Narratives and Databases in Game of Thrones - Game Play: Paratextuality in Contemporary Board Games - page 144

Playing the seven kingdoms
Although Game of hrones as multiple franchises makes use of both database-like
and narrative-like structures, each paratextual game relies on one or the other
for its core game mechanic. he complexity at the heart of George R. R. Martin's
Game of hrones reveals the presence and power of connections, both familial
and regal. 14 At the same time, the serialized nature of the topic and ilm series
reveals the importance of narrative structure and seriality within the telling of
these connections. For both games, this complexity does not just occur through
the rules that players must understand in order to play, or the complicated
mechanics by which play occurs, but also through the interrelated connections
between the players, their social interaction, and the game system itself. As
Stewart Woods points out, “cross-pollination between diferent game media
may foster innovative interpersonal mechanics”; that is, diferent styles of player
interaction within a game can highlight the speciic database-like or serialized
characteristics that make a game unique within a larger ludic structure. 15
Database game play
A Game of hrones: he Board Game inds two to six players playing as diferent
Houses in Westeros. Each House is attempting to become the ruler of the seven
kingdoms of the country. To do this, each House must travel across the country
but must also balance their own stockpile of resources with those needed to
ight. Additionally, players can ally with other players, sharing in the spoils—but
also the losses—of war.
he Board Game mirrors its literary counterpart's complexity through its
simulation of the topics' construction of the backstory and history of Westeros.
In her narratological examination of Martin's Game of hrones , Ida Adi discusses
the complex storytelling within the series. She points out that the chapters are
seemingly unconnected, with unrelated plotlines, nonlinear storytelling, and
subjective point-of-view narration. Each chapter is told from the personal
standpoint of one particular character, inluencing the reader's available
information. 16 Since the character may not (and probably does not) have access
to knowledge elsewhere within the series, the reader is oten let to connect
multiple viewpoints into a coherent picture, synthesizing a database of possible
realities, a network of viewpoints, into one cohesive plotline. Each chapter adds
to a deepening database of information.