Initial setup

As the Starks, you will be playing in the bottom half of the board. You'll notice your house card, with the gallant wolf symbol of the Starks. This is where you will place House power that you earn towards your win total (you need 15 combined power on your House and characters to win).

Above it is the plot deck. This is a set of seven plot cards, selected by you, but unknown to your opponent. You can look through these at any time, since you will choose when to reveal each plot. You can only have 1 copy of a plot in your plot deck (unless the plot specifies otherwise).

On the right side is your play deck. This deck consists of a minimum of 60 cards (although this rule may be waived if you are playing with Starter decks). These cards are characters, locations, attachments, and events. The order of your play deck is randomized - thoroughly shuffled, and perhaps cut by your opponent. You cannot look through your play deck during a game, unless a card specifically tells you to. You can only have 3 copies of any card in your play deck.

Your deck can contain out-of-house cards - such as a Lannister character - but no "House X" only cards, if "X" is not Stark.

Finally, leave space for a dead pile and a discard pile. These are empty right now, but don't worry - they'll fill up soon!