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View Full Version : Player Help My niece is a prisoner, my nephew's going to be killed, and I'm being framed for both



The TechnoGnome
2016-04-26, 12:45 AM
As you may have guessed from the title of the thread, I'm in a bit of a bind. Partially due to poor dice rolls, partially due to not doing the smartest thing at a critical moment, and partially because the DM probably set us up to fail from the start.

An explanation: I am currently playing in a Song of Ice and Fire tabletop game (or Game of Thrones for those of you who are more familiar with the show). We are all playing characters of a noble house in the Westerlands that is timeline-wise running concurrently with the first book, and to strengthen our connection to the house and each other, we decided to all play blood relatives of the Lord. My character is the Lord's brother, who also happens to be the house's spymaster, and the niece and nephew mentioned earlier are two of the other players, and happen to be the oldest daughter and heir. There are two other players, but as their characters are currently in Essos and the Kingsroad respectively, they're in no position to affect what's going on at the moment.

The gist of what happened is this: Most of the session was a typical introductory session, but about 45 minutes until the end, the daughter finds a letter in her bedroom that tells her she is in grave danger and that if she wants to know more, to meet the writer in the courtyard at midnight. Her first instinct is to come to my character to devise a plan. Knowing the session was going to end soon and this was probably the only interesting thing we were going to see all night (up until this point the highlights of the night had been the heir eating eggs with his father and the player in Essos hiring a bunch of Bravossi sellswords and seducing a whore to avoid paying her), I told her to go to the meeting place in case the messenger was serious, and to bring her brother (who had more or less put his rank in sword fighting as high as it could possibly go) as a bodyguard, while I accompanied from the shadows. In what was probably a mistake, the heir also decided to go without his armor (and shield, once the GM said that bringing either would tank his stealth roll) to also stay hidden so as not to spook the informant.

The informant turned out to be the captain of the heir's personal guard, which put us at ease, especially when his information appeared to check out with some prior investigation I had done into a seemingly unrelated matter, to the point that when the heir failed his stealth roll and was discovered, he trusted the captain when he said his mother might be in danger and ran off to help her. Then after the 'protection' was gone, the captain mentioned that, oh yeah, because of the danger to the daughter, he and his men were going to spirit her away to a 'safe location' for an undisclosed period of time.

All of us immediately knew something was up, and a quick Awareness check only confirmed it. The daughter managed to convince the guard to lead her back to the castle after he tried to imply my character was behind the now clearly non-existent plot. Which is when I failed my stealth roll to follow and got caught. Pretty much knowing the jig was up, the guard captain grabbed the daughter and ran, which was easy for him to do since she had built her character for Intrigue (which is this game's version of Diplomacy checks, meant to mimic characters like Tyrion and Littlefinger who are better at manipulating others than actually fighting), while sending another knight and several crossbowmen after me.

Of course, my character was not only also an intrigue character, but also a cripple, so he tried to run, but he couldn't do more than temporarily duck out of the line of fire of the crossbows. I tried to talk my way out of it, but the GM made it clear that the crossbowmen would be able to fire on me if I tried to start an intrigue, and if I tried to run again the knight would probably kill me. Hence, I surrendered too before too long.

The only good thing was that we managed to make enough of a ruckus that the heir was able to hear us, and thus he doubled back to help. But by the time he got back outside, we were long gone, and he still had to contend with the same people I did, plus reinforcements. The GM made it clear that the heir would die if he tried to fight, as despite his amazing skill with the sword, he would get skewered by the crossbows before he would have a chance to reach them, and that would be assuming he could fight off four of (I cannot stress this enough) his own personal guard at once. Hence, he surrendered as well, and was swiftly captured.

And that's where the session ended, and when we pointed out how bad of a position we were already in at the end of our first session, the GM just smiled and told us what he called a secret: that 'all stories in Game of Thrones start in tragedy and progress from there'. Not much of a secret really, but this still seems like a pretty harsh situation to throw people who are still learning the game into in the first session.

In any case, he was at least merciful enough to give us an idea of why our guards decided to betray us for seemingly no reason: the head of the personal guard wants to use the 'rescue' to press the daughter into marrying him, or failing that at least make her carry his child. Then, once he and the rest of the guard force the current heir to take the Black on threat of death (which would, among other things, involve him forfeiting his status and claim to the house), his child would be next in line to inherit our very wealthy house. Oh, and he intends to pin both the heir's death and the kidnapping plot on my character, to get me out of the picture through either exile or execution.

Currently, our characters are all being held in an abandoned mine, in separate chambers of course, with no way to communicate with each other or the outside. Since any search parties will most likely be led by our kidnapper and his goons, there's pretty much a zero percent chance of us being found by someone else. As mentioned before, my character and the daughter are built for intrigue, but the heir isn't, and the guard are going to want to take him and me out of the picture as soon as possible to minimize complications to their plan. And even so, I'm not holding out for the chance to even do one, since I never even got the chance to do one despite me having bribed and interrogated a knight (who was not only stinking drunk, but as we found out later was conveniently one of, like, six of the twenty Knights and who knows how many other guards to have no involvement with the plot, even if I hadn't failed my Persuasion roll) and several barmaids beforehand (who, despite working closely with the knights and the GM saying the Knights were talking about something involving the heir and daughter they didn't want us to hear at the dinner table, conveniently had nothing useful to tell me). Other than one dose of poison the daughter managed to hide on her, we have no weapons or gear of any sort. And we have no chance to coordinate an escape plan with each other in-character, since we were all brought into separate parts of the mine at separate times.

Because of all of this, it's very likely that not all of us will escape for life, especially the heir, since he has no sword to fight with and doesn't have the skills to steal one or persuade a guard to let him out. And given both my job and the potential frame-up job in place, if either of the kids die I'm probably facing exile if I escape, and if the dice gods are against us and both die I'll probably be executed for treason, since hey are the only witnesses of what really happened that night.

Oh, and for an extra bit of fun, even if we do all escape, the GM has hinted that something horrible is going to have happened to everyone else back at the house while we're gone, which would ruin the house that we had to spend hours rolling the stats for beforehand (yeah, it's that kind of game). So yeah, one way or another, he seems dead set on getting the tragedy he wants.

The situation is bad enough that the heir's player is thinking of letting his character die so he can create a new one and avoid going to the Wall, which the GM suggested would be his best way out of the situation. And of course, said GM thinks that the heir dying would make a great story for the rest of us, which I might agree with if said heir wasn't one of the player characters and was given any kind of chance to actually fight back without dying.

I'm reasonably sure that if I didn't try to rescue the others, I could probably escape alive. But I have serious doubts that the heir is going to be able to get out of this situation by himself without losing an arm or something, and other than the poison the daughter has no fighting skill of her own, so if she gets caught escaping things could go quickly south for her (especially given that this is ****ing Game of Thrones). And of course, my guy is loyal to his family, and even if he wasn't he needs them to clear his name. So he has more than enough motivation to not let that happen, even at the cost of his own life.

With all of this in mind, I'm asking you guys on the forums if there is anything I can do to get all three of us out of this. I've accepted that there's nothing I'll probably be able to do about the house as a whole at this point, if the GM was serious about ****ing things up while we're gone, but if anyone has some idea of how to stop that, I'm willing to listen.

Traab
2016-04-26, 01:15 AM
I would ask ooc if the gm even wants it to be possible for the party to escape. Or if he intends to play out his own rape murder drama and force you all along for the ride. (Maybe dont add that last part to the question) Its possible he has some sort of escape idea in place and is hoping you figure it out. Its also possible he is rail roading you so hard every time you fart it sounds like a train whistle and he intends ot have players be forced to listen to his story as terrible things happen to your party with no way to change any of the outcomes.

As for ideas. See if you can bribe/persuade the barmaids to A) tell you where the other two are, and B) smuggle in a couple of blades. Even knives would do for a start. Then you can try to free the heir, and let him stab a few drunken knights for gear and weaponry. Rescue the girl, and try to make a break for it. Perhaps you could manage to fool people into thinking the heir is actually a knight authorized to transport you somewhere.

If he shuts down every part of that plan, I dont know what to tell you. Its game of thrones and things dont work out well there. For all I know, he is running this by call of cthulu rules. Its a race to see how long you can survive without being raped murdered and eaten. Not always in that order.

RazorChain
2016-04-26, 03:54 AM
Ok I'm not getting this. The Captain of the household guards has in essence kidnapped the brother, the son and daughter of the lord. He intends to fake a rescue of the daughter while blaming the brother and killing the son or forcing him to take the black. This makes the daughter the heir and he plans on marrying her or getting her with child?


This sounds extremely stupid. Why? Because the daughter knows the captain is behind this and he is not intending to kill her. How on earth is he going to pin this on the brother? If he had sent his henchmen instead of going himself yes then he could have denied involvement and pinned it on the brother. And then when he came rescuing the daughter even the players might have believed that he wasn't behind the plot. Are all of the household guards involved?

Captain: "The lord's evil brother was behind this!"
Daughter: "No he wasn't, you kidnapped me, you oaf"
Captain: "Ehem...don't listen to her, her mind is addled and that's why I'll do everyone a favor and marry her...Mmkey?"

The TechnoGnome
2016-04-26, 04:00 AM
I would ask ooc if the gm even wants it to be possible for the party to escape. Or if he intends to play out his own rape murder drama and force you all along for the ride. (Maybe dont add that last part to the question) Its possible he has some sort of escape idea in place and is hoping you figure it out. Its also possible he is rail roading you so hard every time you fart it sounds like a train whistle and he intends ot have players be forced to listen to his story as terrible things happen to your party with no way to change any of the outcomes.

As for ideas. See if you can bribe/persuade the barmaids to A) tell you where the other two are, and B) smuggle in a couple of blades. Even knives would do for a start. Then you can try to free the heir, and let him stab a few drunken knights for gear and weaponry. Rescue the girl, and try to make a break for it. Perhaps you could manage to fool people into thinking the heir is actually a knight authorized to transport you somewhere.

If he shuts down every part of that plan, I dont know what to tell you. Its game of thrones and things dont work out well there. For all I know, he is running this by call of cthulu rules. Its a race to see how long you can survive without being raped murdered and eaten. Not always in that order.

True, and honestly if he waited to pull something this sneaky until a couple sessions in, or even gave us an actual chance to figure out what was going on ahead of time with more than just one single roll with a drunk knight, I might have even been on board for it. But like I said, it seems pretty harsh to me to pull something like having your own personal guard turn on you in the very first chapter, especially since:

1. We actually had to spend some of our house resources before the game started to even get a personal guard at all, and

2. The GM was the one who recommended we get one in the first place, since the purpose of them in terms of gameplay is that they are supposed to help protect your heir while they are on the field commanding their armies, which the heir wanted to do.

Also, a development happened since the last time I posted, which is both good and bad. I actually talked to the heir's player for a little bit while I was out, and it turns out he had similar worries to me that he wasn't going to get out of that situation alive. So he talked with the GM, and since the heir technically combat (unwinnable combat, but it's still more than the daughter ever got), he eventually decided to let him burn a Destiny Point to avoid capture. [Note: In game mechanics, burning a Destiny Point allows you to, among other things, let you decide your own fate if you are beaten in combat (in this case, them being forced to retreat for some fortuitous reason rather than take him hostage), and is meant to be used as a last resort since it is very hard to get them back. And you don't start with a lot either: for a reference point, doing this has left the heir with only one for the next couple sessions at least, and that's if he doesn't spend his XP on anything else, including leveling up.]

The good part of this is that it means one of us is back at the keep. And it's the one person that not only should be at the keep in story, but the one who was the most likely to get himself killed before anyone else could rescue him. This also means that he will be able to get his armor, weapon, and shield to lead a rescue party, should he ever find out where we are. Plus, it gives precedent for my character to do the same thing. The daughter, since she never entered combat before being kidnapped, isn't so lucky though. Which leads into the bad things.

As I said before, by the time he made it back outside, the daughter and I were already gone, along with the guard captain. The squad leader that was left behind, before they entered combat, told him that I wasn't captured and helped them escape, in an attempt to convince him to come quietly. Which of course was total bull, and the player knew it OOC, but one failed Awareness roll means that in character, the heir now believes the guard is telling the truth. This wasn't a big deal back when he ended up captured alongside us anyway, but now that he thinks I had something to do with it as well, it means that the daughter is the only person who can prove my innocence, and that if I try to go back to the keep by myself, I might get killed by my own nephew before I can explain anything.

In short, this also means that while I might be able to convince the GM to let me do the same thing the heir did and avoid capture by the kidnappers, it would put me in a situation where I would most likely be imprisoned by my own brother for treason, putting me in effectively the same situation I'm already in while leaving the daughter alone in the mines with the kidnappers. Which by the way, the heir has no way of knowing how to get to now, let alone that we're in a mine in the first place, nor does he have the proper investigative skills to find out on his own. Oh, and without him, we probably don't stand a chance at fighting our way out on our own, which leaves either sneaking or intrigue as our only viable options, and even those are a long shot given how many people we would need to get past to get out.

In short, I think I'm in a slightly better position than before, if only because now I only have to worry about rescuing one other person rather than two, and now I know the GM is willing to at least give us something resembling a fighting chance now that the daughter is where he wanted her for his story. Still not going to be easy though, especially since even if we get out of the mines unharmed, we still might have to trek through the wilderness to find our way back home if the GM decides to be cruel and not have a proper road still in place. And since we're both noble characters who were built for court intrigue rather than navigating through the forest, it might not even be the guards that end up killing us.

But hey, there's always the chance the heir gets lucky on a roll, or runs into someone who can help him. Assuming he doesn't get killed or worse by the guards still at the castle, since OOC we know that the lord's personal guard is in on it too, but he at least has no way to know that IC. And I don't know how much meta gaming the GM will tolerate.

The TechnoGnome
2016-04-26, 04:12 AM
Ok I'm not getting this. The Captain of the household guards has in essence kidnapped the brother, the son and daughter of the lord. He intends to fake a rescue of the daughter while blaming the brother and killing the son or forcing him to take the black. This makes the daughter the heir and he plans on marrying her or getting her with child?


This sounds extremely stupid. Why? Because the daughter knows the captain is behind this and he is not intending to kill her. How on earth is he going to pin this on the brother? If he had sent his henchmen instead of going himself yes then he could have denied involvement and pinned it on the brother. And then when he came rescuing the daughter even the players might have believed that he wasn't behind the plot. Are all of the household guards involved?

Captain: "The lord's evil brother was behind this!"
Daughter: "No he wasn't, you kidnapped me, you oaf"
Captain: "Ehem...don't listen to her, her mind is addled and that's why I'll do everyone a favor and marry her...Mmkey?"

Well, I think the original plan was that by convincing the daughter that he was sequestering her for her own safety and keeping the three of us separated, she would believe him, he could say he hunted down and killed me after I tragically killed the heir, and she and the lord would be none the wiser. Which ironically enough went fubar because I failed the stealth roll, and thus had the perfect opportunity to tell him I wasn't involved to his face, and accuse him of lying. Which is when she tried to run and he panicked and sicced his guards on me.

And for the moment, we are assuming that the whole household guard is compromised, since they intend to frame me by saying I acted based on a summons from Cersei that only I, the lord, the daughter, the lord's two guards, and potentially the maester knew about. Which ties in nicely into what we're suspecting is his plan B, which is to kill me, the heir, and the lord, then force the daughter to marry him under threat of death. The latter of which the GM says 'happens in GoT all the time'. And to be fair, it is a little hard to argue that particular point.

But it still has some major flaws, particularly because 1. If she says no anyway and they kill her, all of this becomes pointless, and 2. Remember the player in Essos? He's my character's son, and it's going to be a month before he even comes back to Westeros (and that's not counting the time he would have to take to get from Lannisport/King's Landing to our keep). Which means that if they decide to try and impregnate her with a bastard rather than kill her if she says no, he still has a more legitimate claim, and I would find it really unbelievable if they manage to keep the slaughter of an entire household covered up from the our allies long enough for him (and his own mercenaries) to get close enough for them to even try and kill him. And that's not even getting into the other recognized bastard out there, which if things really got bad enough for a bastard to be considered to inherit, would probably be chosen over him.

Basically, their entire plan right now hinges on the daughter being too frightened of death to call their bluff and see if they will kill her or rape her and hope for a bastard. Which sadly, the GM may be right about, considering that pretty much all of us agree it would suck for a character to die in our second session.

JohanOfKitten
2016-04-26, 04:44 AM
It's too bad, that scenario seems a bit railroad.

Some things are fine to me in the idea, but are not managed well.

For example, betrayal is very interesting in this game, but it's better with hints. Things that can make you think something's off, or that someone may have different motives, but without knowing his next move. And using the bonus you buy being the source of betrayal, at the first session ! It's the best to annoy players and making them avoiding doing things.

Other example, the heir believing you're the one behind the kidnapping. It could lead to awesome roleplay, fun scenes. But from what you tell, i'm scared the potentiel will be unused and lead to something where you need luck/destiny point to avoid pvp.

Last example : bad things happen. Yes, that's kind of leitmotiv of GoT. Someone is righteous ? beheaded. Someone will marry and lead a castle to glory ? husband murdered, castle sacked. etc...
But that bad fate must be used carefully. Having you all out of you desmene and saying "when you'll be back, things terrible will have happened there", that's really bad. Yes, bad things happen. But you can foresee some of the causes before, evaluate a bit the risks. Sometimes, your choices lead to bad consequences. But it's not (entirely) a free disaster wheel rolled by some god (or DM). And losing things you just built in the creation of your house is just a way to piss the players.



This game is a lot about survival in a dangerous world (of intrigue, war and all politics), but also and more about choices and consequences.
You have to have some datas to make choices. You have to make decisions, to try things.
The only choice I really see here was to follow the niece and the guard chief, and it was all about making a good roll.


Well, I hope it will go better next, but I have the feeling that your DM 1/ is a bit more in a D&D-like style of gamestyle and 2/ wants to make too much too fast by deploying such a plot without taking the time to have some clues, to have interactions with the ploters or to foresee things (leading up to choices).

That Tabletop game is fun and full of wonderful stories.
Good luck !

RazorChain
2016-04-26, 05:26 AM
Well, I think the original plan was that by convincing the daughter that he was sequestering her for her own safety and keeping the three of us separated, she would believe him, he could say he hunted down and killed me after I tragically killed the heir, and she and the lord would be none the wiser. Which ironically enough went fubar because I failed the stealth roll, and thus had the perfect opportunity to tell him I wasn't involved to his face, and accuse him of lying. Which is when she tried to run and he panicked and sicced his guards on me.

And for the moment, we are assuming that the whole household guard is compromised, since they intend to frame me by saying I acted based on a summons from Cersei that only I, the lord, the daughter, the lord's two guards, and potentially the maester knew about. Which ties in nicely into what we're suspecting is his plan B, which is to kill me, the heir, and the lord, then force the daughter to marry him under threat of death. The latter of which the GM says 'happens in GoT all the time'. And to be fair, it is a little hard to argue that particular point.

But it still has some major flaws, particularly because 1. If she says no anyway and they kill her, all of this becomes pointless, and 2. Remember the player in Essos? He's my character's son, and it's going to be a month before he even comes back to Westeros (and that's not counting the time he would have to take to get from Lannisport/King's Landing to our keep). Which means that if they decide to try and impregnate her with a bastard rather than kill her if she says no, he still has a more legitimate claim, and I would find it really unbelievable if they manage to keep the slaughter of an entire household covered up from the our allies long enough for him (and his own mercenaries) to get close enough for them to even try and kill him. And that's not even getting into the other recognized bastard out there, which if things really got bad enough for a bastard to be considered to inherit, would probably be chosen over him.

Basically, their entire plan right now hinges on the daughter being too frightened of death to call their bluff and see if they will kill her or rape her and hope for a bastard. Which sadly, the GM may be right about, considering that pretty much all of us agree it would suck for a character to die in our second session.


I'm just going to say one thing. A GM sexually abusing or raping a PC without the players consent is never a good idea. Here is a good post on it.

http://www.gamegrene.com/node/447

goto124
2016-04-26, 05:42 AM
Well this is GoT. The players would most likely have already consented to such acts prior to the start of the game, because GoT.

GrayDeath
2016-04-26, 07:18 AM
As someone who likes the books (well at least the first 2) very much AND loves intruiging, gritty and dangerous games, I say:

YOur GM ****ed with you without preamble. Which is NOT the GoT Way.
You **** with the Characters after a few hints, if they dont catch it or react wrongly.
Aside from 2 events all of ASoIaF "Horrible Moments" were quite to very foreseeable.
And the Characters still walked into them.


Had he domne such a thing in say session 6 or 7, after your house had made contact with some Lannister "support" and your Guard been bribed then, maybe after being illtreated by the heir or your character, I would not bat an eye.

Like this however it seems the GM did not udnerstand that its not about the Tragedy, its about CHOICES. These may (heck mostly do) lead to tragedy, but in that case none of you could actually have done or seen anything.

So I`d go and tell him that this kind of unnecessarry railroad kills the athmosphere, rather than creating one.
Aftewr all, he did not tell you that you would start dishonored, in prison and dead, did he?

JohanOfKitten
2016-04-26, 07:26 AM
As someone who likes the books (well at least the first 2) very much AND loves intruiging, gritty and dangerous games, I say:

YOur GM ****ed with you without preamble. Which is NOT the GoT Way.
You **** with the Characters after a few hints, if they dont catch it or react wrongly.
Aside from 2 events all of ASoIaF "Horrible Moments" were quite to very foreseeable.
And the Characters still walked into them.


Had he domne such a thing in say session 6 or 7, after your house had made contact with some Lannister "support" and your Guard been bribed then, maybe after being illtreated by the heir or your character, I would not bat an eye.

Like this however it seems the GM did not udnerstand that its not about the Tragedy, its about CHOICES. These may (heck mostly do) lead to tragedy, but in that case none of you could actually have done or seen anything.

So I`d go and tell him that this kind of unnecessarry railroad kills the athmosphere, rather than creating one.
Aftewr all, he did not tell you that you would start dishonored, in prison and dead, did he?
I totally agree here. That's what make great GoT atmosphere !

The TechnoGnome
2016-04-26, 08:10 AM
I'm just going to say one thing. A GM sexually abusing or raping a PC without the players consent is never a good idea. Here is a good post on it.

http://www.gamegrene.com/node/447

I'll say this right off the bat: I highly doubt he's actually going to have any of our characters get raped, ever. Even though I'm kind of pissed at him right now, he's still a good guy, and he would not do something like that unannounced, especially to the most squeamish player in our group (which makes it baffling to me why she likes Game of Thrones in the first place, but that's really not the point here).

I only brought up the possibility in the first place to point out why even that would end poorly for them if they tried it. If she really had her character say 'no' to the marriage threat and didn't budge, he would probably just have the guards either cut their losses and kill her, or admit they were bluffing and do nothing.


It's too bad, that scenario seems a bit railroad.

Some things are fine to me in the idea, but are not managed well.

For example, betrayal is very interesting in this game, but it's better with hints. Things that can make you think something's off, or that someone may have different motives, but without knowing his next move. And using the bonus you buy being the source of betrayal, at the first session ! It's the best to annoy players and making them avoiding doing things.

Other example, the heir believing you're the one behind the kidnapping. It could lead to awesome roleplay, fun scenes. But from what you tell, i'm scared the potentiel will be unused and lead to something where you need luck/destiny point to avoid pvp.

Last example : bad things happen. Yes, that's kind of leitmotiv of GoT. Someone is righteous ? beheaded. Someone will marry and lead a castle to glory ? husband murdered, castle sacked. etc...
But that bad fate must be used carefully. Having you all out of you desmene and saying "when you'll be back, things terrible will have happened there", that's really bad. Yes, bad things happen. But you can foresee some of the causes before, evaluate a bit the risks. Sometimes, your choices lead to bad consequences. But it's not (entirely) a free disaster wheel rolled by some god (or DM). And losing things you just built in the creation of your house is just a way to piss the players.



This game is a lot about survival in a dangerous world (of intrigue, war and all politics), but also and more about choices and consequences.
You have to have some datas to make choices. You have to make decisions, to try things.
The only choice I really see here was to follow the niece and the guard chief, and it was all about making a good roll.


Well, I hope it will go better next, but I have the feeling that your DM 1/ is a bit more in a D&D-like style of gamestyle and 2/ wants to make too much too fast by deploying such a plot without taking the time to have some clues, to have interactions with the ploters or to foresee things (leading up to choices).

That Tabletop game is fun and full of wonderful stories.
Good luck !

Like I said above, he's not a bad guy. He's not even a bad DM most of the time, even in games that aren't combat heavy. Heck, the game before this one was a post-New Vegas Fallout setting where we managed to incite a slave revolt in the Legion's capital city without getting caught or firing a single shot. We literally walked right out of the city in a caravan without a single person suspecting a thing, and the heir's character actually prevented a brewing betrayal completely unintentionally, and that guy had way more reason (and time, and warning) to stab us in the back than this guard captain apparently does.

I think the issue here is that the guy is a big GoT fan, and wants to get us in the right mindset by having us face some kind of tragedy early on, like Bran falling from the tower or something. But rather than build up to it, he just dropped it on us en masse and tried to make it as shocking as possible.

And like you said, I can even see the framework for a good story, if it wasn't so unavoidable and out of our control. For example, if I was not concerned that the daughter's player wasn't going to have anything interesting to do all night, and
I had the benefit of my current hindsight, I could have told her to lock herself in her room and have her brother stand guard while I went out to meet with the captain. But even if the worst thing that happened was that he didn't show: the daughter was leaving in the next day or two for King's Landing (she's one of Cersei's handmaidens, and was with us on break before being called for another year of service). And three guesses who would have been in charge of setting up her guard unit for the trip. :smallannoyed:

As for hints, he did give us one, though we couldn't do a damn thing about it...

As I said in the first post, the Knights were speaking in hushed whispers to one another, that silenced when the heir and daughter came near. However, we thought this was tied into the character backstory we came up with (well, the heir and the GM did, and my character got roped into it before I even knew what was happening and I was convinced that it would be interesting if I went along with it), where the daughter slept with a knight out of wedlock, and to avoid the potential scandal, my character told the heir to kill the knight and make it look like an accident.

Of course, what the GM failed to tell any of us until we were well into the session was that said knight was not only killed just a few days ago, but on the heir's personal guard, rather than a hedge knight or a knight from another realm there visiting as we assumed from context (the latter of which could have made great political tension in and of itself, but I digress). ICly, The daughter knows the heir killed the knight (since he 'confided' in her that he killed him in a fit of rage), but not that I was involved, and while mad at her brother understands why he did it. So when it looked like the Knights were gossiping, she came to me and told me to find out what they knew.

Just a note: none of us suspected at the time that the GM was planning to do something as drastic as have our own guard turn on us at the end of the session, especially since none of the above events were things we actually did onscreen, and said one instance of whispering was the only hint we ever got that something was amiss. The personal guard was friendly, no one in the keep mentioned anything about the death being in any way suspicious (the cover was that he got drunk and fell into a river while wearing his armor, which is surprisingly common apparently), no weird looks from the guards, nothing. Hell, the guard captain even caught the daughter riding outside, at night, by herself, and rather than take the opportunity to even just plant the seeds of paranoia by hinting at a possible conspiracy, just said 'oh, let me join you and make small talk' (which was probably supposed to be him trying to butter her up for later but just came off as friendly and doing his job as our personal guard, considering he acted pretty much the same way with the heir when they were sparring). We thought that at most the Knights were just whispering about something they might have noticed that they thought was suspicious, and wanted to quash any 'unseemly rumors' before they took root.

And this could have been fine build-up, if done right and if it wasn't so rushed, except for a major issue: I had no way of learning any information the GM didn't want me to know. Which, as the spymaster, is sort of my job. Three things made that clear to me by the end of the night:

1. I had planned on getting a knight alone and try to press him into telling me what I wanted to know, so I had my character wait outside the guardhouse (far enough away to not draw suspicion, of course) until a knight came outside to use the bathroom. My plan was to corner him when he was alone and get him to cooperate through an intrigue... Which I never got a chance to do, because rather than actually have me do one, the GM had me do one persuasion roll, which I failed, then an Awareness roll to tell if he was lying, which I also failed. Which meant I couldn't ask any follow up questions because my character believed the knight. At the time I figured it was fair, but I'll get back to that in a bit.

2. My backup plan involved bribing the barmaids that were serving the Knights to tell me what they overheard. I knew that the Knights liked getting drunk, and I knew they were talking about something involving the heir, so I went to the kitchens and managed to find the three maids in charge of serving the Knights, and bribed the most attractive one into telling me any disturbing rumors she overheard the Knights talking about, and bribed the other two to keep quiet for good measure. After getting her to agree to my terms (1 stag for her loyalty, an additional stag for every useful rumor she brought me), I sent her on her way and went to try and intrigue the knight.

After that failed, I waited a day, then went back to the maid to tell me if she had anything for me, since I knew she was on duty at the guardhouse the night before. She said she did have something... which was that one of the Knights may have a mistress, because he left to go to the bathroom and was gone an unusually long time. In other words, the only information I got out of her was that the knight I interrogated was probably interrogated, which honestly felt a little more insulting than if she just said nothing. I paid her anyway, but told her I expected something more substantial the next day if she wanted her next stag. Of course, I never got the chance to try again, as it was immediately after this that the daughter came up to me with the note, and everything I described in the first post happened. Though I left out what was probably the most annoying detail...

3. In an attempt to convince the daughter that there actually was someone out to get her, the captain had a list of names of the 'traitorous Knights'... And the guy I interrogated was the first name on the list. At first, I just thought it would give me an excuse to try again, but nope: turns out they were actually a list of Knights who weren't in on the plan that the captain was intending to have take the fall alongside me. Which meant that even if I had succeeded in my original plan, I would have learned nothing, since the only chance he gave me to enact said plan was with a knight who knew nothing. That was the point I started actually getting ticked off at him.

And the really stupid thing? The reason why I didn't bring this up in the original post was because I still don't think they're even doing this for revenge for the fallen knight, since that happened in game a few days ago, and the GM implied they were planning this for much longer than that. And the guard captain even had the knight on the list of traitors, which implied that he might have objected to the plan at some point, if he was even aware of it to begin with. Plus, the MO doesn't even fit a revenge scheme, since they're targeting not only me and the heir (which by the way I don't even know how they would know I was involved to begin with since I was nowhere near the crime scene and my character as I made him wouldn't have been stupid enough to discuss an assassination attempt in front of people), but the lord and the daughter as well, who both have no idea that the murder was premeditated to begin with (or in the lord's case, that it was a murder at all). And rather than just come up with a plan to kill just the two of us or try to get the heir tried in court or something, they're trying to take over the house entirely with this insane scheme. And when the heir's player talked to the GM, the GM even hinted the captain may actually have been blackmailed into doing all this by another lord rather than doing it of his own initiative, though at this point none of us really give a **** why he's doing this anymore.

Sorry... The whole point of this thread is to figure out a way out of the current situation, but I just ended up ranting about how much I didn't like the session. Still think it was good to get all that off my chest, but I spoilered it for anyone who doesn't care about that and just wants to offer advice on how I can get out of this predicament that I'm in now. Because I still don't know if I'm going to get out of the next session alive.

Arbane
2016-04-27, 11:21 PM
True, and honestly if he waited to pull something this sneaky until a couple sessions in, or even gave us an actual chance to figure out what was going on ahead of time with more than just one single roll with a drunk knight, I might have even been on board for it. But like I said, it seems pretty harsh to me to pull something like having your own personal guard turn on you in the very first chapter, especially since:

1. We actually had to spend some of our house resources before the game started to even get a personal guard at all, and

2. The GM was the one who recommended we get one in the first place, since the purpose of them in terms of gameplay is that they are supposed to help protect your heir while they are on the field commanding their armies, which the heir wanted to do.

That right here? That is a John Wick-tier screwjob. (The game writer, not the action movie character.)

As for actual advice, I got nothin'. Start making untrained skill checks, and hope for the best?

When the rocks fall and everyone dies, get the GM to run Paranoia. He sounds like he'd be a GENIUS at it.

....no, that's not a compliment, and you can tell him some guy on the internet said so.

Excession
2016-04-28, 03:38 AM
It seems that the enemy plan relies fairly heavily on the niece being alive and well. If she was to get sick, say by taking some the poison she had, they might be forced to bring in a healer. That would, if nothing else, add another outside factor, which might be leveraged to your advantage.

Of course, taking just enough poison to make your sick but not kill yourself is a real desperation idea.

Arbane
2016-04-28, 12:12 PM
The only bit of advice I can think of that might actually be useful - the people working for you are 'supposed' to be loyal to the heir, right?

Guilt-trip them. Talk a lot about honor and loyalty and family... I think some people in Westeros do kinda believe in that and it's the only nail you've got a hammer for.
(And try to get loose. This isn't Rolemaster, botching an escape-artist-type skill check is unlikely to kill you outright.)

Gildedragon
2016-04-28, 01:33 PM
Using the resources he pushed you to get against you is a strike against the DM. Also they might be a fan of the books but clearly doesn't get the setting. GoT is very intrigue based: actions have consequences, sometimes not right away but down the road (with a heavy theme of "the road to hell is paved with good intentions"); furthermore it is a slow build sort of setting (which plays into the intrigue). Starting off in a consequence is counterproductive: the whole first part of the first book has the Starks ascendant as that shows their characters and establishes the causes to later effects. There are mysteries (the letter, the thwarted assassin, baelish, Bobby's heirs, Arryn's death) but they don't hit the Starks (the PCs in this analogy) until they wade into murky waters.

Segev
2016-04-28, 01:46 PM
Yeah... I can't help but get the following mental image when I read about how the whole paid-for personal guard thing played out.

GM: You should totally buy up your Strength score.
PC: Okay, I can do that. I can see how it would be useful.
GM: Great! By the way, your muscles are actually tumors grown by the evil necromancer. You have to fail a strength check to avoid obeying his commands, as he can turn your own muscles against you!

GrayDeath
2016-04-28, 02:18 PM
The outlook shown by the GM is understandable if one only knows the GoT Series, not the Books.
They do tend to go over a lot of Plot in short times, and spend innately more time on Sexposition and "Bad things happen".

if you do not want to talk to him out of play, and maybe ask him why exactly he is doing it that way (and especially using YOUR ressources,t hat systemwise are not meant to be manipulatable without immense SKill and time, against you) and maybe it`ll work out in the end.

Still, if it was me I would probably be turned off by the Campaign.

The TechnoGnome
2016-04-28, 03:53 PM
That right here? That is a John Wick-tier screwjob. (The game writer, not the action movie character.)

As for actual advice, I got nothin'. Start making untrained skill checks, and hope for the best?

When the rocks fall and everyone dies, get the GM to run Paranoia. He sounds like he'd be a GENIUS at it.

....no, that's not a compliment, and you can tell him some guy on the internet said so.

Hey, might be possible. We've been playing with this guy for less than a year, and he's already notorious with the rest of us for not sticking with a system for more than a couple sessions. At least with Paranoia we wouldn't get too attached to the characters.


It seems that the enemy plan relies fairly heavily on the niece being alive and well. If she was to get sick, say by taking some the poison she had, they might be forced to bring in a healer. That would, if nothing else, add another outside factor, which might be leveraged to your advantage.

Of course, taking just enough poison to make your sick but not kill yourself is a real desperation idea.

Especially when said poison is the Tears of Lys, which I find incredibly odd that he just gave her, complete with a signet ring to hide it in, given that she started with less money than me and the best I could afford was some nightshade...

But even if it wasn't such a dangerous poison, we don't know if our house maester (who by the way, is also a resource we had to invest points in) is in on the plot or not. If he is, they could just bring him in and have him do the healing without compromising their plan any.


The only bit of advice I can think of that might actually be useful - the people working for you are 'supposed' to be loyal to the heir, right?

Guilt-trip them. Talk a lot about honor and loyalty and family... I think some people in Westeros do kinda believe in that and it's the only nail you've got a hammer for.
(And try to get loose. This isn't Rolemaster, botching an escape-artist-type skill check is unlikely to kill you outright.)

That's a decent plan, and honestly probably the one I was going to go for if all else failed. The only real issue with that is that there are a bunch of guys in on the plot, and given how the combat scenario went I'm probably going to be forced to talk to them one at a time. Which might work to get me out of the cell, but if I have to face down an entire group...

That said, it's still our best bet at the moment, assuming the GM doesn't suddenly give me a big penalty to Persuasion for what happened in the backstory or something. Though as I mentioned before, I don't even think they actually know the truth about that yet, much less that it's what is motivating them to do this...


Yeah... I can't help but get the following mental image when I read about how the whole paid-for personal guard thing played out.

GM: You should totally buy up your Strength score.
PC: Okay, I can do that. I can see how it would be useful.
GM: Great! By the way, your muscles are actually tumors grown by the evil necromancer. You have to fail a strength check to avoid obeying his commands, as he can turn your own muscles against you!

And now I want to sing that hypothetical conversation. :smalltongue:


The outlook shown by the GM is understandable if one only knows the GoT Series, not the Books.
They do tend to go over a lot of Plot in short times, and spend innately more time on Sexposition and "Bad things happen".

if you do not want to talk to him out of play, and maybe ask him why exactly he is doing it that way (and especially using YOUR ressources,t hat systemwise are not meant to be manipulatable without immense SKill and time, against you) and maybe it`ll work out in the end.

Still, if it was me I would probably be turned off by the Campaign.

Yeah, that's kind of already happened with me an the heir (still haven't had the chance to ask the daughter's player what she thinks of the whole thing yet). Even though he decided not to just kill off his character after all, he's said he wouldn't mind if we just dropped the game and changed systems. And at the moment, I'm mostly sticking around because I'm ticked off enough at the whole situation that I want to turn it around on the GM and come out on top with everyone alive, and I'm too stubborn to not at least take a shot at that crazy pipe dream.

That, and this is the only tabletop group I've been able to find IRL, and it's with my friends to boot. That's not to say I'm not thinking about running a game myself at this point, of course...

GrayDeath
2016-04-28, 05:09 PM
I hope you get to work through it (or better. read the book 3 times yourself and make a own Campaign, its worth it, once you get the obvious bugs out of the way its a very simple yet surprisingly funs ystem, and the setting rocks).
Tell uis how it went, ok?

In case you are interested I might post my Houserules (born out of building far too many houses and unlike the writers actually having read the average population figures of the 7 Kingdoms^^)....

Berenger
2016-04-28, 05:19 PM
In case you are interested I might post my Houserules (born out of building far too many houses and unlike the writers actually having read the average population figures of the 7 Kingdoms^^)....

I'm interested.

The TechnoGnome
2016-04-29, 01:15 AM
I hope you get to work through it (or better. read the book 3 times yourself and make a own Campaign, its worth it, once you get the obvious bugs out of the way its a very simple yet surprisingly funs ystem, and the setting rocks).
Tell uis how it went, ok?

In case you are interested I might post my Houserules (born out of building far too many houses and unlike the writers actually having read the average population figures of the 7 Kingdoms^^)....

Well, if I do run a game, I'm probably just going to do my own D&D setting, since I'm not super familiar with the setting myself. That said, there are some things from this game I might pull from and use, since like you said the system itself is pretty fun. That said, my group doesn't want to do more than one game at a time, so for the moment, the point is moot.

And I'll let you know how it goes, though our next session probably won't be for another week, so you'll have to be patient. That said, it does give more time for me to come up with a plan of action. :smalltongue:

And in the meantime, I would be interested to see some of those house rules myself, since I've read through the rule book several times while making my character, and even I could tell it wasn't proofreaded very well (for just one example, in two separate chapters they give a different value for Wealth points in terms of gold dragons, and several names for the same mechanic are different depending on where in the book you're reading).

GrayDeath
2016-04-29, 05:52 AM
Okidok, here they are:

A.: "must" House Rules. Either they are incredibly important for Game Balance, Fluff or Both.

1.: Roll your Realm/Virtue/Vice Tables: Whoever made those obviously did not know that 3d6 tend to produce values between 9 and 12, while 3-4 and 17-18 are almost impossible to roll. So if you dont want 85+% of your Characters to come from the middle 3 realms or all be motivated by the same things:

Switch the Table to rolling 1d20/1d12 instead of 3d6.

With the Realms I tend to go for: 2 Values each for the Reach and the Riverlands, as population centres, and you`re done.

2.: Fortune Rolls: In short: they are broken to the extreme.
We introduced the following House rules:
In times of Peace (ergo outside the Game of Thrones and its Chaos) you only get one Fortune Roll every 3 Months (same goes for the flat +1 instead).
As soon as a stat is above 50 all effects of Fortune Rolls, positive or negative, are halved, round down. As soon as a certain amount of inertia of Wealth, Power,etc is achieved, "normal" things dont affect you as much.
As soona s a 60 is achieved, ONLY inGame Events can raise the value (you need to earn being richer than the lannisters or ahving a greater Army than the Reach).

3.: Population as Community Ressource: Whoever thought of buying Villages/Towwns with LAND (which already buys just about everything and its uncle) obviously didn?t think about it that long.
Cost stays, but Population buys all settlements.

4.: Law is useless. Lets be honest, unless you ahve a very weak house AND very low law, the stat has nearly no effect.

Hence this ne Law Effect Table (all in Addition to the Book):
Law<20: for every Area you control you need a Garrison Unit (any fitting Unit of at least Trained Quality). If you dont hav eone, every other month you roll a D6. On a 4+ you lose 1d3 Wealth and 1 Population. This shortens to every Month in times of Crisis.

Law 21-40: As above, but every 6 months (3 in times of Crisis)

Law 41+: Outside of War you dont need any Garrison Units to keep the peace.

5.: Status produces Incompetence and is stangely ruled:

You only have one stat you cannot normally increase, one stat that defines Heirs, Lords and other Nobles of high Caliber.
But if you buy your nobles enough status, they can`t do anything else (unless see B).

So we ruled it as follows: you always start with the Status stated at the description of your Characters role/heritage/Rank.
You cannot increase or decrease it unless you buy a merit/LFaw to do so, and even then never by more than 1 point.
After all, your birth/rank make your status.
Attention: If you have a table of Optimizers, this rule might not be a great Idea. But as long as all palyers are interested in the Fluff....


6.: Maximum number and kind of "1 Stats":
The book already tells you that its really bad, but let me restate:
YOu should think VERY hard about allowing more than one Dump Stat. And the one allowed should normally be at least inconvinient.
As otherwise anybody but a THief Character will dump Thievery and so on.



B.: "May" House Rules: Helpful if you ahve the same understanding of the Fluff my group has, or if you just want to prevent too competent/incompetent Characters.


1.: Quality Levels of Armor: Unlike Weapons, not much Detail is used for Armor, which especially regarding Plate Variants is ... rather bad.

Armor Material Quality:
Bad_ -1 Armor, +1 Bulk
Regular: see Books.
Good: +1 Armor OR -1 Bulk (Cannot reduce it below 1)
Superior/Castle Forged: +1 Armor AND -1 Bulk. As above cannot reduce Bulk below 1


Armor Tailoring (for "hard" Armor only, Chain Armor doenst really care much^^)
Shoddy: +1 Armor penalty
Fitting: No modifications
Perfectly Tailor Made: -1 Armor Penalty



2.: Roll Difficulty:

Again a point where fluff descriptions and mechanics dont fit that well.
All is well in low and medium Difficulty, but the higher ones are too easily reached for what they represent (an average Knowlegde Character can easily reach the necessary 21+ roll to know the secret of Valyrian Steel for example).

Very Hard: 21 instead of 18
Heroic: 27 instead of 21.


3.: banner Houses:

Following the Description in the Books and the Rulebook, an average house should be able to field about as big an army as, using the Rules for Units and Bannerhoiuses in the Rule BOok, MAYBE the Tyrrells can.
To this effect we made Bannerhouses cheaper (5pts each) but one can only buy up to the number listed in the fluff description.
Also, every House gets its "Keep Guard" (a Unit of appropriately defensie Character) for ahlf the Price, round down.

Attention: This rule does not yet satisfy us, but aside from recosting all military units (which we didn`t want to do) we see no other option that would make sense.



Thats what we use atm.

I hope it helps.

As for the not too well proofread: I suggest adjusting differing statements after the fluff first.
It usually works. :)

goto124
2016-04-29, 06:59 AM
At least with Paranoia we wouldn't get too attached to the characters.

he's said he wouldn't mind if we just dropped the game and changed systems.

Well then :smalltongue:

Berenger
2016-04-29, 07:11 PM
@GrayDeath: Cool, thanks. I'll comment where I have an opinion.


Okidok, here they are:

A.: "must" House Rules. Either they are incredibly important for Game Balance, Fluff or Both.

1.: Roll your Realm/Virtue/Vice Tables: Whoever made those obviously did not know that 3d6 tend to produce values between 9 and 12, while 3-4 and 17-18 are almost impossible to roll. So if you dont want 85+% of your Characters to come from the middle 3 realms or all be motivated by the same things:

Switch the Table to rolling 1d20/1d12 instead of 3d6.

With the Realms I tend to go for: 2 Values each for the Reach and the Riverlands, as population centres, and you`re done.

That's a good point. In our group, 4 out of 10 characters are "devoted".

2.: Fortune Rolls: In short: they are broken to the extreme.
We introduced the following House rules:
In times of Peace (ergo outside the Game of Thrones and its Chaos) you only get one Fortune Roll every 3 Months (same goes for the flat +1 instead).
As soon as a stat is above 50 all effects of Fortune Rolls, positive or negative, are halved, round down. As soon as a certain amount of inertia of Wealth, Power,etc is achieved, "normal" things dont affect you as much.
As soona s a 60 is achieved, ONLY inGame Events can raise the value (you need to earn being richer than the lannisters or ahving a greater Army than the Reach).

I don't get the official descriptions of the stats, to be honest. The fluff text claims that they rise exponentially, but in truth "Land 70" ("nearly all of the Seven Kingdoms") buys only exactly 3,5 times as much area as "Land 20" ("Bear Island"). I'd just ignore the fluff, remove the cap of 70 on stats and give, for example, a three-digit number to House Lannisters Wealth resource.

3.: Population as Community Ressource: Whoever thought of buying Villages/Towwns with LAND (which already buys just about everything and its uncle) obviously didn?t think about it that long.
Cost stays, but Population buys all settlements.

Yes! We did this from the start.

4.: Law is useless. Lets be honest, unless you ahve a very weak house AND very low law, the stat has nearly no effect.

Hence this ne Law Effect Table (all in Addition to the Book):
Law<20: for every Area you control you need a Garrison Unit (any fitting Unit of at least Trained Quality). If you dont hav eone, every other month you roll a D6. On a 4+ you lose 1d3 Wealth and 1 Population. This shortens to every Month in times of Crisis.

Law 21-40: As above, but every 6 months (3 in times of Crisis)

Law 41+: Outside of War you dont need any Garrison Units to keep the peace.

5.: Status produces Incompetence and is stangely ruled:

You only have one stat you cannot normally increase, one stat that defines Heirs, Lords and other Nobles of high Caliber.
But if you buy your nobles enough status, they can`t do anything else (unless see B).

So we ruled it as follows: you always start with the Status stated at the description of your Characters role/heritage/Rank.
You cannot increase or decrease it unless you buy a merit/LFaw to do so, and even then never by more than 1 point.
After all, your birth/rank make your status.
Attention: If you have a table of Optimizers, this rule might not be a great Idea. But as long as all palyers are interested in the Fluff....


6.: Maximum number and kind of "1 Stats":
The book already tells you that its really bad, but let me restate:
YOu should think VERY hard about allowing more than one Dump Stat. And the one allowed should normally be at least inconvinient.
As otherwise anybody but a THief Character will dump Thievery and so on.

I'd recommend to lower the gained points for a dumped stat from 50 to 30. Or 50 for the first, 30 for a second, 10 for a third.



B.: "May" House Rules: Helpful if you ahve the same understanding of the Fluff my group has, or if you just want to prevent too competent/incompetent Characters.


1.: Quality Levels of Armor: Unlike Weapons, not much Detail is used for Armor, which especially regarding Plate Variants is ... rather bad.

Armor Material Quality:
Bad_ -1 Armor, +1 Bulk
Regular: see Books.
Good: +1 Armor OR -1 Bulk (Cannot reduce it below 1)
Superior/Castle Forged: +1 Armor AND -1 Bulk. As above cannot reduce Bulk below 1


Armor Tailoring (for "hard" Armor only, Chain Armor doenst really care much^^)
Shoddy: +1 Armor penalty
Fitting: No modifications
Perfectly Tailor Made: -1 Armor Penalty


2.: Roll Difficulty:

Again a point where fluff descriptions and mechanics dont fit that well.
All is well in low and medium Difficulty, but the higher ones are too easily reached for what they represent (an average Knowlegde Character can easily reach the necessary 21+ roll to know the secret of Valyrian Steel for example).

Very Hard: 21 instead of 18
Heroic: 27 instead of 21.


3.: banner Houses:

Following the Description in the Books and the Rulebook, an average house should be able to field about as big an army as, using the Rules for Units and Bannerhoiuses in the Rule BOok, MAYBE the Tyrrells can.
To this effect we made Bannerhouses cheaper (5pts each) but one can only buy up to the number listed in the fluff description.
Also, every House gets its "Keep Guard" (a Unit of appropriately defensie Character) for ahlf the Price, round down.

Attention: This rule does not yet satisfy us, but aside from recosting all military units (which we didn`t want to do) we see no other option that would make sense.

Hasn't House Tyrell the largest army on the continent (both in bannermens soldiers and own soldiers)? How is an average house supposed to have as many troops as them? edit: I think I misunderstood that sentence. Anyway, I allow Bannerhouses to be bought with Influence rather than Power. Also, I'd again recommend to remove the limit from certain resources - Power 70 doesn't buy "the combined strenght of most of the Seven Kingdoms", it buys only 1000 trained footmen... and the Tyrells and their bannermen are supposed to be able to field a combined force 100.000 men if need be.


Thats what we use atm.

I hope it helps.

As for the not too well proofread: I suggest adjusting differing statements after the fluff first.
It usually works. :)

GrayDeath
2016-04-30, 09:57 AM
Problem with that aproach is that NONE of the houses manage to get enough troops with the existing rules.
So either you dump all the armies sizes or it doesnt work at all.

My Variant at least gives some semblence of getting close to the books.

Your Idea of buying Bannerhouses with Influence is good though, didnt think of that. :)

The TechnoGnome
2016-04-30, 05:34 PM
Well then :smalltongue:

Well to be fair, it's not our characters we don't like (hence why the heir spent the destiny point to save his), it's how quickly the GM screwed them over that we don't like. :smalltongue:

@ GrayDeath

Thanks for sharing! I actually like a lot of these myself. In particular, the population fix and the status fix, the latter of which was actually how I thought it worked originally, until the GM corrected me.

The only one I probably wouldn't use if I was running was the Law one, though I might have a warped view of average numbers, since to me it seems like unless you get lucky with low lands or huge Power you won't have enough trained units to patrol your lands for a while.

GrayDeath
2016-04-30, 05:48 PM
Which, with really Low Levels of Law, is what its supposed to show.
You have to decide where to put your troops, to patrol or to wage war, to come up with a good Rotation, etc. ;)
Though I ahve yet to see a house with more than 2 "Lands" (dont ahve the book here, the basic thingie that you fill with terrain etc), and only these areas need one Unit, NOT the Rivers, streets or Lakes. ).

But of course if one likes that is up to anyone ...

In any case: you are welcome.

The TechnoGnome
2016-04-30, 07:28 PM
Which, with really Low Levels of Law, is what its supposed to show.
You have to decide where to put your troops, to patrol or to wage war, to come up with a good Rotation, etc. ;)
Though I ahve yet to see a house with more than 2 "Lands" (dont ahve the book here, the basic thingie that you fill with terrain etc), and only these areas need one Unit, NOT the Rivers, streets or Lakes. ).

But of course if one likes that is up to anyone ...

In any case: you are welcome.

Fair point, I suppose. :smalltongue:

And yeah, unless you're playing in the North, I think you're right about the lands thing anyway.

GreatWyrmGold
2016-04-30, 08:21 PM
As you may have guessed from the title of the thread, I'm in a bit of a bind. Partially due to poor dice rolls, partially due to not doing the smartest thing at a critical moment, and partially because the DM probably set us up to fail from the start.
Wait, why would the DM—

I am currently playing in a Song of Ice and Fire tabletop game...
Oh, that makes sense.



An explanation: I am currently playing in a Song of Ice and Fire tabletop game (or Game of Thrones for those of you who are more familiar with the show). We are all playing characters of a noble house in the Westerlands that is timeline-wise running concurrently with the first book, and to strengthen our connection to the house and each other, we decided to all play blood relatives of the Lord. My character is the Lord's brother, who also happens to be the house's spymaster, and the niece and nephew mentioned earlier are two of the other players, and happen to be the oldest daughter and heir. There are two other players, but as their characters are currently in Essos and the Kingsroad respectively, they're in no position to affect what's going on at the moment.
GM incompetence aside, I wish I could play in a game like that...


Because of all of this, it's very likely that not all of us will escape for life, especially the heir, since he has no sword to fight with and doesn't have the skills to steal one or persuade a guard to let him out.
The niece knows the nephew is a good swordsman. Perhaps she could convince someone to let her brother have a sword to practice with, to keep himself sharp? Even a practice sword can be moderately effective in skilled hands (if the opponent isn't well-armored). Or talk her way out, then try to free her uncle and brother.

But, realistically, there are two possibilities. Either the Lord is going to make a fuss about his kids getting thrown in jail for an alleged plot which doesn't involve them (aside from one being the target), and you'll be freed within a session (if you don't cause a ruckus trying to escape)...or everyone of importance is working with the captain, and the only chance you have is to make for the hills and hope to meet a friendly sellsword or whatever-he-is on the Kingsroad.


-snip-
If the heir is a Tyrion, he should inform the Lord about having been attacked by his own personal guard, and politely ask that both he and the captain who ordered it be let go. From atop a cliff.
If the heir is more of a Robb, though...you might be in trouble. And if his skills are anything to go by, he's a Jaime.



...The latter of which the GM says 'happens in GoT all the time'. And to be fair, it is a little hard to argue that particular point.
Oh, I disagree. In GoT, it would hit another plot or a pothole or something and crash well before it reached that point. Or there would at least be a witness or something.
Plots never go perfectly smoothly in GoT, nor do their backups.


As someone who likes the books (well at least the first 2) very much AND loves intruiging, gritty and dangerous games, I say:

YOur GM ****ed with you without preamble. Which is NOT the GoT Way.
You **** with the Characters after a few hints, if they dont catch it or react wrongly.
Aside from 2 events all of ASoIaF "Horrible Moments" were quite to very foreseeable.
And the Characters still walked into them.
I'm going to join with the people agreeing with this.
At worst, Martin lets his characters choose between multiple bad ends.



And when the heir's player talked to the GM, the GM even hinted the captain may actually have been blackmailed into doing all this by another lord rather than doing it of his own initiative, though at this point none of us really give a **** why he's doing this anymore.
Needlessly Overcomplicated Plot Syndrome—a common disease among bad GoT knockoffs.


Guilt-trip them. Talk a lot about honor and loyalty and family... I think some people in Westeros do kinda believe in that and it's the only nail you've got a hammer for.
Morality Deficiency is also a common disorder in bad GoT knockoffs.


Especially when said poison is the Tears of Lys, which I find incredibly odd that he just gave her, complete with a signet ring to hide it in, given that she started with less money than me and the best I could afford was some nightshade...
Ripped almost perfectly from the actual series. Yet another symptom of bad GoT knockoffs...



This game is a lot about survival in a dangerous world (of intrigue, war and all politics), but also and more about choices and consequences.
I'd say every game—from Tic-Tac-Toe and Pac-Man and poker to Dark Souls and Europa Universalis and GURPS—is about choices in some form and their consequences. Without choice, there can be no truly meaningful interaction, and what is a game without interaction?


She said she did have something... which was that one of the Knights may have a mistress, because he left to go to the bathroom and was gone an unusually long time. In other words, the only information I got out of her was that the knight I interrogated was probably interrogated, which honestly felt a little more insulting than if she just said nothing.
If the GM hadn't been so stingy with his information, this would be pretty funny.


3. In an attempt to convince the daughter that there actually was someone out to get her, the captain had a list of names of the 'traitorous Knights'... And the guy I interrogated was the first name on the list. At first, I just thought it would give me an excuse to try again, but nope: turns out they were actually a list of Knights who weren't in on the plan that the captain was intending to have take the fall alongside me. Which meant that even if I had succeeded in my original plan, I would have learned nothing, since the only chance he gave me to enact said plan was with a knight who knew nothing. That was the point I started actually getting ticked off at him.
sigh

Berenger
2016-05-01, 03:26 AM
Though I ahve yet to see a house with more than 2 "Lands" (dont ahve the book here, the basic thingie that you fill with terrain etc), and only these areas need one Unit, NOT the Rivers, streets or Lakes. ).

The only problem I see is that the need to send troops to keep up Law / compensate for low law is that this affects some factions more than others. The area around King's Landing has no law issues to begin with (+20 Law, -5 Lands), the Stormlands are also golden (+10 Law, -5 Lands, +5 Power) but the North must be pretty much unplayable (+20 Lands, -10 Law, -5 Power).

Also, so you can finally see a house with more than 2 domains: dornish House Corrowyn of Stranger's Peak, NPC neighbour and former enemy of our "Home House" House Coldwater of Silverspring, holding a narrow mountain pass connecting the Reach and Dorne.

Im also open to thoughts about the population size / population density. I eyeballed each domain on the map (http://abload.de/img/map_of_westeros2zxuuz.jpg - 2 blue for Coldwater, 4 red for Corrowyn) as 25*25 miles = 625 square miles ~ 1620 km˛.


House Corrowyn of Stranger's Peak

"None Shall Pass"

Defense: 32
Influence: 33
Lands: 41
Law: 21
Population: 31
Power: 46
Wealth: 30

Domain I (Mountains, Streams - 10 LAN)
+Small Castle [Stranger's Peak] (Maester - 30 DEF, 5 WEA)

Domain II (Hills, Grassland, Stream, War Horse Husbandry - 9 LAN)
+War Horse Husbandry (15 WEA)

Domain III (Hills, Grassland, Stream, Ruins - 12 LAN)

Domain IV (Plains, Grassland, River - 9 LAN)
+Large Town [Mossley] (Weaponsmiths - 30 POP, 10 WEA)

Heirs: Darric (19y), Tanea (13y) (30 INF)

Creation: Established (300 years), Windfall, Defeat



Forces:

1x House Corrowyn Cataphracts

Veteran Cavalry * 8 Power * 2 Wealth
Discipline 0 (Automatic)
Armor Rating 9 * Armor Penalty -5
Defense 3 * Health 12 * Speed 8
Fighting Damage 10
Animal Handling 4 * Athletics 4
Endurance 4 * Fighting 5


2x House Corrowyn Sipahi

Veteran Cavalry Archers * 11 Power * 1 Wealth
Discipline 3 (Easy)
Armor Rating 5 * Armor Penalty -3
Defense 6 * Health 12 * Speed 10
Fighting Damage 7 * Marksmanship Damage 6
Agility 3 * Athletics 4 * Animal Handling 3
Endurance 4 * Fighting 3 * Marksmanship 4


2x House Corrowyn Spearmen

Trained Garrison * 5 Power
Discipline 3 (Easy) or 9 (Challenging)
Armor Rating 3 * Armor Penalty -2
Defense 4 * Health 9 * Speed 4
Fighting Damage 4
Endurance 3 * Fighting 4


1x House Corrowyn Archers

Trained Archers * 6 Power
Discipline 9 (Challenging)
Armor Rating 2 * Armor Penalty -1
Defense 6 * Health 6 * Speed 4
Fighting Damage 2 * Marksmanship Damage 5
Agility 3 * Marksmanship 4




Population:

38.000 Inhabitants
360 Soldiers (~1% of population)

Distribution:

2.000 in countryside of Domain I (1,5 inhabitants per km˛)
8.000 in countryside of Domain II (5 inhabitants per km˛)
4.000 in countryside of Domain III (2,5 inhabitants per km˛)
8.000 in town, 16.000 in countryside of Domain IV (15 inhabitants per km˛)

GrayDeath
2016-05-01, 09:28 AM
Well, if you CHOOSE to have your house ruling 4 empty stretches of Land, and spend your land ressources on that alone, its supposed to be ... hard. ;)

The TechnoGnome
2016-05-06, 06:47 AM
Well, got back from my second session, and boy do I have an update for you guys.

Right off the bat, there was a complication: the daughter's player had tired herself out with moving stuff between apartments and dealing with other personal issues over the past several days, so she decided to not come this time. Understandable, but that left the GM in a bind, since by his own admission the session was supposed to focus on her character. So already his plans were thrown for a loop. But then he did something interesting.

He told us that the captain of the personal guard (who he mentioned was also our master-at-arms at this point) could either be in it solely for the money or part of a bigger plot... And since the daughter's player wasn't there, the rest of us would get to vote on it. Since the Essos character also wasn't there, that left me, the bastard, and the heir to decide. I voted for the money, but the other two voted for the bigger plot, with the heir being the tiebreaker.

So what this meant was while the heir was running around the castle raising the remaining guards and dealing with a fire the saboteurs started in the stables, my character and the daughter were set up by a campfire (apparently, he had decided between sessions that the mines were far enough away that we wouldn't make it in one night) and once alone were told by the guard captian that no, he wasn't a traitor, he just had to make it look like he was, and that the lord had told him to do this.

Apparently, the plan (which I confirmed was actually given to him by the lord once I was rescued) is something like this: the lord had told the captian, who owes him a life debt, that he wanted to wage war on the Farens, our rival family in the Westerlands who have their castle (Faircastle) on an island across the bay from us, in order to seize their land. However, since both of our houses are banner men for the Lannisters, if we started a war without just cause Tywin would come down hard on us. So to fabricate a cassus belli, the lord had told the captain to make it look like he turned traitor and bring the daughter to Faircastle as a hostage. From there, the daughter was supposed to have a year to convince one of the lord's sons, or the lord of Faircastle himself if she got lucky, to marry her. If that failed (or succeeded, in hindsight that part wasn't very clear), she was to send information to me, who in the meantime would be busy either sabotaging their alliances or finding evidence pointing to them conspiring against the Lannisters. Then at the end of that time, our lord would use the 'abduction' of his daughter as an excuse to declare war. The captain, believing this plan to be worth sinking his own reputation over, agreed, and gathered every soldier and knight he could find with a grudge against our family to assist him, planning to leave them to ransom me off in the morning while he rode with the daughter to catch a ship to Faircastle.

Needless to say, this was not the brightest plan, not the least of which is because Faircastle is on an island and our house has neither ships nor a port to dock them at. But considering that the two of us were outnumbered 5 to 1, neither of us could fight, and the captain obviously wasn't going to be swayed (and even if he was, the other 9 people there who were only in this for the money might not be convinced the same way), I didn't really have much say in the matter. More importantly,
I felt uncomfortable potentially torpedoing a plot thread for a player who wasn't there to say whether or not she wanted to take a part in it, or worse, get her killed if I botched a roll badly enough. So while I wasn't necessarily happy about it, I accepted that it was most likely going to happen one way or another and let the scene continue, which in hindsight I feel like was the wrong choice, but oh well.

In any case, the heir discovered something interesting during his own investigation: apparently the traitorous group of guards was much smaller than it was made out to be. Only six crossbowmen and two Knights (not including the captain) had fled, and the remaining personal guard had been drugged to avoid having them come help. I don't know whether this was planned from the start or a guilt retcon like the daughter's player predicted would happen when we were hanging out a couple of nights earlier, but either way it is somewhat a relief that we didn't lose most of our forces (100 crossbowmen and 20 knights, for those of you wondering). That said, we still trust precisely none of them.

The rest of the session was pretty much busywork to deal with the traitors. In short, the captain rides off with the daughter, the heir finds us the next day, he manages to pay the ransom and convincing them to give up one of their own as a hostage for 300 extra gold, who we subsequently interrogate to find the location of the mine that the captain had said he would meet them (and I knew they would be stuck waiting at). He rode out with a group of knights, they seized the mine, killing two crossbowmen and capturing the other three. I interrogated the three for the location of the two other knights (who had bolted with the money when the captain didn't show) and found out that they were heading for Lannisport, and we sent the bastard to hopefully catch them before they found a ship out of the Westerlands.

So in all, the session ended better than last time, even though steam was lost by the end. That said, the fact that we no longer trust anyone under our employ has led to one last interesting development. The heir (whose player I suspect has stopped taking the game seriously at this point) has decided to created a special contingent of 'criminal soldiers' personally led and trained by him, starting with the crossbowman he managed to get from the ransom deal. His justification for making the guy his personal bodyguard is that, since he already backstabbed him once, he and everyone else knows that the guard is untrustworthy. Therefore, if he was ever killed in a remotely suspicious way, said guard would be the first suspect, and thus the guard would have a personal incentive to keep him alive. Considering he also pardoned one of the other crossbowmen because he was bat**** insane and he wanted to make him the 'court fool' (which he at least appears to believe is his most trusted advisor, to the point where he's started asking everyone in the keep about the mighty 'Dagon', which is actually a random word the fool scribbled on a piece of paper one morning), my character doesn't trust his logic, but other than a warning that it is a stupid idea can't do much about it.

So yeah, it seems like our main Confict until the War of Five Kings starts is going to be attempting to take over Faircastle. Not sure if things will progress well or not, but at least none of us are in immediate danger.

Oh, and because the heir can't keep his big mouth shut, the GM knows about this thread. Apparently he hasn't actually read it, but he knows enough that I figure I should at least give you his rebuttal to the whole 'screwed us over in the beginning' thing: "Most people think that a game/story beginning with something going wrong is bad storytelling, when in fact it is usually the opposite."

"Also, they don't know my name, right? Then tell them to go **** themselves."

GrayDeath
2016-05-06, 02:41 PM
Ohh....huh.

:nale: approves this plan.


Hooboy, good luck.

Segev
2016-05-10, 02:19 PM
Good luck, indeed. IT's a little convoluted, but hey, it could make interesting story.

The issue most of us took, though, wasn't that "something bad" happened. It's that it turned things you paid to be great into weapons against you, and you never even got to have any benefit from them. Plus, it seemed awful railroad-y. Like it was going to happen this way no matter what. That kind of "this has to happen to set it up" railroad is best handled by starting the game with it already done.


Not a criticism of this game past this point, but a musing in general: It might be interesting to start a game en medias res, with the captain of the guard (for example) already having kidnapped the princess and the uncle, and then having an alternating set of scenes where the PCs have to play out how they got there, and play out what they're doing.

This would take buy-in and cooperation from the players, though, to essentially get them on board with HELPING railroad their PCs to the starting point in the middle of the action.

The TechnoGnome
2016-05-10, 04:09 PM
Good luck, indeed. IT's a little convoluted, but hey, it could make interesting story.

The issue most of us took, though, wasn't that "something bad" happened. It's that it turned things you paid to be great into weapons against you, and you never even got to have any benefit from them. Plus, it seemed awful railroad-y. Like it was going to happen this way no matter what. That kind of "this has to happen to set it up" railroad is best handled by starting the game with it already done.


Not a criticism of this game past this point, but a musing in general: It might be interesting to start a game en medias res, with the captain of the guard (for example) already having kidnapped the princess and the uncle, and then having an alternating set of scenes where the PCs have to play out how they got there, and play out what they're doing.

This would take buy-in and cooperation from the players, though, to essentially get them on board with HELPING railroad their PCs to the starting point in the middle of the action.

Yeah, we actually tried to explain that to him before we started, but he didn't seem to realize the distinction between the two. Perhaps if we pushed the issue for longer he might have, but none of us wanted to start a huge argument just before a game, especially when said game was going to be GMed by the guy we were arguing with and, like I said, he's a good guy who usually doesn't pull crap like this. And as long as the daughter's player is fine with where her story is going, we're in an at least acceptable position this time.

That would be an interesting game, I agree. But yeah, something like that would definitely need to be hashed out and agreed upon ahead of time.

aberratio ictus
2016-05-10, 05:01 PM
So it was the Lord's plan all along, and he... didn't bother to tell anybody, not even his... spymaster, who would be the one he should trust to change a, to be frank, fairly idiotic plan such as this into something workable?

The daughter's player is right, this sounds like a guilt retcon.

You should probably be happy, since the new situation lets you actually play your character in a meaningful way, but still... what an awful plan that put the Lord's closest family in danger for absolutely no reason.

The TechnoGnome
2016-05-10, 06:15 PM
So it was the Lord's plan all along, and he... didn't bother to tell anybody, not even his... spymaster, who would be the one he should trust to change a, to be frank, fairly idiotic plan such as this into something workable?

The daughter's player is right, this sounds like a guilt retcon.

You should probably be happy, since the new situation lets you actually play your character in a meaningful way, but still... what an awful plan that put the Lord's closest family in danger for absolutely no reason.

I know, right? Funny thing is, once he got the lord to confirm the story, one of the first things my character asked was why he wasn't told about this before he got himself captured. The Lord's answer basically boiled down to 'if I told you, you would have put a stop to it.' Which to be fair, my guy totally would have, because he, unlike the lord apparently, cares about keeping both children safe, rather than just the current heir. And, of course, the plan itself isn't that smart, though the lord seems to think it is.

Now, of course, it's too late to stop the kidnapping, and directly sabotaging the plan now by telling the other people at the keep or the Farens would only put her in even more danger, and potentially label me a traitor.

I am, however, debating attempting to sabotage the plan indirectly. The bastard is about to ride out for Lannisport to catch the other two Knights, which coincidentally happens to me the closest port city to us that the captain may use to transport the daughter. I could have my spymaster tell the bastard that his informants 'got word' about the captain trying to smuggle the daughter to Faircastle, and that the lord would be very happy if he happened to use that information to prioritize finding the traitorous captain and rescue the daughter. Of course, I would have to talk to the daughter's player before I begin setting it up, since she may actually want to do stuff at Faircastle, and like I said before, I don't want to torpedo a plot thread that she might actually want her character involved in.

Segev
2016-05-11, 10:31 AM
It's interesting that the Lord knew his spymaster would've put a stop to the plan. It's either that the Lord thinks the spymaster's caring for the daughter is a weakness, or he knew on some level the plan was bad, but wanted to go with it anyway (which is a very childish thing to do; "I know Mom will tell me 'no,' but I wanna so I won't TELL her.")

I would not sabotage it just to sabotage it; now that you know about it, see if you can turn it to your (and the other PCs') advantage. Depending on how much your PC cares about his Lord, you might even sabotage it to remove this Lord or to gain more influence so he can't actually pull things behind your back anymore, making yourself the power behind his throne or making the heir inherit ... early.

What I would do, OOC, is talk to the other players and see if they want to make the plot about taking over Faircastle, as the GM has pushed, or make it about taking over your own territory from your Lord. Whether the lord of Faircastle should be an ally (to your PCs) or an enemy. One possibility, if Faircastle has a daughter or sister, an exchange of brides could work, and unite the houses as allies. Force your Lord's hand and finagle the power-behind-the-throne angle, there. Get the loyalty of all the hands that actually DO anything to be to your character or the heir, so that if the Lord gives an order, permission to actually execute it is passed by you and the heir. If you don't agree to it, the order is quietly put on a pile of things that never quite get done. "Yes, of course, my Lord!" they say, and then it doesn't happen. Surround him only with your own people, so he can't give an order that will ever be heard if you don't want it to.

I mean, he's clearly an idiot. :smalltongue: This is for his own good. :smallwink:

The TechnoGnome
2016-05-11, 05:50 PM
It's interesting that the Lord knew his spymaster would've put a stop to the plan. It's either that the Lord thinks the spymaster's caring for the daughter is a weakness, or he knew on some level the plan was bad, but wanted to go with it anyway (which is a very childish thing to do; "I know Mom will tell me 'no,' but I wanna so I won't TELL her.")

I would not sabotage it just to sabotage it; now that you know about it, see if you can turn it to your (and the other PCs') advantage. Depending on how much your PC cares about his Lord, you might even sabotage it to remove this Lord or to gain more influence so he can't actually pull things behind your back anymore, making yourself the power behind his throne or making the heir inherit ... early.

What I would do, OOC, is talk to the other players and see if they want to make the plot about taking over Faircastle, as the GM has pushed, or make it about taking over your own territory from your Lord. Whether the lord of Faircastle should be an ally (to your PCs) or an enemy. One possibility, if Faircastle has a daughter or sister, an exchange of brides could work, and unite the houses as allies. Force your Lord's hand and finagle the power-behind-the-throne angle, there. Get the loyalty of all the hands that actually DO anything to be to your character or the heir, so that if the Lord gives an order, permission to actually execute it is passed by you and the heir. If you don't agree to it, the order is quietly put on a pile of things that never quite get done. "Yes, of course, my Lord!" they say, and then it doesn't happen. Surround him only with your own people, so he can't give an order that will ever be heard if you don't want it to.

I mean, he's clearly an idiot. :smalltongue: This is for his own good. :smallwink:

Well, I wasn't going to sabotage it just to sabotage it. My reasoning would be that, if the daughter wasn't willing to go through with the plan, that the spymaster would be doing it in order to get his niece out of a potentially dangerous situation she wasn't ready for, on some level out of guilt for not preventing it to begin with. Of course, if the daughter (and by extension her player) are on board with the plan, he would instead go into working with the plan and offering support himself, as even though it was poorly thought out, between the two of them and the muscle provided by her brothers they might be able to salvage it into something workable.

That said, everything else you said seems like a pretty clever plan. Next time I hang out with the others, I'll be sure to talk to them about it.

Gamgee
2016-05-11, 06:13 PM
Trial by combat!

Edit
Oh I didn't see your update. No longer relevant.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NN30YMzja6Y

The TechnoGnome
2016-05-17, 10:59 PM
Well, thank you all for your advice. However, our GM wants to run Shadowrun instead, so it seems like our house is no more. A shame, but no one in our group is especially torn up about it for reasons that should be clear by now. :smalltongue:

Segev
2016-05-18, 08:31 AM
Well, thank you all for your advice. However, our GM wants to run Shadowrun instead, so it seems like our house is no more. A shame, but no one in our group is especially torn up about it for reasons that should be clear by now. :smalltongue:

Ah, Shadowrun! That's perfect for if you should expect your "loyal" allies to betray you for the first profit motive that waves a red penny!

goto124
2016-05-18, 08:43 AM
waves a red penny!

What is the penny red from, blood?

Segev
2016-05-18, 09:23 AM
What is the penny red from, blood?

Well, since it's money, it's the root of all evil. Which means, depending on whether you lean left or right, politically, it's either put out there by the dastardly Republicans or the nefarious Communists.

Arbane
2016-05-18, 01:18 PM
Ah, Shadowrun! That's perfect for if you should expect your "loyal" allies to betray you for the first profit motive that waves a red penny!

Which is why it's a good idea to have everyone in the team's backstories say they've been working together for a while now....

The TechnoGnome
2016-05-18, 07:40 PM
Ah, Shadowrun! That's perfect for if you should expect your "loyal" allies to betray you for the first profit motive that waves a red penny!

I know, right? At least this time it would make sense to get betrayed immediately. :smalltongue:


Which is why it's a good idea to have everyone in the team's backstories say they've been working together for a while now....

Ha, guess again. GM says we're street level, so it's very likely tomorrow's session is going to be our group's first gig. Should be fun, especially since I'm the only guy not playing an elf. Doubly so because I've never made a character for 5e, or Shadowrun in general before, and I have a little over 24 hours to do so on my own. :smalleek:

For those who are curious, I'm planning on playing a cat burglar type who does his damn hardest to keep his professional and personal life separate (hard thing to do in Shadowrun, but hey, Joe Everyman has to get his adrenaline fix somehow :smalltongue:). Question is, how I'm going to do that. Not even sure if I want to play an adept or just risk having my guy be very, very athletic, since I'm hesitant to sink what little starting money I'll get into cyber ware.

goto124
2016-05-19, 12:37 AM
I'm the only guy not playing an elf.

I'm planning on playing a cat burglar type

Is 'catfolk' a race in Shadowrun? :smalltongue:

The TechnoGnome
2016-05-19, 04:15 AM
Is 'catfolk' a race in Shadowrun? :smalltongue:

No, but it sounds like you could get cat ear and tail implants, judging from some of the descriptions. Which actually give you a stealth penalty, since it makes you stick out like a sore thumb.

Obviously not something my guy will have then. But he will be acrobatic as ****. :smalltongue:

GrayDeath
2016-05-19, 04:20 AM
You can, and if the Style is more Caberpunky than "realistic Tak Squads in a supernatural Setting" you totally should.

I ahv emost experience with SR 3, but in total: make sure to get enough edge, up your Speed and relevant skills, and while not OP in any way you should be fine with the concept.

maybe (if you can afford it) think about adding Artificial Muscles.


But Street Level and a whole Elf Squad? Spounds like something along "fresh from the High Society Dilettante ball you wake up in the Sprawl...." ^^

The TechnoGnome
2016-05-19, 06:43 AM
You can, and if the Style is more Caberpunky than "realistic Tak Squads in a supernatural Setting" you totally should.

I ahv emost experience with SR 3, but in total: make sure to get enough edge, up your Speed and relevant skills, and while not OP in any way you should be fine with the concept.

maybe (if you can afford it) think about adding Artificial Muscles.


But Street Level and a whole Elf Squad? Spounds like something along "fresh from the High Society Dilettante ball you wake up in the Sprawl...." ^^

Well, I don't know the style quite yet, but judging from the past games we've played I doubt 'tac squad' is what our DM has in mind. And if I don't take any magic, I should have enough points to bump my Edge to a five at least. With that, I can invest mostly in Attributes and skills. Not sure if I can up my speed, but I'll look and keep it in mind.

As for the elf thing, I was honestly tempted to make one mysellf solely so we would have an all-elf squad, but my character concept so far is basically just an average, possibly lower-middle class worker who decides one day 'you know what? I can totally be a Shadowrunner' and dives into it in an attempt to get his adrenaline fix. Think the kind of guy who looks like he would be the last person to become a Shadowrunner, but would secretly probably join Fight Club if he could. Hence, I wanted to make him as white-bread and 'average looking' as possible when he isn't on the job, which is another reason I'm hesitant about cyber ware, as it's kind of hard to pull off the whole 'average joe' look when you're decked out with enough chrome to blind someone just from a headlight reflecting off of you. :smalltongue:

As an aside, should I start a new thread to solicit ideas? I have less than 24 hours at this point, so it might not be worth the extra effort to do so here for relatively little response, but I'm not sure what the forum policy is on going off the original topic of a thread, and what advice I can get before the deadline would be very much appreciated.

Segev
2016-05-19, 09:09 AM
Having stumbled a month or two ago across something called "Miraculous Ladybug" (which is sort of a cross between a magical girl and a shoujo version of Kamen Rider...but made in France, not Japan), I am now picturing your character as Cat Noir.

http://vignette4.wikia.nocookie.net/lady-bug/images/4/40/Cat_Noir_pic_4.png/revision/latest?cb=20160203204222

Admittedly, in-story, he's probably magically athletic even without using his one overtly magical power.


Unless you have a high tolerance for episodic shows aimed at 12-ish-year-olds (and more towards girls than boys), I won't recommend the series. But it's not BAD. Just...definitely could do with more of an overarching plot and plot advancement. Definitely a heavy anime influence in it.

goto124
2016-05-19, 09:21 AM
Unless you have a high tolerance for episodic shows aimed at 12-ish-year-olds (and more towards girls than boys),

Having watched MLP:FiM, I wonder what this last part means /genuinecuriosity.

Segev
2016-05-19, 09:38 AM
Having watched MLP:FiM, I wonder what this last part means /genuinecuriosity.

It's probably not quite as targeted at girls as MLP:FiM; the action level is higher.

If you're familiar with some of my (relatively rare) discussions on how the old Rainbow Brite cartoon was actually a boy's-show formula with a heavy painting of girl's-show window dressing, this is closer to that.

Rainbow Brite focused very much on evil villains' efforts to destroy/conquer the main setting and/or do great damage to Earth, with emphasis on the hero(in)es' efforts to thwart said plots using magical powers in a direct, confrontational fashion. A la He-Man or G.I. Joe or Transformers.

The "dressing" changed the threat from "kill people" or the like to "drain all the color from the world," but it was still far more shonen in style than shojou. If you can apply the Japanese terms to it at all.

Miraculous Ladybug would not seem out of place next to Sailor Moon, especially on the non-transformed plotlines' side, where it's more middle school antics following the female lead than anything else. Cat Noir is much more active as a foil and a partner-in-crime-fighting than Tuxedo Mask, though, and is probably a deliberate effort to give boys a character onto whom to latch their interest as a hero (much as "the chick" often is in more directly boy-slanted works).

While MLP:FiM has its share of direct-action episodes, I believe it tends more towards the slice-of-(magical-)life style than this does.

In some ways, Miraculous Ladybug is "What if Peter Parker was a middle-school-aged girl in Paris?"

That's not entirely accurate, but the "balance private life and secret identity" aspect definitely has that vibe.


Overall, though, it doesn't seem to advance much from episode to episode, and is highly formulaic. They literally title episodes based on the monster of the week (who is either a random schmuck or a friend from school that gets infected by The Bad Guy twisting some bitterness in their life into an all-consuming, magically-empowered obsession...and the magical twist doesn't always make much sense as a tie-in to the obsession). The heroes fight them, both find a reason to use their One Magical Trick (which immediately puts them on a detrans-timer), and then Ladybug uses a Sailor Moon-esq purification on the defeated monster-of-the-week to return them to normal.

The best reasons to watch it are the characters. I think they could do more with the magical/crimefighting side of it than they do, because those tend to devolve to predictability whereas they actually put more effort into the slice-of-life side of things.

The TechnoGnome
2016-05-19, 04:48 PM
Having stumbled a month or two ago across something called "Miraculous Ladybug" (which is sort of a cross between a magical girl and a shoujo version of Kamen Rider...but made in France, not Japan), I am now picturing your character as Cat Noir.

http://vignette4.wikia.nocookie.net/lady-bug/images/4/40/Cat_Noir_pic_4.png/revision/latest?cb=20160203204222

Admittedly, in-story, he's probably magically athletic even without using his one overtly magical power.


Unless you have a high tolerance for episodic shows aimed at 12-ish-year-olds (and more towards girls than boys), I won't recommend the series. But it's not BAD. Just...definitely could do with more of an overarching plot and plot advancement. Definitely a heavy anime influence in it.

Heh, I was even thinking last night about how I was pretty much making Catwoman, but this works too. :smalltongue:

**** it, you've convinced me to take another look at the adept powers and see if it's worth giving myself an astral signature people can track me with. It might be worth it to give me a Cat mentor spirit at this point. :smalltongue:

Segev
2016-05-19, 05:13 PM
If you go that route - and I'm not saying you should; there's something to be said for being a non-magical cat burglar - maybe get that cat-mentor-spirit to share your astral signature and be able to lay false trails every which way?

The TechnoGnome
2016-05-19, 06:26 PM
If you go that route - and I'm not saying you should; there's something to be said for being a non-magical cat burglar - maybe get that cat-mentor-spirit to share your astral signature and be able to lay false trails every which way?

Not how it works, sadly. It's not so much a familiar as it is one of those beings you'd make a deal with as a D&D warlock. Give me additional powers and stuff, but they don't actually accompany me on missions and stuff.

There are feats that make my signature harder to trace, however. Though we have less points to spend on those at Street level too, so I run into the same problem as with Cyberware in that fewer resources need to be spent wisely.