Fans of Arthurian Mythology – a vast body of literature ranging from chivalric romances to modern blockbuster movies – who are also keen on roleplaying games should definitively check out the following tabletop RPGs. Ranging from classic fantasy games like Pendragon to sci-fi reinterpretations like Camelot Trigger, these RPGs, besides being fun to play, each have unique rules, setting details, and storytelling tips players can use to put their own spin on the legends of King Arthur.
Do the tales of King Arthur and his knights have any basis in historical fact? If they did exist, was their reign in the court of Camelot as just and prosperous as the stories say? Most historians these days are skeptical about the purported existence of King Arthur, particularly since the first early medieval historical volumes to document his reign are demonstrably inaccurate in certain places. If King Arthur did exist in some form, he likely would have been one of the Romano-British kings who rose to prominence after the withdrawal of the Roman Empire, organizing resistance against rival warlords and invading Anglo-Saxon cultures. Just as Arthurian Mythos acquired new heroic and villainous characters over the years, so too might King Arthur be an amalgamation of all the "good kings" in Dark Age Britain, struggling to bring peace to a violent world.
Each of the following Arthurian tabletop RPGs specializes in specific forms of RPG gameplay – not just in the "simulation vs. narrative" sense, but also in of what kind of King Arthur story players and Game Masters want to tell. Do they want to embrace the tales of chivalry, courtly love, fairy magic, and historical anachronisms seen in medieval romance? Do they want to tell a "Real King Arthur" story set in a world closer in form to Dark Ages Britain? Do they want to re-imagine Arthurian myth, or transplant the stories of the mythos to a different time or place? Any of these options can be viable, depending on the system picked.
Arthurian Tabletop RPGs: Pendragon RPG
Published by CPendragon video game's version of the round table). Players take on the roles of knights who the court of King Arthur, venturing forth on magical quests and upholding chivalrous virtues with mechanical effects on dice rolls and story developments. The unabashedly anachronistic timeline of a Pendragon game plays out like a compressed version of British history, starting in a Dark Ages Britain facing Anglo-Saxon invaders, then ending in a late-medieval setting with knights in shining plate armor, tournaments, and troubadours galore.
Arthurian Tabletop RPGs: Fate Worlds - Camelot Trigger
Camelot Trigger, one of the campaign settings in Fate Worlds supplement published by science fiction mecha genre. In this game, Arthur and his knights are an elite force of mecha pilots fighting across the far-future solar system against the minions of a malevolent AI called "MerGN-A" (a robotic version of "Morgana" the enchantress). Using the Fate Core system, players of Camelot Trigger use Aspect mechanics to describe the backgrounds of their characters, then create another set of Aspects to describe the weapons, gear, and systems mounted on the heads, arms, torso, and legs of their knight-shaped, stompy giant robots.
Arthurian Tabletop RPGs: Age Of Arthur
Age of Arthur, published by peace and togetherness to their communities.
Arthurian Tabletop RPGs: Chronicles Of Darkness Dark Eras 2 - Arthur's Britannia
The Chronicles Of Darkness games made by monster-rich Chronicles of Darkness setting, Arthur's Britannia, takes place during the height and fall of King Arthur's resign, focusing on Camelot's strained relationship with changeling refugee courts from the realms of Arcadia, shadow conflicts between Roman and old Celtic strains of vampires, and the intrusion of Anglo-Saxon monster hunters inspired by the saga of Beowulf.
Arthurian Tabletop RPGs: Apocalypse World 2nd Edition - Fallen Empires
The primary setting of Apocalypse World, as the title suggests, is a ruined wasteland filled with Gunluggers, Battle-Babes, Drivers, and Choppers struggling to survive amid the wreckage of old civilizations and a psychic maelstrom that tears the minds of those who tap into it. While working on the 2nd Edition of Apocalypse World, game designer D. Vincent Baker created a wasteland a-la Mad Max or Fallout, Fallen Empires takes place in a savage Dark Age triggered by the collapse of a massive empire and the death of their pantheons of gods. With a few small changes to the Moves and Playbooks of Apocalypse World (renaming "Gunlugger" to "Swordmaster," adding new Moves for fighting on horseback, re-flavoring psychic powers to be more magical, etc.) D. Vincent Baker created a system surprisingly suitable for running RPG campaigns with a grittier take on the King Arthur mythos – a savage age where warlords, warriors, and mystics fight to build a new order from the ashes of the old.
Sources: Wordplay Games, Chaosium Inc., Evil Hat Productions, Onyx Path Publishing, Apocalypse World 2nd Edition – Fallen Empires,