A Song of Ice and Fire Roleplay – First Thoughts
It’s been awhile in coming but I have finally managed to have a bit of a read through of my new shiny PDF copy of Green Ronin‘s Song of Ice and Fire Roleplay (or ASIFRP for short, which is good ’cause it gets a bit wordy). So I’ve decided to sit down and dissect it a little for those who might want to know. I was so keen to get my hand’s on this that I jumped on to the GR online store as soon as I heard it was up there only to have the damn thing die on me!! However a big thanks to Evan on their customer service team for helping me out and getting me a download link that worked!
The book is well laid out with the first chapter being a nice quick(ish) overview of the history of the setting. It doesn’t go too far into the back ground through which is good if you’re keen to just make your own way in this rich world invented by George R.R. Martin. It then gives an overview of the game rules, followed by a really great character creation section (more on this in a moment) before getting into the nitty gritty of characters, the Noble house, intrigue rules, combat, warfare and a bit of advice for the GM or Narrator as that role is called here.
I’m not going to dissect each and every chapter, if you want that much detail I highly recommend you go get the pdf, however I’m going to touch on the stand out parts briefly.
Firstly character creation. Like a number of more ‘traditional’ games that have been released recently AISFRP has incorporated a really nice element of collaborative game creation with the creation of the Noble house that all of the PCs will belong to. This process means that all of the PCs have an instant reason to be together and to give a damn. It also means from a player perspective that you get a chance to let the GM know what kind of game you want to play in. In the A Song of Ice and Fire books the house a character belongs to has a huge impact on their place in the world, Green Ronin have tried hard to recreate that in their game. The rest of character creation is pretty standard but one nice touch is that depending on your age you have a set number of experience points to use to create your PC. So the younger you are, the less powerful your abilities and skills but the more opportunity you have to give your self special qualities that will help you out during play. It makes age relevant in a way I haven’t seen before.
Talking of skills and abilities one of the things I’ve liked about this game since I first picked up the quick start rules is that rather than the standard array of abilities (such as strength, dexterity, intelligence etc) skills and abilities are combined. It’s a slightly different take on a well established character element and one that I think will not only simplify player’s character sheets, but also make things faster in game.
The only other element of the rules I’m going go into any detail on is the intrigue system. Essentially in a game set in the Song of Ice and Fire world you need to have a way to re-create the great battles of wits that are often even more devastating than the pitched battles. In ASIFRP they’ve done just that, essentially making the combat system work in personal battles. It is in no way meant to replace the standard roleplaying elements of conversations or attempted seductions, however it is there for when those conversations or seductions have something riding on them. However I have a suspicion that the first few times it’s used there will be a lot of looking things up and referring to the rules.
So there you have it. I haven’t read the whole book yet, sections like the chapter on warfare aren’t overly of interest to me, but everything I have read is really solid and well thought through. It’s a game I look forward to running both in some shorter one-shot adventures and a longer campaign.