Pendragon RPG - What it is, Why I like it, and my Solo Game so far
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- Опубліковано 6 жов 2024
- I'm still collecting the links to all the resources I use.
In the meantime, you can check out some of the other things I've done at paperdicegames...
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24:29 - "Avitis also had illegitimate children, Rolo and Caramel" 😂
Their cousins are Kit Catherine and Mars-eline 😝
Great vid thanks! :D
Hahaha that’s hilarious. I am going to be honest - I didn’t make that connection…just used names from the books/online!
Mind. Blown.
Seriously, I never thought about Pendragon in this way but it really is perfect for solo play! So much of it lends itself to solo play like you say - the passions and personality traits, feasts, winter phase, battles, etc. And as you're building the dynasty of your family and its glory and history even the adventures during the year could easily be done with a solo/no-GM approach in mind.
Thanks so much for sharing. 👍
Of course, no problem! Yeah, I didn't consider it for solo play at first. But...I wanted to try it out so badly that I dove right in. It ended up being really great solo, and I'm still going!
@@paperdicegames6585 Please share more as you do. Was a great watch!
It
The Arthurian legends are mostly about individual knights going on solo quests, accompanied only by their loyal squire and maybe a fair maiden who directs them to the dastardly villain's lair - so solo gameplay is actually more authentic to the source materials.
@robertabarnhart6240 same could be said about every fantasy RPG (Conan didn't run around with a cleric and a wizard), supehero RPG, and espionage RPG. The idea of the "party" is seldom seen in most of the sources
Great video keeping coming back to this for inspo. The 6th edition core comes out tomorrow, going to run a game with my brother and friends in Harnworld. Haven’t tried it solo yet. Also like you, I feel like the feel and theme of pendragon is awesome, it just seems like a really fun game to run.
Awesome, thanks for checking it out and the kind words! I got my email today about the new edition. I am really excited about the Gray Knight campaign though! Should be fun!
Finally, Ive checked for a while to see how someone can play pendragon solo. Thanks for sharing this
Look forward to checking out the tools you use to make this run smoothly. I am green to solos and wanted to try pendragon
It's on my to-do list! I took a bunch of screenshots of tables to cut down on the amount of work, which I'm not sure I can share, so I need to clean it up a bit. But I'm hoping to get that done at some point and share!
@@paperdicegames6585awesome!
I started playing the GPC solo a few days ago. It’s been really fun so far!
Great! Glad its been fun for you!
Thank you for sharing this. I haven’t play Pendragon in years and you’ve reminded me about how good it is. I agree, it does seem excellently suited for solo play.
Thanks for watching! Yeah, it's a pretty incredible game, and the Great Pendragon Campaign is a superb experience. It's really been good for me solo - and I'd like to run it with my group someday, but I need to build quite a bit of buy-in for that type of game first.
I'm a mic nerd and can't help myself whenever I come across a video with the blue yeti. I also have one. You don't need to place the mic in front of your face, much less your mouth, even. You can place it off to the side and it will still pick you up. The blue yeti is excellent, it could probably pick up people having a conversation in another room.
Thanks for the tip. I have since learned that lesson. :-)
Thanks for the excellent video and also for recently sharing your solo resource documents. I've never played but willing to give it a try.
Thanks for checking it out! I hope you enjoy!
Fantastic video. I've loved this game for a long time. So much awesome detail. I never played solo before but now I think I will try it.
Yeah the detail is really amazing. You get great detail with a lot of these games that have a narrow focus
This was a joy to sit down and listen to at lunch. Thank you for sharing!
Thanks for watching! I am glad you enjoyed it!
Very nice video. You're right, that is an interesting story. Pendragon has been on my 'to solo' list since I got the books two years ago but I still haven't started. Subscribed to the channel, appreciate the breakdown. Found this off a random YT recommendation.
Yeah, I sat down and read Pendragon 3 years ago, and it blew my mind. It's a very focused gaming experience, but very good, and IMO very well suited for solo. Thanks for checking the video out!
IMHO, this is the best rpg ever. From character creation to going insane from fumbling a passion roll!
It’s spectacular - a great example of a design absolutely nailing a specific vision and genre.
I got an early version of the game on my 16th birthday. Still haven't had an opportunity to play it.
Since then I've collected almost all the books. I hope to solo it.
Yeah its pretty fun solo - enjoy!
This is crazy but everything you're saying was generated by tables?! 49:59... THATS CRAZY this is amazing.
Yes - tables from the book, tables from supplements, and two or three very good fan made resources. Then you just connect the dots!
@@paperdicegames6585 what supplements? Just that one book?
@@seriouslyiknowhowtoread Book of Knights and Ladies, and the Great Pendragon Campaign book add some nice tables. I am always in love with the Book of Feasts too.
The Core Rules has enough tables though to run a really deep campaign - that’s how i started for quite a while.
damnit, you just made me purchase this game.
Ahh - thanks for checking the video out! I hope you enjoy!
Hi, have you ever been able to post how to find the resources you mentioned? Word flow and things like that? Thanks for this information. I have watched the video several times to try and prepare my own solo playthrough
Thanks for watching, hopefully it is helpful! Stay tuned, I am hoping to post the resource I use soon!
No need to apologize so profusely. People who play these games we must assume have the fortitude to read historical based content.
Thanks for the kind words!
Woah this sounds great!
Thanks for watching! Yeah I find it pretty fun!
This sounds amazing and it was a delight to listen too, but I do have a question.
How exactly do you go about playing Pendragon solo? Do you need any particular supplements or books, or supplies? Are there any specific rules or tables needing for playing the game solo? I've tried finding out so I can purchase the game, but though I've seen a fair amount of people saying they've played KAP solo, they never say "How" exactly they've went about playing it or handling events and plot developments.
I've never played an RPG solo, heck I've never played Pendragon before but I'm definitely interested in doing so.
Great questions!
For Pendragon, in my opinion you need the base rules as well as The Great Pendragon Campaign, which is a giant campaign book that leads you through a story from the days of King Uther, through Anarchy times, to the Boy King and into proper King Arthue legend.
I also supplemented the experience with other expansion books, but I don’t think that is necessary.
The Great Pendragon Campaign (GPC) basically leads you on a timeline of events over 80 or so years. Each gameplay session is one year. So each year, the GPC tells you what is happening, and generally speaking what your Knight will be doing (fighting in a battle, escorting the King north, etc).
So the resulting gameplay is:
1. Read this year in the GPC
2. Decide what your knight will do (likely follow the story, but there can be decisions to make).
3. Resolve the adventure (this is the bulk of the session).
4. Complete your winter turn phase (I like to supplement this with random tables).
I hope this helps!
The way my group handled female characters is that they were simply female family members, and the group would use them in courtly situations.
Yeah there are a lot of ways to handle gender, but I figured it was worth mentioning since the rules give explicit option, snd that may matter to some folks.
Im thinking if the ttrpg Free from Yoke can be played solo like this one or if parts can be taking of one and put in the other.
Pendragon feels interesting but i dislike the restrictions in beeing a knight, but love the idea of the marriage and that stuff.
Ould love to see how it is played solo.
I haven’t heard about Free from Yoke. But yeah Pendragon is great, but it plays a very specific type of game.
Where can I get hold of this?
Pendragon? Fifth edition is available on Drivethru I believe.
Also for sale on the Chaosium site.
Which version/edition are you using?
Started with original and quickly moved to 5th if I remember correctly.
Or whichever is most recent.
*never puts it in the notes*
Did I miss a reference from my own video?
Character creation killed me off, this game requires some serious dedication/autism
Its certainly a crunchier rpg. Battle rules give me a headache too…
@@paperdicegames6585 Oh I always homebrew battle rules!
can't we simply conclude that solo rpg is doomed and move on? For a story you need a plot and surprising npcs and your static tables will never give you either.
Not sure what you mean here - static tables can certainly drive plot, and rolling on a table is the definition of surprise.
Tables aren’t always static either. :)
@@paperdicegames6585 I'm afraid you don't understand elementary probability even though you might have rolled a few dice.
A string of random unrelated stuff is meaningless. It cannot create plot, cannot create NPCs that respond to their environment, cannot create the game state that responds to a player in any cohesive, consistent manner.
Random Generating Tables output results that are unaware of the game state itself.
Maybe we have different definitions of what a plot entails, but for me it is a string of events that follow from each other and the next plot point depends on what happened in the previous. No RGT can do this.
You can make nice paintings from a handful of sand, a writer or creator is required to structure otherwise independent grains of sand.
Once every 1000 tries something that might resemble the beginnings of a plot might appear, but the game itself has no space to hold such a plot to develop it. As long as all solo rpg enthousiasts keep sticking to fixed tables they are doomed to fail.
My best advice is develop a system that builds off from a game state (such as Hexplore It does), and at a bare minimum make tables depend on what terrain type you are on (although that's not enough it's better than blind random) such as the terrain event decks in Zerywia, Fallen Land, Legends of Novus and others).
If you want a surprise plot which you don't know in advance but wish to "home in on", look at Tobagu and cryptid.