The Gaming Den

I just picked it up, mainly for the great cover art of Robert Baratheon vs Rhaegar Targaryen on the cover, and I currently have no opinion of it. However, in the Berserk thread someone mentioned that it was badly edited / balanced. What exactly are the problems here?

It would be nice to know if it does anything right too.

I actually like it, and think it does a fair job of low- or non-magic fantasy, as long as you don't mind a fair bit of MTP and houseruling.

Problem Areas:

--Basic Resolution mechanics. Okay, I actually like them, in general...I particularly like the fact that they give you a probability table in the back, to help you assess how easy it is to perform certain tasks at a certain ability level. Unfortunately the table doesn't account for specialties, but you can calculate those in without much trouble.

The problem is that the way they present it doesn't match up well with reality. It is trivially easy to make a starting character who is flat-out awesome at his chosen schtick (including combat), and you don't even have to sacrifice much for it. The example characters they give you are pathetic; seriously, you should not wipe your ass with these characters, they are that badly built.

Solution: ignore the sample characters, or pretty much any pre-statted NPC. Give your NPCs the stats they need to fit the role you intend for them...if you need somebody capable of being a threat to the party knight, make sure his combat stats are comparable...don't follow any rules, just assign him some scores. Being able to get a gauge of what stats (or DCs, for that matter) make for decent challenges takes a little getting used to.

--Character building/advancement. The way things are currently set up are pretty asstastic...you're pretty much strongly incentivized to specialize heavily, and things you don't want to do cost just as much as things you DO want to do, so you can literally build a combat monster by neglecting shit like healing and pickpocketing. They don't bother to address this; it's pretty much the Champions answer, which is "sure, you can break it if you want...why do you want to?".

Solution: I introduced scaling costs, which incentivize spreading your build points around rather than specializing. It also depends upon your method of play...the more you encourage people to be flexible and not simply be a one-trick pony, the better things will play.

That said, there simply are some stats that are more important than others. If you intend to kill people, you will want decent Athletics and Fighting. If you intend to survive, you will want a decent Endurance. If you intend to argue with people or be a diplomancer, you will want good Persuasion. Having good Awareness is pretty useful for just about everybody (I think Awareness: Notice checks were the most common check in the games I've played).

And there are some stats that simply aren't important if you don't care. It's hard to make stuff like (for instance) Cunning, Healing, or Warfare important to people who have no interest in doing those things (which are often niche things).

--Combat. The base combat rules kind of blow, especially the way armor interfaces with the rules for hitting and damage. Basically, armor functions as DR...but it also makes you easier to hit, and the better your hit is the more damage you do (it's multiplicative). So depending, armor can actually make you take MORE damage by making it easier for people to score heavy hits on you. On the other hand, armor can make you completely invulnerable to some people, if they can't get a high enough damage rating. The rules for unarmed combat are pretty much nonfunctional.

Solution: you pretty much have to start over here. I have what I feel is a pretty decent set of houserules, which modify everything from armor values to damage calcs to movement to action economy. I'll share if you're interested; I've posted them before on the Green Ronin boards (which I recommed you check...some of the problems have been hashed out extensively, in some cases with math).

Particularly, I feel you need to be willing to play combat a little "fast and loose", and fudge some unimportant parts...for instance, I very seldom roll the blow-by-blow of NPC fights...in most cases, I just have whoever I feel should win, win. If you like using minis and counting movement by yards, I think combat will drag.

--Qualities. Kinda like feats, and pretty much have the same drawback as feats...some are shitty, and some are awesome. And some are just pointless.

Solution: houserule like a motherfucker, or just ignore them. Keep in mind that the cost of a quality (50 XP) is almost enough to raise a base ability TWO FULL RANKS. So it needs to be worth that (unless you're using scaling XP costs for advancement, which I suggest).

--The art. While the cover is good, and there are SOME decent pieces, a lot of the interior art looks like shit.

Solution: ignore it, if you can.

Good Stuff:

--The social combat mechanics. They mirror the combat mechanics, but more abstract, so with less fiddly parts. This makes them run smoother...in general, I really like them. But I will admit my campaign does not focus heavily on diplomacy, so I may simply not have seen how badly it can be gamed. Take my words with several teaspoons of salt, but take a look at the rules.

--The house building and management rules. I found these fun and interesting as well. I do recommend changing the random chart to put the more extreme situations at the edges, rather than clustered in the middle (since it uses a bell curve die roll).

--The weapon rules. Even though I houseruled, I like the base premise, which is that the primary difference in weapons is the different traits they have...the fact that Daggers have the "Fast" trait, while Spears have the "Reach" trait, and other weapons are "Powerful", "Shattering", "Vicious", etc.

--The damage soaking/defeat rules. Okay, you have HP...but you can mitigate HP damage (which is easily recovered between scenes) by taking Injuries or Wounds (which stick with you longer)...so it's often a real choice as to whether or not you can afford to (or afford not to) take an injury or wound. Keep in mind, there is no healing magic (though a good skill check can get you back in action pretty quickly).

Also, when you run out of HP, you are "defeated"...that doesn't mean dead. It's up to the victor what happens to you...dead, unconscious, maimed, taken prisoner, whatever. The only exception is that "Vicious" weapons always kill you (this is a disadvantage, since it removes the attacker's choice).

--The chase rules. Mainly, the fact that it has any. I houseruled them, but not heavily.

--The setting. But if you've read SoIaF, you already know the setting's awesome. I actually strongly recommend AGAINST getting the world guide...there's nothing there you can't get from the internet or just re-reading the books a lot, and some of it is complete bullshit. The NPC stats for famous book characters are absolutely worthless (as are just about any NPC stats you'll find in the game).

If anybody else noticed anything, I'm willing to discuss. Again, the bulletin boards on Green Ronin are worth a look...there's a lot of retards there, but also some stuff worth looking at.

there's nothing there you can't get from the internet or just re-reading the books a lot, and some of it is complete bullshit.

What in that book - what piece of background info - would be complete shit?

Of course, since GRRM decided to follow suit when DNF revived, it may all be seriously dated anyway.

The NPC stats for famous book characters are absolutely worthless

Well, some of these probably fall well outside the rules ... or are there rules for playing dwarfs or giant-growth characters, eunuchs (play an unsullied, they're the Space Marines of fantasy), 10 year old girls, fishmen (they apparently appear in Dance) or cthulhu cult vikings? Are stats für White Walkers given, and spiders, and yetis? What about dragons?

I was the person who made the comment in the other thread, and PoliteNewb's post more or less sums up my opinion on the SIFRPG. There's an interesting system in there, but it's trivially easy to break and a lot of the subsystems are pretty screwy.

Also, typos and editing mistakes are fucking everywhere in my book. Hopefully that's been dealt with in subsequent printings.

The game also has some serious thematic problems. For instance, being a knight gives a character an ability that allows him to 'draw strength from commitment to the knightly virtues,' which lets him 'Once per day, as a Free Action, increase both Defenses and all passive ability results by +5 for 1 round.'

There is no mention of whether actually behaving in accord with the knightly virtues is at all related to this ability. Which isn't surprising, since nowhere is it described even in passing what the virtues of knighthood might actually be. And most knights in the setting consider the virtues of knighthood to be a quaint romanticism anyway. Being a knight is a once per day defensive boost that ignores its own flavor text. WTF.

If the game were not slathered in the quotes and iconography of Westeros, no-one would ever look at it twice. I would seriously use The Riddle of Steel (with all its problems) for Westeros before I used the official game.

hermit wrote:

there's nothing there you can't get from the internet or just re-reading the books a lot, and some of it is complete bullshit.

What in that book - what piece of background info - would be complete shit?

Y'know, I went off half-cocked there, so I'm just going to completely retract that statement. Mea Culpa.
I still hold that it's mostly a waste of money, as it has nothing that isn't duplicated elsewhere.

Hermit wrote:

The NPC stats for famous book characters are absolutely worthless

Well, some of these probably fall well outside the rules ... or are there rules for playing dwarfs or giant-growth characters, eunuchs (play an unsullied, they're the Space Marines of fantasy), 10 year old girls, fishmen (they apparently appear in Dance) or cthulhu cult vikings? Are stats für White Walkers given, and spiders, and yetis? What about dragons?

Surprisingly enough, there are rules for most of that...not necessarily good rules, but they're there.

--Dwarfs? Sure, it's a listed drawback.
--Eunuchs? Same.
--Giant dudes? Take the "Massive" quality (which is an example of an extremely unbalanced quality, btw)
--10 year old girl? The character creation rules are explicitly intended for playing characters of all ages...hell, you can make 6-year old Rickon if you want. You will be, in general, worse than an adult character, but you can totally do it.
--Cthulu Cult Vikings? Um...are you talking about the Ironborn? What rules do you need?
--No Fishmen (yet).

There are stats for White Walkers, though not for any of the others.

But all of that is beside the point. There are a lot of characters in SoIaF, and most of them are perfectly capable of being accurately represented by the rules...but they simply don't do that.

For example...you can make a nice list of the best swordsmen/fighters in the 7 Kingdoms, I assume. How would they be represented?

Jaime Lannister? 5 Fighting, +3B swords. That seems fairly reasonable.
Barristan Selmy? 5 Fighting, +2B swords...slightly worse than Jaime. Okay...
Brienne of Tarth (who fought Jaime to a standstill)? 4 Fighting, +2B swords. Huh?
Oberyn Martell (recognized deadly, totally outclassed the Mountain)? 4 Fighting, +2B spears. Huh?
Allar Deem (minor character who never even appeared in person)? 5 Fighting, +2B swords. WTF?
Not to mention...you can make a swordsman as good as Jaime Lannister (hell, better) as a starting character. It's not even hard.

How about strong folks? Robert Baratheon has 5 Athletics, +4B strength. Well, that makes sense, right? But the Mountain has only 4 Athletics, +2B Strength. And Brienne of Tarth has 5 Athletics, +2B strength. Who writes this shit?

It's as if they had different people make different characters, and did no comparisons whatsoever.

Re: Angel...I'm not super-familiar with TROS, but it's probably just trading some problems for other problems. But I don't consider SIFRP to be unsalvageable.

Jaime Lannister? 5 Fighting, +3B swords. That seems fairly reasonable.
Barristan Selmy? 5 Fighting, +2B swords...slightly worse than Jaime. Okay...

Well, yes. Selmy is the guy Jaime wanted to be when he grew up. He's a master swordsman himself, so makes sense.

Brienne of Tarth (who fought Jaime to a standstill)? 4 Fighting, +2B swords. Huh?
Oberyn Martell (recognized deadly, totally outclassed the Mountain)? 4 Fighting, +2B spears. Huh?

Brienne maybe, but Martell is every bit as good as Jaime. And ought to be damn fast.

Allar Deem (minor character who never even appeared in person)? 5 Fighting, +2B swords. WTF?

Who? That's too apocryphal for me. Who is this?

How about strong folks? Robert Baratheon has 5 Athletics, +4B strength. Well, that makes sense, right? But the Mountain has only 4 Athletics, +2B Strength. And Brienne of Tarth has 5 Athletics, +2B strength. Who writes this shit?

I agree, this is shit. Brienne and Gregor share the "huge, fugly and strong" trait, but ser Gregor still is Ser mothafucken Gregor, mr. "Bugger me with a spear, haha!" I mean, that guy is a damn Khorne Chosen in all but name and corny horns. Brienne, while tough and decent with swords, is Jaime's equal, maybe, not such a force of nature.

and Robert, while being a man-bear with a warhammer from hell in his heyday, is not Gregor Clegane in any way. Clegane is stronger than anyone. That's his hat in the novels.

--Giant dudes? Take the "Massive" quality (which is an example of an extremely unbalanced quality, btw)

Ser Gregor is unbalanced in more than one way!

--Cthulu Cult Vikings? Um...are you talking about the Ironborn? What rules do you need?

Their drowning magic. Though GRRM himself stated he hates RPG magic because it's too predictable, sorted, understandable and scientific.

Same for Melisandre. Also, what about fire god zombies, and undead? Pretty certain Melisandre is one. And what for 'sacrifice the baby and your womb/win 3 dragons' Dorthraki-ish blood magic?

Do Dorthraki have a knowledge skill called "It is known", that covers their superstition?

There is no mention of whether actually behaving in accord with the knightly virtues is at all related to this ability.

Which knight ever behaves ideally in Westeros? I assume not. It is Westeros after all.

Thanks for that review PoliteNewb, as a big SOIAF fan it was enormously helpful. (One of my D&D campaign settings, Bravia, is largely a 50/50 mash-up of Dwarf Fortress and Westeros. I am just now "converting" some of it from 4E to 3E and moving the timeline back a couple hundred years accordingly.) I have often considered picking up SIFRP, but the biggest impediment to doing so is simply that I have no room in my life to start or play in any new campaigns (I already have dozens that will probably never be finished) rather than any of the problems listed here.

But all of that is beside the point. There are a lot of characters in SoIaF, and most of them are perfectly capable of being accurately represented by the rules...but they simply don't do that.

This is...disappointing.

Here is my question: what is the basic ACTION the game is designed to model? Like, what do a group (party) of SIFRP characters do? I'd assume it's not baseline D&D dungeon delving and "Adventuring", but what is it?

One big problem is that even mid level characters get to the point where they succeed at just about anything other than opposed tests against comparable characters.

It's like they couldn't decide if they wanted the game to be high or low powered, or if the power levels drifted up during development.

I particularly like the house system, which is pretty cool. The dice mechanics are pretty cool too, even if how the mechanics are used need to be tweaked here and there.

Intrigue combat and mass combat rules are cool and appear useful.

I also dig the damage system. Being able to take injuries and wounds to keep you going in a battle that you care about is a neat concept.

hermit wrote:

Allar Deem (minor character who never even appeared in person)? 5 Fighting, +2B swords. WTF?

Who? That's too apocryphal for me. Who is this?

He is a city watchman. He killed one of Robert's baby-mommas and Tyrion had him thrown into the ocean to cover up Cersei's bullshit.

Extremely minor character, and the only people he has defeated in combat on camera were unarmed female civilians. One of them was an infant.

So anyway, how does this game system work? I don't know anything about it.

-Username17

He is a city watchman. He killed one of Robert's baby-mommas and Tyrion had him thrown into the ocean to cover up Cersei's bullshit.

Extremely minor character, and the only people he has defeated in combat on camera were unarmed female civilians. One of them was an infant.

Ah, THAT guy! Okay, I know who you're talking about. Thanks.

Here is my question: what is the basic ACTION the game is designed to model? Like, what do a group (party) of SIFRP characters do? I'd assume it's not baseline D&D dungeon delving and "Adventuring", but what is it?

Conquest, suppression, or journeyman-like wandering and working as a Hedge Knight (knightly merc) or sellsword (merc) for coming-of-age reasons. As OP mentioned castle management, it's probably built to simulate your knightly life and that of your companions.

You can also play on The Wall (a huge-ass wall made of ice to hold back zombies and worse things) or military-oriented campaigns with the background. Or pirate campaigns, playing the Ironmen, who basically are cthulhu cultist vikings (sailing under the crest of the kraken! Yarrr ftaghn!). Or slavers in Mereen. There's lots of stuff that's possible in that world.

Or you could play a man-at-arms of Ser Gregor's. And it'd be FATAL with less terrible rules and background.

So anyway, how does this game system work? I don't know anything about it.

-Username17

I'm stunned that they didn't hop on the d20 band wagon back when it was (perceived to be)the band wagon to jump on.

Game On,
fbmf

The creator hates D&D.

Never said it had to be a D&D setting.

Game On,
fbmf

Green Ronin has a rules revisions post/FAQ here if you want to look at those as well.

fbmf wrote:I'm stunned that they didn't hop on the d20 band wagon back when it was (perceived to be)the band wagon to jump on.

Oh, they did.

Hermit wrote:Their drowning magic

WHAT drowning magic? The part where they drown people, and then do fucking CPR and mouth-to-mouth to bring them back (which sometimes doesn't work)? I seriously have no idea what you're talking about. The only Ironborn I've seen do anything remotely magical is Euron with that crazy fucking dragonhorn.

Hermit wrote:Same for Melisandre. Also, what about fire god zombies, and undead? Pretty certain Melisandre is one. And what for 'sacrifice the baby and your womb/win 3 dragons' Dorthraki-ish blood magic?

No rules for any of that shit. MTP time, or make something up.

Schwartzkopf wrote:Here is my question: what is the basic ACTION the game is designed to model? Like, what do a group (party) of SIFRP characters do? I'd assume it's not baseline D&D dungeon delving and "Adventuring", but what is it?

The base book gives you 3 general concepts for a campaign:

1.) Noble House game...all the PCs are members/scions/servants of a particular royal house. The game is based around you trying to achieve personal goals and advancement of your house's wealth/status/power. Adventures might include negotiating marriages or alliances with other houses, fighting (either with intrigues or actual armies) with other houses, defending your lands from raiders, development of your holdings, trying to win the favor of kings, holding or participating in tourneys, whatever.

2.) Game of Thrones game...all the PCs are the heads of (or at least heirs to, or powerful members of) different noble houses, and they all scheme against or plot with each other. This is meant to be more intrigue-heavy, and the goal is to acquire personal and/or house power, perhaps even reaching the level of royal coup.

3.) Wandering Heroes game...you play a band of hedge knights, outlaws, or whatever. This is probably closest to an actual "D&D" style game, and most of the action is intended to be personal and combat-oriented, probably. Goals can range from simple survival to advancement of personal wealth, glory, and influence...you'll probably spend most of your time killing people. Fighting in petty wars, robbing caravans (or defending them), battling the ironborn, competing in tourneys and melees, whatever.

There are also niche campaigns you could try, like a Night's Watch campaign or a Dothraki campaign, but I think they'd be tougher to run.

TheFlatline wrote:One big problem is that even mid level characters get to the point where they succeed at just about anything other than opposed tests against comparable characters.

It's like they couldn't decide if they wanted the game to be high or low powered, or if the power levels drifted up during development.

This depends on a.) how fast you give XP and b.) whether you use by-the-book advancement rules. Also, I suppose, on your intended campaign style.

As I already mentioned, using the default advancement rules makes it ludicrously easy to build a very powerful character, who will seldom fail at things they focus on. Scaling advancement or other incentives to diversify your stats will help keep you from getting too powerful too fast.

Alternately (or in addition), you could just have little to no stat advancement, which would totally prevent that problem...story advancement is the main goal anyway (it's not a level-based system).

Finally...it may not be a problem if your PCs auto-succeed at static or basic tests. That just means your guy is awesome at something...if your PC invests points to make an awesome horseman, he probably doesn't expect to fall off your horse very often. If you invest points to be a great swordsman, you probably should chop wildlings into coleslaw without much trouble. You can always put appropriate opposition or difficult circumstances against them.

Frank wrote:So anyway, how does this game system work? I don't know anything about it.

It's actually a pretty simple dice pool system (using d6s). Your stats are rated by how many dice you have, and you can have specialties for each stat that give you bonus dice...bonus dice are rolled, but you only keep dice up to your stat, and you cannot have more bonus dice than stat dice.

Example: You might have Fighting 3, which means you roll 3 dice and total them. If you have +2B in the specialty "spears", when you fight with a spear you'll roll 5 dice, and keep the best 3. Once you have +3B in spears, you cannot gain any more bonus dice until you improve your base Fighting.

There's a table in the back that gives you probabilities for succeeding at various difficulties, depending on your stat rank. It doesn't account for specialties, though.

2 is average in a stat, and where everybody defaults to. 1 is crappy (kid, feeb, etc), 3 is above average, 4 is good, 5 is excellent, 6 is awesome. 7 and higher are pretty much inhuman.

If you want to keep the game on par with Martin's books, I suggest making it expensive to buy scores above 4, and put a hard cap on stats at around 6.

There are something like 15-18 abilities, but you don't need to have them all...anything you don't buy up (or down) is just assumed to be 2. There are usually 2-4 specialties per ability (some have 5 or 6).

Everything uses this base mechanic, either against static target numbers or an opponent's roll. Sometimes you use what they call a "passive roll", which is 4 x your stat, +1 per bonus die.
Every 5 points you roll over your target number is a degree of success; so matching/beating is a 1 degree success, making it by 5 is a 2 degree, by 10 is 3 degree, and 15 is 4 degree (the max).

fbmf wrote:I'm stunned that they didn't hop on the d20 band wagon back when it was (perceived to be)the band wagon to jump on.

Actually, somebody else did print a Game of Thrones d20 book (by Guardians of Order / Sword & Sorcery)...I have that one too. It's...not great. I don't recommend it.

pn wrote:There's a table in the back that gives you probabilities for succeeding at various difficulties, depending on your stat rank. It doesn't account for specialties, though.

Wait... it's a roll-n-keep system and the authors did not bother to calculate the odds on rolling more dice than you keep?



-Username17

FrankTrollman wrote:

pn wrote:There's a table in the back that gives you probabilities for succeeding at various difficulties, depending on your stat rank. It doesn't account for specialties, though.

Wait... it's a roll-n-keep system and the authors did not bother to calculate the odds on rolling more dice than you keep?

-Username17

*shrug* I don't know if they calculated them or not...they just didn't put them in the table. Probably, they wanted to keep it to a manageable size...if you wanted a table that showed you probabilities for every possible combination of stat and bonus dice...it'd be pretty big.

I've found anydice.com useful for calculating probabilities in roll & keep systems.

What's a roll and keep system?

Game On,
fbmf

You roll N dice, and then you pick out X dice from the result and add them together or whatever your system calls for.

angelfromanotherpin wrote:

fbmf wrote:I'm stunned that they didn't hop on the d20 band wagon back when it was (perceived to be)the band wagon to jump on.

Oh, they did.

I tried reading that version... It was a little more lethal than normal D20, but I found it to be a low-magic D&D game that was more or less pointless.

One problem with the song of ice & fire is that it has nearly zero of the plot/setting in it. It's also strangely spoiler heavy at times (mentioning things that don't happen until 2-3 novels in) with little to no warning, and if you want setting fluff, you have to buy a separate book for that.

That being said, I have a copy, and am completely willing to try running a game with the rules set. However, skip the GM section of the book unless you've read the first 3 or so novels.

On the topic of Cthulhu cult Vikings, I note that their ancestor was a certain Dagon Greyjoy...

And Hm, this is really good feedback. I like the house generation system myself... is there a sweet spot for armor VS agility, and is the greatsword really the best weapon ever?

Silent Wayfarer wrote:is there a sweet spot for armor VS agility

Not particularly; it mostly depends on your opponent (what weapon he's wielding, how skilled he is, and what his base damage number is with it). Honestly, if you're going to wear armor at all, you're probably best off wearing as much as possible (and using a shield to offset the defense penalty from the armor). If you're going for agility and maxing defense, you probably want to avoid armor altogether.

is the greatsword really the best weapon ever?

Not really. It's the best damage weapon without training dice, which is pretty good. The longaxe has Reach (but 1B training penalty), and the flail has Shattering 1 (but 2B training). The warhammer is also pretty good...lower base damage, but Powerful (which is where the real damage boost is) and Shattering 2. If you're any kind of decent rider and have some Strength dice, the War Lance will fuck people up.

Silent Wayfarer wrote:is the greatsword really the best weapon ever?

If your intention is to kill the fuck out of one person at a time on foot, it's pretty good. But it has "vicious" as one of it's qualities, which means that in anything less than full war you're going to get a wicked reputation really quickly as a take-no-prisoners sort of guy (which can be a liability in the setting). You won't see it in tourney or boarder disputes between nobility/anointed knights simply because you don't get the option to capture & hold for ransom or show mercy.

It also isn't quite as good on horseback either, so vs a mounted knight charging you with a lance, you're going to be fucked (the damage for a lance charge is insane).

Also, realize that full plate let's say reduces your effective armor class by 6 points. That's huge. However, a large shield gives you 4 points of AC back, and a tower shield gives you 6 points. So in full plate, with a greatsword, you're going to be hit a lot more. Especially vs someone with a shield and a single-handed weapon.

If I had a nimble character in light-ish armor that needed to crop on things (and I had a good amount of strength to buff the damage), a greatsword would be an appealing option. Which probably is going to put you into sellsword or hedge knight territory, which makes sense within the setting.

With playtesting, I'd probably give it a training die penalty to see how that balanced things out. Swinging around a greatsword is not nearly the same as fighting with a longsword. Your entire balance and fighting style changes to something that isn't particularly analogous to the rest of swordplay.