Grading the Burning Wheel System

[pemerton]

This one has garnered a V-shaped distribution, with a good number of loves and goods, and a fair number of bads, with fewer in the middle ground. In many ways I'm not surprised, given that it is a system whose gameplay runs quite differently than the 'typical' (ie D&D-like) RPG.

One comment earlier in the thread said that Burning Wheel needs a partial success rule; I very much agree with this. However, with FoRKing, help, artha, etc, you can usually get success by leveraging resources. In these kinds of games, each player is a mini-GM, and they have their own little pool of resources they can use to sculpt the situation their character is in. When viewed at like this, Burning Wheel is very much a story co-creator game, and less a "traditional" RPG.

I think we should be cautious of buying into too narrow a conception of what is "typical" or "traditional". I was trying stuff with PC backgrounds and backstories, and framing situations around those, in the early 1990s. It didn't always work, and my vehicle - Rolemaster - was manifestly not as suitable for the task as Burning Wheel.

In the roleplaying club that I was part of at that time, the RM group was regarded as very "serious", but not as freaks or anything. I see a system like BW as taking aspirations for rich, character-oriented RPGing to a further level of possibility. But not as a departure from or repudiation of all that was going on before.

 

[Campbell]

I think we should be cautious of buying into too narrow a conception of what is "typical" or "traditional". I was trying stuff with PC backgrounds and backstories, and framing situations around those, in the early 1990s. It didn't always work, and my vehicle - Rolemaster - was manifestly not as suitable for the task as Burning Wheel.

In the roleplaying club that I was part of at that time, the RM group was regarded as very "serious", but not as freaks or anything. I see a system like BW as taking aspirations for rich, character-oriented RPGing to a further level of possibility. But not as a departure from or repudiation of all that was going on before.

This. The more traditional games my home group runs and plays are still extraordinarily player character centered.

 

[Shardstone]

I think we should be cautious of buying into too narrow a conception of what is "typical" or "traditional". I was trying stuff with PC backgrounds and backstories, and framing situations around those, in the early 1990s. It didn't always work, and my vehicle - Rolemaster - was manifestly not as suitable for the task as Burning Wheel.

In the roleplaying club that I was part of at that time, the RM group was regarded as very "serious", but not as freaks or anything. I see a system like BW as taking aspirations for rich, character-oriented RPGing to a further level of possibility. But not as a departure from or repudiation of all that was going on before.

Traditional in my abovr usage indicates dnd style play, nothing more.

 

[Campbell]

Traditional in my abovr usage indicates dnd style play, nothing more.

Makes sense. I tend to most closely associate the trad label with 1990s "story" focused game designs like Ars Magica, 7th Sea, Legend of the Five Rings, Vampire, Shadowrun, et al. Heavy on metaplot, linear scenario design, factions, stronger focus on individual characters (PCs and NPCs) than classic D&D. D&D settings that also fit that mold include Planescape, Ravenloft, Darksun and a decent amount of later Forgotten Realms stuff. The play culture I grew up in.

I tend to view Vampire: The Masquerade as sort of peak trad.

 

[Old Fezziwig]

Burning Wheel is my favorite RPG of all time, hands down. I don't have much to add that hasn't already been said, but, in reading through the other posts, the suggestion that the game needs partial success rules is a little confusing to me.

The base rules in the Spokes discourage simple failures in favor of the introduction of complications. If a player succeeds at a test, her character achieves her intent in the manner described, regardless of margin of success — if the intent and task are, to use the book's example, picking the lock before the guards arrive, the character picks the lock before the guards arrive. If a player fails a test, her character fails to achieve her intent but may complete the task — the character picks the lock as the guards arrive. Other results could be used, too, depending on how we wanted to parse things or what the broader situation is. For instance, maybe the character picks the lock slightly ahead of the guards, but the guards get a look at her face, so they know who's picked the lock. These would both be partial successes and are implementable in the rules as written. Is it more that these read as partial failures rather than partial successes or is there something else going on here? For folks looking for partial success rules, what would that look like?

 

[pemerton]

the suggestion that the game needs partial success rules is a little confusing to me.

The base rules in the Spokes discourage simple failures in favor of the introduction of complications.

I had exactly the same thought. We're fully ad idem.

 

[Theory of Games]

Big fat "F".

 

[soviet]

I've never played it but I have several iterations of it (BW2, BE, Mouse Guard) and find them fascinating in terms of both game design and also product design. I took some inspiration from it when designing my own game and Let it Ride is certainly a key tenet of my play now. One day I will have to run this for my group, probably Mouse Guard but Torchbearer sounds very interesting too.

 

[WayneLigon]

I played BW Classic twice - the first campaign where I was a roguish sort was a lot of fun, even if we did manage to collapse the Roman Empire and decided to ride East until we found people that didn't even know what Latin was. The second game was an unending grind because I tried to play a human who could us magic which is basically impossible - if you're not an elf or dwarf, it ain't happening. Also, being an elf or dwarf means you start out like five times better than anyone else.

Mouse Guard is one of my favorite game ever and I love it.

 

[MuhVerisimilitude]

Anyone willing to give an explanation for how it differs from more traditional systems like D&D?

Edit: I am aware that it is very different, but all I know is that it doesn't do tactical combat D&D style, for example and there seems to be no "skill system" either.