This is your GM for tonight

t. the person who never even opened asoiaf

This. The HBO show injects a lot more of this bullshit than exists in the books.
If they were better translations of the novels, you might have ONE sexual scene in an entire season. Not whores every episode.

>Half an hour telling is about this mountain we do not care.
>Get to combat
>"ok, roll for warfare"
>18
>"ok you win the battle, my DMPC kills and routes the last hundreds"
>"wat?"

Tolkien for a long campaign, GRRM for a one-shot.

If it's only a short lived game, I don't give a shit if my character is going to die. But if we're going to be investing IRL years into this story, I don't want my character to have a pointless death.

Tolkien by a mile. I hate GRRM's prose. I was gifted the first book of ASoIaF, and I couldn't make it past page 100 before putting it down and never picking it up again.

I mean, in Tyrion's introduction in the novels, he's a visitor at Winterfell?
In the show he's motorboating whore-titties.

I hear where is coming from but on the other hand, the thing about Tolkien is that he's fond of what he called "eucatastrophe", which a lot of people call "deus ex machina", and whether it truly is or not, I think it would translate pretty poorly to tabletop games. With Martin, you would know that if your character fucked up and it was logically heading toward their demise, that's almost certainly what's going to happen, and that's going to create a better sense of danger that you know you need to navigate. Tolkien would just send in the eagles. Also, Martin has the edge on him in actual GMing experience.

John, Dany, Tyrion and Arya are GRRM's party, and they have 4000cm of the hardest plot-armor imaginable.

You know nothing. He just kills a lot of NPC's you THOUGHT were "too important".

Well, to be honest, none of the main characters actually die. I mean, yes, Ned Stark dies, but the story isn't really about him. Catelyn and Robb die, but they aren't really the protagonists either.
I would say that the main characters (if asoiaf was a tabletop, they would be PCs) are Jon, Tyrion, Daenerys, Arya, Sansa and maybe Jaime, but that's stretching it. Only Jon died, but his death didn't last.
GRRM tried really hard to push "my characters have no plot armor, anyone could die!" meme, and he succeeded. But this meme is literally the opposite of the truth.

>I don't want my character to have a pointless death.
>pointless

John Snow, Arya and Sansa Stark, Tyrion Lannister and Danaerys all survive INCREDIBLY stupid decision-making that would kill your average PC a hundred times over. I mean, they just do shit where you are thinking "Yeah, they are certainly fucked.", and lo DM's fiat just saves them for little raisin.

>With Martin, you would know that if your character fucked up and it was logically heading toward their demise, that's almost certainly what's going to happen

And yet asbestos dragon bitch is still alive despite numerous bad judgments and being dumb as cheese.

Best DM is no longer with us.

Here's a question for you - how many books in were you before you figured out that John, Dany, Tyrion and Arya were the PCs?

To be fair Dany gets a bit of a miss on that, because her story has always been extremely separate from the rest, comparatively.

If anything, I'd say that the players in GRRM's game have been playing multiple characters across the game and jumping to other NPCs when their current PC dies.

Tyrion practically fucks with people to the point where you think he's trying to commit suicide by smart-ass.

>and being dumb as cheese
She's not dumb, she's just...unhinged a bit.

Why do you want to make us cry, user?

This

If you want a books with no plot armor, check out Glenn Cook. Black Company or Dread Empire.
Dude kills off his protagonists in such stupid and random ways that it is dissapointing in some cases.

Ideally Tolkien would make the setting and maybe a few of the important NPC's that are integral to the setting but Pratchett would be the one running the game.

Also Pratchett had actual experience with D&D so that's a plus.

I don't care about your goddamn flowery descriptions and I don't want to hear about playing white knights.

>hfw he finds the nigga who stole his manuscript

He doesn't care if he dies, once fleeing at least.

Tyrion was always the GM's DMPC, he's clearly the author's favorite "voice".
Arya was always clearly his "favorite girl".
After Robb died it was clearly Jon Snow that was his Luke Skywalker "destined one", especially after it became relatively obvious through flashback that he's Ned's nephew,

And Dany was never going to die before the final chapters, all the magic shit literally revolves around her, and otherwise crafty villains just act like blithering retards anywhere near her.

>Also Pratchett had actual experience with D&D
True, but Martin has experience with systems that AREN'T D&D.

>Here's a question for you - how many books in were you before you figured out that John, Dany, Tyrion and Arya were the PCs?

Literally the only reason you don't get that fast enough is because he has a lot of POV chapters from other characters.

Like what?
Jon starts really poor decision making only in A Dance with Dragons, before that he was a good boy who dindu nuffin. He gets rightfully killed for his stupidity by the end, though the show already spoiled that he'll get resurrected.
Tyrion doesn't really make any bad decisions at all - he succesfully consolidates power into his hands, and when he loses it, falls from grace and ends up in prison, it's all due to events beyond his control.
Sansa wasn't ever really in danger of death at all - she has a piss poor life married to a psychopathic king, yes, but even at his worst he never wanted to kill her - just make her suffer. Again, every event of her life is pretty much beyond her control - except for her escape plan, but that one was actually smart and worked out just fine. Score one point for Sansa.
Daenerys is often called stupid by fans for her decisions at A Dance with Dragons, but I actually think they were the best possible choices she could make. I mean, she decides to sperg out by the end, burn down all the bridges she tried to build and just fly away on a dragon, but we don't get to see the consequences yet.

well technically no one in the entire region that ever heard of Danny should every try to strike a deal with her considering that she demonstrated multiple times that she is not willing to honor her end of the bargain or actively try to murder you if she thinks you are ideologically opposed. That's why it is ever more surprising why some of the slave-masters would ever even interact with her. She's responsible for so many deaths that were inflicted on people that had diplomatic immunity that I don't even understand why anyone outside of her close circle of loyal soldiers and advisors would ever trust her. From an outside perspective she's completely mad and whether she burns you alive or lets you live is based on her mood.

>And Dany was never going to die before the final chapters, all the magic shit literally revolves around her, and otherwise crafty villains just act like blithering retards anywhere near her.

Dany's really the stealth BBEG for the game.

>Here's a question for you - how many books in were you before you figured out that John, Dany, Tyrion and Arya were the PCs?
Oh, I always thought they were there for the long haul. I didn't see Ned making it through the first book anyway. There were some deaths I didn't exactly pick up on the hints about. Catlyn dying was a bit of a shock, because I didn't notice any foreshadowing like there was with Ned, but that may be because she was destined to become Lady Stoneheart.

>Steven Erikon will never run a game for you and let you become Itkovian

Game of thrones is a meme

If ASoIaF was a game ran by GRRM, I think everyone who had a chapter would have been either a PC or a One-Shot PC.

You'd have the core four, the players mains, but they'd cycle through other characters so you could get a different flavour every now and then. Playing one-shots with meatbags destined to die to give your group background material on the situation.

Jon makes the poor decision right off to go join a pack of desperate convicts and disgraceful cretins sitting on a fucking frozen ice-wall, and THEN starts alternately antagonizing and trusting their commanders too much.

Tyrion struts around believing his family will get him out of every predicament his uncontrollable smart-assedry gets him into, when his family generally cannot stand him, at all. He lucks out of certain death because Bronn is a badass and his captors are reasonably stupid.

Daenerys is stranded in a brutal land of ruthless scheming assholes, and thinks her best bet is to just say "fuck your ancient society, emancipation, bitches!", and only survives this by magical mcguffins and her foes coming down with terminal stupidity.

>I mean, in Tyrion's introduction in the novels, he's a visitor at Winterfell?
Yeah, his introduction is him chatting with Jon and passing on some advice. It's pretty neat.

She wants to conquer an already war-torn Westeros for no other reason that she's the rightful queen, and everything will be well under her rule - which I would agree with and support, if she could handle Meereen. She tries. she can't, she hates compromise, she wants fire and blood, she wants tyranny, she wants the easy option.
Her army consists of merceneries, dragons, eunuchs, (freed) slaves, pirates and mongols, all under the single banner of a red dragon on the black shield. This is creepy as fuck.

Dany is literally GRRM's version of Sauron - the only difference is, we got into Sauron's head and get to see the world through his eyes this time. He doesn't want anything bad - he just wants to set things right. And only he and his creepy army can set things right.

This is your GM for tonight

>She wants to conquer an already war-torn Westeros for no other reason that she's the rightful queen
>for no other reason

Name one leader/faction that has a single better reason. I can think of a number of them with far worse rationales.

And if I ever want an adventure in the magical realm of food porn, incest and gore then he wold be my No1 choice.

Sadly that's the sort of DM Virt would have enjoyed and I'm not Virt.

You know, user, if literally every single person involved in the conflict didn't genuinely think he's the rightful king, so many lives could have been saved.

Number one DM to play your Gish character under.

I get the feeling most of the people here haven't read his books. Tolkien was very sparce with details in general.

Yes, but the Targs literally unified all the warring Kingdoms, every one else just sees an empty Throne and wants to prop up their own little grudge-bearing faction.

He gets a bad rap mainly because he fills a lot of chapters in the early going with "Going from point A to point B, and here's what the trees and hills are like, and aren't the farmers quaint, oh and let's stop and talk to the magic singing man for a bit, and look another old forest, ect."

>the magical realm of food porn, incest and gore
How come whenever someone criticizes Martin's work, they always go for the same tired memes? Makes it seem like they haven't ever actually attempted to read the books they're criticizing. Like, everything you just posted could have come from reading a Veeky Forums post about Martin's books.

At the time of Robert Baratheon's death, who was the rightful heir to the Iron Throne?

Yes, and then they lost it all. Dany has no more right to the throne than anyone else involved - except for Renly.
Also, monarchies suck, and being related to an important guy doesn't qualify you to be a leader, but that's besides the point. Even though Dany should have known it herself by now, being raised in Free Cities and all.

>how many books in were you before you figured out that John, Dany, Tyrion and Arya were the PCs?
I hadn't even finished the first one.

>I'd say that the players in GRRM's game have been playing multiple characters across the game
Apart from Ned and Catelyn, how many PoVs has he really killed? Ned was sort of a red herring, but Catelyn only served to tell Rob's story, which was an even more obvious red herring than Ned.

The Children of the Forest are the stealth BBEGs. It's not only hinted at about as subtly as a brick to the face, but it's also the exact same story GRRM has already told countless times in science fiction stories that no one read.

>but it's also the exact same story GRRM has already told countless times in science fiction stories that no one read.
I read them, and yeah, you're right.

Quentyn died, Arys Oakheart died, Aeron Greyjoy died, Jon died (he'll be fine), and there are also all those prologue and epilogue characters who always die.

I'd rather a decent usurper than a rightful psychotic bitch.

Or at least a predictable usurper. Nearly every candidate being awful makes it harder to care who ends up winning, but someone who isn't fucked in the head would be preferable.

I m reading Hobbit (currently done about 35 % of book) and I dont get this meme about how Tolkien describes everything for hours. Like he described whole hobbit race in 3 sentences.

Does this long descriptions happen in LOTR or is it just a meme ?

For the record, I like the detail Martin puts into the food.

I read the books for the first time when I was in hospital, during the month-long period when all my nutrition was being received via liquid (most of which came through a drip).

Reading the descriptions of delicious food helped keep me sane during that time.

>Does this long descriptions happen in LOTR
A bit more than the Hobbit, but it's grossly exaggerated, just like a lot of the things people exaggerate about Martin.

Of those Jon was literally the only one that ever appeared important, and there was never any doubt that he wouldn't be fine.

Dany isn't crazy, though. She's just really idealistic and really uncompromising. She has this vision of how things should be, and she refuses to bulge.
Even then, she did agree to marry one of the slavers as a compromise, to keep her kingdom safe. She didn't want it, she didn't like it, it won't last when she comes back to Meereen, but she did it.

Conquers city states with social structures and economies that are in large parts based on slavery. Makes the institution of slavery illegal with nothing in place to replace the slavery.

Then orders 200 people chosen at random executed.

Thinks that "I have dragons" is a substitute for statesmanship and basic understanding of basic governance. Gets upset and can't understand why cities keep back sliding into old habits despite her orders. Kills messengers because muh feels. Goes back on deals and acts smug_animu_face.jpg about it.

Other characters have died for much smaller attacks of the stupid.

Everythings a fucking meme these days

Tyrion and Dany are pretty obvious from very soon after they're introduced. And Jon becomes very clear by midgame. Arya is the only one where I could see not being sure very quickly.

Well, at the beginning one is not sure if Dany is here to be a PC or to be the one that goes start of darkness and ends up the BBEG, admittedly.

>How come whenever someone criticizes Martin's work, they always go for the same tired memes?
Just because he keeps doing a thing does not give him immunity to being called out about keep doing thing.

>Just because he keeps doing a thing does not give him immunity to being called out about keep doing thing.
Yeah, nice try.

>Kills messengers because muh feels.
I don't remember that one.

Didn't she feed a Dorneish ambassador to her pet lizard or somesuch?

That was sort of an accident.

Yes, except he wasn't an ambassador, he was a suitor. And she didn't feed him, she had him burned alive. And she didn't actually know about it, he broke into her dungeon and tried to steal a dragon. And it wasn't actually intentional, he got killed by a dragon by accident.

It was a Dornish lord's son, he did that himself thinking he could maybe salvage a mission he had made to woo her, and it was in an attempt to control her dragons even though they barely knew him. Like out of all the dumb things characters did that bit them in the ass, that's up there near the top.

And I'm sure that a nobleman's son going missing in a foreign court will have no repercussions for the special snowflake, last of her kind, tame dragon pets, unique magical abilities, so pretty that everyone falls in love with her, believes in FREEDOM, true heir to the throne DMPC.

The more shit that goes on the more it becomes apparent that Jorah should have let her get poisoned.

>even though they barely knew him
To be fair, controling dragons has nothing to do with them getting to know you in ASoIaF; it's all about having the right genes, and House Martell has married into House Targaryen on multiple occassions.

GRRM would cause TPKs just out of petty amusement

Yeah, that was Quenten's reasoning. How'd that go for him? It's more likely that they were more loyal to Daenerys because they imprinted on her as their "mother" from hatching.

refer to

No, we pretty much know for a fact that that's how it works. Quenten, much like many other characters in the story, just didn't understand the theory behind it. Basically, to be a dragon rider you need genes from both your parents, and if Quenten had inherited genes from any of his Targaryen ancestors (the chances of which are rather slim as its hinted that these genes began to dissappear even as the Targs interbred with themselves) they were latent at best as he didn't have any dragon rider genes from his Martell ancestors.

I want Preston to leave this board. Right now.

Apart from going off the rails completely after a while there's nothing wrong with Preston's theories. In fact, many times, they are the only way these books can hope to make sense.

>No, we pretty much know for a fact that that's how it works.
Except that's nonsense, the Targaryens only have the ambient magic of old Valyria in their veins, it doesn't give them auto-dragon control powers, otherwise Valyrians wouldn't have needed the dragon-binding horns we KNOW that they used.

Who the hell is Preston? is one of his retarded theories?

Preston Jacobs. He makes Youtube videos where he explains his theories about the books. Unlike most people who do similar things he actually bases much of it on Martin's previous books and draws paralells between them.

The consensus is that all his theories start out reasonably enough and offers a fresh new perspective on the books, but always, ALWAYS, makes a quick turn into incrompehensible madman ramblings before he finishes.

youtube.com/channel/UCXU7XVK_2Wd6tAHYO8g9vAA/videos

Preston is Alex Jones of asoiaf fanbase, who keeps coming up with very uniquely insane theories.

>If they were better translations of the novels, you might have ONE sexual scene in an entire season. Not whores every episode.
i prefer it this way.

Either Joffrey with Ned as regent, because that was what Robert declared on his deathbed, Stannis by right of blood because Joffrey is a child of incest, or Dany by right of blood because Robert was a usurper.

Tolkien.
He would tell me all about WW1, would discuss linguistics and all about pipeweed, while soaking in the spirit of the man who changed the face of fantasy forever.

>Not wanting a DM who seems to fucking hate the genre but busts out kickass characters and dialogue

>book filled with fuck, cunt
>every other dude other than davos and theon thinks with his dick.

>Playing eldest son of northern nobleman
>DM tells me my dad got caught up politiks and ended up getting backstabbed, now I gotta make something of the shitshow he left behind
>actually start playing it smart, be honorable enough to please the northmen yet not so dumb that I get off'd like dad
>arrange marriage with noble's daughter for strategic reasons
>After one battle DM tells me I fucked some nameless npc between sessions then immediately married her because HONOR!
>What the fuck
>My whole fucking plan is ruined, goddamn it DM
>Try to apologize to nobleman who's daughter I was promised to
>He actually accepts and doesn't kill me on the spot
>Promise that my uncle can marry one of his daughters
>he accepts this too
>Went better than expected.jpg
>Honor rules say I'm immune to aggressive actions while his guest
>We all attend the wedding happily
>DM breaks honor rules and slaughters me and my family at the wedding feast
>mfw

If we're resurrecting people, can we have Christopher Lee instead?

Bet he'd have some interesting stories to tell.

>>I sneak up and stab him in the back
>Oh no, you can't perform that action, his body is aligned all wrong for that
>>Pff how would you know?
>...I know.

I'm pretty sure that his books imprinted on my malleable child mind the lasting knowledge that red hair is the best hair colour.

I wanna hear more about that time he shed the blood of a saxon man

>Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare.

That is, at one and the same time, the stupidest name to give a department of government and somehow the most horrifying.

Amen brudda

Also got me into tsunderes, for better or for worse. C'Nedra is a dangerous girl for impressionable young men.

>After one battle DM tells me I fucked some nameless npc between sessions then immediately married her because HONOR!
Nah, you did that yourself m8. But that wasn't your first mistake. You left out the part where you failed to support the guy your father died saying was the real king because you bowed to the pressure of your bannermen.