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GeekNights 071002 - The Burning Wheel

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edited October 2007 in GeekNights
Tonight on GeekNights, we discuss our experiences jumping right into Burning Wheel. In the news, the Wiimote gets some protection, and Gabe Newell explains why Valve doesn’t make games for Mac.

Scott’s Thing - Married Gamer Decision Matrix
Rym’s Thing - Secret Fort

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Comments

  • I haven't listened to this episode yet, but I've been looking forward to it ever since I had a good conversation with Scott about it at Otakon. I randomly found the System book and Character burner at Connecticon, and spent the rest of the con after that reading it.
  • edited October 2007
    If scrym is looking for the black Wii/Wiimote here is a replacement chassis. Go down to the bottom and you can pick black or clear. Also can be found on ebay.
    Post edited by Omnutia on
  • Have you guys picked up Burning Empires or The Blossums are Falling yet? I'd be interested to hear your take on them.
  • Have you guys picked up Burning Empires or The Blossums are Falling yet? I'd be interested to hear your take on them.
    I've got The Blossoms are Falling. They're fundamentally the same as Burning Wheel, only tuned for different settings.
  • Do you find that the combat is more complicated or less complicated than combat in D&D?
  • Combat is less complicated.
  • Really? Even with having to "script" your combat? I was kind of hoping for a quick demonstration of the differences in Fight! versus the d20 combat system.
  • edited October 2007
    There are two ways. One is the "simple" way, one is the scripted way. Either works. For "unimportant" combats, the quick and dirty way works well. For more "tactical" or important fights, the scripting is pretty neat. The important thing to remember is that it works like a rock-peper-scissors system with three or four main seletcions actually damaging your opponent. Other selections set you up for bonuses on your next actions or give your opponent disadvantages on theirs. You can "combo" if you're slick, but if you know the other players really well everyone ends up feinting half the time. :\
    Post edited by GreatTeacherMacRoss on
  • Hey Scott, what was the name of the IM client you said was the 2nd best one out there?
  • I'm not sure that I would say that the BW Fight! mechanics are less "complicated" than d20 combat. The full Fight! mechanics actually involve a lot more attention to detail than the standard d20 fight mechanics, but they also run smoother and seem to make more sense. They're a lot more organic and less abstracted, I would say.

    Consider that, when you get down to it, d20 combat really isn't THAT complicated; it just involves keeping track of some numbers, and not that many numbers most of the time. For most combats, you need to know your attack bonus for whatever weapon you're using, and how much you roll for damage. That's not information that you need to look up on the fly, since it doesn't change very often; you just write it down ahead of time and reference it when needed. When it undergoes a permanent change, just change the number on the paper and you're good.

    The basic action is d20 is roll a die and add a number; the DM compares the total against a difficulty number and determines success or failure. Really, everything after that is just combat options.

    Burning Wheel offers just as many combat options as D&D, and in some cases makes you pay a bit more attention to minutia (positioning tests, weapon length modifiers, weapon speeds, hit locations, the "scripting" thing...). However, since the system really isn't abstracted heavily, it makes more intuitive sense, so even while it's robust and complicated, you work through it faster than you do a d20 combat.

    I guess it boils down to this: Burning Wheel combats are more "personal" fights, with a lot of attention paid to details, and a lot of focus on the specifics of one-on-one combat. The system is organic and intuitive, so it runs smoothly. D&D is designed to handle large multi-participant combats as efficiently as possible; as a result, personal fights are clunky and abstracted.
  • Maybe I just need to change my understanding of RPGs, but in my mind, abstract combat == more smooth combat. Keeping track of the minutia you described seems like something more geared towards a min-maxer rather than someone who was more into role playing.



    I'm not trying to be contentious, but I don't understand how more details results in smoother combat. Maybe some brief examples could help?
  • Burning Wheel offers just as many combat options as D&D, and in some cases makes you pay a bit more attention to minutia (positioning tests, weapon length modifiers, weapon speeds, hit locations, the "scripting" thing...). However, since the system really isn't abstracted heavily, it makes more intuitive sense, so even while it's robust and complicated, you work through it faster than you do a d20 combat.Burning Wheel is more abstract when it comes to movement.  "Positioning tests" abstract ALL of the moving, maneuvering, and posturing that would normally be handled with miniatures and a grid of 5' squares.  There's no grid, and you never even consider which direction your character is moving or how far away he is in feet: you simply make a single roll that encompases all of those factors.  Weapon length and such are just modifiers to that positioning test roll.  Some weapons take more actions to use.
    You don't say "I move 25' toward the door" or "I move forward 10' in order to shoot my bow."  You say "I make for the door" or "I close and shoot."  By removing any silly counting out of squares, you make the combat flow much more naturally.
    I guess it boils down to this: Burning Wheel combats are more "personal" fights, with a lot of attention paid to details, and a lot of focus on the specifics of one-on-one combat. The system is organic and intuitive, so it runs smoothly. D&D is designed to handle large multi-participant combats as efficiently as possible; as a result, personal fights are clunky and abstracted.The thing is, D&D breaks down just as badly with large numbers of antagonists as it does with small numbers.  A very large fight is just as clunky as a small one, and takes an enormous amount of time to resolve.  Meanwhile, in a large-scale Burning Wheel fight, you'd probably simply zoom in to the localized few against few battles within the larger one, ignoring the rest except for role-playing purposes, or zoom out to a simple versus test to see which side was victorious.
    The fact that Burning Wheel gives you simple ways to abstract large or annoying-to-manage conflicts into a single roll if you wish is one of its strongest points.  A little D&D fight is the same as a big one, and takes just as much time regardless of how important to the story it is.  You can zoom in or out in a Burning Wheel fight to match the importance, and thus always keep it interesting.
  • While it is hard to accurately compare the relative complexity and abstractness of the different combat systems, there is one thing I can say for sure. If you assume that every player and the GM know all the rules of the game, Burning Wheel Fight! takes a lot less time on average compared to D+D 3rd Edition combat with the grid of squares.
  • By removing any silly counting out of squares, you make the combat flow much more naturally.

    ...

    The fact that Burning Wheel gives you simple ways to abstract large or annoying-to-manage conflicts into a single roll if you wish is one of its strongest points.These points are a bit more convincing.
  • If you assume that every player and the GM know all the rules of the game...I wish. If I had a nickel for each time I've heard the question, "what do I roll?" I would have a substantial nickel collection. Sadly, I've heard this from people who have been using the same system for over a year.


    However, I digress, and your point still stands. ;)
  • I wish. If I had a nickel for each time I've heard the question, "what do I roll?" I would have a substantial nickel collection.
    I'm going to make passing a test on the rules of Burning Wheel a prerequisite for entering my game...
  • What bugs me is that you guys keep talking about D&D combat as if it were a miniatures game. I never made the move to 3E so what you are describing is how I always ran my 1E/2E combats. Same thing with all of these "gather knowledge" rolls.

    3E really screwed up a lot of things in D&D and turned the system into a tabletop video game. What you are describing on the show sounds exactly like the way my group still plays AD&D.
  • I'm going to make passing a test on the rules of Burning Wheel a prerequisite for entering my game...
    As long as there aren't any questions relating to weapon reach and positioning in Fight. I doubt you'd have many players :)
  • I never made the move to 3E
    I preferred 2E long after 3 came out, and I still do to a degree.  Sadly, most people use 3, which is verymuch a miniatures game with some minor roleplaying stuff tacked on.
  • I have to say that when I read the Burning Wheel book, I loved everything up until the combat system. It seems like its trying to be simple, but sort of ends up being complicated in the end. Granted I haven't tried it in practice, but I do enjoy the D&D battle system that my group uses. But I gave my DM the BW book and he read it and we are implementing parts of the system into the game (basically just the motives and reflexes,) but I think adding the Duel of Wits is the next step.

    Also I got a bit inspired by that idea you guys gave about writing a story by burning some characters, and then just sort of working through it within the system. This idea intrigues me as a writer since you wouldn't know where it would go, or how it would end. It would certainly be an interesting experiment.
  • Rym: You're absolutely right about BW abstracting movement and positioning; however, there's far more to a fight than just that.

    BW makes the actual fighting a lot more concrete and personal, whereas D&D abstracts the actual fighting with things like hit points and armor class. D&D makes it so that the actual actions you take while fighting someone, aside from tactical movement, wind up being part of an abstract fight; since hit points don't reflect actual physical damage, the things that are involved in determining hit point damage (to-hit, armor class, and weapon damage) are also abstracted to a degree. The concept of "levels" is an abstraction in much the same vein.

    Burning Wheel makes sure that none of those actions in combat are abstracted; every swing of a sword counts, every wound counts, where you get wounded counts, etc. That part of the Fight! mechanics is far, far less abstracted than D&D, for good reason.

    It goes back to the comment from the Luke Crane interview about the focus on choices and consequences. D&D combat focuses on the procedural crap and glosses over the actual action by abstracting it; BW reverses this problem by abstracting the tedious crap but making every part of an actual fight really count. This puts combat into the character's perspective and makes everything really count. In D&D, there are no real consequences during the course of a fight; the only real consequence is death, and otherwise you are 100% fine. BW makes you think about every swing and every hit.

    I'm saying that both BW and D&D abstract things in combats; however, BW abstracts the boring stuff and makes concrete the awesome stuff, while the core D&D rules do the opposite. It separates the wheat from the chaff, as Scott is wont to say.

    I still stand by my assertion that the Fight! mechanics won't work well for actually playing out a large combat; you pretty much have to abstract the larger battle around you and focus on just the main characters. Of course, that's how it should be, but if someone out there likes to roll for the 2000 individual archers in a fight, BW is not the system for them.
  • I was kicking around the Burning Wheel wiki looking for information on burning gnomes, halflings, and half-elves, but I couldn't find anything useful. Are those races in the Monster Burner or available somewhere online?
  • edited October 2007
    I was kicking around the Burning Wheel wiki looking for information on burning gnomes, halflings, and half-elves, but I couldn't find anything useful. Are those races in the Monster Burner or available somewhere online?
    Not officially. Regarding half-elves, you could get away with using either the elf or human lifepaths and taking "Half-elf" as a character trait. As for gnomes and halflings, buy the MoBu and make them yourself, or just visit the official forums and find out if other players are willing to share.
    Post edited by thaneofcawdor on
  • I dunno about taking both lifepaths since Elves get all kinds of awesome from the get-go. I'm sure there's a way to work it out. Most of BW is Human/Dwarf/Elf with some Rat-men and giant spiders (!) thrown in for giggles. It's not limited to those since the monster burner has rules for making half-races.
  • There are actual "rules" for half-elves, buried somewhere in the Elf section of the Character Burner; they're essentially what thaneofcawdor suggested, you decide if you were raised human or elven, and take those lifepaths plus a distinguishing trait or two.

    As for elves being more powerful than humans: so far as I can tell, "balance" between characters in Burning Wheel is not about how powerful they are, but about verisimilitude and how much time they get in the spotlight.

    Also, I <3 the Great Spiders.
  • Luke Crane addresses this conundrum at the end of the Elven section of the character burner. You can either play an Elf with a character trait, or a human with the Fey Blood trait. To accurately represent the D&D half elf, I'd go with the latter route; you'd be a human, essentially, but Fey Blood allows you to pick a racial trait from some other race, so you could be a human with Elven eyesight.
  • By the way, Rym & Scott, your review of Burning Wheel (and interview with Luke Crane) has all but convinced my wife to convert our current D&D campaign. All we've got to do now is A) run a demo or two to get a feel for the system and B) get over the fear of teaching this system to a handful of rpg n00bs.
  • A) run a demo or two to get a feel for the system
    Use The Sword. It's on the Burning Wheel wiki.
    and B) get over the fear of teaching this system to a handful of rpg n00bs.
    Be afraid.
  • edited October 2007
    and B) get over the fear of teaching this system to a handful of rpg n00bs.
    Be afraid.
    Don't start with Burning Wheel. Start with Kobolds Ate My Baby!.
    Post edited by Sail on
  • edited October 2007
    Don't start with Burning Wheel. Start with Kobolds Ate My Baby!.
    We've been using the d20 system for about two months now, and they still get tripped up once in a while (e.g. - "What do I roll?"). Most of them never did tabletop role-playing before that.
    Post edited by xenomouse on
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