Let me ask this question instead, as a person who hasn't delved into it, what do players actually enjoy about Burning Wheel?
I own a copy I picked up for cheap at an LGS, it has a nice feel of a tome, but just from the text I've read, i don't quite grok it.
Luke Crane was making like $500,000 a year as Head of Games for Kickstarter and he got fired over trying to backdoor Adam Koebel in on a shitty collaborative RPG zine after Adam was cancelled. I think that's one of the funniest things to happen in RPGs in years.
Read it in 2016, didn't felt like running it, never bothered about it anymore. In fact, if not the endless "what you think about it" spam, I would probably long forgot about it.
I like how tests and advancement work. The FoRK mechanic is more impactful than a lot of other complementary skill systems and makes you think about what your character can actually do. Duel of Wits was the best social combat system at the time. Fighting is complex but I can't call that a fault. It's just that kind of game.
Overall I find it too baroque. Gold Edition is 500-600 pages and the single column layout combined with Luke's writing style make it a slog to learn and teach. I think it's a good game but it's not my style. Intricate rules relationships do not interest me.
I played for over a year in a weekly campaign as a player and ran about 3 months of bi-weekly games as a GM.
As a GM I actually converted Castle Caldwell over and ran it with some setting modifications to a few empty rooms as well as adding some social plot hooks.
As a player I played a Knight who was simply a very, very good spearman.
My thoughts were that the social systems were good and dual of wits was pretty fun but having a stat disadvantage was pretty serious. That isn't a negative or a positive really, it is how it should probably be. I found combat to be arguably too lethal though and wounds could quickly spiral to death and I witnessed this as both player and GM. The combat itself is also not terribly fun to interact with. The dueling system is pretty good but it slows the game to a crawl and anybody not involved is taking a serious back seat.
The game is also very narrative and while technically without a setting it REALLY wants you to play Lord of the Rings.
Overall it's fun. I may even play it again some day, which is rather high praise. But it really needs you to be ready to house rule some things if you want a specific feeling.
PS: Frick you Luke Crane for no searchable PDF format you're a dick and some of those tables are impossible to find by hand during a session.
It really feels like a book written to solve problems that other RPGs have rather than provide something else entirely.
Its way too much overcomplicated, but in a very alluring way. Its really interesting, but demands an adult and interested party of players.
It's a great game for people tired of the problems of the most mainstream games. It's a great game to create characters and just see what happens to them, if they still themselves (and what would take for them to change). It is very mature, in a good way.
Its NOT a good game for a one shot session, for casuals, for power wanking and probably for loregays.
Its good, but like a good book that gets better every time you reread it.
Another good thing about it is that it really challenges the party (GM and players) in a way I haven't seen in any other game.
nta
The same reason SpyCraft 2.0 is unplayable. It’s so incredibly granular running a game is a part-time job and finding people to play it is daunting because genuine rpg gearheads are a dying breed.
I love games with that much fine detail but it’s academic rather than practical. If I actually want to play a game I need something all of my players will buy into. I have a job, a wife, and other hobbies and commitments. There’s no more room for a game that might as well be an advanced book-keeping night class.
>Is it really that much worse than 3.pf?
I can’t speak of current era pathfinder but being very familiar with 3.5e, yes. Take all that d20 baggage and add a vital meta-currency, downtime system that resolves training, advancement, and spell research, and a mutable magic system.
3.5 et al may have had a glut of material that complicated things but FantasyCraft had all of it’s granularity in the core system and you couldn’t really excise it and be playing the game as intended.
I've filed it next to FantasyCraft in the "cool but totally unplayable" section.
Just incorrect. I have played BW successfully for years teaching it to my players without them having the rulebook. It isn't that bad, you just introduce rules as you need them. Most campaigns will not interface with every aspect of the rules and the base system is actually not hard to improvise and adjucate for. The book recommends this as well, starting with the basic rules and only incorporating the optional "spokes" as desired.
I ran a game with it that lasted about a year and actually came to a satisfactory conclusion, but this was a few years back so my memory might be shaky. In no particular order:
Characters seem more fulfilling to play when they start at 'low-level'. Characters with lots of lifepaths to begin are too competent and difficult for the DM to challenge effectively in their areas of expertise. They are also not very well-rounded, which should have happened naturally.
Combat rules are neat, but don't work well in practice. Something more stripped down but not as basic as 'Bloody Versus' would be beneficial.
Skills work well as a system to resolvr stuff, but there are probably too many useless skills. Again having low-tier dudes to start is probably better.
The base magic system kind of stinks. My preferred method from The Codex is Practical Magic. Feels kind of Merlin-esque.
Customizable options for building your game are good.
Your players REALLY need to read the rules themselves, it's way too much for just the GM unlike in some games.
Overall I want to like it a lot, but it a game for RPG-people among RPG people.
Which is a shame. I do have the desire to run it again, only with a hacked-on combat system as that was I think the most egregious component. Fight! as it's called, in particular, is neat but just not useable at the table.
It's not a complete system, just a combat system and some interesting but half baked ideas. It's the kind of game that becomes a darling of people who are obsessed with RPGs but never actually play them.
That being said, the author is noted for destroying a long standing youtubes rpg by giving the other players and audience the same emotional agony and soul destruction a child feels as it is being molested by a gross neckbeard pervert.
>That being said, the author is noted for destroying a long standing youtubes rpg by giving the other players and audience the same emotional agony and soul destruction a child feels as it is being molested by a gross neckbeard pervert.
What are you going on about?
Bizarre post. Non-combat oriented campaigns are well-supported in the rules and most of the game doesn't involve combat. It's one of the biggest selling points of the system. And also your 2nd point is totally incorrect, that was Adam Koebel author of Dungeon World, not Like Crane author of Burning Wheel. Contain your autism to posting about stuff you actually understand.
You made this exact same thread yesterday.
Ok Mr. WOTC employee.
Can't you do anything right?
It's not DnD so it's completely irrelevant and unimportant because mobody will be playing it, unfortunately.
my players always eat up whatever I serve them
That's how it works at every table where the GM isn't a pussy.
This is how it works when your table is imaginary. Stop treating /tg/ as a replacement for actual gaming.
I don't remember anything about it from my reading of it other then my closing thought of "I don't like how narrative focused it is"
ngl it kinda hot senpai fr fr
It's the G11 of tabletops. Interesting, cool, designed by a genius, a thing of beauty. But way too complex and fiddly.
Let me ask this question instead, as a person who hasn't delved into it, what do players actually enjoy about Burning Wheel?
I own a copy I picked up for cheap at an LGS, it has a nice feel of a tome, but just from the text I've read, i don't quite grok it.
It's hot and it rolls
Luke Crane was making like $500,000 a year as Head of Games for Kickstarter and he got fired over trying to backdoor Adam Koebel in on a shitty collaborative RPG zine after Adam was cancelled. I think that's one of the funniest things to happen in RPGs in years.
He wasn't fired, he resigned.
It's still very funny.
> He wasn't fired, he resigned.
Do you think he would still have that job if he hadn’t resigned? Come on, anon.
Read it in 2016, didn't felt like running it, never bothered about it anymore. In fact, if not the endless "what you think about it" spam, I would probably long forgot about it.
I enjoyed Mouseguard
I like how tests and advancement work. The FoRK mechanic is more impactful than a lot of other complementary skill systems and makes you think about what your character can actually do. Duel of Wits was the best social combat system at the time. Fighting is complex but I can't call that a fault. It's just that kind of game.
Overall I find it too baroque. Gold Edition is 500-600 pages and the single column layout combined with Luke's writing style make it a slog to learn and teach. I think it's a good game but it's not my style. Intricate rules relationships do not interest me.
>best social combat system at the time
So what would you say is the best social combat system now?
I played for over a year in a weekly campaign as a player and ran about 3 months of bi-weekly games as a GM.
As a GM I actually converted Castle Caldwell over and ran it with some setting modifications to a few empty rooms as well as adding some social plot hooks.
As a player I played a Knight who was simply a very, very good spearman.
My thoughts were that the social systems were good and dual of wits was pretty fun but having a stat disadvantage was pretty serious. That isn't a negative or a positive really, it is how it should probably be. I found combat to be arguably too lethal though and wounds could quickly spiral to death and I witnessed this as both player and GM. The combat itself is also not terribly fun to interact with. The dueling system is pretty good but it slows the game to a crawl and anybody not involved is taking a serious back seat.
The game is also very narrative and while technically without a setting it REALLY wants you to play Lord of the Rings.
Overall it's fun. I may even play it again some day, which is rather high praise. But it really needs you to be ready to house rule some things if you want a specific feeling.
PS: Frick you Luke Crane for no searchable PDF format you're a dick and some of those tables are impossible to find by hand during a session.
The recently released pdf is searchable but no bookmarks.
OP Burning Wheel is my favorite system. Running a campaign right now actually. It's good and not as fiddly as people claim.
It really feels like a book written to solve problems that other RPGs have rather than provide something else entirely.
Its way too much overcomplicated, but in a very alluring way. Its really interesting, but demands an adult and interested party of players.
It's a great game for people tired of the problems of the most mainstream games. It's a great game to create characters and just see what happens to them, if they still themselves (and what would take for them to change). It is very mature, in a good way.
Its NOT a good game for a one shot session, for casuals, for power wanking and probably for loregays.
Its good, but like a good book that gets better every time you reread it.
Another good thing about it is that it really challenges the party (GM and players) in a way I haven't seen in any other game.
I've filed it next to FantasyCraft in the "cool but totally unplayable" section.
Why is FantasyCraft unplayable to you?
nta
The same reason SpyCraft 2.0 is unplayable. It’s so incredibly granular running a game is a part-time job and finding people to play it is daunting because genuine rpg gearheads are a dying breed.
I love games with that much fine detail but it’s academic rather than practical. If I actually want to play a game I need something all of my players will buy into. I have a job, a wife, and other hobbies and commitments. There’s no more room for a game that might as well be an advanced book-keeping night class.
>It’s so incredibly granular running a game is a part-time job
Is it really that much worse than 3.pf? Hardly imaginable.
>Is it really that much worse than 3.pf?
I can’t speak of current era pathfinder but being very familiar with 3.5e, yes. Take all that d20 baggage and add a vital meta-currency, downtime system that resolves training, advancement, and spell research, and a mutable magic system.
3.5 et al may have had a glut of material that complicated things but FantasyCraft had all of it’s granularity in the core system and you couldn’t really excise it and be playing the game as intended.
Just incorrect. I have played BW successfully for years teaching it to my players without them having the rulebook. It isn't that bad, you just introduce rules as you need them. Most campaigns will not interface with every aspect of the rules and the base system is actually not hard to improvise and adjucate for. The book recommends this as well, starting with the basic rules and only incorporating the optional "spokes" as desired.
I ran a game with it that lasted about a year and actually came to a satisfactory conclusion, but this was a few years back so my memory might be shaky. In no particular order:
Characters seem more fulfilling to play when they start at 'low-level'. Characters with lots of lifepaths to begin are too competent and difficult for the DM to challenge effectively in their areas of expertise. They are also not very well-rounded, which should have happened naturally.
Combat rules are neat, but don't work well in practice. Something more stripped down but not as basic as 'Bloody Versus' would be beneficial.
Skills work well as a system to resolvr stuff, but there are probably too many useless skills. Again having low-tier dudes to start is probably better.
The base magic system kind of stinks. My preferred method from The Codex is Practical Magic. Feels kind of Merlin-esque.
Customizable options for building your game are good.
Your players REALLY need to read the rules themselves, it's way too much for just the GM unlike in some games.
Overall I want to like it a lot, but it a game for RPG-people among RPG people.
>Overall I want to like it a lot, but it a game for RPG-people among RPG people.
This is the problem with 99% of Storygames
Which is a shame. I do have the desire to run it again, only with a hacked-on combat system as that was I think the most egregious component. Fight! as it's called, in particular, is neat but just not useable at the table.
It's not a complete system, just a combat system and some interesting but half baked ideas. It's the kind of game that becomes a darling of people who are obsessed with RPGs but never actually play them.
That being said, the author is noted for destroying a long standing youtubes rpg by giving the other players and audience the same emotional agony and soul destruction a child feels as it is being molested by a gross neckbeard pervert.
>That being said, the author is noted for destroying a long standing youtubes rpg by giving the other players and audience the same emotional agony and soul destruction a child feels as it is being molested by a gross neckbeard pervert.
What are you going on about?
Bizarre post. Non-combat oriented campaigns are well-supported in the rules and most of the game doesn't involve combat. It's one of the biggest selling points of the system. And also your 2nd point is totally incorrect, that was Adam Koebel author of Dungeon World, not Like Crane author of Burning Wheel. Contain your autism to posting about stuff you actually understand.
*Luke Crane
reads like fasa era shadowrun word salad
idk but it's a cool book cover. Saved