Pendragon vs Werewolf: The Apocalypse
Compare Pendragon and Werewolf: The Apocalypse side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, and more.
| Pendragon | Werewolf: The Apocalypse | |
|---|---|---|
| Genre | Fantasy, Historical | Horror, Modern, Fantasy |
| Tags | Character-Driven, Domain Management, Lore-Heavy, Deadly, Simulation, Crunchy, Social Intrigue | Atmospheric, Base-Building, Character Building, Character-Driven, Corruption, Drama, Lore-Heavy, Strong GM Support, Superpowers, Urban Fantasy |
| Core Mechanic | Roll d20 against the relevant skill or attribute: a result equal to or under its value succeeds, a roll exactly equal to the value is a critical success, and a natural 20 is a fumble. Opposed actions have both sides roll under their value, with the higher success winning and a beaten-but-successful roll scoring a partial success. Personality traits and passions use the same numeric scale and are rolled the same way when a knight's character is put to the test. | Build a d10 dice pool, usually from an Attribute plus a Skill. Each 6 or higher is a success, and meeting the Storyteller-set Difficulty wins. Each pair of 10s counts as four successes. Rage dice replace regular dice up to current Rage and can cause Brutal outcomes. |
| Dice | d20 | d10 dice pool |
| Complexity | High | High |
| Availability | Paid | Paid |
| Runnability | 4 of 5 book tools | 5 of 5 book tools |
| License | Proprietary | All Rights Reserved |
| Third-Party Publishing | Not yet researched | Commercial publishing allowed — Storytellers Vault |
| Summary only, not legal advice. Check current terms before publishing. | ||
| Publisher | Arthaus | Renegade Game Studios |
| Year | 2005 | 2023 |
| Languages | English, French, Spanish | English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Polish, Portuguese |
| Best For | Long-running Arthurian campaigns where a knight's aging, death, and dynastic succession are part of the genre, and where playing out a character's traits, loyalties, and passions matters as much as winning fights. | Groups who want long-form modern horror about shapeshifter packs defending communities from ecological and spiritual threats, with violent power constrained by moral and social consequences. |
| Highlights | Thirteen opposed pairs of personality traits and a set of named passions are rated numerically and rolled like skills, and a passion roll can leave a knight inspired to heroics, disheartened, or maddened beyond the player's control: the heightened behavior that drives Arthurian drama. Every chivalric act (combat, generosity, romance, piety, holding a title) feeds a single lifelong Glory total that sets social rank and rewards embodying knightly ideals over simply winning fights. A yearly Winter Phase resolves aging, estate income, and family events between sessions and passes the line to an heir on death, so a campaign can span generations from Uther's court to the fall of the Round Table. | Brutal outcomes can force destructive failures or add four successes to actions the Storyteller judges can benefit from Rage. Choosing a Garou form changes a character's capabilities, creating tactical and narrative options. Caerns give the pack an improvable spiritual home whose traits connect campaign advancement to territory and community. |
| Considerations | Core rules restrict player characters to knights, with no mechanics for playing magicians, priests, or commoners, which narrows the cast to the warrior aristocracy. The Winter Phase's multi-step annual procedure adds meaningful between-session bookkeeping to every campaign year. High-damage attacks such as a couched lance or great sword can end a fight in a single exchange, making disadvantaged or improvised fights disproportionately dangerous. | A Crinos-form Garou who did not kill in the previous turn must spend Willpower at the start of the next turn or enter frenzy, making the war form difficult to sustain outside violent scenes. Harano and Hauglosk can remove a Garou from play when despair or absolutism fills either track, making moral decline a campaign-level consequence. The game centers mature environmental and spiritual horror, including graphic violence and themes of exploitation and extremism that require deliberate table boundaries. |