Started reading about this system a while ago, can't really play it because my players can't into english, and sadly there's no translation avaible.
Anyway I never saw any kind of discussion about this system on TG and is very rare to see someone even mention it, is it very unpopular?
Why is that?
Is it bad? Why?
It gets shit on the because its a fairly prescriptive ruleset and there's no room for that when people argue about which system is the best or worst ever.
Why is that? It seems like some ideas concepts could be changed it some effort.
I really liked the age system I think what made it really "prescriptive" tough is how the mechanics are so heavily integrated to the lore/setting wich makes changing the setting actually more damagable to the balance to changing the mechanics itself.
BW threads do happen a few times a month. They rarely get much attention because the playerbase is tiny and doesn't start many fights in those threads for bumps. This one probably won't last long either but you never know.
I do like BW will hopefully get to run a game later this year, but it's a very niche product.
>can't really play it because my players can't into english
You only really need to translate skills and traits i think, then Ctrl+H them into lifepaths, that's a few hours of work. Teach the rules in play, It's not like players read rulebooks anyway. Don't use magic, non-humans, or any duel of wits subsystems.
Character creation can be a challenge i guess, but if you focus on beliefs and concepts, explain the process and leave them to pick up skills and traits off the table with a reference sheet and online communication, it should be alright.
I'm in a similar situation and thinking about doing just that for my group eventually.
I was thinking about asking for them "what kind of character concept would you in a world like this..."
Then explain the setting, picking up their idea of characters and creating them myself, handle them the sheets and explain how the game works with a playtest.
If all goes well, then I could try to translate skill, traits, spell, etc...
I play with some players who can't understand english and I explain what things mean while DMing so I don't think it's impossible to play, just cumbersome.
How's the experience at your table till now?
That's kinda like playing with pregens huh, might be fine i guess. You can also maybe run the mouse guard first to familiarize them with mechanics. (Though MG is probably more rule intense than a striped down burning wheel)
Do the Lord's work, user.
If you find a good game, enabling others to play it is a blessing.
Godspeed, good user, and may the dice gods never turn unkindly to you.
Something about BW does tend repulse spergs ime
>that's a few hours of work
Actually, disregard this. Skills and traits lists are like 100 pages long, fuck. Look for players with rudimentary knowledge of english and willingness to use google translate instead.
To be fair, there are a lot of very niche skills and a huge number of traits are 1pt character traits with no description. An given group of characters is only going to use a fraction of those. You could probably get away with just translating the name of the stuff that fits the sort of concepts/lifepaths the players are interested in and having an overview as GM of what they do. You can add detail to what is needed once they have a rough character sketched out, instead of doing the entire skills/trait chapter in one go.
Not that I've ever had to run a game for a group functionally illiterate in English. Fluent ESL who needed some obscure terms explained is as hard as it got for me.
Burning Wheel does one very specific thing and does it very well. Which is player character driven narrative fantasy games about focusing in on what is important to the PCs goals. It has very strict rules and really wants you to play by them instead of just hand waving a lot of it away as a means towards that end.
There are plenty of legitimate reasons why that play style is not for everyone (some hate fantasy, some think plot should come from the GM or there not to be a 'plot' at all, some prefer a more rule 0/GM rulings kind of game, whatever), and it is thus a poor fit for anyone not suited to that playstyle.
Reading the book, the author can kind of come across as an arrogant douche bag, and the book has kind of a "bad wrong fun" tone if you want to play it anyway other than what he intended. He also has some serious autism about not wanting there to be PDFs of the system out there which is why all the PDFs you can find of it tend to be garbage This can also turn people off.
The result is that there really is only a small group of people for whom the system does what they actually want in a game, and actually work their way through the book to try it out. The rest are either completely ambivalent to it, because they recognize it doesn't meet their needs, or shit on it cause that's what the internet does to things they don't actively like.
I happen to love it, and am kinda bummed I am not in a campaign of it right now, but will admit it will probably always be a small niche game because it's not what the mainstream really wants.
Could someone give me the rundown on how this system works
Like chargen, conflict resolution, etc.
chargen is through lifepaths with some extra character personality stuff decided by you (beliefs and instincts)
conflict resolution is a complicated process and isn't recommended for first time players, it's a whole ordeal and it's kinda neat
skill checks are d6 pool, standard skills succeed on a 4+ and you count successes to beat an object number
Chargen: Start at a born lifepath, keep picking lifepaths from the setting you were born in or take a lead from the LP you JUST picked to any of the settings it leads to. Repeat until you are fine with your character or your reach the lifepath cap imposed by your GM/The group.
You add up a bunch of various types of points your lifepath gives you, including your age (including +1 for every lead you took), distribute stat points (including from your age on your race age chart), skill points (one point opens the skill at half its root stat, each additional one in that skill adds +1), and trait points. You have to take the first skill that you don't already have from each life path same with traits.
Spend resource points, you will never have enough, don't forget shoes.
Calculate some derived stats, including answering some questions for Health and Steel, this is laid out pretty clearly in the book.
Write some beliefs and instincts. Beliefs should have some sort of personal motivation included in them, but ALSO some short term goal you can accomplish relatively quickly. Like "I am the instrument of the Lord's will, I will put the heretics in Hochen to the sword". Instincts at "if/then" statements that your character always does "When threatened, I draw my sword!". Good instincts will either help you our of a jam, or get your character into trouble (for some sweet artha) great instincts will do both. These can be tricky, but you get a feel for them
The only real conflict resolution you need is the basic roll of "Roll a number of six-sided dice equal to your skill, plus any dice for people helping or situational advantages, if you get a number of fours or higher equal to the GM's obstacle you get what you want, otherwise, bad stuff". You really should get a feel for the core system before you jump into the expanded systems just cause they can be a bit overwhelming,
shit game
I have the exact same problem, and I only managed to make Mouse Guard work, because it was way less work to just translate the character sheet and do a summary of the character generation part. The simpler ruleset made it completely possible play it with only those parts, and it was worth it. I hope someday I can dive into Burning Wheel proper and enjoy the increased depth it apparently provides.
Bump for interest and diversity of system discussion.
How do you guys feel about Torchbearer?
someone tell me about a game/character you played and what happened.
I wanna see what kind of stories result from these games.
Google PDF translate.
It's not perfect, but it might help.
another reason is that there's only 2 reasons I'd want to ask someone about burning wheel. Reason 1 is rules clarification, and reddit is just a better place for that; Thor and luke crane both post there intermittently, and there's a ton of other people who know the system back to front.
reason two would be 'hey tg, how would you respond to this situation?' and holy shit bw situations are so much more complex than dnd campaigns that I've seen. I feel like to get a reasonable response, I'd have to type out half a season of my dumb elf soap-opera.
Hey speaking of, I've got a character who wants to find out what happened to her mum. She lives next to a forest full of [basically fae creatures], in a village who are all 'cursed' with spooky witch-abilities, like being able to see in the dark or sense if someone's lying to you. Any ideas on this would be sweet.