After the rules changed, yeah. I'da retreated to land and seen what happened.

What rules change?

When it changed from Kings could only add their support if the defender retreated.

What I never quite got -- it seemed every king essentially had a bodyguard, that was my guess at least. Yet ti seemed assassins couldn't target kings? And the bodyguards couldn't work on Faceless Men? So what was the point of that?

I never hired an assassin directly, but I assumed since none targeted kings that they couldn't. Was that wrong?

Before then, coastal or inland, I'm fairly certain none of you could have touched me by yourselves.

No, I'm saying the plan was for two of us to bend the knee to the other, so that there would only be one army.

Oh oh oh!

That woulda been interesting.

That was the plan against Renly, as well, if you had been assassinated, that would have been much easier. Damn you Selmy!

I will say.

Not being able to hire assassins as the price of being permanently immune to them was fine, but I'd like to formally lodge a complaint about the fact that I wasn't immune to the Faceless Man...yet still couldn't hire him!

I would have joined with you. Balance of power was very important to me especially after the second battle. Those first two really kicked my ass even though we squeaked out the second one. Losing Loras and Brienne was a big blow.

That was in there from the start. ;)

It was more that every King was very difficult to assassinate, not that they couldn't be. I needed to make it so that players didn't just hire an assassin right away and off a King.

Robb--had Greywind (one attack would have disabled Greywind, then Robb could be killed)
Renly--had Brienne (as long as she was a bannerman, he would survive an assassination attempt)
Joffrey--had Jaime (same as Brienne with Renly)
Stannis--had Melisandre (would warn of assassination attempt while alive)

Balon didn't have an automatic protection, but he was joining five days in.

I was actually wondering if you guys would do that, but it seemed like none of you would bend the knee to the other kings.

You're Robb Stark! That's the price of honor. ;)

And you were also the only King who's BG didn't depend on another player. You would always have Greywind with you.

DON'T CARE. MY FUCKING SISTER IS A FACELESS GIRL. :)

LADY MELISANDRE'S OPENING PM (bulletsponge)

You are Lady Melisandre of Asshai, also known as the Red Woman. You are a bannerman to King Stannis Baratheon of the House Baratheon of Dragonstone, and a priestess of the religion got R’hllor the Lord of Light. You may post in the House Baratheon of Dragonstone thread.

Your win condition is to be one of the remaining three bannermen alive at the end of the game, regardless of who the reigning King is.

You are a foreigner in Westeros and do not have a family home here.

Because you hold no land of your own, you do not receive any daily income of gold, men or ships.

You begin the game with 1000 gold, and no men or ships under your direct control.


Please review those abilities available to you in Post #6.

You do not have PM rights with your fellow faction members or anyone else in the game, except as set out in the PM section of the rules in Post #6. All members of House Baratheon of Dragonstone may post in the House Baratheon of Dragonstone thread.


Special Restriction: You believe Stannis is the messianic figure Azor Ahai come again, so you cannot make any decision which will hurt him. Even if you are forced to leave Stannis’s faction, you will refuse to join any other faction and continue to attempt to aid his faction. If he dies and cannot be brought back, you will also perish in a fiery flame. You cannot be sent raiding or to capture anyone, as you lack fighting skills.

Special Ability: You may bring Stannis or Ser Axel Florent back from the death once, with your powers as a red priestess of R’hllor. You can only use this power once per game. If you are forced to leave Stannis’s faction, you will be given PM rights with Stannis.

You can of course produce a black cloud assassin one time in the game and target another player for death.

It takes two days to produce the assassin, though, and you aren't allowed to start "creating" one with Stannis until Day Three. So you can trigger the assassin on Day Three, but it won't be available until Day Five. Once it is available, you must name a target and use it that day, or it will disappear.

You will have this ability even if you leave the Baratheon of Dragonstone faction. You and you alone name the target.

Although this is contrary to the books/show, you cannot use it on a King or a neutral character. That would be too powerful.


WIN CONDITION NOT MET



GM Comment: bullet was busy a bunch, so he wasn't able to give this role its full attention. That's a shame, since it is a very interesting role. But I also should have anticipated that Melisandre would be targeted. I am glad bullet got to use the shadow assassin.

SER LORAS TYRELL'S OPENING PM (murrayyyyy)

You are Ser Loras Tyrell, also known as The Knight of Flowers, of the House Tyrell. You are a bannerman to King Renly Baratheon of the House Baratheon of Storm’s End. You may post in the House Baratheon of Storm’s End thread.

Your win condition is to be one of the remaining three bannermen alive at the end of the game, regardless of who the reigning King is.

Your family home is Highgarden. As this is a family home, no King can remove this land from you.

As a member of House Tyrell of Highgarden, you receive 3780 gold, 270 men and no ships every day, after your 10% tithing to King Renly Baratheon.

You begin the game with 25000 gold, 15000 men and no ships under your direct control.

As Highgarden is land-locked and holds no coastal lands in its demesne, you are not currently able to build or hold onto ships.


Please review those abilities available to you in Post #6.

You do not have PM rights with your fellow faction members or anyone else in the game, except as set out in the PM section of the rules in Post #6. All members of House Baratheon of Storm’s End may post in the House Baratheon of Storm’s End thread.


Special Restriction: You will not make any decision which will hurt Renly Baratheon, because of your special relationship with him.

Special Ability: As an extraordinary fighter, you will give your side a benefit in any war they are in.

WIN CONDITION NOT MET



GM Comment: I think murrayyyyy started off slow with this role because I know he had some RL stuff going on, but he picked it up a bit and did good with it before Melisandre popped him. I'll admit it's not a particularly interesting role, but Highgarden was one of the best lands out there. I think only Tywin started with more land and money than Loras amongst the bannermen.

SER CORTNAY PENROSE'S OPENING PM (Darth Vilus)

You are Ser Cortnay Penrose, of House Penrose. You are a bannerman to King Renly Baratheon of the House Baratheon of Storm’s End. You may post in the House Baratheon of Storm’s End thread.

Your win condition is to be one of the remaining three bannermen alive at the end of the game, regardless of who the reigning King is.

Your family home is Parchments. As this is a family home, no King can remove this land from you.

As Lord of Parchments, you receive 1080 gold, 90 men and no ships every day, after your 10% tithing to King Renly Baratheon.

You begin the game with 3000 gold, 1000 men and no ships under your direct control.

As Parchments is land-locked and holds no coastal lands in its demesne, you are not currently able to build or hold onto ships.


Please review those abilities available to you in Post #6.


You do not have PM rights with your fellow faction members or anyone else in the game, except as set out in the PM section of the rules in Post #6. All members of House Baratheon of Storm’s End may post in the House Baratheon of Storm’s End thread.

Special Ability: You have an excellent mind for defense, and if your side is targeted in war, your side will benefit from having you in camp. Also, your family home Parchments cannot be raided because of the defenses you have set up there.

WIN CONDITION NOT MET



GM Comment: I know DV has some issues with availability during the day, so he wasn't always able to be around, but I thought he did pretty well for the other really boring role (along with Ser Axell Florent), character-wise. He was Hand of the King for path and did some good for his faction as an emissary.

There was only one point where I seriously considered bending, and that was when most of the bannermen were gone and we were starting to look at the standoff.

Then decided to go with a strictly roleplaying guess that Renly wouldn't have bent to anyone but Loras. :eek:

I'll be interested to hear if Zinto would have really gone along, but it seemed like he would have if it came to that. I had decided to bend the knee to Balon if it meant defeating Robb and Renly. When it turned into choosing one of them to bend the knee to, I chose not to.

LADY BRIENNE OF TARTH'S OPENING PM (fontisian)

You are Brienne of Tarth of House Tarth. You are a bannerman to King Renly Baratheon of the House Baratheon of Storm’s End. You may post in the House Baratheon of Storm’s End thread.

Your win condition is to be one of the remaining three bannermen alive at the end of the game, regardless of who the reigning King is.

Although you are the heir to House Tarth, you do not have a family home of your own.

Because you hold no land of your own, you do not receive any daily income of gold, men or ships.

You begin the game with 1000 gold, and no men or ships under your direct control.


Please review those abilities available to you in Post #6.

You do not have PM rights with your fellow faction members or anyone else in the game, except as set out in the PM section of the rules in Post #6. All members of House Baratheon of Storm’s End may post in the House Baratheon of Storm’s End thread.


Special Restriction: As an honorable knight and a member of Renly’s Kingsguard, you cannot make a decision which will harm him. Plus, you’re in love with him. You cannot support any assassinations, as this goes against your honor. You will not be able to join a dishonorable faction.

Special Ability: You are very good at capturing people, so you get a bonus when you are sent out to capture someone. As a fighter of growing repute, your side will gain a benefit if it has you fighting.

WIN CONDITION NOT MET



GM Comment: I absolutely loved the way fontisian played this role. She was very spirited and that passion did a lot for the game. It's a shame she died in the second battle. Just bad roll of the dice. It was a complete coincidence that she, as one of two women playing, ended up with one of the four female characters.

Chief was undoubtedly laughing at me. I didn't hear from bullet for a long time, and had no idea what abilities Melisandre might have, days into the game. I asked Chief to PM bullet and immediately after he did bullet posted in our thread that he had an assassin to use. i think I immediately PMed Chief "Oy vey". I don't know who could spy on the threads, but I assume someone could and would love that info which I had just found out about myself!

Luckily I got some use out of the assassin, and it was well-timed for purposes of war. But would have been a good thing to be able to use strategically.

I had no idea Melisandre couldn't join another faction. I knew she would continue to PM me, so I had wondered if I should just let her get voted out, and serve as a spy. good thing i didn't try that, since it wouldn't have worked, lol.

Melisandre's powers were pretty good, and balances out the lack of troops I had, but it didn't end up helping me at all, and the lack of troops is what killed me.

ASHA GREYJOY'S OPENING PM (britrock88)

You are Asha Greyjoy of House Greyjoy of the Iron Islands. You are a bannerman to King Balon Greyjoy of the House Stark, and Balon’s daughter and Theon’s sister. You may post in the House Greyjoy thread.

Your win condition is to be one of the remaining three bannermen alive at the end of the game, regardless of who the reigning King is.

You do not begin the game with a family home.

Because you hold no land of your own, you do not receive any daily income of gold, men or ships.

You begin the game with 5000 gold, 5000 men and 30 ships under your direct control.

Please review those abilities available to you in Post #6.

You do not have PM rights with your fellow faction members or anyone else in the game, except as set out in the PM section of the rules in Post #6. All members of House Greyjoy may post in the House Greyjoy thread.


Special Ability: Greyjoy lands cannot be raided. Greyjoys cannot be captured. You can successfully raid any coastal land.

WIN CONDITION NOT MET



GM Comment: I knew britrock was going to be very busy during this game, so I am glad he was able to contribute what he could. Like The Jackal, britrock88 had to jump into the game in the middle, and it can take a bit to get caught up, so that's not so easy with him as busy as he was. Still, he got to Favored of the Realm and had a shot to get to the end.

Although now that I think about it, and realize that you could purchase several services a day, I'm not sure Melisandre's assassin is all that useful. I could have purchased five assassins by the time hers came to fruition.

Font was awesome.

SER BARRISTAN SELMY'S OPENING PM (mauchow)

You are Sir Barristan Selmy, also known as Barristan Bold, and one of the most reknowned knights in the realm. You are a former member of the Kingsguard of Joffrey Baratheon, whom has recently cut you loose from service. You are a neutral character in the game.

Your win condition is to join the Kingsguard of an honorable King by the end of the game. You will use the PM rights given within the game to alert each King of your availability (limit of one per day). If a King achieves a high enough honor rating, you will be given the option to offer yourself as a Kingsguard to that King and then to serve him until he is victorious or he (or you) is dead.

The King’s honor is a reflection of his faction’s honor. Every faction starts the game with zero honor points. They receive positive or negative points based on the actions they take for the benefit of their factions. You will receive a daily updates on the honor points of the remaining factions. Any faction which receives 10 honor points will be considered honorable enough by you to offer yourself as a Kingsguard member.

Only you will be aware of these honor points, although you may inform each King of the existence of these as you communicate with them.

Until you join a faction as a member of its Kingsguard, you are available as a national “protector”. The Kings will likely not need protection, so you will choose a player to protect from assassination each night. You cannot protect yourself, but you shouldn’t need to. Only one option prior to joining a Kingsguard results in your death, and you can’t stop it whether you protect yourself or not.

Players may submit a request for your protection, but you are still free to choose your own protectee, even Lannisters.

You will not choose to join the Lannister faction, as you will never choose to be a Kingsguard for Joffrey Baratheon, who insulted your honor when he removed you from his service.

In fact, if the Lannister faction and one other faction are all the factions that remain, you will choose to fight for the other faction as a non-Kingsguard member, so long as that faction maintains an honor level higher than the Lannisters. If that faction’s honor level is lower or falls below the Lannister faction honor, you will give up on the current factions and leave Westeros looking for a proper king to serve (and you will be out of the game).

If you are a member of a Kingsguard or fighting for a faction, you will be a formidable fighter for that faction and give that side a large bonus in any war in which they fight.

You start the game off with 10000 gold and if you join a faction, you will bring 10000 men with you who are inspired by your honor and fame. You will refuse to hold land as it is against your oath as a former Kingsguard member.

You can only post in the main game thread until you join a faction, after which you will also be able to post in that faction’s thread.

WIN CONDITION: 100% SATISFIED



GM Comment: I don't think mauchow knew early on quite what to do with this role, because he really had nothing to do until he had an option to join a Kingsguard. As a result, I think he didn't check in too much and didn't always submit someone to protect. I told him one night he learned to knit and knit himself a sweater or something (because he didn't submit a protectee). :)

Anyway, while I probably could have made the role more exciting for him, in the end it pretty much worked the way it intended, and he got his win condition.

My economy was broken. Money was generated too fast with the improvements, and not enough necessary services available (although I thought I had quite a few when I designed it). In a do over, I would make the assassins much more expensive.

That would have increased Melisandre's assassination ability exponentially.

Plus, Melisandre's assassin was 100% and could get around Selmy.

Interesting. Yeah, if I had realized I could hire more services, and had an idea that you could build honor up higher than regular, I would have donated a lot of money to try to entice him. That was a real coup for Robb. But must have been rather boring for mau.

I'm sure you expected people to buy spies and such a lot. I know I never even considered hiring Littlefinger because I wouldn't trust what he told me. SAme with dealing with Varys. Which was too bad, because that was a fun thing to have in the game, and I would have loved being one of them and screwing with people. But it seemed like it wasn't necessary enough to risk it.

I also didn't realize I could get positive honor or what benefits could accrue from it, so I just focused on getting back to neutral.

I tried to go multi-tier on the spies. That was the thing, to put available information out there, but you have to decide how much you could trust it.

You could buy your own spies, with a chance they will be discovered. You could use Littlefinger's spies, with no chance they would be discovered and more likely to succeed, but you have to rely on Littlefinger to provide you with the results. Or you could go directly to Lord Varys himself and decide what you could trust from him.

For the most part, sal and DT responded honestly to questions to them, I found, strangely enough. Every now and then one or the other would hold something back or lie about something, but they generally played it straight.

I used Varys because I had a free PM for him. Never got in touch with Littlefinger because it always seemed that ravens were at a premium and you wanted to keep at least a couple around for last minute developments near deadline.

Yes. I realize the honor mechanism was quite abit hidden in "the machine", if you will.

Every King started with 0 Honor Points, and could get an easy 2 by naming a Hand. 10 HP was needed for Barristan to join the KG.

HP from -1 to -4 caused a drop in income across the board of 20% for every HP below 0. So that at -5, you had no income at all. If your honor fell below -5, you actually started losing your already accrued assets as well, with a similar percentage drop for -6 to -9, and you lost everything pretty much at -10.

On the other side, HP 1-5 gets you nothing, but any HP above 5 gave you a gain of 20% income across the board. This really helped CW, who had maxed his lands out, more or less, and then saw the income increase from HP bonuses.

Yeah, I did that because I wanted to encourage the use of Littlefinger's spies. Didn't really work out so well.

CERSEI LANNISTER'S OPENING PM (Narcizo)

You are Cersei Lannister, the Queen Regent and widow of the late King Robert Baratheon I. Joffrey is your eldest son whom you can’t control, Jaime is your twin brother and lover and the father of Joffrey, Tywin is your father who thinks you’re an overgrown, petulant child, and Tyrion is your much despised little brother. And, of course, despite all that, you’re a neutral character who cares much less about Lannister fortunes than you do your own.

It is your belief that Lord Varys is working to strip you of your power and wealth and family, which you feel is all yours by right. Therefore, it is your win condition to stop Varys at his chosen objective. If he does not achieve his objective, which will have up to four levels of success (let’s call them major, strong, medium and minor victories), you will receive your victory in direct relation to how he does NOT achieve his.

The details of this objective is based on decisions currently in Varys’s hands. Your spies will uncover one of the four pieces of information each day until you have the full picture by the end of Day Four.

You start the game with 20000 gold, and you receive a daily stipend of 2000 gold from your father.

You have full PM rights with Tyrion, but you also have an adversarial relationship with him. You have a minor win condition to stop Tyrion from achieving his objective, which is to foil Littlefinger.

You are free to give one rumor per day, which may be true or something completely of your own devising. This rumor will be presented in the daily “Little Birds” report after each deadline in the main thread.

You cannot make any decision which will result in the death of Ser Jaime, including ignoring threats to him.

As long as Ser Jaime is a member of the Lannister faction, or has not joined another faction, he will protect you from assassination. If he is no longer able to protect you, you will be protected for one time only by your cousin Ser Lancel Lannister, whom has foolishly fallen in love with you. After that, you’re on your own.

You can only post in the main game thread.

***

AS WITH DANNY'S TYRION ROLE, I FOUND THAT CERTAIN ROLEPLAY DECISIONS NECESSITATED A CHANGED (AND MORE EXPANDED) ROLE FOR CERSEI. SO HERE IS WHAT I CHANGED IT TO

***

1. You are now allowed to read every house thread (you still cannot post there)

2. You now have unlimited PMs with Varys (DaddyTorgo), but you no longer have unlimited PMs with Tyrion (Danny)

3. You now have up to four total PMs to anyone in the realm per day.

4. Your income/stipend increases to 5000 gold per day.

You are now a fledgling spymaster of your own, with some potential information to sell and bargain with. What will you do with it? Well, if you can figure out what he's doing, you can still attempt to fight Varys and his aims. But I am actually going to leave it up to you. Aid everyone? Pick a side and aid them? Whatever. And even better--you can change midstream and go another direction with your victory condition. Because Cersei is maddeningly inconsistent.

You may start this immediately.

Let me know if you have any questions.

WIN CONDITION: 75% SATISFIED (original victory condition of stopping Lord Varys)

ADJUSTED WIN CONDITIONS (these were chosen by Narcizo himself):

Current VCs are:

Kill Renly and Karstark.-- 50% SATISFIED (technically, didn't kill Bug, but he died, so good enough)
Keep Tywin and Joffrey alive. -- 50% SATISFIED
Get Greyjoy to ""work"" for me.-- (I'm not sure how to rate that)
I guess I'd like to foil Tyrion/help Baelish. -- NOT MET

I also think that Coffee has had things his own way for too long. I haven't really minded up to now as if he's doing well then Renly isn't but I want to trouble him.-- (Never really clear, so I left this one alone)





GM Comment: Narcizo had a pretty boring role for much of the game, so to do what he did with it, frankly, he's an All Star. If any of you received a PM from him in "Cersei" mode, you already know what I mean. Just went completely in character. Some awesome roleplay. And the changed/expanded role set really helped him further that roleplay, I think. This is a role I'll need to tinker with, but how Narc played it certainly helps me with how to further flesh it out.

LORD VARYS'S OPENING PM (DaddyTorgo)

You are Lord Varys, also known as the Eunuch, the royal Master of Whisperers. You are a man of mystery and your motives unclear to anyone in the game. The reality is that you truly do only want what is best for the realm, that ensures the most happiness and chance for success for all the people of Westeros, both noble and small. Strangely enough, though no one will know it, you might be the most good intentioned player in the game.

Your win condition will be to choose a King and three bannerman and to do what you can to make them the winning team. The King and each bannerman must all come from different starting factions. Your total win will depend on how many of these four survive to end of the game and are victorious.

You must choose your four players by the end of Night Zero.

You are also aware that Cersei Lannister’s goal is to stop you, although she has less power than you do. One time per game, you may trigger a bout of paranoia in her and cause her to chase shadows for a day.

You have full PM rights with Littlefinger, but be aware you have a respectful but adversarial relationship with Littlefinger, and you have a minor win condition to see him not succeed in his objective, which you will learn after Day One.

You start the game with 20000 gold per day and receive 2000 per day from various blackmail dealings. Not that you generally need money for much.

Littlefinger has spies for hire. One of those spies will turn over the information he learns to you as well as Littlefinger, including for who’s benefit he was paid to do so. The spy in question will be chosen at random. Keep in mind, Littlefinger may not tell the player who hires him the truth, but you will learn the truth from the spy, regardless.

You will receive the contents of four PM exchanges (and responses) at random each day, including who is talking to whom. These are the individual one per day PMs all players are allowed, not the full rights PMs. You will not be able to see full rights PM conversations (such as between the Kings and their Hands, or between Tyrion and Cersei).

Starting Day Three, you have the option to select a faction thread to read FOR THAT DAY ONLY. You may not post in that thread, and you can only read from the deadline to the following deadline for that day. You cannot choose the same faction again for two more days. This is akin to having a spy in the faction camp.

You control the assassin trade in Westeros. Assassins will be available to players for hire. You will learn who hired them and who they are targeting. You cannot reveal this information publically because it would reveal too much about your sources, but you can send them out in “rumors” (see below). You also have the option to “foil”up to three assassination attempts per game. The attempt will be made and publically known, but it will fail. No one will know you engineered it to fail.

Every day, you have the option to submit three “rumors” for the Little Birds report which will be posted after the deadline each day. These rumors must be true or true to the best of your knowledge. If you supply these, you may then also supply a fourth rumor, which you can choose to be true or false, which will also be posted in the Little Birdies report.

You can only post in the main game thread.

WIN CONDITION: 25% SATISFIED (DT selected King Renly, who survivied, and Ser Gregor Clegane (JulioRiddols), Lord Rickard Karstark (MrBug708) and Lady Melisandre (bulletsponge) as his "four" to support.

MINOR WIN CONDITION: 50% (I'll give him half credit for "stopping" Littlefinger, but saldana was realy more undone by the rule changes made necessary by DT's change in approach to the game--can't really give game credit for that)



GM Comment: I think there will be mixed responses to how DaddyTorgo played this role. He had a given win condition, and fairly early on, he chose to ignore it and just roleplay. I don't mind that myself, if it just affects him, but his role affected quite a few others, which is the main reason we saw the adjusted roles for Tyrion and Cersei. All of that is a negative, and likely what most of you will concentrate on.

The other side of the coin is, DT really did play a fantastic Varys. He was so mysterious, I, the GM, didn't know what he was trying to do much of the time. And, like Narc, he was completely nailing the character in his messages to other players. So as a GM, I can't say I support the decision he made with his character. But I appreciate the participation all the same, because it was very well done.

KING ROBB STARK'S OPENING PM (Coffee Warlord)

You are King Robb Stark, the Young Wolf, leader of the House Stark faction. You may post in the House Stark thread.

Your win condition is to become King of Westeros by eliminating the other Kings in the game, through any means possible.

Your family home is Winterfell.

You also currently have under your control the land keeps of Riverrun, The Twins and Deepwood Motte, and you receive daily tithings (10%) from The Dreadfort and Karhold.

Your bannermen are Roose Bolton (JAG), Rickard Karstark (MrBug708) and Theon Greyjoy (Lathum).

Roose Bolton holds The Dreadfort for you, and Rickard Karstark holds Karhold for you. As they are family homes, you cannot remove those lands from those lords.

You begin the game with 40000 gold, 25000 men and no ships under your direct control. Your bannermen also have assets of their own. A House Stark treasury report will follow.

Please review your Kingly Abilities in Post #6. Your first duty will be to appoint a Hand to be your advisor and second-in-command. This is a position of great honor and responsibility, so choose with care. You may choose any of your bannermen to be your Hand.

You will have PM rights with your Hand, and these PMs will not be viewable by spies.

You do NOT have PM rights with your other bannermen or anyone else in the game, except as set out in the PM section of the rules in Post #6. All members of House Stark may post in the House Stark thread.

Positives: You cannot be assassinated because of Greywind, your direwolf. Because of Greywind and your own skill as a war strategist, you will gain a benefit for your side in any war you fight.

Negatives: You cannot hire assassins (too honorable).

WIN CONDITION NOT MET (but unofficially, bravo!)



GM Comment: Coffee Warlord is kinda like Mike Trout. His team didn't win shit, but he kicked serious ass with this ruleset. He recognized the value in maximizing income early on, so he invested in his lands. And he invested heavily in charity for the honor benefits. He took what was in the ruleset and ran with it. And he almost certainly would have won if he didn't save a hole in my ruleset by going to war when he didn't need to. I needed to find better ways to force wars to happen, but that's for next game.

I do think CW had some nice inherent advantages in that JAG was his Hand, and they pretty much explored every nook and cranny of the ruleset with their PMs, and the Stark lands were probably a little wealthier than I should have made them (as with the Lannisters not having enough power, the Starks probably started with a smidge too much).

But, really, CW played a fantastic game, and him Taking the Black after the Battle of the Arbor was the prefect way to end that.

KING STANNIS BARATHEON'S OPENING PM (Autumn)

You are King Stannis Baratheon, leader of the House Baratheon of Dragonstone faction. You may post in the House Baratheon of Dragonstone thread.

Your win condition is to become King of Westeros by eliminating the other Kings in the game, through any means possible.

Your family home is Dragonstone.

You also currently have under your control the land keeps of Maidenpool and Duskendale, and you receive daily tithings (10%) from Brightwater Keep and Cape Wrath.

Your bannermen are Ser Davos Seaworth (InBlue), Ser Axell Florent (claphamsa) and the Lady Melisandre (bulletsponge).
Ser Davos Seaworth holds Cape Wrath for you, and Ser Axell Florent holds Brightwater Keep for you. As they are family homes, you cannot remove those lands from those lords.

You begin the game with 40000 gold, 20000 men and 50 ships under your direct control. Your bannermen also have assets of their own. A House Baratheon of Dragonstone treasury report will follow.

Please review your Kingly Abilities in Post #6. Your first duty will be to appoint a Hand to be your advisor and second-in-command. This is a position of great honor and responsibility, so choose with care. You may choose any of your bannermen to be your Hand.

You will have PM rights with your Hand, and these PMs will not be viewable by spies.

You do NOT have PM rights with your other bannermen or anyone else in the game, except as set out in the PM section of the rules in Post #6. All members of House Baratheon of Dragonstone may post in the House Baratheon of Dragonstone thread.

Positives: You cannot be assassinated as long as the Lady Melisandre is your bannerman, because she will prophecy the coming assassination and warn you. She also has the ability to raise you from the dead, and if she has to leave your faction, you will gain PM rights with her.

Negatives: You cannot order the deaths of Lady Melisandre or Ser Davos Seaworth.

WIN CONDITION NOT MET (but, again, unofficially, bravo!)



GM Comment: First off, let me say, publically, that I apologize to Autumn for a rule change I made internally that affected his decisions on battles. When the game stretched too long and we were running out of bannerman, I decided to cease having a bannerman capturing option for battles, so that Kings would be the ones captured. This forced the action along, yes, but I should have said publically to everyone at the time. I hadn't thought it too necessary, because there weren't a lot of bannermen left and they could still be killed, too. But at the end, the bannermen clumped on two sides and suddenly we had two bannermen on each side fo rthe final battle. Autumn went into the battle presuming he was safe from capture, with two bannermen. So he is right to be upset about that.

As to Autumn's gameplay, can't say enough about it. Yes, Melisandre was a huge advanatge with some of her abilities, and ships, too, were a great advantage, but he had less money and men and income than the other three starting Kings, and then the luck of the dice landed him three bannermen who were all busy or having technical difficulties and so they weren't able to put in their full attention. So for Autumn to take that hand and get almost all the way to the end and to keep enthusiastic in his participation is beyond commendable. He did a great job with his role, which is not surprising, given how strong of a WW player he is.

I've found as a GM most people play roles straight. Next time give me a role like that, because I would most definitely enjoy twisting the info so that it is useful, but serving another end, or spreading misinformation. But not many players seem intrested in being twisted bastards.

Oh I'da lied my ass off in that role too. Anything I could do to stir up shit, I woulda happily done. :)

'Course, that was probably the problem WITH Varys/Littlefinger. Because I bloody well woulda lied my ass off if the situations were reversed, I really couldn't trust a whole lot they were saying.

I know that in the past I've played roles in a fellow "player friendly" manner when given chances to do so ... and regretted it afterwards for missing out on chances to do some cool stuff that would be talked about in future games for months/years to come.

Example - could have snuffed SackAttack in Sith game, assumed lead bad guy role.

2nd example - could have killed Lathum (going from memory) in Wild West game as fellow bad guy, skated to end.

In both cases, it was my first time playing a wolf role with those guys and I wanted to extend the time collaborating with them. But in hindsight, knowing that I would play another 50+ werewolf games and interact with these people for years to come in this community, I would take the evil/glory every time.

Thanks, Chief. I really loved the ruleset and enjoyed the idea of taking Stannis to the end - I thought he was a bit underpowered (particularly without the input from my faction) but that seemed to suit the character. Knowing now I could have bee investing in land all along, and buying honor, I think that would have helped even the odds a tiny bit, so that's my bad.

Amusingly, I think just like in WW where my heavy posting tends to draw votes, I became the de facto target early because I was willing to take a stance in the main thread and stick to it. Again that seemed to fit the character of Stannis so I was all right with it. He was saying what he was doing while the others all schemed around him.

I actually posted in my thread a lot early just to make it look like people were talking there. We had almost no conversation and I was afraid if people noticed the crazy post number differences they would realize I was an easy target.

Having limited PMs in my faction mates was a struggle, I would have liked the chance to engage more characters. And ironically, letting Petyr kneel to me at the end killed me, since that forced Tyrion in the other direction. But I didn't know at the time how their game worked.

I loved DT's roleplaying, definitely. And I can see why he strayed -- once I found out his win condition I knew there was no reason I should listen to a word he said.

Now that i know the mechanics behind the Little Birds I really ike the idea. But I know when they started showing up and often revealing secrets I had worked dearly to get, or keep, it kind of blindsided me. That's the sort of thing we should have had to pay or work to get, I think.

Things may have worked out very, very differently had you been investing in your lands.

Had you benefited from the extra money & troops, you would have been more appealing later on, and I likely would have decided against screwing you over - as it stood, there was just too good of a chance to score a decisive victory over you (though it didn't pan out well, with some unfortunate rolls).

Yeah, I think ideally a guy like Varys has to be made indispensable, so you're forced to sift through his words. Or in some way so useful or enticing that it's tempting to let him in on your secrets and get something from him.

Interestingly DT made me think that killing Clegane actually helped him out, and for a bit there I thought I had him on my side or in my debt. So he did screw with me at least.

Yeah, my weakness was troops, so I would have ideally been investing from day one to try to make up that gap.

Which is why having a guy like JAG on your side was a big boon. I'm sure the two of you went through the rules carefully and figured out stuff like that and more importantly noticed things the other had missed.

I wanted to say Coffee did a great job at cornering the market on power. But that can be dangerous (as he found out). I tried from early on to not press my luck early and make myself too much of a target. I think I waited a bit too long, but in general it was a decent strategy. I didn't go after Tywin for several days,f or instance, because I knew if I did I'd become the prime target. At the point I finally went ot cpature him Robb got him that afternoon.

Die rolls never really went my way except for one time. Both Robb and Balon got captured by other kings in wars I was in. The only time the dice liked me was when I lost my battle -- I had actually calculated that there was a very good chance things would go in my favor even by losing, and they did, with two kills coming from other kings, and Axell getting captured, allowing me to use Davos's ability.

I thought the roleplaying in the game was about the best I've ever seen in one of these games. Everyone took to their character and it really enhanced the experience at least for me.

Bravo.

I was hoping that we could avoid bending the knee until the end but I am sure it would have been hard to coordinate but honestly I knew I probably was not going to win as a king since my income was so low after the second war. I really didn't want you, path, or coffee to win since you know you guys screwed me at the beginning. So, I was completely on board with bending a knee to Jackal.

I had a blast fishing... I purposely didn't submit orders as I wanted shit to go down. . Turned out I didn't need to do that with the big three way bannerman exile. Thats when thw game started. Which in turn made my entrance into the game take longer.

Agreed, there were some excellent performances.

I was already trying to line myself up with stark, so when I learned that she would rez you if you died, I wanted to takee your extra life out of the picture as a gift to my new lord

All good, I'm just glad I got to be a part of this. Hopefully from the beginning next time. :)

June was a difficult month for me. With school ending, there were finals, parties, etc... I'm glad I got to be part of this game for so long.

I know I didn't post so much, but I enjoyed keeping up with the game even when I didn't have anything to say.

I would like to say that I have never achieved a less deserved victory than this one.

Thank you a lot for running the game Chief - it was a lot of fun. I love games with the potential for a lot of intrigues.

Generally I think it should have been easier to kill the Kings and harder to get rid of the bannerman (the fact that no starting bannerman survived until the end shows it was stacked against the bannermen). I always presumed that once a king had no bannermen then they would be eligible for the vote and would become unaffiliated bannermen if they were voted out. I think it would have been nice if the bannermen had more opportunity to do things on their own outside of the influence of their king and perhaps be able to conspire to replace the king as the leader of their faction etc etc. I think that would have added another level of intrigue and paranoia to the game.

DT's victory conditions were pretty impossible as it turned out (given the impossibility of keeping bannermen alive) so I don't blame him for departing from them. I'd pretty much decided to settle on shit-stirring and making sure that Joffrey lived even before the end and just channelling my paranoia and letting that decide what to do (like the plot to kill Stark - stupid Selmy)! Oddly enough I don't think I actually made up too many stories, most of the info I gave was either legit or stuff that I believed (Balon being reponsible for the assassanation of Melisandre). I think the only story I totally made up was the one that Tywin had cut a deal with Renly, which was mainly to try and get the vote off of him - before Chief said that bannermen could flee their lords at any time.

In terms of what went down I think Zinto made a huge mistake letting Hoops go, unless Hoops was dead set on leaving. Path kept two dishonoured bannermen at it didn't seem to impact him. Even if Jaime was the bodyguard (he was mine as well) I'd take Jaime leaving over Tywin going any day. Overall it seems that a lot was decided by the luck of the draw (capturing Hoops, capturing Jackal etc).

I did feel sorry for Autumn when all the other threads had hundreds of posts and his own only had a couple of pages. If he'd got more back up someone might have noticed that he could invest in more than one thing per day.

I would like you to make this your new sig please.

Yeah, I think maybe it was too difficult for bannerman to flee factions. I know I had looked at convincing Jaime to do that, but when I realized they'd still have to spend a day bieng possibly captured, it seemed pointless.

It would be interesting to tie land and gold into victory conditions more, perhaps, so that you might tempt someone with promises of those. It didn't seem gold was all that useful, and in the books having land is really, really key. It was here for troop production, but other than Petyr I didn't feel it really was going to change anybody's mind about anything.

I figured this was the case from what you said.

I wasn't dead set on leaving, but we saw the negative honor hit cut into funding - that dramatically lowered my value to House Lannister. I did not have the benefit of knowing what my troops/value was relative to all the other bannermen at that time ... perhaps I would have reached another decision with more complete info. But I really did think that my leaving Joffrey, and giving him half the troops/ships/cash in the process, was not going to be a net negative.

I also tried to help Joffrey get a safe landing with Robb, or at least provide some guidance on how I thought he should play his hand down the stretch. By and large, I thought Tywin was loyal to his family and tried to play it that way throughout, with Tyrion being somewhat an exception due to the strained relationship they had in the books.

I was pretty much 99.9% honest FWIW. My only dishonesty was omission in some cases I believe.

Yep. And I foiled the one on Renly, and I think one other one (I forget who it was on), and let the one on Littlefinger go ahead.

I sort of figured that was mau's ability, but you're right that I didn't know who he was protecting at the time.

Because your dog killed Elia, Rhaenys and Aegon.

When the truth will serve your purposes as well as a lie then there's no need to lie. as mentioned, I think my only dishonesty was omission, or not revealing all that I knew, but I feel like even in those instances where I wasn't explicit I tried to give an answer that was in-character and pointed the person in the direction of the truth.

Narc was awesome. I was cracking up at his PM's. Absolutely rolling on the floor, they were so in-character.

Allow myself to address the crowd.

I think the expanded roles for Tyrion and Cersei were awesomely interesting. I'm sorry that my change in the way I wanted to play the game made some of their early-game actions less important, but I'd hope they'd agree that they had a lot of fun with their newer win conditions?

As you can see and remember - I ditched my victory conditions almost right away. I selected Clegane as one to stay alive, and I think 3/4 (not Joffrey) of the Kings can attest to the fact that I pushed immediately for declaring Clegane an enemy of the realm and killing him.

My altered victory conditions were: "Vengeance for Elia/Rhaenys/Aegon," and "Set the Stage for Game 2 with a different cast of characters."

I think I did a good job by my own self-created victory conditions, at least in my own head. Mountain + Tywin dead = Vengeance. Stage is set for Game 2, with a different cast of characters. Hopefully we get to the see the victors/survivors, Dorne, and Danerys Stormborn of House Targaryen, Mother of Dragons.

I think my in-character communication was a thing of beauty. Some of my PMs are almost poetic - I hope Chief makes all that stuff available at some point?

I look forward to the next game, and to reprising my role as Varys.

P.S. - I do want to apologize to saldana for the heated OOC-argument that we had in PMs about my victory conditions and how changing them ruined the game for him and all. We both got pretty irate and that's not something I like to have happen over a game. So really...sincere apologies Rich.

Sigh - yet another case of Lannister's getting screwed by people wanting to play to the books. DT goes off reservation to take out two members of one house, including actively hiring an assassin.

I understand everyone has a right to play the game the way that they see fit, but it pretty much made it impossible for House Lannister to have anything resembling a fighting chance in this game.

Yeah the main problem with going off the reservation is there's no balance to meet it. I think Chief did a good job of having everything balanced well -- if Varys was going to be out to get the Lannisters there needed to be an opposing force countering him. But managing those neutral characters to be fun without overpowering was a tough challenge.

Clegane was in trouble from the start, and you were always going to be a target. I'm not the one who voted you enemy of the realm or forced you to flee and put you into play for everyone to chase after you. Once you teamed up with Stark you were definitely a target to everybody given what you brought to the table for him.

You can make up your own version of events if it makes you feel better. However, Lannister had three bannerman. Jamie was marked for death in Bug's role. And you took it upon yourself to target the other two, including hiring the assassin for one of them.

There were, from my reading of the rules, no other characters that were marked for death in the roles Chief released.

Again, you chose to play in a manner you felt was appropriate with the book. Got it, glad it helped you enjoy the experience more. But Chief already indicated that he had to change at least two roles (Cersei + Tyrion) as a result. And I think it is pretty much beyond argument that Joffrey had no shot at winning this contest with the way the balance shifted as a result of your "rewrite."

He could have attracted other bannermen. Not like I targeted you right away - I didn't hire the assassin till you ended up with Stark, and had you ended up with someone else I would have likely let you live longer (maybe completely as it turns out - I might have missed my window). You and he made the decision for him to flee, and the other lords out there made the decision to declare you an enemy of the realm, that's not on me.

In my hatred for Jaime role, I really had no power to do anything with him. If given a chance to go after him, I wouldn't be able to turn that chance down and I'm assuming he was a better fighter than I am

The Lannisters had it tough from the beginning, as the fiction gave some reason for them to be the initial targets, and it made sense for the rest of us to gang up on someone to start. I suppose Melisandre was the next most natural target, so it was a good thing everybody hates the lannisters for me! But it did put Joffrey at a severe disadvantage, and really helped Robb, who was last on the list of characters people would be worried about for fictional reasons (Renly and Stannis both having some reason to target each other).

Yeah it wasn't much fun being a Lannister bannerman in this game. Felt like some basic WW etiquette went out the window in a rush to play the game like the books. It is was it is, but I wouldn't step in as Jaime again given the choice

There needs to be an honor hit for voting for the same house twice in a row, or not being able to vote for a house more than twice every four nights or being able to buy favor from the Septon to remove the enemy of the realm vote on yourself.

But ya, the Lannisters had it tough

Also it was going to be nearly impossible to be a bannerman and survive until the end of this game.

So can someone get a new ww gaming going?

I just don't think the voting mechanic really 'works' in this kinda game. Not sure what to replace it with, but it didn't really fit, in my opinion.

I want to make a point of thanking Chief for putting this game together. I know a lot of us were excited about having a "Game of Thrones" WW theme and had certain expectations associated with it. I would give two very enthusiastic thumbs up to the work Chief did creating the structure and his really engaging write-ups. Based on all the role-playing we saw in this game, I suspect many of the other players were similarly immersed in the game.

I'm sure he has a number of things that he'll rework for the sequel, and I will definitely try to find a way to play in that one when it comes around.

I reached out to hoops pretty early to see if we could work something out but really the rest of my team were all for the idea of hitting Lannister first and so I couldn't build a consensus there to join with until the Clegane thing happened (which was really a rules screwup on my part -- I thought the bannermen could just go and capture on their own and so didn't send the order out until way too late). Then we tried to switch our votes around but ran out of time with Darth's vote on Lannister.

I was very scared of Melisandre from the beginning.

Yeah, I was laughing about how everyone was all worked up about Melisandre, yet I had little idea what her powers were. Everyone assumed she could kill someone, which I had no idea about at the time. And neither she nor Davos could raid, so I was stuck with basically one raider. I did want her alive because i knew she could protect me from assassins though.

And raise me from the dead, though I couldn't really figure out how that would happen. I guess i should have bought assassins earlier as I didn't realize they could target kings.

Yes, chief, I'm sure you've heard your share of grumblings, but this was an awesomely fun game. All my grumblings came about completely because of how immersed I was in it, and how much I wanted to win. I found myself pondering strategy all the time, and running back to look over my notes to figure out what to do. Lots of possible tweaks but it was already a really great, fun ruleset.

It won't be me at this time, I'm swamped.

I will also apologize to you bh because I completely disregarded your advice to join Stannis and Robb and it got you killed. Then again you may have been working with them at that point. Honestly, if I had known the Greyjoys were joining the game after that war I probably would have sat out.

Oh and other then being a Lannister and not having much of a chance to win after three days, I really really enjoyed the game too. It got to the point were Chief may have thought I wasn't participating but a lot of the time I figured it was best to save my daily PMs since most conversations with me went like this:

Wanna bend the knee now? We promise you won't instantly die as a bannerman.

Honestly, I did not enjoy playing in this one. It was mostly because it felt like my initial role had nothing to do or care about at all. I needed to foil littlefingers plans, but there was nothing I could do about that until potentially after three weeks of playing. Because of this I never got invested into the game and put in very little effort.

It was better after I got my role changed, but by then I wasn't really invested in things.

I did enjoy following along though, just never really felt like taking an active role given my role.

Yeah, I'm sure this was most fun for the kings and then less fun respectively as you went down in involvement/investment of roles.

I fished. A lot!

I enjoyed it from the outside.

Eh, if I'd have known the numbers were as even as they were I might have suggested the same thing, and the same thing might have ended up happening anyway. It wasn't a bad play, just the end result was bad. Would have been nice to know what you were planning ahead of time as I wasn't working with anyone else, but no biggie.

Which reminds me - CR did I die in that battle as a direct result of my role (saving Brienne) or was it just rolled that way and the writeup was flavor?

Yeah I was thinking the same - but you'd have to have something else to do from day to day other than one battle every other day. Something like making raids more potent and involved (being allowed to split your forces to defend your own land and send others raiding or something like that), give bannermen and kings the chance to create plots like in CKII, make spies more useful. All of which would make the main thread even sparser and would require even more PMs to be sent. But I think the voting was to give some anchor in "werewolf".

I didn't mind the early days when I didn't have any power - I was like a spectator who got to post what I thought in the thread. I'd pretty much worked out that the only person I had to worry about from my original vcs was Renly and it became clearer and clearer that Stark was going to win so I didn't have to worry about that either. Once I got some power I felt like I actually had to achieve something, which is why I was basically trying to organise the assassanation of Stark.

Written that way up for flavor.

You were just unfortunate in the dice roll as one of the bannermen to die (after I determined there would be two deaths).

The battle deaths made for an interesting strategy. My best battle was actually the one I lost, because I had calculated that actually the more people teamed up against me, the more likely they were to die rather than my bannermen. Made joining in even on a winning side a questionable proposition, which was good--you had a decent chance of being the one who captures someone, but a good chance of losing someone as well.