Grading the Burning Wheel System

[Autumnal]

I have resumed reading and will be trying some experiments in chargen sometime in the next few days. It is somewhere close to my limit of viable complexity (which is its own weird thing and will need a prefatory post of its own), and I don’t yet know which side its own. I admit to wishing I could detach about 1.5 subsystems, like no skills and a consolidated approach to artha. But I persist.

 

[pemerton]

It is somewhere close to my limit of viable complexity

That's not surprising - not that I know what your limit is, before this post, but it's a reasonably complex engine and so it's no surprise that a sensible person might find it too complex.

 

[pemerton]

I have resumed reading and will be trying some experiments in chargen sometime in the next few days.

I find that character gen has a charm all its own, a bit like Traveller in that respect!

 

[aramis erak]

Amazing replies, thanks you.

Very informative. So here's a follow up question to your point about searching a room. Are you saying here that in BW there would be something in that room if it was successfully searched?

In general, in a BW, BE, or MG game, if the players are searching for something, the GM's first question is, "so, if you succceed, you want to find one, yes?"... that's called asking for the intent. then, thinking about likelyhood, sets a difficulty. Now, if the thing sought is clearly violating the fiction (such as a knife in the muck after establishing the floor is clean polished marble free of debris) the GM reminds them of the fiction and says no. Otherwise, set a difficulty, based upon how likely it is.

Now, I've had a player search with intent that there was nothing left to find. To which, my "if you fail, something unpleasant finds you." He failed. I introduced in response a single vicious scorpion. All of 2 inches long, annoyed at the intrusion into its hiding spot of a finger or 4...
The health check vs the poison was rolled and failed, so it was a 1 point impairment on right hand for several scenes.