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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 9790043" data-attributes="member: 42582">Burning Wheel has its first version a bit over 20 years ago - I don't have a copy. The version that brought it to prominence is Revised (2004). But since then there have been two more iterations - Gold (2011) and Gold Revised (2019). It's that last version that falls within a modern/contemporary timespan.Torchbearer - by the same authors/designers, and a close cousin in terms of system - has its first version around 2012 or so (I don't have a copy, and my Google skills let me down a bit) and its 2e in 2021.They are not d20 games. The underlying design concepts come mostly out of The Forge. But they have detailed skill systems (BW is more detailed than TB), social precedence/hierarchies (implemented a bit differently in each), combat resolution with blind declaration and simultaneous resolution that includes choices between attack and defence, hit locations (in BW; TB is a bit more abstract in this respect, but does have debilitating conditions in the form of Exhausted, Injured and Sick), armour wear-and-tear, exhaustion from spell casting, fatigue from travel (this is a bit more abstract in BW, but very procedural in TB - TB is the only game I know where fairly simple rules lead to PCs wearing out their shoes while travelling), rules for training, etc. TB also has weather rules (that integrate with its travel rules), rules for economic development of settlements, and very important rules for loadout and consumption of equipment/supplies.In terms of overall tone, BW is - in my experience - more serious and intense; TB is not always a laugh in play (in my session last Sunday one player had his head in his hands, saying over to himself "It's just a game" - as his PC was being hosed by something-or-other), but the overall tone is a bit more light-hearted and ironic than BW (I think of it as The Hobbit compared to BW's LotR or Silmarillion).I've got a lengthy TB2e actual play thread here: <a href="https://www.enworld.org/threads/torchbearer-2e-actual-play-of-this-awesome-system.691233/" target="_blank">Torchbearer 2e - actual play of this AWESOME system! (+)</a>And you can read some BW actual play here <<a href="https://www.enworld.org/threads/burning-wheel-actual-play.673872/" target="_blank">Burning Wheel actual play</a>>, here <<a href="https://www.enworld.org/threads/burning-wheel-actual-play.680804/" target="_blank">Burning Wheel actual play</a>> and here <<a href="https://www.enworld.org/threads/played-burning-wheel-today.701843/" target="_blank">Played Burning Wheel today</a>>. (The game in that second and third link is a bit of a departure from the norm, in that me and my friend are both players and GMs - during the session I take the job of framing the scenes/adversity for his PC, and vice versa. Because BW doesn't rely very much on GM prep and "secrets", this works more smoothly than it probably would in typical D&D play.)There are aspects of BW and TB that are different from classic simulationist RPGs (like RM and RQ) - for instance, there are "meta-currencies" (Fate and Persona) that are fully integrated into the play of the game. Why I think of them as having meaningful simulationist aspects is (i) all the rules elements I mentioned above, and (ii) the way the game uses these rules elements to make the fiction come to life in vivid, and often also gritty, detail. I already mentioned the shoes in Torchbearer, just as one example from that game; one of the links above to BW play has my PC Aedhros finding a burning brand in the fireplace so he can sneak through the tavern in the night, and that process of resolution makes the fireplace in the tavern (an otherwise minor detail) have a salience that is different and more "intimate" to play than just the GM narrating the colour but it not actually mattering to play.Hopefully this all makes some sense!</blockquote>

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