Kane Starkiller
New Member
I'm not sure where in the forums to post this, but somewhere hereabouts is the only place I can think of to get the sort of help I'm looking for, and up to a high standard. Some quick lore notes to let everyone know where I'm coming from: I started listening to the series on Morgoth's ring partway through last year (2024) while I was thinking about orcs, and then I began consuming the other HoME series' in something like chronological order. I wasn't exactly sure what the Exploring The Lord of the Rings series was, so I didn't start it until I had already listened to many other Mythgard courses available on YouTube, including Le Morte d'Arthur, Alice's adventures, Boethius, Inferno, and Till We have Faces. I then started Exploring The Lord of the Rings, and I'm up to episode 142.
Many of you will not be familiar with the Pendragon RPG, but I expect many to be familiar with RPGs in general, and possibly various Lord of the Rings game adaptions, perhaps MERP and/or The One Ring. I have access to resources for those games, but for reasons, I choose not to use them for my project.
To briefly explain Pendragon, the game, created by Greg Stafford (a relatively unsung subcreator, in my view), immerses players in the world of Arthurian legend and gives them the role of a recently, or soon to be, dubbed knight. It's renowned for its unique approach to character creation and development. Pendragon utilizes a system of traits and passions that influence character behavior and decision-making. These traits, such as "Honest," "Valorous," and "Lustful," shape how characters react to situations and contribute to their overall personality. Passions such as "Love(lady)" or "Hate(enemy)" have a strong influence on character actions, and traits and passions may conflict, requiring the player to test these qualities to determine which aspect of their persona is dominant. Major blows to the character's psyche, such as failing a trait check at a crucial moment, can lead to bouts of madness, melancholy, or misery. A bit like The One Ring, the game is focused on long-term play, with an adventure occurring once a year and character growth taking place during the "Winter Phase". Play may extend into generational campaigns, especially when starting at Uther's reign, or before.
While the game is neither historical, nor a direct adaptation of any single source, it does an excellent job of emulating Arthurian romance, and might be the single most successful roleplaying game in terms of marrying the gameplay to the setting.
The campaign I want to develop will focus on Arthedain in 1640. The player characters will be knights (most probably Dúnedain). The help I'm looking for is essentially to identify the differences between knights of Arthedain and those of Arthurian Britain. Specific considerations are the core traits and passions. The traits in Pendragon are recorded in opposed pairs with starting values between 5 and 15. Below are the traits and example scores:
10 Chaste/Lustful 10
12 Energetic/Lazy 8
15 Forgiving/Vengeful 5
10 Generous/Selfish 10
13 Honest/Deceitful 7
12 Just/Arbitrary 8
12 Merciful/Cruel 8
6 Modest/Proud 14
9 Prudent/Reckless 11
10 Spiritual/Worldly 10
10 Temperate/Indulgent 10
10 Trusting/Suspicious 10
14 Valorous/Cowardly 6
As you can see, the pairs are balanced; when one score goes up, its opposite goes down. A score of 16-19 is something your character is Famous for, while a 20+ is Exalted; special rules apply to traits in each of those categories. Also, traits in Pendragon are associated with religious beliefs. If you have a 16 or higher in each associate trait, you are a "Religious Knight" which affects play. Most knights are Christian and the associated values are Chaste, Forgiving, Merciful, Modest, Spiritual, and Temperate (all religions have 6 associated traits).
Characters can have "directed traits" which modify a trait under certain conditions. An example is Suspicious (King Mark) +5. There are also specific directed traits with additional game effects: Obsession; Avarice; Fear; and Jealousy.
Passions work like traits, but stand alone; they have no opposite. In the newest version of Pendragon, these are grouped into "courts" which basically exist just to limit how far passions drawing on a similar 'emotional well' can be raised. Some key passions are: Duty, Fealty (Liege), Homage (Liege), Loyalty (King), Hate (Person or Group), Love (Family), Love (Person or Group), Adoration (Beloved), Devotion (Deity), Chivalry, Hospitality, and Station. That last one is basically recognition of the three Medieval estates and how much the character believes in/enforces the concept.
Clearly, there should be similarities in the sorts of traits and passions possessed and valued by characters in a Middle-Earth campaign, however there are many differences as well. It seems to me that fewer Third Age characters will run off and spend years in the wilderness maddened by a failure of courtly love than do the knights of Arthur's Britain, or the characters of earlier ages of Middle-Earth for that matter, and yet some great loss or an encounter with the uncanny may indeed lead to madness, melancholy, or misery, as might reminders of what the Dúnedain have already lost even as their people wane and the elves withdraw.
While some traits and trait pairs should transfer easily, others, like chaste/lustful, probably don't have a place in the campaign since Tolkien's stories don't feature critical choices in those areas, nor do they adhere exactly to the Medieval Christian model Pendragon is centered on. Passions like love, hate, duty, loyalty, chivalry, and hospitality probably belong in the campaign, along with Fellowship - functionally Love (Companions), but more linguistically pleasing in context. There would also be no "Religious Knights" but there may be faithful characters who possess high scores in traits the Exiles associate with Númenor as it was before the fall.
I would love to hear ideas for altering the trait pairs to better suit what we know or surmise about the setting, as well as for what passions would be important in that world. Further, any thoughts on the culture of Arthedain and how it compares and contrasts with that of Arthurian Britain would be most welcome. Thank you.
Many of you will not be familiar with the Pendragon RPG, but I expect many to be familiar with RPGs in general, and possibly various Lord of the Rings game adaptions, perhaps MERP and/or The One Ring. I have access to resources for those games, but for reasons, I choose not to use them for my project.
To briefly explain Pendragon, the game, created by Greg Stafford (a relatively unsung subcreator, in my view), immerses players in the world of Arthurian legend and gives them the role of a recently, or soon to be, dubbed knight. It's renowned for its unique approach to character creation and development. Pendragon utilizes a system of traits and passions that influence character behavior and decision-making. These traits, such as "Honest," "Valorous," and "Lustful," shape how characters react to situations and contribute to their overall personality. Passions such as "Love(lady)" or "Hate(enemy)" have a strong influence on character actions, and traits and passions may conflict, requiring the player to test these qualities to determine which aspect of their persona is dominant. Major blows to the character's psyche, such as failing a trait check at a crucial moment, can lead to bouts of madness, melancholy, or misery. A bit like The One Ring, the game is focused on long-term play, with an adventure occurring once a year and character growth taking place during the "Winter Phase". Play may extend into generational campaigns, especially when starting at Uther's reign, or before.
While the game is neither historical, nor a direct adaptation of any single source, it does an excellent job of emulating Arthurian romance, and might be the single most successful roleplaying game in terms of marrying the gameplay to the setting.
The campaign I want to develop will focus on Arthedain in 1640. The player characters will be knights (most probably Dúnedain). The help I'm looking for is essentially to identify the differences between knights of Arthedain and those of Arthurian Britain. Specific considerations are the core traits and passions. The traits in Pendragon are recorded in opposed pairs with starting values between 5 and 15. Below are the traits and example scores:
10 Chaste/Lustful 10
12 Energetic/Lazy 8
15 Forgiving/Vengeful 5
10 Generous/Selfish 10
13 Honest/Deceitful 7
12 Just/Arbitrary 8
12 Merciful/Cruel 8
6 Modest/Proud 14
9 Prudent/Reckless 11
10 Spiritual/Worldly 10
10 Temperate/Indulgent 10
10 Trusting/Suspicious 10
14 Valorous/Cowardly 6
As you can see, the pairs are balanced; when one score goes up, its opposite goes down. A score of 16-19 is something your character is Famous for, while a 20+ is Exalted; special rules apply to traits in each of those categories. Also, traits in Pendragon are associated with religious beliefs. If you have a 16 or higher in each associate trait, you are a "Religious Knight" which affects play. Most knights are Christian and the associated values are Chaste, Forgiving, Merciful, Modest, Spiritual, and Temperate (all religions have 6 associated traits).
Characters can have "directed traits" which modify a trait under certain conditions. An example is Suspicious (King Mark) +5. There are also specific directed traits with additional game effects: Obsession; Avarice; Fear; and Jealousy.
Passions work like traits, but stand alone; they have no opposite. In the newest version of Pendragon, these are grouped into "courts" which basically exist just to limit how far passions drawing on a similar 'emotional well' can be raised. Some key passions are: Duty, Fealty (Liege), Homage (Liege), Loyalty (King), Hate (Person or Group), Love (Family), Love (Person or Group), Adoration (Beloved), Devotion (Deity), Chivalry, Hospitality, and Station. That last one is basically recognition of the three Medieval estates and how much the character believes in/enforces the concept.
Clearly, there should be similarities in the sorts of traits and passions possessed and valued by characters in a Middle-Earth campaign, however there are many differences as well. It seems to me that fewer Third Age characters will run off and spend years in the wilderness maddened by a failure of courtly love than do the knights of Arthur's Britain, or the characters of earlier ages of Middle-Earth for that matter, and yet some great loss or an encounter with the uncanny may indeed lead to madness, melancholy, or misery, as might reminders of what the Dúnedain have already lost even as their people wane and the elves withdraw.
While some traits and trait pairs should transfer easily, others, like chaste/lustful, probably don't have a place in the campaign since Tolkien's stories don't feature critical choices in those areas, nor do they adhere exactly to the Medieval Christian model Pendragon is centered on. Passions like love, hate, duty, loyalty, chivalry, and hospitality probably belong in the campaign, along with Fellowship - functionally Love (Companions), but more linguistically pleasing in context. There would also be no "Religious Knights" but there may be faithful characters who possess high scores in traits the Exiles associate with Númenor as it was before the fall.
I would love to hear ideas for altering the trait pairs to better suit what we know or surmise about the setting, as well as for what passions would be important in that world. Further, any thoughts on the culture of Arthedain and how it compares and contrasts with that of Arthurian Britain would be most welcome. Thank you.