Roughly four and a half years in real life, 80 years in game, from start to finish.

The game wiki for the curious is here: https://sites.google.com/site/pendragoncampaign/

Epic is most definitely the word. Probably the pinnacle of my gaming career. I highly recommend it, though speaking as the GM it's a lot of work and having the campaign written for you still leaves you with a lot of prep to fill in details and to adapt it to your players and events as they arise in game.

Still, the GPC, I'm pretty pleased.
I roll to disbelieve.

Fucking kudos.  I mean, that's a great accomplishment.  I am in awe of you and your group.  Would you recommend it to others?

Congratulations! I'm planning to do it at some point, too, but I keep getting distracted:).

FVB, I think that was a recommendation;).

Wow.

Quote from: AsenRG;902621FVB, I think that was a recommendation;).

Clearly, excitement got the better of my reading comprehension skills...

I think what I meant to ask is whether he'd recommend it to people who aren't die-hard Pendragon fans but who view it as a mountain to climb.  But that's a far cry from what I wrote...

Quote from: Future Villain Band;902619Fucking kudos.  I mean, that's a great accomplishment.

It seriously is. In the years since its publication I wonder how many Pendragon campaigns have ever fully reached the lofty goals the material sets forth? I wouldn't be surprised if its less than two dozen.

Crossposted from rpg.net, then a bit at the end answering FVB on the recommendation point:

Sorry for the slow answers. We played weekly with sessions typically lasting around three hours. We took pauses at the end of each phase (the Anarchy, the Romance Period, etc) to play something else for a few weeks to give me a chance to play and to allow me to prep for the next phase. Badon Hill and the final Camlann battle were longer weekend games lasting around six hours because it doesn't work well to run a megabattle over multiple sessions.

Three players were there from start to finish, and I think are as buzzed as I am at having done it. One moved part way through but was replaced by a new player, and near the end we had an additional player join.

There were a lot of notable NPCs, so the death toll at Badon Hill for example mostly isn't PCs but NPCs the PCs had become attached to or were rivals of or who otherwise were of note.

I made a real effort to make each phase feel different, which worked pretty well. Taking breaks between them helped with that too. I also thought about the themes, and drew on Christian myth and allegory a bit. I'm an atheist myself and if any of my players are religious I don't know about it, but it worked well to have a sense that there was a mythic element to it all and it changed behaviours.

Brid was for example a young giant in a tribe of giants the players slew. He begged for survival and the players granted mercy, as they often did. Sometimes granting mercy backfired, but often it worked because I had a Christian mythic underpinning and repentance was a real thing. Brid never actually converted and remained a pagan but mercy and grace were real things in game so the fact of his forgiveness paved the way for him to join wider society.

Sounds preachy, but it wasn't in play. It also meant that sometimes for example the players would spare a bandit on promise he reformed and more often than not they weren't screwed for doing so. One PC, Sir Cadmus, was famously holy and his sergeant was a villainous bandit who'd repented on being spared and then become a (mostly) good man. He was still flawed, a robber and miscreant by instinct, but trying to be better and it meant player choices mattered.

All the PCs were Salisbury knights early on, which became really important in the Anarchy as they were all on the same team trying to preserve Salisbury as best they could. One of the biggest changes from canon was that they achieved the conversion of Wessex, which therefore sided with Arthur at Badon Hill and became a Christianised Saxon kingdom (after a civil war the PCs took part in where those Saxons unwilling to convert rallied behind a prince to take down their king who they saw as having sold them out). Later that meant some PCs ended up being vassals of Wessex, but that came in once we were past the Boy King period when individual county loyalties were less important than loyalties to Arthur. It also meant that at the end while pretty much everyone died and Arthur's age ended, the values of Chivalry and Arthur's court were preserved in Wessex (and to a lesser extent in Anglia which also went a bit off-canon) so that the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms that followed were inspired and guided by what they had replaced. That meant that while in one sense the Britons lose, in another they won because their values survived.

It is kind of obvious if you run the GPC for a while that most groups don't get that far into it as some really practical stuff for actual play isn't that easy to find. Sir Gareth turns up late and is described as being really famous and always having been around and well loved. I'd missed that was coming up (it's not flagged in advance) so my players nicknamed him Sir Poochy and made comments about "love that guy" because he'd literally never come up before he suddenly appeared to meet a tragic end. On another occasion I realised two in-game years after an encounter with a knight that the knight was also Earl of Wessex - it's not mentioned when he first appears and only comes up in passing later on. Sidebars flagging who will be important later and why would sometimes hugely have helped, not everyone's a Sir Gawaine where you'll already know it.

Finally, I let the PCs wax and wane over time. Several of them did make it to the Round Table, and that's natural according to the rules but oddly the GPC seems to assume that the PCs will always be in awe of the RT knights and not among them. In my game Sirs Lancelot and Gawaine were equalled by Sirs Glaw, Maugalaunt (the Justice of the King), Cadmus, Hector, Glaw, Constantine and others.

Oh, post-finally, if any PCs have access to a healing salve or potion (which are and should be very rare in game) make sure they use it before Camlann, or they will give it to Arthur as he lies dying...

FVB

I would recommend it, but it's important that the players realise they're in part signing on to a railroad. Obviously you can change a lot, as above with Wessex, player decisions matter, but the broad sweep of events is as it is. Arthur will become king, not his rivals to the crown; Arthur will unite Britain; Lancelot and Guinevere will betray him; Arthur's reign will end without a true heir and his lands be overrun.

It's a setting with big name NPCs that the PCs can equal but can't really surpass (you can catch up to Lancelot and Gawaine and my players sometimes did, but it's not really possible to leave them behind in the dust) and where those NPC actions matter. Basically, it has a metaplot.

None of us were die-hard Pendragon fans and only one had read Malory, and that one wasn't me. It's an rpg campaign with a rich setting which has a lot of resonance. If you like the idea of knights doing great deeds that's all you need.

By the way FVB, I've been reading your CoC stuff here and it's seriously good. Would love to play in it if we were on the same continent.

Quote from: D-503;902939By the way FVB, I've been reading your CoC stuff here and it's seriously good. Would love to play in it if we were on the same continent.

If you ever find yourself over here, message me and we'll set something up.  And thanks for the compliment.  The new edition of CoC has been pretty invigorating for my imagination in all the best terrible ways.

Quote from: D-503;902935I'm an atheist myself and if any of my players are religious I don't know about it...

I find it fascinating that you can play a campaign with these themes for four and a half years and never have the players' religions come up even casually. :eek:

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;902992I find it fascinating that you can play a campaign with these themes for four and a half years and never have the players' religions come up even casually. :eek:

We're British.

Congratulations to the OP! And to the whole group, really. That's admirable commitment.

Quote from: Future Villain Band;902713Clearly, excitement got the better of my reading comprehension skills...

I think what I meant to ask is whether he'd recommend it to people who aren't die-hard Pendragon fans but who view it as a mountain to climb.  But that's a far cry from what I wrote...

No worries, happens to everyone:).

Quote from: D-503;902935(snipped)
Oh, post-finally, if any PCs have access to a healing salve or potion (which are and should be very rare in game) make sure they use it before Camlann, or they will give it to Arthur as he lies dying...

FVB

I would recommend it, but it's important that the players realise they're in part signing on to a railroad. Obviously you can change a lot, as above with Wessex, player decisions matter, but the broad sweep of events is as it is. Arthur will become king, not his rivals to the crown; Arthur will unite Britain; Lancelot and Guinevere will betray him; Arthur's reign will end without a true heir and his lands be overrun.

It's a setting with big name NPCs that the PCs can equal but can't really surpass (you can catch up to Lancelot and Gawaine and my players sometimes did, but it's not really possible to leave them behind in the dust) and where those NPC actions matter. Basically, it has a metaplot.

None of us were die-hard Pendragon fans and only one had read Malory, and that one wasn't me. It's an rpg campaign with a rich setting which has a lot of resonance. If you like the idea of knights doing great deeds that's all you need.

Thanks for the account and recommendations, but why would it be a bad thing to let Arthur live a few more years, probably in a monastery;)?

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;902992I find it fascinating that you can play a campaign with these themes for four and a half years and never have the players' religions come up even casually. :eek:

Quote from: D-503;903005We're British.

Most British answer in the thread:D!

Quote from: D-503;903005We're British.

I think I grew sideburns just by looking at this comment. I'll say...

Quote from: AsenRG;903177Thanks for the account and recommendations, but why would it be a bad thing to let Arthur live a few more years, probably in a monastery?

That's actually what I did. Arthur lived, but retired to a monastery. He made the PCs spread news of his death so he could spend his remaining days in quiet contemplation without anyone seeking him out as a figurehead or rival to slay.

Lancelot retired to a nearby monastery, but as each was secluded and Lancelot believed Arthur dead they spent their last years each unaware that the other was less than a day's ride distant.

Worth being prepared for though as an outcome. Fortunately I remembered the potion in good time to make plans for this as a possible ending.