A Game of Thrones Deluxe Limited Edition, Role-Playing Game and Resource Book Options

[Austere Emancipa...]

Is there, by any chance, anyone else on this forum who pre-ordered?
I'm sitting here staring at the 578-page PDF monstrosity, and, uhh, that's about it. I mean, this fragger is twice as long as the D&D 3E PHB, 250 more pages than than my SR3. I'm wondering if I'll ever manage to read through all this, since I'm only on page 476 of A Clash of Kings.

Suddenly I feel I'm not going to sleep tonight (duh, 5:12 AM local time).

[Ancient History]

This is why I'm hesitating on ordering RedBrick's new ED books. That's-a-lotta game...

[Austere Emancipa...]

Fortunately the rules-related bits aren't all that long, and are quite easy to understand for anyone with experience of the D20-system (and I would assume the same goes for the Tri-Stat dX-rules, I'm not familiar with them so I didn't read through the Tri-Stat System Appendix).

I have to say I'm positively surprised about how they've dealt with a lot of things, like combat and the several minor changes to the D20-mechanics. I love the Shock rule (I hadn't seen this before, but I think I remember reading it's been used in other D20-games before), which allows powerful hits to take out opponents no matter their HPs. The working around of bonuses from stats is great: even with the Armor = Damage Resistance system, Strength is definitely not the ultimate fighter-stat anymore.

The armor, shield, and called shot rules are quite well balanced, even though especially the last two work very differently from anything I've seen in a fantasy D20 game before. I find myself wondering about how to better represent certain armor styles in the game, and I'd like to do some numbercrunching to see exactly how well balanced it all is, but that's just because I've got OCD when it comes to combat rules.

The classes, skills, feats, etc. are all as good as one can expect of such a game -- not much different from basic D20, but minor tweakage to make the system bearable and surprisingly fitting of the world.

The most interesting rules, and unfortunately most difficult to understand, are those dealing with social interaction: the Social Status and Influence systems. If properly tuned to fit the playing style of a particular gaming group, I'm sure they can add a lot to the feel of the game. Personally, after a cursory glance through the sections, I found myself feeling much like looking through the Matrix-section in SR3 for the first time. The actual mechanics don't look at all complicated, but the sections are written in a way that makes them see so.

To truly judge the Social Status and Influence rules themselves, I'll have to take part first in a game that uses the "Light" version of the rules, and then perhaps another, with much more high-level diplomacy and Hot Courtly Action, using the rules to the fullest. It seems to make not many people will be able to launch a full-fledged Game of Thrones-campaign and play out all the intrigue of the noble courts without first playing one or two less intensive campaigns. That might not be all that bad, but I'm thinking there's a lot of GRRM-fans out there just trying to play out all the events of the novels right away.

Don't take what comes below the wrong way: I'm really exited about the game and really looking forward to getting to play it. I haven't tried all that many Fantasy D20-systems, but I definitely prefer this to any of them. And all the non-rules related material, which there's a lot of, makes this extremely alluring to the GRRM-fan part of me and will undoubtedly be a massive help in running a AGoT D20 game. I'm happy I paid the ~120€ for this.

I simply like to pick nits, and anyway, I feel like I need to vent.

NITPICKS

20lb-Polearms Strike Back! I remember reading something about having a few guys on the development team who had studied medieval weaponry, armor and warfare to at least some extent -- were the equipment lists never considered enough of a priority to ask their opinions on most of the stuff here? I can understand if they were, what with there being so much other things that had to be done to get the book published, it's just that I'm sure a few guys with cursory knowledge of weapons and armor could have done a few dozen corrections to the eq-tables in a matter of hours if not minutes.

Continuing with the above, I remember reading that there was one or two guys on board who checked the prices of goods and services so that they'd be at least remotely realistic and fitting of a "medieval europe"-style setting. Not being an expert of the field myself I cannot judge the actual Goods and Services table and how those prices relate to each other, but it seems almost like the Weapons, Armor and G&S-tables use separate and unrelated systems of currency. A long spear costs as much as 3 wagons or 70 sheep? A bastard sword as expensive as a suit of chainmail, and much more expensive than a trained light warhorse? For the price of one suit of padded armor, the raw cotton or wool-stuffed heavy clothing favored by poor spearmen in the middle ages, you could nearly outfit an animal farm.

This, again, is no problem whatsoever for a noble court-style game where money flows in such amounts as to cover such irregularities. And it certainly won't detract from the fun of the game in nearly any type of campaign. All it is is a bit weird, and requires me (equally OCD'd about the economy as combat) to do a bit more work, which means I need to gripe a bit to feel better. :P

One thing that might actually have some implications to many games are the Sample NPCs. Apparently someone had the bright idea to use the D20 attribute-point-buy-system for these. This is not a good thing. 10-11 is supposed to be the average, while with 25 points to buy attributes the actual average is closer to 12-13. This skews the gameworld and makes the PCs feel less special, not to mention that City Guardsmen averaging STR 18 just seems ridiculous to any D20-veteran. Of course experienced GMs will simply ignore the Sample NPCs and very few are likely to go with the idea of using point-buy for all NPCs.

The last, and definitely the least of my gripes is the Bestiary. The critters which get attention in the books I really like, and I especially like how a Mature Direwolf is truly a force to reckon with, even taking into account that most humanoid characters in the AGoT-world tend to be slightly higher-level than in, say, D&D (ie 2nd-3rd level are much more common than in D&D, while 12+ levels are much less common). Boars and lions, on the other hand, are pathetic -- you know something's wrong when the average City Guard can beat a raging boar to death with a club. Oh, and last I checked, the average heavy warhorse (1 ton of muscle and bones) was stronger than the average cop.

PS. I have to admit, beating the crap out of Cersei, Theon, Petyr, etc. in a pitfight with a Bandit Thug feels pretty damn good.

[FlakJacket]

Yeah, I bought the thing at GenCon. Seriously large hunk of dead tree. I've only been able to have a brief skim through it yet but the layout and art at least look fabulous. More substansive judgement must wiat a bit though. :)