Explain Burning Wheel to me
- Thread starter Tinner
- Start date
jdrakeh said:
You're that incapable of discussion, eh? Whatever, man. Perhaps our godheads will bump into each other somewhere along the line. I'm sure they'd have fun playing together -- since we probably disagree on just about nothing except who's the bigger prick.
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.
You do not, however, have to cut me any slack. I love you all. No matter what you say. Even you.
I'm not going to go quote by quote, but let me respond to a few:
Heap, I'm the most traumatic GM you've ever seen. Those rants and comments are directed to me and my evil twin. I assume you're talking about the original edition of BW, though. The tone has changed quite a bit in Revised. Much more neighborly.
Everyone: Let it Ride ain't a style of narration and it ain't Take Ten. It is not talking about how to narrate a conflict, it's telling you when to roll and when not to and it encourages you to only roll for the important stuff. It highlights conflicts in the game. Nor does it allow a player to pass a test automatically and move on. When the conflict comes up, you've got to roll the dice. Thing is, under these circumstances, cliff climbing and other stuff like that isn't as much fun, but it sure is over fast. You roll once and you either climb that cliff or you don't. If you don't, you find another way around. Bang, next conflict. If there's no other way around, there's either something wrong with your adventure or it was the climax of the campaign.
As for the theif and his hall o' traps, if that's THE BIG CONFLICT, he rolls his Trapsman for each trap with successively harder difficulties. If it's merely one obstacle full of color, the GM sets an aggregate difficulty and one test is made. HOWEVER, if the theif is moving about a dungeon-type-environ with traps of reasonably similar difficulty, the player rolls once. Period. His success or failure determines just how well this is going to go...
Seems like it could be bad if he fails, right? Well that's a good thing. This mechanic lets players know: now is the time to juice this roll. This is when you spend all those points earned from playing those Beliefs. What's more, you can use your own skills to help the roll -- if you had Trapsman plus Poisons, you'd get a bonus die for disarming poisoned traps. And you can get help from your friends. If they've got related skills, they can give you a die or two.
Awkward: As for fights and such, all extended conflict in Burning Wheel operate on the same paradigm. You have a series of maneuvers at your disposal (listed in the book), you plan your strategy 3-4 moves in advance, trying to predict what your enemy will do, while planning your attack while defending yourself. It works very smoothly in play and creates a lot of drama and player participation -- beyond just rolling the dice. I'll admit, it's a contentious mechanic, though. Some people love it, other's decidely do not.
As for Diplomacy fixes like Rich's, that's one of the reason I went ahead and designed BW. So I could stop fixing another game and just get what I wanted from one system. If Rich's fix does it for ya, great. If not, I've got something you should check out.
Hope you all find this helpful and informative. Thanks for your interest.
-Luke
Wil
First Post
Dave Turner said:Fair enough, but that's arguably not a roleplaying goal or a character goal. I'm not sure what Luke would make of that, but I don't think it counts, somehow.
How could that not be a roleplaying or a character goal. The stated goal is: "I want to level up". That's no different than "I want to be the crime boss" or "I want to be the best tap dancer in the world". It seems kind of ironic that if the mechanic is rooted in D&D, suddenly it "doesn't count".
Wil
First Post
Dave Turner said:
Read the thread on here about describing combat - I run into "typical", mostly d20 gamers, all the time who would throw a fit if their combat were altered from hex/square grid, miniature shuffling, wargaming disguised as roleplaying. I've known gamers that if there was not a combat during the session where the minis and maps had to be broken out, they would declare the session a bust.
If there is some text in the DMG that contradicts what I'm saying, then I'm very willing to read it and reevaluate my position. I'm not infallible.
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?
LostSoul
Adventurer
lukzu said:
Who decides when it's the big conflict or just colour? Does the player have a say in this, or does the GM decide; and if the latter, can the GM avoid the Let it Ride mechanic by making everything a big conflict (or is that handled by a "Dude, that's lame" response)?
LostSoul said:
Now, we come full circle back to the beginning. The player decides. Right then and there? Hell, no! He decides what the big conflicts will be when he writes his Beliefs for his character.
"I will plumb the hazards of the Tomb of Horrors, no matter the price! I will have her secrets and treasures!"
Right there, that player -- ok, me -- just said, "There better be some serious trap-laden peril for me to overcome." And so, after a rousing adventure, we come back to the Hall o' Traps and the BIG CONFLICT that the GM has just laid in my lap. He's just reached across the table, poked me in the head, and said, "No matter the price, eh? Well, what's that Belief really worth to yah, huh? Do you really mean it? Or is just empty words? You gonna roll the dice, or you gonna sit there and cry all day? Are you gonna get yourself and all your friends killed for your ambition? Huh?"
-Luke
HeapThaumaturgist
First Post
LostSoul said:
No, then you call the GM on cheating, I think.
Not knowing the actual rules for handling cheating GMs in a game of BW, I would humbly volunteer that, when the GM has been judged and found guilty of cheating, he should be bent backward onto a wheel, strapped down, the wheel set on fire ... and roll it all down a hill.
Mmmmm.
I foresee a revolutionary new type of competitive tourney at GenCon ... same table, same players ... we'll call it: "GM Survivor".
--fje
Wil said:
How would the character know about levels and leveling? That is a player concern, it is not something a character would be legitimately concerned about. The character could be dedicated to becoming a better swordsman or dweomercrafter, but that is not, necessarily, the same as leveling up.
The inhabitant of a game world would not, necessarily, know how his world works. Much as we don't fully understand how our world works. He would not know the mechanics. Methinks what we have here is a confusion between player knowledge and character knowledge. The fact the player knows about levels and leveling does not mean his character does.
The character wants to improve his skills, maybe add more. From the character's viewpoint he is practicing his skills and learning new ones. From his vantage point levels have no part in it. His player knows about levels and how they are applied, the character does not. Therefor leveling cannot be a valid character goal.
Wil, the trick here is to think like your character. Were you, the player, living in your character's world, what would you know? Would you think in terms of levels? Or would you think in terms of practice and learning?
Similar Threads
