What era does everyone play in?

[Axar]

My game is set in the year 155 CA.

[AsaTJ]

Am I the only one who doesn't use Westeros? I created my own campaign setting with unique history, geography, and Great Houses. It's very ASIF in theme and feel, being a human-dominated analog to medieval Europe with Ice Age fauna. At the end of the day, the base campaign setting was too restrictive for the kind of stories I want to tell. I take this approach with basically every franchise-based RPG I've ever played.

[barrataria]

Am I the only one who doesn't use Westeros? I created my own campaign setting with unique history, geography, and Great Houses. It's very ASIF in theme and feel, being a human-dominated analog to medieval Europe with Ice Age fauna. At the end of the day, the base campaign setting was too restrictive for the kind of stories I want to tell. I take this approach with basically every franchise-based RPG I've ever played.

Actually, I've just landed here from the opposite end of that continuum! I started sketching out a setting for a d6 Fantasy game, and it looks more and more like ASOIAF as I go along. I'm pondering whether to keep brainstorming until it all "clicks" and I love my idea (like you, this is my normal approach)... but Westeros is so well-detailed that I'm now getting tempted to just use it, either well before or just after Robert's rebellion.

With the TV production, I wonder if it is going to eventually have enough cultural penetration that (like Middle Earth or Star Wars) that running a game will be instantly immersive, like those worlds have become.

[kariggi]

So to update while we are still playing, well 2nd season for us, they have now reached the end of the first book, but I have or I should say one of the players with greensight has dragged them off to the east in search of Danyaris..only of course to be blown off course and to currently be struggling along in Southrous without connection to book content to help.

[babayaga]

We had our game start 5 game years before the events in The Game of Thrones.
The idea was to play 10-20 game years over maybe 2-3 real-world years.

I'd really love to play in a much earlier era, but I'd have to come up with all the rules about magic...

[coldwind]

Which game?

Running:
1 set during Robert's Rebellion
1 set about 5 years pre-books
1 set during ADwD
1 set a few years pre-Rains of Castamere

Playing:
1 set just before the books
2 set contemporary with the books, but in out-of-the way places
1 set during ADwD

[Paedrig]

How do you not get confused?
And how di you find enough time for such a number of sets?

It would be funny if some events of your earlier settings change the situation for the settings which are from a later time...

[coldwind]

Most are PbP, so there's plenty of time to review which 'setting' I'm in. Also, I try to make sure each game is in a different region of Westeros so that there are few to none overlapping canon NPCs.

[Gurkhal]

I'm going to meet my first PnP group for this game next week and then it will be decided. The ones I have prepered for are anyway:

Dance of Dragons and the Reign of Aerys II. We'll see which one the players are most interested in playing but I've got a sense that Aerys might come before the Dance. But we'll see.

[Willem Manderly]

We started in the North, traveling to the Vale a couple years before the Dance of Dragons. The players don't know what's coming yet, of course. But they will see a dragon soon when they go to the Midsummer's Tourney at Runestone. Lot's of opportunities for intrigue and warfare of increasing scale as the campaign progresses.

[Rains_of_Castamere]

I've yet to play, but the era I'm thinking of is about 700 years before the Targaryen Conquest in the North. This would be the time of the last Bolton rebellion when they are wearing Stark Skin cloaks after nearly 300 years of semi-loyalty to Winterfell.

Plus you can have epic scenes like the Siege of the Dreadfort that lasted four entire years. And that's just the finale; imagine what leads up to this...

[Kival]

We're playing at 296 AL. It's Joffrey's namesday and the events of Peril of King's Landing are coming to an end today or next week. The player house is a House raised from landed knights to Lords by the events of the Destruction of Castamere. They were given the control of the goldmines the Reyne possessed before. Tywin did not want to get other powerful houses get their hands on it. Their home is a small port-town east of the ruins of Castamere.

The players got some glimpsing of things foreshadowing the events of the book and eventually it will come to the war. The things which happen in the book are not written in stone though and even minor things the characters might do, have some kind of butterfly effect, changing the future.

So far they refrained from intervening in the Hand's and Stannis' "schemes". One player only was asked to stay ready for dark times coming (warned by the hand, which the player character met at Tobho Mott's smithery (?)). The player characters have some nice connections to draw them in later. The wife of the heir is a "friend" of Oberyn from schildhool times (a Qorgoyle) and was one of the maids of Elia. One player character was a member of the Golden Company in Exile and even suspects Connington not to be dead and has some suspicions about Aegon. One player character is a ward, originally from the Westerlings, and possesses ancient powers (meaning he's on the way of learning Skinchanging etc.). They also have a cold-war-feud with the Mallisters as one of the player characters was married with a Mallister who's dead is suscpected to be here doing.

After Peril of King's Landing it seems as if their standing might even increase somewhat (gaining deadly enemies by the Lugus and the assassin coupe of course). Next months will play in the Westerlands, perhaps using the Chronicle Starter adventure and also having them to coupe with http://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/House_Vikary which secrelty plans to take revenge on them for the Reyne's fall. If the players do astonishingly well, they might receive the Lordship of Castamere, allowed to rebuild the castle, wich will of course make things difficult with the Spencers later on...

[Paedrig]

All this would mean, that your house will fight for the Lannisters in the war that will come I presume (we all - and especially your chars - did know what happens to traitors of Casterly Rock )?
This will be interesting during Robbs short time campaigns into the West. Etc. Given the loose connections to the Westerlings f. e....


Allthough I must say the heritage and former carreers of the chars are quite...colourfull so to speak.

By the way - is the strong linkage to Dorne not a little bit...complicated for a house so close to Casterly Rock (and with the Cleaganes not so far away)? The wife of the heir was a friend of Oberyn and maid of Elia? What happened to her during the sack of Kings Landing? Who has her loyalty 8and her hate)? What does she think about Lord Tywin and such little goodfellows like Gregor C., Armory Loarch etc. - not unimportand men in the army or strategy of Lord Tywin?

The feud with the Mallister might be a lesser problem if I remember the HUGE distance between the cape of eagles and the Westlands correctly...
Beside some long distance intrigues (into annother realm were they did not have banner houses or many allies I presume) and perhaps some naval warfare (also with some risks, given the fact that house Lannister did have a considerable fleet) the options of the Mallisters might be limited by the distance.

Did you have the time (and will) to write a real campaign log? I would be very interested...
(Even the fact that "your" house and "ours" will fight on different sides... ).

[Kival]

All this would mean, that your house will fight for the Lannisters in the war that will come I presume (we all - and especially your chars - did know what happens to traitors of Casterly Rock )?
This will be interesting during Robbs short time campaigns into the West. Etc. Given the loose connections to the Westerlings f. e....

Ya, I'm curious what the players will decide to do.

Allthough I must say the heritage and former carreers of the chars are quite...colourfull so to speak.

Yes, it is. The short versions sound more strange than the longer ones, though.

By the way - is the strong linkage to Dorne not a little bit...complicated for a house so close to Casterly Rock (and with the Cleaganes not so far away)? The wife of the heir was a friend of Oberyn and maid of Elia? What happened to her during the sack of Kings Landing? Who has her loyalty 8and her hate)? What does she think about Lord Tywin and such little goodfellows like Gregor C., Armory Loarch etc. - not unimportand men in the army or strategy of Lord Tywin?

That's intended somewhat. She was rescued by the player houses heir (they were in love and all that silly stuff) who wasa squire of the Crakehall. Rescued meaning he claimed her while Loarch and Gregor were on the rampage. She does not know for sure about the two but she clearly suspects them to be the murderer and hates them somewhat. The player house is clearly more in the line of Crakehall/Marbrand part of Westerland military than Loarch/Clegane. I think that's clear for Tywin, too.

The feud with the Mallister might be a lesser problem if I remember the HUGE distance between the cape of eagles and the Westlands correctly...
Beside some long distance intrigues (into annother realm were they did not have banner houses or many allies I presume) and perhaps some naval warfare (also with some risks, given the fact that house Lannister did have a considerable fleet) the options of the Mallisters might be limited by the distance.

Ya. They never really did anything. They probably will never really do anything. To honourable and all but the players will probably always suspect them to be behind things.

Did you have the time (and will) to write a real campaign log? I would be very interested...
(Even the fact that "your" house and "ours" will fight on different sides... ).

As english isn't my native language I don't think I will find time to do it.

[Paedrig]

Trust me, english is not my mother language either.

Hm...thus lady and my main char (Ser Paedrig Rivers) might have something in common. His mother was one of princess Elias maids too.

I am afraid such heritage might tend to be the same like (history example) the last flight out of the besieged Stalingrad (how many people claimed that they were on this flight - enough to fill an Airbus 380 ).

By the way that the new husband of the lady could rescue her by "claiming her" - pretty lucky that such acting hindered Gregor or Armory to do what they like...

[Kival]

I think you can argue, that it was possible, because they had to take care of the princess and the kids first. It happened in so far, as Gregor and Loarch were marching through while 1 or 2 soldiers attacked the "Lady". I need to check what we actualyl decided but it was something like that.

[Oracle]

If I can get a group together, and if I get my preference on timeline, I would like to start a campaign with the group venturing to the Tournament of the Hand.

[Gurkhal]

And now I now when my group will be playing, the reign of Aerys II and the War of the Usurper, so effectively from AL 262 to AL 283 or something. The funny thing is that my players have chosen for themselves to be sworn bannermen of House Florent, which will open up a world of possibilities for me as a GM.