On the GOOGLE+ community Literary Role Playing Game Society, our Friend, Vb Wyrde from Ethos RPG made an interesting comment the other day in regards to Game of Thrones, I responded and have decided that I want to keep this response for future reference as I feel that this is a good summary of my current thoughts in regards to game design. Click here for direct quote.

The Gamemaster can write the past, but the players write the present. The future belongs to the dice and cause & effect. The Gamemaster can influence the present, just like the player can influence the past with good ideas but when a DM tries to write all of it then they aren't playing the game.

The story is a bi-product of play. Our brains just do that. We put stuff in order. We make order from chaos. With that said, I think that one of the game's strengths in regard to the medium is that one can lose, one can lose big! And while a computer would shut the game down, the movie would grind to a halt, the table-top RPG keeps going, and will probably be more interesting because of the loss.

Game of Thrones is a magnificent muse for a homebrewed setting. An excellent example of Feudalism at work, the mythology of the land, the cities, and the ruling houses . . . specifically the mythology of the noble houses. This isn't anything that I've ever thought of doing before!

Hell, I would say that how they present Knights is a game changer too. In the past, all of my knights were based on Lancelot, a knight who failed, betraying his king, his family, and himself.

Watching it, and marveling at the world they built. We can do that. Making our NPCs more effective, especially in terms of back ground movement.

I think that many of us base our games on the legends of King Arthur, but this was a cautionary tale. Arthur and everyone in it failed. The politics implied aren't all that well defined. I think that Game of Thrones provides a much stronger picture of life in a feudal society.