Friday, April 22, 2022

King Arthur's Knights

Looks like it's time to add another Arthurian game to the list of those I never owned. In this case, I never even heard of it. In fact, I can't even recall seeing any evidence of its existence in the Chaosium catalogs that came in the company's boxed sets during the early 1980s (or I somehow missed it). 

In any case, it seems that Greg Stafford designed a competitive boardgame based around the legends of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, which was published in 1978. Does anyone reading this reading post own or, alternately, has anyone ever played it? I'm curious to know a bit more about it, particularly the extent to which it has any design similarities to Pendragon. 

6 comments:

  1. BGG quote: "It is kind of the prototype of several Camelot games that came after, like Knights of Camelot and King Arthur by Wotan. Very nice map, but not very nice rules, with quite a few holes. Mainly a dice rolling fest with a few choices. Lots and lots of cards available. I played a two player standard game for an hour or so. I found it very hard to retain any treasures given the rather random encounters, so it was hard to build up a character. In the end, the Knight Errant won as the Knight at Arms was unable to collect enough in the way of treasures. The magic encounters were way too much for the poor knights, so the quests were a bit out."

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  2. I have this game. We played it occasionally back in college. It is fun. The above critique seems off. I wouldn't have a copy of a game that had obvious issues like above. My memories of the game are fond and thus this game survived all my game purges, including the great purge ahead of getting married.

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    1. I never trust BGG reviews, they tend to be inaccurate at the best of times. The site's mostly useful for researching publisher, component and designer data, getting a rough idea of how an unfamiliar game might play, and the occasional download file with fan-made mods, add-ons, and replacement/improvement counters.

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  3. I owned a copy once, long ago, so this is from memory.

    It has the feel of being a very early fantasy boardgame -- at one point it advises players that they can use the melee system of their choice to resolve combats.

    TSR's Knights of Camelot is a much more polished version of the concept.

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  4. I remember playing it a great deal back in the day, but as our original gaming group dispersed in the early '80s it ended up in someone else's custody.

    I remember it being challenging, and rather luck dependent in terms of the encounter draw -- a string of too-tough foes too early could easily stymy you. I think it actually resembled Games Workshop's famous "Talisman" game that way -- but with shorter turns, and simpler overall.

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  5. I remember owning this, but alas have little to add. Haven't played it in decades. It's a boardgame. Knights go on quests, have encounters. Might gather loot?

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