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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 7100438" data-attributes="member: 42582">That's not what I said, though.I said "I will have to be speaking prayers. I don't see it as horrible. I'm looking forward to it. . . . There is something more demanding about being obliged to speak my character's prayers. I am expecting it to intensify the experience of play".Having a permission to speak the prayers - which is what you refer to - is not the same as being obliged to speak them - which is what I referred to. It is the latter that I am looking forward to, because the greater degree of demand it imposes is something that I am expecting to intensify the experience of play.I guess I don't agree with your description of what BW does and doesn't signal.Here are some extracts: from the Gold rulebook, p 25, and from the Revised Duel of Wits chapter (the relevant text is not very different in Gold), pp 99, 103:A task is a measurable, finite and quantifiable act performed by a character: attacking someone with a sword, studying a scroll or resting in an abbey. A task describes how you accomplish your intent. What does your character do? A task should be easily linked to an ability: the Sword skill, the Research skill or the Health attribute. Inappropriate tasks are: “I kill him!” or “I convince him.” Those are intents. After such pronouncements, the first question any Burning Wheel player asks should be: How? By what means? The answer, “I stab him with my knife,” is an appropriate task description for a murderous character. “I persuade him to take my side by explaining his wife’s affair with the cardinal.” is appropriate in the second case. . . . Don’t write out any speeches, just note your actions; let the oration come organically in play. Include the intent of the action in the roleplay. The maneuver chosen is the task. . . . When scripting these maneuvers, players must speak their parts. Spitting out moves in a robotic fashion is not a viable use of these mechanics. The arguments must be made. Of course, no one expects us all to be eloquent, so just the main thrust or a simple retort usually suffices (but a little embellishment is nice). Keep it simple and to the point. Say what you need to in order to roll the dice. A multipoint statement should be broken down into multiple actions across the exchange.The rulebooks makes it clear that, in general, the player has to give an account of the task and that, in Duel of Wits - which breaks the back-and-forth of an argument down into indvidually resolved components, that means speaking the part.If a player doesn't want to do that, then s/he doesn't build a social-oriented character, or take the Courtier lifepath (which grants Rapier Wit, the train that requires a searing bon mot to buff the next verbal action). If a player doesn't want to have to come up with prayers, s/he doesn't play a Faithful character.There's nothing about the rulebook that implies that playing a Faithful character will be no different from the rather mechanical nature of clerical spellcasting in D&D: I mean, Faith is labelled as an Emotional Attribute, and is lost if the player doesn't have a connected Belief. I think that these aspects of the game makes it pretty clear that playing a faithful character is going to be demanding in a somewhat distinctive fashion.Many things are unimviting to many people. The whole of D&D is obviously uninviting to some - perhaps many - potential players, in so far as there are people who like fantasy and like games yet don't play D&D (this is a favourite point made by  [MENTION=996]Tony Vargas[/MENTION]).I don't think that's the measure of a "horrible mechanic". Does the mechanic deliver the roleplaying experience it is intended to? Yes. It's actually no different from the classic D&D wish mechanic (as I noted upthread), and I've never seen anyone suggest that that is a horrible mechanic. I think it's treated as obvious that you will have to speak your wish. Likewise for a prayer.I don't think the BW rules really address the player who wants to communicate in the course of playing the game by writing rather than speaking. In fact, every example of play I've ever read in a RPG rulebook assumes that the conversation of the game takes place by way of spoken rather than written communication.If for some reason a player wanted to play the game, or parts of the game, by writing rather than speaking I guess that - as in any other RPG - that is something that a table would work out on an ad hoc basis.Well, the only use of the trait - Rapier Wit - is to gain a buff, and you only get the buff by interjecting a searing bvon mot.I don't see what is obtuse at all: the ability can be used as a FoRK (ie an augment) for any skill song test "for which the player can recite a clever bit of folklore obliquely pertinent to the situation". That's not obtuse - the player must recite a clever bit of folklore pertinent to the situation. If you don't do the reciting, you don't get the FoRK.</blockquote>

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