Actual-play (applied theory and mechanics) Thread

Place holder for discussion to take place on this topic.

This is one of the things that I, as a person with a full time job, and two young children, REALLY love about BW:

It is a "true" low-prep game.

Your role as GM, in a BW game, is really just to be the "divine clock-maker".

You guide the processes I have been walking you through, World and Campaign Burning, then Character and Belief creation, and after that, you just let things go. And you are thence-forth only there to serve mostly as the moment-to-moment arbiter of mechanics.

Setting Obstacles, determine outcomes/consequences of rolls, etc.

All of the prep is done in the various Burning exercises, I mean you may have to come up with names and places and things, on the fly (or in advance of a session as prep), but otherwise you're largely just the referee.

The Beliefs are the campaign.

I'm not going to lie, I'm a little confused, but I feel like I just need to chew on it a little longer and I'll understand. After all, I can't figure out why I'm confused, or what I'm confused about. It just feels like a weird stretch to get my head around it somehow.

Yes. I get it. It is weird. It will likely continue to feel weird, but at some point (hopefully) it will click. Beliefs play heavily into this dynamic, that is really where it all comes together mechanically and conceptually.

BW requires a rewiring of most rpg-gamers brains...

Here is what I would guess is not sitting right with you:

THIS IS ALL SO META!!

Right? In most RPGs, this level of what-is-essentially-meta-gaming is FORBIDDEN. Meta-gaming is the worst thing you can do in traditional RPGs. This level of meta knowledge destroys more traditional games and campaigns.

BW turns meta-gaming - not only into part of the game but - into something you HAVE to do, and even into the central mechanic of the game, it's the best thing you can do in BW.

Alright

While we work on burning up some PCs, what else would people like to talk about?

Who is even here/reading any of this besides thatguy2, and Linsolv?

Why are you here? Honest question, not trying to put you on the spot, nor accuse you of anything, I don't care if you're actively posting or not if you're getting what you want out of this forum, but I think you'll get more out of it if you do interact. So just wondering what interests you in Burning Wheel? If you are interested.

What brought you here?

Have any questions?

I'm still keeping up on everything posted here. I'm not able to invest the time into this site that I had hoped to at the moment, but I'm still quite curious to understand how burning wheel works, and following the conversation has been helpful.

Anything else... I don't know, I'm afraid! What I'm learning is that in spite of my interest, my misgivings with running this with my usual group were well founded lol. Few of them would give the time to really put the work in to understand campaign burning, never mind belief construction. Which isn't really necessarily a problem with the game and doesn't diminish my desire to know how to play and run it, but it was a little sad to realize.

Also I've been bad about replying the past couple days cause I got frustrated with GP's iffy forum subscriptions.

It is a "funny", fiddly, finicky system.

You can certainly play it without being so exacting about Campaign Burning and Beliefs, but you're gonna end up with a game that has all of the traditional crunch that underlies BW (which is really quite a bit), with none of the powerful, interesting, and unique story game aspects.

At which point it kind of becomes an overwrought version of D&D just with Lifepaths instead of Classes, and a "by-use" progression system instead of experience points. Which I really love both of those mechanics - they're just an interesting take on the usual RPG stuff, but they're ultimately a small part of the game, and without "the grand design", kind of misses the point of BW.

So here's a question for you, now that I think about it, and I can even tie it into the example game we're planning.

Part of the "prep" question is also major NPCs, and I've never been sure how much to plan ahead for them, how much to play things by ear, etc. I've run games (particularly early ones) where NPCs were wherever was convenient, doing whatever I wanted, with no rhyme or reason to say that players could have outsmarted them if only they'd known, because there was nothing to outsmart.

On the other hand, my last D&D campaign I was actually making plans in advance, trying to have my major antagonists (and allies for that matter) moving in directions that made sense for their goals, etc. And of course, when my players didn't plan for any of this and figured that they could act freely without consequences, they were not super happy, lol.

The question is, how much do you think it makes sense to flesh out a character like, say, The Queen of the Horse Lords in advance of her actually appearing? Or, for example, if you're expecting her to come up the next session, how much do you prep in terms of things like stats, planning, astrological signs, blood type etc?

...
So, I feel like the top two bits have a little bit different subject matter than the last bit. Accordingly, they have slightly different answers. But both are important considerations for running any RPG, right?

RE: planning the plot, it's hard to have a one-size fits all answer, as the Belief system - as rigid as it sounds - can actually facilitate a wide variety of campaign types. But I would say there's two ways to handle this. Both really come back around to how the PCs and their Beliefs ARE the campaign.

First, I would look to Beliefs as guidance. If the NPC or Antagonist is indeed major enough that what they're doing behind the scenes really matters - like, in a fashion that will impact the PCs and their Beliefs - they should be in someone's Belief, and/or in the Big Picture, and/or Starting Situation, in some fashion (even if that's just by implication, or allusion). And that role in those central narrative devices should largely (like, 100%) inform their plans, goals, and even timelines. The timelines part may lean towards the "wherever and whatever is convenient" side of things, unless the PCs have a defined timeline in their Beliefs.

A big goal of BW (as with most story games) is that you don't plan more than you needed to. You leave blanks for the players to fill in. Which means most often, you are not going to know you even need a particular named NPC until it emerges through play that they have become a significant actor. Which means you may have to stat them on the fly.

This brings us to the second way to handle it, and that is via -wises and other Tests.

That's right. If your PCs Beliefs, or the B.P., or the S.S. doesn't inform what your NPC or major Antagonist is doing, then the PCs should be making some sort of Test to determine it.

Sounds weird, I know. But again, this is how story games work. And BW was one of, if not THE, first to do it.

Using our premises as an example; say it becomes relavant for us to know what kind of escort the Queen is bringing with her to Court. The PC for whom it matters (first) might say, "I want to make an Ettiquette Test to determine that it is not proper to bring a large military escort to a host's Court." As GM I would say, "Ok, that seems to make sense, but also she's no normal Guest, and may not observe normal Ettiquette. Obs 5. Consequence of failure is, she brings whomever she wants, and you get a -1D penalty to any subsequent Social Test, as you're so unprepared for her flaunting of norms."

That's something I was kind of intending on waiting to get into (world-building thru Skill Tests) cuz it's a biggie for traditional gamers, but... well, here we are.

Now for the second bit: statting out NPCs.

Often you can get away with out statting any but the most-involved, central NPCs. I think the only NPCs I've ever statted out fully (like built via the character burning process) are ones that I was pretty sure were gonna get involved in a Fight! or Duel of Wits-level conflict.

Most often, you can handle NPCs (or rather; a PCs stated Task and Intent) as a "Simple" (non-Versus) Test. Just set the Obs based on what makes sense given the Narrative. For those Tests that must be treated as Opposed, you just take that principle one step further and assign the NPC a reasonable Skill or Attribute rating in the 2 - 6 range (+/- modifiers) on the fly.

The middle ground between these two or three scenarios is Bloody Versus, for those significant fights that don't quite warrant a Fight. You need a pretty high level of statting out for BV.

Is this all making sense?

Is there anything else people would like our of this experience?

If you wanted to fully create Characters we could explore some gameplay examples?

Or, is there more ppl would like to discuss on topics already touched on?

I don't feel like there's much more to cover for me personally. I kind of get it, and there's no way that I'm going to get it 100% without sitting down and running a session or two, so at this point I think it's to the point where I'm happy unless somebody else wants to take the initiative.

Sorry for the reduced post count, but it was mostly people talking about character concepts and stuff and I didn't think I had much to contribute.

Cool, everyone's good on how PCs can worldbuild through Tests?

How Players use Task and Intent to dictate the circumstance of Tests, and how it is the GM's place to layout the Stakes/consequences of failure for a Test, in advance of the roll, and that the Player should be allowed an opportunity to revise their Intent - and/or even Task, if they don't like the Stakes?

This core process to dice rolls and gameplay is very very different from traditional rpgs, so just wanted to point it out at a high level at least.

To address perhaps a final point:
I did break open the Codex last night, not having done so for probably a year or more. And it did make me want to amend one thing I've talked about.

The Codex seems to recommend placing the GM in a larger role in the determination of the Setting, Big Picture, and Starting Situation than I had ever really remembered seeing or hearing in any context before.

Basically delegating that it is the GMs place to come to the table, in Session zero, with initial/central thoughts on those aspects.

I can certainly see the value in this approach. Prevents having too many cooks in the kitchen, which can over-complicate the story, or dilute the real cutting parts of some premises...

But the Codex also emphasizes the need for not only hearing and incorporating player suggestions (tho it also recommends being "brutal" in saying No to input that doesn't add value), but getting Player buy-in.

It's kind of a fine balance, and I think we may see some of the results of a little bit of a failure in this aspect maybe in the process we went thru... I feel like there was some good energy in the beginning, but as things got more and more complicated, people maybe became less excited about the premise as it became diluted by trying to please too many people maybe, so it pleased no one.

Maybe I'm off base there, could just be that we weren't actually looking at playing any if this so people didn't really care, but I do feel like at some point we lost some significant steam.

Anyway, I'll leave this forum here/open/up for a few months maybe. And if someone ever wants to come back and look at something or even discuss something anew, I'm sure I'll be around.

Thanks for tuning in all!

Let me know if any of you want to run a game, I'd love to be your guinea pig ;D

Cheers,
M^2