Game Rules
One thing years of role playing has taught us is that no matter what style of play we each enjoy, regulation is inversely proportional to fun. The more rules there are, the less fun people seem to have, largely because memorizing and enforcing rules is the last thing that anyone wants to do in their free time.
So with that in mind, we're happy to tell you that there's just one rule in A Game of Thrones, and that is to remain in character at all times; Something we tend to think of as the "ONE rule" because everything else naturally falls into place when players obey this rule. As a consequence, we need not draw up a litany of do's and don'ts for you to memorize and for DMs and administrators to enforce.
Stay in character. It's that simple.
Also, checkout the downloads section to make sure you have everything you need to play.
Point Buy System
A point buy system is used to determine ability scores during character creation. The system is based on points rather than random dice rolls, and is intended to produce a fair and balanced play environment, something BioWare considered very important for a multiplayer game of this nature.
A character starts with an ability score of 8 in each of his six abilities, and then draws upon a pool of 30 points to raise these abilities. (An exception is made for characters that can cast spells, though, as described later.) Initially, the cost to increment (raise by 1) a score is 1 point. However, as an ability score is raised above 14, it becomes more expensive to raise it further; it costs 2 points to increment a score to 15 or 16, and 3 points to increment it to 17 or 18.
| Table: Point Buy Costs |
|
| Bought ability score |
8 |
9 |
10 |
11 |
12 |
13 |
14 |
15 |
16 |
17 |
18 |
| Incremental cost |
0 |
1 |
1 |
1 |
1 |
1 |
1 |
2 |
2 |
3 |
3 |
| Cumulative cost |
0 |
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
8 |
10 |
13 |
16 |
|
There is a danger in trying to make too many scores "exceptional", as the increased costs can leave insufficient points to get acceptable scores in the other abilities. For example, starting with one ability score at 18 and one at 17 (which cost 16 and 13 points, respectively) leaves but a single point to spend on the remaining four abilities.
A uniform distribution of the 30 points among the six abilities results in a score of 13 for each ability. However, since even scores are often preferable to odd, this is more of a baseline for those planning a character's ability distribution than something to actually use. For those willing (or desiring) to "dump" one ability, another convenient baseline is that a uniform distribution among five abilities results in five ability scores of 14 and one of 8.
Racial modifiers are added after the points are spent. So, for example, an elf spending 13 points on dexterity would have a starting dexterity score of 8 + 9 (point buy) + 2 (racial modifier) = 19.
