Disclaimer: This game will probably not set in the world of Westeros, but rather in a world of my own making. The reason for this is fairly obvious -- games like these require freedom for players to shape the world, rather than spend time and effort not to bump into "established truths".


After reading the entire Game of Thrones book line so far (admittedly, some of these 15 years too late) I came upon two literally effects that I want to see implemented (or at least tried) in roleplaying games.

First, separation of viewpoint and action characters. As roleplayers we tend to forget the larger picture and if we were to play characters like Littlefinger as we play player characters in traditional sense, it would be an endless stream of wheeling and dealing that is boring as hell. On the other hand, when we see Sansa guess what Littlefinger did, that infuses all the mystique such a character needs.

Second, regardless of player characters' power levels, the game is equal fun. This is most obvious when one compares Sansa Stark and Jaime Lannister. All Sansa has going for her are a good name and ability to blush real nice, while Jaime is even without right hand quite capable warrior, heir to the wealthiest family in the realm, commander of the royal guard and lover of the queen. Yet despite all of this, her chapters are with one sole exception way more entertaining than his.


As such I will ask two questions.

First, on generally abstract level, what is the best way to achieve these effects? What systems are best suited for such games, which roleplaying techniques should the GM employ? I know that there are a few official or semi official Game of Thrones RPGs out there, but I have no idea if they deal with the issues I've outlined here at all and what their general quality is.

Second and obviously, is there interest for such a game here on RPoL? I have envisioned a setting where characters even hundreds of years apart still influenced one another. I have several possible eras in mind and events from one would influence the other.

If I understand correctly what your looking for here, it's a narrative style game. One where the POV is capable of zooming in to the single strike that beheads the king and zoom out to cover a "length if time" in which the character might accomplish one or more complicated tasks; like little finger's dealings. Is that correct?

If so, I think The Window is perfectly suited for this kind of game. It is flexible and equalizes the playing field well. Mechanical advancements in characters (seemingly) are less important than their narrative developments. Though the system might not be "perfect" for the game your going for you could easily incorporate Aspects and Stunts from FATE, thus adding mechanical depth to the characters.

I think there is always a demand for games like this here.

I am aching for a game like this. I don't know the Game of Thrones canon and its more interesting to have a fresh setting which belongs to the RPoL game alone.

Window is good: very simple, very flexible, and makes things more about the narrative than complex calculations while still providing defined limits and abilities a character has.

Microscope seems like the ideal system for this.

Other systems could be useful too. Create a bunch of charaters (or character concepts) as a group and play the game in chapters. Each chapter a goal/focus is set (or a question to be answered) and out off all the characters each player picks one or more to play.

In reply to Sithraider (msg # 2):

You understand very good what I'm looking for in a game, although ambitious as I am I'm looking for some more. Namely I'm looking for some sort of consequence or compel control (to borrow the term from Fate). Best example of this is the infamous Crossbow chapter (the Death of Lord Tywin Lannister). From start to finish the chapter reads like it was written by Tyrion Lannister's player. From Jamie staying speechless, to secret passages and doors, from the crossbow to the fact that Tywin must have spent 45 minutes in the john and still hadn't emptied his bowels, all seems to be from Tyrion's most pleasant dreams. The only exception is Shae, but Tyrion actually has time to argue with her, kill her, prepare the crossbow and find him, before Tywin has time to lift his sleeping gown and empty his bowels.

The point is that I want players to have a degree of control over twists and revelations as these need to be their chapters, not the GM's.


I guess it is the time for me to present the setting of the game.

The setting of the game is an alternate Earth where geography and history are rewritten, but the lifestyles and morality (especially in modern and later eras) are very close to our own. Like in G. R. R. Martin's world, there will be some magic, but unlike him, amount of magic be more or less the same throughout the eras. There will not be this whole disappearing theme, but instead I'll go for the growth of civilization, growth of responsibility and growth of individualism as the main theme. Also like Martin the magic will be shown strictly through the story, rather than any "rules" of magic are known beforehand.

And no, there will be no dragons. An odd winged horse maybe, but absolutely no dragons.


Four eras are available right now. Additional ones may be added later.

Late bronze / early iron age. At this stage we find (as of now still unnamed) pagan empire, which will be later known as the Old Empire as a formidable country which covers southern tip of western Pangea and northeastern part of Echran continent. While Empire is already powerful at this stage, possibly most powerful individual state in the world, its rulers are by no means interested in wellbeing of their subjects. Oppression is everywhere and the empire excels foremost in cruelty. This era will follow imperial officials as they pave the way for the Cult of the Just One to become the official religion of the empire.

High middle ages. By now Echran Empire has replaced the old empire and even though it lost all the possessions on the Pangean side of the Great Salt River, it dwarfs its predecessor by covering more than three quarters of Echran continent. During this era, characters will take part in the events either leading to or during the rise of Wolf IV, also known as Wolf the Slave -- the Last Emperor. (I would love to include one more business-as-usual era of the empire, but in the grand scheme of things it is entirely optional.) This era will probably extend into career of his sons, Inheritor Marc and Demeter's rebellion.

Dying days of Second Coronation War. It didn't matter that Peter III was an usurper with absolutely zero dynastic relations -- fringe were complicit, nor it had mattered that he left a few bodies behind during his coup d'etat -- his predecessors were that corrupt; what did matter was that he had proven himself capable leader and under his leadership Pilintor started to grow, threatening to overtake its fringe neighbors. It was the same story since the liberation: cooperation would give way to guilt, jealousy would give way to spite and when Fringe Powers would start fearing that the Empire would grow from sprout of Pilintor -- they would proceed to cut it down. Every few decades in almost two centuries, the fringe would gang on Pilintor, engineer some sort of crisis or dispute which would be followed by a swift fringe war which would devastate Pilintor. Afterwards they would feint friendship and help pick up pieces, wholeheartedly explaining how nothing would have happened had just Pilintores been a little less proud, little more humble or just a little bit yielding. No one would really believe them, but no one would dare speak up either. And after each fringe war Pilintores would have no choice but to rise from the ashes again and again knowing full well that another fringe war is waiting. Can anything be done to break the cycle?

Early space age and the First Contact. Talk of commercial interstellar flight has been going on ever since Third Coronation and subsequent discovery of FTL, from Imperial Government of Pilintor, United Nations, domestic and foreign business community -- everyone. Yet in twenty years since discovery, it has became apparent that Imperial Government is dragging their feet -- it suits them to maintain a monopoly for as long as they can. And Imps are not really complaining, as long as they control space flight, they can afford guest workers outnumbering Imperials twenty to one. Now I'd love to play through first contact story, but that would require much more action oriented system than what I have in mind. Maybe we could do an extension or something, but for the moment we'll have to live with consequences of the First Contact.


Of the systems proposed here are my thoughts:

Window
I've always skipped Window from system consideration because it seemed to me like yet another gaming system, only with game balance erased. Since this game omits game balance, it fits that requirement. That being said, the other question still remains unanswered. Why can't I take an existing system like Fate, WoD or Savage Worlds and erase game balance? Would it not produce similar, if not better result than Window? Now I know Windows is reputed to have all sorts of accessories and add-ons, but I don't know of any relevant to our discussion. Am I missing some accessory or something?

Fate
It's enough to glance at my user profile below my RPoL name to know that Fate is never far from mind. I even saw one "official" (or at least licenced) Game of Thrones RPG which reads like Fate ripoff/add-on (the one with spending and burning Destiny points). What I initially expected was that I would end up adding a subsystem to Fate for handling events, places and twists Game of Thrones style to the regular Fate Core engine. But more I think about the way G. R. R. Martin tells his tales (and I've been thinking a lot), the more I feel like all this seems unnecessary.

Microscope
This system intrigues me to no end. I've read it cover to cover and can't wait to try it at my kitchen table. There are two problems with using Microscope for this game, however. First is that I've instinctively done things to this setting, such as creating periods and some events, long before I've opened this thread, which sort of defeats the purpose of Microscope. Second and more importantly, I want players to have their own characters. For this game I want players to be emotionally involved with at least one character specifically. If someone starts playing Tyrion Lannister, I want the same player to stick with him through thick or thin. As such I have soaked inspiration form Microscope, but I will shelf it in context of this game.


So finally this is what I thought about the system (in sense that it is a system as much as Microscope is).

Porcupine RPG

First of all, since googling term "Porcupine RPG" gave no meaningful results, I will claim the name.

Second, since in Game of Thrones there is no real trying and succeeding or failing, only drama -- we'll get rid of any and all numerical values. And besides we've already decided not to bother with game balance between lover of the queen and a 9-year old girl.

Third, a character will be a set of Hooks (or Quills) which enable character to be entangled by content other players, including the GM, have already created. Since we're not bothering with game balance, number of Quills and their content will not be limited. GM has the right to veto everything, but there are no other limitations from system as such. This comes from both my personal experience playing Fate, where limiting the number of compellable Aspects has always been problematic, as well as the absence of game balance.

Fourth, character will have a number of Assets (or Theeth to go along with porcupine analogy) that help character hack his or her way out after entangling themselves into the affairs of the game world. This will cover everything that normally helps the character, from skills such as Swordsmanship, prized possessions such as Valyrian sword called Ice, titles such as Hand of King, allies like Shagga son of Dolf and everything else that helps character such as All the Gold in Casterly Rock. Fate rants far and wide that Aspects should be both invoked and compelled, but that simply never sat right with me. If I have a great Valyrian sword called Ice, I'm gonna chop some Lannister heads with it, not worry how it can be used against me, so to speak. If they can also be compelled -- fine, but I want my characters to have at their disposal powerful stuff. Under normal circumstances assets would have some sort of character point cost, but since in this game we don't worry about game balance, it will be omitted.

Now one might ask how do we do combat without numerical stats. The answer is that we do combat like we do everything else in Game of Thrones -- through Events and Twists. One might notice that in every chapter we have at least one significant event and in almost all chapters we have at least one twist of fortune. (There are very few chapters that feature no twists, hardly more than couple per book.) Sometimes the twist is there just for its own sake, as Game of Thrones was written for people with attention span of under 15 minutes. This fact may actually account for its success, but none the less it serves us in PbP environment since we can't stand writing long narratives and such. During normal scene, narration goes as expected and player(s) and GM take turns narrating the events. Either GM or player introduce the Event and narration continues as expected. Either GM or player also present a Twist usually after or at the same time as the Event, but order is of no importance. This is how Martin creates his drama and this is what we'll try to emulate in this game.

We'll also have participants' expectations listed at the start of each scene. I have no idea how these will be relevant to the game mechanics (if at all), but fomenting and quashing audience expectations are staples of Martin's storytelling. That is why they will be very important parts of this game.

Finally each character will have a pool of disbelief points, which will be spent for suspending disbelief and gained by quality roleplaying. This will probably be related to Quills hooking content left by other players (including the GM), but we will iron out the details in the game. (And if this looks like Fate points, well it cannot be helped, really.)

Now only one question remains. Is there an interest for this game?
This message was last edited by the user at 19:19, Sat 06 Sept 2014.

I would be interested to spectate (Lurk), but I think it's a bit too grim to actually play in myself.

Grim?? Ahem, I should have said -- you are supposed to play an Imp (Imperial). I guess that one thing that got omitted in my attempts to do epic prose is that the Imperials are the good guys.

Ah yes, I meant the 'death is lurking around every corner' approach, coupled with the intention to be emotionally attached to a character your playing. I'm not sure I'm good at that. Usually if I play deadly games I just make a quirky character that I'm not emotionally attached to.

I would interested <3 I have a full plate until the end of September, but it's a game I'd like to play

This message was deleted by a moderator, as it was against the ToU, at 20:25, Fri 12 Sept 2014.

I'd be very interested in a game along these lines if you started one! Looks like it would make for some good roleplaying.

interested

This idea was posted over six months ago