WFRP: what's not to like about Bretonnia: Knights of the Grail?

[Emirikol]

WFRP: what's not to like about Bretonnia: Knights of the Grail?

I've heard some people rag on it, but don't see it. I find it a great supplement. It's got great player info and new careers, good selection of new monsters, good provincial breakdown, it's in COLOR, etc.

Are people just mad because Grail Damsels as a PC career aren't in there?

jh

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

I haven't read it, but my DM explained a few things.

Apparently there are broken careers in there, "balanced" by RP restrictions. I don't recall any other complaints. Maybe it's a good setting with bad crunch; a common defect, IME.

 

[Renshai]

I think it is an excellent supplement and I ran a long term campaign there. The one problem that my players ended up having is that commoners are so restricted there compared to the Empire, that it becomes very difficult to

A) Deal with the nobles and they way they treat you
B) Deal with the fact that you can't bear arms.

Granted there are ways around that, but it was something that my players had issues with. They found ways around it, but it was difficult sometimes.

 

[frankthedm]

...good setting with bad crunch

Yeah. The B:KotG knight carreers are kinda incongruent with other WFRP careers.

 

[Skallgrim]

Also, not having played it, but owning it and having read it (as well as everything else Warhammer, I think), part of the problem is that keeping to the "feel" of Bretonnia means making some types of game play difficult.

In the Empire, while there is wealth and power as well as poverty and servitude, the classes are normally expected to mix to some extent. There is some social mobility, both upward and downward, and relatively little distinction physically or mentally between social classes.

In Bretonnia, the peasants are generally so poverty-stricken, malnourished, uneducated, and deprived of rights that they almost exist in a separate realm from the nobility. The more you play that up, the more it feel like Bretonnia, but the more it constricts the player's choices of careers. The less you play it up, the more freedom and creativity the players experience, but you run the risk of making Bretonnia seem like "the Empire with more horses and less guns".

This is a simplification, but I feel it captures the problem:

"In the Empire, the nobles act superior. In Bretonnia, they ARE superior."

 

[Donovan Morningfire]

I think the biggest gripe some folks have is the Knightly Virtue system, some of which can be quite potent, especially for a character that's not using magic. The Grail Virtues can be really freaking powerful from the looks of it, but seeing as how my Bretonnian Knight (almost done with my Knight of the Realm career) is going to need another 3000 or so XP to even get to Grail Knight (getting through Questing Knight), which itself is only attainable as a 4th career and pretty much only with GM permission, they probably won't see play that often.

As for imbalance of the Bretonnian careers, maybe it's just my limited experience with the system, but all the careers have that issue to some extent or another. I'd hardly think a Protagonist or Roadwarden or Noble is really all that balanced against a Camp Follower, a Servant, or a Rat Catcher, and those are just starting careers and all in the core book. Heck, I've seen a lot of complaints over on the old Black Industries forums and other WFRP forums about the Champion, which can be entered as early as your 3rd career if you make the right choices.

The setting can be a bit rough I suppose, especially if by virtue of random career selection you wind up with a bunch of commoners and nobleborns, which given the rather strict class/caste system in Bretonnia vs. the much looser guidelines in the Empire could be tough to justify or plan adventures for.

Personally, I like the book, as it provides a lot of neat background on Bretonnians, and I've long been a fan of Arthurian lore. It's also a nice contrast from the Empire, both the good and the bad.

 

[frankthedm]

Found some more info.

WFRP First Edition

The first edition of WFRP, released in 1986, supported the original darker vision of Bretonnia, with setting notes describing the country as just as vicious and corrupt as the Empire, if not more so. The nobility was depicted as immoral, cruel, and self-interested, and politics was rife with corruption and backstabbing. This version was soon contradicted by the Warhammer Fantasy Battles army books, but remained popular with WFRP fans who mostly continued to use the older setting.

WFRP Second Edition

The second edition, released in 2005, brought WFRP's Bretonnia closer to the chivalric WFB version, with brief setting notes mentioning Bretonnia's virtuous knights, disdain for modern weapons, and the cult of the Lady of the Lake. The most recent source of background material regarding the kingdom is Knights of the Grail: A Guide to Bretonnia in which each prior edition of Bretonnia has been used as a guide, more thoroughly than the manner typical of a Warhammer army book.

 

[Olive]

A big part of the complaints I've heard made about it are that it uses the WFB 'Arthurian' Knights and Damsels Bretonnia rather than the 1e WFRP Bretonnia which was more Renaissance France. This one is really not about the book as such, but rather about the direction that GW took the setting.

I ran a ongoing Bretonnia game last year which was good fun. I decided that (in anti-Warhammer style) one PC should be a knight and the others should roll randomly - we then fit the other PCs around the knightly one which gave good coherence to the party and got around various cultural restrictions about interactions between peasants and nobles and the like. It was good fun! Then my second son was born so we stopped it.

 

[YourSwordIsMine]

I think another problem was the strict cultural restrictions on female players. For any woman to be an adventurer they pretty much had to dress and act as men to be accepted or not be thrown in prison... Not having a Damsel career I think really hurt this as well which would have elevated playing a woman into the realm of possibily.

 

[pawsplay]

As for imbalance of the Bretonnian careers, maybe it's just my limited experience with the system, but all the careers have that issue to some extent or another. I'd hardly think a Protagonist or Roadwarden or Noble is really all that balanced against a Camp Follower, a Servant, or a Rat Catcher, and those are just starting careers and all in the core book.

True. Virtually anything with Resistance with Disease is pretty highly advantaged against anything without.