Luke seems a bit pooped by the thread, so I'll try to tackle some of the other questions folks have for him (if I may be so bold!).
ThoughtBubble said:
If the group has players who are good at running with what comes up in game, or a DM who is good at hooking the players, you don't need mechanics for it. If you've got characters with good background and a DM who can use it, you don't need mechanics for it. On the other hand, if you've got harder to hook players, or a DM who just doesn't get how to grab them, explicit goals are a wonderful thing.
This is part of why I'm such a formalist when it comes to RPG rules. If your game leans on pro-active players who must go beyond the rules/mechanics gaps in your game to encourage roleplaying, then maybe your "roleplaying" game needs an overhaul. If that stuff is important to you, why not choose a game that makes strong, explicit emphasis on it with rules/mechnanics?
To deflect cries of elitism, I don't think it's bad to play D&D and not roleplay. It's not BadWrongFun. If you like playing a game with Bob The Fighter and a play structure like the old Wizardry I computer game (dungeon -> town -> dungeon -> repeat), then go forth and multiply!
pogre said:
On to my question -
My gaming group is like a lot of others out there in this respect - most of the players are lazy*. I fear asking them to build motivating backgrounds into their characters at the beginning of the campaign might be too much. As the campaign progresses and they buy into the campaign world and the storylines their PCs usually do develop independent agendas, but sometimes not.
My players usually want to show up on game night and go through the adventure - they're are often not interested in creating a part of the adventure. Would it be a waste of time to try your game with such a group?
Well, if your players actively resist crafting character personalities at the start of a game, then they might shy away from Burning Wheel. Burning Wheel makes people do that.
Try to sell it to them this way. You say that as the campaign progresses, they do develop personalities and goals (the characters, not the players!
). They like to show up and go through the adventure. That's fine. What Burning Wheel does is predetermine what the adventures are going to be about. It lets the players tell you what the goals of the game are going to be.
I quoted this part of Burning Wheel earlier in the thread:
“When you write out a Belief for your character, you – the player – are explicitly telling the GM and the other players what you want out of the game. If you write a Belief like “People feel better when lied to”, you are saying: my character is going to lie a lot. Please put me in situations where that is going to cause trouble.”
See if that gets their interest. This approach to gaming is usually completely alien to D&D players, because D&D has an overwhelming tradition which involves passivity from players. If these players are all also GMs, they probably are familiar with crafting storylines and setting campaign goals/themes. What Burning Wheel's BITs allow them to do is to use the same skills
as players.
It's crucial to point out that this doesn't mean that the players must come up with NPCs on their own (although Burning Wheel does encourage that) or that they must draw dungeon maps for you to run them through. What BITs do is to point the GM in the direction that the players are interested in going. It's a way of ensuring that the players will be actively engaged in the stories, since the stories will reflect the goals/themes that they said they wanted! Notice that in the above example, all the player is stating is "Please put me in situations in which I get to lie and that causes conflict/trouble/fun." That's it. No more player input is required. And you can bet that when the player starts to see situations in the game (provided by the GM) that allow for some dramatic impact through lies, that player is going to sit up in his or her chair and get excited.
The Artha system also helps "sell" the BITs. It's the food pellet bar that pushes the players to continue to roleplay their BITs. Artha points are roughly analogous to action points in that they allow the players to add dice to important rolls. But they're also used to negate some wound penalties, ignore a time complication, reroll dice, and other mechanical tricks. It's worth noting too that Artha are not experience points. Skill advancement is handled through an entirely different mechanic/system.
Finally, BITs aren't that complicated. You don't need to fill out reams of paper with complex character studies. You pick one to three Beliefs (the more the better, since each Belief is a chance to earn Artha!), one to three Instincts (these are automatic "triggers" for action that you set for your character. For example, an Instinct might be "Always draw my sword when startled"), and Traits (these are personality quirks acquired during Character Burning through Lifepaths). It's not that complicated, but it's important and fun. [EDIT HERE: Traits also have mechanics attached to them, allowing players to do things like reroll skill failures or add dice to rolls in which the Trait is involved. It's all about backing up the roleplaying with mechanics!
]
Let me throw in a world about character creation while I'm at it. Burning Wheel uses a very robust system that is a distant cousin to Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay's Career system. Players selct several Lifepaths for their characters (the exact number is determined by the GM and players in discussion) and build their skills, attributes, and Traits through their choices. Each of the four races in the game (Man, Dwarf, Elf, and Orc) have entirely different Lifepaths that bring out tremendous cultural and racial distinctiveness. [Note: Burning Wheel has often been described by fans as "the best Middle Earth RPG ever written".
] Every character has his or her background firmly established by the time character creation is over. For GMs with players who refuse to detail their characters' backgrounds, Burning Wheel's Character Burning makes such a refusal impossible.
Quick example. I decide to burn a Man who ends up with the following Lifepaths: Born Peasant, Conscript, Foot Soldier, and Village Guard. So right away, we have someone who was swept up into a war as a conscript, survived a few years as a foot soldier, and returned to his home and took a spot as a defender of the village. Along the way, the character has also picked up the following Traits: Flee From Battle and Thug. Now if a player refuses to put more meat on the bones than that, well, there's not much Burning Wheel or a GM can do.
Another example, this time an Elf. My Elf's Lifepaths are: Citadel Born, Shaper (a craftsman, but with the Tolkien-esque elven style of singing objects into shape.
), Loremaster, Wanderer, and Spouse. So this elf was born into a family of shapers and became apprenticed to the citadel's loremaster. Something happened, though, that pushed the elf out of the citadel and he wandered the forests for a time. He found a woman to love (perhaps also a wanderer) and has settled down with her, until the action of the game begins and he's called away from his love! This Elf doesn't actually acquire any specific Traits due to Lifepath choices.
Finally, let's take a quick look at an Orc. My Orc's Lifepaths are: Born Great, Black Destroyer, Named, and Siege Master. Orc culture is extremely savage, but this orc started out with privilage. As a Black Destroyer, he rode his dire wolf across the land and smote his enemies. He became Named and assumed a position of nobility (or what passes for it among orcs) and he was given the rare secrets of siege warfare so that he might tear down the citis of Men. Traits picked up along the way: Born to Rule Them All, Intense Hatred, Savage Consequences, and The Bigger They Come...[EDIT HERE: I didn't pick a Lifepath which grants the wonderfully-named "Where There's A Whip, There's A Way".
]
Tell me that's not fun!
