Nobles and smallfolk alike can participate in a variety of pastimes for their entertainment.
Children play with toys (e.g., puppets, barrel hoops, blocks, carved wooden statues, and dolls) or play a variety of games. Noble-born children, especially when they grow older, are expected to train in several skills for their entertainment as well as for general education. Both boys and girls learn to ride horses. Girls are taught womanly arts, which include sewing, embroidering, dancing, singing, writing poetry, or playing musical instruments (e.g., the high harp or the bells). From a certain age and onwards, boys begin to train in martial skills. Usually starting at a young age, boys are trained with spear, sword, and shield. Younger boys train with wooden swords. By the time boys are twelve, they have often been training at arms for years.
Places adults might like to visit for their entertainment include taverns and brothels. Most nobles are literate, and therefore might prefer to spend their times reading books. Nobles might prefer to sail for their pleasure, or simply take a horse ride, sometimes to pick flowers or feast outdoors. Both adults and children, noble and smallfolk, enjoy swimming in lakes, rivers, pools, and moats
Games
Westerosi children's games include come-into-my-castle, monsters-and-maidens, hide-the-treasure, hopfrog, spin-the-sword, and rats and cats. Popular among children from House Frey formerly of the Twins is the game lord of the crossing, named for the title held by the head of House Frey.
Children in Meereen play a game involving sitting in a circle and taking turns to spin a dagger. When it stops, they cut off a lock of hair from whoever the dagger is pointing at. Barristan Selmy recalls a similar game he played with his cousins at Harvest Hall in Westeros when he was a boy, except it involved kissing.
The finger dance is a game played by the ironborn of the Iron Islands, and involves throwing a hand axe which must be caught or leaped over without missing a step. The game is named for the fact that it usually ends with a dancer losing one or more of his fingers.
Cyvasse is a board game of military strategy originating from Volantis. It is also played in Lys, and since roughly 299 AC has been present in Westeros, after a trading galley from Volantis introduced the game in Dorne, from where it was spread. The game came to King's Landing in 300 AC.
Hunting
Both male and female nobles might hunt for sport. Men might like to hunt a large variety of animals, like boar, aurochs, or deer. Hunting hounds might be used. When hunting boar, a boarspear is needed, as well as horses and dogs, and men to flush the boar from its lair. Women do not generally join such hunting parties.
Both men and women can practice a more specific form of hunting: falconry (frequently called "hawking"), "the sport of hunting with falcons, hawks, eagles, or other birds of prey". Nobles might own a falcon or a hawk of their own.
Hunts can be dangerous, and accidents during a hunt are common enough that they might be faked in order to assassinate someone. Although hawking is much safer, deathly accidents still occur. Lord Luthor Tyrell rode off a cliff whilst hawking, while Lady Rhea Royce suffered a lethal wound when she was thrown off her horse whilst hawking.
Combat
Popular in Westeros are tourneys, chivalrous competitions where men compete against one another either in a joust, a melee, an archery competition. The format and rules used during a tourney can vary between different regions in Westeros, demonstrating the desires of the hosting lord. Westerosi additionally participate in bear-baiting and boar-baiting. Rat pits are also popular in the slum districts of major cities such as King's Landing and Oldtown, though bulls and dogs also often fight in the pits.
The Ghiscari cities in Slaver's Bay prefer to watch gladiatorial combats in the fighting pits. These pits can be found in at least Astapor and Meereen. Within these pits, the both male and female pit fighters battle either one another, or an animal, until one dies. Additionally, children might be made to fights against wild animals.
Gambling
Other pastimes include gambling, like playing at dice or tiles. The latter can be three-sided. However, bets can be placed upon anything, including the outcome of a tournament.
Mummers and music
Mummers, singers, and puppeteers often travel from place to place in Westeros and Essos. While singers often travel alone, mummers and puppeteers travel in troupes, performing their acts wherever they go. Places located more remotely, like Winterfell or Bear Island, might not be visited by traveling entertainment for years or seasons on end. Traveling singers, called "wandering singers", rarely travel far north. Tourneys and weddings can attract mummer troupes and singers. Additionally, mummers, singers, and puppeteers can find service with a lord or lady.
Some mummer groups prefer to perform from a fixed location (e.g., the Blue Lantern and the Dome, two mummers' playhouses in Braavos, and the mummers' hall in White Harbor). At least in the mummers' playhouses in Braavos, the mummers play out written stories, instead of making up farces.
In Essos, mummer troupes might contain enslaved mummers. These slaves can buy themselves free once they have gained enough wealth.