Song Of Ice And Fire
Song of Ice and Fire Roleplaying (a.k.a., SIFRP or "the Game of Thrones RPG") is a great RPG, especially in how it makes the House feel like its own extra character. This page catalogs a few minor changes and helpful rules summaries. For our current campaign, see Salt and Iron. For a potential campaign idea (which relies heavily on the Out of Strife, Prosperity supplement), see Party House.
— General Resources —
Character Age Table
This information is spread across multiple tables in the core rules, so I'm summarizing it here for convenience:
Years Old | Age Category | Ability XP* | Max Rank† | Specialty XP | Destiny Points | Mandatory Drawbacks |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
0-9 | Youth | 120 | 4 | 40 | 7 | — |
10-13 | Adolescent | 150 | 4 | 40 | 6 | — |
14-18 | Young Adult | 180 | 5 | 60 | 5 | — |
19-30 | Adult | 210 | 7 | 80 | 4 | Any one |
31-50 | Middle Age | 240 | 6 | 100 | 3 | One Flaw (Agility, Athletics, or Endurance) |
51-70 | Old | 270 | 5 | 160 | 2 | Any one, plus one Flaw (Agility, Athletics, Awareness, Cunning, Endurance, Fighting, or Marksmanship) |
71-80 | Very Old | 330 | 5 | 200 | 1 | Any one, plus two Flaws (Agility, Athletics, Awareness, Cunning, Endurance, Fighting, or Marksmanship) |
80+ | Venerable | 360 | 5 | 240 | 0 | Any one, plus either Feeble or three Flaws (Agility, Athletics, Awareness, Cunning, Endurance, Fighting, or Marksmanship) |
Helpful Apps
- Random House Generator (creates a minor NPC house with one click)
- House History Generator (all the rolling for Tables 6-3 and 6-4)
- House Fortunes Generator (when the GM wants a random result)
Optional Rules
Our game will use the following advanced and optional rules . . .
- Everything under Advanced Combat except for Critical Hits & Fumbles and Advanced Reach
- Initiative
- Attack Modifiers
- Unarmed Attacks
- Attacking Objects
- Advanced Actions
- Fatigue
- Advanced Orders (Advanced Warfare)
- Destiny & Substitution (test with the wrong ability by spending a DP and explaining how)
. . . but not these ones.
Critical Hits & Fumbles (Advanced Combat)Advanced Reach (Advanced Combat)Facing & Formation (Advanced Warfare)- unless absolutely called for in a particular situation
— House Rules —
Abilities
Cost
Because Abilities become very powerful at higher levels, their cost is now progressive — discounted initially, but more expensive at higher levels. Note that only one Ability can be set at 1; use Flaws for any others.
Level | Advancement Cost | Cumulative Cost |
---|---|---|
1 | -50 | -50 |
2 | 0 | 0 |
3 | 10 | 10 |
4 | 20 | 30 |
5 | 40 | 70 |
6 | 50 | 120 |
7 | 60 | 180 |
Language
The Language ability confers skill in your native tongue, usually Common Tongue. It has no specialties. However, when learning additional languages, purchase them as though they were specialties, for 10 xp per level, not to exceed the level of your ability. For example, if you had Language 3 (Common Tongue), you could add Valyrian 1 for 10 xp, 2 for 20 xp, or 3 (the max) for 30 xp. You may spend any mix of "ability xp" and "specialty xp" this way.
Use the existing rules for what this means; this house rule only changes how non-native tongues are purchased, nothing more. (Be sure to also compare and contrast the Polyglot benefit.)
Benefits
Characters may have up to 4 Benefits at character creation (instead of the usual limit of 3). Once the game starts, that limit remains, but it goes up by 1 every time the House completes an adventure.
Benefits From Other Sources
The following Benefits from Night's Watch are generally available: Defensive Engineer, No Kneeler, Terrifying, Winter-Touched.
The following Benefit from the SIFRP official blog exists, but is not available to starting characters: Faceless.
Removed and Changed Benefits
Charismatic
Adds +2 to every use of Persuasion.
Compelling
Change to, "Choose one of Awareness, Cunning, Persuasion, or Will. In an intrigue, treat that ability as being one rank higher solely for the purpose of calculating Influence. You may choose this benefit multiple times, each time selecting a different ability."
Favored of Nobles & Favored of Smallfolk
These each give +2B, not +1B.
Head of House, Heir, & Heirloom
The Head of House and Heir Benefits are gone; they are unnecessary as you use a combo of personal Status and House Influence Holdings to determine these roles.
Heirloom still requires that you be the head of House or the heir. This Benefit is more than “you have a Valyrian steel weapon”! Your heirloom has a story of its own, tied closely to your house. Work with the GM to flesh this out. When you display it and relate its story to the current situation, add your Status Rank to the result of any test to Charm, Intimidate, or Seduce.
Sponsor
This Benefit gives you a strong connection to a respected NPC. If another PC has Status 5+, and is willing, you can instead have them count as your Sponsor for the purpose of meeting other Benefits’ requirements.
Water Dancer I
Play has shown that this bonus is far too broad for a first-tier benefit. Change to, "Add a number equal to your Fighting ranks to all Awareness (Notice) test results and to passive Awareness against Stealth tests to sneak up on the water dancer."
Worldly
Also adds +2B to answer questions about cultures and places from outside Westeros.
Drawbacks
Supreme Arrogance requires Status 3+.
Ward is a Drawback, not a Benefit (this is handled inconsistently across the different rulebooks)! It gives you -1D on Persuasion tests with both your birth and foster Houses (each assumes you speak from a position of favoring the other), and the risk that you may be slain if your birth House takes overt action against your foster House.
Gear
Armor
Full plate armor has AP -5 (not -6).
All leather and metal armor (except half-plate) can be superior (Castle-forged) quality, which means it’s tailored for one specific wearer. This improves its AP by 1 for that person only.
Social Effect of Arms and Armor
Heavy armor, crossbows, and polearms are considered instruments of war. Bows are for either hunting or assassination. While traveling these are considered reasonable, but in general, only guards and nobles are allowed to openly carry them in a village or city.
Any Intrigue intended to convey, or predicated upon, the notion that you are a safe, peaceful individual is at -2D for any form of plate armor, and -1D for any of “heavy” armor, a crossbow, or a polearm. “Heavy” armor is any non-plate armor with base AP -2 or worse.
Holdings
Influence & Power
Some Banner Houses (under Power Holdings) are loyal to your military might, but others come from diplomatically crafted relationships. As such, you may obtain these by investing Influence instead of or in addition to Power.
Land & Population
On Table 6-7: Feature Costs, you do not invest Land to acquire Community features (e.g., towns and cities). Instead, invest your Population to acquire these. Population no longer modifies your House Fortunes roll.
Wealth
We use Out of Strife, Prosperity exclusively, only including from the core rules Godswood (which is not subject to Stacking Bonuses) and Maester. However, note the following changes:
Estate Wealth Holdings'
- Charcoal (8 Wealth)
- Food Agriculture: Mill* (+2 Wealth), Granaries (+2 Wealth)
- Quarry, Basic (7 Wealth)
- Timber: Lumber Mill (+2 Wealth)
Lifestyle Wealth Holdings
- Standard of Living: Rich (12 Wealth), Lavish (25 Wealth)
- Trophy Room (3 Wealth): Grand Room* (+2 Wealth)
Personage Wealth Holdings
- Artisan: As a “variant artisan,” you may take an Armorer, for +1 to House Fortunes and all armor assumed to be of Castle-forged quality.
Settlement Wealth Holdings
- Brothels (3 Wealth)
- Gambling Dens (3 Wealth)
- Gaol: Inescapable (+5 Wealth)
- Marketplace: Specialty Market* (+2 Wealth)
- Minstrel’s Seat: Bardic College (+2 Wealth), Mummer’s Hall (+2 Wealth)
- Tournament Field: Competition Culture (grants +2 Influence for a local tourney, +3 for regional, or +4 if grand)
House Actions
SIFRP Tournaments: Slightly expanded rules for throwing a tournament.
SIFRP Unofficial Raiding Rules (PDF): A new House Action which requires a commander, a unit of Warships, and a unit of Raiders.
Intrigue
The person who initiated an intrigue may not Withdraw on the first round.
Warfare
The default scale (a unit = 100 men) is subject to change to fit the situation; e.g., if you bring 20 men with you and are facing 60, it’s easiest to treat this as one 20-man unit versus three. Nothing changes except where it comes to individuals attacking the unit, in which case:
- The +20 combat bonus applies for units of 51-100 men. For 26-50 men it is +15, and for up to 25 men it is +10.
- The unit loses 1 Health per 10% of its forces lost (rounded up).