What do you think of Burning Wheel, Veeky Forums?

What do you think of Burning Wheel, Veeky Forums?

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It gets a lot of threads on Veeky Forums that die after fewer than 30 posts.

Have you played it? If so, did you like it? Considering running it, it looks pretty cool.

redbull me about what makes it so great.

Been a while since I looked into it.
Didn't like how baked in Tolkien character arcs are.
Pure mechanically there was no aesthetic draw/flavor to it, I don't even remember the base resolution except that it uses d6.
There was just no strong reason to chose it, which must be the reason it scarcely made an impression. To much weight for no gain. And I'm not to keen on the super vanilla setting assumptions.

Mechanically It's a fucking trainwreck and on investigating the wreckage it looks like the train was sabotaged in at least several different ways.

ehhh

Never played it, but the mechanics seem very neat. I think I prefer the simplified version offered in Mouseguard though.

I don't know, really. I've heard good things said about it, figured I'd get Veeky Forums to weigh in.
Would you mind explaining what kind of problems you are referring to?

Sucks

Why?

Here is what happens in Burning Wheel

>Player wants to do something
>Uh, I want to do, uh, magic
>Rolls
>Uh, what did it do?
>I don't know, what did you want it to do
>I dunno

Ah, got it, you're just making stuff up then.

So you haven't read the rulebook?

I haven't yet, but since what's being described in the post I replied to is effectively freeform and the mechanics of this system are apparently pretty hefty, there's no way that it's the case.

I like it. It is made for a very specific play style for certain types of games. Which are character driven fantasy stories set in a Tolkien themed world.

It's not really for everyone, but it is fun.

It does the things it does very well, and everyone needs to be on the same page and want roughly the same things to play it.

You've been misled, the system is "pretty hefty" because everything has several competing systems to do the exact same thing, but that doesn't change the fact that everything is incredibly vague, nothing has mechanical weight, there's several different magic systems with different fluff but the mechanics behind them are exactly the same; the above example is correct, you don't cast spells, you simply roll for magic and then everybody decides what happens on a success.

BW is a story "game", It's a gamification of passing around a notebook and asking people to scribble what happens next.

Wait, then why is there a list of actual spells in the section for humans, under sorcery?

For the exact same reason he refuses to reprint the Magic burner, because it's a MtA homebrew and he renamed the rotes.

MtA, as in the White Wolf game?

it is strange that he refuses to reprint any of the old books, is he some sort of crazy perfectionist or just an asshole?

I own mouseguard, but I can't grok how the system Works. I'm too dnd i guess

>First game soon
>Chat with one of the fellow players
>"So, how do i attack someone in this system? Like, roll a d20 and add my sword skill right?"

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Have you?
Announcing intent is literally the first step in the process.

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None of this is true.

It's a really good read with lots of interesting ideas.
It's biggest problem is that it REQUIRES heavy player buy-in, which not every group can get.
Everything comes off as pretty complex, but its all pretty simple and connects to each other pretty elegantly. I think the full on Fight! rules give people the biggest headache or scare them off the most as they seems overly designed, but it leads to some very interesting and visceral combat. I mean it's also way simpler than running like Pathfinder combat, just people aren't nearly as used to it.
I mean he released the Burning Wheel Codex book which is essentially the Magic Burner and Adventure Burner. Not sure why people say he isn't reprinting stuff for the new edition (gold) when he literally did already. Only thing, other than some pieces of those old books, he hasn't redone is the Monster Burner.

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Anyone who has played a WoD game should be able to pickup 90% of Burning Wheel pretty quick since they have a lot of similarities.

I noticed the filename on that image, and I'm not familiar with the Codex, I only know of Gold Edition. Is it another edition that can be used interchangeably with Gold Edition, or a splat/expansion?

It's bonus material. Basically old Magic and Adventure Burner books.
Magic Burner has new magic systems and advice on using magic and new magic related lifepaths.
Adventure Burner has advice on creating campaigns and also is "this is how you read the rules you fucking idiot, do I really have to explain everything twice".
Like there is some good advice, but having a "how to read" book for your own rules might imply something.

Linking thread I just made on a related subject

Imagine being so autistic that you vehemently shitpost about a game that you hate yet have literally not even read.

Every day I find a new reason to pity shitposters. Unreal.

>Would you mind explaining what kind of problems you are referring to?
Yes

Shut up

Lots of good shit in it.
Troll race is best race

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Rude.

I think this is the best summary. Burning Wheel is a game that does exactly what it sets out to do. If you don't worry too much about power level and just play a Tolkienesque fantasy with some strongly opinionated and passionate characters, it'll do well. If you try to hack it into a dungeon crawl or something you're going to have a bad time.

It is entirely possible to play the game wrong, by which I mean the against the way that Crane et al. explain in the book's many, many authors' notes. It will then crash and burn because you put diesel into a car that's meant to take gasoline.

Recently I realized Burning Wheel isn't the first system to use narrativism in the way it does. All Japanese systems seem to be like this, for example.

>itt people shitting on OP

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>It's a really good read with lots of interesting ideas.
Yes.
>but its all pretty simple and connects to each other pretty elegantly
No.

Most of the systems are superfluous and hinder the game while the skill system is a wrecked mess of constant flipping around the rulebook, bloated as all hell, inconsistent and very very obviously a product of a pretentious asshole's "stream of thought" development style going 10 years or so without any actual trimming... or at least not enough. It furthermore piles a bunch of petty mix-and-match test seeking and bookkeeping on all of that where you have to consult tables for every roll you make to see what sort of XP you get.

Fight isn't just over complicated, its shit. A slow boring slug fest that MIGHT be funny if the players are incompetent but the characters are good. Its ridiculously self-breaking as soon as you read the moves, shitty characters cant do anything and good characters cancel each other out. Oh yeah and as soon as someone picks up shield training and a plank, everyone who doesn't follow along becomes instantly irrelevant, hence self-breaking.

Burning wheel games should avoid any combat beyond bloody-versus.

The duel of wits isn't much better and only really works if its two people arguing over a crowd cause like most social combat it makes very little sense. And again the basic test mechanics do it better while not bogging down the game utterly.

Whats good about it? The Beliefs, Instincts and Traits and how they influence character play. Thats the functional part, the driving core of the entire game that produces character centric drama by having players direct the story with their beliefs and recieving points for pursuing ones goals and dramatically interesting self sabotage.

>"this is how you read the rules you fucking idiot, do I really have to explain everything twice".

What makes it funnier is that its thrice. He repeats and explains himself a lot in the little devil's asides in the core too. With little actual effect at that.

>Most of the systems are superfluous and hinder the game while the skill system is a wrecked mess of constant flipping around the rulebook, bloated as all hell, inconsistent and very very obviously a product of a pretentious asshole's "stream of thought" development style going 10 years or so without any actual trimming... or at least not enough. It furthermore piles a bunch of petty mix-and-match test seeking and bookkeeping on all of that where you have to consult tables for every roll you make to see what sort of XP you get.

None of this is true.

I don't particularly *like* the fuckhuge list of skills Burning Wheel has, but the thing is that the detail of skills is precisely what allows its Life Path system to be as indepth as it is, so it's worth it if you ask me. The biggest thing people forget is just using your attributes to roll if you don't have a skill at the untrained penalty (aka double the DC and roll your attributes), which is perfectly easy to remember.

I've never understood the "muh tables, muh bookkeeping" issues either. Getting tests is *fun* because it's how you progress and make shit happen, and knowing what type of test result you got is as simple as asking yourself if the DC was below the number of dice rolled or above it. Below? Routine. Above? Challenging. It's only a little finicky when the DC is about the same as the number of dice thrown.

I mean, in the strictest sense of the words, his criticisms are true, but no more difficult to navigate than any other pen and paper system more complex than fucking FAE. Burning Wheel's biggest issue is literally just the fact that it's too different from what D&Drones are used to so it's harder for them to retain the rules.

I'll explain further.

>Most of the systems are superfluous and hinder the game
Just like fight the indepth subsystems parts all follow the same pattern. Rather than do what the game sets out to: Focusing on summarizing the intent and method vs potential consequences of failure, then rolling and see where you end up and moving the story on from there. The subsystems over all just turn this from one roll into multiple rolls and sometimes some very convoluted rock paper scissors. All of them take focus away from using your time and effort to advance or challenge your beliefs by turning that process into a multiple roll slog.

The subsystems that work are the circles and relationships chapter and art magic should have been in the codex instead of sorcery because sorcery again makes no sense alongside the rest of the rules in its design philosophy. Just like fight and Duel of Wits it is not about your intent and how it relates to your beliefs but rather it used a set of predefined intents and methods to extend what should be a single test into a more drawn out process that takes you away from furthering the story.

The system should drop most of those expanded subsystems and have bloody versus be the advanced fight option and similar functioning roll offs instead of DoW. And to reiterate, sorcery in the core, compared to the other stock's magic and art magic in the codex feels like it was designed for a different game.

Other subsystems: Resources are retarded and go against their very centrally stated goal. That tracking individual coins is boring etc. But you still have to buy shoes. Separately. For a single resource point. Beyond that the pricing makes very little sense. Buying gear is a bad idea since buying actual wealth in game is possible and grants you access to gear from then on. An interesting thing to note though about the resources dice in game, they very well represent how it is expensive to be poor and rich people cant help getting richer.

It is actually pretty interesting and well done, but its fault lies in trying to make sure that the system they come up is respected at all times.

For instance, take the resources system. It just doesn't make sense for someone with resources 6 to roll to see if they need something that requires one success only. Things become even sillier if you have a bag of coins that would give you an extra dice but still can't exchange it for what you want because of a bad roll.

The way failure is handled is also a bit weird. The idea is that rather than simply failing at what you wanted to do, you will fail at its intent. This, coupled with the idea that a roll should almost never mean the difference between life and death, can mean that the players are too shielded from the consequences of their actions. Finally, the game makes way too much noise about what the GM can or cannot do, which, I think, is silly.

All that said, it does have some pretty good stuff. The lifepath system in it is very well made, for instance. And while the combat system is a bit too fiddly, it has various interesting properties, such as having reach play a more important part than usual.

In depth systems like Fight and Duel of Wits are there for same reason why most traditional games have more in depth rules for combat. Sometimes it's just fun to play a game.
Also they provide more graduality to the outcome of the situation and provide more focus to the scene overall. Also all those systems are there to be used when needed or wanted. You can handle all social conflicts with skill checks, and fights with bloody versus and that wouldn't be against the rules.

Also comparing resources attribute to resource points of character creation is some false equivalency. Those are two totally different things. My main issue with the resource system is that how easy it is to fall in poverty spiral as a average staring character the moment you try to buy, pretty much anything.
And I know that it's working as intended. Sometimes I just don't care about simulating the "fuck poor people" part of medieval fantasy world.

>can mean that the players are too shielded from the consequences of their actions.
They are shielded of consequences of luck. No one wants to hit a stone wall because of bad luck. Also that encourages characters to make bad decisions and do stuff they are not best at, which is essential for characters to grow. And I've gotten my character killed by rolling a skill I didn't have, so there definitely can be consequences.

>system is a wrecked mess of constant flipping around the rulebook, bloated as all hell, inconsistent and very very obviously a product of a pretentious asshole's "stream of thought" development style

Simply summarised: There is too fucking many with too much overlap, others are extremely niche to the point of irrelevancy and all together they not only overextend the skill list they also fill up the life path system which in turn has extreme difficulty in actually creating someone without glaring omissions in basic competency like accidentally dodging the firemaking skill (a skill who's sole purpose is yes, to light camp and bonfires, no, it does not cover arson that's a separate skill).

Furthermore another grave hinderance built into it is that rather than lean on a unified scale of difficulty which the game has, to determine the obstacle on the fly the skill list instead takes the time to list custom sets of obstacles for most skills that may or may not match up to the recommended obstacles in the earlier chapter.

Another problem with the game's skills is its versus dice pools when they interact with combat mechanics: Anyone can kill someone with a knife and while the game realizes this in its basic 'test to hurt someone' checks once you start rolling pools against each other peasants become impervious to stabbing, because a hefty hit takes more successes to land than they have dice. This might be considered a bug or fringe case but at the very least is a further indictment against the Fight system.

Lastly, Luke Crane is pretentious as all hell, that doesn't mean the game is bad necessarily, his style of writing and explaining varies wildly and helps as much as it hinders in my opinion. The problem stems from things not fitting together because he and his gang have lost sight of it as they've gone along and it shows.

There is no conspiracy to make traditional games politically correct. Characters in fiction and gaming communities simply change with respect to the latest cultural values. But you fedora-tipping cancerous fucks always blame imaginary SocJus boogeymen when people start hating you for the shit that you do. As long as you continue to refuse act like decent human beings, people will keep noticing.

But of course, you will keep blaming imaginary "SJWs", "poseurs" and "normies" when you the public hates you for the scum you are. And let's not even get started on how you all react to games becoming more popular and easily accessible.

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> piles a bunch of petty mix-and-match test seeking and bookkeeping on all of that where you have to consult tables for every roll you make to see what sort of XP you get.

Burning wheel has three kinds of XP of which you need at least two different sorts to advance a skill every level of that skill. Each type is assigned depending on what your odds of succeeding at the roll are with Challenging only being attainable if the roll is (without meta currencies) impossible to do and Difficult being nearly so and Routine becoming unnecessary for advancement past a certain point. Neither are they interchangeable, in any direction. So you constantly have to seek out tests of a certain difficulty depending on where your current exponent is and what you've already accumulated since getting there.

To figure that out you consult the table that states what a certain obstacle rating is for your current dice pool, keeping in mind it's your dice pool including side bonuses, not your actual skill so getting help to learn from something difficult suddenly makes it no longer a learning experience.

So you chase two out of three types of challenges with constantly fluctuating levels that then wipe themselves out every time your base exponent changes and shifts your point on the table further up. And you do this for EVERY roll on EVERY skill you have. But there's more! The tests you seek you need to look up from that individual skill's customized obstacles list. And what makes that even more funny is if you get really good at certain skills you end up not being able to advance them further because your base exponent is too high for routine tests to matter and all the sample obstacles (up to and including the crowning achievement of people working that skill) are now all routine.

It may not be advanced math, but it is a bunch of mixing, matching and bookkeeping.

>Also comparing resources attribute to resource points of character creation is some false equivalency.

What i said was that chargen resources are shit all on their own.

But you can use them to buy in game resources but only if you spend them on the right things.

>In depth systems like Fight and Duel of Wits are there for same reason why most traditional games have more in depth rules for combat.

I know they are, the problem is they
A: Dont fit the game's design. Everything that BW does well revolves around the BITs, but rather than further and tie back into them these systems put a stop to the game loop while you bury yourself in needlessly convoluted rock paper scissors with dice.
B: Break under any sort of scrutiny. Granted i havent looked as deeply into DoW to find where it falls apart besides stuff like rapier wit breaking its action economy, but fight falls apart as soon as someone grabs a shield, the opponent MIGHT be able to make up for it but doing a two in one action with extra dice breaks the game.
C: Why would i you not play burning wheel when you're playing burning wheel. If you want these things get a system that does them well without putting its core mechanic on hold.

I wouldn't go looking for riveting office politics in a dungeon crawler so why build advanced boss fights for a peasant soap opera?