That tune o' Fire and Ice

There is a new RPG out A Song of Fire and Ice, based on the George R. R. Martin books. Now, I haven't read the books, but I put my hand up for a recent go at using the quick-start rules and being a player in the sample adventure (Nicholas Rivers for those who care).

The rules are not standard. Roll a pool of dice, dropping dice depending on it you had bonus dice or penalty dice (generally we had bonus dice, so generally did well). Combat was very quick (which may be a good thing), but similar rules are put into social combat ("numbers around the role-playing" to a degree, but the role-playing is still significant)... It takes a moment to get your head around it, but in most cases it isn't a problem. (That said, we glossed over working out full damage and such which involves high level maths (like subtraction and stuff).)

All up, yep, it was fun. The rules, as such, aren't really specific to the system, in that (at least in the quick start rules) there's no special skills or anything that couldn't be any general medieval/fantasy setting. The setting is, of course, highly specific. Although we didn't get into it, there is the promise of a lot of political machinations, but I must confess that that doesn't really interest me. (As such, a brief one-off is interesting, but a more extended campaign isn't for me.)

From the players there, those who were fans of the books got far more out of it than I did. I'm sure there will be players who want to get into it for just the game potential, but knowing the books is going to be the default position of the players.

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