by Hunter Bush

With assistance from Allison Yakulis and Krystal T. L. Brackett

Earlier this year, which seems… SO long ago, A24 - production company behind such recent flicks as Uncut Gems, Midsommar, and The Lighthouse - dropped an impressive looking trailer for a new film from David Lowery, director of both well-respected indies - Ain’t Them Bodies Saints (2013) and A Ghost Story (2017) - and wider release adaptations - The Old Man and the Gun (2018) and the Pete’s Dragon remake (2016). This flick looked to combine Lowery’s independent leanings with his penchant for adaptations, and do so with a healthy dose of the kind of eye-catching visuals that have become synonymous with A24’s output. That film was The Green Knight.

An adaptation of the poem-cum-fable of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, it tells the story of one of King Arthur’s Knights of the Round Table (also his nephew, and considered one of the greatest of the Knights) on a quest to repay a wager. A year before the events of the story, a Green Knight carrying an ax had challenged anyone to strike him once with the ax so long as they agreed to let him deliver to them the same strike one year later. Gawain acquiesced and beheaded the knight, who promptly stood, took his head, reminded Gawain of his promise and left. In the “present” of the story, Gawain sets off to find the Knight’s Green Chapel and uphold his end of the bargain. It’s said that Gawain had many adventures along the way, but in the oldest version of the story they aren’t detailed until he reaches a castle and makes (you guessed it) another bargain that tests his honesty. In the tale, Gawain does eventually face the Green Knight and is proved to be brave and (mostly) honorable. A man of his word.

The trailer touches on these concepts and themes (the word “honor” is given important distinction) as well as delivering some truly incredible visuals! They reminded me a lot of Alejandro Jodorowsky, but stripped of a lot of the extra elements Jodo crams into a frame; more about creating one single clear and striking image than a whole tableau drenched in symbolism.

If the trailer slipped under your radar, don’t feel bad. The film wasn’t due for a full premier until late May after a stop at South by Southwest in March. But of course, that didn’t happen. Presumably a longer trailer would have rolled out at some point after SXSW and played in greater frequency as we approached the country-wide release. I happen to write a column about these types of things, so I had bookmarked the flick for attention in a future column. I was also (spoilers for that selfsame future column) REALLY excited for it! So when A24 announced they would be releasing a tabletop role playing game (tabletop RPG or TTRPG) that tied into the film, I preordered it with much haste!

I grew up absolutely fascinated with mythology, fables, pantheons of foreign gods and creatures inhabiting a shared tapestry of stories. Somewhere along the line, I was introduced to Dungeons & Dragons and the concept of RPGs in general - that you could play as almost anything you could imagine (*), in almost any way you could imagine (*). For a kid with an overactive imagination and a love of worldbuilding (which persists), this kind of open-ended world and scope was incredible! It’s something that, early in quarantine, my roommates and I discussed getting back into with our newly reinstated free time and with A24’s Green Knight game we finally did!

Briefly, for anyone not familiar with RPGs, this is how they work: One person, called the Game Master (or GM), runs everything and plays all the parts except those being performed by the other players (who stick to one at a time). The GM explains situations, settings, back story and lays out potential options. The other players each create a character - choosing their look, their skills and their personality - and then they endeavor to play the game as that character. That’s what puts the “Role Playing” in Role Playing Game. Beyond your imagination, all you really need to play an RPG is a pen & paper - to write down your character details and take notes - and some dice. When presented with an opportunity, players state what they would like to do (*) and then they roll some dice to see if they are successful.

(*) Within reason. There are still guidelines and rules, there just aren’t as many as in most traditional games. You cannot, for instance, decide that your character can fly for no reason just because it would benefit you to do so.

The Green Knight: A Quest For Honor Starter Kit comes with an instruction/story booklet, five blank character sheets (one each for a Bard, Hunter, Knight, Noble and Sorcerer - I recommend photocopying them), a map, and a 20-sided die. The game mechanics might sound a bit overwhelming at first, but they play very intuitively for the most part. Everything is about Honor: your only point system is a sliding scale of Dishonor Points - from 0 to 20 - everyone starts in the middle and actions either gain or lose you Dishonor. The less you have, the better, kinda like golf. When a player chooses an action they’d like to perform in a scenario, the GM decides if it is Honorable or Dishonorable and depending on which it is the player has to roll either higher or lower than their current Dishonor Points score. Like I said, it might sound confusing but once you play it, it makes perfect sense.

The booklet guides everyone through an introductory scene, three Encounters and a final one with the Green Knight himself. Each chapter is 2 - 3 pages long and covers a single Encounter, providing the GM with introductory and expository paragraphs which can be either read verbatim or expanded upon, as well as a rough flow of events (“If outcome A happens, THIS is the result. If outcome B happens, the result is THIS instead.” Etc.) Since I presume that the Encounters follow roughly the plot of the film, I will abstain from revealing too much about them aside from saying that they range from the mundane, to the mystical, to the downright supernatural. The final confrontation with the Green Knight is given appropriate importance and feels challenging without seeming impossible. Once defeated (or not), and depending on how well the characters did, there are a few different potential endings. In our play-through, the ending the characters earned wasn’t an out-and-out “Happy Ending” but it felt intriguing and we genuinely wished there was more to play.

I ran the game as the GM. My two players were Allison as Sir Guy McMahon, a valiant but horny Knight described as looking like “a taller Tom Savini”, and Krystal as Albion Purslane, a Sorcerer hermit with a long white beard and a penchant for gathering herbs.

As part of filling out their character sheets, they were required to choose some Abilities, each of which comes with associated Skills. For example, if you choose Intellect as an ability, you get bonuses when rolling for things involving the skills Folklore, Mysticism and Reason - essentially approaching situations with your brains rather than your brawn. As with understanding the Honor/Dishonor mechanic, this might sound confusing to first-time players but you’ll pick it up pretty quickly. This was Krystal’s first time playing anything like this and not only did she have fun, she did great! During the first encounter, Albion’s Enchantment ability helped end a confrontation quickly and without bloodshed.

Players also have to choose one Virtue and one Vice that inform their character’s personality but also allow players to reroll in certain situations. In the second Encounter, Sir Guy leaned into his Lust (his vice) in order to seduce their way out of an altercation and after some creative rolling on my part (if I do say so myself and I do) it was determined that while the other party may not have enjoyed themselves as thoroughly as Sir Guy, they were no longer interested in being a nuisance to the characters’ party.

For the third Encounter, Albion’s knowledge of folklore and legend worked alongside Sir Guy’s derring do to solve a curse! Teamwork, baby! They even had to vanquish some honest-to-goodness foes which they did quite handily! Thus, they had reached the woods of the Green Knight. In just a few short paragraphs, the author/s (who go uncredited) managed to evoke the aura of awe in describing the Green Chapel. As they approached the altercation with the Green Knight that would determine their ultimate fate, the party were ...cautiously optimistic. For heaven’s sake, Sir Guy had fucked their way out of danger once already! That probably wasn’t going to work a second time, but clearly they were rolling under an auspicious sign. I won’t go into detail for obvious reasons, but their last rumble with the Green Knight was actually fabulously cinematic! Needless to say, a good time was had by all.

“I’ve played D&D before and I thought this was a really intriguing story that kept my enthusiasm for the movie pretty high (I really liked the trailer). I think it’s a clever tie-in and I wish more movies did this.”

Allison Yakulis (Sir Guy McMahon)
Experienced RPG player

“I really liked how (choosing Abilities, Virtues and Vices) let me get into my character’s head. I hadn’t heard of the movie and I’ve never played a game like this but playing this one has me very excited for both!”

Krystal T.L. Brackett
First-time RPG player

I would imagine that A24 put this tie-in into motion a long time ago, long before quarantine, never expecting that the film would be delayed indefinitely (honestly who could have foreseen this?) As a result of that, there are some things that didn’t entirely make sense to us. For example, the character sheets include three questions about your character’s meeting with the Green Knight - including where it took place and what you’ve done in the year since - which I presume will make more sense having seen the movie as reference. It didn’t hinder our enjoyment any, but it could definitely be confusing for first-timers.

Still, I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend A24’s The Green Knight: A Quest For Honor no matter what your skill level. The booklet is laid out clearly and provides plenty of flavor text (the descriptive paragraphs that set the scene) for a novice Game Master to read to the players and the open-ended, character-centric gameplay provides plenty for players to latch on to. My only caveat is that this might not offer a lot of replay value. In the third Encounter, for instance, you’re given a choice between two magical-seeming artifacts and likewise two points of view on what should be done with them. Obviously, once players have gone through this scenario once, they’ll have a good idea of what is likely to happen should they choose differently in a future play-through. If your GM is feeling confident enough, I’d recommend slightly changing details of the artifacts and backstory to confuse which are the “good” outcomes and thus keep your players on their toes. Similarly, the back page of the book gives three single-paragraph descriptions of adventures a GM could take their players on, all based on other A24 films! It’s very cute as a bit of an Easter Egg, but I’m not ashamed to say I would absolutely buy subsequent booklets in this series, were that a thing that happened.

Hit me up, A24!

You can pre-order The Green Knight: A Quest For Honor here, at the A24 shop.

The Green Knight, starring Dev Patel, Alicia Vikander, Joel Edgerton and Ralph Ineson among others, will be released at some point.