Rise And Fall: A Game Of Thrones OOC

[OiHarkin]

They had come together at the ford of the Trident while the battle crashed around them - Robert with his warhammer and his great antlered helm, the Targaryen prince armored all in black. On the prince's breastplate was the three-headed dragon of his House, wrought all in rubies that flashed like fire in the sunlight. the waters of the Trident ran red around the hooves of their destriers as they circled and clashed, again and again until at last a crushing blow from Robert's hammer stove in the dragon and the chest beneath it. When Ned [Stark] had finally come on the scene, Rhaegar lay dead in the stream while men of both armies scrabbled in the swirling waters for rubies knocked free of his armor." - Game of Thrones

I'm putting together a Game of Thrones rpg set a few years before the beginning of the first book, meaning it's not necessary that you've read them or seen the show, though reading at least the first book should help you pick up the language and get an idea for the culture. If you're interested in a schemy, political game in a gritty fantasy world but don't know Game of Thrones, PM me with questions and I'll do my best to fill you in! I'm toying with whether to make this casual or advanced.

Plot and Setting

"When you play the game of thrones, you win or you die." - Queen Cersei Lannister.

The idea is that the characters will all be members of one of the small noble Houses that rule Westeros. The adventure will be a chronicling of this House's rising and falling (hence the name) in Westeros through their role in wars and intrigues, betrayals and alliances. I'd like quite a large group, but ideally the 'core' would be around this noble family, meaning you'd either be members of that family or members of their castle staff; one character might be the lord of the House entire, while another might be the stableboy who sees things around the castle etc. But each of them will be important in deciding the ultimate fate of their House - for better or worse.

This is set ten years after Robert's Rebellion, the civil war that killed Aerys Targaryen, the Mad King, and catapulted Robert Baratheon to the Iron Throne and the title of King of Westeros. By most accounts, Robert is a decent king, largely thanks to his connection by marriage to the extravagantly wealthy House Lannister. Robert's son, Joffrey, is about eight years old and Tommen only recently born. His allies in the war have been given seats of great power and many who rode against Robert were spared in exchange for them pledging loyalty. Five years ago, the Greyjoy rebellion was scattered by the superior numbers of the royal fleets. The coasts of Westeros are being still being raided by the rebellious Greyjoys and Robert's fleets are marshalling their strength to defeat them a second time. Jon Arryn is Hand of the King and enforces his law, while to the North lies the great Wall, where Benjen Stark and Jeor Mormont lead the Nights Watch in keeping away the cold and the dark with fire and steel.

With another uprising so soon after Robert's Rebellion, there is much upset and rumour in the courts of Westeros. Some are saying that the some Targaryens escaped Robert's wrath and that they still have sympathisers in the noble Houses of Westeros. Motives are being questioned, suspicious deaths are occuring and at the centre of all this - is your House.

"Some battles are won with swords and shields, others with quills and ravens" - Tywin Lannister

CS And Rules

[If you have a picture for your character, put it here. Also, include any particular quote for your character here.]
Name:
Gender:
Age:
Appearance: (If you've used a picture, use this to note any typical clothes or distinguishing marks they have)
Line of Succession: (If noble male. How many people would have to die before you became lord? For instance, the lord's son is first in line, so he'd put 1 here. The son's younger brother puts 2 etc. Women will only inherit after all male heirs are dead, because gender equality's not great in Westeros)
Role: (What do they do for the House? Are they Lord? Steward? Cook?)
Edge: (What one thing do they have that will lead them to glory? For instance, Tyrion Lannister's edge is his wits)
Flaw: (What one thing do they have that will lead them to the grave? Ed Stark's is his honor, for instance.)
Secret: (There's something your character doesn't want other people to know. PM me with that. Just put "Yes" in this box. Jaime/Cersei Lannister's secret is their incest.)
Personality: (Obvious.)
Equipment: (Any weapons, armor and general gear)
Backstory: (At least a couple of paragraphs)

• Basic rules of decorum and posting quality apply here.
• No upper limit to number of people who can get involved here, nor the amount of characters one player can have but they need to have a connection to the House somehow.
• Magic has not returned yet. No red priests, skinchangers, wargs or greenseers. Definitely no dragons.
• Mortality level will be quite high here, so don't be afraid to prepare back up characters.
• We will not be keeping 100% to canon here (ie a second Greyjoy Rebellion), so things might happen differently in the books.

The House

"Everyone who isn't us is our enemy." - Queen Cersei Lannister

Now, you maybe have noticed that I've carefully avoided naming the noble House you'll all be members of. That's because I want it to be something everyone has a bit of impact in creating. That way everyone is a bit more involved and engaged with the goings-on of the House. The only thing I as GM want to "mandate" is that your House will start play being relatively minor. You won't be playing something on the level of the Starks or Baratheons; more like the Boltons or the Karstarks.

I'll be using the House Creation rules in the Song of Ice And Fire roleplaying game rule book to randomly determine the basic shell of the House, and then anyone who submits a character sheet can also create things like notable settlements in your lands, the house words, historical figures, any peculiar quirks and customs of the family.

Currently, the House is unnamed. Below is the basic shell and how I got there:

Using the Invisible Castle Dice Roller for these things.
First thing is rolling 3d6 for starting realm: Your House is in The North You are likely sworn to the Starks.
Next are the House's Resources, rolling 7d6 which is then modified by the realm. These go on a scale from 0 to 70, so a stat of 0 Wealth means literally being bankrupt while above 60 is Lannister rich.
Defense: 19 + 5 for the North = 24:
Influence: 23 + 10 for the North = 33:
Lands: 25 + 20 for the North = 45:
Law: 23 - 10 for the North = 13:
Population: 27 - 5 for the North = 22:
Power (Military): 28 - 5 for the North = 23:
Wealth: 25 - 5 for the North = 20:

Next is the House History. Again, this is something where the basics are rolled (ie the general era and circumstances of the House founding) but the specifics are up to you guys (ie it was done by this king as a reward for this action or something else).

Era Founded: 3 - The Rhoynar Invasion [~1000 years ago]. This gives you 5 Historical Events so let's say 200 years pass between each and the most recent occurred in living memory.
Founding: Scandal. Your family was created as a way to cover up a crime. -1d6 to Influence, Lands and Power.
Second Event: Infrastructure. You enjoyed a relatively quiet and prosperous period in which you built your house. +1d6 to two stats, of your choosing.
Third Event: Descent. An unfortunate turn of events - eg a poor marriage, decline in trade, or a costly drought - diminished you slightly. -1d6 to Influence, Lands, Power and Wealth.
Fourth Event: Victory. You won a great battle or proved crucial in winning a war. +1d6 to Defense, Influence and Power.
Fifth Event: Ascent. A fortuitous turn of events - eg a good political marriage, up-turn in trade or a great deed of heroism - have improved your fortunes. +1d6 to Influence, Lands, Power and Wealth.

So, the final stats for the House go like this:
Realm: The North
Defense: 30 - You have at least one stronghold and decent roads.
Influence: 28 - You are a minor House with status roughly equivalent to the Karstarks or Cleganes.
Lands: 47 - You command significant territory, equivalent to the Greyjoys.
Law: 13 - Banditry and lawlessness is a problem at the fringes of your lands.
Population: 22 - Fairly typical. Most of your settlements are farming hamlets but you might have a full town near your keep.
Power: 23 - You have a modest militia with a few professional soldiers.
Wealth: 19 - Poor. You have enough to cover the basics for your family and your lands, but no room for extravagance.
With 2 stats available for a bonus of +1d6.

At the moment, all slots within the heirarchy of the noble house - from the current Lord down to stable boy - are available for play right now.

Let's get scheming!

[Dredigan]

Right now, I want to call dibs on the heir. (If possible?)

[Hadrada]

Hey chaps, me again. I’ve been doing some reading and am getting up to speed slowly. A few things. Firstly, since we seem to be starting to hash out the family tree could I put myself in position number three as the heirs second son, so I would have an older brother. I’m writing up more the CS as we speak. As for the lands and perks that were mentioned in the interest check I am very happy to be assigned to the Northlands, would I be right in saying the Northlands are poorer and less fertile? If so excellent, it gives us a uniting medium term objective. Namely to get lands in the south where we might actually make some decent money.
I also have a question about the perks. You mention in the list influence. Would I be right in saying influence is other families or groups owing your family favours, loyalty that sort of thing. If that is simply what influence is then how is holding actual offices such as Marshal, Warden, Admiral, Chancellor and Sherriff type positions determined or is that folded into influence?

As for my votes to the two additional rolls I vote for defence and law. Good roads and an orderly populace are necessary to get anything done. Without these things we will have to focus a great deal more of our attention on sorting out internal problems and therefore risk sacrificing a lot of potential gains in the wider world.

Also would we have a port in our lands? Obviously not White Harbour that seems well beyond us if we are indeed a minor family. But what about something at the mouth or the Last River or something feeding into the Salt Spear or something along those lines.

By the way in writing my CS I have assumed mercenaries are prevalent and commonly used by noble houses. If that’s not a feature of this universe and I just haven’t caught it yet let me know. Thanks

[Dredigan]

Mercenary's have been used often. Very prominent was Bronn who Tyrion Lannister hired for the first three books before he was raised to knighthood. I'm gonna write my CS too, im doing it as the heir to the lordship...

I'm also writing it as if we agreed our house name is Rensyn just in case I need to use that name in the Cs but of course it will be able to be changed if we don't use that name.



I feel like the CS isn't good enough XD I deleted it and am re-writing it. I'll have it up by tonight I promise. Probably a couple of hours unless I have to leave for something.

[OiHarkin]

Would I be right in saying the Northlands are poorer and less fertile? If so excellent, it gives us a uniting medium term objective. Namely to get lands in the south where we might actually make some decent money.

That's right; the North is wide and vast, but sparsely populated and not particularly wealthy. So you might command a lot of territory, but it's more likely to be moors and and sheepcrofts than gold mines and vinyards.

I also have a question about the perks. You mention in the list influence. Would I be right in saying influence is other families or groups owing your family favours, loyalty that sort of thing. If that is simply what influence is then how is holding actual offices such as Marshal, Warden, Admiral, Chancellor and Sherriff type positions determined or is that folded into influence?

Influence basically represents political sway you have across the land, how much your word means in a court and so on. Every region and House will still have roles of government. In the pen-and-paper game it has more mechanical influence to do with the Status stat, but since this is going to be primarily an abstract game, it's just a kind of yardstick to represent that you guys are quite a small fish in a big pond.

As for my votes to the two additional rolls I vote for defence and law. Good roads and an orderly populace are necessary to get anything done. Without these things we will have to focus a great deal more of our attention on sorting out internal problems and therefore risk sacrificing a lot of potential gains in the wider world.

Noted! When a couple of others put their idea forward, I'll make the boon.

Also would we have a port in our lands? Obviously not White Harbour that seems well beyond us if we are indeed a minor family. But what about something at the mouth or the Last River or something feeding into the Salt Spear or something along those lines.

Sure, that could work. It might be that this is where your larger town is, your centre of power?

By the way in writing my CS I have assumed mercenaries are prevalent and commonly used by noble houses. If that’s not a feature of this universe and I just haven’t caught it yet let me know. Thanks

Yes, sellswords get used quite often. It's not unheard of for knights to work with sellswords and reward particularly good ones with knighthoods.

[Dredigan]

I vote that we have Land and Power as our major skills. We are in the north so it makes sense to have a lot of land, and in the north the men, though they may be scarce, are hardened fighters and ultimately if you put 100 of anybody against a hundred northmen I believe the northmen would win.

Also, I think our sigil should be a white, winged sword on a black field.

[KrazyWolf]

Sorry to raise this, but the amount of lands we own is equivalent to Dorne, which would be near half of the North :/

[Dredigan]

lol we should probably fix that.

[OiHarkin]

Yeah, the way the table is set up that's actually pretty much an average role; Northern Houses get +20 to Lands and given that 7d6 will usually average between 18 and 23... In future, I might change the categories of the Land values to reflect that. Maybe change the +20 to a +10

The one below it is "moderately large stretch of land including several notable geographic features" where the example given is House Greyjoy and the Iron Islands. Bear in mind Greyjoy is really small as houses go. What do yo uthink about that?

[Dredigan]

I think that our lands would be good if we combined The Iron Islands with Bear Island and Tarth.