Game Discussion

Apologies for the lack of response here or by email (don't now how I missed that) - as Gwyn said (thanks!) I am still interested in an epilogue... or even a new campaign, though my time is much more constrained now than it was before.

I definitely agree with Theo, though - too much history to restart this beautiful monster we have created. I could see picking up in the same time period, but completely separate from this game.

I'll try to check in here periodically, to keep up with any updates.

Thanks Baelon.

To celebrate your return, I can announce that I've taken the week of the 25th of September off work, so things will hopefully be rolling from then, or even the Friday/Saturday before if I don't have family/social obligations.

Huzzah! Thanks for not giving up on this.

Let me know here or via PM if there are any canon events/personal story events you're interested in wrapping up (some of you have done so already via PM or previous posts here).

I have a list in my private forum of stuff, I like lists.

Also, my little pet project seems to develop to places where it might get off the runway, but no promises about avoiding early crash and burn or even getting tanked and ready in the first place. Design definitely shaping up to be darker and edgier than that of these other games. Maybe I'm just that much more wicked?

So, I think I'll just throw in the announcement here, I make no promises on getting it to launch, but I am at the stage where I have something to show off for commentary and wishes:

http://greatbastards.boards.net/

Well, firstly, I wish you the very best of luck.  It takes a braver person than I to try and run a game of this scale.

I've not really analysed the numbers involved in the mechanics, so I won't be commenting on 'balance' and the like, but I had a few thoughts.

1) Cohort is still an *amazing* benefit, and the mechanics encourage getting one early (since it becomes even more powerful the longer you have it, assuming they don't die).  Before the campaign starts would be the right time to impose any limitations.  Honestly, I'd still consider it if it took 2 DPs to buy.

2) I think cutting down to 4 houses is a good number, since it keeps houses 'busy' and means you (hopefully) don't have abandoned or near-abandoned houses with lonely players.  However, this leads to an interesting conundrum...what about unwed women?  Presumably, if they don't want to leave the game, they're limited to marrying only men of the other 3 PC houses?

3) I note with pleasure that a number of previously 'complex-intrigue-only' benefits now give a bonus to simple intrigues as well, which pleases me (it didn't make sense that they provided no benefit, to me, particularly annoying since events generally relied on simple intrigues for obvious reasons).  Though not all do - stubborn, for example, still doesn't.  Actually, on the subject of stubborn, 'half dedication, round down (min 1)'?  When does someone ever take 4 points in a specialty?  It's just not cost-effective.  You might as well just say +1DR.

4) Typo in Benefits - it's 'tough', not 'though'.  Small thing, but it confused me for a bit.

5) While, as I said, I won't comment on the balance, the *objective* of your benefit/drawback revision makes a lot of sense to me.  Treacherous for one is certainly a *lot* more interesting a benefit than it was before, but I couldn't even begin to try and figure out all the implications, but seems very powerful at a very high risk/cost.

6) Reading the background of the Blackfyre rebellion (admittedly while tired) made my brain leak out my ears.  While I could get my head around it with a couple of re-reads, I'm reasonably familiar (-ish) with the setting - it would be rather intimidating for a newbie.  A 'dummy's guide' to 'who's who, and what's happened' among the royals, preferably with pictures (always easier to keep people straight if I have a mental image, especially if they have similar names), would probably help with the initial learning curve.

7) I do like that 'non-traditional' characters aren't forbidden, but do suffer (non-crippling) mechanical social penalties (in addition to the narrative ones).  Seems a good balance.  But it's very very strange to me that something like 'Dwarf' or 'Outcast' carry the same penalty as 'unattractive'.  I understand there's a limit to how far down the rabbit hole you want to go with this, but it jumped out at me as being odd.

8) True knight: requires honour-bound drawback, rather than honourable?

9) I seem to recall (though I can't find it now) that you wrote that you had 'hidden' information for each of the named characters.  Might want to be explicit about how restrictive it is (i.e. 'This will generally nudge you into conflict with someone/another house' or 'this will define your dealings with the world').  Also, given how most characters are fairly loosely defined, if it's on the more restrictive end, you may want to be explicit about 'you can withdraw your application for this character once you know it, if it completely blows your character concept out the water, but then you'd be expected to not play x instead, since you'd be at an advantage' or whatever.  Just lay out stuff clearly beforehand, so it doesn't cause trouble later would be my suggestion.

10) No named maester PC-candidates I notice?  Having one who has conflicts of interests across 'party' lines (e.g. originally from another PC house, but that wouldn't affect their loyalties now, would it?) would be a potentially interesting character to encourage, IMO.

11) I note that Adept Negotiator and Courteous synergise uncommonly well together.

12) Reader knocked up a not-entirely-useless variant on Gifted Teacher for me, and mentioned they'd made up a martial equivalent for someone else.  Might be worth including them, if you're interested?

13) I know I said I wouldn't comment on balance, but is Forgetful really supposed to act as a double-strength flaw, only without the min-3 prerequisite? Meaning that if you had 3 in either Cunning or Knowledge, you are flat out better off simply taking the relevant Flaw.

Anyway, that's just what jumped out at me.  Pinch of salt and all that.  Again, best of luck, and I hope you pull it off.

Typos corrected. Spotted another, so I imagine there's more.

Cohort, those restrictions are more along the lines of whether a player can handle that responsibility or not. It will also depend on how many players are in that house, and how active they are in terms of how liberal I'd be in allowing them to feature. In general, cohorts are for players that are active, creative and mature enough to take on the responsibility, but it's something that will primarily be addressed when someone puts in an application with that quality.

A recent history of the seven kingdoms is an addition that should be there, yeah. Also planning to use the "cast of thousands" thread for that sort of thing.

There's no way all benefits/drawbacks will be equally good/bad, but will review as I trot along.

Did some looking over of the character creation and mostly all of it was positive change. At first glance all the changes to benefits and drawbacks seem good, especially with the flaw drawback so characters don't min-max characters. Starting wealth change is magnificent (Trying to make a Status 3 Knight of any note was near impossible.). Only real problem is that I feel that apprentice characters start off little under powered. Problem might be a strong term to use, more like I'm iffy about it. I just seems apprentice characters will really struggle against master characters in the beginning (which i get is by design and makes sense), but won't really have a chance to catch up. Maybe have all characters guaranteed 3 benefits with each stage above apprentice given the chance to provided a reason as to why they should have certain benefits above 3, i.e journey can roleplay for an extra benefit, master for 2. This would allow heads of houses, heirs, maesters, ect to receive the benefits they need to be in such a position without them wasting a benefit slot, but in turn will prevent someone from making a journeyman or master character to have a op combination of benefits.

I'm trying to balance that, but those apprentices gets to splash DP around, which is not insignificant. Plus they don't have to take forced drawbacks, and I'm trying to tweak things so that all drawbacks will hurt. And if not by themselves, I'll exercise some narrator fu to make it so. Not too easy to quantify those effects, however. Alternatively I can be a narrator from hell that actively try to kill the PC's at the slightest miss-step, meaning that they're screwed if they run out of DP to burn

In truth, I probably need to see people make actual applications before figuring out if the numbers are off or not.

Hm! I shall take a look. Thanks!

...lol...it won't let me read it with adblock on! nuuuuuuuuu!

Yeah, I'm not paying to remove adds, and probably can't do anything about those settings.

I am not sure if it's a good or bad sign that my take on tattered pageantry is turning into a convoluted beast with all sorts of provisions for the issuing of challenges for a lady's favor, including the drawing of lots as to what sort of NPC's rides forth as rivals to any PC that tries to engage.

And that's just the half which concerns the knights....what if I add in parts about creating rivalry among the ladies, too?

Hehehe, I'm only kidding. I get the ad thing. I'm just spoiled.

My temptation for another SOIAF game would be to be a weirdo 'witchy' sort, but I dunno if that works for most games. The 'outsider' by its nature doesn't always fit into a narrative. I'll read up when I get a chance and assess.

That concept would likely be challenging given the general encouragement of most other PC to shun that sort of character that I'm aiming for.

Yep. That's more or less what I was getting at.

No worries then.

Theomore Tullison wrote:
In truth, I probably need to see people make actual applications before figuring out if the numbers are off or not.

Creating characters is the part of pen and paper games I enjoy the most. If you like, I'll create a character with each skill level for you.

More a matter of seeing if everyone makes masters or if there's a mix.

My ideas/wishes for this campaign are here:
https://dragonsdance.rpg-board.net/t3288-epilogue-sign-up-thread-deadline-26th-may-2017-but-late-arrivals-welcome#99049

I've been looking at Great Bastards. I think it would help to provide some qualifications for each, or simple guidelines on which to go for to fit a concept. I'm converting a character I made a few months ago and saved somewhere to fit your game with Journeyman stats.

Question about Attractive: after rerolling, can the player keep whichever's higher?

Not the way it's written presently.

I agree with everything Daveth said, and here are a few additional thoughts:

1) I have some of the same problem as I did with this game - these seem like relatively minor houses, with largely local interests/issues... yet the Fire/Blood setup indicates a more national-level politics. Now, that can create some interesting conflicts of interest, but as of right now the houses seem only tangentially involved in the national affairs. In this game, several of us (notably you and I, but also others) explicitly tied our characters to the national politics. That brought some of the national-level scheming to the fore, but also meant that many of us spent a good deal of time currying favor with individuals outside our region, which kind of works against the idea of putting the emphasis on player-to-player interactions. I would perhaps suggest some character creation guidance (not guidelines per se) on how much direct involvement with the national figures is appropriate.

2) I heartily approve of the harsher tone towards social undesirables. It is not a nice world for most people, and worse for those not deemed "acceptable". However, this is also a period where Great Bastards in particular are of prominence. Certainly they retain some of the anti-bastard prejudice, but not to the extent of some random minor lordling's by-blow. You mention the possibility of a character playing a Great Bastard, but it seems rather unclear how that would (socially or mechanically) differ from being just a regular bastard. I would recommend one of two things: either create an explicit "Royal Blood" advantage which directly off-sets some or all of the Bastard Drawback penalties (and maybe more, if it is taken by ALL with royal lineage, not just Great Bastards), or perhaps just give an example of how a Great Bastard should be mechanically represented. Either way, a small blurb on the social standing of such characters would probably be helpful. [N.B. If I play, it will not be as a Great Bastard. Too similar to THIS character, and I like variety].

3) I'm not sure if I think the Chivalry/Virtue mechanic really fits the setting. To be frank, most characters in the books at best seem to pay lip service to it, or are portrayed as naive. Further, the penalties involved make characters like Littlefinger difficult at best. He might have a few points for high status and some Benefits, but he is also going to be taking a great deal of negatives from drawbacks and actions. Yet, he seems no less persuasive for all that. Now, if it is only KNOWN actions that give penalties, then he might skirt by with a low but positive score... but the point remains. What about a character like Bronn or the Hound? Neither ever knighted, and both with a TON of negatives, yet still able to be persuasive (especially with Intimidate, and arguably Bargain for Bronn). What about characters like Melissandre, who is rather persuasive to many, yet has quite a few negatives (especially with that hefty -5 for heresy)? Again, it makes sense for a lot of these things to affect disposition... and a super-low disposition makes it rather hard to influence someone already (see for instance the Iron Mines intrigue where I tried to persuade Athelstan to surrender. Just on mechanics alone, it had almost no chance of success, and Athelstan was no intrigue specialist). [Side question: for lordly virtue, is that 5 max status, or 5 actual status?]

4) On a related note, something that has always bothered me about this system: some Drawbacks only make sense if they are known. A foreigner, bastard, or outcast operating under a false identity should not logically receive the penalties. Similarly, an unwed woman may be barren, but no one should know (well, probably not anyway). Perhaps have a new disadvantage: Dark Secret. The character has a specific other drawback, but it is secret to all (or most). Against those that do not know the secret they do not receive the penalties of the disadvantage, but in return they are potentially vulnerable to blackmail. Perhaps also have a penalty above and beyond the normal drawback if it becomes known to the general public, for balance reasons. Of course, no secret is truly ever safe... that would be boring.

5) Random thought about Massive. Instead of allowing 2h weapons to be used 1h (which creates the oddity of 1h reach weapons and similar things), perhaps when wielding a weapon crafted to be oversized, they gain +1 damage (or Powerful?) and increases the training penalty by 1b or 2b for characters without Massive. A character with Massive wielding a Massive longsword is about the same as using a greatsword 1-handed (1 less base damage, but not Vicious), and this chance avoids a lot of the other problems (like the scarcity of 2-handed non-reach weapons). I would never recommend this in a standard game because it makes ridiculous damage far too accessible, but with the scaling XP costs it should be difficult to have the high the Athletics, Endurance, and Fighting needed to really abuse it.

6) Intrigue notes:
A) I'm not so sure that the "softening up before switching" issue is all that bad. Buttering someone up (Charm) before asking for a favor (Convince) seems a pretty common negotiating tactic. Or for that matter, fear-mongering (Intimidate or maybe Convince) before trying to sell, say, insurance or security services (Bargain). That being said, I don't really have a problem with the penalties added for switching techniques. It does encourage having multiple intrigues instead of just one, though - not necessarily a good thing in a PbP, where mechanical resolution can be quite time consuming.

B) Deception for lying - in general I like it, but how do partial truths/lying by omission fit in? (Would Obi-Wan have to roll persuasion or deception to convince Luke that Vader killed his father?)

C) Frustration - seems like you are going for an injury/wound distinction, but then they share a maximum value? That seems awkward at best for tracking purposes - you have to track how much frustration has been taken AND what penalties are being taken.

D) I like that you are trying to make the other intrigue actions useful, but on first read I'm not sure if you succeeded - the biggest problem was that it was rarely as useful to do them as it was to just Influence. I think that's going to take some playtesting to determine. Also, Mollify is straight up useless unless a non-primary character can use it on an allied primary character... at which point it can be quite broken if disposition is taken into account. Some clarification on it might be useful.

E) I think Manipulate might need some clarification. Particularly, some guidance as to what techniques are suitable when - at the moment it seems to be mostly beneficial if meta-gamed (switch them to a technique they are bad at or that you are resistant to), or that could give cover for quitting or blackmail (manipulate a Lord to attempt seduce you so you can "leave to preserve your honor" or so you can set the rumor mill on fire to ruin their reputation). Also, i'm not sure why it would be useless for a non-primary participant to use it.

7) Weapon/Equipment notes:
A) Warhammers are 1h now? I like it, especially if in combination with my suggested Massive, above - it makes a Robert-esque character actually make sense. However, there now seems to be no reason whatsoever to use a mace or morningstar - warhammers are just better. Also, Shattering 2 might be a bit much for an easily useable item. Warhammer + Bludgeon Fighter 1 means even Plate is rendered fairly useless quickly (though Superior Plate with a superior shield would last a while). Perhaps give it a 1b training penalty?

B) Spears - letting them use Agility for damage and the 'pointed shaft' property are an improvement, but they still pale in comparison to pretty much every other kind of weapon. They don't even have the somewhat dubious advantage of sharing a specialty with lances any more. I think they were initially balanced with the advanced reach rules in mind, but thankfully you aren't using those. Perhaps give them some sort of defensive bonus against weapons other than spears, polearms, or Reach? Also, Spear Fighter 1 is a joke. Spear Fighter 2 has potential and SF3 is ok but a bit weak (effectively +2 flat damage; compare to Axe Fighter 1), but they have a pretty hefty benefit tax to get to them. A decent SF1 might make it a weapon worth using.

C) Shields - same problems discussed prior; not much reason NOT to go to the biggest shield available. Even more so with the training penalty only applying to attacks WITH the shield.

D) Superior - In general good, though really weakens shattering. Maybe only reduce to a minimum of 1? Superior Armor will sell even with no reduction (especially seeing there are major diminishing returns on the value of money).

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Gwyneth Drakeson wrote:Hm! I shall take a look. Thanks!

...lol...it won't let me read it with adblock on! nuuuuuuuuu!

I had the same problem... and then reloaded the page, and the notice went away. It's not the most sophisticated anti-adblock system.

A couple of minor points:
1) I note you've got a 'story so far' post up, like I suggested. Not sure if I was just less tired when reading it, but I found it a lot more comprehensible than the wiki, so good job there.

2) For what it's worth, when I created a test character (like Davain, I enjoy doing that), I made them a journeyman. Given that you need to keep 1 DP available, for 'in case of death, burn DP', having a second one available to use in making a critical roll a success is extremely valuable, so I'd typically go journeyman over master, at least for most concepts. I note that, given that the costs for specialties are a lot less than those for abilities, the 30xp 'jump' in specialty xp for each character type feels a *lot* more significant than the 30xp in ability xp. It's a valid choice if deliberate (it does markedly differentiate the skill levels of the 3 types), just making sure that's what's intended.

Loreia wrote:I've been looking at Great Bastards. I think it would help to provide some qualifications for each, or simple guidelines on which to go for to fit a concept.

I am not sure what you mean?

Some commentaries, most things I'll probably have a closer look at later:

Barren, Bastard etc...unless I wrote something different somewhere else, drawbacks are voluntary, just as benefits like maester and anointed are. You can be those things without mechanical effects. As for Great Bastards, in my current vision, they get to buy their status up to 5 for being legitimized children of the king, and I'm not sure if I'm going to do much more than that aside from having the universe pay extra attention to them. A benefit is not off the table, but I'd have to come up with something very campaign specific.

As for the bigger picture/smaller picture, I'm seeing the PC houses as being mid-level in the Reach, but with the potential to step up into the league of Hightower, Peake et al if they play their cards right leading into the civil war and choose the winning side. But to quote my favorite SIFRP narrator: "Houses are merely vehicles for the ambitions of the characters within" and the way I am planning things, the Reach and Stormlands is the place where the Blackfyre supporters will be drumming the hardest to raise support for their cause, so much of the intrigue will happen around Highgarden. Characters like Baelor Breakspear, Bittersteel, Bloodraven and Daemon Blackfyre are going to be around for chronicle 1, so the option of getting involved on a grander level will be there, but to make the world spin, PC's needs to go talk to other PC's.

Yes, there's loads of naive characters around, others paying lip service etc, the Hound pretty much has the right of it, but for each of him, there's a hundred like Sansa and Loras with their head full of romantic illusions. Though by design, it should be relatively easy to avoid negative chivalry/virtue, heresy wouldn't really be Melisandre though, as she is of a different faith altogether, thus being a heathen, being that and/or a foreigner probably should give negative points, or maybe not, might just simplify things so that non-knights simply have 0, or that the score only holds an effect for those actually qualifying for it, but that would defeat the point of a noble being seen as "unworthy" if he isn't a proper knight, translating the overall idea into numbers isn't exactly a walk in the park.

Also in my head, you cannot quite compare the Reach anno 194 with how things are described in the books, first of all, in the canon the side that wants to reform away from Andal traditions (The idea of Knighthood being central) and towards more meritocracy won the struggle. Secondly, the Reach is noted in the books as the place most proud of it's knightly traditions and more defensive about the privileges of the class, with tourneys where only anointed knights are allowed entry. It's a bit like, board can't hire a CEO without Ivy League on his resume because otherwise it will look bad, only cranked up to 11. Thirdly, you've had Aerys and Robert spending the last three decades or so running roughshod over everything, filling the court with sycophants, not listening to competent counsel, appointing Boros Blount to the Kingsguard etc.

Nevermind, I thought I had something.

People like the Hound and Melisandre achieving as much as they do, in relation to the Chivalry/Virtue system proposed, can be explained by uses of Destiny Points or knowing the right people. Melisandre is definitely on the Destiny side and merely needs to get inside the head of the right person (which she does, but I'm not familiar on how she gets there), while Sandor is a little of both. He's related to the right bastard and is just an accomplished killer, and the Tourney of the Hand could have just been the right spectacle to remold his reputation in a positive light. Against his brother, this seems likely to me. People are willing to overlook a few sins in one person when that person goes up against someone like Gregor.

There's tweaks that can be made, one option is to only have it matter during events, another is to remove penalties for negative score, or only have the disposition effect apply. The effect would likely be diminished outside the Reach where they take chivalry more seriously than other places. It will come up in the tourney, as GRRM discusses towards here:

http://www.westeros.org/Citadel/SSM/Entry/Tourney_Rules

Recall that Dunk had to go through loads of trouble to even get entry at Ashford (in the Reach) because he didn't know anyone that could vouch for him actually being a knight, I'd also say that it's a tendency more marked in this time period, in part due to a reaction to everything that's happened under Aegon IV and Daeron II.

There were lots of people who didn't like Melisandre and Sandor,

Some number crunching/analysis on Master vs Journeyman vs Apprentice.

Abilities:

Specialties:

DP, Benefits, and Drawbacks:

In summary, most characters can be made easily enough as Journeyman. Those willing to have only 1 starting DP and desiring to be the consistent top performers in one or two areas of competition (or nigh unbeatable in one) should opt into Master, and those willing to be less directly competitive (but still effective in many circumstances) can do quite well as Apprentices. In short, they seem fairly well balanced... though it might be a good idea to trim some of the specialty xp from all three or to have specialty costs scale faster.