Explain Burning Wheel to me

[Lonely Tylenol]

As for the rest of you, I saw the "I don't like the tone of the BW supporters" crack being flung around up there. It's a weak attack guys, and can easily be tossed back in your collective lap. Someone asked what the big deal was with BW and Dave, a supporter of BW, showed the chutzpah to take you d20-heads to task. Cut him a little slack. He's trying to help.

I'm willing to give BW a chance, but if I wanted this kind of crap arguing I'd go over to The Forge and troll the message boards until they flamed me to death. I don't think Let It Ride is innovative, and trying to pick apart the syntax of my sentences isn't going to change my mind about it. It's not chutzpah. It's just being bitchy.

Anyway, you can try to convince me that BW is the best thing since sliced bread, and I'll listen, but I'm done with that Dave character. That kind of poster is what drove me off usenet ages ago.

So anyway, why should I play your game?

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

I could run a superhero game using D&D. It'd probably be pretty fun. But I chose to use M&M instead. I could run my modern legends (Indiana Jones meets Legend of Zelda) game with D&D, but I chose Grim Tales instead. I could run my Destructive James Bond Misfits game in D&D, but I chose spycraft instead. I bet there's a stack of ENnie award winning games that could be run in D&D. And I bet it'd be a shame to overlook them or talk down to them just because 'D&D can do that'.

Am I the only one that thinks it's weird that all the alternatives to D&D mentioned are games based on the OGL?

 

[Jim Hague]

Am I the only one that thinks it's weird that all the alternatives to D&D mentioned are games based on the OGL?

It's a bit odd, yeah. No mention of WFRP, Runequest...I think I saw HeroQuest back there a bit...

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

One thing I definitely can't help but notice is the equalization of GM and player - almost to the point of sounding antagonistic about any possible authority of the GM over the other players. My philosophy is that a fair, but finally-authoritative, GM works better than Burning Wheel's approach. "Round-Robin D&D", something that forum member "der Kluge" introduced me to, is very similar in style, in that it is a collaborative story approach, but where the GM still retains story-setting power, but that power is shared in cyclic manner with all players at the table. While fun, it was very mentally draining, as I had to keep track of the story facets that ALL DM's introduced. To do that on a regular basis via Burning Wheel is something that I don't find as fun.

The draw of Donjon is that this kind of "round-robin" style goes on in every session, and is in fact the basis of the central task resolution mechanic. The short version is: if you succeed at a task, you dictate the outcome. If you fail, the GM does. Your level of success determines how much you get to say about the outcome. So the game is wildly improvisational, which takes some getting used to, but ends up being a lot of fun once you get your head around the possibilities.

The acme example from the game for this kind of system is "searching for secret doors". If you have the "find secret doors" skill, you can attempt to search for a secret door in any location. If you succeed, there's a secret door, and you can maybe add in some other important details if you succeed by a large margin. If you fail, there isn't, and maybe something crappy happened to you while you were searching.

 

[Jim Hague]

The draw of Donjon is that this kind of "round-robin" style goes on in every session, and is in fact the basis of the central task resolution mechanic. The short version is: if you succeed at a task, you dictate the outcome. If you fail, the GM does. Your level of success determines how much you get to say about the outcome. So the game is wildly improvisational, which takes some getting used to, but ends up being a lot of fun once you get your head around the possibilities.

The acme example from the game for this kind of system is "searching for secret doors". If you have the "find secret doors" skill, you can attempt to search for a secret door in any location. If you succeed, there's a secret door, and you can maybe add in some other important details if you succeed by a large margin. If you fail, there isn't, and maybe something crappy happened to you while you were searching.

So it's round-robin combined with the Dramatic Editing mechanic from Adventure!, but is success-based instead of resource-based?

 

[lukzu]

Tinner, my man!

You asked if the goal of BW is to get the mechanics out of the way in favor of good story telling. Couldn't be further from the truth. The goal of BW's system is to support an intense and conflict ridden narrative -- driving players to make more and more difficult and cool choices in a spiral of escalating conflict. Rather than leaving those decisions up to the personal judgement of one player, BW builds that structure right into every game. Like I said originally, you can do these things in any game. But in BW there are mechanics and rules to reward and support this behavior -- so this is very much what the game is about.

Awkward,
I've got nothing on sliced bread. But I do think BW is one of the best fantasy games out there. Why should you play? Seems like you've got a lot of experience will smaller, more focused cutting edge games. If you're looking for something a bit more broad and expansive, but still in the same neighborhood as My Life With Master or Donjon, then you might consider giving BW a try.

Awkward,
Beliefs are designed to change! If you're Belief is challenged and you back off, you don't get rewarded. If you don't want to play that Belief any more -- if you want to be rewarded in a different way -- you can change your Belief. Even better, if your Belief is challenged and you dramatically play against your Belief, you get a fatter, juicier award. The system encourages and rewards all sorts of dramatic play.

Henry,
I don't quite understand the round robin GM thing and how it equates to BW. BW is very traditional in its structure: GM who controls NPCs and sets the specific challenges, players who control their characters to overcome their challenges.

The difference is in the set up. The players and the GM collaborate to set up the adventure. They do this by designing the characters' Beliefs. This way, you're certain that you're going to get what you want because the game is going to be about your character and your priorities. Again, you can do this in other traditional fantasy games, but it isn't explicit and it certainly isn't rewarded. By building it into the explicit mechanics, we get more fun per time unit.

sorry if I didn't get to your question, you kids are crazy.
-L

 

[Dave Turner]

I don't own the DMG, but I'd be very surprised if there was not some variation of Rule 1 in there. You know what Rule 1 is, right?

Sure, it's the Rule that says you should make up your own rules if you don't like the ones in the book.

That always makes me ask, though: if I have to make up the rules that I need to enjoy your game, then why did I need you in the first place? Why didn't you get it right?

I think that I would use Let It Ride in DnD by having a character make a single d20 roll, and using that roll for each check. Multiple sneak checks (or hide/move silently checks) for getting into and out of the orc camp. Like taking 10, only it might not be 10 that the character rolls.

Great idea, but that wouldn't really be Letting It Ride because you keep applying the single check to variable difficulties. In Burning Wheel, you would just figure out what (in D&D terms) the highest DC the character would face throughout the infiltration and have him roll against that DC. If he makes that roll, it would be assumed that he also made the roll against all lower DCs he might face. If he fails, then he will fail somewhere along the way (perhaps wherever it is most fun to have him do so).

I like having the map and playing it all out -- the more detailed, the better! I don't want to make a single roll and summarize a major chunk of the story. I want to be watching through my character's eyes as he slips behind THIS tent, ducks under the eyes of THAT guard, has to deal with finding some horses tied up HERE, etc. That IS the adventure!

That's perfectly understandable and legitimate way to approach the game. I believe that Let It Ride is meant to counteract the inevitable bad luck that your detailed approach to the game would entail.

I assume that you want to make multiple rolls at various stages of the infiltration? The question is how you are approaching the goal of infiltration. Why is your character infiltrating the camp? Your description makes it sound like the infiltration is the climax of the story, filled with tension. If that's the case then, as Luke suggests, you can roll for every step you take. But understand that with every roll you take, you increase the probablity that you are going to fail a roll.

Failing rolls isn't bad. It's actually good, since it injects drama into the story. What Let It Ride is meant to do is to try to avoid "triggering drama at the wrong time". If you fail the very first Sneak roll into the camp, then there's a good chance that you've blown your chances of achieving the goal for which you are infiltrating (wow, that's a crazy sentence). Characters are rarely infiltrating places just for the sake of infiltration. There's a goal in mind: steal the war plans, rescue your comrades, eavesdrop on an important conversation. Failing a roll halfway to the goal of infiltration might needlessly distract the players from the building story. I'm starting to ramble a bit, but do you see where I'm going?

I think part of the problem is that Dave Turner said BW has mechanics tied into player goals, when I think maybe he meant player-stated *character* goals.

Yeah, I confused things with some sloppy language, but tried to correct that with this from post #49:

If I state that my character's goal is to "Kill every filthy orc I see", then it's obvious that the player doesn't have that goal. For one thing, orcs don't exist. But the player defines a character's goals and, in some sense, shares the character's goals. A goal like that indicates that the player wants opportunities in the game to kill filthy orcs. That is something that the player wants to happen the game; it's a player goal.

 

[jdrakeh]

You're that incapable of discussion, eh?

Nope - I'm perfectly open to discussion but I didn't see a lot of that going on here. I saw (as I always do in Forge versus The World threads) a lot of "Your favorite game suxxorz! My Forge game roxxorz!" diatribe (and as usual, most of the 'suxxorz' complaints were completely baseless.

What's funny is that I don't play D&D 3x or other d20 games on a regular basis (no, really) - but even I know about the 'Take 10' rule and the crazy amount of mechanical support for tactical gaming (not just tactical combat, mind you) that is built into the system. Dave, who claims to possess an intimate familiarity with the D&D RAW, apparently didn't know about either of these things until they were mentioned in this thread.

And this is why I'm dropping out of the thread - discussion I can handle, but the one-sided denigration of other games that the detractor does not even understand the basic principles of? That's not discussion, Luke. I think you know better. If you want to discuss The Burning Wheel based on its own merits as opposed to adopting the 'It's better than...' platform, we'll talk.

[Note: For the record, I don't think you a prick at all. I've had enough civil conversations with you in the past about Burning Wheel to know that the whole 'openly attack others from the soapbox of intellectual superiority' stance is new for you. In fact, when I read the troll over on RPGnet, I thought (at first) that somebody may have hi-jacked your userid. If you've finally embraced the ideal of 'Better than you! Nyah! Nyah! Nyah!' in earnest, then that's too bad. I kind of liked you as a normal guy with a good idea.]

 

[Henry]

I don't quite understand the round robin GM thing and how it equates to BW. BW is very traditional in its structure: GM who controls NPCs and sets the specific challenges, players who control their characters to overcome their challenges.

However, I don't think I've ever seen a game that accuses GM's of cheating; usually, if a GM adds to or takes away some of the rolling challenge to either challenge the group more or cut them a break, that's called, "challenging your players." Now, I've run into some players lately that just plain don't trust their gamemasters, and it's a behavior I can't understand (maybe because I've read all of the D&D resources from the 1970's till now, and I took to heart the parts about "being impartial" and avoiding "monty hauling" or "killer DM'ing"). All of my games and groups have given the GM final authority on all matters of rules, and have never suffered because of it; only rarely have I had games that no fun was had by all, and even the crappy games have had their own fun moments (manufactured by the players if all else fails).

The difference is in the set up. The players and the GM collaborate to set up the adventure. They do this by designing the characters' Beliefs. This way, you're certain that you're going to get what you want because the game is going to be about your character and your priorities. Again, you can do this in other traditional fantasy games, but it isn't explicit and it certainly isn't rewarded. By building it into the explicit mechanics, we get more fun per time unit.

I understand the goal, but how does it work with relation to all the other players? What happens when a problem player raises his head who hogs the spotlight on one roll? Does the GM still have the authority to ensure the game runs smoothly by diverting the spotlight to other players? One thing that strikes me is that this game would not do well for the tacticians, butt-kickers, lone wolves, and power gamers that Robin Laws talks about, unless the GM steps up the challenges faced. You may have an example that corrects me, of course, it's just what I'm seeing.

 

[Dave Turner]

What's funny is that I don't play D&D 3x or other d20 games on a regular basis (no, really) - but even I know about the 'Take 10' rule and the crazy amount of mechanical support for tactical gaming (not just tactical combat, mind you) that is built into the system. Dave, who claims to possess an intimate familiarity with the D&D RAW, apparently didn't know about either of these things until they were mentioned in this thread.

I did and do know about the Take 10 rule, but I hadn't thought of it as analogous to Let It Ride. Once it was brought to my attention, I admitted that I hadn't thought of Take 10 in such a light and there might be something to that. This doesn't reflect my unfamiliarity with the rules, but merely a view of the rules that I hadn't previously considered.

Aside from Take 10, what other rules examples from D&D's gargantuan library have been put forward in this thread? There have been allusions to "crazy" amounts of mechanical support, but nothing is quoted from the books. There's a lot of talk, but not a lot of walk.

As for the crazy support for tactical gaming, that's definitely what I look for in an RPG: "Dungeons and Dragons, the Tactical Game"!