How does Burning Wheel play?

[eyebeams]

The core resolution specifically talks about intent; it's the first step in the process. The task rolls then determine if your intent is achieved. That's why LiR is so important; remove it and you're not resolving the stated intent, you're only determining if a specific task attempt succeeded.

The book also invokes (literally, it quotes) Vincent baker's "Say yes or roll the dice." It immediately follows up with "...a fundamental rule of Burning Wheel play: When there is conflict, roll the dice."

Hello, conflict resolution.

BW is pretty trad in a lot of ways, but this aspect alone makes it very different from D&D.

Except of course, that the actual example of Let it Ride in the book not only seemingly contradicts the intent and application of the rule, but is in fact straightforward task resolution.

The other problem is that a system like LiR doesn't actually work for conflict resolution, because every conflict as stakes and consequences geared to its nature, and LiR applies across multiple possible stakes. If I sneak around with LiR in one part of the woods, there might be a tasty deer, but in another, there might be monsters who want to eat me. LiR invokes environmental conditions in its example, not narrative-centric ones. "My PC versus the bushes in the pretend world" is about as far away from conflict resolution as you can get. The rhetoric attached to it doesn't matter.

As a task resolution mechanic it still doesn't work very well, but the rule at least cleaves very close to that style of gameplay. The goal of preventing social pressure from being a factor in determining how things happen is an interesting one, but Let it Ride's implementation isn't the best way to go about it.

 

[buzz]

The other problem is that a system like LiR doesn't actually work for conflict resolution, because every conflict as stakes and consequences geared to its nature, and LiR applies across multiple possible stakes.

No, it doesn't. If the situation has changed enough that the GM wants to add in new consequences for failure ("stakes") that were not lain out before the roll, then it's changed enough that LiR isn't applicable.

 

[buzz]

I actually agree. It doesn't say conflict resolution. And I think the subsystems Fight! and Duel of Wits are pretty clear task resolutions. Even the other tasks aren't true conflict resolutions.

Fight! resolves an intent to do harm to another creature, i.e., martial conflict. DoW is absolutely resolving a conflict; positions are stated, and there is a conclusive winner or loser, and the result must be abided by. If it were just task resolution, the character's performance in the DoW would have nothing to do with getting the other side to agree to anything (a la D&D's Diplomacy), and that's just not the case.

Even if you want to ignore the parts I quoted above, the fact is that, "conflict resolution" or no, BW resolution is intent-relevant. That alone makes it very different from D&D.

Because you wouldn't say "I want to climb the first ten feet of the castle wall", but rather "I want to climb the castle wall and the princess's tower".

I'd say that it's usually even less atomic than that. E.g., "Climb the tower before the castle watch returns to this part of the ramparts," or "Climb the tower without being seen."

If a PC just wants to climb a tower, and there's nothing preventing them from doing so, then there's really no need to roll. Not that it's a guaranteed auto-success, but just that there's nothing interesting about that task; there's no conflict. The GM can either say yes ("Sure, it's a craggy wall well within your ability to climb") or even say no, ("C'mon, dude; it's a wall of sheer glass and your PC is missing an arm!").

You're just not rolling for all the same things, in the same ways, that you would in D&D.

 

[Berandor]

The whole of Fight! or DoW, but it is separated into multiple rolls that feel a lot like task resolution to me. "I try to hit him with my sword." – "I attempt a lock."

 

[LostSoul]

The whole of Fight! or DoW, but it is separated into multiple rolls that feel a lot like task resolution to me. "I try to hit him with my sword." – "I attempt a lock."

The individual rolls in a DoW or Fight! only resolve tasks, but put together they will resolve the conflict.

 

[buzz]

The whole of Fight! or DoW, but it is separated into multiple rolls that feel a lot like task resolution to me. "I try to hit him with my sword." – "I attempt a lock."

Fight! is admittedly pretty much like any blow-by-blow combat system, in that you're generally resolving that same question: Who wins this fight? Intents do figure into the rolls of course, e.g., positioning.

DoW, otoh, is absolutely not plain task resolution. By the end of the duel, the table knows definitively who achieved their intent and to what degree.

But, just like the basic resolution mechanic, in all the BW subsystems you're stating an intent, determining what tasks are required to achieve it, and then rolling the dice to see if that intent is achieved. In D&D and similar RPGs, there is no connection between intent and task, and tasks tend to be more atomic.

FYI, I'm not claiming one way is better or worse. I'm just saying they aren't the same.

 

[eyebeams]

No, it doesn't. If the situation has changed enough that the GM wants to add in new consequences for failure ("stakes") that were not lain out before the roll, then it's changed enough that LiR isn't applicable.

The problems are:

* The example in the book sorts it out by the fictive environment.

* Your sense of it logically ensures that LiR is toothless. The GM determines the stakes, and can change the stakes trivially and force a re-roll. Your approach ensures that the math is screwy for no good reason at all, except perhaps to make some gamers feel better about how they're Not Oppressed. To use a pseudo-theorist's buzzword, it makes LiR completely Illusionist, even insidiously so, because its jawing about fairness is an utter lie.

* People commonly interpret the rule just as Ive described it, because that's how it reads. Your argument seems to boil down to citing something some guy wrote in another game which was quoted in BW. Now I think the game has some writing issues, but saying that the primary procedures are contained in somebody else's RPG or website or something would make it really awfully written, and I doubt you want to say anything that cruel about the creators.

 

[eyebeams]

In D&D and similar RPGs, there is no connection between intent and task, and tasks tend to be more atomic.

I'm pretty sure that when my character intends to hit something, I say I want to hit, and I roll to hit.

 

[buzz]

I'm pretty sure that when my character intends to hit something, I say I want to hit, and I roll to hit.

When you want to convince a noble to lend you horses, you make a Diplomacy check. The check determines nothing about whether your intent is achieved. All it does is determine if you shifted the NPCs general attitude towards you. Whether you get what you're really after (the horses) is up to the DM.

 

[buzz]

Your argument seems to boil down to citing something some guy wrote in another game which was quoted in BW.

Everything I've cited is in the BW book. Your assessment of how LiR functions doesn't match what's in the book at all, afaict. It's not even close.

Granted, you've at least played the game, for which I give you credit.