Tuesday, January 18, 2022

Prince Valiant the Storytelling Game 2022 Character Creation Challenge

 On day 18 of the #CharacterCreationChallenge I go through my pockets for loose change 



Originally purchased because of the gorgeous, gorgeous artwork (this was before all the Hal Foster Prince Valiants had been complied in hardcover), it turns to out be a lovely stripped down version of Pendragon from the inimitable Greg Stafford. In order to make the game easier for new players, and to better fit the less extreme passions of the Prince Valiant world than the original Arthur sagas, Stafford reduced the game to its barest components and then decided to replace dice with coins. 

Mechanic is super simple: you toss a number of coins equal to your attribute + skill, and any heads means some level of success. You may need more than one head to get the success level you need for more complex actions. That's pretty well it. On top of that there are two attributes (Brawn and Presence) and a very short list of skills (9? 12? Somewhere in there) of which your PC has to have at least 6 at 1 coin, and if your PC is a knight you have to have Arms and Riding as two of those skills. You have 7 coins to split between Brawn and Presence, and 9 coins for skills. 

Sir Giles deBouc, one of the French knights who came over with Lancelot, is a capable swordsman and an accomplished warrior – better able to see though the chaos of battle than most, and skilled at both making alliances with knights and rallying the spirits of units of men. While the rest of Camelot longs for the glory of individual battle, he secretly wishes for the larger scale conflicts where his tactical and strategic insight can help foster his personal legend. 

In court he favors the company of other knights – or those he might find inside his peer group in the stables caring for horses, or in the archives studying the history of battles – over the intricacies of court. He speaks with honesty and from the heart, but the only of the courtly pleasures he has real skill in is jousting. Still, when he makes the fool of himself in more subtle affairs, he takes being the butt of his friends jokes well – there's little anger or pride in him for these events. He knows what he's good at. 

Brawn: 3      Presence 4

Arms: 2        Battle: 2    Fellowship: 1    Jousting: 1    Oratory: 1   Riding: 2 

Sword, lance, dagger, medium armor, ordinary Horse, 5 gold coins, fine clothes. 

His coat of arms is field vert with three goats passant guardant argent. (Green shield with three walking goats on it, the goats are looking at the viewer). 


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