Pendragon - Starter guide
What is Pendragon?
On a tournament field a young knight looks at his lord's wife, and the die decides not whether he lands a blow but whether he falls in love. That is Pendragon. You play a knight in King Arthur's Britain, from the sword in the stone to the fall of Camelot, and the game is less about what your hero can do than about who he is: brave or cowardly, pious or worldly, loyal or passionate. You roll on your character as often as on your sword.
Pendragon was written in 1985 by Greg Stafford, the man behind Chaosium and RuneQuest, drawing on Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur. It has passed through several publishers since and has been back with Chaosium since 2018, which opened a new edition in 2023 with this Starter Set and published the core rulebook in 2024. Netherbook sells the Starter Set: a box that teaches you the game while you play it.
How does the system work?
The base is a d20 rolled under your skill: with Sword 15 you succeed on 15 or less, and exactly 15 is a critical. No percentiles as in Call of Cthulhu, no stacking of modifiers; one number, one roll, done.
The special part is the traits and passions. Every knight has thirteen pairs of opposed traits that always add up to twenty: Valorous against Cowardly, Chaste against Lustful, Just against Arbitrary. When your hero lands in a situation where such a trait matters, you may or must roll on it, and the result decides what he does, sometimes against your own plan. Passions (Loyalty to your lord, Love of your family, Hate of the Saxons) work the same way but harder: a successful passion inspires your hero, a failed one can plunge him into melancholy.
Then there is the Winter Phase. Every game year ends with a winter in which your knight ages, marries, has children, manages his land and counts his Glory. Knights die or grow old, and their heirs take over the campaign. Pendragon is a game about generations, not about one hero.
What do you need to start?
The Starter Set. It holds three booklets: a solo adventure that teaches you the rules as you play it, a setting and rules book of about thirty pages, and The Sword Campaign, a series of linked adventures through the first years of Arthur's reign. It also holds eight pre-made knights with portraits and backstories, eighteen battle cards the game master uses to build fights on the spot, appendices with extra rules you need along the way, and a set of dice.
You need nothing else. The core rulebook is for later, when you want to make your own knights and go further than the box reaches.
Who is this game for?
Players who love drama and do not mind that their hero sometimes does something foolish because the die says he would. Tables who want a long campaign, with weddings, inheritances and grandchildren. Anyone who has read Malory or T.H. White, or seen Boorman's Excalibur, and wondered what it feels like from the inside.
It is not for players who want full control of their character; traits and passions sometimes take over, and that is the point. Nor is it a game of mixed parties: everyone plays a knight, and in the Starter Set a male knight from the early legend. If you want a wider range of roles, look at the core rulebook or at a different game.
How does it compare to other systems?
Compared to Dungeons & Dragons 5e, Pendragon is narrower and deeper. One class, knight, but a character sheet that makes your hero a person and a campaign that can span eighty years. Where 5e asks what your hero does, Pendragon asks who he is.
Compared to Call of Cthulhu, from the same publisher, it shares the love of skills and historical detail but not the engine: d20 instead of d100, and heroes who grow rather than go mad.
Compared to The One Ring, the other game about honour and fellowship in the shop, Pendragon is more earthbound. The One Ring is about the journey and the shadow; Pendragon about land, marriage and the court. If you want more history after Pendragon, Age of Vikings, also from Chaosium, carries the same life-path idea into the Iceland of the sagas.
Where do you start?
Play the solo adventure first, on your own, at the kitchen table. It takes an evening, and afterwards you know the rules better than after reading them three times.
Then give each player a pre-made knight and read the traits aloud together. Have them pick one passion they care about. Start The Sword Campaign and play the first year through to the Winter Phase, even when the fighting is long over: winter is where Pendragon becomes itself.
Our history chapter on Pendragon tells you where the game came from.
Recommended products at Netherbook
The Pendragon Starter Set is the complete entry point.
If you want more historical play, Age of Vikings sits next to Pendragon on the shelf, and our Historical collection gathers every game that starts in the real world, from Rosenstrasse to Age of Vikings. For honour and fellowship in a different legend, The One Ring is the neighbour.