals are for the campaign.

Playing a foreign knight, Saxon, jumped-up commoner, budding squire, fairy knight and the like all means that some paths of social interaction are harder, while others are easier. In each case there's a tale in the works of overcoming uncommon-ness and rising to take a place in the social order--earning those spurs, so to speak. Then subsequent generations are more ordinary, to some extent, but always have that thread of history to draw on.

Good luck, we're here to help!

--Khanwulf

Just to add some things to the comments of Knawulf and Morien:
If the players wish to stand out among the rest her is an example how it worked in my game:
In my game the PK have begun to specialize. One character has gone for all the social skills and is the face of the group in court scenes. Another is the hunter and when they have to track down the fiends he is the one to lead them. A third PK is the Marshal and will lead them into battle. Since the onset of the anarchy phase they have taken up an officers role that fits their speciality. So the face of the group is the Chancellor, the hunter has become the Master of the Hunt, the battle leader is now the Marshall, etc.

But as the others said. I would ask the player what challenge he wants his character to overcome. A bit ideas about the story arc of the character. But maybe he wants to stand out among his peers.

It would have to played like one plays court scenes where a PK goes with his NPC wife to Camelot, the PK just fades into the background. Admitedly, I'm still weighing my options but the focus of my campaign is PK and their adventures. So, a Lady-Character (LC for short) would have to be played in very specific scenes. Court scenes are the most easy to manage, as would be weddings, banquets, and such. I would have to tailor specific scenes like important negotiations, pilgrimages, hunts, manor management (Your Own Manor, for instance) or defending the manor when the PK is away. But these would have to be, by necessity, short so as not to bore the other players who are not playing, nor do they want to play, LC.

I always wanted to run a "ladies only" session, where every the players play their wives instead of the knights, but I never found the right scenario or adventure to run, plus my players seem to get bored of courtly scenarios relatively quickly. It never occurred to me I could do both, and to switch between knights and ladies depending on the scene. Great idea!