Hello all. First, an apology to the Arthurian purists here. I don't mean to tread on anyone's toes, I simply wish to relate an occurance and listen to opinions on the turn things took.

First, my primary player was playing a female knight. Well, actually, there is more to it than that. The player, a very talented role player, came to me with an idea for a young noblewoman who begs a favour of the Lady of the Lake and is granted the glamor to appear male. There are reasons, but I'll not go into them, suffice to say I liked them. So for all but five or six days of every month she appears male. During estres the glamor fades and she is female, so she must sequester herself for that time. The chink in her armor.

Anyway, Sir Bryan actually adventures for quite some time without anyone the wiser. She explains "his" monthly absences as a family custom requiring him to mourn his parents. After some time, Bryan becomes a retainer of Earl Bedivere and rises rather quickly in his service. During this rise he comes to the attention of Agravaine of Orkney....

Now Prince Agravaine the Beautiful is my favorite villianous NPC, so I had some fun with this.... But I didn't expect the player to fall for the dark prince. She did....bigtime! Don't you love complications?

Anyway....eventually the truth comes out after Bryan has saved the King from disgrace (that's a long story) and is about to join the round table. Everyone now knows her as Bryant, not Bryan, and boy are the knights she has defeated ever unhappy!

Especially a couple of Templars.

But I digress.... Here's the real turn: Agravaine rebels against and overthrows Arthur...

I know, I know. Please stop throwing rotten fruit. (What kid of person brings rotten fruit to a forum anyway?)

Have you ever had a character, either player or non player, take on a life of their own and not go the way you had envisioned? Both Agravaine and Arthur did that too me. Every time I played Arthur he became more and more the politician and less the warrior king. Agravaine simply became a force of nature....

And Bryant? After her murder at the hands of the Templars, reports of miracles at her tomb began to circulate....

The campaign lasted well over a year and all involved declare it to have been the most intense and enjoyable role playing experience they ever had!

That's pretty much my charge..... Now for the responses!

I think that sounds like a fantastic campaign.

I think that sounds like a fantastic campaign.


I'll second that.

--g

First, even if I had rotten fruit, which I don't because I have three kids and they eat me out of house and home, I wouldn't throw it. This sounds like an awesome campaign and since the players liked it as much as they did it was much more than just a mere success, it was an outstanding victory. I have often GMed, DMed, or RPed games that I thought would go one way and took on a life of their own. As a matter of fact, that seems to be the norm. 22 years in the Army has taught me something, it's a maxim that leaders live by, plans usually don't survive first contact with the enemy. So, you spend as much time as you can planning, and spend time thinking about the what enemy will do (in this case the enemy are the players), and then develop offshoots so you are not totally surprised. The last step in all of this is to expect to be totally surprised.

Thats the risk with Arthurian Rpg's .....sometimes u gotta kill an npc or two ya know? Sometimes ;) its the king...whatever! In my campaign a fued led to several VERY VERY prominent round table knights being killed. It is sometimes unavoidable and REALLY...U can easily work your way around it and still follow the basic plotline.... The King Would take a bit more work, but could still be quite enjoyable...maybe one of his sons lived? Anyway..it sounds like it was a triumph all around.

I do have some aging bananas but I was thinking banana bread...

I've liked the female knight idea since the movie Hearts and Armor (or I Paladini as it was titled when I first watched it).

I admit that I was resistant to the idea of the female knight at first. Years of dming AD&D led me to respond, "Oh my lord, another character raised by an obscure clan of Gypsy Ninja dwarves! Why can't anyone play a reasonably normal character?" In retrospect I am quite thrilled that the player talked me into it. Her characterization of Bryan/Bryant was nothing short of inspired. In so far as changes to the timeline are concerned, there were many. The first indication that things were straying was the death of Lancelot. Yep. You know, you play with swords while unarmoured, the results can be fairly messy. I didn't think they had a chance in h**l of succeeding, but I was wrong. I admit to having played him as potrayed in The Idylls of the Queen from Sir Kay's perspective, so the pks didn't really like the gallic blow hard. But I didn't expect that the insult session would lead to blows..... So I changed things a bit and made Bedivere the queen's illicit lover. And, as indicated above, I just couldn't quite peg Arthur as the golden King of myth. He started to feel more like Neville Chamberlain. And the "villians" of the piece, Agravaine and Mordred, began to take on a certain nobility.... It was a strange but VERY rewarding experience. Alternate mythology, I guess.

I concur, sounds like a fantastic campaign.

I feel that many times, the best Pendragon campaigns are when the "fixed lore" is tweaked and it takes the players by delightful surprise. Railroading the players and the campaign after the fixed lore will make it boring and feel uneventful.

This reminds me of a another campaign I recently discussed (but didn't participate in) where Arthur was actually the mad king and Agravaine was the only one seeing it clearly and standing up to it and everything went downhill from there :).

After all, Pendragon is about making your own version of the Arthurian legend, just like all the countless authors of Arthurian lore have done throughout the centuries...

I think that from a modern standpoint, if you explained the tale of Arthur to people that had not heard it before , you would be surprised by the reaction. Mordred and Agravaine might indeed be the heroes.I know that the players in my group will all join sir Gawaine when the division of the RoundTable occurs. We all dislike Lancelot, AND the Deganis in general. I know..wierd, right?! I feel that Agravaine and his friends are more of the heroes of the tale. To NOT feel that way I have to put myself in the frame of mind of a mideaval Romantic or I simply could not justify liking Lancelot at all. Mordered is a troubled child to the max that feels betrayed by daddy so he might still be viewed as a misguided villian, but agravaine and HIS friends dont like lancelot cuckolding their king....... sounds like a perfectly natural and NOBLE reaction. Thats the beauty in the story I guess...Its a real quandry.It shows that even the most perfect knight is human, and even the most base one can have honorable intentions! :P

Well, I can see that point of view.

My opinion of Agravaine is coloured more by his actions, and his personality traits provided in earlier editions of Pendragon. IIRC he had famous levels in at least 8 traits on the vice side, including suspicious, cruel, proud, vengeful and selfish. Contrast with Lancelot's personality, and it's easier to see which is more likely to come off as a nice guy if you interact with them socially.

That said, as GM, I loved playing Agravaine. :)

My own take on Agravain: his hatred for Lancelot's not really about Guinevere and the Love Triangle. Agravain and his friends hate Lancelot because Lancelot's always unhorsing them in tournaments, carrying off the prize, winning all the glory. And not just in tournaments, either, but even in the knight-errantry field. It's difficult for anyone else to win or earn any recognition so long as Sir Lancelot's about; he's cast the rest of the Round Table in his shadow. (And it doesn't help that he and the rest of the de Ganis clan aren't even British, but from abroad. The knights who hate Lancelot may see him as some blasted foreigner who's come over to Britain simply because all the adventures are there, and joined the Round Table mainly so that he could use Arthur's court as a headquarters for his questing, rather than out of any loyalty to Arthur. A few knights might even bring up what happened the last time the King gave such trust to a group of outlander warriors - the case of Vortigern with Hengist and Horsa.)

I see Agravain as focusing on Lancelot's love affair with Guinevere because he sees it as du Lac's big weakness that he can exploit. He's smart enough to know that he can't get Lancelot banished from Camelot simply because he's better than all the other knights - but accuse him of an affair with the Queen (which works all the more because Lancelot really is guilty of that), and it gives a fair color to his enterprise, making him seem motivated by loyalty to King Arthur rather than by envy. But underneath it all, Agravain's big thought, I suspect, is "Once Lancelot's been exiled, I can finally have a shot at winning the Pentecost tournament!"

That's generally my view, too, Merlyn.

In one campaign, Agravaine was constantly spreading rumours of lancelot's activities with the queen, but he didn't devote much actual effort to finding actual evidence - because he didn't believe Lancelot actually was up to anything suspicious. He just wanted others to believe it! In fact, he was discovered interfering in one attempt to expose Lancelot (because he was sure it would only reveal innocent romantic stuff, and he needed to set up something more incriminating), leading the players to wonder if he was secretly on Lancelot's side. I hadn't anticipated that! :)

I also feel that Agravaine's hatred of Lancelot is fueled by envy. And Agravaine's negative traits make him quite interesting to play. He is jealous of Lancelot yes, but also of his "glorious brothers", most especially Gawaine. He loves them but hates being in their shadow as well. He is something of a cad and a bounder, but he is also a brave and noble knight. I admit, I played him rather in the mold of Lucifer from an old book I used to have about the revolt of the angels and assault on the Citadel of Heaven. It got to the point that when my players heard me begin to speak as Agravaine they actually became nervous. One player told me that though I personally did not intimidate or frighten him, when I assumed the character of Agravaine he found he was suddenly nervous and anxious! I loved that, I admit.

And all of my players hated the gallic upstart! I've always thought that Lancelot's famous "humility" was always a front he put on. Secretly he KNOWS he is better than everyone, even the king, and he feels superior and smug when he "humbles" himself in front of them. It is a ploy to further enhance his reputation. I admit that I, personally, despise almost every version of Lancelot I've encountered, so it shades my portrayal of the character.

That's the thing about someone being just plain better than anyone else. Admit it and brag about it, or try and downplay it and have everyone think you're being patronizing?

I see your point, but I really don't think it applies to most incarnations of Lancelot. I believe that he feels himself to be above everyone else. He sleeps with the queen, placing his self estimation above his loyalty to his king. Though, I guess, a case could be made for Arthur being a British rather than a gallic king, so Lancelot's loyalty is a choice of circumstance. The entire de Ganis clan suffers from a sense of superiority. I mean, is anyone going to declare Bors a hail fellow well met? Even in the one interpretation of Lancelot where I find I actually like the character he thinks of himself as at least equal to the king.

I think I critted my Hate (de Ganis).....

Sorry if I come off a bit heavy. I don't have any players for Pendragon since the move and I am desperate for the company and opinions of fellow enthusiasts. Nothing beats the company of like minded people!

The entire de Ganis clan suffers from a sense of superiority.

Ohh...not so my friend!!!!! I must contest this, i am sorry. I too play them as jerks in my campaign, because that is how most BRITISH knights view them. Largely, this IS because of envy, though. I mean, the whole clan IS really awesome. It produces elite knights, you know? That said, i do still prefer the orkney clan. I find their imperfections far more interesting. My take on the DeGanis clan is that they may be a bit arrogant but mostly ANGRY and a bit SCARED. They have no kingdom anymore. They had to swear fealty to a foreign king that did not aid them as much as they thought he should have and thus their kingdom was lost. After all, Kings BORS and BAN won Arthur his kingdom in that last huge battle, and Arthur promised to do the same. At least through DeGanis eyes, arthur failed them. So the DeGanis are far from home, a bit bitter, and maybe inside they are actually a little unsure of themselves. NO REALLY. They know they can fight well, but that doesnt guarantee their clan prosperity and land. They perhaps believe that they have to be twice the knight that a Brit has to be so that they will be NOTICED and applauded, and then they can make a place for themselves. They use BRAVADO as a shield , so that they dont have to think about all the things they lack ( at least at first, before they become more established). I mean, when you are scared and in unfamiliar surroundings you usually latch on to the one thing that you know you do well and find comfort and confidence in it. In this case for most DeGanis knights that ONE THING is combat. As a clan they excel at it. And while they may not have a home OR friends, they have each other and support each other to the end. So I think this US AGAINST THE WORLD survival mentality makes them come off as a little arrogant. I know many of you will not buy this :D but its what I believe. As the clan becomes more comfortable they get better I think. After all , many of the Clan's members are generous and giving. They help anyone in need. Etc, etc.... ( I guess that might be because they are quest hogs though!) Bleoberis and Blamore are definitely the WORST arrogant DeGanis members. That is for sure. But let us not forget Ector DeMaris who is a very noble and giving knight. Also you Cant say that Sir Bors is Arrogant. He is one of the humblest and most glorious knights in Christendom!!! AND LANCELOT!!! EVERY MAN WANTS TO BE HIM. even AGRAVAINE...SORRY...ITS TRUE.... ::) I mean, if he hadnt slept with THE QUEEN.... And Guenivere was just another mans wife...HMMM....... Would anyone debate that he was the BEST knight spritually and in combat ? If you are a knight of Salisbury and you sleep with Earl Robert's wife it is detestable because he is YOUR LORD, right? But even if Lancelot had slept with a DIFFERENT Queen, we would all just say..." well, thats just how Romance is, dude". People even forgive Arthur for whelping Mordred on his sister. I find that for some reson people Refuse to allow Lancelot Forgiveness, however. So Lancelot really just makes ONE mistake in his career, but it IS a Doozie! WOW.... I just went crazy here...maybe instead of Pshycoanalyzing the DeGanis Clan, i should see a therapist , huh? ???

I see your point, but I really don't think it applies to most incarnations of Lancelot. I believe that he feels himself to be above everyone else. He sleeps with the queen, placing his self estimation above his loyalty to his king. Though, I guess, a case could be made for Arthur being a British rather than a gallic king, so Lancelot's loyalty is a choice of circumstance. The entire de Ganis clan suffers from a sense of superiority. I mean, is anyone going to declare Bors a hail fellow well met? Even in the one interpretation of Lancelot where I find I actually like the character he thinks of himself as at least equal to the king.

Maybe it's because I first encountered Lancelot through T.H. White, but I'm much more inclined to see Lancelot as a tragic figure, a victim of ~tru luv~
The medieval romantic tradition as seen in Arthuriana really took off alongside the Breton lais of Marie of France (I think Chretien de Troyes worked for her) in which adultery featured heavily; the idea was, as everyone says, that arranged marriages are stupid and loveless, and so true love must be found elsewhere. This is not a modern invention, this was a trope that, in those days, was apparently appealing enough to last for centuries. I really don't see anything to indicate that Lancelot's relationship with Guinevere is anything but this, I really don't see anything in, e.g., Mallory, that points to this being a sort of conquest for Lancelot, symbolically besting King Arthur. Hell, in Mallory, the readers are encouraged to see things this way; he and Guinevere are praised as being good and faithful lovers, and while you could make the argument that this only means that Mallory made Lancelot some sort of Gary Stu, that says nothing save that Mallory (and much of the rest of 15th-century England, if the success of the book is any indication) had a different way of looking at things from our own modern views.

Also, I like Bors. He's not inhumanly pure like Percival or Galahad, he's a regular schmuck who has actually had a girlfriend, le horreur. Nevertheless, he's able to attain the Grail (gain Christian redemption) through intellectual exercise and self-discipline instead of just being born that way.

I've sometimes thought that a really sneaky prank to pull on players complaining about Lancelot and the de Ganis clan taking the lead would be something like this:

A new knight joins the Round Table, the son of the king of some distant land to the north, who bears the head of a crimson stallion upon his shield. Shortly after that, the player knights find that whenever they're about to go to war with the Saxons or Picts, the northern prince has secretly infiltrated the Saxon or Pictish camp and tricked the invaders into fighting each other so that their attack on Britain is cancelled before the player knights and the rest of Arthur's company could enter battle. Every time they're about to deal with a rebellious petty king or robber-baron, the northern knight with the crimson stallion sneaks into his castle and undermines him, so that the most that the player knights can do is mop up what's left of his forces in a victory so easy that it's anticlimactic. And so on....

Sorry, should I know who this mystery knight is? It's not any of the Orkneys that I know of, should I recognize him?

That was a reference to "Prince Valiant". In Hal Foster's comic strip, Prince Valiant did a lot of that kind of thing - and occasionally, Foster showed Arthur and his knights as a bit miffed about it.

Now I just feel stupid for forgetting Val.

Great post, Palomydes! Thank you. I can readily see your reasoning especially as it pertains to the de Ganis clan being, basically, Strangers in a Strange Land. And, were I in their sollerets, I would feel as if Arthur had been a bit backward with the promised aid as well. In so far as "using BRAVADO as a shield, so they don't have to think about the things they lack," I find that quite insightful and I admit that I hadn't looked at it from that perspective before. Touche!

But: I still maintain a somewhat different perspective. Admittedly my early influences were not particularly de Ganis friendly. I actually played Pellinore in a college production of Camelot and our French foriegn exchange student was Lancelot.... He was, shall we say, type cast for my particular take on the character. But that aside, I find myself in agreement with Ms Karr concerning Lancelot. I remember on first reading Mallory, as apposed to pastiches and watered down imitations, being simply APPALLED at the "pavillion" exploits of Lancelot. I even turned in a paper detailing his berserker path. And the man absolutely shows signs of being a berserker. The most famous example is his laying about while rescueing Guinevere from the stake! (Actually, Python captured that part of his character rather well, I thought.) And I've known many overachievers in many professions that have adopted a "humble" mein out of a sense of superiority rather than humility. And that is how I play Lancelot!

And so far as Bors is concerned, I always found him to remind me of a theology teacher I had in seminary; something of a self serving sanctimonious prig.

But, that having been said, I LOVE all of the Round Table knights. They have provided me my favourite tale since before I could read. I remember my mother reading from Pyle when I was just three, about the time of the Kennedy assassination.

Isn't it great that we still seem to have the Orkney/de Ganis split? I tell you, my fellow KAPers, it is simply great to have found this board. Thank you all for your input and opinions!

(Snip)

But, that having been said, I LOVE all of the Round Table knights. They have provided me my favourite tale since before I could read. I remember my mother reading from Pyle when I was just three, about the time of the Kennedy assassination.

Isn't it great that we still seem to have the Orkney/de Ganis split? I tell you, my fellow KAPers, it is simply great to have found this board. Thank you all for your input and opinions!


You have certainly dated yourself here. We are rather close in age, both at the tail end of the baby boom generation. I wonder if it is because of our age that our parents are similar. My father would read me tales of King Arthur from many sources in my youth, including the satirical Twain. Some I understood, some I didn't, but I always enjoyed them .

Great post, Palomydes! Thank you. I can readily see your reasoning especially as it pertains to the de Ganis clan being, basically, Strangers in a Strange Land. And, were I in their sollerets, I would feel as if Arthur had been a bit backward with the promised aid as well. In so far as "using BRAVADO as a shield, so they don't have to think about the things they lack," I find that quite insightful and I admit that I hadn't looked at it from that perspective before. Touche!

But: I still maintain a somewhat different perspective. Admittedly my early influences were not particularly de Ganis friendly. I actually played Pellinore in a college production of Camelot and our French foriegn exchange student was Lancelot.... He was, shall we say, type cast for my particular take on the character. But that aside, I find myself in agreement with Ms Karr concerning Lancelot. I remember on first reading Mallory, as apposed to pastiches and watered down imitations, being simply APPALLED at the "pavillion" exploits of Lancelot. I even turned in a paper detailing his berserker path. And the man absolutely shows signs of being a berserker. The most famous example is his laying about while rescueing Guinevere from the stake! (Actually, Python captured that part of his character rather well, I thought.) And I've known many overachievers in many professions that have adopted a "humble" mein out of a sense of superiority rather than humility. And that is how I play Lancelot!

And so far as Bors is concerned, I always found him to remind me of a theology teacher I had in seminary; something of a self serving sanctimonious prig.

But, that having been said, I LOVE all of the Round Table knights. They have provided me my favourite tale since before I could read. I remember my mother reading from Pyle when I was just three, about the time of the Kennedy assassination.

Isn't it great that we still seem to have the Orkney/de Ganis split? I tell you, my fellow KAPers, it is simply great to have found this board. Thank you all for your input and opinions!


HAHAHAH!!!! Darn Foreign exchange students! Thats what is great about the legend and most importantly what is great about having a rpg based on it: that everyone see's things from a different perspective and you could tell the tale a hundred times ( maybe not quite that many) , and have a nice variation on ALL the principle characters. I will confess that I use Lancelot and the DeGanis differently every time. I dont always use them as tragic strangers with no home. My last campaign, the players WANTED to hate them. They hated the clan and lancelot before they even met them, so I went with It and played it up....Big mistake....I soon had to INVENT new Clan members after Only Lancelot and Bors were left!!!!!!! Zowie!!!!! :o But I think your take is probably how the majority of people view it most commonly. And yes.... I LOVE the orkney's even though they are supposed to be jerks for the whole pellinore thing!!! I cant help it...i just like em. They are a man's man kinda thing, ya know? Gawaine is like the ultimate charismatic football captain. Gaheris is fun too. I see him totaly having big brother envy/worship!!!! HAHAH! Gareth might have actually been a DeGanis orphan that the Orkney's adopted, or perhaps a Pellinore Bastard? He is just sooo different. Anyway, have fun with both clans!!!!

But, that having been said, I LOVE all of the Round Table knights. They have provided me my favourite tale since before I could read. I remember my mother reading from Pyle when I was just three, about the time of the Kennedy assassination.


You have certainly dated yourself here. We are rather close in age, both at the tail end of the baby boom generation. I wonder if it is because of our age that our parents are similar. My father would read me tales of King Arthur from many sources in my youth, including the satirical Twain. Some I understood, some I didn't, but I always enjoyed them .

You two are older than my parents, goodness gracious

You two are older than my parents, goodness gracious


Yup, like a fine wine, we just keep getting better.

As far as the other point of this thread goes, I always thought the immigrants from Aquitaine were quite pompous. Lancelot's rages and swoons always impressed me a something of a madman. And yes, in many ways what one sees on Monty Python's interpretation is quite accurate.

I say any campaign both the gamemaster and player come out of having enjoyed this much is a resounding success.

I tend to side with Arthur in most events, but I've always hailed him as a personal hero. I really struggled to like Lancelot over the years, especially since his introduction to me was the blond twerp in the fine Excalibur movie; he just always came of pompous and arrogant. But then I began thinking of modern über-fighter characters I did like. I love indomitable martial artists with attitude or humility. I cheered when Neo gained godlike power in the Matrix. I've hailed plenty of characters who, in their own context, are just like Lancelot: extremely capable warriors who know they're good, and make no qualms about doing what they can with their abilities and having fun on the way. Where I start to really sympathize with him is his Love for Guenever going over the edge; for anyone who's ever fallen for a married woman, or been married and been sorely tempted to stray, Lancelot is not cold comfort.

It sounds like your campaign was a blast, and I really approve of the way you made the female knight playable. To me, it sounded exactly like how an Arthurian myth might have presented a Knight of the Round Table who was a woman.

Thank you. It was indeed a blast. I very much miss the campaign and the player. I left them both behind when I had to return to Arkansas after 15+ years in Alaska. So far I haven't had a bit of luck finding anyone in my new area even remotely interested in gaming Pendragon. D&D, yep, but not Pendragon. And after running Pendragon for years with a group of talented players, I am finding it quite difficult to build any enthusiasm for D&D. :-\
The thing that I actually enjoyed the most from that campaign was the contrast between Bryant and Agravaine. Bryant was almost angelic while Agravaine was quite the opposite. The two of them built a raport and a style of handling situations that had to be experienced to be believed. And if you thought Agravaine the Proud had issues before, you should have seen him following Bryant's murder!