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I have been a huge fan of George R. R. Martin’s world for a while now. I’ve been gaming in Westeros since Guardian of Order’s release of A Game of Thrones. When I found out that Green Ronin picked up the license, I contacted them and was able to horn my way into playtesting the game. This is a game that was designed from the ground up to do Westeros – and it shows!
In Short A Song of Ice and Fire Roleplaying (from here on SIFRP) is a wonderful game that does a very good job of capturing the gritty and dangerous feel of Westeros. The rules system is very elegant with the same core mechanic covering everything from courtly intrigues to mass combat.
The Noble House
Most of the work (it's a lot of fun though) comes at house creation. Depending on the age of your house, its location and the luck of some dice rolls you will end up with a number of points in seven different areas. Those attributes are Defense, Influence, Lands, Law, Population, Power and Wealth. For instance, you may end up with 37 points in defense. You can invest these points (a couple of those seven categories do not use investments) to help flesh out your house. A small castle requires I invest 30 defense points, a Hall or keep requires 20. A larger castle would be out of my reach at 40 points. Your land holdings are purchased using the Land points. You have to invest to have a river running through your foothills (you have to invest in the foothills, too :) ). When you are finished, you have a starting House and Domain! It’s very neat and much fun!
As for running the house, it can be very simple. Monthly, you can make House Fortune rolls (using the stewardship ability) and this could lead to increases or decreases in one or more of your resources. You might see a decline in your Population (outbreak of the bloody flux?) or a decrease in Law as banditry becomes a problem on the borders of your domain. Maybe that logging contract is beginning to pay off in your coffers!
You also perform House actions. These include managing resources (converting one to another). You could convert Power (what you would use to invest in an army) to Law to deal with those annoying bandits. You can also begin new projects. Maybe you decide a stone tower is needed on the fringes of your land to discourage future banditry. Well, make the investment (10 Defense points for a tower) and begin the project. Some of these investments may take significant time to finish (could be a few years to see the tower completed or months to lure a world-class weaponsmith or cook to your domain).
Anyway, it really can be as simple as a single die roll a month (every 3 months if you want). The rest is just investing and seeing to needs as they arise and trying to build up your House. In addition, there are six pages devoted to charts and tables for randomly creating your house’s coat of arms. It is very detailed and fun for folks who enjoy that sort of thing.
Character Creation and Stats
Character creation is done by a point buy system. Older characters have more life experience and have more points to spend on Attributes and Specialty Bonus Dice. Younger characters have more of their life ahead of them and begin with more Destiny Points than their elders. It really makes choosing your age interesting and is the one of the first major decisions you must make for your character.
Players buy Ranks in Abilities and then can buy Specialty bonus dice within those abilities. A character might have a Fighting rank of 4 and 2 bonus dice in the Short Blades specialty. Whenever he fights with a short blade, he would roll 6 dice and keep the best 4. Specialty bonus dice cannot exceed the Ability rank. In game parlance his attack would be 4D+2B (Four test dice and two bonus dice).
Destiny Points allow players the ability to get bonuses, gain a bit of narrative control or choose their own fate when defeated. Destiny points can also be invested in Benefits. These cover a wide range. There are heritage, fate, martial, ability and social qualities to choose from at the beginning. It is a good idea to hang on to a Destiny point or two to have during game play. If you invest the point, it is not available to be spent or burned during the game. Therefore, characters with no Destiny points are much more in the hands of fate (and their enemies).
Characters in the Westeros are often flawed. Drawbacks are another type of Quality. Drawbacks are flaws or hindrances your character is saddled with – like bound to the bottle or ignoble. Adult and older characters must begin with at least one drawback. Taking extra drawbacks at character creation can give you extra destiny points.
The Basics
SIFRP uses six-sided dice in a dice pool system. A character will roll a number of dice equal to his rank in the appropriate ability (with bonus dice from a specialty if it applies) and compare the total to a difficulty number. Degrees of success and failure impact how well or poorly you perform the action.
Combat
Combat is obviously a very important part of Westeros. It needs to be gritty and dangerous. SIFRP succeeds in both areas. However, with character’s ability to take injuries and wounds or use a destiny point, the player is not at the complete control of an unfortunate dice roll.
A character’s Endurance ability determines his Health and how many injuries and wounds he can take. Armor absorbs damage but also usually carries an armor penalty that reduces your Combat Defense making you easier to hit. A character’s Combat Defense is determined by his Agility, Athletics and Awareness modified by any armor penalty and defensive weapon.
Weapons (including shields) do a set amount of damage usually based off a character’s ability. Battleaxes do damage equal to the wielder’s Athletics rank. A longbow does damage equal to his Agility rank +2. Most weapons also have qualities. Qualities provide aspects to weapons that help distinguish one from another. A shield is Defensive +2, which means if you do not attack with it, you get a +2 to your combat defense. One of the qualities of a greatsword is Powerful which allows bonus dice in strength be added to the base damage. There are quite a few qualities and many weapons have more than one. A weapon’s damage is modified by degrees of success. No damage rolls here. If you roll to hit and get three degrees of success, your base damage is multiplied by three.
Actions in combat are broken into three categories – Greater, Lesser and Free. A character can perform one Greater Action or two Lesser Actions in a round. A standard attack is a Lesser Action, but only one of the allotted Lesser Actions can be an attack.
There are quite a few options and advanced rules to make combat as in depth as you like.
Most people in the world cannot take injuries and wounds to reduce damage and they reduce their Health until it reaches zero. Once at zero, you are defeated and the opponent chooses your fate. Characters and major NCs can take injuries and wounds. An injury reduces the damage take by your rank in Endurance. An injury inflicts a -1 on all tests until healed. You can take a number of injuries equal to your Endurance. A wound is much more serious, but allows you to remove all damage from a blow. A wound imposes a -1D penalty on all tests. When your wounds equal your Endurance, you die. If you still find yourself defeated and at the mercy of an unmerciful foe, you can burn (burned destiny points are permanently lost) a destiny point and choose your own fate.
Intrigue While a good sword arm has its place, a case can be made that the real power in Westeros belongs to those versed in the game of thrones – those who can use their influence to manipulate and bend others to their will.
The same basic mechanic drives the intrigue. Instead of Combat Defense, you have an Intrigue Defense. Your Intrigue Defense is determined by your Awareness, Cunning and Status. In place of Health, you have Composure. A character’s Composure is determined by his Will ability.
There are different types of Intrigues – Simple (which involve a single test), Standard (which may need several rounds of tests) and Complex (which may require several standard intrigues over time).
Instead of armor and weapons, characters have Dispositions and Techniques. Disposition is the particular outlook one participant has for the opponent. There are seven Dispositions such as Friendly, Indifferent and Dislike. Your Disposition acts as your armor. Each has a Disposition Rating (DR) that reduces the amount of Influence “damage” you take. The more animosity you have for a person the higher the DR – it is harder for someone you hate to convince you to help them than someone you love. However, choosing to be unfriendly to everyone in an intrigue has its price – it is harder for you to hide your feelings so you take a hit to your persuasion checks.
Techniques are the ways you go about trying to influence someone. You might choose to seduce, intimidate, charm, bargain, deceive or convince. There are other options as well. You would roll a Persuasion or Deception ability roll with the appropriate specialty bonus dice and compare that to the opponents Intrigue Defense. For example, a person trying to bargain with a merchant would roll Persuasion (Bargain specialty) and compare that to the merchant’s Intrigue Defense. If you beat the defense, you do Influence damage and reduce the opponents Composure by that amount. With the Bargain technique, it is equal to your Cunning rank. Degrees of success are taken into account and the final Influence (damage) is reduced by the merchant’s disposition. When someone’s Composure is reduced to zero, they are defeated. Like in combat, there are a number of options to choices to spice up the Intrigue as well as lots of room for roleplaying.
Warfare
No A Song of Ice and Fire game would be complete without rules for mass combat. The warfare rules in SIFRP follow the same core mechanic that is used in individual combat. The battle rules involve units which are composed of 100 men (or 20 knights) each. Units have ability ranks like characters. This allows PCs and units to interact with each other seamlessly.
The battle round at the warfare scale equals about 10 combat rounds. During this period, there is a time for individual characters to act independently of Units. Characters can attach themselves to units or just do the things he could normally do in a round. Each side has a number of orders dependent on the commander’s Warfare rank. Each unit has a Discipline score. The discipline score is determined by the type and experience of the unit. A commander must make a Warfare roll to overcome the discipline score for the unit to act.
Players and units can attack each other. The Mountain was able to break a line of pikemen by himself in the books. Unless you are the Mountain, it might not be wise though :) Units get some hefty bonuses when fighting individuals.
There are lots of actions and advanced rules available to those who want to explore the warfare system (even including facing and formation).
Final Take A Song of Ice and Fire does a great job of capturing the feel of Westeros. The rules system is very elegant. The same basic mechanic drives Intrigue, Combat and Warfare. The three areas that any game set in Martin’s world must excel. I highly recommend this game to anyone who enjoys the setting or who might be looking for a gritty fantasy game.
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