A song of ice and fire

(A song of ice and fire)

In order to continue my research into the topic of role playing games I picked up another 'Hard-core' Tabletop role-playing game, based on the fantasy novel series 'A game of thrones'. This game series is housed within a large rulebook, the usual system in which hard-core role-playing games are found. I have found that by reading the book the system includes some interesting systems that I have not seen in many other popular systems, these rules are however the only things that truly stand out in this game, beyond the aesthetic.


The first system I want to talk about is the generation of a family, along with that, a family history. All of these elements are randomly generated, which I believe is a rather brilliant way of allowing people to create a family history without having to think of everything themselves. It seems that players find it much more easy to justify an ambiguous piece of information then they find it to create a piece of information without a starting point. This is a great find for me, I will be able to use this information when I begin to create my own storytelling system. I have noticed this same problem many times in roleplaying games, it seems that people require some sort of starting point from which to create their narrative. This is useful knowledge as it allows me to pinpoint what I actually need to provide in my game.

This idea might account to the reason why there are so many players who believe that games, such as D&D, are in fact not about role-playing at all, but instead about combat. I must keep this in mind when I present the rules for my own world, if I do not strike a balance in how rules are presented then I will not send the correct message in my game.

Another part of this system which personally stood out to me is that it happens to include a rule set for something called 'intrigue', the idea being that when a player wishes to get another player character, or non-player character to do something they must use their own skills against the other player's resistance and see which person comes out superior. While many systems brush upon this idea, the song of ice and fire game makes a point of making the rules of social engagement as deep and involved as the rules of physical engagement  This gives the players a variety of different starting points in which to focus their characters, this helps to stop players on focusing all of their game-play into 'power gaming' instead allowing them to focus on the many different methods of conflict resolution.

Overall I think that the most important thing that the song of ice and fire system does for its players is that it gives them a varied starting point from which to play the game. While most games only allow the player a series of archetypal starting points and a complicated system for physical engagement  The systems within this role-playing game give the players archetypes, however they do not force you to pick one. They then show the player three different forms of conflict in equal measure, allowing the player to freely choose one to specialize within, or to angle their character towards.