Burning Wheel Gold: Interest?

Thanks for the insight into the Instincts, Verrain.

shughr, let's work on refining your Beliefs a bit. Between your 1st and 3rd Beliefs, you're too obvious of an ally for Nulgha. I would like to see one of them running counter to one of his Beliefs (either the Nog grab, or the power play over Nicastro). [edit: Or, it doesn't have to run counter to one of his Beliefs necessarily, but at least just reflecting a separate ambition of your own.]

And I think your second Belief might benefit from being a little more focused. What are you seeking to achieve with the "Law and Order", prevention of riots? some scapegoats to parade in front of Heimart? actual justice for lawlessness?

Let me know your thoughts.

Epi, looking at your Instincts mentioned earlier, I'm trying to picture how they'd play out. If you're still working on them, that's cool, but otherwise wanted to just hash them out real quick.

Regarding "Always hide my friends from notice when a job's ongoing.", this seems to go a little outside the general "if/then", or "always", and "never" formats... and I think maybe it's the "ongoing" part that's hanging me up? Not sure. Maybe it's also the implied assumption of success on a skill test? I dunno. Is there a different way it could or should be worded?

And regarding "When I meet someone new, find out their superstitions.", please let me know if I'm imagining the implementation of this incorrectly, but I picture this as sort of just being an instinct to ask probing questions about the persons beliefs (in a non-game-mechanic sense), and while I guess I'm fine with the kind of bypassing of RP this connotates, it would essentially force you even in circumstances when it's not appropriate to ask such probing questions. Am I interpreting this incorrectly, or how are you envisioning this implemented?

Thanks for the feedback Emsquared. I'll give the relationship with Nulgha a think and try to update something new.

Regarding the second belief (and I realize this wasn't at all clear) Niclas is going down into the Low City to knock some skulls together and get people to fall in line. I'm trying to make this guy the worst cop imaginable. So he hears that there has been unrest, and his first thought is to go beat reandom people up in order to show em who's boss. Does that make more sense, at least as a character motivation?

For the mechanical part of both hide from notice and superstition I was aiming at a test even if retroactive when a) we're doing a job where concealment would be useful and b) when I want to say something about someone else's superstitions. For spirit binding and superstitions-wise respectively. I added the "on a job" and "meeting someone new" clauses to narrow the scope of the Instincts, but if you'd rather them without the narrowing that's fine too. :) My model was the "cast Turn Aside the Blade every morning" instinct. As for getting me into trouble, I was thinking the same you re: superstitions and wasn't planning to have the hiding regularly get me into trouble for Fate.

In retrospect it's not really the mechanical part about the "Always hide..." (that was me just having stared at Beliefs and Instincts too long), I feel like there's just a lot of ambiguity to it. What's a job? When does ongoing end? I maybe just wasnt sure about your expectations for triggers I guess, and if the trigger wasn't clear, seemed like there may be a better way to word the instinct, which I think should be very clear cut, no?

And RE: superstitions, I'm fine with that now, I was just over-thinking things by the end of the night.

shughr: makes sense to me as a character motivation, now ask "what would it take to get Persona from this belief?" and make that goal explicit. Maybe it's "... we'll rustle up some malcontents and make a lesson of 'em" with agreement that this means "soundly beat" rather than "kill messily"? Or maybe just leave it 'law and order' but let us (gm+players) know what you mean. :)

m^2: Cool, I'll tighten up that instinct. How about this?

- When thieving, always bind the spirits to hide our passage

Good way to put it, thanks Epi.
Sounds good, thanks!

Nailed it Epigone. "We'll rustle up some malcontents and make a lesson of 'em" is it!''

Regarding the first and third beliefs. I like the Thieves guild one, as it ties me into the main powerstruggle. I also don't think it necessarily makes me an ally for Nulgha, as Niclas isn't really interested in Nicastro himself. He's actually trying to protect himself in the even that Nicastro does come to power, by slyly removing the one person who has it out for him from play. Niclas has beef with Nicastro's nephew, not Nicastro. I'm still happy to revise it, if I need to make it clearer that I'm not trying to depose Nicastro.

I'm also happy to revise the Blood Blossoms belief to be more antagonstic towards Nulgha's aims. But I would also say that it is the one thing we're all working towards, and that doesn't actually seem like a problem to me. I know that player conflict is a big part of the system, but I don't think that it's a responsibility of the players to avoid congruent beliefs.

Regarding instincts (somehow I missed these posts a few days ago, sorry about that).

The hitting first instinct is meant to be a way to get in trouble and earn artha, not game the Fight! mechanic. In other words, if Niclas feels threatened or uneasy in a situation, his first instinct is going to be "headbutt this motherfucker." Whether or not that escalates to a full blown fight, or is resolved as a Bloody Versus or Speed test is up to the GM.

Regarding the escape route mechanic:
I agree with Verrains assesment here, but will of course defer to Emsquared on how he'd like to adjudicate it.

I think your Beliefs are generally oriented towards good subjects: 1 connecting you to the Big Picture, 1 connecting you to another PC, 1 for personal definition/ambition. But I feel like Beliefs are most interesting when used to entwine the PCs in a way that can't be undone but also to complicate the PCs relations. So I would like to see them focused towards those goals.

And, since the power struggle is the Big Picture conflict, I would like one of your Beliefs to be directly relating to that, I thought the cousin thing was your way of tieing in.

Further more you don't have to have a Belief directly relating to the Dwarven Nog (no longer Blood Blossoms), all you have to have is a Belief tieing you to needing Nulgha. That way he can say, "well if you help me with this, I'll help you with that."

OR if you have a Belief directly tieing you to the Nog Run, then it's most interesting as a relationship if you have a Belief in direct conflict with him so it's not just all sunshine and roses.

It is the responsibility of the GM to set up the most interesting story and situations, and Burning Wheel's Beliefs mechanic is purposefully designed to be directly implemented in creating those interesting situations.

Nulgha is set up to need you and/or Gord, as well as to conflict Gord. Gord is set up to need you, and conflict Nulgha. You are not set up to really need anyone, so you aren't conflicting w/ anyone you need. Does it make sense what we're trying to achieve, a kind of "love triangle" minus the love.

Regarding Instincts, they are meant to be tied to the mechanics. Structuring the "escape route" one as "I never go into a situation without looking for an escape route." Seems to fit more inline with examples, but whether you word it like this, or use Verrains interpretation there doesn't appear to be any mechanical difference, is there?

Regarding the other two, Epi was trying to help you get the most out of them, which in the case of Instncts is; bypassing a mechanic restriction. Neither of these two really do that, they certainly drive you to PC-defining RP situations, but they're like a Character Trait vs. a Die or Call-on Trait. And that's fine, but Epi was just trying to help.

shughr, we still need to lock down your Beliefs and Instincts before we can start.

First, I apologize, I thought your original Belief was to take out Nicastro. I misunderstood, and that's why I thought you were too obvious of an ally for Nulgha.

RE: your current iteration of Beliefs.
Two things: I'd like to see you a little more tied-in to the Big Picture conflict (the Thieves Guild power-struggle), and your 3rd Belief isn't really something you can turn into Artha, so I would recommend you change it.

Towards both those goals, what would you think about something more along the lines of: "The Old Alliance has failed me, with the strength of the Guard I will go into business for myself." Seems to fit the "i'll do anything if the price is right" spirit, and ties you directly into the main conflict. We'd have someone trying to keep the Old Alliance together, someone trying to take over the Guild (and possibly retain the Old Alliance, possibly not?), and someone saying "I can do this on my own."

Not a problem if something like that doesn't interest you just keep in mind, Beliefs can and should and will change as we play, but you probably want to try to turn them into their mechanical reward first. So, focus on tangible actionable Belief for No. 3.

OTOH that third belief is a fine Fate mine, very easy to turn into Fate artha, just not Persona. And after a bit of Fate it's a cinch for embodiment.

Or maybe I just wanna be able to dangle some cash dice in front of Niclas for a quick ally. ;)

Good point. And it could easily lead to something that would yield Persona if he wanted to. Feel free to disregard basically my entire previous post, shug >.<

Except for the Instincts part, still need those.

Thanks for all your participation and help everyone!