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From: barryg@sdcrdcf.UUCP (Lee Gold)
Newsgroups: net.games.frp
Subject: Re: Pendragon
Message-ID: <2050@sdcrdcf.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 6-Jun-85 00:59:46 EDT
Article-I.D.: sdcrdcf.2050
Posted: Thu Jun  6 00:59:46 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 10-Jun-85 21:06:09 EDT
References: <1028@dual.UUCP>
Reply-To: barryg@sdcrdcf.UUCP (Lee Gold)
Distribution: net
Organization: System Development Corp. R+D, Santa Monica
Lines: 31
Summary: 

Cheer up, Nigel, there's still room for your game.  Pendragon is rather
flawed.  Some of the problems:

1.  No magic rules whatsoever.  Magic is exclusively the right of the
    faeries (read NPCs).  What's worse, we're not told much about the
    faeries, so you're totally in the hands of the GM, who is given very
    little help by the rules in this matter.  Just one piece of data about
    the faeries seems applicable:  they can't touch iron.  Hmm, that would
    seem to rule out magic sworms like Excalibur.

2.  The culture is an uneasy mingling of Norman English feudalism (tinged
    with continental feudalism:  e.g. the Church is dominated by the papal
    bureaucracy uninfluenced by king; the kingdom belongs to the king
    uninfluenced y traditions of rebellious barons) -- and Roman England.
    A number of things have fallen through the cracks.  For instance, there's
    a detailed discussion of Heraldry--but no mention of blank shields,
    a detailed discussion of Courtly Love but no mention of wearing a
    lady's favor in a tournament (aside from a queen's).

3.  The Wotanist religion is portrayed as impious and atheistic.  The
    Teutonic gods (no goddesses need apply) are ovrsimplified to the
    point of grostesqueness.  (The true worship of a Wotanist is not to
    pray to his god but to boast to him (?!).) // The Druid religion is
    similarly oversimplified.  Druids have no nature or bardic lore.  //
    The Christian religion with its papal bureaucracy has no saints.
    Or holy hermits.

In short, I don't think I could use Pendragon to mock up most of the
Arthurian tales.

--Lee Gold