Customer Reviews

A Song Of Ice And Fire Roleplaying: Adventures In The Seven Kingdoms

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Green Ronin's role playing system for A Song of Ice and Fire has a lot that sets it apart from other roleplaying games and really lends well to the imagery and world that George R. R. Martin has set up.

I won't go into what makes the setting itself so appealing since that type of information is available else and related much more elegantly than I could phrase it. Here I would like to highlight the strong points of what I feel to be a very rich and logical roleplaying system.

My roleplaying game of choice has always been D&D, so I will use this as a basis of comparison. Instead of 6 core abilities and a multitude of related skills, GR combines these concepts and sets up 19 abilities. An average score is 2, but could range up to 7. There are no classes in GR, but rather the player assigns experience points to abilities or specialties to form the character as he sees fit, rather than getting a lump package of improvements per level.

You "test" a skill by rolling a number of 6-sided dice equal to your ability. Every test has a difficulty assigned by the Narrator. Most basic actions have preset difficulties, but they can always be adjusted as circumstance (or the Narrator) dictates. If the total rolled on the test dice meet or beat the difficulty the character succeeds. The use of skills, combat, and even intrigue are all handled using this same concept.

In D&D there was nothing half so frustrating as having a huge attack roll only to follow up with minimal damage. That situation is mitigated with the GR system. The greater your attack roll, the more damage inflicted.

With so few abilities in D&D it was easy to buff up one or two to really excel at combat. This isn't an issue in the GR system. In combat the difficulty of your attack is your opponent's Combat Defense (similar to AC). This is basically number derived from various abilities (Agility + Awareness + Athletics). That means multiple abilities become important to avoid getting hit besides just one (as with Dexterity in D&D). Testing the Fighting ability is typically used for melee combat, but damage is usually dependant of Athletics (rather than both relying on Strength as in D&D).

The players have much more control over what happens to their characters in combat. D&D would have some situations where characters could get killed quite easily before their player could react. GR introduces injuries and wounds to give more control back to the player. While characters have relatively low Health scores (hit points), whenever they receive damage the player decides to accept the damage or take an injury to lower the damage sustain a small amount, but then suffer a small penalty for the injury until healed. Additionally, players could choose to take a wound to remove all damage sustained from the attack, but then suffer a much larger penalty. Also, wounds can take a long time to heal. If a character is reduced to zero Health the person who defeated them chooses their fate (unconsciousness, maiming, or most commonly death). Basically, the staving off of instant death gives much more opportunity for retreat or surrender rather than death.

The game system also introduces a system for creating a house to which the characters can belong. Houses can act as a pseudo character that is shared by all of the players. Sometimes characters can use house attributes to improve their standing. Sometimes the characters can invest personal rewards into the house to increase its standing in the world. And isn't that what playing A Game of Thrones is all about?

Green Ronin offers a free downloadable quick start rules to give a better understanding of the game mechanics. I highly recommend this system and hope it sells well so that future products are produced.

I completely agree with the first review up here. The book is great, the system is awesome - there is enough for tactical junkies like me and nicely done social combat system (like exalted rpg).

The only and biggest problem of this book are editing mistakes. The book is full of them, and when you see the current errata you will see that there are corrections everywhere. Even the character sheet is missing a skill. What the hell?

Better wait for second printing with implemented errata. In this current condition, the book is somehow hard to use with all that errata material.

The game system itself is very clever and well thought out and does a fine job of capturing the feel and essence of adventuring in Westeros from George R. R. Martin's books. However, and this is a big "however," it seems this printing was rushed to market before a proper proofreading and play-testing was completed, consequently it is riddled with errors and inconsistencies and and quite a few broken rules. The core system isn't broken at all, but many of the lesser rules are. Green Ronin has been printing extensive errata on their website for the books, but it's to the point where sometimes entire paragraphs and even multiple long paragraphs have to be deleted, altered or completely replaced with new text. It's an annoyance and since errata keeps updating, it's hard to keep up with all of the changes.

I think once the second printing for this book is released, it will be a really fine product and I have warned my players off buying the current version (unless they just really need to have it). We're just going to work off the PDF version for the time being. As is, I'm willing to slog through the problems in order to play the setting, and because the core system itself is very good. I simply plan to make a fair number of House Rulings and rules along the way and already have in a few cases.

To sum up, a very good game that will greatly benefit from a second edition - hopefully that will come soon. For now, I'd suggest only collectors or really obsessive fans of the game get this version, or save some money and get the PDF instead. I really wanted to give this game five stars, but the errors are just too many at this point so it loses a star for that alone. I nearly dropped it to 3-stars because there are so many errors it almost deserves it, but I just like the core game (and of course the setting) too much - 3 1/2 stars is probably my true rating here.

For you tired of playing "superhero mediavel fantasy rpg" (aka Dungeons and Dragons 4e) its the system for you!

The setting is rich and awsome, because it's inspired on the great fantasy series by the "American Tolkien" - George R. R. Martin, the Songs of Ice and Fire.

The system is fast, brutal and broad. The mechanics are simple and skill based. You play a combate the same way you play and argument or a siege.

One of the main aspects of the game is that you can make your character begin as "someone" in the setting, not just the "avarege nameless joe" you usualy rolls.

Give it a try, but for a better enjoyment of the game you should get the Campaign Setting as well.

and rememeber: The Winter is comming

I have played dozens of pen and paper RPG's and this is easily one of the best. The only problem people will have (besides awful proofreading on editors part) is that it is a difficult RPG to GM. I find RPG success is purely on the GM/DM/Referee even bad or broken RPGs can be fun with the right GM but this one requires someone special. Intrigue, overarching story, and large battles are so important that much must be thought out ahead of time. So in other words dont buy it unless you have a badass GM lol.

I was playing dnd about 15 years. I bought 4th edition have nice times but a flavour was missing. 3rd ed. was not bad but not enough. One of my friends adviced this game and i had a chance to have a look at this book and bought from amazon several days after.

Its one of the best games until this date. If you like low fantasy games, you will like it alot. Mechanics are awesome.

This game will take the place of dnd and the novel will take the place of lord of the rings.

Prepare yourself.

As a fan of the books and a long time RPer, I was excited to try this system. Its particular brand of skill checks is d6-based in a way I hadn't previously seen, but it works pretty well. Spending experience is nice and simple. There are also rules for a wide breadth of things, making sure that specific items or skills have plot-relevant differences. Braavosi sword fighting vs a knight's style, for instance, or even stiletto stats vs a dirk's numbers. Finally, there are well-developed lists of advantages, disadvantages, quirks, etc.

In general, it's pretty cool.

However, the book fails in two notable areas. The first is layout. Green Ronin did not do a good job laying out this first edition. It's terribly counter-intuitive and involves a lot of page-flipping. For example, there isn't one set of charts for the weapons that details their names, stats, and costs. Stats are in the combat section alone, and costs are in the equipment section alone. Do I want to buy this sword or that sword? I can afford both, but I have to dig for what their relevant differences are in a totally different section. Basic character creation also involves a lot of jumping around the book. It's just cumbersome.

The second area of failure is the intrigue system. Now, this is a "your mileage may vary" thing, but as someone playing a roguish character, it's infuriating. The basic idea is that certain discussions are carried out as word battles, with defense scores and "hit points" in the form of composure points. Sounds cool, right? In practice, the intrigue system almost totally removes roleplay from politics and arguments. It's hard for a debate to make sense when its participants speak only in initiative order, and no matter how snappily a comeback is roleplayed, a dice roll can make one's character bite her own tongue. There is no, "My character doesn't care about that," either - an NPC calling you a doody-head can ruin your composure if his skill and rolls are high enough. So, if you like RPGs as more of a math or gambling game, this might be for you, but if you actually like to play a role - especially a witty one - you may want to skip this mechanic or alter it heavily.

I've been playing role-playing games since I was 10- roughly 30 years now. I've played and run too many games to count and what attracted me to this RPG was the world setting- I'm a Fire & Ice fan. That being said, this review is purely taken in the context of the role playing game.

My first purpose for buying this is that I am a HUGE fan of the Fire and Ice books. I have bought all of the RPG Fire and Ice books published to date and bought these books to add to my knowledge of the novels themsleves and to look into the possibility of running a Fire & Ice campaign.

I don't like the game mechanics of this RPG. The system uses 6 sided dice only. Unlike the original Legend of the Five Rings RPG, the game mechanics do NOT form a "perfect mesh" between world content and game mechanics. I think and feel that if this company (Green Ronin) were able to work something out with Pazio or the old OGL (Open Game License) with a D20 system then the RPG per se would be better. Some of the unique character aspects unique to the Fire and Ice setting are great, but then I expected it given the world/game setting. Giving individual characters unique flaws and merits are cool too. There's also sections on mass combat, which is great and highly appropriate for the game/world setting.

The book pages are top quality with artwork and lots of color throughout. That doesn't necessarily make a RPG a good RPG. I was also disappointed in the description of "advesaries", "opponents", "monsters", etc. The section was too short and not enough on details. The novels mention several monsters throughout the series but this RPG book only cover THE OTHERS and not many other creatures. You have more information on horses than on creatures to fight. If you were planning on running a campaign based on The Night Watch, forget it. Not enough bad guys here so you have to make the rest up yourself.

Given my experience in playing and running various fantasy and political RPGs, I would NOT want to use the game mechanics from this book. If I were to run a game in the Ice and Fire setting, I would use the Pathfinder or D&D 3.5. Given the politics in the game, Vampire: the Dark Ages might also be more appropriate for game mechanics.

The game mechanics are not as developed as many other RPGs and this "core" book definitely leaves out lots of information that are covered in the later books (for the record, I LOVE the Fire and Ice Campaign Setting book- worth it's weight in gold).

If you're buying this book to add to your knowledge or appreciation of the works of George R.R. Martin, save your money and buy the campaign book. If you do want to play a game in the Fire and Ice setting, you probably still need to buy this book but know up front that this book is NOT the RPG extravaganza you're expecting.

This book is TOO thin (a bad sign for a "core" role playing book) AND lacking of proper mechanics and rules for a complete and detailed game system. Overall I give it 3 1/2 stars.