Intrigue/ Magic Conversion

[CameronJay]

I've been playing around in my head recently and I'd like to share my thoughts with you guys.

Firstly, I absolutely love this game, the system, and the entirety of the song of ice and fire series.
That being said, the setting and, therefore, the system is not "High" enough for my players. I thoroughly enjoy the gritty realism that one slip in combat or conversation could end in your death. But my friends have other ideas for what they want and as game master I feel like I should at least attempt to meet their desires.

Secondly, I think I should just come out and say that I hate D&D. I know hate is too strong a word and at one time I really enjoyed the game. But I've grown weary of having a 2 hour long combat with some boss the dm had to dig out of the monster manual to make it exciting. Level 26 wizards who could just beat a closet full of level 3 fighters to death with their bare fists. Fun for a while but just a bit draining.

But there is something to be said of the allure of magic. It creates excitement out of... well I'm not quite sure where it comes from. You would totally need to leave Westeros I believe. I would hate to interfere with a background so impressive. The thing I'm thinking about is creating a magic system based almost entirely from the intrigue design.

Now, don't get mad at me. My players so rarely use intrigue for anything more than trying to sell their loot at higher prices. They mostly fail. So, seeing a huge hole in the game due to their lack of interest, I figured I could replace it with some sort of sorcery. My ideas are limited to changing deception and persuasion to destruction and protection, Using composure as a sort of resource for spells, and maybe switching language with a sort of overall sorcery ability.
And if that somehow works then introducing a piety ability that will tap into the destruction and protection abilities as well. I feel like using either destruction or protection through several new 'techniques' like the current system provides would work. Somehow...

Please feel free to discuss this in whatever fashion you deem fit.
Just don't throw punches, verbal or otherwise.

[Willem Manderly]

CameronJay,

I was just thinking about how I would incorporate more magic into my game. One thing I did to facilitate that was set my campaign during a time when dragons still flew over Westeros. When dragons are alive, magic is in the air.

Now, what system to use for using magic? Not so sure what to do there, that was what I was thinking about. One option is to reserve it for Narrator Characters and monsters. Another is to wing it, regardless of who uses magic, since magic is "a sword without a hilt" and should be a little random and unpredictable.

I would aim for a loose framework for using magic, rather than a set system. There are questions of:
Intention of the caster
Environmental factors (materials, time and focus, helpers, celestial effects, etc.)
Power of the enchantment
How much control the caster has over it (Knowledge or Will tests)

I will be thinking a little more about this, but these are my initial thoughts about magic.

HOWEVER, I would encourage you to push your players to go outside their comfort zone and actually use the Intrigue rules. Are any of the players noblewomen? Maesters? Septons or Septas? Youngsters? I told my players who those types of characters that while they may CARRY a dagger, that if they have to use it on anything other than their food, they're doing something wrong in playing the character, or something dire has happened.

[ajwsavage]

What I did if a player wanted to use sorcery was integrated into existing skills. Firstly, they needed a knowledge speciality connected to a particular type of approach (eg. The warlocks of Qarth, or the red priests etc). Secondly, the PC had to spend (not burn) a destiny point. Then I set a difficulty they had to reach based on the kind of sorcery they were trying access (eg - seeing a vision in the flames). They then rolled their knowledge dice. If they failed, they made a challenging will check to stop the destiny point from becoming burned.

Harsh, but that's the cost of magic.

[CameronJay]

Mr. Savage, that is brutal! And I like it. Keeping it in Westeros would certainly work in that way.

And is it Ser Willem? Playing when dragons were still alive would be incredible. I believe I'll try that whether or not I work out a magic system. Now I actually think that I would want an actual system to work through. I agree that it's regretable that we do not use intrigue. I've tried to put them in situations where diplomacy is the best solution but someone will always draw a sword or flip a table.

What I was thinking was to replace an existing system that works very well. Simply putting the face of magic over the intrigue perhaps

[rulandor]

As far as we have heard on these boards, the coming "Chronicle of Sorcery" ebook is taking this very approach: create a basic task resolution system as we find it already for combat and intrigue.

CameronJay, perhaps you can educate your group a bit. Westeros is full of opponents where you can't simply push over the negotiation table and draw swords. They might harvest the wrath of their liege lord or of a far superior negotiating partner. Try to put them against the Lannisters. Or against the Manderlys of White Harbor. Their characters might just end up as juicy bits of some pie.

[Willem Manderly]

Yes, we do like a good pie. Onion pies with smugglers, lamprey with liars, dandelion salads with Lannisters, and rose hip tea with any Tyrell that chances into our port. The North remembers. (But there is absolutely no cannibalism)

Perfect example of how intrigue can kill: Robb Stark won every battle, but lost the war and his life.

If I were CameronJay, I would construct a series of traps for the PC's, whereby each time they draw their swords at the wrong time, they lose. Each time it gets worse. Their enemies succeed in winning everything the PCs thought they would win with their swords, because the PC's were too rash. They may lose their glory, their titles, their lands. One may lose a hand or be sent to the Wall. They may have a friend they can call on, but are they smart enough to do so in time? Will they learn?

Just like how in combat there is always someone who can beat you, there is always someone who can outsmart or outmaneuver you. Cersei learned that from the High Sparrow, did she not? I loved that scene, when he says "no." Even the Lannisters do not always win in intrigue.

[Fergiejr]

I have to agree about teaching your players a few things about how this game world works....you dont have to be harsh, but let them get the feeling drawing swords wont win them anything but death..and if they draw swords, dont fudge the dice...even role them in front of them

if they whine, tell them the truth, you cant just pull your sword on a Lord of a Major house and expect to live, you gave it good fight but what did you expect?


on the magic part, great idea, there is some magic in the traits, like wargs and green seers but there needs to be more, but very expensive. And it should not be the outlandish over bearing fireballs of D&D spells...more subtle, and difficult magic.

Also could make it rather deadly or uncertain, like warhammer fantasy magic

[CameronJay]

Thanks alot for the input guys. I believe I will test my players' skill at diplomacy now for certain.

And so I've decided to keep Intrigue and set up a new couple of abilities to affect magic. I absolutely love the warhammer approach to magic and my style will reflect that for sure.

Again, Thank You

[irohma]

My players so rarely use intrigue for anything more than trying to sell their loot at higher prices. They mostly fail.

Oh, I know that! My group played D&D for years before I introduced them to SIFRPG and I face this same problem as you do. I've known this system for a while, but only started a campaign about two months ago and I have only played three times with my group, but I noticed some problems and I'm trying to work things out. For now it's working and the players are liking the system, but I warn you that I don't know how this will play in the long run.

For starters, I created a magic system (I don't play in Westeros for now, I don't want to harm such a superb setting with stupid D&D heroes roaming the land in my first play ehehe). The system was mostly adapted from another Green Ronin material, the Dragon Age RPG. I won't go to details, but what I did was simply create three tiers of benefits: Magic Aptitude I, II, and III; exactly like the weapon benefits, but the first required Knowledge Focus (Magic) and each tier granted the character the ability to learn a new set of spells (Initiatie spells, Intermediate spells, and Advanced Spells for each tier respectively).

When Magic Aptitude is bought, the player gains a new ability at rank 1 called Wizardry (that's what I called it, anyway), 3B to buy specialties (basically spell schools), and three initial spells, and can use Experience on it as he see fits. Wizardry alone allow for magic detection and some little harmless tricks, but its specialties and spells are what empower the mage. All mages start with Mana equal to Wizardry x3 + Knowledge x2, and they can buy extra spells like benefits (but each spell cost less EXP), improve specialty, etc.

What I used mostly from Dragon Age material was the Blood Magic and the fact that the game has no gamebreaking spell (at least in Set 1 and 2), all of them are mostly direct and almost all can be imagined as subtle and not flashy as D&D magic. Blood magic simply burns Health instead of Mana, and the mage can use fresh blood to empower his magic as well, making for some bad evil wizards sacrificing people in order to perform more unique rituals and spells.

To cast a spell the mage needs to use the Mana (or Health, but at greater expanse, usually resulting in injuries or wounds if using his own blood), and roll the die like any test. The difficulty is usually the target's passive Will or Endurance or perhaps Combat Defense, and the effects can vary or not with degrees of success. Some spells require the target to make a Will or Endurance (or any other) test against the mage's passive Wizardry (these spells are mainly those with an effect that last a few turns, hours, or days). Dragon Age RPG has probably only 4 or 5 damage spells, and they were all very easy to adapt. The rest of the spells are buffs or inflict negative status, which aren't a problem to deal as well and can keep the game inside a "low magic" zone.

--

About the Intrigue system... to lure my D&D players I reduced the roleplay value a lot and made it more simple to use. Instead of "What are you going to say to this dumb guard who is reluctant in helping you all?", I sometimes say "You can try to lie something to him, perhaps intimidate, etc" and they roll the Intrigue exactly like they do with combat. When the Intrigue involves characters they like or hate they usually put some effort into elaborating their approach, but most of the time it runs like "I lie to him", "He convinces you to help him in patrolling the streets", "I'll seduce him and offer some ale", etc. It's not exactly what I imagined when I first read the SIFRPG books, but is kinda of working with combat-focused-d&d-players. They simply choose an action and roll the die, like in a combat, but instead of choosing between swinging sword or firing a bow they choose between intimidate, seduce, etc. So one that is playing as a nobleman with lack of combat skills is slowly adapting to the Intrigue system and carrying other players with him (I'm rewarding intrigues with better outcomes than combats too).

[CameronJay]

Ooooo that is a very nice approach.
And I know what you mean by having visions of elaborate conversations while reading the rules. However, my players have been taught to roleplay through d&d. In short, no roleplay

[irohma]

Yeah, that's a problem indeed. Move, fight, loot, avoid trap, fight, loot, fight, loot, etc. I had plenty of fun with D&D, but it's a difficult system to use true roleplay. The SIFRPG has lots of support in that department that is certainly overwhelming for players who always hacked and slashed through games =/

Anyway, try to use the same approach as I'm doing with intrigues. Make them feel more like combat... it doesn't matter if it has almost zero roleplay at first, at least you can use the rules and maybe within a few sessions your players can start to explore more this and slowly develop their own way of roleplaying witin the system. It's a tough job, especially for old D&D players, but maybe it can work!