Post by Sam on May 3, 2011 15:09:48 GMT -5
Emulating the Books:
The greatest resources at your disposal for running games set in the Seven Kingdoms are the novels. The lives and deaths of the characters are the sorts of stories you should tell in your games. Your stories ought to be tales filled with great triumphs and heartbreaking defeats, and you should have environments filled with interesting and engaging characters, each with motivations, virtues, flaws, and all the things you’d expect to see in living human beings. SIFRP explores the human experience against the sometimes fantastic backdrop of the Seven Kingdoms. What follows are some tips to help guide your story and scene designs.
Catelyn Stark: Appropriateness
The novels establish clear parameters about what’s appropriate and what’s not. The stories you tell in this game should focus on the human elements, the struggles between duty and desire, honor and dishonor, and love and hatred. Take Catelyn Stark, for example. A woman of strong principles, she spent her life living up to the expectations of her station and gender. Robbed of her betrothed, she agreed to wed Eddard Stark to forge the alliance between her house and that of House Stark. She bore her husband children, raised them, and helped run the household. Above all, Catelyn knew the proprieties of stations and the expected behavior of one of her high status. She set aside her own goals and hopes for the greater good of her husband and her family. Although a character committed to her place, Catelyn was an instrumental parting the novels. She counseled her husband and, later, her son. She served as an envoy, first to her sister and then to Renly. She was an advisor, a leader, and even a conspirator. But all of her roles were played out within the confines established by her gender and station.
However there is still room for characters who break the societal molds. Jon Snow rises high in the Night’s Watch, and Brienne of Tarth wins a place amongst Renly’s Rainbow Guard. Janos Slynt clawed his way up from his common birth to stand next to the other noble houses, just as Sandor Clegane threw away his rank in disgust of his liege-lord brother. In all of these cases, there are consequences for reaching beyond an individual’s circumstances. Jon Snow must sacrifice everything to gain the position he attains, even legitimacy. Brienne suffers ostracism and scorn, Janos Slynt winds up on the Wall and Sandor is left feverish and dying on the shores of the Trident. Escaping the archetypes does occur, but it’s usually at a great cost.
Eddard Stark: Dilemmas
There are few easy answers in SIFRP. The burden of rule, the responsibilities of a house, and simply navigating the perilous waters of intrigue include decisions that compromise a person’s values and, often, his or her life. The novels are rife with examples of such decisions, and more often than not, they end in tragedy.
When Eddard Stark met with Renly Baratheon on the night of the king’s death, Eddard could have joined forces with Renly and seized the Iron Throne for himself. Eddard was tempted, but he clung to his beliefs in what was right. Had he joined forces with Renly, the war that followed might have been stopped, his children spared, and his family left intact. Eddard might have even restored rule of justice throughout the Seven Kingdoms. But he didn’t, and because of his unwavering dedication to his values, he lost everything, including his life. If he had compromised himself the novels might have ended there and would have been considerably less satisfying. Instead, Eddard’s staunch belief in what he felt was right laid the foundation for the story of not only House Stark but for every other noble house in the Seven Kingdoms.
Difficult decisions, then, are a large part in establishing the mood and tone of the novels. Every story should feature at least one difficult decision, though not all stories need to have life or death consequences. Instead, develop dilemmas – decision points where either outcome is uncertain and where a wrong choice is as satisfying (from a story perspective) as a correct one, if there’s a correct choice at all.
Petyr Baelish: Treachery
Few enemies are kind enough to put the dagger in your belly. Instead they operate in the shadows, conspiring against you, moving in secret, and manipulating events to improve their position at your expense. The struggle for power and the treachery it breeds are the heart and soul of the game of thrones, the political jockeying in which all lords, no matter their rank, engage.
No character better exemplifies betrayals in the Seven Kingdoms than Littlefinger. Born to a minor noble house in a wretched stretch of land, a lesser man might have been condemned to nothing more than a footnote in the annals of history. However through his ambition, ingenuity, and ruthlessness, Baelish enjoyed a meteoric rise in the Vale of Arryn, eventually securing a seat on the small council at King’s Landing. Baelish achieved this not by just being good at what he did, but by being a master of the game of thrones. He engineered the death of one Hand, helped with the death of another, won Harrenhal though arranging promises to other houses, and eventually landed as the regent in the Vale of Arryn. Great deeds to be sure, but none were achieved by his strength of arms, they were gained by his wit and cunning.
The best warrior is nothing compared to the best scoundrel in SIFRP. A character may be a skilled swordsman or an astonishing lancer, but the same character pales when compared to a skilled player in the game of thrones. The enemies the players might face may include dastardly knights, foul bandits, and their ilk, but odds are, there’s someone behind the scenes pulling the strings. Conversely, the players may also engage in such treacherous acts, setting up alliances only to betray them, manipulating other nobles, perhaps even each other, all to get an edge over their rivals and win the game.
Ser Barristan Selmy: History
Westeros is a land steeped in its history and one that still grapples with the successes and failures of those who came before. The dead have a way of affecting the living, whether found in the ruins speckled throughout the countryside or in the deeds attributed to one house and the crimes to another. History is an important part of Westeros’ culture. It forms the legends people tell, the songs they sing, and the opinions they form of their peers. History also shapes the events of the modern day, and many of the troubles facing the Seven Kingdoms trace their origins back one or more generations.
Ser Barristan Selmy, one of the greatest men ever to serve in the Kingsguard, is an excellent representation of the effects of history on the world. A man in a curious position of straddling several generations, he came of age in the time when House Targaryen ruled the Seven Kingdoms. He witnessed great kings and terrible ones. He fought in the wars against the Ninepenny Kings, helped eradicate the Kingswood Brotherhood, quashed Greyjoy’s Rebellion, fought against Robert in the War of the Usurper, and guarded him in the years that followed. He embodies the sense of history found in the Seven Kingdoms and represents the best and worst of those people who populate this setting.
By introducing support characters like Ser Barristan, you can bridge the player characters to the world. These characters give them way s to connect the past events and to feel as though they are taking part of something much greater than the chronicle of their house. In addition to populating your games with older characters, you should also include descriptions about historical places, weaving in a bit of history into the descriptions you supply for scenes, battles, and the like. A fight on the walls of an old castle might be entertaining, but if those same stones saw a battle between Daemon Blackfyre and his loyalist enemies, you inject color and atmosphere into an otherwise ordinary fight.
Gregor Clegane: Horrific Realism
The novels are unflinching in their depictions of the grotesque horrors of human excess. Murder, betrayals, rape, and torture – every vice, every sickness of the mind, has made an appearance at one time or another. The perpetrators of these acts are easy to hate, even more so when they go unpunished, but when they are brought to justice, there’s nothing sweeter.
The Mountain that Rides, Gregor Clegane, is one of the more prominent villains from the novels. Cruel doesn’t begin to describe him. He is merciless, violent, and the crimes that he has committed against others are horrific. He’s responsible for the terrible scarring of his own brother’s face, he raped and murdered Princess Elia – wife of Rhaegar Targaryen – and crushed her infant son’s skull against a wall, and his work on behalf of Tywin Lannister defies description. Ser Gregor is a person to hate, a villain to rally against and to take satisfaction from when he finally dies.
The question of evil acts is one you should tackle before you start constructing stories. Depraved violence is offensive, and not everyone has the same endurance when it comes to facing such subjects in a game. Although the novels portray such violence, you shouldn’t feel obligated to do so in the stories you tell. You should always gauge your players and their interests in the game. If they don’t mind a bit of graphic violence, then lay it on as thick as they can take it. On the other hand, especially with sensitive players, you might downplay these elements or leave them out completely.
One thing to remember about violence in storytelling is that it’s a tool and not a weapon. Use it to drive a point home, to excite the emotions, and to convey an important element in the story. Don’t use it to describe every swing of the sword and certainly don’t let it become so commonplace that the players don’t blink when the truly horrific events unfold.
Robb Stark: Script Immunity
No one is safe in the novels, especially not your favorite characters. People die all the time in the books, even the protagonists. Frequent death drives home the realism of the world, but more importantly, it underscores the fact that actions have consequences, and nobody is immune to the repercussions of their actions.
One of the hardest scenes to read in A Storm of Swords is the infamous Red Wedding. The death of Robb Stark and his sworn swords was tragic and painful to read because it meant the near-certain demise of House Stark. It was also poignant because it meant the death of a hero, the extinction of our hopes that House Stark would overcome the corruption and treachery of the southern lands and restore his place as King of the North. The execution of Robb Stark was not a capricious act of spite; rather, it was a confluence of several plots, each of which was fuelled by the Young Wolf’s choices. Bolton may have been tempted by the loss of Winterfell in the north, or maybe from his resentment of the boy king. Walder Frey conspired because of Stark’s own betrayal of an agreement to wed one of Frey’s daughters. Other lords who took part may have joined in the plot after Jaime Lannister’s release, after Karstark’s death, and for the numerous losses and tragedies that dogged Stark’s steps since Stannis’ defeat at King’s Landing. Individually, one of these events would have led to the Red Wedding, but when combined they gave Tywin Lannister the opportunity and the tools to bring the unruly north to heel.
The lesson Robb Stark teaches us is that the player characters are not immune to death. Characters reap the rewards and losses from their decisions, even if doing so dooms their house. Admittedly, this style of play isn’t constructive for spinning tales of high adventure where the players take risks and act with reckless abandon. In a way, difficult consequences are good because they drive home the tone and atmosphere of the books, but it is occasionally at the expense of the players’ enjoyment of the game.
Hope you all are well and happy.