2020 Day 25 - A Song of Ice and Fire RPG
I don't know why I chose this one for Christmas Day. I don't think there's anything remotely seasonal about it!
Aka the Game of Thrones rpg. You know the world, Westeros. Honestly the basic system here is so normal it’s barely worth mentioning. Roll dice equal to your skill, try to hit the target number. You would have thought such an iconic IP would have merited something more dramatic. Ah well.
However it does have quite a good system of building up your (shared) house and lands. There are seven stats, randomly generated with bonuses/penalties depending where in Westeros it lies, modified by a bit by player choice and past events. And then during the game you invest those resources and hope you come out net winners. Adventuring can also generate glory and wealth which can be converted into improvements.
So let’s create our House first. Because this is my Christmas Day post (late, because of food and family) I want to have a house which specialises in throwing parties. That means either The Riverlands (weakness: terrible defence) or The Reach (has criminals and maybe other attacks). I choose the latter.
Further random rolling indicates that the house was created during the War of the Usurper, with madness being a key factor (which further randomly adjusts the stats). My knowledge of the world is largely second hand (I have watched the series since, and sort-of regretted sticking with it to be honest) but my reading suggests Aerys II wouldn’t have made a donkey a king, but he might have “needed” to get rid of a chamberlain at some point; and with the intervention of Tywin Lannister, that chamberlain was actually granted lands and some minor wealth. The current lord might be the original or an heir, depending on the other players. I am not playing a member of the family.
I end up with:
Defence 18, Influence 31, Lands 24, Law 17, Population 32, Power 27, Wealth 28
(Each PC can increase one stat by a little which would give slightly better options than below.)
This gives us a single Tower; a male heir or a couple of daughters (and a maximum status of 4 for the lord); terrain of Plains with a single hamlet and either a road or river; -5 on house fortune rolls (law), +3 on house fortune rolls (population); quite a lot of troops which I won’t flesh out. Finally the only eligible wealth holding is a Maester (an educated elite), but that gives another +3 on House Fortune roles and has plenty of other benefits. It could be a PC. (Depending on the ST, it might be possible to get a Septa (priest) as well).
A few more details:
- House Gurney
- Motto: Servants of the people
- Coat of arms: Yellow gem on a green field.
This is a minor household and the lord has a status that really doesn’t equal his resources, but helped by the wealth of the land. I would probably suggest this indicates the recent death of the original lord with time with the heir recently installed and ambitious to improve his fortunes.
Anhoc is essentially a party planner for the house. I mean the good kind of party, not the kind with swords. All PCs are members of a noble household, but not necessarily blood-related.
- Age: Adult
- Status: 3
- Role: Expert
Background event: Some 10 years ago, Anhoc was just one of many working for the previous banquet host when the host became ill unexpectedly. It was probably some sort of mild poison designed to make the lord appear weak, but it didn’t work because Anhoc took over and created a roaring success. Ever since he has been living in the shadow of that event, but that’s ok because he really does just like dreaming up the most spectacular events.
- Goals: Fame
- Motivations: Excellence
- Virtues: Charitable (he always makes sure there are enough left-overs for the poor, “to keep the people happy”.
- Vice: Foolish (he understands how politics works on a macro level but is just unable to see how it might possibly affect him personally)
(None of the above seem to have rules mechanics apart from age and rank)
Some skills etc:
- Agility 3
- Animal Handling 3 (Ride B1)
- Awareness 3 (Notice B2)
- Cunning 4 (Memory B1)
- Knowledge 3
- Language 5
- Persuasion 5 (Charm B2)
- Status 3 - (Tournaments B1)
- Warfare 1
- Will 3
Some other stats:
- Destiny 4
- Intrigue Defence = 10
- Composure - 0
- Combat Defence = 7+any weapon bonus
- Health = 6
- Qualities: Cadre, Courteous, Famous
A Song of Ice and Fire appears to be out of print (even the PDF), but now links to Sword Chronicle RPG (which is presumably then similar but without the IP).