One of the more popular television series lately is Game of Thrones, which is based off of George R. R. Martin’s novel series A Song of Ice and Fire. After seeing several episodes of the HBO series, I had to pick up the novels and look to see if they made a roleplaying game. And to my delight, I found that they did!
A Song of Ice and Fire Roleplaying: A Game of Thrones Edition (SIFRP) published by Green Ronin may very well be my favorite fantasy RPG. I know they say you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover. But, be that as it may, we gamers often do. It’s the cover of a game that often captures our imagination and says, “I want to be there!” And we know, being there in character and making a beautiful story is what roleplaying is often about. Well, the cover of this game captures the essence of being there – a moment in battle between Robert Baratheon and Rhaegar Targaryen. It so says, “Play me and you shall smash your foes relentlessly!” Like the cover, the interior art of the book captures the imagination and most of it is stunning.
As for SIFRP setting, it roughly covers the basics of Westeros history and culture. Although the book may not cover extensively all the events and history of Westeros, it covers enough to plant ideas for the GM (called a Narrator in the game) and leaves the game open-ended enough for the Narrator and players to feel free to deviate from canon. Thus players or GMs do not need to be familiar with any of Martin’s works; the game covers all that is necessary to play.
Character creation in the game is a bit different from most RPGs. Before making player characters, players work together to create their family’s house, which involves choices and dice rolls to create the attributes for the House’s resources. As you can imagine my group chose the North. They could have chosen anywhere in Westeros, but decided they wanted to freeze. Dorne might have been a nice sunny place; heck, the people there are a little less uptight. I don’t know about you, but when it comes to players’ choices, I’m thinking the North might be over-populated in the near future. But I digress. After all, the customer (I mean the player) is always right.
Character Creation
As I was saying, character creation in SIFRP is a little different; however, not everyone has to be blood related. For example, one player might be a noble of the House of Doe and another might be the Doe family’s maester, bard, or any other servant. The options are numerous, and the PCs being part of the house, in one form or another, creates a united incentive for players to work together to improve on their house’s lands and strength. Be that as it may, that doesn’t mean players can’t backstab each other. If one doesn’t want to create a house, it isn’t necessary. If you want you can use the one that the book already has ready for you. Or if you want, you can deviate from being part of a house and just make characters part of separate houses. But I encourage you to try this approach; it does an excellent job of capturing the essence of A Song of Ice and Fire and is a boon for campaign creation.
But, what about the character creation process?
Creating a character is pretty straight forward. After creating or choosing a house, players either choose their age or roll it randomly. Your character’s age will determine the amount of Experience and Destiny Points they have. The older a character is the more Experience he or she has for building the character, but he or she also has less Destiny Points–it is assumed he or she has used them up over the course of their life. Furthermore, Destiny Points are kind of like hero points in that they can be used to escape danger and save the character’s life. Another cool aspect about Destiny Points is they can provide your character with special benefits that improve your character in different skills or other special abilities–interested in becoming a warg?
The character attributes in the game are: Agility, Animal Handling, Athletics, Awareness, Cunning, Deception, Endurance, Fighting, Healing, and Language. Each rank a player puts into an attribute represents an extra d6 for your character die pool during a Test roll. After using experience to determine your character’s ten attributes, players can choose specialties that give them a bonus when using an attribute, such as short blades for the fighting attribute. Players can further round out their character by purchasing benefits and choosing flaws and drawbacks for their character.
Game Mechanics
Test rolls are resolved by using attributes and any modifier gained. A typical “higher the roll the better” method is applied here. The system is sound. Beyond combat and other Tests, I find rules for Intrigue the most interesting–no pun intended. It takes conversation in the game and turns it into a dance-off between sides–who will influence who and how. The end result is beautiful and captures the feel of the Game of Thrones.
A Song of Ice and Fire is not a perfect RPG game. It is not without its flaws. The rules can be a bit tricky to learn at first and it has several typos. Yet there is an errata and a beautiful Narrator Screen to make life easier.
If you’re interested in the game, I suggest looking at the free demo they have here: http://freeronin.com/gr_files/SiF_Fastplay.pdf
Or heck, just go out and buy it; you won’t be disappointed. It’s a beautiful book and game!
Adam Lee
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