Song of Ice and Fire

Variant Zero

I just recently found out that Green Ronin put out a Tabletop RPG based on the George R.R. Martin series. I was wondering if anyone has played it, and if so, what was your impression? I figure that a place like the Seven Kingdoms has a bunch of potential as far as RPG-ing is concerned. Any thoughts?

tunglashr

I have played it. The system looks a lot better on a page than it actually plays out in real life, but it is playable and I look forward to the time when our GM wants to bring it back for another campaign. I would suggest to anyone who is to run this that a couple of modifications be made to character generation. It is never explicitly stated that you can only reduce one stat to 1, but I think it is their intent so I would make this a rule. Lowering two stats also leads to overpowered characters. Also, it is cheaper to go from 2 to 3, to encourage well-roundedness, and that is a good idea, but it costs the same to go from 3 to 4, 4 to 5 and 5 to 6 etc. I would make the transition to any stat above 4 cost extra. I hadnt considered this too closely when I made my character, so I gave him a 6 fighting. During the game it was borderline broken. I voluntarily reduced it after a few sessions.

Darian

@Crono729 ran a game here, briefly. Looked interesting, but didn't last very long.

Also, there was a short discussion about the release, but no one had played it yet.

corinos

This one seems a little dead, but I thought I'd throw in my two cents worth.

I ran a SoIF game for a little while, and I know my players and I enjoyed it, but there are definitely some rules that require some clarification. I agree with the previous poster about the cost of stats and easy OPing, as I had a player able to start with a 7 stat, which is supposed to be legendary.

One of my biggest concerns was the Intrigue system. First and foremost I loved the fact that it was there at all. It is essentially a combat system for persuasion, and I love the idea, but given that I found the actual combat system a bit complicated, that translated into an even more complicated Intrigue system.

The game has an AWESOME house building system, however, where you can create a noble house from the ground up in about 15-20 minutes complete with a crest and retainers, etc. This system is bolstered by a type of XP that can only be spent improving your house, which seems pretty neat. We didn't get to a point where it happened, but it looks pretty awesome.

Anyone who has not read the books up to Feast for Crows should be wary of the GM section of the core book, and probably the whole Campaign guide. I don't think it was intentional, but there are some spoilers.

Gosprey

It is a crazy good system, and making characters for it is one of the most enjoyable character creation experiences I've had in any system...it can be extremely thorough, and you can really feel that you're placing your character right into the same world as the books (whereas other game settings like Star Wars, you feel like some oik off to the side somewhere).

The most OP thing in the system is being a Giant; having a 7 stat is good, but it will leave you heavily crippled in other areas, and the main thing about the Game of Thrones is that the scene is constantly shifting...Ned Stark is an object lesson in the dangers of being a good fighter but rubbish at intrigue.

Tofystedeth

I haven't looked directly at the books beyond the bit when rolling up my dude for the IRL campaign which may or may not get off the ground in the near future, but I remember one disappointing thing was it didn't really have any support for stuff from Essos. For instance, one of our dudes wants to be a Red Priest, but there's nothing in there for it. So our GM is basically just reflavoring the Greenseer stuff.