Huh? Burning Wheel isn't especially verbose - that's a word I'd use to describe, say, the 4e Essentials books, which are overloaded with vacuous "flavour text. And not obscure: the opening couple of pages state exactly how the game is meant to be played.
Presentation and Rules Are Different Things
- Thread starter Reynard
- Start date
SteveC
Doing the best imitation of myself
I was just watching a "first look" video for BREAK!!, a game project I backed that has been very long in development. The game is simply the most beautiful layout of any RPG I've ever seen. It looks amazing. If you're doing layout for a game, you need to look at this book.
But then they got to the rules resolution. I knew it was a roll-under blackjack system but ... the way it was presented with bonuses and penalties, and advantage/disadvantage made the game all but unplayable to me. I would have to house rule the core system from the game. And it looks fun enough that I'd consider doing so but ... I have never seen a great disconnect between the design/layout of a book and the mechanical parts.
But then they got to the rules resolution. I knew it was a roll-under blackjack system but ... the way it was presented with bonuses and penalties, and advantage/disadvantage made the game all but unplayable to me. I would have to house rule the core system from the game. And it looks fun enough that I'd consider doing so but ... I have never seen a great disconnect between the design/layout of a book and the mechanical parts.
ShinHakkaider
Adventurer
"Research on the forgetting curve shows that within 1 hour, learners forget an average of 50% of the information presented; within 24 hours, they forget an average of 70% of new information; and within a week, they forget up to 90% of what they learned." (https://www.indegene.com/what-we-think/reports/understanding-science-behind-learning-retention)
"Information is retained in human memory stores in different ways, but it is primarily done so through active learning, repetition and recall." (Kahana, Michael Jacob. (2014). Foundations of human memory. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0199387649. OCLC 884861998)
I guess my point is, reading things cover to cover, especially something that is meant to be a reference book isn't a great way to retain the information within for play. What is though is actually playing the game (active learning) again...and again...and again (repetition).
I "learned" D&D from the Moldvay Basic Set. But I didn't REALLY start learning the game until I started running the game myself. It's been the same with almost every TTRPG I've played. We learned during play, things we were not sure of we either looked up or made a decision on the spot.
But alluding to the idea that if people dont read the reference book from cover to cover they're somehow doing it wrong or will miss things? That's just not how the average human being learns or retains what they've learned. It goes to what we prioritize: actual learning or the appearance of mastery/proficiency. We mostly retain by repetition and using what we learn on a regular basis.
Old Fezziwig
Weaselly distinguished, stoatally different.
I love Burning Wheel, but I do think there's something in the presentation that makes it hard for people to pick up. There's something between those opening pages of the book and the rest of the text that can make getting from reading to the table effectively tricky -- it doesn't work if it's not played as intended, and it doesn't play like other RPGs, so it's really easy to get suboptimal results in practice. It's easier to play as intended now after the Adventure Burner/Codex came out, but I know I spent a ton of time reading the old BWHQ forums, specifically Crane's Si Juk Actual Play threads, before I ran it for the first time. And I still had sessions where I was like, "well, that didn't work at all" after and had to do some hard-ish thinking about where I went off the rails.
Edit: forgot some words.
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Bae'zel
Adventurer
Indeed the rules were clear: I was commenting on the tone. It was just off putting to me. Cringeworthy in restrospect, but to each their own.
Doesn't play like other RPGs - as in, doesn't use pre-authored story? Or are you getting at something else here?
Aldarc
Legend
It doesn't play like D&D, pre-authored stories or otherwise, and it can be tricky to get what sort of play the game intends if you are coming to the game with that mindset. That's all. Sorry, pemerton, but even I found Burning Wheel to be somewhat impenetrable when I took a look at it, and the presentation of the book certainly contributed to that. Don't be offended by it.
I'm not offended. I just don't think I agree - in that, I didn't have the same experience.
The game that, for me, took quite a while to grasp the intended play from reading was the original version of HeroWars - it was the first "free descriptor"-based RPG that I read, and the most forthright in deploying "fortune in the middle" for its extended conflict resolution.
Old Fezziwig
Weaselly distinguished, stoatally different.
That's part of it, but I was thinking more that the skills that I developed running other games (D&D, MERP, Champions) weren't really transferrable. And that it does some common things (dungeon crawls) particularly badly.
Bae'zel
Adventurer
As I said in my earlier post, the way that these games are written and the way that the rules are structured are different than other RPGs, and I own 100s of them.
I think that you need a particular level of patience and intelligence to “get” it. Neither I, nor anyone I personally know, are able to “get it”.
Take that as a compliment: you and your friends must have better minds than mine.
