Speaking for myself, I find the label "narrative games" extremely unhelpful as a tool for trying to understand how any sort of RPGing works.
Burning Wheel is a RPG. Like most RPGs, it requires a GM - who sets the scenes, manages the backstory, and manages pacing - and one or more players - who provide the characters whose activities are at the core of the shared fiction.
Like many (by no means all) RPGs, it has fairly clear rules about how the players go about their job: they are to take on characters, who - as per the rules of the game - consist of numerically-rated abilities, and of priorities (hopes, concerns, relationships, etc); and they are to have those character use their abilities to do things.
Like many RPGs (again, by no means all), it also has clear rules about how the GM is to go about their job. The most important of these is that scenes/situations are to be presented having regard to the priorities that are components of the PC builds.
The game's resolution mechanics are designed to mesh with these roles that the game allocates to its participants: in particular, some things that other RPGs treat as falling under the GM's authority over scene-framing and backstory can also fall under action declarations (particularly, to remember things, notice things, encounter people, etc).
Putting this all together, the game works well if one is looking for a RPG that has the same lavish mechanical detail as (say) Rolemaster - PCs with dozens of skills on their sheets, intricate rules for establishing the difficulties of attempted tasks, and the like - that also centres the characters, as envisaged and portrayed by their players, at every moment of play.
If we want to understand exactly how it is that BW differs from RM, despite the incredible degree of similarity in the basic architecture of the PC build mechanics and the concern for mechanical detail, the contrast drawn at The Forge between "narrativism" and "simulationism" will, in my view, be helpful. In particular, this will draw attention to the precise details of BW's rules for scene-framing (RM doesn't have clear rules for this, but just assumes the GM will extrapolate particular situations from their setting prep plus encounter rolls), its rules for when the dice are to be rolled (RM doesn't have entirely clear rules for this either, but when I played it we defaulted to AW-esque "if you do it, you do it" but for every action taken by a character - so lots of rolls!), and its rules for how consequences are to be established (RM does have clear rules for this, based around the various combat, manoeuvre and skill resolution tables). Paying attention to those details will help a RM GM (like me) understand what BW is telling me to do differently, and why.
But going on to label BW a "narrative" game tells me nothing useful at all. Doubly so when that label also gets applied to, say, Monster of the Week, which as a RPG has almost nothing in common with either RM or BW other than that it also involves GM and player participant roles, and uses dice to resolve actions.
Burning Wheel is a RPG. Like most RPGs, it requires a GM - who sets the scenes, manages the backstory, and manages pacing - and one or more players - who provide the characters whose activities are at the core of the shared fiction.
Like many (by no means all) RPGs, it has fairly clear rules about how the players go about their job: they are to take on characters, who - as per the rules of the game - consist of numerically-rated abilities, and of priorities (hopes, concerns, relationships, etc); and they are to have those character use their abilities to do things.
Like many RPGs (again, by no means all), it also has clear rules about how the GM is to go about their job. The most important of these is that scenes/situations are to be presented having regard to the priorities that are components of the PC builds.
The game's resolution mechanics are designed to mesh with these roles that the game allocates to its participants: in particular, some things that other RPGs treat as falling under the GM's authority over scene-framing and backstory can also fall under action declarations (particularly, to remember things, notice things, encounter people, etc).
Putting this all together, the game works well if one is looking for a RPG that has the same lavish mechanical detail as (say) Rolemaster - PCs with dozens of skills on their sheets, intricate rules for establishing the difficulties of attempted tasks, and the like - that also centres the characters, as envisaged and portrayed by their players, at every moment of play.
If we want to understand exactly how it is that BW differs from RM, despite the incredible degree of similarity in the basic architecture of the PC build mechanics and the concern for mechanical detail, the contrast drawn at The Forge between "narrativism" and "simulationism" will, in my view, be helpful. In particular, this will draw attention to the precise details of BW's rules for scene-framing (RM doesn't have clear rules for this, but just assumes the GM will extrapolate particular situations from their setting prep plus encounter rolls), its rules for when the dice are to be rolled (RM doesn't have entirely clear rules for this either, but when I played it we defaulted to AW-esque "if you do it, you do it" but for every action taken by a character - so lots of rolls!), and its rules for how consequences are to be established (RM does have clear rules for this, based around the various combat, manoeuvre and skill resolution tables). Paying attention to those details will help a RM GM (like me) understand what BW is telling me to do differently, and why.
But going on to label BW a "narrative" game tells me nothing useful at all. Doubly so when that label also gets applied to, say, Monster of the Week, which as a RPG has almost nothing in common with either RM or BW other than that it also involves GM and player participant roles, and uses dice to resolve actions.
