Explain Burning Wheel to me

[d20Dwarf]

See, I"m getting drawn into Forge-style deconstruction. If only Derrida was a roleplayer.

Let's keep it simple, for me:

Your thief stands at the end of a long corridor filled with traps. Each trap is successively more difficult to bypass, so that only a master thief could bypass them all without a little luck.

How would Let It Ride adjudicate this?

Dave Turner, this was aimed at you.

 

[Aus_Snow]

I think it's fair to suggest that D&D does a terrible job of supporting roleplaying in its rules. It relies on unwritten tradition rather than explicit textual support and rules.

What does Burning Wheel provide in this regard (i.e., in terms of rules and other explicit support)?


edit --- oops, never mind. between doing something else and posting, there it all is.

 

[Dave Turner]

Say what? Go read it yourself. It's a big book, fer chrissakes. Bits of it were cribbed from Robin's Laws, by Robin Laws, if that gives you some idea of its content.

Does it include similar language to the Burning Wheel text I quoted? Does it expressly forbid a DM from calling for rolls from players? Does it suggest that DMs might be cheating if they call for rolls when they shouldn't?

To use an example from a particular show: My goal is to be the strongest man/greatest swordsman/most adept warrior in the entire world. In persuit of this goal I train myself relentlessly, seek out learning from other combat masters, and gladly test my skills against any and all comers. In game mechanics terms, my goal is to level up, and keep leveling up as long and as far as I possibly can.

Where are the rules in D&D for relentless personal training? Can you say to the DM "I take a year to train. How many levels do I gain?" Where are the rules in D&D for seeking out other combat masters to learn from them? How many experience points do you get for training with a master? What CR do you use to calculate that?

I don't understand how D&D is supporting your character's goals? Your player goals are to level up? Who cares about all that searching for a combat master crap. Pick up your sword and clear out the nearest dungeon full of gnolls. You'll level up like that and you don't need the combat master.

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

Let's not change our definitions so quickly! You stated that Burning Wheel didn't include rules about Let It Ride

I did no such thing. I said that what you're calling Let It Ride isn't a rule, but a style of narration. Not a style of play, either. Just a particular manner of narrating a scene, specifically, skipping over details in favour of a simplified description so you can get on with the important bits. That there is a rule called Let It Ride that says "narrate in this fashion" does not mean that narration in that fashion constitutes using Let It Ride. Let It Ride, the rule, describes the mechanics in Burning Wheel that are used to narrate in the fashion described.

What else are rules except ways of enforcing a particular type of play? Without rules, we'd all be playing Cowboys and Indians ("Bang, I shot you!" "No, you didn't!").

Yeah. I'm proposing gamer anarchy over here. Rules don't necessarily enforce a particular type of play. Sometimes they just define the physics of a game environment. They may lend themselves to a particular type of play by making it easier to play that way. And there are rules like Let It Ride that generate a certain style of play by enforcing a certain descriptive style that avoids detail that is unimportant to the story, which eliminates the prospect of a play style that pays attention to any of that detail.

This is, of course, irrelevent. Suddenly you're attempting to nitpick me because I don't believe that whassname invented this particular style of narration because he Named It, and made a rule in his game that says you have to narrate that way. I don't see the point.

 

[Dave Turner]

It says if Krusk is climbing up a DC 10 cliff, he can just Take 10 instead of making all the rolls called for. It's right there in the Player's Handbook.

I know, I know...that "doesn't count."

No, no, it absolutely does count! I hadn't thought of that example. That's pretty close to my conception of Let It Ride. Maybe there's some life left in old D&D. I stand corrected.

I'm off to bed, but Luke seems to be back on the thread. Sorry if I hurt BW more than I helped, Luke!

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

D&D might support that style, but not in the rules. Please quote the relevant sections of the D&D rules that explicitly identify the Let It Ride style of play.

Taking 10/20 is not the same as Let It Ride. It tells players that they might not have to roll for a particular action, but where does it say that one instance of "taking 10/20" is supposed to apply to a series of situations in which a roll might be called for?

Ah, I see what you're after. If I can't provide a place where the D&D books say "do X," then you get to say it's not supported, even if the rules support doing X, Y, or Z, but not any of them in particular. Yeah, I've seen this one before, and it's disingenuous. I'm just going to now fail to care about proving anything to you.

 

[Dave Turner]

One more post.

I said that what you're calling Let It Ride isn't a rule, but a style of narration.

And there are rules like Let It Ride

Can we at least settle on whether you think Let It Ride is a rule or not?

 

[HeapThaumaturgist]

Was the author traumatized by GMs as a child? There seems to be an open hostility toward the GM in the text of the game itself, the pitch text of the game, and the defense of the game from both author and supporters.



Don't get me wrong. I think the concepts presented are interesting ones, and perhaps important ones. Statistically, with a single die rolled for the mechanic, probability suggests that as the PCs are the focus of the game, mathematically improbable things will eventually happen to them and, all things equal, half of those improbable moments will be detremental. Fully 10% of the time, even!

To portray this as actively hostile on the part of the GM, though ... ...

It's important, and bears highlighting, but I think it would make a great sidebar in the DMG ... as opposed to suggesting that players should call out the GM as a cheater who desires no more than to cram probability down their throat and conspire to destroy their character/player goals.

Taking 10 is a new mechanic that, I think, grew out of a problem I ran into a lot in the early 80s ... GMs calling for rolls for everything (sounding familiar?) ... I've honestly talked to people who've had the GM call for rolls for dodge when crossing near-empty suburban streets ... with disasterous results, of course.

Take 10 is now a rule. Not only is there a "don't call for rolls all of the time" clause in the DMG, but there's even a "just assume average on non-story-critical rolls" mechanic added in there. Not because GM fiat destroys the fundamental underpinnings of RPGs themselves, but because some people did the math and alot of people did the playtesting.

And the survey said that given constant rolling there's an ever increasing chance of rolling a failure. What we do about that, though ...

--fje

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

Here are some Beliefs from a recent game.

Tavis is an Imperial Justiciar, assigned to ride circuit at an imperial outpost which oversees a merchant's commune run by his wife, Rochelle:
"I will root out corruption in the Emperor's name."
"Horoth [Tavis' boss] has the best interests of the empire at heart. I am his strong right hand."
"I will not allow my ex-wife, Rochelle, to raise my son."

In the game we played, Tavis was put to the test as Horoth, an Imperial Steward, tried to use his and Tavis' legal powers to break the legal charter of the commune. Tavis also caught Horoth covering up a crime that a local Baron had committed. Why did this happen? Because the player wrote those conflicts into his Beliefs. He doesn't get to say exactly what happens, but he does get to say "Hey, I want something like this in the game!"

A similar process happens when players kibbitz for any game, DnD included. However, the process is explicitly part of BW's rules and, even better, it's tied directly into the reward mechanic. This usually generates a different type of understanding and play. It's not for everyone, but most people who try it enjoy it and recognize its differences.

Now, this has potential. I remember seeing something along these lines with the unfortunately-named Sweet 20 system, which was intended (but not really) as an alternate reward system for D&D. In that system, it was Keys, which were essentially motivations with less specific goals than Beliefs. Of course, D&D and all role-playing games have always had interplay between a character's background and the DM's campaign. A good DM includes his players' backstories in his plots. However, taking a reward system on it in this way helps establish a give-and-take. Assuming the reward system runs smoothly.

A little finer point: DnD uses task resolution as its primary resolution mechanic. BW uses conflict resolution. The difference is subtle, but important.

First example, Tavis' player wants to convince a naval captain to review his weapons lockers and look for a missing pistol. That's the task. The player, Thor's, intent was to determine if indeed there was a cover up going on. He rolled, won the test, and nailed his intent: His justiciar determined that there was indeed a cover up, though he didn't quite know who was behind it. Which lead to the next conflict, confronting the captain's superior.

Goal-oriented resolution systems tend to work well for me when I'm running fast-paced story-oriented sessions. How does this system deal with fights?

In another example, another player tried to convince his criminal brother to turn over some information to the courts. We used an extended conflict, called the Duel of Wits. The player wanted his brother to turn over the information. The brother -- played by me -- didn't want to have any dealings with the law whatsoever. It ended in a compromise in the player's favor. He won and got the information, but the brother -- me -- got the concession that his younger brother wasn't to come around the estate any more.

Social conflict with compromise decided by the players -- based on the results of an extended conflict -- is a big part of Burning Wheel. I don't think there is any such conflict resolution in DnD. Such social conflicts are left either to a single roll with no compromise, or up to GM fiat.

No, but Rich Burlew wrote up a "fix" for the Diplomacy skill that turns it into "you give me something, and I'll give you something," where something could turn out to be very little, depending on how persuasive the character using the skill is. I use it in my games, and it works nicely.

 

[jdrakeh]

I said: DnD allows a lot more room for GM fiat and does not have rules for conflict resolution; Burning Wheel has a lot less room for GM fiat and does have rules for conflict resolution.

How you get that out of this...

Sure, in DnD and BW you might get to overthrow the city state and kill the tyrannical overlord. But in one you do it because the GM thinks it's ok and cool, and the other you do it because the system supports you in the resolution of each conflict and the fulfillment of your stated goals as player.

...I have no idea - although your admission of deliberate trolling really says it all. I think we're through here. Feel free to look me up when The Burning Wheel is a Roleplaying Game instead of an Ascendant Godhead and we'll talk.