Rulebook

In the following rulebook you will gain an idea on the mechanic of the game. Do not forget to also visit the lore page to understand the continent and its kingdoms in detail to help you with you more detailed plans and ambitions.

Understanding the realm:

You rule one of the major houses of Westeros. You’ve got three important things to consider: your lands, your lords and your ambitions.

"A ruler needs a sword in one hand and a parchment in the other, for wars are not won with swords alone, nor peace kept with words."
— Aegon the Conqueror, first ruler of Westeros

1.

Understanding your lands:

Where are your castles, your towns, your rivers and mountains and your resources?

These landmarks should decide your strategy. Where point of interest may be and how to plot courses of action and movement.

You have 4 resources:

1. Coin, representing trade or other sources of gold

2. Supply, representing agricultural products such as food and wool

3. Materials, representing natural resources such as timber or stone

4. Arms, representing weapons, armor and tools of war

Beware! Although your lands carry these resources, you will need to use your Influence to task your lords to extract your surplus to actually use for the benefit of your house.

Example:

Here, the Twins can provide 1 Materials and Seagard 1 Coin to House Tully.

While Raventree Hall can provide 2 Arms and Riverrun even 3 Supply.

Each resource can be obtained by tasking dedicated Characters to guard your lands.

(More about this in part 2. Understanding your lords.)

Additionally, the Frey's at the Twins hold an important river crossing: a fortified castle with the only bridge over the green fork, all the way down to "the trident."

These are the type of "Lore" elements you can use to aid your plans.

Where to spend your resources:

There are 3 main ways in which your resources will be spent:

1. "The Omen's of Winter" is a deck of cards containing scenarios troubling the Realm. These can range from Ironborn raids, to famines and plagues, expensive Tourneys or Weddings, revolting minor lords and other ill tithings that require extra support and taxes to fix. The King will ask you, his subjects to provide the necessary resources to solve the problem.

(More about this in part 4. Omen's of Winter.)

2. "Influence" is the vital, secret ingredient of playing the game of thrones. It is a 5th resource of some sort, one that fuels your ambitions and your characters. The more Influence you have, the more actions you can take on your turn.

(More about this in part 2. Understanding your lords.)

3. Ambitions are the name of the missions and quests you send your characters into. Sometimes these undertakings may require additional investments to succeed. Like coin to buy Sellswords or Materials to build a fort.

(More about this in part 5. Success and Failure.)

Ironborn Raid:

The Reavers raid towns along the Sunset Sea.

Dagon Greyjoy and his Reavers have raided towns on the shores of the sunset sea. The minor lords and commonfolk need relief for the victims and reconstruction.

The King asks the realm to provide 3 materials, 2 supply, 1 coin and 1 arms to keep the peace.

Failure: will result in another Ironborn Raid next turn as the Reavers are satisfied with the lack of resistance.

The resources needed to protect the vulnerable and shore up against another imminent raid are requested of "the realm".

This means all players must pool them together.

Resources by Region

2.

Understanding your lords:

You will begin your game with 7 Characters as members of your household and will be able to grow this number throughout the run of the game, recruiting characters at important events.

Your Characters can have 4 stats:

(Each corresponding to one of the 4 resources)

1. Resourcefulness, cunning, analytical, inventive characters.

2. Stewardship, generous, patient, harmonious characters.

3. Fortitude, unyielding, loyal, diligent characters.

4. Command, confident, assertive, gallant characters.

When tasked with guarding your lands and gathering its resources, a character may only gather the resource each turn, that they possess the corresponding stat to.

(Resourcefulness for Coin, Stewardship for Supply, Fortitude for Materials and Command for Arms)

As seen in the example, these stats are represented by "traits" - adjectives that align with character traits often held by characters with such talents.

A list of these traits is included in this part.

Example:

Here, Ser Quentin of House Darklyn has the "Confident" trait, giving him +3 in Command rolls and the "Loyal" trait, giving him +1 in Fortitude rolls.

While Sir Quentin's base Dice is a D8.

Should this character go on a relevant Command mission, +3 will be added to the result of his D8.

(Referred to as "missions" here, Ambitions are explained in part 3. Ambitions.)

List of Traits

A list of all the adjectives/traits used to assign stats to a character.

3.

Understanding your ambitions:

Once you've surveyed all lands relevant to you and your Characters are settled, you will need to decide what these Characters will do to further your plans.

The Actions that your Characters take for you, the missions and quests you send them on, are called Ambitions.

How does it work?

Your Characters are your controlling hand. You must position them across the Realm to affect change and carry out your plans. Every time you do this, you must spend a resource named Influence.

You spend 1 Influence in one round to give one of your Characters any task.

So with 7 Characters, if you would want them to all act and move, you would need 7 Influence.

Example:

A tourney is being held at

Harrenhal by the Godseye.

If you want a Character of

yours to attend the tourney,

to recruit a prominent

Knight to your cause, to

learn secrets about an

alliance you suspect due to

other clues, or maybe to

win any of the extravagant prizes at offer, you must spend 1 Influence, per Character you send, not counting retinue's or household guards.

Even when collecting resources, each of your Characters needs 1 Influence per round to maintain pro-active quests and tasks (Ambitions)

Need examples for ambitions? Here are some.

How to gain Influence:

You begin the Game with 3 Influence. You can trade one of each resource for 3 Influence. You may do this any number of times per round but Influence can not be traded back into resources.

There are also political appointments, like a seat on the small council of the King, that provide Influence each round.

Some rare events like tourney's and weddings might also provide Influence as a reward.

Ambitions, Tasks & Quests

4.

Omen's of Winter:

At the beginning of each round, a number of Omen cards will be drawn from the deck and displayed on the main page.

These cards serve as events that need to be reacted to within the current round unless specified otherwise.

Often, next round's card will be revealed in a second column, to give the houses one turn to discuss and plan.

Each display what happened, what the realm needs to provide or react to, and what happens in case of Success or Failure, usually only displaying one of the two.

After an Event Card like this is dealt with, either successfully or not, it will move from the main page to the "Episode" page of its round of origin to be archived and make space for the newest cards.

Omens of Winter cards can be triggered through player Ambitions and also story progression. So be weary where the root of an event card may come from.

In the previous Example:

The Omen of Winter card was an Ironborn Raid, requiring all great houses to contribute resources.

The way in which resources like these are contributed is always in secret, with each house contributing what they believe is prudent.

There sometimes is no time to send ravens as the Omens resolve over one round so pre-established deals may be useful.

Ironborn Raid:

The Reavers raid towns along the Sunset Sea.

Dagon Greyjoy and his Reavers have raided towns on the shores of the sunset sea. The minor lords and commonfolk need relief for the victims and reconstruction.

The King asks the realm to provide 3 materials, 2 supply, 1 coin and 1 arms to keep the peace.

Failure: will result in another Ironborn Raid next turn as the Reavers are satisfied with the lack of resistance.

5.

Success and Failure:

When it comes to Ambitions and the quests your Characters are on, success and failure work very straight forward.

You Character has a dice number, this is the die you should be rolling for them when sending them on a mission.

Additionally, they have traits, tied to their stats. If that stat is relevant to your mission, you may add that modifier to the rolled number.

Whenever Characters encounter resistance, their total score (rolled number + m0difier) is compared with their opponents total score.

Check Ser Quentin's Example

Levels of Success & Failure:

Successes and Failures are both divided into two: partial success and failure & total success and failure.

The difference is in how far away the two total scores are away from each other.

Example of partial and total success/failure:

An assassination attempt might fail on a -2 difference. Your character might be discovered and thrown in a dungeon on a -5.

Vice versa, the attempt might succeed but your character might be implicated on a +1, leaving other players the chance to investigate and incriminate you.

Or a rival lord might be falsely accused after your success on a +7.