MrDidact

Game of Thrones : The Pact of Ice and Fire (Always Open)

@Gowi How often do you think you'd be able to post? At least once a week or are you thinking less?

@DrunkasaurusRex Great sheet, go ahead and put it in the CS tab, you're accepted.

Game of Thrones : The Pact of Ice and Fire

@Gowi You are right, we have played a game together before. It was a superhero one. It was a bit ago though, and I was unsure if I was remembering correctly. Yeah GRRM will probably build up to it a lot better, but the actual specifics of her death are never elaborated upon in our backstory, it was just stated to happen. The same way I think the Boltons and Walder Frey will probably die differently in the books, but it's still likely going to happen.

Dredigan put our whole view of the matter in way better words than I did but you did bring up some good points about player involvement in the shaping of the world. For me it was kind of a balancing act to keep the canon (both of them) as relevant as possible while still having room for collaboration.

Now the reasons for me wanting to keep Shireen's death in the story are because of it's thematic appropriateness to the canon story as a whole, and because of the potential ripple effects. Since we have played a game before, I am not worried about your ability to play a Shireen character really well. But I do want to be fair to future player, and I don't think there's a fair way to allow certain character's deaths to be washed from the backstory and bar others. As of right now, I think I would prefer to keep Shireen's death in the RP's backstory. As Dredigan said, nobody wants you to play a character you don't want to play so if this is a hard no-go for you than I understand if you want to leave completely and there will be no hard feelings from us.

However, a good case can be made that a resurrected Shireen would be a very compelling PC for the game for the reasons already stated by Dredigan. It would depend on the specific circumstances of her resurrection, if she came back soon or in adulthood, but either way it could potentially enrich her POV and the story greatly. Of course, the role of the Baratheon bastards would be adjusted depending on whether or not you wanted to have them as additional PCs as well.

I hope you do decide to stick around. But whatever you decide to do, I'm glad we had this discussion and that it's been a sensible and reasoned discussion.

Game of Thrones : The Pact of Ice and Fire (Always Open)

@Masterkeun I think you're definitely on the right track, but there's still a bit to go until your sheet is completely ready. I like the additional details, but I'm not sure why members of other families are in the family sheet. That should only really happen if someone is an in-law. For example Jon is not named Targaryen, but he is the family patriarch and is a vital part of the family, just as how Catelyn Tully is a vital part of House Stark as the matriarch. But you wouldn't consider the Stark kids to be Tullys even though they have a Tully mother. So these more collateral relatives can be part of the story but it should be more closely involved Freys who are focused on in the House Sheets, especially if they have the family name. You can also leave it more open-ended so that there aren't quite so few Freys left, in case anyone wants to jump in and possibly play a Frey. And you can use the lesser Freys as NPCs for the important ones, Walder basically sired an army of people and that army grew exponentially (and was probably cut down a lot too) so no reason you can't have the House Leader's squire be a Frey for example. You also need more details for the Frey PCs you include in the House Sheet. Malkor and Jem Rivers seem important, but lack a lot of detail for example.

But all in all, you're definitely on the right track and it's good to see your sheet shaping up so well.
@Dredigan Do you have any additional comments or input?

@EnterTheHero So the Alchemist Pyromancers wouldn't be able to shoot flames out of their hands, but with the resurgence of magic, wildfire is easier to make and even more powerful and dangerous than it was before. The Pyromancer's probably won't make as much since Dragons are back, but the Alchemist's Guild could still do all kinds of semi-mystical chemistry awesomeness. Basically like Alchemy in any fantasy story, except probably without the turning iron into gold stuff. A Pyromancer could come up with all kind of flame-based chemical weapons, like possibly an oil they can slide on a sword to make it burst into flames or maybe some kind of reduced-potency wildfire grenade. You can get very creative with this.

Red Priests, they will have all the same abilities they have in the books, which are a lot but also seem to depend on the specific Priest's talents. Shoot fire balls, heal, see visions of the future, increased life-span, illusion, communicate through fire, there's a lot of stuff a Red Priest can potentially do. I don't think the return of magic would change much except perhaps make their abilities easier to do and maybe rev up the potency a bit.

Common Sorcerers who are Pyromancers, I kind of imagine them being like Firebenders crossed with Green Lanterns since they seem to be able to make fire "constructs" and can probably manipulate fire like any fantasy pyromancer can to burn and scorch. They seem to be mostly limited to the East however.

Again though magic-using characters will be scrutinized so that there won't be too many of them, and they are at least a little bit balanced. Additionally, IIRC using spells in the story took a lot of energy to do, and that would still be the case. I think for the RP right now, either Alchemists or Red Priests would make the most sense in terms of story and plot relevance and Alchemists would be more common than Red Priests.

@Enzayne Thanks, for your interest. There are a lot of less prominent Houses, so it might be easier to use canon than come up with something out of scratch but it's totally up to you. Me and Dredigan are at your disposal if you have any questions or want any input from us.

Did you have a particular region in mind for your low-profile House?

Game of Thrones : The Pact of Ice and Fire (Always Open)

@Greenie Real life and drawn are fine. For this particular setting I think anime style might be ill-fitting somewhat.

Game of Thrones : The Pact of Ice and Fire (Always Open)

@EnterTheHero Hmm that depends. Do you mean the Pyromancers in the Alchemist's Guild, the Red Priests, or just general pyromancers like that one Qartheen sorcerer?

Game of Thrones : The Pact of Ice and Fire (Always Open)

@Greenie Hop right in! I look forward to seeing what you got.

@supertinyking Yeah sure, any idea what direction you want to take the House in?

Game of Thrones : The Pact of Ice and Fire

I was under a different impression with regards to Shireen but whatever. I'm fine with letting people develop their POVs, the entire next generation of Westeros' leadership is going to be largely player determined for example, but a concrete backstory was needed in my opinion. There needed to be a fate for the Boltons, for Stannis, for Shireen, for Cersei, and while they aren't dead in the books (and Cersei isn't in the show) I was trying to reconcile the two canons and that necessitated a few unplayable characters.

All that aside thank you for your interest and your input, and I hope your other games go well and who knows we might be in a game together in the future.

Game of Thrones : The Pact of Ice and Fire (Always Open)

@Masterkeun I can see you're probably not finished with the sheet, since there seems to be a lot of room for further detail but there's a few minor points I want to bring up.

1) Since this draws heavily from established canon, you have to take into account House Frey's genealogy. There were a looooooot of Frey heirs. Sons, and grandsons, and greatgrandsons, and bastards, and grandbastards and so on. Edwyn and Black Walder were the main contenders and there was probably a a lot of others, and a lot of Freys probably died, but it's next to impossible that there wouldn't have been a male heir to House Frey. So you'd kinda have to come up with a specific lineage with the Freys you want to play. Also in canon, I do not believe there are any swamps outside of the Neck mentioned. The only swamp nearby the Riverlands would be where the crannogmen live, and they incidentally have a feud with the Freys. If they Freys had to live there... well let's just say I don't see the Freys living in a swamp. Alternatively, they could still hold the Twins but they could have had a lot of hostages taken and those complicit in the Red Wedding executed. Basically what happened to the Greyjoys when they rebelled.

2) It's only in very specific circumstances that a woman would lead a House. Dorne is the exception to the rule, but all other notable female rulers we have in the series are either widows of the Lord or the last of their name. Or they live in environs where people are a little more accepting of female rulers, like the women of Bear Island or Asha Greyjoy with her sailors. It is extremely unlikely and implausible that Mable wouldn't have any eligible male relatives who would take control. In most of Westeros, females only inherit when all other legitimate male heirs are not an option. With the information I have, Mable's twin brother would be the rightful ruler of House Frey. But again that's assuming all of the canon Freys just all died, which is unlikely. I also find it unlikely that the Freys especially would tolerate a woman as leader. I think your original concept of having Mable apart from the leadership, as a sellsword might work better.

3) The Mountain Clans are seen as barbarians by the whole realm. Tyrion getting a deal with them was pretty much a once-in-a-lifetime event. Walder Frey certainly could not and probably would not have made the same kind of arrangement. If you need a leader of the Frey military, it'd be better to use an actual Frey since they're so many of them and the House Sheets are for family member PCs. Servants and vassals would be NPCs.

4) There needs to be a lot more detail. What are the trueborn sons up to? Why would Jon refuse to help the Freys loyal to the crown? Why would Mable still be loyal to the crown if Jon didn't help her? All in all, there needs to be quite a bit more explicit details and exploration of motivation and personality.

I understand that it's probably a work in progress, that's just my thoughts on what I see so far. This is not meant to discourage you at all.

@Nightwing95 Great sheet, you are accepted. My one minor nitpick is that I don't think non-rulers get the roman numerals after their names. IIRC that only happens if someone becomes ruler and their namesake was also a ruler.

Game of Thrones : The Pact of Ice and Fire

@Gowi Well the nuts and bolts of the situation is largely subject to collaboration between the players. What is Jaime Lannister's fate? Brienne of Tarth's? Jorah Mormont? Who did Brandon Stark marry? Arya? Sansa? What's the status of House Frey? Is House Bolton bouncing back? Who are the other members of the Small Council? What other big rivalries and conflicts are boiling over? All other kinds of specific details. Details like that are important but are ambiguous and undecided in what is essentially my high concept summary of the potential future. Notice I pretty much gloss over the particulars of nearly 25 years of history in Westeros to allow room for that kind of collaboration. But big elements somewhat have to be nailed down since the RP is both set in the future and is also a blend of Show/Book canon, and something of my attempt to merge elements of the two continuities. Shireen was then envisioned as dead since the RP draws from both continuities.

I thought it would be best to lay down a solid foundation for the players to then build on. I didn't really think it'd be great to leave open the question of who would sit on the Iron Throne and big details like that. In my opinion, leaving so much up in the air at the start would have really delayed the start of the game and possibly killed it as people debate about whether or not Jon, Dany, Aegon, Stannis, Tommen, or whoever should sit on the Iron Throne. I also thought quibbling over what elements from the show should and shouldn't be canon would get really tedious. Especially since in most cases like Shireen, they will almost certainly die in the books as well. Creating a high concept summary to try and reconcile the two continuities seemed neater. My GMing style in the past has mostly been for me to help build something of a sandbox and then let the players decide the direction and details of the story and world. That's just my view on it but I understand completely what you're saying.

That said, I'm still open to hearing your ideas for your Shireen concept. And yes if she is alive, she'd be in her mid-thirties at this point.

EDIT: Dredigan suggested to me perhaps that since she was sacrificed to R'hllor, it isn't completely far-fetched that the magic of R'hllor was also used to bring her back in the "modern day" of the RP. It could potentially add an interesting facet to her character and some very interesting opportunities for interaction or conflict in the game. What are your thoughts?

Game of Thrones : The Pact of Ice and Fire

@Gowi that's a really interesting idea! Since this is based off of a blend of show/book canon, Shireen was originally sadly unavailable for play. Instead Edric Storm and the other surviving bastards were legitimized to continue the House, with Edric as the Lord Paramount.

If you're willing to play as Edric, then no change is necessary. But I'll collaborate with Dredigan, they're my Co-GM, and see what they think about possibly letting you play Shireen. We'll mull it over and get back to as quick as possible with our thoughts. I would normally say yes, but the issue here is that this would open the doors for a lot of characters who would be dead in the story having their status ambiguous and that could potentially make things quite messy if players want to come in, rez a character who had been considered dead before, and somewhat wreck the continuity. Or perhaps we could allow it on an individual basis. Either way, I will definitely get back to you soon.

What other changes were you thinking over?