Introduction to Character Creation

A Song of Ice and Fire Roleplaying uses the Chronicle system. Characters are defined by their Abilities and Specialties, which represent what thet are good at, basically. When rolling to do an action, one rolls a number of d6s (six-sided dice) equal to one's ability score, typically from one to seven. Additionally one has Specialty Dice (abbreviated as +XB, where X is the number of Speicality dice one has, such as +1B). which increase their score. One rolls a number of dice equal to your Speciality Dice score in addition to your ability dice. Then, after rolling, you drop a number of dice equal to your Speciality Dice number  and add the remaining dice together. That number is your result, which I (the DM) compare to a Difficulty which I have chosen. Depending on your result you may be more or less successful in that action, called Degrees of Success. If you match a test's difficulty or beat it by four or less, you have one degree of success; if you beat it by between five and nine two degrees, ten to fourteen is three degrees, fifteen or more is four degrees.

For example, Nicolas Cage is shooting a bow at a stationary target. He has four dice in Marksmanship (the skill used for using ranged weapons) and two Speciality Dice in Bows (+2B). He rolls six dice initially, getting a 6, 5, 4, 4, 2, 1. He then drops two dice (his Speciality dice), the lowest ones, a 2 and 1, for a total of 19. The DM (for this scenario, Vin Diesel) has determined the Difficulty is 12, and so Mr. Cage has beaten the Difficulty by 7, which is two degrees of success.

The Chronicle system includes rules for combat via swords, bows and other weapons, social combat called intrigues and rules for mass strategic combat. The system includes tangible rules for age, social status and family importance. As such many types of characters are possible, and playing what you want to play should take precedance over playing a 'useful' character. The character sheet is here: http://greenronin.com/sifrp/2009/07/interactive_sifrp_character_sh.php

Who Should I Make?
Ice and Fire Roleplaying follows the story of one house and its attendants. You can create any character who is somehow assosciated with the house - this could range from the heir to the house to the master of arms to a smallfolk rogue friends with the Lord's bastard to a sellsword who aids the house. Several characters and 'positions' are already filled by people who have played before. Though this limits your choices somewhat, don't feel too constrained. As long as you can somehow have a reason to travel with the members of House Minos and aid that house. If you're interested in playing a member of another house - say, a fosterling, ward or quire - you should give me a yell, but it should be fine. Similarly, if you want to play a character with ulterior motives, secrets or a relationship with other characters, give me a yell but you should be cool.

A few notes - as we House Minos is of the North, few annointed knights exist, as becoming a knight requires pledging before the Seven, whom the people of the North generally don't worship. If you want to play a knight, then, there should be a good reason he is of the Seven in the North. Foreigners travel to the North rarely, and the small size of House Minos means it attracts few visitors, if you can justify your character create someone as foreign as you like. Though sexism definitely exists in Westeros, I don't want to force anyone to be bored playing a female character. As long as you've got a good reason to play a woman (or a man) who lives outside of expected Westerosi gender norms - and are prepared to RP the challenges such people might face - then go ahead.

When you've got a character done - or even a concept ready - please create a page for him/her. If you're cool for making links feel free to add their name and position in the House Minos 'Family and Household' section.

Taken characters:

- Dardalion Snow, a bastard of Lord Minos

- Lord Maeus Minos, heir to House Minos

- Lady Varlenna (Dornish House) - Lady of House Minos.

- Ana, a cousin of the main line of House Minos.

- Hector Halfear, master-at-arms of House Minos

Character Concept
The first thing to do is come up with a basic concept for your character. Most of these things have no mechanical value but are essential for roleplaying.

The first and arguably most important part is deciding your character's age. This has an impact on your character's abilities - age directly determins your starting ability and specialization points to spend and how many Destiny points you have. There are seven age categories: youth (infant to 10), adolescent (10-14), young adult (14-18), adult (18-30), middle age (30-50), old (50-70), very old (70-80), venerable (80+). Older characters get more Abilty and Specialization points but cannot invest as highly in anything (peaking at adult). Older characters start with fewer Destiny points and must take some mandatory flaws which hinder certain abilities. After Age you need to pick a Status - this is an Ability like any other, but it must be bought first. See Table 1: Age and Effects for the characteristics assosciated with age. House Minos is a minor house, and so the heir can have a maximum status of 3 and all other family members must have Status 2 or less. People who aren't members of the family can buy higher status, but any Status higher than four represents great fame and standing and must be well-explained.

After that you need to make some character background choices. First come up with a few major background events - participating in a battle, meeting someone famous, accomplishing some great deed, or something even smaller or greater. From there a goal, some tangible thing to accomplish, and motivation, why you want to. Then a virtue and vice or two to characterize your actions - are you charitable, friendly, courageous, dutiful, or something else? Are you vain, violent, shallow, hateful or greedy?

Buy Abilities
Characters get experience points to buy Abilities with according to their Age. Each Age also places a limit on any Ability's maximum rank: a Venerable character, for example, cannot have any Abilities over 5, whereas an Adult character can have an ability (or several, if they can afford it) at the highest possible rank,7, but not above.

All Abilities start at 2 for all characters, though certain Drawbacks can reduce them to 1. Additionally, a character may voluntarily reduce one Ability to 1 for 50 extra experience to purchase other skills (you cannot raise a skill reduce to 1 at all during character creation). Skills are purchased on a sliding scale: raising a skill by one (to 3) costs 10 exp, by two (to 4) costs 40, by three (to 5) costs 70, by four (to 6) costs 100, by five (to 7, the normal maximum) costs 130.

When purchasing Abilities, one must always buy Status first at the normal rate before any other skills are purchased. After Status one may buy any skills you want. Table 2: Skills and Specialities contains a list of all skills and their Specialties (Specialities are bought with separate points, so don't save this exp).

Buy Specialities
Specialities represent greater aptitude in a specific area of a broad Skill. They are brought up situationally - when fighting with a Long Blade like a bastard sword you would add any Long Blades bonus dice in Fighting, and when trying to run really fast you would add any Run dice to Athletics.

Specialities are similary bought by exp awarded according to age. Specialities are bought one bonus die (+B) at a time, and must be invested in specific Specializations - one does not invest exp in all Specialities of Athletics, just the one you choose (though you can certainly buy more than one type of Specialization in one Ability.  Each +B costs 10 exp and this cost does not change.  One can only have +B equal to or lesser than one's Ability rank.

For example, Nic Cage is a Middle Age and as such has 100 exp to spend on Specializations. He wants to be a good fighter with a sword and has Fighting 5. He cannot have more than +5B, so buys +3B on Long Blades (when he attacks with a sword weapon he will roll eight dice and drop three) which costs 30 exp of 100. He also wants to have a decent backup for foes in armour and so takes +2B in Bludgeoning, costing 20 exp. He has spent 50 Speciality exp and has 50 left to spend.

Destiny Points
Characters are awarded Destiny Points by Age. Older characters have burned their points throughout their lives and so start with fewer. There are three ways to use Destiny Points: spending them, burning them or investing them. You can spend or burn a Destiny Point at any time in game: spending a point gives you some small benefir such as a bonus to a roll, removal of a penalty dice or the ability to add something to a scene in a small way, whereas burning a point provides a major benefit like the removal of all penalty dice, a guaranteed success or the ability to change the story in a significant way. When a Destiny Point is spend it can be regained when accomplishing a significant personal or story goal or whenever else the DM feels appropriate. Burning a Destiny Point completely removes it from your total - it is an extreme last resort. Finally, one can invest a Destiny Point in an Advantage: a specific trait which provides some specific ability, such as unusual skill with a type of weapon, being the heir to a House or being skilled with numbers or languages.

Advantages are bought with Destiny Points, and a character can only have so many, as indicated by the 'Maximum Benefits' column of Table 1: Age and Effects. One Destiny Point buys one Advantage. Keep in mind that some central aspects of a character may be linked to an Advantage: being the heir of a house requires taking the Heir advantage, for example. A full list of Advantages can be found here: http://sifrp.wikispaces.com/file/view/benefits%26drawbacks.pdf.

Flaws and Drawbacks
Flaws are penalties towards a specific Ability. Every one Flaw imposes a -1D on an Ability,, so you will roll one less dice every time you test with that Ability. Characters of certain Ages beginning at Adult must have at least one Flaw of their own choosing. These Flaws can be made into any kind of background event which is appropriate.

Drawbacks are more serious disadvantages (like being born a bastard or being addicted to alcohol) which a character can take for more Destiny Points. Each Drawback taken confers one Destiny Point which contribute to their normal total (they can be spent, burned or invested), but no character can have more Drawbacks than Advantages. A full list of Drawbacks can be found here: http://sifrp.wikispaces.com/file/view/benefits%26drawbacks.pdf.

Starting Possessions
Unless your intention is to fight naked and unarmed, you should buy some equipment. Make a Status check (roll dice equal to your Status Ability score). The result is the number of gold dragons you start with. You must spend at least half of this starting total - it represents items you already own. You can keep whatever you do not spend (past this half-total limit). A complete list of equipment can be found here: []. A list of weapon and armour qualities is here: []. An explanation of weapon qualities and armour rules can be found starting on page 153 here: [].

Westerosi money is strange. The most common coins are copper pennies, silver stags and gold dragons. A silver stag is equal to 56 copper pennies, and a gold dragon is worth 210 silver stags or 11,760 copper pennies.

Derived Statistics
You're mostly done at this point! It's just filling in the rest of the character sheet from here.

Intrigue Statistics: Your Compuse is equal to Will x 3. Your Intrigue Defense is Awareness + Cunning + Status.

Combat Statistics: Combat Defense = Agility + Athletics + Awareness + Defensive Bonuses (from shields or off-hand Defensive weapons) - Armour Penalty. Your Health is Endurance x 3. Your Armour Rating (AR) is determined by the armour you wear - you resist this amount of damage each time you are struck. Your Damage depends on the weapon - most will be either Athletics or Agility + or - a number - say Agility +1 would equal your Agility Ability + 1.

Movement: Everyone's base movement is 4 yards. For every two bonus dice in Run (an Athletics Speciality) you add one yard to your base movement. For every two compete points of Bulk your armour has you reduce your speed by one yard.