Game of Thrones + Black Company = Dark Age Fun

[igavskoga]

@ igavoskoga: I'll have to look into the reputation/influance rules. How much faster do you feel would be appropriate for them to go up?

Sorry, been extremely busy unfortunately.

Its been a while, but from what I remember of my play experience with AGOT there were a few issues I had.

I felt that Reputation didn't come nearly fast enough to make a difference. This was especially bad if you wanted to have a reputation for more than one or two things, since who reputation affects is extremely situational. It felt like the occassional +1-4 you'd have with certain groups of people or certain regions could've been just as easily handled by the DM making a note of the deeds you've done and who is affected by them and applying a situational modifier as the need arose. Being able to assign resources to it, and never feeling like I had enough, was relatively frustrating - and not in a good/challenging way.

Influence, as well, had different implications in play than I thought it would. It ended up being a tool to only vaguely sway the opinions of certain organizations rather than a tool to sway individuals. As far as long-term political connections, especially to individuals, it really did not pan out well in practice. Again, it was the ability to allocate resources that never seemed to make a difference anywhere and could just as easily have been handled by the DM assigning situational modifiers as events dictated.

In both cases, since they were tied to levels to gain them there was no way, mechanically, to gain more given certain RP circumstances or plans. You could RP consolidating the entire criminal underworld to yourself over the course of time and, in the end, only come out with a few bonuses here and there that would only occassionally apply.

Perhaps we were using them incorrectly, but I remain unconvinced that they were an effective mechanic to do, well, anything. I was entirely underwhelmed by that portion of the book and it was one of the sections I was most interested in reading.

On another note, how is the campaign going? What have you decided to do regarding tweaking BCCS magic to fit your needs? If you need any help with that end of things I'd be more than willing to be a sounding board since I love the magic system.

 

[Naeolin]

Well, the Reputation system in AGOT heavily favored the Noble class. Iga didn't appreciate it as much as I did because my character had far more levels of Noble than he did. My only warning with the reputation system is that you have to be very careful to prevent players from taking reputations that either are so broad they apply too often, or so narrow they hardly ever apply. The system really doesn't model sudden leaps of Reputation very well either.

For instance, there's no mechanic for swapping Reputation, willingly or no, if say, your Man-at-Arms who is known as "The Lion of Lannister" suddenly kills a king. Instead, from them on he might take "Kingslayer" as his rep every level. Of course, this could be easily fixed by the DM, so that's not a huge issue.

The Influence system, on the other hand, is a far more tricky beast. My biggest beef with it was that it was set up so that the Individual influence was far more useful than the Organizational Influence. Honestly, in hindsight, I think I would have suggested to our GM that they be seperated and operate under different mechanics.

The problem is that, with Individual Influence essentially winning out on Organizational Influence every time, you have characters investing in NPCs primarily. The problem with that in any intrigue-based game is, what if that person you have influence in betrays you, or moves halfway across the world? By the rules your points aren't returned unless the NPC dies without you having betrayed them in such a way that lead to their death.

The actual use of Influence is a bit hazy too. Outside of influencing a person or an organization and asking for small favors, it never really explains how you might use your influence to raise an army, start the fortification of a castle, or even how easy it would be to borrow a few goons for cheap muscle.

That's all I can think of off the top of my head. I think the systems have potential, but Reputation should be written a bit better and has to be watched closely by the GM, and Influence needs some major rewrites and clarification.

 

[jdrakeh]

Do NOT use the Black Company magic system and expect to be happy.
Green Ronin did not spend enough time running the numbers on the magic system they have laid out.

The Unofficial Errata cleans up the obvious rule gaffes (i.e., actual errors) pertaining to magic in the Black Company book. Everything else is really just a matter of personal preference. If the OP likes the magic system, your merely not liking it isn't really a good reason to ditch it.

 

[DuncanOToole]

Is the BC magic system good for mixing with the AGot setting, because I would like to create a low magic setting as well, and lure some players into it.

I created a mage based on the Mage class from D20M, but maybe the sorcerer class would be more apt?

 

[jdrakeh]

Is the BC magic system good for mixing with the AGot setting, because I would like to create a low magic setting as well, and lure some players into it.

Yes. That said, if you don't already own the Black Company Campaign Setting and are only interested in the magic system, pick up True Sorcery instead (it' a refined adaptation of the BCCS magic system for use with all d20 System games). This way you can save a few dollars and still get all of the BCCS magic system's goodness without having to pay for other setting-specific rules you likely won't use.

 

[igavskoga]

Is the BC magic system good for mixing with the AGot setting, because I would like to create a low magic setting as well, and lure some players into it.

I created a mage based on the Mage class from D20M, but maybe the sorcerer class would be more apt?

The thing you need to be careful of with just dropping a magic system - any magic system - ontop of AGOT is that the system really isn't equipped to handle it without tweaking.

Just off the top of my head I'd say you would need to either raise HP gain, raise the augmentation cost of increasing damage dice size and number, raise the base DC of all the damage dealing talents, or just flat out get rid of some or all of the damage dealing talents.

It really depends on what kind of game you want to run.

I'd say if you're looking for a gritty type of low magic game, you might just be better off with straight up Black Company and use that magic system. If you're content to stick with AGOT (its a good system), be prepared to tweak ANY magic that you put in there whether its BCCS/TS, Core, or any other. Damaging spells will shred up the low HP totals as well as very easily trigger shock value. If I remember right, at 5th level the combat oriented guy in our group had about 38 HP with a 16 con. That's really something to consider.

Also, please please remember - BCCS/TS isn't your regular old magic system. If you go into it expecting the mobile artillery of D&D magic you will be disappointed. Literally every single person I've talked to who didn't like the system was either doing the math vastly wrong (caulculating DC's +/- upwards of 60 points in more than a few cases!) or they were trying to play it like a D&D Sorceror. Its a different system entirely, it won't play the same, so be prepared for that.

EDIT: Just like to mention for clarification as well, Black Company/True Sorcery isn't necessarily low magic - you can create some powerful effects at later levels and it scales up well into epic, it was built to. What it lends itself to is rare magic. More literary magic where it isn't a common thing, and the people who are able to use and control it are dangerous. If that's what you mean by "low magic" awesome, but if what you mean is weak magic then that can be done too, it'll just require some tweaking. As I've said before, the system is exceedingly modular.

 

[DuncanOToole]

Aaah. well the general idea for the flavour part of the mage was that he could cast not light show magic like magic missile., but subtle light damaging but with the intent to confuse and raddle the opponent for others to go in and kill the enemy.
He casts more distractions than anything else.
And then there's rituals where more powerful spells can come from.
Not sure how to do it, though.

 

[jdrakeh]

Aaah. well the general idea for the flavour part of the mage was that he could cast not light show magic like magic missile., but subtle light damaging but with the intent to confuse and raddle the opponent for others to go in and kill the enemy.
He casts more distractions than anything else.
And then there's rituals where more powerful spells can come from.
Not sure how to do it, though.

Yeah, True Sorcery can do all of that. I'd definitely give it a look if I were you, but you may want to flip through it at the FLGS before laying down your cash (just in case).

 

[igavskoga]

Aaah. well the general idea for the flavour part of the mage was that he could cast not light show magic like magic missile., but subtle light damaging but with the intent to confuse and raddle the opponent for others to go in and kill the enemy.
He casts more distractions than anything else.
And then there's rituals where more powerful spells can come from.
Not sure how to do it, though.

Yeah, as stated above, BCCS/TS can do that. It'll require tweaking, but that's easy once you're looking at the rules.

As far as rituals, I'd recommend checking out the Incantation rules found in Unearthed Arcana and D20 Modern's Urban Arcana - fairly interesting way to model ritualistic spells.

 

[DuncanOToole]

Yeah, as stated above, BCCS/TS can do that. It'll require tweaking, but that's easy once you're looking at the rules.

As far as rituals, I'd recommend checking out the Incantation rules found in Unearthed Arcana and D20 Modern's Urban Arcana - fairly interesting way to model ritualistic spells.

yuo, I Urban Arcana, cool stuff.