I am going to be starting the Great Pendragon Campaign soon but due to scheduling we will only have about 2 hours to play per week. We will have between 4-6 players per session on any given week. I will be sticking to the basic rules for the most part out of the KAP 5.2 rulebook to keep things simple.

With these things in mind, how likely are we to be able to make it through a year per session if we keep focused? Does anyone have advice on how to ensure we keep things moving? Am I making the right choice about keeping to the rules out of the main rulebook?

You are setting yourself quite the task. I can't get through a year in 2 sessions, let alone two hours!

Some advice:

1. Do Winter Phase 'offline' or streamline it more. For example, drop the family events and horse survival and manorial solos (including economics). You WON'T have time to deal with 4-6 family events in 2h sessions, especially with everything else going on. So do just the bare minimum: experience checks, aging, childbirth & child survival, yearly training and Annual Glory.

2. You need to keep things moving. Prepare in advance. Decide what the year will be about, and make sure you know what needs to be rolled and when.

3. Keep things simple. Don't even look at Book of Battles 2, and I would recommend streamlining even the Battle rules in KAP 5.2. (I have some additional views on this.)

4. Don't worry if some years will stretch over that 2h session. It WILL happen. You won't be able to get through Badon in 2h, and you shouldn't even try, since that would be a disservice to the momentous event.

5. As mentioned in 3., you won't have time for extra rules from ENTOURAGE, ESTATE and BATTLE2 or any of the other ones. You simply don't. The only things that I would look at (if you have the books) is Family Survival in ESTATE to replace the child survival in KAP 5.2, and using the marriage chart in ENTOURAGE rather than the KAP 5.2 one, which I think has some errors in it (I'd have to go back and check; it might just be typos). Oh, and I would definitely fix the murderous child birth table unless you like the idea of the PKs' wives dying in childbirth within a decade or so.

So it sounds like it would be more realistic to do have two sessions per year. I could even split the year into seasons and have one session be Autumn/Winter then Spring/Summer or Summer/Autumn then Winter/Spring.


5. As mentioned in 3., you won't have time for extra rules from ENTOURAGE, ESTATE and BATTLE2 or any of the other ones. You simply don't. The only things that I would look at (if you have the books) is Family Survival in ESTATE to replace the child survival in KAP 5.2, and using the marriage chart in ENTOURAGE rather than the KAP 5.2 one, which I think has some errors in it (I'd have to go back and check; it might just be typos). Oh, and I would definitely fix the murderous child birth table unless you like the idea of the PKs' wives dying in childbirth within a decade or so.

I don't own either of those books, would you recommend I get either of them? Entourage sounds interesting. The only extra rules I own that I was considering using was the feast rules out of Mystic Tournaments, though if the book of feasts has better rules I could use that instead. I tend to like including social events and intrigue in my campaigns.

You said you had advise on streamlining the battle system?

So it sounds like it would be more realistic to do have two sessions per year. I could even split the year into seasons and have one session be Autumn/Winter then Spring/Summer or Summer/Autumn then Winter/Spring.


That is pretty much what we do: Autumn/Winter/Spring in one session, and then the 'meat' of the year (the adventure/battle) in the other session.



I don't own either of those books, would you recommend I get either of them? Entourage sounds interesting. The only extra rules I own that I was considering using was the feast rules out of Mystic Tournaments, though if the book of feasts has better rules I could use that instead. I tend to like including social events and intrigue in my campaigns.


If you want to keep things simple, then I would say that you don't need ENTOURAGE nor ESTATE. If you want more detail, then they both are very nice additions. I'd say ENTOURAGE is becoming more of my favorite, since it adds more detail on the squires and the wives/husbands. Actually, ENTOURAGE is useful even in a simpler campaign, simply because it gives more information on the wives.

If you are using Feast Rules, then I think you really need two sessions.



You said you had advise on streamlining the battle system?

Yeah.

Forget about:
B. Melee Events
and
Battle Enemy Table
Both of those are a royal pain to GM in a hurry and give no player agency, being just random rolls.

Instead, I would make
C. Unit Battle Roll
an opposed roll vs. Battle 15 or some such, depending on the enemy. Then I would have like three prepared enemy classes:
1. Low quality, low Glory: These might be infantry or archers or some such.
2. Average quality, average Glory: Equivalent to average knights, say Skill 15.
3. High quality, high Glory: Experienced knights, say skill 18.

On a Success, the Unit leader gets to choose the opponent (if they choose to engage).
On a Partial Success or a tie, they are attacked by Average quality enemies.
On a Fail vs. Success, they are attacked by High quality enemies.
On Critical / Fumble, they get to Lance-charge or are Lance-charged themselves.

Or something like that.

I am actually a proponent also of have ONE and no more than ONE extended melee per battle, and focusing more on that. The rest of the battle is kinda a sideshow, and the important bit is the extended melee, like trying to capture the enemy's standard or save your liege lord or stuff like that.