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.

 

[Nytmare]

That's pretty much my take too, but also, I thought Torchbearer 2e's books were atrociously organized. Very cool system, awkward combat system, very hard-to-navigate books.

I'm coming into this conversation HELLISHLY late, but I always feel the need to right this assumption when I see it in the wild. The Conflict system isn't a combat system, it's for any dramatic exchange. I'd say that on average we have about one conflict every two sessions, and maybe MAYBE five percent of the Conflicts we've had were combat.

The bulk of our Conflicts are travel montages, and the overwhelming majority of our combats have been single roll tests.

 

[Nytmare]

The only BWHQ game where failure is the standard to be expected is Torchbearer. It's got harder standards, but the same range of skills...

Even here, I frequently see people who are new to the game(s) miss the fact that even "failure" frequently only means "you succeed with a minor setback."

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You were trying to win an argument at the tavern, and though you eventually WON, it's now well past 9 bells and you're Afraid because the Harbormaster insisted he saw Harkness' Ghost dragging his chains along the docks last night.

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It's like saying you didn't win a fight because you lost some hitpoints.

 

[Nytmare]

I was recently a player in a short Burning Wheel campaign. ... I felt the game was sorely missing a partial success mechanic.

? It's been a long time since I played, but does Burning Wheel NOT have a partial success mechanic? Both MG and Torchbearer have them, and I'd be kinda shocked if they adopted that all on their own.