Torchbearer 2nd ed: first impressions

[Fenris-77]

I have my first session of TB2E tonight, so I should be bale to join in a little more fully here.

 

[Manbearcat]

ON SKILLED PLAY, TORCHBEARER, BLADES IN THE DARK, AND DUNGEON WORLD

Alright, some thoughts on each of these. First, I'm going to rate each of them on a 1-10 in terms of Skilled Play and then I'm going to discuss the nature and magnitude (in terms of impact upon play's trajectory) of each of these ratings.

Torchbearer - 10

Quite simply, it is the most demanding game (in terms of Skilled Play) that I've ever GMed. I can't imagine a game being more demanding than this.

Players must manage a huge suite of cognitive overhead including:

* building characters as not only expressions of thematic archetype but also with a deft eye upon synergistic Skill breadth and then the downstream deft deployment of Help on tests, for disposition in varying Conflicts, and for Conflict actions

* all the various facets of the Inventory system (loading out proficiently and efficiently, managing the decisions about when to deploy each item, making room efficiently to bring treasure back, making decisions about what to bring back)

* Cohort/Help management in Journey, Camp, and Adventure phases

* deftly using your Persona and Fate points

* managing your Traits effectively each session in order to both (a) power up your dice pools and (b) having them work against you in order to earn Checks to power Camp tests

* leveraging your Nature and Wises effectively (and this, like everything else, is multivariate)

* managing the map/route well, Roles, and each Leg of the Journey phase's various decision-points effectively to reduce their impact on your resources/capability in the coming Adventure phase

* being efficient and effective in the Adventuring phase in terms of both Turn and Light management (thereby reducing the impact of The Grind upon play, the attrition of precious resources overall, and staving off the debilitating effects of Condition accrual and Darkness)

* being effective in Obstacle management in the Adventure phase (this includes carefully navigating decision-points to identify what you want to engage with and what you want to avoid - this includes many different parameters from spatial to temporal to short/longterm resources to relative potency to cost/benefit, marshalling the dizzying array of resources the group can call upon to optimize dice pools to best handle tests and vs)

* effectively deciding on Conflict types, Conflict Captains, and teasing out the likely action script of the enemy and deploying your own action script deftly in response (to achieve win con and reduce disposition loss when you get there)

* when to use Beginner's Luck to work toward Skill Acquisition

* managing the abundant decision-space around Camp phase (spend a Turn in Adventure phase to find a good spot w/ amenities or take what you can get, Light or Dark camp, Setting Watch and whom, managing Checks across the collective to recover and loadout/repair kit, averting calamity decisions if it hits)

* managing the abundant decision-space around Town (assessing the group's conditions and equipment status + sorting out loot, sorting out accommodations, effectively "market-ing", leveraging your array of social resources to best effect when recovering and conducting personal business and engaging with the available Town facilities and workshops, triangulating on your next Adventure, managing Twist trouble when it invariably strikes, acquiring Cohorts/Help or managing them)

* managing the significant array of thematic triggers for Fate and Persona; setting a Goal and working toward it, acting on your Belief, allies benefiting from your Instinct, injecting a grim moment of Gallows Humor, struggling with your Belief and acting against it, accomplishing your Goal, a costly moment where they either stand up for their Creed or struggle with it, the player with the play of the session (MVP), the player who sacrificed their well being or goals for their mates or worked hardest to keep the group together (Teamworker).

Blades in the Dark - 8.75

Next to Torchbearer, it is the most demanding game that I've ever GMed.

Dungeon World - 6.75

Well north of average in terms of the demands of Skilled Play, but well below the above two games.

---

Good lord. That took me a good while just to do Torchbearer. Torchbearer is pretty staggering in terms of the intricacy and totality of tactical, strategic, and thematic agency, overhead, and demandingness. The total number of variables to weigh and manage under a lot of duress is extreme. Blades is up there in terms of total number of variables and duress, but its a step back in each of those. HOWEVER, fictional positioning management in both Blades and Dungeon World is extreme (an area where both games edge out Torchbearer...Torchbearer's fictional positioning management is significant, but its certainly below both of those two games by a fair margin and a lot of that rests upon the significant capability of Blades and DW PCs).

I'm out of time. I'll come back and update this tomorrow with the other two games.

 

[Fenris-77]

So, how important is the Cartographer skill in terms of making sure someone in the party has it?

 

[Manbearcat]

I haven't forgotten about this thread (or the other one where I need to excerpt the play session that resolved Adventure 1), I just haven't had the time + inclination to get back in here and fully post.

So, how important is the Cartographer skill in terms of making sure someone in the party has it?

Personally, I would say quite important. As long as you have the map on you (that you've attained via Cartographer test), you're able to effectively establish "Fast Travel" (to use CRPG parlance) entire Legs of Journeys. Not having to make that Pathfinder or Sailor Test due to that mapped Leg (or Legs) means one (or more) less chance for a Condition or Twist along the way.

This is extremely valuable in a game where (a) Journeys are ubiquitous and (b) each Condition or Twist endured has significant downstream effect.

 

[TheAlkaizer]

I've recently purchased Burning Wheel and am still only halfway through the books. I've been curious about Torchbearer, but what exactly it is still hasn't fully jelled in my mind.

 

[Manbearcat]

I've recently purchased Burning Wheel and am still only halfway through the books. I've been curious about Torchbearer, but what exactly it is still hasn't fully jelled in my mind.

TB2 Scholar's Guide pg 4 and 5

The Light Dims
Here is a grim land. Summers are short. Winters are long. The towns are overcrowded. Food is expensive. Guilds control trade. Nobles
control taxes. Priests pray for our damned souls.

Out there, beyond those walls, are beasts, bogies…monsters. They inhabit the forests, live under the fields, dwell in the ruins of our burnedout
fortresses. They kidnap lone wanderers, harry our caravans, and when they are bold, they attack our towns.

This land is wild, untamable, and in it we struggle to survive. We who thought we could conquer it, subjugate it—we are but guests here, our
days numbered.

Our forebears succeeded in wedging a toehold—a small point of light in a vast, weird darkness. Their hubris led them to believe they had won, that victory was inevitable. But they were wrong. The forests retaliated. The mountains rebelled. The seas heaved in protest. Things issued forth from crevices and caves; the foam and fire spat forth a writhing, crawling answer to our forebears’ “conquest.” We battled them. We banished them. We flung spell and prayer at them. But they came like a creeping tide, forcing us steadily back.

So now most of us crowd into our walled towns and make do with what’s been given to us. Some hardy folk brave the long nights and, far behind our defenses, work the soil at dawn. A few of us—those with nothing left—take up torch and sword and stride forth into the dark wilds.

For underneath the roots are the ruins of those who came before us. Layers of foolhardy civilizations crumbling atop one another like corpses stacked in a pit. Each thought they could conquer this land. Each failed.

But in failure, they left us hope. They left us gold, artifacts, secrets, knowledge. Those brave or foolish enough to seek these treasures are
richly rewarded. Those successful enough can even rise above their station.

Thus, by risking our very blood for a handful of coins perhaps we can become heroes—but only if we survive.

What Is This Game A bout?
Torchbearer is a roleplaying game of desperate adventure. In the game, players take on the role of fortune-seeking adventurers. To earn their
fortune, they must explore forlorn ruins, brave terrible monsters and retrieve forgotten treasures.

The expeditions they undertake are taxing to body, mind and their very nature. To survive, they must carefully manage food, water and light
resources. To excel, they must fight for what they believe in. To prosper, they must fill their bags with loot and treasure.

This triumvirate of competing needs creates a wonderful tension unique to Torchbearer. Players are asked to weigh these forces in every decision they make. Some may seem easy or frivolous to start, but the deeper they become enmeshed in an adventure, the heavier and more
costly each decision becomes.

---

If you have any specific, focused questions, ask them and I'll answer them (the above and the below is a lot of the "why and what"...if you have questions of "how", I'll gladly answer those). Here are a few of my own thoughts:

If you took Mouse Guard (if you're familiar with it) and made it brutal, much more emotionally demanding and taxing, throttled up Skilled Play to 11, oriented the PCs less toward heroes initially and more toward desperate souls in a world that has and will continue to lay them low and trample them under foot if they do not act (and very likely will even if they do act).

Fight for what you believe, fight for a single good night's sleep and a warm meal, fight for a moment's reprieve, fight for your destiny, fight for your friends and parents and mentor, fight for your hometown, fight for your creed, fight to determine your true nature in spite of all this horror and desperation around you.

Just...fight...

Wake up...and do it again...if you're lucky (or perhaps not).

 

[clearstream]

The first one might reflect a vantage point of 2nd ed AD&D. The second would be getting down into the nitty gritty of actually thinking about playing or running either Dungeon World or Torchbearer.

The idea that you might do Torchbearer or DW with 5e D&D is just ludicrous.

Given this is a Torchbearer thread I'll only elaborate on it. And only in one respect - where is the help rule in 5e D&D? Or the rule that every test (outside of a conflict, and recognising that Town and Camp Phase have their own logic) costs a turn? 5e D&D is a completely different game, once the superficial resemblances of trope are looked past.

I don't want to derail the main purpose of this interesting thread. We've found 5e and DW possible to run in similar (but not identical, that's not the claim) ways, both by erroneously running DW as a traditional game (answering the question, can you run DW at all like 5e?) and by applying agenda and principles to run 5e as a fiction-first game (answering the question, can you run 5e at all like DW?) We have different grasps of some fundamental concepts, such as including effectiveness in our construct for fictional-positioning, and rejecting any hard separation of fiction and system. One timeline, not two. I don't think we should get into those here, but I mention them in order to point out committments that can lead to differing judgements.

Torchbearer 2e is impossible to run like 5e, and vice versa. At the very least, the grind separates it out. We've found so far that the price of a turn for each test, and the gearing that translates tests and turns into conditions, creates a mechanical vise. Additionally, 5e has nothing approaching the story-now mechanics of Torchbearer 2e. In particular, we've found instinct to be a crucial lever that there is no way to emulate in 5e, because the cost it obviates doesn't exist. I've found writing instincts that will be effective in play, without reaching, is a clutch skill. Speaking of skills, understanding the help and gear web, and ensuring characters are properly set up to work together, makes a huge difference. 5e TIBFs cannot approach the story-mechanics relationships that are defined with precision in the TB2e game text. And that's without going into conflict and disposition!

TB2e is a tour-de-force of game design, as is DW, but they are very different games. TB2e has highly detailed, precise mechanics that are meshed together to deliver what feels like very strongly story-now play. In urging players to huddle, and many hints at thinking mechanically, I felt TB2e doesn't sign up to fiction-first as strongly as DW does. TB2e is not about winning in a traditional sense (although you're certainly intended to strive for it). To my understanding the intended narratives use that only as a kind of magnetic pole. To me, it's the dramatic character development that counts most in TB2e. Given the brutally hard game-world, it's the only goal you can rely on satisfying! Perhaps the mechanic for gaining checks in particular speaks to that.

I wonder if it comes down to the way each game reifies its intent? I felt that TB2e reifies its intent in its mechanics. Whereas DW reifies its intent in its principles. The DW mechanics ensure a certain basic pattern is followed, but you can follow that pattern in different ways (i.e. play DW the way many play 5e). TB2e has numerous bespoke and yet tightly interwoven mechanics, such as those for each phase, and for each element in each phase: it's an absolute machine. Impossible to play TB2e as 5e (and vise versa.)

 

[clearstream]

I've recently purchased Burning Wheel and am still only halfway through the books. I've been curious about Torchbearer, but what exactly it is still hasn't fully jelled in my mind.

For me, Torchbearer 2e has been far easier to get into and play than Burning Wheel. That might be because I feel more motivated to do so, because TB2e's play is so distinctive. Everything makes sense in an interwoven whole.

 

[BrokenTwin]

I've got Burning Wheel and Mouseguard 2E on my bookshelf, but haven't been able to find a group willing to try either of them. I'd love to pick up Torchbearer as well, to see if a more traditional dungeon oriented game might draw my players in.

 

[pemerton]

I've recently purchased Burning Wheel and am still only halfway through the books. I've been curious about Torchbearer, but what exactly it is still hasn't fully jelled in my mind.

Burning Wheel is probably, on balance, my favourite RPG. I find it amazingly intense.

Here's my take on some of the differences between BW and Torchbearer:

Narrating twists is (at least as I see it) closer to GM moves in a PbtA game, than to narrating consequences in Burning Wheel. The latter is all about (i) failure of intent, and (ii) putting pressure on a PC's Beliefs, Instincts and traits. In PbtA, and it seems to me in Torchbearer, there is less focus on those dramatic concerns, and more focus on what follows from the fiction. GM prep of twist ideas plays a similar sort of function to preparing a front in AW or DW.

A related point: it's possible to play BW with skill - both dramatic skill (leaning into Beliefs, Relationships etc) and mechanical skill (trying for tests, and adjusting dice pools, to optimise advancement) - but BW doesn't demand skilled play in the classic sense. Speaking from my own experience as a player, if you inhabit your PC and play Beliefs etc without too much regard to how you're doing in terms of tests, advancement, gear,etc, the game will keep going. Your PC will be put through the ringer, but the approach to framing and consequence narration will keep things moving.

Torchbearer, on the other hand, is brutal! It absolutely demands skilled play - managing inventory, conditions vs progress through the adventure phase, collecting checks for camp phase, etc. I think if you lose your grip on any of those aspects, the whole thing will collapse around you!