Hi all.

Has anyone written up some system of tracking the Family Knights? By which I mean them growing older and dying, or some such, but also younger members inheriting their fathers' equipment and starting as new young knights?

I guess a simple mechanism would be to assign an age to each Family Knight and just advance that to see which category they belong, and then trust the family event table to start killing them off. And when a Family Knight dies, a younger scion of the family is waiting to be handed down the armor, starting as a new young knight. Unless the old bugger manages to get lost with his horse and armor...

In a previous campaign, I have used Family Event Table to adjust the number of lineage men: birth = +1, death = -1.

I would imagine that PKs can create new young family knights by sponsoring some likely lad from the family. Probably trying to get the lad first to squire training (can either be done in-game or simply assumed as part of being the head of the family) and then buy/acquire an armor, a sword and a horse for the lad, hopefully getting him a post in some lord's household, too.

Given the number of potential family knights, I assume that it is par on course to distribute them over Logres in various courts? Since otherwise, it is quite easy for four players to potentially claim a good chunk of Salisbury's knights as their family knights!

I'd love a decent system for tracking an evolving family of npc knights.



Given the number of potential family knights, I assume that it is par on course to distribute them over Logres in various courts? Since otherwise, it is quite easy for four players to potentially claim a good chunk of Salisbury's knights as their family knights!


It makes sense that some would be scattered in other courts. More fun that way too, for having family knights on opposite sides.
But also, it's fine to have the players families be the movers and shakers of a particular county - they are supposed to be important, after all, and it's only one county.
Plus, the players may not always see eye-to-eye - they may not have the same interests.
In a game where the players concentrate only on their single character, it's normal for them to hew together and think of the team. When they are the heads of powerful families, with their own interests, it's often a natural consequence for players to see beyond the team mentality, and see the potential for healthy political conflict between players.

In a game where the players concentrate only on their single character, it's normal for them to hew together and think of the team. When they are the heads of powerful families, with their own interests, it's often a natural consequence for players to see beyond the team mentality, and see the potential for healthy political conflict between players.


Oh, absolutely. Especially when their dynastic or even current ambitions are in conflict of someone else's. However, this does require a set of players who enjoy that and can play that... (well, duh) I have often considered about starting such a campaign, but in that case, I would rather start the beginning knights already as something a bit more powerful than a vassal knight with one manor.

Since in this campaign I am intending to start the characters as household knights, it makes less sense that they would be the heads of a powerful family. Also, since my MasterPlanTM is to get them from 485AD to 518AD (probably with two generations) in a year's worth of almost weekly sessions, I have my work cut out for me. I don't really have the time to indulge in very massive politicking and looking after the extended family in the early part of the storyline. That is something I intend to focus more on the Anarchy and later.

Given that the players are new to Pendragon, I chose to start them as household knights, so that we wouldn't need to bother with the manors yet. That is something I hope to introduce once they have the basics of the other system down. This also helps in that aforementioned 'speeding through the early part'.

I have a simple system in place, but it does provide an illusion of something more complex. I use a more detailed family events table to begin with - one which allows for many more outcomes - and track certain results it throws up over the years. As part of that process I track the ages of all the knights in the player's family and when they get to a certain age increase their chance of dying. The mechanism is basic as hell. I call these "Legacy Events" and each one is resolved using a d6. On a 1 something bad happens and on a 6 something good happens (an idea which I lifted from Spoonist). As the years roll by most knights pick up quite a few of these events, each needing a d6 roll, so having them any more complex to resolve would be overly time consuming and laborious.

So if you have a family event which states that your brother has decided to join the priesthood and go on a pilgrimage, each year, on a roll of 1 he dies, while on a 6 he returns. As there are often so many knights in a family, I find this helps keep things a little more realistic and augments the Family Events Table because it cannot cope on its own. I was getting too many old knights getting way *too* old because the chance of them having a Family Event of "Great Uncle Dies" was just too small.

As an example, here is a snapshot of my knights and their current Legacy Family Events;
Sir Elwin 1d6 - Does cousin Sir Dominque challenge his authority (1) or put his hatred aside(6)?
1d6 - Did Aunt Bettrys commit treason (1) or is the rumour proved false (6)?
1d6 - Does Great Uncle Tydrig die (1) or live on?

Sir Rhyddian 1d6 - Does Great Uncle Rhydderch die (1) or live on?
1d6 - Is his brother Dafydd really gay (1) or is the rumour proved false (6)?

Sir Direl 1d6 - Is his borther Morvan really a horse thief (1) or is the rumour proved false (6)?

Sir Bruenor 1d6 - Does his brother Cadfael return to attack the manor (1)?
1d6 - Does his brother Deiniol return having disappeared (1) or is he found dead (6)?
1d6 - Does the thief who has been stealing his horses strike again (1) or is he caught (6)?

etc, etc.....

I call these "Legacy Events" and each one is resolved using a d6. On a 1 something bad happens and on a 6 something good happens (an idea which I lifted from Spoonist).


Thanks, that is a useful idea. Keeps the scandals and events fresh until resolved, either by PCs or by fortune.

I take it that you roll 1d6 for each Old Knight and on 1 they die?

How do you get new Young Knights? Do you assume (as I suggested in my opening post) that the dead knight would have bequeathed his armor and horse to the next likely lad in the family, hence adding a new Young Knight? (Warranty void when disappearing while on a quest or looted by some dastard.)

I call these "Legacy Events" and each one is resolved using a d6. On a 1 something bad happens and on a 6 something good happens (an idea which I lifted from Spoonist).



Yes. However, at present I have no hard and fast rule for when I start doing so. The knights I'm currently rolling for are in their 70s.



How do you get new Young Knights? Do you assume (as I suggested in my opening post) that the dead knight would have bequeathed his armor and horse to the next likely lad in the family, hence adding a new Young Knight? (Warranty void when disappearing while on a quest or looted by some dastard.)


At the moment they just get created using the Family Events table roll (via new births in the family or new knights joining the family) and tracked from there.

This is still under construction but I keep all my PCs family tree's up to date and track them online. Here (http://kap5.smugmug.com/History/Knights-of-Salisbury/7988096_7buVb).

This doesn't answer your original question though; tracking the relations between different families. I track NPC vs NPC relations (the named knights and ladies at court) and the local relations of a knight and his neighbours but that's all - and that's quite time consuming as is. Putting more in does make for a very interesting experience and certainly adds colour to the campaign; you just need enough time to create and maintain it.

I call these "Legacy Events" and each one is resolved using a d6. On a 1 something bad happens and on a 6 something good happens (an idea which I lifted from Spoonist).



Yes. However, at present I have no hard and fast rule for when I start doing so. The knights I'm currently rolling for are in their 70s.



How do you get new Young Knights? Do you assume (as I suggested in my opening post) that the dead knight would have bequeathed his armor and horse to the next likely lad in the family, hence adding a new Young Knight? (Warranty void when disappearing while on a quest or looted by some dastard.)


At the moment they just get created using the Family Events table roll (via new births in the family or new knights joining the family) and tracked from there.

This is still under construction but I keep all my PCs family tree's up to date and track them online. Here (http://kap5.smugmug.com/History/Knights-of-Salisbury/7988096_7buVb).

This doesn't answer your original question though; tracking the relations between different families. I track NPC vs NPC relations (the named knights and ladies at court) and the local relations of a knight and his neighbours but that's all - and that's quite time consuming as is. Putting more in does make for a very interesting experience and certainly adds colour to the campaign; you just need enough time to create and maintain it.


Great site!
How did you create their coats of arms?
What program are you using to keep track?
I bow to your computer expertise.

Bob

Great site!
How did you create their coats of arms?
What program are you using to keep track?
I bow to your computer expertise.

Bob


Thanks. My computer expertise? haha, that just boils down to hour upon hour upon hour of doing things by hand. Really I don't even want to think about how much time I have poured into KAP over the last 18 months. Every time I play I think of something else which would be nice to have and then spend months working on it. :o

I use the following programs
InDesign -for all the text stuff
Photoshop- for all the images and maps
Smart Draw and Photoshop for the Family Tress. You could just use photoshop to do them, but Smartdraw has a few built in APPs, one of which is family trees - makes the whole process a little quicker.
Some of Coat of Arms are done using the online coat-of-arms generator (http://inkwellideas.com/coat_of_arms/) and then tweaked in PS and some are ones that I bought online.

Andy

Kudos anyways - great stuff regardless.


The process I am using to keep track of personal knights is one character sheet per year in a binder. For the family, an excel spread sheet with columns to keep track of everything.

Bob

I've got it semi-covered through our houserules.
http://www.gspendragon.com/roundtable/index.php?topic=312.msg2427#msg2427
Using the Kin events table you can keep a rough tab on what is happening and also expand or decrease the family.
Then if you have some specific kin knight that you want to create a story line for then have the PK (or GM) roll for a Yearly event/Summer solo. That way you can have a parallel story for kin knights.
However that is not suitable if you want to do such a thing for all of their kin knights. It will take too much game time, unless the GM does it all between game sessions.