Is the Burning Wheel "how to play" advice useful for D&D?

[Celebrim]

At least half the rules in more inward-focused games drive making the character drivers visible to the GM and the table while at the same time giving everyone a common expectation of where play is likley to go and the effective level of difficulty to overcome the challenges.

Yes, but in doing so you risk turning what was intended(?) to be an emotional experience into a purely analytical experience potentially approachable as just another problem of system mastery like checking for traps or selecting the best tactical approach in a particular combat.

And as for, "I find they really help in helping me determine what scenes make sense, are engaging, and offer reasonable tension for the table.", it's never clear to me what formal mechanical markers provide that less formal markers like backstory writeups don't. If for example a player writes that he was dropped of in a monestary by his parents at a young age and never saw his parents again, and that his character has always wanted to know why, do I need something in the game called 'Beliefs' to tell me that the player is going to be engaged by clues to the secret in his backstory and the current location of his family?

 

[billd91]

And as for, "I find they really help in helping me determine what scenes make sense, are engaging, and offer reasonable tension for the table.", it's never clear to me what formal mechanical markers provide that less formal markers like backstory writeups don't. If for example a player writes that he was dropped of in a monestary by his parents at a young age and never saw his parents again, and that his character has always wanted to know why, do I need something in the game called 'Beliefs' to tell me that the player is going to be engaged by clues to the secret in his backstory and the current location of his family?

No, I don't think you need them in a formal sense. But there are times I think going through a process to define them is helpful for players and DMs alike. I still think Pendragon has one of the best systems for doing so with its personality inventories, passions, and loyalties. They can provide for some nice mechanical reinforcement for particularly notable scores or combinations of scores. And they translate over into D&D and PF very easily.

 

[Nagol]

Yes, but in doing so you risk turning what was intended(?) to be an emotional experience into a purely analytical experience potentially approachable as just another problem of system mastery like checking for traps or selecting the best tactical approach in a particular combat.

And as for, "I find they really help in helping me determine what scenes make sense, are engaging, and offer reasonable tension for the table.", it's never clear to me what formal mechanical markers provide that less formal markers like backstory writeups don't. If for example a player writes that he was dropped of in a monestary by his parents at a young age and never saw his parents again, and that his character has always wanted to know why, do I need something in the game called 'Beliefs' to tell me that the player is going to be engaged by clues to the secret in his backstory and the current location of his family?

As for the first, it is addressed like you addrress any other table convention -- by outlining expectations at the table level prior to play.

An effective backstory can be just as useful. The formal mechanism puts in place an effective 'minimum' for the backstory. Every character will have some aspects, beliefs, psych limits, relationships, and what-have-you that are known to the table and they are described in the same language and in many systems, describe the player's expectation for frequency of occurrance and severity of incidents.

 

[Celebrim]

No, I don't think you need them in a formal sense. But there are times I think going through a process to define them is helpful for players and DMs alike. I still think Pendragon has one of the best systems for doing so with its personality inventories, passions, and loyalties. They can provide for some nice mechanical reinforcement for particularly notable scores or combinations of scores. And they translate over into D&D and PF very easily.

It's good you bring up Pendragon, because it seems to me that Pendragon is concerned with something that BW doesn't put a lot of priority on. Pendragon seems to me to have all those passions and opposing personality traits because it wants to exert force on players to play their characters in ways that are contrary to their immediate player and character interests. BW in its orginal form seemed to be completely unconcerned with that, although I understand that its evolved into a system where it tries to encourage players to play against their characters immediate interests by trying to make it in the player interests to do so.

In this sense though, Pendragon's personality inventory and passions are playing a far stronger role in the game than beliefs or instincts. If you took Pendragon and gutted it by removing personality and passions mechanically, did an informal marker of those things by a back story write up and then just asked to players to adhere if they liked to what they thought thier character would do in that situation, it seems to me that the game would play very very differently (if at all). But if you gutted BW, and removed an inventory of beliefs and instincts, did informal marker of those things by a backstory writeup, and asked players to adhere if they liked to what they thought thier character would do in that situation, it seems to me that the impact on the game would be much much smaller because BW's beliefs, instincts and the like are much much closer to be merely running a highlighter through your backstory to bring out the important points than they are to Pendragon's mechanics.

Can anyone with strong experience with both systems comment on that?

 

[Celebrim]

As for the first, it is addressed like you addrress any other table convention -- by outlining expectations at the table level prior to play.

On the spectrum of 'System Matters' to 'System Doesn't Matter', I'm a lot closer to the later than the former because Mechanics != Aesthetics, rather Mechanics => Dynamics => Aesthetics. However, even I wouldn't say system matters that little. If you created a 'social combat' mechanic that was sufficiently intricate and objective you could concievably resolve all RP mechanically without recourse to IC verbalization. In such a system, you could add IC verbalization on top of the system, but it would be purely optional color - no more important to the system than describing speaking IC as the pawn or bishop in a game of chess. In such a case, I don't think you could convince me that the system wasn't tending to force the aesthetics of play in a particular direction away from emmersion in the scene and towards emmersion in the game mechanics. Simply saying to the players in this case, "I expect you to offer up RP in social scenes" doesn't strongly change the experience of play toward a natural Turku interaction if 5 minutes of dialogue involves 20 dice rolls and 20 declarations of game rule intent.

This is what I think am181d means by saying, "I don't want rules for that."

An effective backstory can be just as useful. The formal mechanism puts in place an effective 'minimum' for the backstory.

If pemerton doesn't blow his fuse reading that, then I don't think he's paying attention anymore.

 

[pemerton]

the Burning Wheel would suggest either not littering the landscape with things that the players are going to ignore, or more to the point, make it so that the players want to pay attention to it.

I always see Instincts and Beliefs almost like an adventure "wish list." You should be able to see what kind of game and story the players are hoping for. Is there a character that lives to root out and destroy the undead? Someone who races to the defense of helpless people at almost any cost? Someone hunting for a powerful magical staff that was lost somewhere in the nearby area?

There's nothing about that sentence that would prevent you from dangling hooks in front of your players, it's just telling you to make sure that the hook is baited with things that they'd bite at.

I'd suggest Beliefs allow the player to launch directly into action without the GM saying anything or offering anything beyond what was established by the group during set-up. Play can be driven by pro-activity or reactivity on the part of the players. I read the BW statement as a call for players to be pro-active from the very start of Act 1 Scene 1, and for GMs to react, to make them fight for what they believe.

Interesting exchange.

I think that what Nytmare describes can be reasonably easily done in D&D (at least 4e). What chaochou describes, not so easily, because the game doesn't have enough robustness at the initial set-up phase. Even if the players send their signals in set up, they rely on the GM to introduce the particular story elements (especially antagonists) against which they react. This is escpecially because 4e means that a PC's relationships, positioning etc are likely to be defined by reference to cosmological elements that a 1st level PC can't really hope to confront directly.

 

[pemerton]

If pemerton doesn't blow his fuse reading that, then I don't think he's paying attention anymore.

Why would I blow a fuse at what [MENTION=23935]Nagol[/MENTION] said?

I'm pretty sure I described upthread the approach I used in my 4e game to get an effective minimum - at least one loyalty, and at least one reason to be ready to fight goblins.

And I don't think it's a coincidence that it was with (1st ed AD&D) Oriental Adventures that I first really found my feet as a GM - it has mechanisms, like the family generation rules and the martial artist master rules, that impose a minmum for backstory.

 

[Manbearcat]

So I know this thread kinda petered out, but anyway, here's a statement from Burning Wheel:

"Nothing happens in the game world that doesn't involve a player character."

What is being stated and what is being implied by that statement? Would adhering to that statement cause a change in your game?

The statement makes perfect sense in a game that puts ethos mechanics (mechanical resolution and character progression) squarely at the center of its design space. The primary order of business is testing characters' convictions and putting them under pressure to reconsider when the utilitarian, pragmatic route may be yield a more accessible route to the immediate sought end. Essentially, if you don't care about serial, story coherency, the GM or a player (in the case of a player authored bang/opener to the scene) can compose any number of borderline disconnected, ethos-centered vignettes in succession. I wouldn't recommend it (I've done it in practice as an evening of training exercise for new players), but its doable. A "living, breathing world" need not exist.

I think one of the main ways that "system matters" is in the robustness of the resolution systems and the contest mechanics; especially with respect to the "win or loss condition and character and story progression".

- Robust combat mechanics when dealing with violent opposition
- Robust humanity/sanity/horror mechanics when dealing with the occult or supernatural
- Robust ethos mechanics when dealing with tests of faith, conviction, belief
- Robust social, investigation, or exploration mechanics during non-combat resolution

There is a gamist inclination in many (most?) gamers that inclines them toward being pro-active when their engaging and interacting with the various facet of games will reward them with a legitimate, codified contest and transparent resolution to that contest based on their own acumen/merits. D&D has wargame roots and a corresponding evolution, has always had robust combat mechanics and PC build tools centered primarily on combat resolution, especially with respect to other resolution mechanics. I suspect that if its cultural genesis and evolution involved much more robust humanity and ethos testing and non-combat resolution mechanics (and corresponding PC build tools and progression paths) that D&D (and its overarching culture) would be a different beast than it is today.

 

[Nagol]

On the spectrum of 'System Matters' to 'System Doesn't Matter', I'm a lot closer to the later than the former because Mechanics != Aesthetics, rather Mechanics => Dynamics => Aesthetics. However, even I wouldn't say system matters that little. If you created a 'social combat' mechanic that was sufficiently intricate and objective you could concievably resolve all RP mechanically without recourse to IC verbalization. In such a system, you could add IC verbalization on top of the system, but it would be purely optional color - no more important to the system than describing speaking IC as the pawn or bishop in a game of chess. In such a case, I don't think you could convince me that the system wasn't tending to force the aesthetics of play in a particular direction away from emmersion in the scene and towards emmersion in the game mechanics. Simply saying to the players in this case, "I expect you to offer up RP in social scenes" doesn't strongly change the experience of play toward a natural Turku interaction if 5 minutes of dialogue involves 20 dice rolls and 20 declarations of game rule intent.

This is what I think am181d means by saying, "I don't want rules for that."



If pemerton doesn't blow his fuse reading that, then I don't think he's paying attention anymore.

As for the first, it is addressed like you address any other table convention -- by outlining expectations at the table level prior to play.

My comment was meant to reflect char-op system activity -- that a modicum of restraint in design in much the same way restraint is design is shown in terms of D&D character builds. In many ways it is simpler as the systems that focus on strong character internal motivation have few splat books bringing in new material and the material that is presented usually has the player able to dictate how frequently and the severity of the built-in hooks will appear and is compensated appropriately. There are fewer world assumptions built in that can be creatively exercised.

I'm a huge "System Matters" guy too -- that's why I play so many different systems. Mechanics stress different behaviours, focus on different aspects of world interaction, and provide opportunity for different levers to affect player action. These differences drive different dynamics from the individual players and the group dynamic.

Strands of Fate effectively uses the same engine for interpersonal conflicts and combat. It can result in a player taking a 3rd-person voice for the combat, but it doesn't require it. It does tend to break the conversation/debate into 'rounds' or activity.

 

[Campbell]

I'm really not sure why 'Let it ride' should be treated any differently from 'roll x d6, count 4-6 as a success'. Both are just as easy to ignore in play. Both are going to have a dramatic effect on play dynamics.

The purpose of RPG material is to set expectations for play. It is all a presentation of a particular play aesthetic. They're selling us on an approach to play. Mechanics only exist in our head space. They can be changed on a whim. That does not mean they have no value. They are part and parcel of the social contract that binds a group together. Players divest a GM with a certain amount of authority and the play group as a whole divest a certain amount of authority to the game as a whole. No authority exists without being granted.

The value of mechanics, settings, etc. is that they all help instruct a group and form the assumptions of play. This is valuable because otherwise we would have to negotiate a lot more of the social contract on our own and can help us develop new approaches to play. Of course if you play Burning Wheel exactly like you play D&D it will feel like D&D. If you ignore beliefs, let it ride, say yes or roll the dice, the way wises are meant to play, Elven Grief, Dwarven Greed, Human Faith, and Steel Burning Wheel will resemble any traditional RPG, albiet one with a trivial game-able advancement system. You'll also have gutted it.

Presentation is important. Resolution mechanics are a piece of presentation.