Pendragon
5th EditionCore 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.
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.
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.
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.