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I have wanted to run a Game of Thrones campaign for some time now. I have finally put together some rules but they are somewhat open ended (intentionally) to give players as much freedom as possible while maintaining a semblance of fairness. The idea is players rule a castle and play the "Game of Thrones." Whether you fancy yourself a Robert Baratheon or a Petyr Baelish, I hope to accommodate your play style. I hope to begin play on Monday the 6th of October and run the game till the 28th of December (this may or not be enough time, we will see and we can shorten and extend as necessary). While I am stealing the concept and setting from the books, I am otherwise using very little of the setting or story so your knowledge of the series is not crucial.
I have attached a poll to help me judge interest over the next week. I will then allow sign ups in the following week and begin by October 6th. Depending on the level of interest I will open more or less Castles for players. As of now, none of the castles have been developed and it will remain to be seen which ones are available. If you really want an obscurer one let me know.
Each player chooses a castle if any are available. Each with a benefit and a set income/week, players may also choose names houses etc. If all castles have been chosen, a player may join as an heir to any of the current players. Heirs function similarly to land owning players and take over if their sires are murdered or if their sires fail they can try to reclaim their birthright. While the objective of the game is to be the king of the iron throne (holding King's Landing) after the play has ended, the real objective is to survive and be as strong as possible (strength meaning a myriad of things). There are also several other victors which gain title: Longest time on throne, largest army, most land owned, etc.
Players are encouraged to actively use diplomacy to develop alliances and strategies for claiming the throne and expanding their kingdoms.
Starting coffers are preset at 5000 gold for all land owning players and 500 for heirs. At the start of each week, land owning players receive an amount of gold indicated on the castle card. Heirs receive 100 gold per week. Though this is not taken from the land owning player's funds, it still comes from him/her and can be taken away should he/she so choose.
Combat is worked out as probability by comparing force sizes. A force size of 1000 vs a force size 500 has a 66% chance of winning. Full details below.
Land owning players are eliminated from the game should all their keeps be captured and if their military force is below 200 (modifiers not applied). If a player is eliminated from the game he may take no further part in it but if he has any heirs they may continue in his stead granted they meet the same requirements.
Though I will as well, players should keep track of all their information and it may be prudent to keep track of others information as well, whatever bit you may know
Because situations will arise in which executive decisions must be made, an FAQ/precedent portion will be kept updated to minimize confusion and maintain as much fairness as possible.
FAQ/Precedents:
Spoiler:
Actions:
Spoiler:
In the middle of each week all players, land owning and heirs, may send me 1 minor action. (Midweek action) At the end of each week, each player may send me up to 2 minor actions and 1 major action per castle owned. Heirs are always limited to 2 minor actions and 1 major action. The major action can be traded in for a minor action but not vice versa. I will resolve the actions as they occur and share public information in the end of the week post.
Midweek orders should be sent to me by midnight PST on Wednesday and will be confirmed as soon as possible. End week orders should be sent to me by midnight PST on Saturday and then will be organized and executed on Sunday and a post will be presented with that weeks results. The next cycle then begins on Monday. In the likely event of unintended consequences of actions due to mutually exclusive events, I will notify the players of the situation and ask for their response. Should neither player give a response I will resolve the actions as neutrally and passively as possible.
*Note this is not an exhaustive list, fortune favors the cunning generals. Use these as a guideline for cost, publicity, and major vs minor actions. If you are uncertain you can always PM me and I will do my best to answer your questions.
Minor actions: -March troops (Move 1/4 of the map)
-recruit footmen (private) (5 gold per man)
-recruit archers (private) (7 gold per man)
-fortify city (private) (200 gold per token)
-maintain siege (remove 1 fortification token)
-recruit knights (40 gold per man)
-send money (private)
-spy/scout (50** gold)
-recruit galleys (300 gold per ship)
-recruit longships (private) (100 gold per ship)
Major actions: -manhunt (send out your knights, if there is an army with 10x less force than your knights very near your troops the smaller army is automatically destroyed)
-attack (attack nearby units or castles)
-forced march (move 1/2 map, cannot be used if the troops are also marching)
-assassinate (private only in that the sender is not revealed) (3000** gold) (remove a player from the game though all his troops become neutral or go to his heir)
-recruit dromodos (600 gold per ship)
**indicates a 50% success rate that scales linearly
Combat If this seems like a lot of arithmetic, don't worry, it is. A computer program will do all the calculation and given the input variables generate the results of the battle which will then be posted.
Spoiler:
Knights: 20 force pts each (FPE)
> -2 (FPE) in terrain
> +5 (FPE) if enemy force is more than 33% archers
> knights suffer 50% less casualties than other troops
Footmen: 5 (FPE)
> +1 (FPE) when not the aggressor
Archers: 6 (FPE)
> +1 (FPE) if enemy force is more than 33% footmen
> +1 (FPE) in terrain Victory levels:
Massacre: 5% of your win chance
Heroic victory:15% of your win chance
Major victory: 30% of your win chance
Minor victory: 45% of your win chance
Draw: 5% of your win chance
Example:
Attacking army: 1500 force pts 20 knights 100 footmen 100 archers Defending army: 1700 force pts 60 knights 100 footmen In the situation where a battle is fought between these two armies in terrain the attacking army would total 1660 force pts and the defending army would total 1980 force pts. The attacking army has a 1660/(1660+1980)=45.6% chance of winning. A fair number generator is used to generate a number. If the number is between 9.12 and 22.8, the attacking force would score a major victory. Likewise if the number fell between 72.8 and 89.12 the defending army would score a major victory. And so forth.
Casualties:
Massacre: losing side-90% winning side-10%
Heroic victory: losing side-80% winning side-20%
Major victory: losing side-70% winning side-30%
Minor victory: losing side-60% winning side-40%
Draw: losing side-50% winning side-50%
Though it would be unfair for a (very) lucky army of 10 men to massacre ten thousand and for the large army to lose 9 thousand men. To rectify this the ratio of the modified force points is compared and you suffer the fraction of that ratio times the % of casualties. Eg. If your strength is ten times that of your opposition yet they score a massacre, you still lose but only suffer 9% casualties.
A battle is fought in terrain if it's a battle over a castle or if the region is particularly dense terrain (mountains, deep Forrest, etc)
Sea battles are fought exactly the same way as land battles except that instead of terrain, unfavorable weather is determined randomly 30% chance.
Dromodos: 100 force points each
> -15 in unfavorable weather
> suffer 50% less casualties
Galleys: 50 force points each > +10 in unfavorable weather
>suffers 25% less casualties
Longships: 30 force points each
> -5 in unfavorable weather
Inspired Tactics Level X: When you declare an attack you may have no special tactics in mind in which case the values are tallied and the combat is resolved. If however, one side shows particular cunning in their battle strategy, every unit in their army receives +X (FPE), up to 5, depending on the circumstances and my unfailing bias. Lkewise, if you set up camps with defensible ares, the defending side will gin some points here as well. If you send me extraordinarily complicated or obtuse tactics they will be ignored.
Sieges
Spoiler:
To take a castle by siege you must first march to it and then use the maintain siege action more times than the city is fortified by the fortify city action, all cities begin with 1 fortification token. Each time the siege action is used (maximum 1 per day per castle sieged), remove a token. If none can be removed, the city has surrendered. For every 1000 force points garrisoned in a city (above the free starting garrison) the number of fortification tokens that city has when it comes under siege is reduced by 1. A castle under siege does not gain any gold per week and and heirs of that house also lose their funds if that house has no unbesieged castles. An heir may continue to play even if his land owning father has lost all his castles, though he will not gain any gold until he has taken back a castle.
An army inside a castle automatically gains *Inspired Tactics Level 5* and prevents the opposition from doing so. The only exception to this is in cases where the defender does not have the walls for protection or they have been previously taken/breached (spy's open the gates from inside, the defending force sallies out to end a siege, etc).
To take a castle by force, a victory must be won over the fortress such that either a massacre was achieved or that the forces remaining in the city have a force pt total of less than 500 (modifiers not included) after casualties and after losing the battle (attacker scored a minor victory or better). Large garrisons may be unrealistic to take by force and realistically will need to be taken by the drawn out procedure of sieging. An army that does not have it's *Inspired Tactics 5* while defending only needs to lose the battle to lose control of the city. If a city falls the victor loses troops as normal but the defending player loses all his troops to a man. If a castle is taken the victor may decide who gains the castle by publicly declaring it for a player during the week following the capture. If no declaration is made it is assumed the player takes the castle for his/herself.
A captured castle automatically begins with the standard starter garrison indicated on the castle card which can be augmented by troops (by marching them there). The starting garrison cannot be removed from the castle.
For anyone who made it through all of that congratulations! I look forward to seeing your names under the castles of Westeros. For the rest of us, tl;dr, I encourage you all to consider signing up. A good number of players and an active group will make this an entertaining game. If you have any questions please send me a PM or post it here if it is relevant for others and I will answer as quickly as possible.
have wanted to run a Game of Thrones campaign for some time now. I have finally put together some rules but they are somewhat open ended (intentionally) to give players as much freedom as possible while maintaining a semblance of fairness. The idea is players rule a castle and play the "Game of Thrones." Whether you fancy yourself a Robert Baratheon or a Petyr Baelish, I hope to accommodate your play style. I hope to begin play on Monday the 6th of October and run the game till the 28th of December (this may or not be enough time, we will see and we can shorten and extend as necessary). While I am stealing the concept and setting from the books, I am otherwise using very little of the setting or story so your knowledge of the series is not crucial.
