Scarred Lands! Burning Wheel! Numenera! It's a Big Name Kickstarter Bonanza!

It's a New Year Big Name Kickstarter Bonanza! For fans of the Scarred Lands, Numenera, or Burning Wheel, or an unholy mix of the three (The Scarred, Burning Lands of Numenera?), these three new Kickstarters are all set for some fairly epic success from the starting gate. All three are produced by veteran publishers already known for their high quality work, and based on existing well-loved settings and games. It looks like 2016 is starting off with a bang!

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We open play with the Scarred Lands setting, being Kickstarted by White Wolf founder Stewart Wieck. For D&D 5th Edition and Pathfinder, this setting was originally created about 15 years ago for D&D 3E. It was one of the first, and most successful, 3rd Edition campaign settings. Now, Wieck and friends are Kickstarting a 320-page full-colour hardcover book. For $45 you get a hardcover, or for $18 you get the PDF. There's an interesting note on the page about a free adventure, Gauntlet of Spiragos, which you can download for Pathfinder now, or "a 5th Edition version is forthcoming — we’re just hoping for an official announcement regarding 5th Edition games before we apply the finishing touches".

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Next on the menu is a Numenera card game called The Ninth World. Numenera is, of course, the flagship RPG from Monte Cook Games, and this card game is being produced by Lone Shark Games and designed by Mike Selinker. You may have heard of him from previous games such as the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game. This game is, in his own words, "one part deckbuilder, one part Eurogame, and one part RPG" and is a competitive card game for 2-5 players. A pledge of $50 gets you the game.

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And last in our little trilogy of epic Kickstarters is Luke Crane's Burning Wheel Codex. This is a supplement for Burning Wheel Gold, and includes life paths, magic, and rules commentary. "We shall create a tome of similar dimension and density to the urtext, Burning Wheel Gold. Its cover shall shimmer cerulean and gold. Its pages shall have the hue of gossamer and bone. Its ink shall be black. And it shall contain: the paths and ways of the Roden, Trolls and Great Wolves; an encyclopedia of traits and skills; an arcane library of magical ways; a libram of magic artifacts; and detailed commentary on nearly every aspect of the urtext itself." This one is steaming ahead already. For $25 you get a copy of the hardcover book.

 

[ChapolimX]

Especially since you can't get an estimate of international shipping from the KS page

You can see the shipping cost by clicking in the reward level you want and selecting your country.

 

[Nightfall]

Call it out, and he appears.

Hey I might be getting older, but Scarred Lands calls, I go running towards it like a runaway freight train.

 

[Matrix Sorcica]

Matrix, I'm pretty sure there are stretch goal...

Says they are only for backers at $45+.

 

[Matrix Sorcica]

You can see the shipping cost by clicking in the reward level you want and selecting your country.

Ah, thanks.

 

[Nightfall]

Look I'm just saying support this because I've been homeless since 2006. I'd like to go back please.

 

[The Hitcher]

No love for Burning Wheel in the comments? Consider that rectified. A story engine like no other. I may be running D&D right now, but BW is the only game where I'll buy every release without a second thought.

 

[Nightfall]

Hitcher, I'd love Burning Wheel...if it was set in the Scarred Lands.

 

[The Hitcher]

Hitcher, I'd love Burning Wheel...if it was set in the Scarred Lands.

That would be a pretty straightforward adaptation. I look forward to reading about your campaign =)

 

[Nightfall]

That would be a pretty straightforward adaptation. I look forward to reading about your campaign =)

Really? Cause I'm not sure that's 100% true. I mean is all magic the same in Burning Wheel? Do Gods and Titans exist? What about ratfolk or even Cthulhu? Psionics?

 

[The Hitcher]

Really? Cause I'm not sure that's 100% true. I mean is all magic the same in Burning Wheel? Do Gods and Titans exist? What about ratfolk or even Cthulhu? Psionics?

Actually a lot of that stuff will be covered by the Codex (the book being Kickstarted), which is an update of a bunch of content from the Magic, Monster and Adventure Burners from the previous edition. Rat men are in there (as a playable race, even). There's a range of different magic systems suitable for different purposes - it would be pretty easy to adapt something for psionics, depending what that means in that world (5E hasn't even worked out what psionics means at this point, mind you - so it may or may not be present in this update of SL). What element of the Cthulu mythos is required? Madness is pretty easily handled through the Traits system (probably with the addition of an emotional attribute - there's a thread on the BW forums where some people hash out a very simple system). There's rules for building monsters - not that fighting in BW is a terribly good idea, most of the time. There are rules for worship of/communication with gods. Not sure exactly what you want when it comes to titans. Aren't they already dead, and just causing ambient effects in the environment?

Not knowing Scarred Lands intimately, it's hard for me to go much deeper than that - but BW is ultimately pretty flexible, especially when it comes to anything built on generic fantasy (and hey, I heard of one group modding it to run a Western). And the tone is already keyed to a darker, more brutal fantasy than standard D&D (something closer to Warhammer FRP, if you know that).

The main issue, I would say, is that BW actually works best with a setting that's only defined in broad brushstrokes. You want to leave certain truths to be defined (by GM and players) as the campaign progresses. What I would do, if I was running BW in Scarred Lands (or indeed any D&D-style setting), is figure out what core elements of that world you want to start with - the big picture stuff, with a few details of the local area - and then let it evolve organically from there (drawing on, rather than feeling constrained by the canon of the setting). In BW, the setting should serve the situation, which in turn should serve character development (which is why it makes for such rich stories).

 

[The Hitcher]

Uhmm... that Scarred Lands kickstarter sucks! No stretch goals unless you order hardcopy? So no stretch goals for pdf backers? Not nice. Especially since you can't get an estimate of international shipping from the KS page

They've changed it so that all digital stretch goals come with the $30 level (or higher). Because someone asked them nicely.

 

[Nightfall]

I saw that they did Hitcher.

I'm also glad if they get enough we MIGHT see Creature Collection included in this Kickstarter. Course that's probably when they hit 50,000 or higher...

 

[Nytmare]

Burning Wheel isn't a setting as much as it is a system that allows you to build settings. That being said, My Scarred Lands campaigns have incorporated bits and pieces of Mouse Guard's and then the Burning Wheel's character creation process for about a decade. THAT being said, when I got my first copy of Burning Wheel, the idea of rebuilding the Scarred Lands with it was super exciting, but crazy daunting. I wouldn't be satisfied using Burning Wheel straight out of the box to try to describe the Scarred Lands at all at all, and that's a lot of writing and rewriting to do.
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[TANGENTIAL EDIT]As an example, part of the character "burning" (ie creation) process is wandering down a thing called a Life Path. This is an awesome set of charts where you're making decisions about your character's backstory, figuring out where they've been and what they've done, almost building their character class, which in turn describes what mechanical choices and future life paths you get to choose from next.

So, I could start off on the Villager setting lifepath and decide to create a human sailor. That choice adds 5 years to the character, adds some physical stats, skills and traits, and opens up my next choice between the Solider, City Dweller, Peasant, Servant/Captive, or Seafarer lifepaths. So in the end I could end up piecing together a nice organic character where every bit of backstory I chose translated into where the next set of stats and abilities came from. I have a Mithril sailor who rose through the ranks to become a first mate, and eventually captained his own cargo ship which he lost to Blood Sea pirates, and now he's a captive of war.

But, the human life paths are about 40 some odd pages, and you'd not only have to shuffle and translate a good part of the existing flavor of the Scarred Lands into that list (think of all those specialty orders and PRC paths) but you'd also have to repeat that 20-40 some odd page process for every other playable race you want the players to have access to. Part of that process could be mitigated by deciding that every race has access to say the same Noble or Villager life paths, but that's not the way the Burning Wheel is built, and I don't think that the Scarred Lands gains anything by saying that the life and choices presented to a human prince of Calastia (prosperous, lawful evil nation of slavers) are going to even be recognizable to a Broadreach elven prince (wood elves who magically bound themselves to the trees of their forest to protect it from the taint of a Titan torn apart above it, and who emerged 100 years later, completely insane and really pissed off).

 

[Nightfall]

Nyt,

Yeah I don't see how the choices a Calastian nobleman is going to be the same as a Forsaken Elf noble. Or for that matter, that a druid dedicated to Denev is the same as a druid dedicated to Thulkas or Golthagga.

 

[The Hitcher]

Nyt,

Yeah I don't see how the choices a Calastian nobleman is going to be the same as a Forsaken Elf noble. Or for that matter, that a druid dedicated to Denev is the same as a druid dedicated to Thulkas or Golthagga.

Well sure there's a bit of work on the character creation side. I didn't say it would be NO work =)

The easy way to deal with that is to ask the players for character concepts first, and then just create lifepaths to assist them getting there. There's guidelines in the Monster Burner (which will probably show up again in the Codex). And there should still be plenty of standard ones you can use.

Much of the time you lose converting lifepaths and monsters you will make up for on adventure prep. Since BW is character-driven, there's only so much prep you can actually do.

In any case: I still think it's relatively simple, but maybe only once you're fairly familiar with the way BW works.

 

[Nightfall]

Maybe so Hitcher. But I'm still not convinced BW works better for Scarred Lands than say, 5th edition or Pathfinder. But then again I might be biased.

 

[The Hitcher]

Maybe so Hitcher. But I'm still not convinced BW works better for Scarred Lands than say, 5th edition or Pathfinder. But then again I might be biased.

Oh, I wasn't saying it will work *better*. It's totally a matter of taste. Burning Wheel is a very different game to any version of D&D, so it depends what you're looking for. I was just saying that it could be done, and that it wouldn't be that difficult.

This conversation has inspired me to take a closer look at Scarred Lands. So cheers!

 

[Nightfall]

I'm glad at least, Hitcher, you'll want to take a closer look at my home.

 

[Caliburn101]

Scarred Lands was the best gameworld for D&D ever published, bar none... and I have played in nearly all of them at one point or other, and run many as well.

There was nothing more pleasurable from a DM's point of view than to dive into any of the books released for Scarred Lands and have a great plot seed jump out at you in the first few minutes of reading, every time.

It sits in the middle of a D&D-flavoured conceptual triangle between Game of Thrones, Clash of the Titans and Mad Max.

It's brilliant...

 

[Caliburn101]

Oh yes, and that reminds me.

Ever considered the kind of campaign world where a TPK can occur during a Long Rest without anything approaching the campsite?

... let's just say not all of Gaurak's Teeth ended up as mountains...

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Ever had your Lawful Good character have to agonise over whether to save the life of the Paladin or the undead-animating Necromancer?

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Ever had your Cleric nod in agreement with the intercession of their Neutral Good goddess, dooming a village of non-evil commoners to a slow death by starvation?

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Ever had a character arrested for holding hands with their spouse in public?

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Ever been confronted with an anatomically equipped pleasure golem in the street, during a public carnival?

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Ever had your entire body owned by the rulers of a city the moment you walked in the gate, but without losing your right to freedom, or the ability to leave whenever you choose?

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Ever experienced your prone character about to be disembowelled by a Chaotic Evil arch-enemy, only for them to give you a hand up, heal you and the two of you charge, not a word spoken and with weapons drawn towards an evil creature in the distance who wasn't going to interfere with your battle?

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Ever made a promise to a God, standing right in front of you, only to break the promise in front of the same God without consequence, just because you climbed a mountain beforehand?

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Ever been attacked by three goblins only to have your character killed by 12 javelins in one turn?

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Play Scarred Lands... it will, I promise you, all make sense...

P.S. NEVER hug anyone who's bald... and NEVER EVER insult anyone in a clown's outfit...