The Playground and A Song of Ice and Fire RPG

[VoxRationis]

First off: I have not seen the show. I'm still waiting on book six. Please do not give spoilers. Ideally, discussions of the source material won't be necessary, because I'm asking for thoughts on the game and how functional it is.

Last week, during our weekly gaming session, my DM mentioned that we might want to look into the ASOIAF roleplaying game. I've been looking into it, and I've noticed a few things that I definitely like (such as the default assumption that everyone starts out on the same team) and some things I'm kind of middling about (such as the high symmetry between combat and social systems). The quick-start rules you can get for free seem to make it look like characters are rather tougher than I would have expected from a series about killing people quickly and unceremoniously; you get an HP pool as well as the ability to soak damage by taking "wounds" and "injuries." I've also seen mixed reviews about several things.
I've seen one recommendation to completely avoid the mass combat system, and several complaints that it's too easy to make broken, super-specialized characters who are the best in their respective fields. I've also seen people say the opposite.

What are people's experiences and thoughts on this system? Is it well-balanced? Does the mass combat system work? How tough are people in actual play?

[Faily]

Having played the SIFRP a total of 2 times now...

1. It's really really hard to make all-rounded characters, because the only ones you will beat then are people who are weak in a specific field. The game is sadly constructed towards hyper-specialising, as you can probably see by the Benefits.

2. The Intrigue-system is a little interesting, but it basically just devolves into a fancy social-combat, imo, and I'm personally not a fan of it. I did like it at first glance years ago, but then I played with it and ended up not liking it very much.

3. Never tried the Mass Combat System, so I can't comment on it. Sorry.

4. I think what I like the most about the system is that, similar to Ars Magica, you can play characters of varying age and older characters will be more experienced (by recieving more points for character creation).

5. Character Creation is... sadly needlessly difficult. There is an interactive SIFRP Excel Character Sheet that makes it easier, but the book overall suffers from really bad editing and layouts, imo, making it a pain to navigate as well as learning the system.

6. Creating your own House with the group is perhaps my favorite part in the rulebook, and I do believe a playgroup can get a lot of good story-seeds from that, as well as dividing up the parts to play in the house.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

I had the book at one point, and it seemed neat, but these days, I'd rather just use Burning Wheel.

[Faily]

As much as I like trying new systems and want to encourage others to try new systems... I am certain there must be better game systems out there well-suited for A Song of Ice and Fire than the actual SIFRP-rules. Especially if it is a system that the group enjoys and feel comfortable with.

Again, the rulebook (I have the Game of Thrones revised edition which cleared up some rules) is just... well, I hope they didn't pay the ones doing the layout and editing of the book a whole lot because then they got robbed. Making a character for a current on-going SIFRP-campaign, I think I screamed at the book at least ten times during character creation. I personally think it's pretty bad when you have the descriptions of clothing and mundane items on one page, and then go through descriptions and tables with costs of armor and weapons, before 9 pages later finally getting to the tables with costs for mundane items and clothing. There's no items like saddle and other mount-related things listed for purchase (apart from saddlebags), so the GM just had to make a ruling that if you bought a mount, you got the nescessary equipment to go with it too. And while I enjoy that they have rules for playing kid-characters, you technically can play a toddler with Fighting Skill at 4, if you were so inclined, as the Youth-category ranges from 0-9 years old.

[rax]

First off: I have not seen the show. I'm still waiting on book six. Please do not give spoilers. Ideally, discussions of the source material won't be necessary, because I'm asking for thoughts on the game and how functional it is.

Last week, during our weekly gaming session, my DM mentioned that we might want to look into the ASOIAF roleplaying game. I've been looking into it, and I've noticed a few things that I definitely like (such as the default assumption that everyone starts out on the same team) and some things I'm kind of middling about (such as the high symmetry between combat and social systems). The quick-start rules you can get for free seem to make it look like characters are rather tougher than I would have expected from a series about killing people quickly and unceremoniously; you get an HP pool as well as the ability to soak damage by taking "wounds" and "injuries." I've also seen mixed reviews about several things.
I've seen one recommendation to completely avoid the mass combat system, and several complaints that it's too easy to make broken, super-specialized characters who are the best in their respective fields. I've also seen people say the opposite.

What are people's experiences and thoughts on this system? Is it well-balanced? Does the mass combat system work? How tough are people in actual play?

I've played (and am playing) in quite a few PbP games and ran some games as Narrator some years ago. I think it's a fine, flexible system that does a decent job of emulating the conceits of the books. The problem, of course, is that everyone has their own interpretation of the mood and events in the books, so just as I can say that the system works fine for that purpose, there are likely many people who would say the opposite.

On character toughness
Yes, compared to most NCs, characters are noticeably tougher in combat. This is because only primary NCs get to take both wounds and injuries. Secondary NCs can only take injuries and tertiary NCs (e.g. unnamed guardsmen) only have their Health to stave off damage. A decently built and equipped combat character can therefore be outnumbered by lesser NCs and still come out bloodied but on top. However, clever use of tactics and equipment on the part of the NCs can swing the odds back in their favour.

When battling primary NCs (or other PCs), fights between roughly equal characters are far harder to predict. It often comes down to who gets in the first solid blow, because once you start taking injuries and wounds, your character is entering a death spiral where his combat effectiveness can be reduced to nothing before being defeated (i.e. losing all Health and having taken max wounds and injuries). This is most obvious in fights between characters with very high Fighting ability, since they can easily generate large numbers of successes against most characters' Combat Defence, and thus do heavy damage with each hit.

On specialized characters
SIFRP is an old-fashioned system in that it has few hard and fast rules preventing you from specializing you character, usually towards combat or intrigue. And it's certainly the case that a highly specialized character, engaging in the thing he's specialized in, will easily defeat less specialized characters. If this bothers you as a GM, the obvious solution is to make sure your game includes challenges that hit a specialized character's weaknesses. Not all the time, but enough to make a point about putting all your eggs in one basket.

But really, the game leaves it up to the Narrator to set the power level and provide a framework for what sorts of character will be acceptable in his game. If you do nothing to encourage players to build less specialized characters, then specialization is what you'll likely get. If you instead make it fun and useful to be good at one thing but also decent at some more, then I've found that specialized characters become rarer. And for myself, I rarely build all-combat or all-intrigue characters because I like being able to do more than one thing well from the beginning of the game.

On the mass combat system and intrigue system
The mass combat rules are not a fully fledged battle system, but an abstract system designed to plug in fairly seamlessly to the individual combat system. It works, but it's quite basic until you start adding many of the optional rules. Even then, it works a lot like the individual combat system, so they share many of the same bugs/features.

The intrigue system is also built along the same sort of logic as the combat system. It takes some getting used to, and in fact I've found it's a bit easier to adjudicate in a PbP environment. This is because you have more time to consider your words and getting them to match your chosen technique (Intimidate, Seduce, etc.). A forum post also has a definitive beginning and end, whereas normal conversation is more free-flowing. But overall it does the job as intended, and it has a nice feel to it if you actually get into the mindset that it is a sort of social combat system. Choosing the right technique, weighing your words and arguments for maximum RP effect - these can be exciting choices in their own right.

On character creation
Of course everyone's experiences will differ, but for my part I don't recognize the problems Faily brought up. I find character creation very simple - everything you need is in chapters 3-5, covering character generation, what abilities and ranks are, and benefits and drawbacks. I agree that the equipment chapter isn't very intuitive, but the default assumption of the game is that you will be members of a noble house or house servants. That makes detailed equipment lists fairly pointless IMO - anything you need beyond basic personal equipment can be gotten from the house as needed.

And, I'll leave it at that. If you have any more specific questions, I'll be happy to answer as best as I can.