Throughout all of this talk of the True Campaign Model, I've consistently identified Pendragon as an outlier.
The reason is simple: Pendragon offers a complete and concise alternative campaign model. You play through the entire timeline of Arthurian Mythos--The Great Pendragon Campaign--which lasts about 80 years or so. During this time you go from the chaos leading to Arthur's rise, the Enchantment of Britain, and the decline leading to the Grail Quest and Arthur's fall at Camlain.
Your character is a Knight of the Realm. You go on adventures during the warmer months of the year. You do one per year. You have a mandatory downtime phase, where things like marriages, births, domain upkeep, etc. are handled; sooner or later your current Knight is put out of play and you take up a new Knight that succeeds him. Barring any deaths in war or adventure, you'll see three or four entire generations over the course of the campaign.
The rules for Pendragon are designed to create a gameplay experience that approximates what you read in Arthurian literature. The rules manual makes this explicit, and the manual--over its editions--have consistently gone out of its way to make this plain to prospective users. It is not a machine designed to do anything else, which is why adaptations to other bodies of literature have heretofore been to similar literary forms (the adaptation to Norse/Irish mythology), parallel literary bodies (Paladin, about the Matter of France), or pop-culture derivatives (Prince Valiant).
This is not the model pioneered by D&D and used--explicitly or otherwise--by almost all tabletop RPGs. This is a successful alternative model that actually accomplishes what so many Storygamer faggots claim to want out of a tabletop RPG, but either lack the means or the integrity to admit it. It has successfully maintained its audience for generations, and the launch of Paladin a few years ago proves that it can find new audiences without resorting to Narrative Warfare fuckery.
(Note to R. Talsorian and Catalyst: You want to know why Mekton/BattleTech players care more about the robots than the pilots? You did sweet fuck-all to make players care about the pilots in actual play. Pendragon does that, and does it when and where it counts, with its system of opposed character traits that show up during encounters.)
If you want to create a real alternative campaign model to what D&D pioneered, study Pendragon first. See it for the machine that it is. See how it is different from D&D, and see what you need to do to make a real alternative that will actually gain and retain a viable audience of paying customers. It's not the only one out there, but it is the most successful.
I've been a fan of King Arthur Pendragon since it came out in 1985. It was the favorite game of its designer, the late Greg Stafford, and he supported it right up until his passing in 2018. There are a whole bunch of supplements out there for the game but all you really need is the core rules. I own Paladin, Prince Valiant and most of the supplements, I love the Great Pendragon Campaign source book but a copy of the rule book (any edition) will get you there.
ReplyDeleteBe warned that player magic users are supported only by the 4th edition rules; all other editions focus on knighthood. The saga of King Arthur is a basic part of the culture of the English-speaking world and this game touches that chord. It is worth a look to see if it resonates for you.