Re: Game Discussion

[Daveth Coldbrook]

Isn't that a good thing?

It was an observation, without judgement.  I certainly didn't mean to imply that it was definitely a bad thing, which is why I framed it as 'an impact', rather than anything else.

Perhaps recover 1 'agitation' per hour and one 'frustration' per every 4?

I do like this idea, and the impact it will have, though perhaps to make it simpler, -1 agitation per scene (however many hour 'blocks' a scene takes in GBs), and -1 frustration per night's sleep.

However, that has an unfortunately consequence - there's already chivalry bonuses to intrigue, because of how knightly characters can't afford as many points in Intrigue-related stats as say a lady or a maester or whatever.  If a knight can't afford to take agitation/frustration due to an upcoming fight, and a schemer can (due to no scheduled fights), that tilts the balance back towards the schemer.  Yes, they'll be doing other things, so they can't afford to cripple themselves, but they tend to happen in a more unpredictable fashion (everyone knows when a knight's next joust is coming up, a big intrigue can pop up whenever).

Also, there's an issue with the format - fights tended to take place at the end of the day, because you do the entire day simultaneously, and you may discover you've already rolled for something when you should have had an injury or wound.  If you let intrigues have an impact beyond the end of the scene, because of the non-linear nature of posting, that opens up a whole new can of time-paradox worms. So, while I like the idea, I don't think it would work in a PbP format.

[Baelon Drakeson]

It was an observation, without judgement.  I certainly didn't mean to imply that it was definitely a bad thing, which is why I framed it as 'an impact', rather than anything else.

Fair enough! I misread the tone - the perils of pure-text communication, eh?

Perhaps recover 1 'agitation' per hour and one 'frustration' per every 4?

I do like this idea, and the impact it will have, though perhaps to make it simpler, -1 agitation per scene (however many hour 'blocks' a scene takes in GBs), and -1 frustration per night's sleep.

I tend to think in general terms and then adapt to PbP; re-casting it into scene blocks totally makes sense. Still, if it's a 2 hour block like DD, I wouldn't see a problem with -2 per block and -1d per two blocks.

However, that has an unfortunately consequence - there's already chivalry bonuses to intrigue, because of how knightly characters can't afford as many points in Intrigue-related stats as say a lady or a maester or whatever.  If a knight can't afford to take agitation/frustration due to an upcoming fight, and a schemer can (due to no scheduled fights), that tilts the balance back towards the schemer.  Yes, they'll be doing other things, so they can't afford to cripple themselves, but they tend to happen in a more unpredictable fashion (everyone knows when a knight's next joust is coming up, a big intrigue can pop up whenever).

It's true that this would be inequitable towards knights if used effectively by a schemer, though if the recovery time is short it would take careful timing on the part of the schemer to make it effective. Plus, the scheduled aspect of a tourney fight gives the knight an easier out for a Quit: "Pardon me my lady, but as much as I am enjoying our chat I must go prepare for my upcoming joust. My liege will have my head if I bring shame upon our House." The trick for the schemer would be arranging things so that it's not so easy for the knight to avoid - for instance find a proxy that the knight is disinclined to ignore. Of course, such things make it harder for the schemer to pull off, so I think it more or less balances out.

Also, there's an issue with the format - fights tended to take place at the end of the day, because you do the entire day simultaneously, and you may discover you've already rolled for something when you should have had an injury or wound.  If you let intrigues have an impact beyond the end of the scene, because of the non-linear nature of posting, that opens up a whole new can of time-paradox worms.  So, while I like the idea, I don't think it would work in a PbP format.

Hmm. That's a good point. One way to deal with that would be to have participants declare at the start of the intrigue how much frustration they intend to take, and automatically apply that amount to the fight. It's easier to control how much Frustration you take compared to Injuries and Wounds - there's no equivalent of a Vicious weapon that might force you to take Frustration to avoid death.

[Theomore Tullison]

Tournament dice comes up in other tests, too. Most of those, you could also use reputation though, and I suspect most knights will have equal number of specialties there. There's a few optional ones, like gambling and knowing about the strength of various opponents where it does come up.

I might be inclined to allow it to be used as the specialty in any test which relates to tournaments in some way, allowing things like warfare(tournament) in the melee, for example.

I hadn't really given timeslots much thought, I wouldn't put hard limits to how many scenes a character can take part in during an in-game day or timeslot, if a player wants to do 20 scenes where I don't have to do anything to move any of them along, then I'm not going to object.  My own experience is that the most active players are not likely to go much above 8-10 anyhow. However, just having timestamps like early afternoon helps structure as needed.

Fatigue, Injury and wounds doesn't quite work so well with the format in general, so not sure if adding something similar to intrigue would be a good idea, as you could get this situation:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fxqe8Xq6LBQ

(From looper, in short guy gets sent back 30 years to be killed (because body disposal is impossible in the bad future), he escapes and the bad guys tortures his contemporary self....).

To some degree, the combat related parts can be worked around since you know that you *might* have injury/fatigue and such, intrigue is slightly more tricky, but can also often be resolved relatively quickly. While it's an interesting idea, I don't think it is something I would do given this type of format.

[Daveth Coldbrook]

Woah.  Just noticed that you've changed the default c/v score.

The default chivalry score equals a character's rank in reputation, while the default virtue score equals a character's rank in breeding

Firstly, you should probably update the following to match:

Basing on the assumption that there is a correlation between age and XP for PC level characters, and that similar achievement (status+reputation) is more impressive at a younger age.

You'd need to make Virtue its own sentence, since obviously Breeding (which is a change that makes sense to me) is a constant through someone's life (barring paternity claims).  Presumably something like younger ladies are inherently seen as more virtuous?

Secondly, that means that before benefits, everyone (assuming they're at least a knight) except for heads of house and Great Bastards has a max c/v range of 2-4 (2 points in Breeding/Reputation, +0-2 for XP bonus).  Given how tight benefits are, that means 4 is a significantly high c/v score.  Therefore, are you sure you want romantic to be:

This quality counts applies the effects of naive towards any character with a chivalry or virtue score of at least 4

(I'm pretty sure I asked this before, but that was, I believe, before this reduction.)

And finally, on an unrelated note, something that I've been meaning to mention for a while:

Apprentice: 270 Ability XP, 80 Specialty XP, 6 Destiny Points, 0 forced Drawbacks, maximum of 3 benefits, maximum of 5 unspent destiny points.
Journeyman: 300 Ability XP, 110 Specialty XP, 5 Destiny Points, 1 forced Drawback, maximum of 4 benefits, maximum of 2 unspent destiny points.
Master: 330 Ability XP, 140 Specialty XP, 4 Destiny Points, 2 forced Drawbacks, maximum of 5 benefits, maximum of 1 unspent destiny points.

Everything else changes evenly: 6/5/4 DPs, 0/1/2 forced Drawbacks, 3/4/5 max benefits ... so why do Journeymen have max 2 unspent destiny points, rather than 3?  It's been noticeable that when you 'max out' (as I tend to), apprentices have 2 drawbacks, journeymen have 2 drawbacks, and masters have 4.  It's not a massive *problem*, it's just ... odd.

[Theomore Tullison]

Putting the DP on the review list, I suspect I just put in place limits which I found reasonable at the time without any pattern in mind. First impression is that I think reducing allowed unspent apprentice DP to 4 is more to my liking than any other change I can think of.

[Baelon Drakeson]

This post ended up quite a bit lengthier than I intended as I noticed additional things and added analysis and suggestions. Therefore I have split it into three more or less distinct but related subjects.

Starting DP/Benefits/Drawbacks:
If you drop the maximum unspent DP on an Apprentice to 4, you are effectively saying that they MUST start with two benefits (6DP, but can only keep 4, so 2 have to be spent on Benefits).

I actually found the verbiage of forced drawbacks, maximum # of benefits, and maximum unspent DP a little awkward. Not that it was unclear or vague, but it took a moment to figure out how they fit together. It wasn't particularly obvious how many benefits you would get, though of course it's there if somewhat obfuscated by the algebra. It also feels a bit odd to say you get X number of DP but then aren't allowed to keep all of them.

It might be clearer to separate out the implicitly required benefits from the provided DP and just make them explicit. Something like:

Spoiler:

Mathematically it is exactly the same as what you have (assuming the reduction to 4 maximum unspent DP for Apprentice), but I think it is much easier to understand.

---

Balance between the 'levels of accomplishment':
It seems a bit odd to me that Apprentices start with the most total experience (650) and Masters the least(570). Intuitively that seems backwards, and my game design instinct would be to even them out such that all PCs start with the same XP.
Here is the current breakdown:

Spoiler:

Here is a variant which balances them out at 600 and keeps a fairly nice progression through the 'levels of accomplishment'.

Spoiler:

I tried to keep it as similar to what you had as possible. Apprentices lost a DP (and thus a 'required' benefit), Journeymen lost 10 specialty XP, and Masters lost 20 specialty XP but gained a DP in the form of a 'required' benefit. The maximums are more or less the same as what you had, though journeyman can have 3 DP if they are willing to take a 2nd drawback but not a 4th benefit.

To put it in a more comprehensible/usable form:

Spoiler:

---

Power Level:
I noticed that all three levels got an additional 30 XP for Attributes since I last really looked at it (3 months ago). It's starting to feel like a rather high-powered game. That's fine for what it is, but one issue is that makes it harder for a generalist to compete against specialists, and NPCs made per the book (either the premades or the primary/secondary/tertiary creation rules) are inherently weaker than the PCs even when things like DP and benefits arent taken into account.

Consider that an Apprentice can start with three 5s. More realistically, a specialized apprentice mighthave two 5s and two 4s and a 3. A squire could throw those 5s into Fighting and Athletics with the 4s in Agility and Endurance and be a better fighter than a by-the-book knight of the kingsguard. Or Fighting and Animal Handling and be a top-tier jouster. Even if they wanted 3s in all the right non-combat areas to not be seen as a total clod, you'd be looking at 1x5,3x4,6x3 and the rest 2s. In the standard XP system, that's 250XP... for which you would need to be Old (or Adult with a 1)... but with fewer drawbacks and more DP.

And then there's specialty dice... your 5/5/10 cost scaling (5/10/20 total) is half the cost for most specialties (<3b) and still cheap for the rest (-5/-10/-10 relative to standard cost). That Apprentice squire with 5 Fighting and Athletics can pick up 3b in Strength and a Weapon Skill for only half their specialty XP and do 11 damage per DoS with a Powerful 2-hander. Or get 2b in all 5 intrigue techniques and have plenty left over for, say, Act, Bluff, and Empathy.

I was going to try and come up with an elegant setup with all 3 levels at 550xp or so as a comparison, but its almost 3am here and I'm tired... maybe tomorrow.

[Theomore Tullison]

1 DP is hardly worth 50XP in my experience, 30 maybe, it's difficult to calibrate, but I think the balance between what you can do with extra DP compared to what having more of other stuff is reasonably on target.

At least when I put together characters, they seemed okayish in terms of power levels, but I didn't really go out of my way to min/max and specialize either. Noteworthy however is that if instead of 270-300-330, you look at the array of 220-250-280, which is removing 50XP, basically it's 10 XP more than what you get with adult, middle-age and old and dropping an ability to 1 for extra XP (which quite a few have done in this and proceeding games), so it should actually be more restrictive for abilities, with rank 5 coming at higher cost. The difference is in the number of specialties and DP/benefits, which you'd get more of than otherwise.

I probably should try and see how far I can min/max a few specialists and compare them to a generalist, see if I can break the system basically.

[Daveth Coldbrook]

Starting DP/Benefits/Drawbacks:
It might be clearer to separate out the implicitly required benefits from the provided DP and just make them explicit. Something like: [...]
Master: You start with 2 drawbacks, 3 benefits, and 1 DP. You may take 1 additional benefit by taking an additional drawback. You may also take 1 additional benefit (up to 5 total) by reducing your DP to 0.
Mathematically it is exactly the same as what you have (assuming the reduction to 4 maximum unspent DP for Apprentice), but I think it is much easier to understand.

That is different, to my reading. I could have missed it, but I don't remember seeing anything implying you couldn't go up to 4 drawbacks for 5 benefits & 1 DP for a master.

Consider that an Apprentice can start with three 5s. More realistically, a specialized apprentice might have two 5s and two 4s and a 3.

I do find comments like this fairly reassuring, making it clear I'm not much of a min/maxer. It took me a master to get two 5s on an (intrigue) character, and even then, I could only afford a Will of 3. And it takes a journeyman for me to even get 1 - while I could consolidate points to get a 5 as an apprentice, (a) I don't think I'd have the other stats to support it - 8d6k5 loses a lot of its power if you're only doing 2 Influence per DoS and have just 6 Composure. (b) It's been pretty clear for this game that meeting the requirements for chivalry/virtue is *important*, which does suck up quite a few points.

But this does bring to mind something I've been pondering for a while - there does seem to be a fundamental disconnect in the system with regards to power level. By the book, Rank 2: 'Most folks in Westeros have abilities at this range'. Rank 5: 'Intensive training coupled with natural talent'. And now look at Benefit requirements - Eloquent requires 4 in 2 different abilities, Cadre (of all things) requires a 5, most weapon 'trees' cover a 4/5/6 spread. I could actually see a good argument for lowering starting XP across the board, along with lowering Benefit requirements, so that 3s in 'support' stats and 4 in the 'main' stat is actually a solid line (which would make generalists more competitive with specialists). ...Except that Status completely screws with that. I have a suspicion that perhaps the system added in Status later in development, and then 'scaled up' everything else to match the Status numbers, without ever actually changing the base descriptions of the levels. Of course, you *could*, say, consolidate Status ranks 2 and 3 into rank 2, and lower ranks 4+ by 1, but at that point, you're making pretty sweeping changes.

Anyway, that's all musing and commentary, rather than anything specific. Pinch of salt and all that.

[Baelon Drakeson]

1 DP is hardly worth 50XP in my experience, 30 maybe, it's difficult to calibrate, but I think the balance between what you can do with extra DP compared to what having more of other stuff is reasonably on target.

That's a fair point, I can honestly say that I've rarely ever been particularly inclined to spend XP on DP. The exception is when I wanted multiple benefits at once but didn't want to get too low on unspent DP. The cost/benefit rarely justifies it.

Changing the value of DP/Benefits/Drawbacks to 30 actually makes your original set up even with all three levels of achievement having 530 total XP. Making the advancement cost for a DP 30Xp would wrap it up into a nice neat package. It would also be interesting to see whether players would choose to up an attribute from 3 to 4 or buy a DP/Benefit. I suspect that in most cases going from a 3 to 4 would still be the preferred choice, though it will probably depend on how much they specialized and how much pressure they feel to generalize.

At least when I put together characters, they seemed okayish in terms of power levels, but I didn't really go out of my way to min/max and specialize either. Noteworthy however is that if instead of 270-300-330, you look at the array of 220-250-280, which is removing 50XP, basically it's 10 XP more than what you get with adult, middle-age and old and dropping an ability to 1 for extra XP (which quite a few have done in this and proceeding games), so it should actually be more restrictive for abilities, with rank 5 coming at higher cost. The difference is in the number of specialties and DP/benefits, which you'd get more of than otherwise.

I probably should try and see how far I can min/max a few specialists and compare them to a generalist, see if I can break the system basically.

See, unless you are investing in 5s there isn't any difference in the Attribute XP. The scaling only affects 4->5 and up. So same XP as an Adult but the drawbacks/DP of a Youth? That's a power increase, even if you have spend an extra 20-40 attribute XP to get 1-2 5s. Think of an Aerion Storm or a Walder Dulver from this game. That level of specialization with even an Apprentice's starting XP makes for a VERY strong character... in that specialty. Awfully weak outside of it, though that does not often seem to be all that big of a problem so long as there is sufficient diversity in a house. In many ways, 3-4 specialists in a house are better than 3-4 generalists. A lot of that depends on event design - "one player per house" events favor specialists, "all participate with penalties for poor performance" favors generalists.

That is different, to my reading.  I could have missed it, but I don't remember seeing anything implying you couldn't go up to 4 drawbacks for 5 benefits & 1 DP for a master.

Oops! That should read "Up to 2 additional"; merely an editing mistake. The main point was about listing the implicitly required benefits as explicit benefits.

I do find comments like this fairly reassuring, making it clear I'm not much of a min/maxer.  It took me a master to get two 5s on an (intrigue) character, and even then, I could only afford a Will of 3.  And it takes a journeyman for me to even get 1 - while I could consolidate points to get a 5 as an apprentice, (a) I don't think I'd have the other stats to support it - 8d6k5 loses a lot of its power if you're only doing 2 Influence per DoS and have just 6 Composure.  (b) It's been pretty clear for this game that meeting the requirements for chivalry/virtue is *important*, which does suck up quite a few points.

For a combat specialist (ie typical knight), you are only spending abut 40xp outside your specialty, and even then most of them are things you would want anyway. An Apprentice can have two 5s and nine 3s and easily meet knightly chivalry; a bit better rounded might be one 5 and two or three 4s. Now if you want a knight that is more intriguer than warrior, yeah, its gonna soak up more XP to be chivalrous. Of course such a character would pretty much by definition be a generalist, not a specialist (You still can get a 5, but you'd be lacking in key areas).

It's not just a matter of min/maxer or not, though that is of course some of it (Reader once commented that I was not a powergamer; I responded that I was but used those skills/mindset in service of making interesting but functional characters rather than purely powerful ones). It's also I think a difference between a narrow specialization and a broad specialization.

Most combat types, for instance, narrowly specialize in one type of weapon. That means one accuracy stat (Fighting) and one damage stat (typically Athletics) are high (typically 5 fighting and 4 Athletics). Agility, Awareness, and Endurance are all important to combat, but are secondary to the first two (usually one at 4 and the others at 3 suffices). It would be like an Intrigue specialist who was focused on only one technique. If all you care about is being able to Bargain really well, then it's a pretty similar situation - grab high Persuasion and Cunning, and above average Awareness, Status (if you can), and Will. However, most intrigue specialists want to be better than mediocre at the other techniques, too, and at least some deception is very useful... so instead of 2 with high importance and 3 with slightly less importance, it tends to get a bit more spread out.

Further, some of the other differences between combat and intrigue make them effectively require different levels of specialization. Notably, the prevalence of Plate makes having a high fighting very important. Unless you are doing 6 or more damage per DoS, you need to be able to get 3 DoS somewhat consistently. In intrigues, DR is rarely even half as high, so as long as you are doing at least 3-4 influence per DoS you can get consistent influence. That means that a 4 persuasion can still be quite effective, but a 4 fighting may have trouble dealing with plate (though with Strength dice being so available a 4 fighting could be feasible... with a 2-hander 10 damage per DoS is easily achieved)

But this does bring to mind something I've been pondering for a while - there does seem to be a fundamental disconnect in the system with regards to power level.  By the book, Rank 2: 'Most folks in Westeros have abilities at this range'.  Rank 5: 'Intensive training coupled with natural talent'.  And now look at Benefit requirements - Eloquent requires 4 in 2 different abilities, Cadre (of all things) requires a 5, most weapon 'trees' cover a 4/5/6 spread.  I could actually see a good argument for lowering starting XP across the board, along with lowering Benefit requirements, so that 3s in 'support' stats and 4 in the 'main' stat is actually a solid line (which would make generalists more competitive with specialists). ...Except that Status completely screws with that.  I have a suspicion that perhaps the system added in Status later in development, and then 'scaled up' everything else to match the Status numbers, without ever actually changing the base descriptions of the levels.  Of course, you *could*, say, consolidate Status ranks 2 and 3 into rank 2, and lower ranks 4+ by 1, but at that point, you're making pretty sweeping changes.

I've often felt that each chapter was written more or less blind of the other chapters. You would also have to lower the top range of armor ARs.. and probably some other stuff too. It would be a pretty major undertaking, i fear.

[Daveth Coldbrook]

Agility, Awareness, and Endurance are all important to combat, but are secondary to the first two

Isn't Agility 4 pretty necessary when wearing plate, specifically for getting up?  I remember knockdown being a common/useful move in this game.

---

Back to GB, something's confused me.  From the Customs thread:

There is usually social pressure to reply to such an insult with a challenge to a duel, most times these are orderly affairs with tourney lances and the rules of the joust

[...]frequently restricts the combatants to using longswords and tourney lances. It is perhaps for this reason that the longsword is a weapon strongly associated with knights and often their favored weapon.

From Ser Robyn's description:

it was rather obvious that Lord Alliser had him knighted solely to procure a deadly champion for the house

nor does he have the skill in the saddle that most knights train from childhood to achieve

And I remember that Ser Benjen Frey's trial by combat started on horseback, and once he was knocked off, there was nothing save honour preventing Ser Jorah from running him down on horseback.

It's not clear if trial by combat are typically done under the same restrictions as duels of honour, but even if they aren't, I'm a little confused as to why a knight with a specialty in something other than longswords and with minimal talent on horseback would be specifically elevated to being a house's champion.  Maybe I'm missing something obvious, but it seems odd.

[Theomore Tullison]

Trial by combat is anything goes. Spearing the horse of an opponent likely means a hit to chivalry, but it's allowed. Also, nothing says both combatants must start mounted in the first place, and using set for charge in this system may be a valid strategy. Not to mention that most knights would dismount if their opponent faces them on foot.

In a straight up duel of honor, Lord Alliser might even decide to stand for himself, since winning it is less important than actually showing the rest of the knights that you have the courage to not let insults pass. But he is getting rather old, and lords tends to get more leeway, so he'd likely tap Ser Parmen or another respectable knight with greater training at the lists than (NPC) Robyn if that comes up.

In a trial by combat, Robyn is the more likely choice, in a structured duel where one fights for honor (and therefore also with honor), Vardis would probably have beaten Bronn, espescially if it involved tourney lances (although Bronn probably was the better fighter to begin with, which also should be the case for Robyn in my mind). We know how it went in a fight to the death. The way I imagine someone like Robyn is that he probably won't get far in the joust, and a duel resolved by tourney lances at the list probably goes as expected (by most knights) against anyone a bit more skilled at that thing than your average knight (Fighting 5, of which Robyn is a clear candidate for, probably will suffice to make him plow through average knights). However, in a trial by combat with no rules, I don't think a low Animal Handling is going to slow him down much.

[Baelon Drakeson]

2 GB questions:

First the easy one: Half-Plate and Plate don't have bulk anymore? People are going to be absolutely flying across the battlefield.

Second, and (probably) a bit more complicated: How important is it for characters to be chivalrous? What about non-knight males: maesters, septons, or noble males that may have for some reason been unsuited for knighthood like a Daveth, Tyrion, or Littlefinger. They wouldn't likely have the stats, and definitely wouldn't meet the prereq of being knighted. For that matter squires other non-knight warriors (like Pod or the Hound), or even a visitor from a Northern House or a foreign dignitary (not just some peasant, but say a noble)? I mean, other than the discrimination for not quite fitting the 'ideal'. As far as I can tell none of them would even have a Chivalry score, nevermind taking penalties to it. Would that totally kill event participation, or just be a hindrance?

Agility, Awareness, and Endurance are all important to combat, but are secondary to the first two

Isn't Agility 4 pretty necessary when wearing plate, specifically for getting up?  I remember knockdown being a common/useful move in this game.

Agility 4 is quite useful, but not necessary. I always wanted to raise Baelon's Agility to 4, but always had competing priorities. Even with a -4 Armor Penalty you have a ~25% chance to stand as a lesser action with just a 3, and if you have 2 dice in Acrobatics that jumps up to ~66%. In a 1v1 fights it was usually better to knock them down too than to take time to try and stand... you'd often just get knocked down again, so better to try and get a good hit in instead. In group fights it could be much more significant, but then you could temporarily withdraw from the fight and take a greater action to stand, if needed.

In GB it will be even less necessary, as being knocked down is significantly less dangerous. In fact, most of the time it is better to use Aim than Knockdown - no risk of failure and the same result, albeit only for your next attack.

[Daveth Coldbrook]

Also, nothing says both combatants must start mounted in the first place

Fair enough. I knew I had it in mind that they did from somewhere, and found where thanks to Baelon's post below. From the house rules thread:

Opposed charges with lances that is not an orderly one on one jousts [...]. This is frequently how grand melee's and trials by combat tends to start.

And you are correct, it does specifically say 'frequently', not 'always', so thank you for clearing that up. (Also, typo: it should be 'tend', and I don't think 'melees' should have an apostrophe (no missing letter), though I could be wrong).

First the easy one: Half-Plate and Plate don't have bulk anymore? People are going to be absolutely flying across the battlefield.

Also worth noting that that will effectively weaken the Armour Mastery benefit, since that gives -1 Bulk.

Agility 4 is quite useful, but not necessary.

Thanks for clearing that up.

[Theomore Tullison]

They should have 3 bulk of course.

The joust is reserved for knights (qualifying for chivalry), but others can enter as mystery knights. The Grand melee is also knights only, although it doesn't specify that one needs to qualify for chivalry (the team leader selection event does that, however). There's also another martial event that is chivalric knight only. Only knights can stand for other people in duels and trial by combat, but chivalry doesn't come into that.

Many events have a status tests one must pass to gain entry, and this one and other status and persuasion tests in events often allows you to add chivalry/virtue, and usually then has higher TN than it would have been otherwise.

That being said, the Tyrell's would probably waive knightly requirements for a northerner of importance, but it is rather unlikely that a northerner in the retinue of one of the home house lords are that important.

[Theomore Tullison]

Presently, there's various plot and story stuff I need to flesh out and clean up and some extensions to custom and traditions and some other stuff I plan on writing, potentially done over a weekend where I've got nothing else to do, beyond that things starts to look ready to go, there's two events for the last in-game day that I haven't figured out what to do with yet, but I am considering to form those based on the stories that emerges, since one is intended to set the stage for downtime and the other to bring simmering conflicts to a boiling point. My preference is to have an outline for both, and then rework according to my fancies as we go.

Got a couple of NPC houses with internal troubles which will flare up, got one NPC lord which hopefully you will love having your PC's hate, a homage or two to SA/BITW/Dragonsdance and other spices.

Mechanically, the to do list is:
-Make a few min/maxed characters to see if I need to adjust character creation rules.
-Review how chivalry/virtue points are handed out, right now I'd expect everyone to grab +2 from breeding/reputation due to incentives. Those are reasonably sound investments as is.
-Do some number-crunching on how jousting will turn out given that 4/4 and 3/4 in AH/Fighting will be what most NPC knights have.
-See if I can come up with a pair of benefits granting virtue (since anointed and tourney knight discriminates), that's more of a case of nice rather than need.

[Daveth Coldbrook]

-See if I can come up with a pair of benefits granting virtue (since anointed and tourney knight discriminates), that's more of a case of nice rather than need.

To throw a few ideas for existing Benefits that it could be added to at you:
Attractive, Artist, and Blood of the Andals (though admittedly, I feel that one's already *very* strong - compare it with Charismatic, and just half the BoA ability is already more powerful than it, trading a bit of strength for vastly more versatility) make sense for me as benefits, but here's an idea: it doesn't have to be a Benefit.  Drawbacks like Romantic, or maybe even Dependent or Naive could also make good candidates.

Edit: I note that now that flails only have a 1B training penalty, they are a straight upgrade from Halberds.
Flail: 1B Train, Ath+3, Powerful, Shattering 1, 2-handed
Halberd: 1B Train, Ath+3, Powerful, Bulk 1, 2-handed

[Baelon Drakeson]

I guess the question I was really trying to ask was whether such characters would have much to do with the planned goings-on or not. Some players may not particularly care about being in official tourney events or not, but of course would still want to have something to engage with. I mean, of course there's a great deal to be said about actively creating plot, but that can have problems (notably that you either have to get other players willing to be involved, or else run the risk of creating OOC negativity).

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I was looking at the benefits to see if I could come up with some ideas for virtue boosting benefits. Here's a couple (rather rough) ideas.  I'm mostly looking at concepts here not numbers, so you would definitely want to review those before implementing.

Proper Lady
Requires: Must qualify for Virtue. Must have the Honor-Bound Drawback.
This quality represents a noblewoman that holds herself to the true ideals of Andal propriety, finding strength in them. Thus it comes with expectations in terms of role-play choices.

You gain a bonus to DR and Intrigue Defense against the seduction and incite techniques equal to your dedication specialties.
You gain a bonus to DR and Intrigue Defense against the Taunt technique equal to your breeding specialties.

If a knight with positive Chivalry fights for your honor or wears your favor in the joust, they gain +1 to passive results and derived statistics. Anyone taking part in trial by combat as your champion may add a bonus to all rolls, passive abilities and derived statistics equal to half your will rank (round down) if you are convinced that your cause is righteous.

In addition, you do -1 influence per Degree of Success when using deception in intrigue. Further, whenever you fight or argue against a cause you find righteous, you take -1D on all tests during intrigue, warfare and combat.

You gain +1 Virtue.

Gracious Hostess
Requires: Status 3 or Higher, Must qualify for Virtue

When hosting a social gathering or entertaining a guest (even at temporary lodgings), you do +1 influence per DoS with the Charm technique and gain +2 passive Deception against Awareness(Empathy) tests. If assisting in an intrigue, you may confer these benefits upon the primary participant whom you are assisting.

Additionally, you gain +1 Virtue.

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In looking at the update benefits, I noticed a couple of things:
1) Agile Maneuvers: Seems open to abuse, particularly by a Reach or Ranged weapon wielder. Move to max range, strike, move back out of their charge range. With Armor Mastery you could wear a breastplate and use a Long Axe or Pole Axe to great effect, or with Spear Fighter 1 and Armor Mastery you could go up to Scale. Combine with Fast and 2b in Run (Total movement 6 - the same as a Destrier) and you only need armor for archers and mounted charges.

2) Anointed requires Status 4? that seems awfully high.

[Theomore Tullison]

Blood of Andals is a good benefit on it's own merits already, same with attractive IMO. Artist is a very good candidate.

The part about knights getting bonuses for riding for a proper lady (and the virtue bonus) I'd probably spin out of that benefit, as my idea with true knight is that it represents internal strength and discipline, that one doesn't give chivalry, but I like the concept. Something giving virtue could be a version of anointed.

[Baelon Drakeson]

Just doing some quick numbers: anyone that meets the knightly chivalry requirements will have a chivalry score (excluding modifiers from actions) between 0 and 9 (3 [3b Reputation] +5 [Apprentice & 3 benefits or Journeyman and 4 benefits] +1 [lordly chivalry]), though I would expect most to be somewhere in the 3-6 range as it is difficult to be better than 'passable' at anything with the 9. Still, with 4-5 in reach with minimal investment, even those prone to occasional misbehavior should have little difficulty maintaining positive chivalry.

Completely unrelated note:
You changed Keen Senses? It was already kind of weak (never even seen someone take it), and it seems even weaker now.

[Daveth Coldbrook]

Just doing some quick numbers: anyone that meets the knightly chivalry requirements will have a chivalry score (excluding modifiers from actions) between 0 and 9 (3 [3b Reputation] +5 [Apprentice & 3 benefits or Journeyman and 4 benefits] +1 [lordly chivalry])

Remember that only Great Bastards and Heads of House (most of whom aren't really PC-ideal) can get Status 5, so the vast majority of people can only get 2B Reputation. And only them and Heirs (who are more usable, but not that numerous) can get the +1 from Lordly.
Further, note that Chivalry-adding benefits are often not the most powerful/optimal choices for a particular character - taking all 4 +Chivalry benefits (your proposed Journeyman build) is *very* restrictive.
(Also, I'm fairly sure Drawbacks can push the Starting Chivalry well below 0).

From my experience making characters, 3-4 is most common (when I'm not designing a character specifically for low or high Chivalry). Counter-intuitively, the Apprentices tended towards 4, while Masters tended more towards 3 (not exclusively by any means, the highest chivalry I got with an actually playable character was a Master with 6, but they were specifically designed for high Chivalry). But as an Apprentice, 2B Reputation +2 from XP really was 'minimal investment'. But most Masters still could only get 2B in Reputation, meaning to even get 3 (if they're not a GB, lord, or heir) requires one of their oh-so-precious Benefit slots.

While you may be right about the ease of keeping positive (hard to know until the game starts - depends largely on how harsh penalties are and how liberally they're applied), I do feel like the C/V system encourages character assassination (verbally, I mean), and this system is all about how you are *perceived*. A couple of ugly-enough rumours could be all it takes to dip someone into negatives (at least until they manage to clear their name), even if they are entirely blameless.

[Theomore Tullison]

In my head, it should be reasonably easy to get to 3 and require more heavy investments to go beyond that. So the cheap 4 an apprentice gets isn't quite in line with that. And I think lordly chivalry wouldn't be hurt much by axing that +1. Easiest fix might just be to just do something like 3/2/1 for the XP arrays with nothing for bonus dice. That makes it a bit tough on masters though.

[Theomore Tullison]

Also, struggling to find a picture for a fat repulsive 40-year old lord, bonus points if he looks a bit like a pig.

I'm going to have a little NPC rogue gallery, the plan is to have them take an active part in the story through a few scenes where they throw out hooks for PC's to bite. Some of them will do stuff which a home house kinda will have to react to, but nothing major in the big scheme of things.

[Daveth Coldbrook]

Also, struggling to find a picture for a fat repulsive 40-year old lord, bonus points if he looks a bit like a pig.

Had a bit of a poke around.  Hopefully one of these will do:
A
B
C
D - I do particularly like this one
E
F
G
H
I

Easiest fix might just be to just do something like 3/2/1 for the XP arrays with nothing for bonus dice. That makes it a bit tough on masters though.

Isn't the low-xp bonus to C/V specifically to counterbalance the fact that high-xp builds can get more C/V from said XP?  If you're going to remove the XP-correlation, you should probably remove the XP bonus to balance out.  For what it's worth, it makes a lot of sense to me for them to be based off Breeding/Reputation - that makes a lot of narrative sense, but I could see an argument, given what you want, for having all characters who qualify start with a flat 3 Chivalry/Virtue, modified only by Benefits/Drawbacks.  Yes, Masters have more of the former, but they have more of the latter as well.  Just an idea.

Edit: While the new Ser Symon pic is definitely an improvement on the old one, it does have a significantly different style to the others, so I thought I'd see how my Google-fu stood up to the challenge of trying to find alternatives.  I found 2, neither seeming quite perfect - you really weren't understating the difficulty.  Anyway, in case you didn't find them yourself:
A
B
(Is it me, or does Bittersteel look rather Dornish himself? Don't tell him I said that. )

[Theomore Tullison]

Ooooh, shiny

I can work with Harkonnen, D is nice, but black&white would break the style of all the other NPC's.

[Theomore Tullison]

Ended up on B....D was pretty much spot on, but the black and white and shadowing doesn't work when cropped to 200x200, and as noted I like my NPC's in color.

As far as default chivalry goes, the standard sample PC of mine has 2 reputation dices, thus giving them 4/3/2 before qualities and possible a third reputation die and stuff.

It's kinda a similar argument as the one behind just increasing the ability XP by 50 (well, 60 I guess) rather than allow people to get 50XP by axing an ability to 1. People would grab reputation/breeding dice for the chivalry/virtue bonus. An alternative is to give a point for the first and third rank, or hold it back.

I don't think chivalry/virtue score (aside from having a positive one) will be that of a big deal if it's a flat default +2 for everyone to need that any compensation is necessary. Though just axing the bonus for reputation dice should work, too. Journeymen and Masters have more XP (and benefit slots) to spread around on the the things where you get to add chivalry/virtue in the first place.

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