Virtues and Challenges

CHALLENGES.

All conflict in Tales of Pendragon is resolved by a CHALLENGE. You may challenge someone to fight them, to persuade them of something, or to get them to do something.

To challenge someone, speak to them using the word "challenge" and employ the name of a virtue, e.g. "Sir, for the sake of Honor I challenge you to speak the truth". They must respond by naming a different virtue in return, e.g. "What? As I am a good and Pious man I reject your base accusation." The winner of the challenge is whoever has the higher total of the two virtues. Ties are won by the challenger.

Making a challenge means something different for each virtue:

• Courage is using force or the threat of force. If either participant uses Courage, the challenge is a COMBAT.
• Honor is an appeal to integrity, or shaming the other person.
• Piety is an appeal to the other's charity or adherence to religious tenets.
• Wisdom is persuading someone to your view by force of reason.
• Love is an appeal to the heart for love, compassion, or mercy.

Winning a challenge requires the loser to perform a FORFEIT. The nature of the forfeit depends on which virtue the victor used in the challenge. Exception: If either participant used Courage, the victor may select a Courage forfeit.

Forfeits are affected by two overriding rules:

The five-minute rule: You may not challenge the same character nor be challenged by him twice within five minutes.

The Ten-minute rule: No forfeit, special ability effect, or any other game circumstance lasts longer than ten minutes unless the victim wants it to. If you are imprisoned, ensorcelled, restricted by an oath, shamed, or whatever, you escape or recover after ten minutes.

Virtue Forfeits.

Courage: You have the other at your mercy. You may capture, wound, kill, or flee.

Capturing someone means that they must accompany you to a place (e.g. a dungeon, a castle). If a captured person is ever left alone, they immediately escape. Again, you can always escape after 10 minutes.

Wounding someone means that he cannot initiate any challenges, and must stay away from you if possible (for 10 minutes). Some characters can remove wounds.

Killing someone removes them from play if they are a Tale character; see below.

Fleeing simply allows you to leave the area unmolested, which you must do immediately.

Note! If an unarmed character wins using Courage, he may only Flee.

Home Character Exemption: Home characters are never permanently removed from play. If you are killed while playing your home character, leave any Tale you are involved in and return to a Bard. Had you been in that story, you would have died! You may resume play but should avoid interacting with the other characters in that Tale as your home character.

Wisdom: You prevail upon the other by good sense and force of argument. You may PERSUADE the other, or MAKE A FOOL of him.

Persuading him requires him to help you in one task. You may not ask him to do something in your place.

Making a fool of him allows you to call him Fool and ridicule him. He must go to a Bard and get a FOOL badge, which notifies others that he has been made an object of fun. He must wear this for five minutes, during which time others should mock and abuse him. A fool cannot initiate challenges, but can defend himself.

Piety: You prevail upon the other with your superior devotion to God (or the Gods). You may call upon him for CHARITY, or require of him a DEVOTION.

Charity allows you to examine his boons and then make him donate one boon of your choice to you to use for a pious cause (you decide what is pious). If you do not use the boon within 5 minutes, you must give it back - no keeping charity!

Devotion requires him to perform a pious task that you designate. You may instead require him to seek out a religious person and ask them to give him a task.

Honor: You shame or impress the other with your devotion to duty and personal integrity. You may QUESTION him, or make him SWEAR AN OATH.

Questioning requires him to answer one question for you to the best of his ability.

Exception: You may never ask people in disguise who they really are.

A few wicked or clever people can lie to you even if they lose a challenge, so watch out!

Swearing requires him to make an oath which he must keep (for ten minutes). You may not make anyone swear to do anything despicable.

Love: You move the other to affection or sympathy for you. Love conquers all! You may ask for any of the forfeits available to Wisdom, Piety, or Honor. However, Love does not receive without also giving. You must designate one of the above virtues as your gift. The other may now select a forfeit (from that virtue) for you to do.

Other forfeits: Forfeits can be modified for circumstances. For instance, a Priest trying to banish a spirit could challenge it with Piety and require it to flee as the "devotion".

You decide: If all players agree, you can use challenges for any reason at all. You could use a Love challenge to decide which maiden is more beautiful, or a Wisdom challenge to win a debate, etc. "Let all my suitors speak for Love. I will choose whoever can recite the most verses in support of his cause."

Multiple Participants.

When a challenge is announced, anyone present may announce that they are helping one side or the other. They must say so immediately (within a count of three). If you have others helping you in a challenge, you get +1 to your total for each companion, for a maximum of +2. The helpers do not choose a virtue; they simply give the main participant a bonus.

Arms and Armor.

Warriors and travelers in Arthurian tales normally went about armed and armored. Thus, Knights and male Nobles are considered armed except where it would be inappropriate (at a feast, in bed, etc). Devout folk and commoners are armed only in the Wilderness, away from help. Old people, children, and Ladies are never armed. Ruthless people, magical creatures, animals and monsters are always armed, sometimes with hidden weapons. Tales and special abilities can, as with anything else, override these rules.

Attacking an unarmed person is reprehensible. An armed person with any sense of honor may not use Courage against anyone who is unarmed. And gentlefolk did not fight one another unarmed, brawling like commoners! Ruthless characters and others who do not care about honor can break his rule. Unarmed characters may not initiate a Courage challenge, although they may use Courage for defense (dodging or struggling). If they win and choose a Courage forfeit, they can only flee.

Ruthlessness: Some tale characters are Ruthless. This means that they can ignore the conventions of honor. Characters may be Ruthless because they are evil, insane, vengeful, or merely callous. Ruthless characters are different as follows:

• They may use Courage against an unarmed person. Dishonor means nothing to them.
• They may ignore all non-Courage forfeits. Why should they care?
• They may be challenged with Courage, even if they are apparently unarmed.
• Honest folk recognize them for the threat that they are.

A Ruthless character will have a badge or other marker that says so. Some tale characters may be secretly Ruthless; they cannot be treated as such until they reveal themselves (by doing something Ruthless, of course).

Beasts (animals and monsters without intelligence) are generally all Ruthless. Their badges will indicate this. There is no reasoning with brutes, after all.