The Light in the Darkness

Does System Matter?
People seek various things when they sit down to play a role-playing game. Once upon a time I thought about the experience in terms of a fantasy based wargame, a tabletop game often played out in tunnels and caverns and other underground spaces using mostly our imagination. The investigation of a mystery, the collaborative process of telling an heroic story together through play, or just the fun of talking in a funny voice and pretending to be someone we are not, these are all aspects of role-playing depending on how we play the game.
Some systems are quite flexible and use some fairly generic mechanics, other systems specialize in delivering a particular type of experience for players. Most require some sort of judge, referee or narrator, but not all do. A recent vacation with friends included sessions of The Fantasy Trip using a programmed adventure published by Dark City Games that requires no referee and therefore allows all of the players to run personal figures. The Fantasy Trip by Steve Jackson Games is a tactical combat focused RPG system that can also be used for playing more social encounters using figure skills from In The Labyrinth (and without use of the tactical display and counters).
The same gaming vacation with friends also involved sessions of the King Arthur Pendragon role-playing game published by Chaosium. Pendragon, as it is often called, is a very different system from The Fantasy Trip (or D&D for that matter). The Pendragon mechanics focus on the personality of your knightly character including their passions, loyalties and hatreds. Chivalry, romance and above all, personal glory, is at the focal point of play. The narrator, or referee, presents a situation in which players attempt to interact with the referee's version of King Arthur's Britain in a manner that will achieve glory for their knight while navigating the game mechanically including d20 personality rolls which help determine their character's reactions and likely behaviors. Characters are expected to act in a knightly manner generally consistent with their virtues and vices, loyalties and hatreds. Pendragon includes no "intelligence" score because that aspect of character is determined by the player's own decision making.

Pendragon is a system designed for multi-generational play and romance, marriage and the siring of offspring, some of whom may become playable characters in the campaign, are all part of the game. The Great Pendragon Campaign, a separate volume that details events year by year from 485 to 566, is a great way to play King Arthur Pendragon. Each year may contain a single adventure worthy of the minstrel's song, or may involve little more than some dice rolled on a table to see who the character meets and at what chronicled event they are present. Meeting a lady (or gentleman), having a child, contracting an illness are all possible during a "year" of play. The legendary king and his court are of course the hub around which game events revolve. Drawing from the literary sources, especially Mallory's Le Morte d'Arthur, Pendragon and The Great Pendragon Campaign are designed by Greg Stafford to meld play with legend. Playing King Arthur Pendragon is a fun way to explore the magical setting of Camelot and Arthur's Britain and offers something unique in terms of tabletop role-playing.