Chaosium Digest Volume 3, Number 10 Date: Sunday, August 22, 1993 Number: 3 of 3 Contents: Review: Robin Hood (Heidi Kaye) PENDRAGON Review: Lionheart (Heidi Kaye) PENDRAGON Review: Chivalry & Sorcerery (Shannon Appel) PENDRAGON Review: Hidden Kingdom (Shannon Appel) PENDRAGON Review: Arthurian Board Games (Shannon Appel) PENDRAGON Editor's Note: None of the products reviewed in this Digest are Chaosium products. Rather, this digest contains reviews, thoughts and comments on Arthurian products produced by other companies. In these supplements, you might find fresh ideas for your own Pendragon campaigns. Shannon -------------------- From: Heidi Kaye [via ] Subject: REVIEW: Robin Hood System: Pendragon Robin Hood: The Role Playing Campaign ICE, 160pg, $15 This volume shows that well-written adventure ideas and thoroughly-researched historical background are infinitely malleable to a variety of games systems. Graham Staplehurst wrote this I.C.E. Supplement for use under Rolemaster, MERP, or Fantasy Hero, but Robin Hood never caught on as a game in itself as it deserved. The material here offers a wealth of ideas for use in Pendragon, despite one's initial reaction that there seems little connection between an outlaw band and a group of knights. The 160 pages of Robin Hood are packed with information. The main body of the supplement contains historical material on the kings of England from William the Conqueror to John Lackland, including a 150-year timeline, and a detailed description of life in Norman England. Political intrigue, warring factions, and dastardly deeds abound in this history, ready to be transferred to inter-kingdom friction and the acts of robber knights in Arthur's time. The social history discusses such areas as government, armies, religion, feudal society, magic and folklore, explaining the mutual obligations of peasants, knights, nobles, and Kings and contemporary attitudes. In the longer second section of the book, campaign ideas are creatively set out. Small encounters, such as one with a pilgrim met on the road, are developed into adventure nuggets by presenting four or five possible twists to the identity of the pilgrim or his reasons for travelling: is he a nobleman renouncing his titles, a thief, a spy, a magician or faerie being, a man doomed to eternal wandering? These are great examples of making a standard idea into something really meaty. Locations such as abbeys and castles are detailed, with helpful maps and pictures. Finally, in the two campaign settings offered for Robin Hood, the Forest of Dean (more political/historical) and Robin i'Hood (more Michael Praed/mystical), ten adventures are included. The five Forest of Dean ones are most adaptable to Pendragon, oddly enough, because they include some good intrigue and religious/magical items, whereas the five Robin i'Hood adventures tend to offer only outlaw plots like kidnaps and gaolbreaks, unsuitable for knights, except for the fifth, "The Cloister and the Cage." Overall, the presentation quality is very high. Although it is printed with two columns per page in fairly small typescript, the text is clear and readable. The quality of the artwork and maps is good, including the cover art. The bibliography of additional sources offers further historical reading and includes Ellis Peters' Chronicles of Brother Caedfael for background and adventure ideas. This supplement would make a valuable addition to any Pendragon GM's campaign material, helping her create the atmosphere of the medieval world. It is engagingly and thoughtfully written, and has even got me interested in running a Robin Hood campaign! Copies are increasingly hard to find, so grab one if you can. -------------------- From: Heidi Kaye [via ] Subject: REVIEW: Lionheart System: Pendragon Lionheart Colmbia Games, 112pg, ~$20 This is a rather different product, written by Edwin King for Columbia Publications, who produced Harn. Originally intended to be part of a roleplaying system with its own rules and character generation, it ended up as a historical sourcebook with no internal mention of roleplaying at all. It aims to present an account of Britain in the 1190s, from a contemporary point of view. The first 24 of its 112 pages is made up of a history of Britain from the Romans to Richard the Lionheart in 1190. It covers much of the same material as Robin Hood on the English kings, and includes brief histories of Ireland and Wales, and a bit more on Scotland. This book concentrates on political history, leaving out the social history and more general background of Robin Hood's text. The main body of Lionheart is made up of the Index, a general encyclopedia of geographical, historical, biographical, social, cultural, and political information on the period. Here may be found entries on "scutage," "serf," "Skenfrith Castle," and "Stigand, Archbishop." To some extent this might make up for the absence of text explaining in one place the rules of feudal duty, castle building, or religious attitudes or persons, but this piecemeal structure is not as helpful. Unless you are looking for an explanation of a specific term about taxation or already know to look up the Archbishop, you would not come across them as you would in a discussion of the general topics. In addition, most of the information about the people and places in the Index are pretty drily historical: e. g., "FIANNA, A legendary band of heroic warriors who protect the shores of Ireland from invasion." This kind of description cries out for elaboration - give us the legend! Who were these warriors meant to be, did they use any magic to defend Ireland, what feats did they perform? Similarly, entries on locations tend to say who built the castle or who lives there, but little else. There is a real paucity of information on local folklore, and no religious magic or miracles are recounted. The presentation of the text and its illustrations are very good, apart from the annoying lack of a table of contents for the historical section. A fold-out colour map of the British Isles in 1190, showing the existing roads and main towns, is included. No adventure ideas are presented, but as a historical supplement, this book could still provide a Pendragon GM with plenty of background material to develop campaign atmosphere. On its own, Lionheart would be worth recommending to anyone willing to wade through its awkward presentation, because it is full of interesting detail; however, in comparison to I.C.E.'s Robin Hood, it unfortunately does not hold up. -------------------- From: Shannon Appel Subject: REVIEW: Chivalry & Sorcerery System: Pendragon Chivalry & Sorcery Second Edition Fantasy Games Unlimited, boxed, out of print C&S Sourcebook Second Edition Fantasy Games Unlimited, 72 pg, our of print C&S Swords & Sorcerers Second Edition Fantasy Games Unlimited, 36 pg, out of print Chivalry & Sourcebook is not a historical game in the same way that Robin Hood and Lionheart are. Rather, in C&S, both historical and geographical background are almost non-existant. However, rules and backgrounds for many individual elements of medieval europe are spread throughout the books, and this is what actually makes them useful for the Pendragon gamemaster. The C&S boxed set of rules is probably the least inspiring of all of the material. One 56 pg book is taken up entirely by the basic rules, which are next to useless for Pendragon, while another 80 pg book is taken up by magic and monsters. The only thing I found somewhat interesting in the latter was a few pages on alchemy. Only the book on combat provides any great amount of information for a Pendragon gamemaster. There, you'll find the chivalric code, the making of a knight, a royal bureacracy, notes on feudalism, low and high justice, modes of address, notes on armor and castles, the clergy and tournaments. Overall, at least half of the 56 pg. provides interesting information. In sum, I wouldn't rate the C&S base set as too terribly useful for the Pendragon gamemaster. There is some interesting stuff, even some stuff beyond what's in Pendragon, but it just isn't enough to make buying the whole set worthwhile, unless you see it relatively cheap. I'd put the C&S sourcebook into about the same category. There are some very interesting sections on heraldic arms, hunts and feudal trade and commerce, but again it forms a small part of the book, maybe a quarter in this case. The information that's there is very dense, definitely full of information, but there's a lot of less useful stuff as well. The last C&S book that I have is by and far the most useful. Swords & Sorcerers is 36 pages long, and nearly every one of those pages is good. About half of the book is about Nordic Barbarians, while the other half is about Celtish & Pictish Barbarians as well as the Nomads of the Steppes. Foes of this type are very Arthurian, and the information provided, while includes notes about the societies, economies and magic is just great. If you're intrigued by the thought of using any of these peoples in your Pendragon game, Swords & Sorcerers is a excellent supplement to get. It's about 10 years out of print, but I've actually still seen new copies available every once in a while. Overall, the C&S supplements showed a lot of promise. Unfortunately, in most cases, the rules system filled the books, pushing the background material out. If you're willing to wade through this, you'll probably find something of use in each of the supplements. Otherwise, Swords & Sorcerers is probably the only real winner amoung the supplements I looked at. -------------------- From: Shannon Appel Subject: REVIEW: Hidden Kingdom System: Pendragon Hidden Kingdom New Rules Inc, 338 digest-sized pgs, out of print One of the first Arthurian role-playing games, Hidden Kingdom was published in 1983, two years before Pendragon. All told, it's a somewhat odd beast. It was published in a loose-leaf digest sized binder, not really the best size for putting on the shelf. In addition, it seems to mix elements of war games and role-playing games. I was never quite sure what to make of the whole thing. As a source for Pendragon, Hidden Kingdom is somewhat useful. I've included notes on some of the stuff I found good here. There are about forty pages of random encounters. Several paragraphs are given for each, and although not every one is an adventure, they do all suggest an adventure, sometimes several. About ten pages cover tournaments, including some short notes on a sample tournament. Fun to read, and probably somewhat useful as well. And then, there are over a hundred pages of appendix. There are pages and pages of knights from the Arthurian stories, ladies and queens, a listing of the kingdoms and provincse of England, several pages on Heraldry (including a glossary of Heraldric Terms) and finally a bibliography. This is all very dry information, not the kind that will suggest stories or adventures, but definitely the kind of reference that is useful. Hidden Kingdom definitely shows its age. However, there still is a lot of useful information in it. If you'd like some random tables to scan, to help get a night's adventuring going, or would appreciate the easy reference provided by the appendix, I'd suggest picking up a copy if you can find one. Shannon -------------------- From: Shannon Appel Subject: Review: Arthurian Board Games System: Pendragon Shortly after our group started playing Pendragon, I began to collect Arthurian board games. Although only peripherally related to Pendragon itself, I thought that some thoughts and comments on the various Arthurian board games might be useful to others on the list. So, I've included those (short) thoughts here: KING ARTHUR'S KNIGHTS (Chaosium, 1978): King Arthur's Knights is a game of quests. In it, knights wander around Britain (on a beautiful map) fighting foes, romancing ladies and collecting treasures. It's a very simple game, but still an enjoyable one. I'd probably rate it my favorite Arthurian board game. It's really unfortunate that it's been out of print for so long. I'd love a new boxed version of it with nice components. EXCALIBUR (Wotan, 199?): A much more accessible game, Excalibur is definitely a war game. In it, knights enter a fertile valley deep in Arthurian Britain. There, they begin to war against each other until someone controls half of the countryside. When that occurs, the victorious knight is named Warden of Newly Conquered Territories. In the game, there is a nice mix of economics and combat, which is a definite plus that makes the game quite interesting. The only downside of Excalibur is that it takes a long time to play. I don't think we've ever finished the game (but we've always found it very enjoyable as we played). KING ARTHUR AND THE KNIGHTS OF THE ROUND TABLE (Wotan, 199?): The last game that I review here is a sort of combination of the previous two. It begins as a questing game, with knights looking for lost artifacts. Then, when Arthur dies, those knights begin fighting across Britain for the right to sit upon the throne. The questing part of the game was quite fun, but the war somewhat boring. Perhaps it was just because the combined time for the two parts of the game was too long; I vaguelly remember the sun coming up as we played. The game definitely has a lot of fun features, including character sheets for each player, so that they can mark their own knight's rise to power. However, it sort of fell apart when the Civil War began, so I'm not convinced that it's ultimately viable without major changes... If anyone else has played any enjoyable Arthurian board games, I'd love to hear of them. Since I first played Pendragon, it's rapidly become one of my favorite genres. Shannon -------------------- The Chaosium Digest is a Discussion Forum for the Elder Gods. To submit an article, mail to: appel@erzo.berkeley.edu