Hey Veeky Forums I am sitting with a slight bit of a problem, I think. You see with Game of Thrones back and the hype up and going. My players wanted to do a game set in Westeros with all the intrigue backstabbing and what not. Which is fine, I am on board with that being a fan myself. But the problem is the party is made up of well.. Pic related.
How do I make that work? I have two giant warriors, a mercenary from across the sea and a very angry version of Hodor.
Easy, you lead them by the nose via an NPC contract broker. e.g. they have a guy who can read and write who is their buddy in the same merc company as the merc from across the sea.
He's got a job set up with a westrosi lord and your all going there. You can use him as a nice way to introduce options for the players to discuss while giving a modicum of insight.
Which will be useful for explaining why not pulling off the lord's son's head after they gipped you on a contract clause is a good idea, and should ransom him instead/do other shenanigins.
For extra hillarity, make him foreign enough to not understand westrosi all that well, e.g. eastern european drow style. Good way to throw random stuff and catches into situations.
Have them be goons for their favourite House or something.
OR get them to make a fan-house they are all parts of, or affiliated with, but there still being a NPC patriarch to give them objectives and shit.
And when they decide to fuck off to rape Cersei or some shit, improvise.
You see, there are two kinds of characters on Game of Thrones.
>Intelligent but weak who stab people in the back
>Strong and stupid who stab people in the front.
Since all your players have gone the strong and stupid route, then you should center the entire campaign around raping, pillaging, and seemingly-random murdering.
Have a big list of all the characters, and every week pick 1d4 random names from that list, and then make up a reason for why the players should murder-rape that person.
If they start to complain that there's too much murder-raping, go a week or two with no murder-raping (during which time you will be building up to the next murder-rape). Following the two weeks of no murder-raping, you players will be complaining about the lack of murder-rapes, at which point you give them what they desire (murder-rape) and they will be appeased.
I think that should accurately recreate the show/books.
>People being genuinely butthurt about things they don't have to read/watch.
>My players wanted to do a game set in Westeros with all the intrigue backstabbing and what not
>Every player made a big stupid brawler
Why the fuck did they do that if they wanted intrigue and backstabbing?
This is why you all sit down and make characters together on session 0 user, you don't let players sit around and do that shit on their own.
That's how you end up with.
>Well you're 5 fighters who meet in a taven...
Tell them to go back to the drawing board on this one.
>one mercenary
>three big guys
Littlefinger is fucked.
I think something like this could be combined or used at least. Start out with the NPC Contract broker, let them do a bit of work around the place then give them a long term contract with either a house they made or a favorite yeah. Though I'm still sorta worried about variety. I mean none of those characters are big thinkers and are very likely to just take the straight up approach to most situations. On top of that, just 1 mountain is like having a squad or two, but two of them? + their ethnic double from across the sea and a retard strength brawler...Seems like they'd be able to murder their way through most issues.
Well I think they all enjoy the intrigue and backstabbing, just none of them wanna be the mastermind of such acts and I'd rather try to make it work than instantly give up, thus I am here.
>>My players wanted to do a game set in Westeros with all the intrigue backstabbing and what not
>>Every player made a big stupid brawler
If you can't see how to turn this into a compelling story, you do not deserve the title of Game Master.
OP, turn the game into a cack-handed farce. Encourage the players to plow through Westeros like human wrecking balls and ruin everything.
Mercenary is a big guy too. Got It? 4 big guys.
Essentially you want intrigue to happen all around them, to the houses they work for (oh, our "employer" just switched from the ex lord to the new lord, his son, now hes trying to gip us on contract a little).
As for fighting: Its not always going to be viable.
If they get known as bandits, they cant earn coin to go to the whore house (or other activity). Press the issue if they just kill everything, they can't go whore.
Moral issues are, well, moral issues, they might show a nice side, like a big hairy murder bear who is sweet to little girls. I suggest you ask your players to think up one positive aspect about their characters to play with if your really worried.
Pretty much. I thought it started out pretty good, subverting expectations and all that. But instead of changing it up, the author just seems to cling to this "the bad guys always win, because that's the opposite of what other authors do" thing. Though the show is even worse in this, 20 good men, etc.
I think it's sound advice. The players probably just want to be murderhobos in Westeros, so let them.
4 you
A compelling story to you is just going YOLO BITCHES through Westeros? I think you need to work a bit on your own skills first. Thanks for the input.
That is a good point, the positive aspects thing. I can use that.
4 people, no matter how big or skilled, are still just 4 people. If they piss off the wrong guy, they're just gonna end up surrounded by an army of crossbowmen and die horribly. That will actually be totally in line with the setting, unless they're bad guys, which in case they ought to be given free range to kill and rape.
I think your just unduly worried. You need to think of a few houses, the events happening to them and then let the players enter at the designated start point. Just let them happen to the story and have people react to them and adapt. (make notes).
The best trick is not showing how important an NPC or faction is until they are signed on with them, i.e. so they dont just ignore your carefully planned storyline entierly by going "No" to the first quest giver.
By doing that, you can find an NPC they do sign on with, adapt the starting conditions again, and just reintroduce your reskinned plot. Provided you set it up right they wont even know you did it.
The characters have clear goals. Their potential obstacles are obvious and numerous. They will make a lot of enemies, and a lot of allies in the course of their rampage. The chaos they spread will shake up Westeros' political theatre immensely.
If you can't see how that's compelling, then it is you who needs to work on their skills, not I.
I think I can make this work yeah, thank you.
Or they'll go two ways:
Killed by a competent lord
Used by someone like Tywin as a blunt instrument.
They get action, and to see all the intrigue go off.
>The best trick is not showing how important an NPC or faction is until they are signed on with them, i.e. so they dont just ignore your carefully planned storyline entierly by going "No" to the first quest giver.
Won't this have the opposite effect? If they don't know someone's important, why would they bother working for them?
Not really:
"Hey guys, we need strong swordsmen, and you need money. Come kill people for us like all these tawdry hedge knights we are also hiring"
Oh look, your now in a minor inter house war.
They have no face to gather information, so they won't know jack shit about current goings on unless someone really goes looking for info.
>The fuck do you need strong swordsmen for?
Bam, information gained. What a ruthless, gritty world.
You serious?
Eh what ever. If you can't make a job offer enticing without revealing too much, so you can put catches in it, then your not doing it right.
Being pointlessly cryptic and obtuse doesn't actually make you clever. Surprisingly, a lot of the GMs I've played with really like to think otherwise.
>The fuck do you need strong swordsmen for?
>To kill people and to not ask questions, you oaf. Do you take the job or not?
>That's how you end up with.
>Well you're 5 fighters who meet in a taven...
No chickens will be safe.
>Fuck off, I'll look for another job.
Literally why trust someone who refuses to tell you who you'll be fighting? And just stab the guy for calling you names after asking a reasonable question, too. This isn't how you employ warriors at all.
Killing people who are going to pay you isn't how you eat regularly.
If you wanted to play someone smart enough to decide who you wanted to kill you would've done that instead.
use sifrpg. literally the first thing the system has you do is create a house with all the players, before they even think about creating a characters, to create a universal goal and a decent enough reason for them to be stuck together. Sure they might all have giant's blood, but at least this way you can still have the intrigue, sort of. and now you can shove their shitty ideas in their faces via politics
Hodor.
Hodor hodor hodor hodor hodor hoodor? Hodor hodor ho-dor hodor hodor hodor hodooor.
So basically, the players should go along with it only because your railroad dictates that that's how it must go down? Fuck off.
If you make "angry Hodor" as your character then I have absolutely no idea what else you expected.
>Hey why does this guy-
>Don't ask questions, fucking retard. Don't talk at all, your character isn't built for talking. Just agree with my NPCs and don't do anything else. You joined MY game, so you do things the way I want you to.
>But why can't he just-
>No. The important guy absolutely despises you now, even more than before. He calls the guards on you. They kill you! Haha, that's what you get! Should have been more clever about it!
Literally you. There isn't a worse type of GM in this hobby.
I think your just being pendantic and silly.
>I want to be the guy who has more limited dialogue than a pokemon, but even more likely to not talk something through
>waaah why won't you let me be the party face?
Either this is bait or you're a retard.
They want to rape Westeros then?
>It's wrong for professionals to want to know more about the job they're signing up for
If I was a mercenary and someone tried to hire me without telling me who I was going to be fighting, I'd be very suspicious. I'm not going to fight an enemy if I don't think I have a reasonable chance of surviving the encounter. And knowing my enemy will also give me some info as to what to expect in the field, which means better service for my employer.
It's just common courtesy.
Most mercenaries in RPGs are assassins and errand boys instead of actual mercenaries.
They forgot to discuss who would play what brfore character creation?
>You need to be the party face to ask basic questions.
You need to be capable of asking questions to ask basic questions. If you want to be able to string words into sentences maybe you shouldn't play angry Hodor?
I want to play a GoT/ASOIAF set game. Problem is the setting only really differentiates itself from 'medieval earth' on the higher levels, and then it starts to feel like shitty fanfiction.
Why not just play a game set in the actual Wars of the Roses, personalized fantasy twist optional?
You have been hired by Tywin Lannister to set the riverlands aflame.
Surely, it's stupid if you think about it, but it's a common (and yes, idiotic) way of handwaving guys into contracts they don't like in fantasy settings.