A Game of Thrones Roleplaying Game (d20)

[Crothian]

Countless readers have followed “A Song of Ice and Fire,” George R. R. Martin’s masterful epic fantasy series. Now, the knights and nobles, politics and poisons, creatures of darkness and powers of blood of Westeros and beyond are yours to discover—and make your own.

An OGL Roleplaying Game and Reference Guide for A Game of Thrones

• This complete OGL rule book explores the setting of the best-selling fantasy series as never before, from the factious continent of Westeros to the exotic Free Cities to the expansive plains of the Dothraki Sea.
• Includes dozens of customized character classes and prestige classes that capture the spirit of the setting, enhanced by the new social maneuvering rules of Influence and Reputation.
• Provides a comprehensive encyclopedia of characters, places, houses, and alliances, with detailed insight on integrating the setting into your campaign.
• Details the first novel in the series, A Game of Thrones, presenting a wealth of material about the dynamic and mysterious lands of the Seven Kingdoms. • Includes a pull out poster-sized map of Westeros.
• Every fan of George R. R. Martin will want this comprehensive encyclopedia of his beloved series — even if they aren’t gamers.

Sword & Sorcery books are published under the Open Game License and are 100% compatible with v.3.5 rules and the d20 System. White Wolf is a registered trademark, and Sword and Sorcery Studios is a trademark of White Wolf Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved. D20 system and the d20 logo are registered trademarks of Wizards of the Coast, Inc. and used under license. Guardians of Order and Tri-Stat System are trademarks of Guardians Of Order, Inc. A Game of Thrones ™ and © George R. R. Martin.

Scheduled for Release October 2005.

ISBN: 1-58846-942-5

 

[HellHound]

A big honking book!

A Game of Thrones

This is the largest RPG book so far this year. Actually, I think it is one of the biggest RPG books I’ve ever owned. Initially, it reminded me of holding the old Warhammer FRP 1e hardcover for sheer thickness, but the page weight is a lot lighter, and the page count higher. Alan Kohler (Psion) has been talking about ‘the year of the big book’, and this certainly fits at 496 pages. This is wrist-hurting big, by the way - It is for reading on a table, not on the couch - within two minutes of opening this book I had to move from the couch to the table because my wrist hurt.

This is a full RPG and setting in one book, a complete RPG from background and character creation, through to mechanics, adversaries and setting and material to help the GM run A Game of Thrones.

This is the standard OGL edition of the game, not the beautiful deluxe edition, nor the forthcoming standard tri-stat edition. That’s not to say that it isn’t gorgeous - the layout is excellent, nicely avoiding widows and orphans, font choice generally good (although I find the primary font a bit hard to read because it is tall and narrow - however this certainly serves to increase the word count per page), art vignettes appropriate and well-placed, and the illustrations are excellent. This is a "widescreen format" RPG - illustrations are full double-page plates, something I have been enjoying in Guardians of Order’s recent releases such as Ex Machina. The font used on the cover is a little over-used in general outside of this work, but the overall package is very strong. The only thing I would have changed would perhaps be the primary interior font and including the full map of Westeros on the inside covers of the book in addition to buried away inside on page 342-343. This is a d20-based game, not an actual d20 product. It doesn’t have the d20 logo on it, but it does use the Open Game License and references the d20 SRD in the Section 15 of the license (as well, I might add, as Tournaments Fairs & Taverns and Wild Spellcraft).

Before I go any further into the book, I’m going to mention that I’ve never read any of George R.R. Martin’s works, although I intend to do so at some point in the future now that I’ve read this game. My wife and I both read through this game and then the family sat down, negotiated a style of campaign to play, and made characters as a way of getting a feel for the systems involved. So this is, in turn, somewhat of a playtest review.

Like other games in the new "widescreen" format of GoO games, A Game of Thrones opens with a very well written introduction to fantasy literature and RPGs through the years, types of fantasy and so on. These opening chapters have become some of my favorite readings when I have nothing else to do, and a really a huge step beyond the classic "what is role-playing" page that appears in the front of many RPGs. Finally, the book implements sidebars throughout the volume, explaining optional rules, reasons for changes to the core d20 mechanics, reminders about important themes, summaries of each chapter (especially focusing on changes from the core mechanics), designer’s notes and so on.

Unlike most other d20-based games, character creation in A Game Of Thrones specifically begins with discussion on the style of game to be played, and what is expected from the players and the GM during the campaign. This discussion and negotiation is an excellent way to set up a campaign, with everyone going in with knowledge of how the storyline is expected to grow during the game, thus no one is entering into the game with confusion over his or her role or importance to the storyline. There are three styles of game that are set up in this manner. The classic "party of adventurers" style of game that most of us are familiar with from D&D play is offered as a choice, but the game also discusses how to set up and run a political game (a game of thrones, as it were), as well as a noble house game where the players are all members of a noble house, playing through the trials and tribulations of such. The noble house game immediately struck a chord with a few of us, thinking back to the adventures of Arthur as a child in The Once and Future King, or of the activities at Harper Hall or among the Dragonriders of Pern. This immediate difference in how to approach the playing of the game lends flavour to the rest of the character creation and game mechanics sections of the book, as we look at each in different ways. Playing the party of adventurers is probably the most restrictive way of playing the game as written, because it gives the least opportunity to use the influence and reputation rules that make up a fair amount of the mechanics sections of the rule book. In our case, we created a mix of the noble house campaign and the wandering adventurers,

From there, we generate ability scores as in D&D proper (recommended is the point buy method, also fully explained, but my family is partial to the organic character creation method, so we stuck to that). Part of this is selecting the age of a character. Children characters are included in this character generation system much to the delight of my youngest daughter. A noble house or political game would work well including some children in the starting group, and then aging them rapidly as the game progresses (by skipping ‘boring’ stretches of downtime, for example).

Instead of race, the next step is the selection of background from among the geographical points of origin in Westeros or perhaps even the Free Cities beyond. Backgrounds are treated essentially as races, except that they vary from the baseline human not in ability scores, but by providing a favoured skill, bonuses on some specific skill checks, and a collection of background feats to choose from. After background, a character’s house affiliation (or lack thereof) determines a character’s starting social status as well as adding some additional feats to the choices of background feats he or she has available to choose from.

Social status is a new stat used in game to determine a character’s influence and reputation, as well as their wealth. An interesting touch is that the game applies an ECL to certain social status ranks, in order to balance a party between skill and prowess versus wealth and influence. For example, in our starting party, we had a level 1 child of a minor house who is in the care of a major noble house, a level 2 minor noble acting as the child’s caretaker (a knight whose family owes the major noble house a favour or six), and a level 3 swordsman and weaponsmith who is in the employ of the noble house as the child’s trainer in the arts of war.

The core classes of the game reflect the change in priorities from a typical D&D campaign, with some classes specifically better at combat than others, instead of the general ‘balance’ provided within the core d20 framework. The combat oriented characters (Man-at-arms, Raider) remain well-balanced internally, without completely outstripping the skills and abilities of the Godsworn (priests), Hunters (rangers), Knaves (rogues), Maesters (experts / sages), and Nobles. Multiclassing is encouraged, as most male nobles will also have a level or two of man-at-arms to reflect their martial training, although feats can be spent instead on martial proficiencies to reflect less military-oriented nobles (such as the noble knave in our party who is more of a drunkard who is suddenly discovering himself and pushing beyond his old boundaries than a brave and noble knight). There is also a selection of prestige classes for the setting that helped me get a feel for the setting. Overall, I was quite content with the classes chapter, which is almost surprising as I am pretty critical of classes, especially when they are being used to establish the basis of the campaign style. A footnote of the classes chapter is the hit points per level system reduces hit point escalation significantly unless a character has a very high Constitution. A starting character has a set number of hit points at level 1, and then a set number of hit points at every subsequent level, between 1 and 3 points. The downside with this is that a high Constitution gives a distinct advantage at medium and higher levels, as the character can triple his hit points (or more) in this way. I would consider using half the character’s Constitution bonus beyond level 1.

The skills remain generally the same as in core d20 games. However, skill synergy bonuses are applied on a case-by-case basis instead of following a pre-determined list - the only requirement is that the character have 5 or more ranks in the synergistic skill and that the player and GM agree that the synergy is appropriate. Also, the crafting skills are different in that each craft has a different stat base, and Domestic Arts is a new craft skill which covers child rearing, cleaning, cooking, household affairs and needlework. Finally, a character can specialize any skill, by choosing a single specialty appropriate for the skill - henceforth, the character gains a +1 bonus when using the skill for that specialty, and suffers no other penalties. Gaining more than one specialty in a skill is possible, but it costs 1 skill rank to gain a new specialty, so it is only worth it if the skill is already maxed out, but you want to get even better at something specific. The specialties are a simple system that adds flavour to the skill lists of a character, and were appreciated by the party. That said, Craft (Child Rearing) made us laugh; although it would actually be Craft (Domestic Arts) (Child Rearing). As a closing note, most of the character classes have a significant number (and odd number) of skill points at each level, so a character will generally have more skills in this game than in a core d20 game. Also, the character sheet provided at the back of the book only contains a short block for writing in your skills, even though the skill list in this game is at least as long as the skill list in normal d20 games. In the end, we had to print a skill sheet on the back of each player’s character sheet to be able to track skills, skill ranks, stat bonuses and so on which take significantly more room than the four half lines given on the sheet.

The feats chapter is typical of a d20 based game, and they are applied in the same way. There are two major changes to the feat structure however. The feats providing +2 to two skills and Skill Focus have been removed and replaced with a short list of background feats that add two skills to your class skills (such as Able Body, which allows you to choose two from Balance, Climb, Escape Artist, Hide, Move Silently, Ride, Swim, Tumble and Use Rope). The second change is in the combat feats. Because the system uses armor providing damage reduction, a selection of feats exists that allows a character to add a stat bonus either to his attack or defense rolls with a particular weapon type - if the feat is taken twice then the stat bonus applies to both attack and defense rolls. Many of the feats serve to further enhance the feel of the setting, particularly among the background feats which help drive home the stereotypes of each background, as well as feats such as Heir (which makes you the heir to your noble family), Leechcraft (to remind you of the primitive state of medicine), and feats that give you power within an organization such as Authority, Command, Head of House, and Political Connections. In the end, as with most d20 games, a large number of the feats remain combat-oriented, but they are well balanced here by a large number of background and social feats.

The game mechanics remain very much true to the core d20 rules, adding the use of a defense roll in combat, removing attacks of opportunity, and making armor provide damage reduction instead of an AC bonus. The game mechanics chapter is very clearly written, and includes some other new rules that are well-integrated into the whole instead of feeling ‘bolted on’ to the system (such as rules for shock and pain that are elegant and simple, and obviously based on the Massive Damage rules). A lot of the mechanics are about the use of influence and reputation in play, which are important for a game which aims to be as much about political and social conflict as physical. Again, these systems are handled well and with excellent and clear writing and examples, making them seemingly simple to adjudicate in play.

From page 290 onwards, the book becomes the realm of the Game Master, with large sections suggesting how to maintain the game’s feel through status, society, family, consequences for actions, deeds and misdeeds and so on. It also includes NPC classes and PrCs, basics on using magic (and the incredible rarity thereof), experience and advancement and a basic bestiary before moving on to the setting proper. The last two major chapters are the history, geography and sociology of the setting and then a selection of NPCs all statted up nice and pretty.

In the end, my only complaints about this book are the character sheet (4 lines to handle a d20 character’s skill list? And to make it worse, there is no sheet to download from the company website yet so you have to either photocopy the sheet in the back of the book, or make your own), the location of the map being tucked into the book proper, and the fact that it relies on a set of books I haven’t read yet as the backstory. But that last problem is fixed by the excellent exposition material throughout the volume to get you feeling like you know this game world - two reads through the book and I feel that when I do read the George R.R. Martin books I will be coming in from a position of experience in the world as written. I was particularly happy with the campaign examples stretching so far from the standard fantasy classic of the party of adventurers, and look forward to running a noble house campaign. Finally, although the book contains a lot of story leads on what to use for games, adventures and story seeds, it lacks a sample adventure that would have helped tie the whole work together. This book is definitely a five-star release - not that it completely lacks in faults, but in that it is a complete RPG requiring no other resources, it is very clearly and well written and managed to maintain its tone even through the most mechanically-intense chapters.

If I were not using this for an actual Game of Thrones game, would I still get this book? Absolutely. It is a great read to begin with, and has great ideas for fantasy gaming in general. The implementation of the skill specializations is a simple change that works very well within the d20 core system, transfers easily, and adds texture to a character. Many of the new feats are excellent resources for making feats in your own setting (the blood of... feats for instance) and others can be ported over directly (such as the feat that grants a Wisdom bonus to initiative). The shock value system makes combat more interesting, bringing in the massive damage rules at lower damage totals, without the deadly consequences; however I would increase the shock value for standard D&D play (as the characters have significantly higher hit points and damage dealing capability). What really got me hooked on this book, however, is something that would work with any fantasy RPG, which is whole sections on running games of politics, diplomacy, or dealing with the trials and tribulations of a noble family. I expect I will take away a lot of inspiration from this game to my other campaigns, whether or not I use any of the rules.

 

[Crothian]

Game of Thrones d20

Game of Thrones d20

The age of big books is upon us. At least that is what some people around here are saying. It has been a trend, but as I look at this book for this review it does not seem that big. It is almost five hundred pages and it is a good sized hard back. But as I read through the book it was all needed. There was no good way to do this book any smaller. So, is it the age of the big book or is it the age of books that are tackling concepts and ideas that can only be completely covered in a book of this size? Maybe it is splitting hairs a bit but Game of Thrones is as big as it needs to be. Guardians of Order I am sure could have done it smaller, but they wanted to do it right. I know this because they tell me in the book. This is one of the most impressive books I have seen in a very long time.

Game of Thrones d20 is the d20 version of Game of Thrones. That might seem a bit obvious, but there are more then one version of this book coming out. Guardians of Order has their own in house system called Tri Stat. It will be very interesting to see how the books do the same thing with different mechanics. Game of Thrones is a series of fantasy novels by George R. R. Martin. It is a series of epic fantasy that has a very large caste of characters. There are a lot of things going on in this world and it does make for a good role playing game fantasy. Not all fantasy novels can say that. So, in looking at a setting for gaming it is very important to have a setting that would make for a good backdrop for anyone to run a campaign in.

A lot of positive statements have been made about this book. It is really fantastic in all areas. The binding is very solid. I have been reading and rereading this book and tossing it around like I do all my role playing books and it is holding up great. That does not always happen with books of this size. The book is done in full color with some amazing two page spreads of art. These are full color art pieces that span two pages. Many of these are scenes from the novel or at the very least inspired by them. While the art for the most part is really good there are some pictures that proportions of people is really off in other words the legs are way longer then they should be. But for the most part the art if great. The layout is very good. They have a great use of table and sidebars all over the place but the pages never look crowded or bare. There are some stylized fonts used in headers but they are easy to read and fitting to the book. It is a very nice book just to look through.

Another important aspect of this book is its care to inform the reader of nearly everything. There is a lot of information in here on many different things, but the book takes care of making sure they are well explained. The book is only covering the events of the firs Game of Throne book. It is very up front about this and also speaks on canon material. Very simply everything in the novels should be canon and while this book does fill out many details on the world there is no guarantee that they will not be over ruled by future novels. But that is a chance that has to be taken when dealing with a series that is not fully written. The book does give a nice overview of the events in the first book. It is important for people to have read the novel though as the feel of character and places and events just is different reading then in a role playing game then in a novel. The RPG here also talks about what an RPG is and serves as a very good way to bring people who are fans of the novels into role playing. There is a nice example of game play and while this is not the quintessential book for introducing people to RPGs it does cover the basics.

One great thing that is included is a History of Fantasy. This section has really no impact on the game of or the setting. But it is fascinating to me. It is just sixteen pages on fantasy and the genre as it has evolved over the last century. Some very good research goes into this and while it is not going to be extensively complete, it serves as a great way to just look at fantasy for those of that are fans of the genre. At the very least I found mention of a few authors I do not read and will have more novels to take a look at.

The mechanics of the game come early in the book. However, the approach to character generation is really solid and one I really wish Wizards of the Coast would adopt for their game. The focus of the character generation is on the character and not on the stats. They have a ten step character generation chart and picking up the dice is in the third step and actually that ability generation which they suggest point buy so no dice there really. But it starts with discussing things with the DM and figuring out what the game is going to be about, what characters are best suited for this, and just getting an understanding of what the game is going to be so the character concept works. There are some interesting changes in creating a character, but for the most part it is going to be very familiar to people familiar with the system. The game makes use of backgrounds and house affiliation and these can actually be more character defining then the class. The selection of backgrounds is very impressive and mighty be the most complete selection in all of d20.

However, all is not perfectly well in the game. There are character defects. Now, I really like defects for character. I think including weaknesses for the characters is a great way to make them feel more human and can bring in some nice role playing opportunities. However, I do not like the way that there are mechanical benefits for them. Guardians of Order does do something most systems do not and specifically tell the DM to make the defects bite. In other words makes them count as too many systems it seems offer something for defects and then the DM drops the ball with never enforcing them. I prefer a system that only rewards the characters when the defects actually come into play. The system they use here really places a lot of trust that the DM will make the defects balanced but having them show up in game. That’s really the problem the reward the characters get is always there but the payment which is the defect is only there when it is remembered to be used.

There are other rules changes here as well. Armor provides damage reduction. Hit points are a lot less with classes getting a set number to start with and a much lower set amount as they gain levels. This is very much like the Babylon 5 RPG except constitution bonus is added to these hit points. Attack bonuses are the same as class bonuses but strength and dexterity do not automatically add to attack roles. There are rules for piece mail armor, attacking through armor and called shots, and a few other specific rules that make combat more deadly. Seeing all the changes together really brings the feel of the game to that of the novels.

More important then the rules though is the setting. As I stated the book covers the first book in the setting and gives a nice over view of the novel. There is a lot of great information in the book about the different houses, the different places, and the people. Reading the novel is important but one does not have to know the novel completely to follow what is going on in this Role Playing Game. I have only read the novel once and it was some time ago, and the RPG here presents enough for me to remember the important things and gives some great information that really fits into this.

A Game of Thrones is a setting I can see myself playing and it is a set of rules that I would enjoy playing. The focus on the character of the character over the stats is very important to the feel of the game and to the style of game that reflects the novels. I can see people wrapping up their current campaign to start one in here.

 

[HellHound]

Thanks, Crothian. In my notes somewhere I reminded myself to talk about the Defects, and how the systems from nWoD and other games are more to my taste because they only reward the player when the defects come into play - whereas the defects in aGoT reward you at CharGen, regardless of their use or lack thereof.

 

[Surreptitious]

Thats some recomendation you give the aGoT-RPG Chrothian. I've been reading a couple of GRRMs novels over the last couple of months, made m want to start a Birthright style campaign. With this review I'm sold, I'll order the book immideatly even though it is quite costly.

 

[Guardians Of Order]

Clarification of the Map

Thanks for the well-written (and positive!) review.

I just want to clarify something regarding the Westeros map. You write in your review:

"The only thing I would have changed would perhaps be ... including the full map of Westeros on the inside covers of the book "

Note that what you received was a "pre-release" copy of the game. The actual book will have a removable poster-sized full-colour map glued in into the back endleaf. Consequently, the purchaser will have immediate access to a very beautiful and detailed map as soon as they open the book.

Thank you once again for taking the time to review the game. I am very pleased you enjoyed it.

[Note to fans: the deluxe edition and the standard OGL edition should be available in stores in early November.]

 

[Neo]

I have to see I was really impressed by this book.. not for the sheer quantity of content, and thematically inspired rules and ideas.. but also for its delisciously put together art.

This is one of my 3 favourite fantasy RPG books for the others that i feel are equally good in idea, appearance and content are the FRCG and Midnight.

Top notch job by S&S & GOO

 

[Psion]

A Game of Thrones (Standard Edition) is the d20 based OGL game book for roleplaying games set in George RR Martin’s novel series of the same name, a recent hit among fantasy literature fans (a group with sizable overlap with the fantasy RPG audience.) The book is published by Guardians of Order. Writing credits include Elissa Carey, Johnathon Cassie, Simone Cooper, Chris Desmarais, Jason Durall, Debbie Gallagher, Sam Johnson, David Lyons, Wil Upchurch, Jeremy “Bolthy” Zimmerman, Jesse Scoble, and Ian Sturrock.

Note that Guardians of Order also publishes a Tri-Stat edition of this game. This review concerns the d20/OGL version.

Also note that this review is based on a pre-release version with only a partial map of Westros.

A First Look

A Game of Thrones is a substantial book, weighing in at 496 pages. The book is a hardcover with color interior, with an MSRP of $49.95 US. Though there are few RPGs of this size to compare it to, the book keeps the 10 cent per page ratio that seem to be the low end for books in its category, comparing to similarly competitively priced large RPG books such as Spycraft 2.0.

The cover of the book is a wrap-around oil painting, depicting an armored warrior in a snowy backdrop. The cover art is attributed to Mike S. Miller.

The interior is full color. This is one of those rare books that it serves little purpose to draw a distinction between cover and interior art. In addition to a variety of illustrations and character portaits, the book sports a number of full color two page spreads, most of which are extremely high quality and could have been just as easily used for the cover. There are a few of these paintings, however, that have a somewhat archaic style which really don’t catch my eye. Interior artists include Roman “Amok” Papsuev, Nate Barnes, Dennis Calero, Shane Coppage, Thomas Denmark, Chris Dien, Jason Engle, Mark Evans, Jon Hodgson, Veronica Jones, Travis Moore, Lee Moyer, William O’Conner, Chris Seaman, Andrew Trabbold, Beth Trott, and Udon Sudios.

Editorially, the book is well done. It’s not perfectly flawless, as I sighted a few flubs (like the much hated affect/effect confusion).

I appreciated the “designer note” sidebars throughout the book. In an OGL book that deviates from d20 in some significant but easy to overlook way, these are a great convenience to players familiar with the core d20 rules. Further, chapter summaries of each chapter help distill the content of the book down for those browsing the book.

A Deeper Look

A Game of Thrones back cover blurb calls the book “a comprehensive reference guide to the best-selling novel series by George RR Martin”. This makes it sound as if, in the case of Green Ronin’s Nocturnals and Mongoose’s Babylon 5 game, the book is intended to have some appeal to non-gaming fans of the series. Indeed, the books does seem like it has some sensibilities along these lines, including an extensive introduction with a history of fantasy fiction and many extensive summaries of characters from the setting with defer statistics until later in the book. That said, I don’t think it treads unjustifiably in this direction. I could have lived without the lengthy introduction, but the character descriptions are about on the order that would be justified in a role-playing heavy campaign involving the characters described.

Being an OGL book, this book includes everything you need to play (no reason to crack out your D&D Player’s Handbook and re-defines several aspects of character generation. The aforementioned sidebars describing differences from standard d20 are a real boon to current d20 system players, help them navigate their way through the rules changes quickly.

The game does not assume that all characters start at first level. The introductory section on characters defines a few standard campaign models such as the “noble house game”, and each of these describe appropriate roles for beginning characters depending on what level the GM decides to start the campaign at.

Wealth has been a sticky wicket in d20 fantasy. But in a highly political game climate like AGOT, the authors could ill afford the “magic wielding mercenary” monetary model of the core game. So instead of this model, players can choose to play characters of a higher social status, and thus character wealth and influence might vary in the group. The cost for a higher social status is ECL, which is probably the most acceptable place to put this cost, but it does limit the options if you are playing a game starting at low levels.

That said, the book only treats social status as a starting cost, and does not affect the character if it is raised or lowered due to in-play actions (which is a welcome break from experience teetotaling, but does raise questions of fairness when you are playing a game alongside players who paid for ranks you just earned through in-game actions.) The book does provide for dispensing with the ECL modifier in a game in which all of the characters are of an elevated social standing, and provides other options for handling it as well.

The system has more than a few tweaks that affect character creations, and the designers are sensitive to issues of balance. The fact that the system models armor as DR instead of opposing attack rolls means that it no longer makes sense to have strength add to attack rolls. To help balance this, several bonuses are removed from other ability scores. Most are reasonable, but the one that remains a head-scratcher to me is that attack rolls are no longer affected by dexterity.

In a similar vein to AEG’s Spycraft 2.0 and RPGObjects’ Legends books, backgrounds fill a role similar to races in games, or even the starting professions of D20 Modern, providing the character the character with a package of starting benefits. This includes bonuses to skills and/or saving throws, a “favored skill” always treated as a class skill (or providing a bonus if it already is), and access to regional feats. The backgrounds define which region and culture the character hails from and helps reflect it in game terms.


As the activities of noble houses are an important part of the landscape in a Game of Thrones game, choosing one (where appropriate) is a central character choice as well. Many house descriptions are provided; the bulk of these descriptions are background details, but there are a few game statistics associated with them, such as starting influence level, social status, and access to feats.

Classes are re-defined totally; Westros lacks the overt magic that d20 fantasy possesses, and nobility plays a much stronger role. This leads to a list of core classes that includes Artisan, Godsworn, Hunter, Knave (the closest thing to a rogue), Maester (a master of lore), Man-at-Arms, Noble, and Raider. There are no striaght-up spellcasters or spell-like abilities. Class abilities tend to be bonuses to skills or other rolls, or other non-magical abilities. Godsworn are not spellcasters, but can grant or receive bonuses due to blessings or faith. Most classes receive class abilities at every level; man-at-arms receives less (perhaps due to strong numbers in its advancement.)

A number of prestige classes here represent a variety of advanced or specific professions wuch as commanders, knights, or night’s watch rangers or stewards. Many of the prestige classes featured here are available sooner in a character’s career than traditional prestige class, to reflect situations that occur among young characters in the books.

Skills and feats have some modest tweaks from d20 fantasy, due to balance or other issues (for example, the leadership feat is replaced in function by AGOT’s influence mechanic.) A new class of feat is the Legendary Feat, the closest thing to supernatural abilities in the game. In this book, there are only a handful of these feats (Animal Companion, Dreams, and Pious), and in addition to their listed prerequisites, require explicit GM permission.

Befitting the highly political nature of the setting, AGOT features mechanics for reputation and influence.

Reputation progresses by class level. Whenever a character progresses in reputation, they choose a topic for their reputation such as “violent”, “hard worker”, etc. These points can be split up or accumulated. The reputation points can be invoked to add to or subtract from any roll the GM feels appropriate.

Influence is also accumulated per class level, much like HP, though the number is fixed and the character’s charisma modifier is applied at every level. Once accumulated, influence points are used to “purchase” influence with various figures. Influence can be used like skill ranks to curry favors with opposed rolls.

Characters who are inform or have some other form of physical or mental impairment are a common thing in Westros; befitting this, AGOT d20 provides a defect system. Unsurprisingly, this system resembles the point system in GOOs other books (Tri Stat and BESM d20). Defects typically provide 1-3 bonus points, which can be traded for skill points (3 per BP) or feats (1 for 3 BP). Though this is pretty much routine for Guardian’s of Order, and a significantly better system than the flaws system in Unearthed Acana (which is entirely too giving of feats), I have come to see this method of defect compensation as “old school”, and prefer the methods of newer systems such as 7th Sea, Spycraft, and the new World of Darkness. These systems provide experience when the disability actually hinders the character instead of the method of up-front compensation like AGOT, which tends to turn into a point farm and falls too easily to “min-maxing” mentality.

The game mechanics of AGOT d20 have fundamental similarities to d20 fantasy core rules. There are quite a few basic differences. As already mentioned, armor provides DR and uses class based defense bonuses. A fixed DR (“AC”) is not used for attack rolls. Instead dexterity bonus, shields, and class based defense bonuses are used as modifiers to a defense roll. The system also dispenses with attack of opportunities.

As is the case with many d20 instances addressing literary properties, the game is designed to be a bit deadlier than the d20 baseline. This is addressed through a derived statistic called shock value, equal to half of their Con score. Damage that exceeds this amount can stun the character and cause continuing hit point damage through bleeding (if lethal).

The book has a GMing section common to most large game books. As AGOT is not a game of dungeon crawls, the emphasis is rather more on the sorts of GMing skills that are needed in more story and politically driven games.

A few mechanical tidbits are tucked away in the GM section, including a few NPC classes in the style of those presented in the DMG. Also, given the rarity of magic in the setting, you’ll find the game’s magic rules tucked away here. Each spell is a feat of its own, but at the GM’s discretion, some can be enacted spontaneously (as happened in the series). Rituals require a difficult wisdom check, though bonuses can be derived from a variety of sources.

A brief sections discusses translating standard d20 fantasy characters. Though it might be possible that you would use this to pull in characters from other sources, it seems more likely to me that you would use this section to adapt some of this book’s rules to add a more political spin to a normal d20 fantasy campaign.

The last two chapters are substantial, and provide an overview of the world of Westros and major characters of the series. The characters chapter is split into two sections: a nicely illustrated front section with little mechanics and heavy on background details, and a mechanical section with full statistics. The section also contains sample characters that can be dropped into a game.

The book features two appendices – a character glossary and a d20 rules glossary – and a fully detailed index.

Conclusions

If you are a gaming fan of the Game of Thrones series, this purchase should be a no brainer: go out and buy this book. The only reservation is that you may want to get the Deluxe edition instead. Overall, this book is a good value for the page count and format, and mechanically, it seems well conceived and addresses many subtle points that are hallmarks of a well playtested game. Visually, the book is extremely attractive.

The book also has some potential for those who wish to harvest it. The classes aren’t as portable to standard d20 as some other literary adaptations, but I think the influence and reputation rules are well suited to any d20 system game which needs deeper political and social elements.

Overall Grade: A-

-Alan D. Kohler

 

[Teflon Billy]

Allright! A Game of Thrones!

With the long, long, loooooong overdue release of A Feast for Crows—the latest volume in the series— having finally occurred in England, I couldn’t think of a better time to give all and sundry a quick “heads up” on this, one of my favorite RPG supplements to ever hit the shelves.

A Song of Ice and Fire (the series of which A Game of Thrones is the first volume) is one of my favorite series of books of all time (and far and away my favorite series of fantasy novels…yes Lord of the Rings included), and I have tried on several occasions to run a D&D game reminiscent of these books since they came out.

And…I have not met with much success.

Generally speaking, D&D—as written—is a superhero game where ultra-powerful and ultra-prevalent magic subs-in for technology, despite its medieval/early renaissance trappings, and power levels of PC’s scale up to the point where it is perfectly feasible for them to stand off entire armies of conscripts, fall hundreds of feet, dine on poisons and return from the dead with about as much ado as changing a pair of pants.

It is very difficult to use the ruleset to run a medieval-setting game that doesn’t involve a ton of magic since, as has been discussed ad nauseum on these very forums, the stock D&D character and ECL balance falls apart if you aren’t loading your PC’s down with magical equipment and giving spellcasters a level of rarity roughly the equivalent to that of carpenters in our world (and equating them about as much mystique).

Fortunately for some, it’s pretty easy to “fix” stock D&D into a game that can model the novel in question: everyone plays a Fighter, Rogue or Expert, and the DM handwaves magic while completely setting aside the ECL system.

The bad news on this front is that when I say this works, I toss “works” into quotation marks; because what it does is make for a very boring game.

Fighters in stock D&D—particularly when bereft of their magical gewgaws—all start looking the same after awhile, and while Rogues and Experts can make some headway defining themselves mechanically, it still makes for a pretty dry experience for those who like a little bit of game mechanic with their role play (and though it is an unpopular view these days, I count myself amongst those that do).

This—despite some pretty impressive art previews—is pretty much what I was expecting from this product. I knew it would be pretty, and I knew it would be well-written, but I suspected there was only so much you could do with the standard D20 ruleset for modeling low magic.

This is categorically not what was delivered.

What Guardians of Order have done is take D&D’s “ultra-high-magic required” superheroics and used that familiar engine to create a credible ruleset for modeling a low magic/late medieval setting. As I’ve pointed out above, this in itself is no great feat. Lots of people have done this. Hell, I’ve done this.

What is magnificent about this particular attempt is that the authors managed to make such a setting incredibly fun and varied in play, included great depth in the character generation, great variety in the physical combat (which in the absence of Magic Missiles and Fireballs makes up most of the “battle” in these stories) and made the whole package not only a pleasure to behold, but easy to use as well.

Plus it delivers the aforementioned beautiful presentation and quality writing.

It is, quite simply, one of the best RPG products I’ve ever seen…and this copy I’ve got apparently isn’t even the upcoming Deluxe Edition.

That concept staggers the mind.

Now that, gentle readers, is how you write a long intro

The list of contributors is big, as is to be expected in a 500-ish page book, and includes such industry luminaries as [imager]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v328/Teflon_Billy/Sturrock.jpg [/imager]Ian Sturrock of Conan D20, The Red Star, and Slaine fame.

I couldn’t find a picture of him, but did manage to find a picture of British Bodybuilding legend, Ian Sturrock…so I’ve made do.

Also present on the list is Wil Upchurch; D20 Stalwart and—would you believe it—1997 United States Air Hockey Association World Champion. I kid you not.

Google it yourself. This isn’t like the Ian Sturrock thing a second ago, Wil “D20 Dwarf” Upchurch was honestly a World Champion at air hockey.

It would seem our young Mr. Upchurch had a whole other level of demi-fame before the one he currently enjoys in the RPG field. Air Hockey and Dawnforge both!

My admiration for Wil just kicked up a notch.

At the end of this review, I will include a picture of Wil accepting his trophy in 1999 as the California State Air Hockey Champion. A pretty girl is involved as well.

Stay tuned.

Anyway, back to the subject at hand…

The art director managed to include industry vets like William O’Connor as well as young guns like Jim Zubkavich’s Udon Studios to great effect. Most of the full color 2-page spreads are excellent treatments of scenes in the book and though I have a few gripes with some of the choices made (Viserys Targaryen with short, brown curly hair rather than the white blonde locks that the novel takes great pains to point out is the Targaryen calling card?) I have almost nothing but praise for the entire book’s art.

***EDITORIAL UPDATE***

GoO's own Jesse Scoble has contacted me about the above piece of art, and has corrected a misconception I had. It's apparently not Danaerys watching her Bloodriders shitcan her brother for manhandling her, but is rather Danaerys watching the men ride down one of the "Lamb People" in a different section of the book.

Mea Culpa, and thanks for hte heads-up Jesse.

***EDITORIAL UPDATE***

But anyway, back to the review...I am not alone in my aprreciation for the art. I passed the book around at one of my wife’s “Art Functions” and got a variety of responses. All positive…

[bq]Jim Thurwen (Tattoo Artist): “These guys understand proportion and movement well…”

Dale Ray Fedoruk(Art Director, Terminal City): “Man I loved these novels. The work here looks good. I’m wondering if they were painted from photos. …”

Marla Spider (Performance Artist): “These guys have a great ability to do facial expression…"

Genevieve Buechner (actress) (referring to the picture of Syrio and Arya being confronted by Ser Meryn Trant of the Kingsguard) : “…what’s up with the way that guy (Trant) is holding his sword?..."[/bq]

And what is up with that? Judging by the way the blade is pointing, it looks like the sword hilt veers off at 45 degrees.

It was pretty much agreed that the near-photorealistic work by Mark Evans stands out as the best in the book. Particularly his full color two page spreads.

The one on page 162-3 of this edition in particular—of Ser Loras “The Knight of Flowers” Tyrell jousting—has drawn my 13-year old daughter’s attention on more than one occasion, causing her to comment that Ser Loras is “Pretty” and that he is her “Favorite”.

Given that this is how 13-year old girls in the source material react to Ser Loras, I’m not certain I can give higher praise to a piece of art claiming to model him.

No need to take my word for it though, take a look for yourself by clicking here.

The character generation is really interesting, fun and well-executed as—despite it’s marked deviation from the standard D&D format—we had almost no trouble following the process right from the get-go. In the grand tradition of good OGL usage, they kept enough of D20 so that it is easy to grasp, but definitely made their own game.

The reader is presented with a lot of different ways to model characters specific to the setting, most of which are Feat based. The things they’ve done with feats here are really pretty great.

First off, they ditched the abominable “+2 to two skills and give it a name”-style of feat that became epidemic in a lot of product. Gone. In fact, on page 164 they announce that it’s gone. Hurrah and good riddance I say.

Secondly, they added a whole ton of “Background” feats that allow the characters to have the archetypal benefits of membership in the various Noble Houses of Westeros, birth in the various geographical regions, blood from the various racial stocks of the world and suchlike. Coupled with a whole boatload of feats that affect the way combat now works (more on that to come) the reader is presented with a whole pile of feats.

The character classes presented for the setting are about as complete as one could imagine, including all of the “Bog Standards”, as well as the more setting-specific interesting ones (Water Dancer, Maester, Knight of the Kingsguard) etc.

Again, this is nothing particularly new on the surface—piles of new featsand character classes are not exactly rare in the world of D20 supplements— until you realize that virtually all of the new feats have and their basis solidly placed in the setting of the novel (remarkable for feats more so than Character Classes), or in the new combat system.

Speaking of which…it’s brilliant.

One of the big issues I have with using D&D to model a low magic setting is that there is just not a lot to do in combat other than roll to hit and record damage. Without a ton of magical options, it can get a little dry.

The combat system that the authors have cooked up is, and I’m getting as tired of writing this phrase as I’m sure you are of reading it, brilliant.

The mechanics of it are, again, similar enough to the d20 fantasy core rules that newcomers won’t be reinventing the wheel, but the differences are where the system really comes into its own. Armor now provides DR (a rule we’ve been experimenting with for some time), and AC is determined by class-based defense bonuses, dexterity, shields, and miscellaneous situational modifiers.

I was expecting to be disappointed with the level of lethality the game would deliver, but A Game of Thrones goes quite a bit further than D&D in terms of combat deadliness. This is done through a stat called Shock Value, equal to half of their Con score. Damage that exceeds this amount can stun the character (yowch) and cause continuing damage through bleeding.

The system also, thankfully, does away with Attacks of Opportunity (though I wonder—though it hasn’t come up in play yet—how characters in such a Battle-heavy setting will be able to “Hold the Line”. I may update this review later with a playtest of that.)

The book is understandably a little sparse regarding Magic. Though it is present in the novel, it is very much a poorly-understood lost art…in this case best left to NPC’s. Out of the 500-odd pages the PRG is long, 2 pages are devoted to magic. That’s about right in my estimation.

This means that when we start rolling characters I am going to get four players who want to be Wizards. That’s they cross we bear when we try and run gritty low-magic games. I’m not sure why, but players see the words “gritty” and “low magic” and immediately seem to think that a Wizard is the best character choice imaginable.

It makes my head hurt.

But anyways…the review.

The final two chapters are the ones I keep going back to, as they are the “setting bible” for not just the RPG, but the series of novels as well.

They detail the world of Westeros, and the major (and not so major) characters in the stories. They are very well written, and manage to convey the information necessary without coming across as a dry academic read.

A couple of gaffes kind of threw me (the example given of Ned Stark’s honor being that he rode back to save Jory Cassel…when in fact it was Jory who rode back to save Ned), but all told they are all great reads.

The characters chapter is split into two sections. First, a well-illustrated (which is “par for the course” in the product) front section—without much in the way of Stats and Numbers—that provides much of the prose background details from the story, and secondly a Stats and Numbers section with full statistics. I would’ve preferred each of the sets of stats to be included with the prose, but it’s certainly not a deal-breaker.

So in closing, buy this book.

Seriously. If you ever liked the novels, this is magnificent setting bible. It’s beautifully done, and the price point on it is very reasonable given the quality of the product. It has enough fine-tuning evident in it’s ruleset to lead me to believe that the extensive playtesting we heard about paid off in spades.

I’m half-tempted to pick up the Deluxe Edition just on general principles.

I worry that my reviews of Guardians of Order’s products are beginning to look like an unbroken string of 11/10’s but they almost literally seem to outdo themselves with each successive release.

The intro to the book is by GoO stalwart Jesse Scoble, and—toward the end— reads as follows…

[bq]…it’s a strange time for us at Guardians of Order. Most of us have moved or are moving on, as life’s courses take each on his own way. But no matter how much, or how little, we continue to work for Mark and GoO, I feel quite privileged to have led this crew and have my stamp upon this tome…[/bq]

Now if that’s not bittersweet I don’t know what is. If the crew that put this book together has scattered to the four winds, then the gaming world is the lesser for it.

And, lest you think your Old Uncle Billy forgot his earlier promise….

Ladies and Gentlemen,

WIL “THE JUGGERNAUT” UPCHURCH; KING OF AIR HOCKEY

 

[Guardians Of Order]

Thanks Again, Jeff

Once again, thank you for composing a well-written review of our "Magnum Opus." And the author images are great!