The Burning Wheel?

Rym

We've discussed The Burning Wheel a few times on the show, and we've even interviewed its creator. I have a simply question:

Are you playing it? Why or why not?

lackofcheese

A friend and I ordered the books for international shipping. They took a while to get here, but we got them about 2 weeks ago.
I myself have never RPd, while my friend has played D&D, so we're trying to get a good understanding of TBW.

Alex

I run a campaign, converted from D&D to Burning Wheel, for a certain large group of friends. ^_^

Still waiting on an opportunity to actually play in a BW campaign myself, though.

...

First! (for I don't own the books and want to play) As to why, well... Along with anime and manga, board games and (tabletop) RPGs aren't that popular here in the Netherlands. And of course I'm a student with little monies.

J.Sharp

My group is more interested in playing Dark Heresy, and I'm having a hard enough time convincing them to try CthuhluTech. Although I have the core books and would love to try the game, I'm not yet comfortable enough with the system to run it myself.

thaneofcawdor

Still waiting on an opportunity to actually play in a BW campaign myself, though.

Yeah, tell me about it... all run, no play.

Cremlian

I seem to play in a game of burning wheel and own the books.

ColdfireSerge

I've bought the books for myself, as well as two copies for folks in my gaming group that I gave them for X-mas. They are still pumped for 4th edition to start, and I'm all meh.

Some of my other friends I've tried to play The Sword, but they really don't want to use pre-made characters after a bad experience with a previous GM.

Xefas

I don't have the books, but I do want to play.

Already I've been attempting to implement a few things in my D&D game from how the Burning Wheel has been described on the podcast. For instance, when making their characters, I asked my players to write down three goals and three beliefs their characters had.

Unfortunately, they had absolutely no goddamn clue as to what that meant. We must have spent over an hour wrestling with this thing. In the end I got stuff like "I want to own a Hobby Lobby", "I want to become the best chef in the land", "I want that guy to become the best chef in the land", "I ALSO want that guy to become the best chef in the land", "I want to meet lesbian ninjas", "I pass", and so on.

Maybe it would be easier if I owned the books, because my explanations are a shot in the dark. However, after spending a couple hundred bucks on D&D 3.5 books, and more college expenses looming on the horizon, the only possible way I'd get the Burning Wheel books was if I could torrent them or similar. However, all of my searching for that kind of thing only turns up some music album of the same name.

Apreche

Some of my other friends I've tried to play The Sword, but they really don't want to use pre-made characters after a bad experience with a previous GM.

It's a 15 minute demo scenario. It isn't a campaign. The pre-made characters are the whole point!

Eryn

I just got together a group for a campaign, and we had an introductory session that consisted of The Sword and character burning at the end of March. Our first actual story session will be in a couple weeks, and I'm really excited. I've actually never played in a tabletop game before, and now I find myself GMing one. Hoo boy. o_o Luckily, I have one, possibly two people who have played tabletops before and who can help me if I stumble at all.

I'm hoping the plot I'm cooking up for the PCs will be good enough. One of the people playing in the campaign runs weekly video gaming nights which he calls "Werewolf Weekends" (mainly because he started them off wanting to play Are You A Werewolf?/Werewolf Mafia). Thus, I'm thinking that I'll have this campaign's antagonistic forces involve werewolves somehow to play off of that familiar territory. Werewolves haven't traditionally been one of my favourite monsters, though, so I'm trying to come up with a new, hopefully interesting origin story and a unique set of rules for this campaign's weres.

I'm currently in the midst of using the Character and Monster Burners to create a complex "big baddy" who started all this werewolf shit, and then I'll be creating stats, traits, lifepaths and such for making "Werewolf" a new character stock for NPCs. Maybe for PCs, too, if anyone gets bitten. This thread in the BW forum is a nice concept for a werewolf stock, so I'll probably incorporate some elements from it that suit my werewolves (such as the Among Sheep setting and the Instinct trait) into their stock: http://www.burningwheel.org/forum/showthread.php?t=160&highlight=werewolf

Li_Akahi

This is a request that would most likely fall on idle ears but... (a) Front Row Crew Forum member only Burning Wheel campaign/game at Otakon?

Norvu

Don't have anyone to role play with, my girlfriend lives in Miami (myself in London) but I'm moving there this coming January. She wants to play too, so maybe when I'm over there I'll find people to play with, but I've never even met someone who don't even know of the concept of table top role playing.

Sail

I've got the books, but haven't got a chance to play.

Neito

I have the BW Revised set from Christmas and am just waiting for my friend to break down and stop wanting to be a D20 dork.

HMTKSteve

I don't have the books and honestly have no real desire to RPG anymore. I'd rather enjoy a board game with friends.

imptac

I just got the books in the mail, and am trying to convince my friends to play The Sword with me. Most of the people I hang out with have never roleplayed before, so this might take some work.

I am thinking of getting one of the games that Luke suggested in his interview to ease my friends into Burning Wheel. So, does anyone here have an opionion on any of them? I am a poor highschool student at the moment, so I cannot afford to add games into my library without them being very high quality, especially if they are only meant to be a stop-gap for Burning Wheel.

Solo

I once played it when DMed by the creator. It was awesome and lots of fun, but was run more like a LARP then a table-top. In my humble opinion, Burning Wheel is a great system, just hard to properly DM. It might simply work better as a LARP, I have yet to experiment and see, but I just thought I'd throw that out there.

Zeehat

Don't play as much as I would like to.

Mamath

I'm kind of waiting on my group to get over DnD first. They're still really into long intense battle sessions, argh. So boring.

Apsup

Own the books and have run the game. Few campaigns that have stopped and one that goes on and rocks. I love the system, but it takes a while to learn how to GM it. I have never seen myself as a very good GM and Burning Wheel and it's new to me things (like setting the stakes), take time to learn how to use well. That's the reason for those halted games.

J.Sharp

I am thinking of getting one of the games that Luke suggested in his interview to ease my friends into Burning Wheel. So, does anyone here have an opionion on any of them? I am a poor highschool student at the moment, so I cannot afford to add games into my library without them being very high quality, especially if they are only meant to be a stop-gap for Burning Wheel.

Rather than pick up a whole new game, especially if BW is what you really want to play, I would recommend trying out a short game with just the hub and maybe a few spokes. BW is structured in a way that it can be run at different levels of complexity, which is really great for easing into a familiarity with the system.

ColdfireSerge

It's a 15 minute demo scenario. It isn't a campaign. The pre-made characters are the whole point!

I know that, and you know that. They are just really, really stubborn.

Eryn

I agree with J.Sharp. Follow all the rules contained in the first 75 pages to start with, and ignore everything else until you're ready to go full-on. That keeps all the conflicts just being resolved with simple tests, and keeps the focus on the roleplaying. But be sure to let your players know that the more complex and interesting resolution mechanics exist; like whenever people find themselves in a fight, and it's resolved with a few bloody versus tests, sometimes drop a few hints about how that might have turned out using the actual Fight! rules. Or if there's an in-character argument, tease them with the idea of the Duel of Wits. Eventually, if the enjoy the simplified version of the game, they'll probably want those other mechanics to make things even more interesting (and if not, hey, you're still playing Burning Wheel and having fun).

xenomouse

I'm in the Philly area. If anyone is interested in playing Burning Wheel (or any other rpg) or just playing it more frequently, I could put some effort into getting you into a game. Just shoot me an email (you can catch it in my user account).

p.s. - I'll be at Ubercon from Friday evening through Sunday morning, if anyone wants to meet up there.

tranceotaku

I have had a few D&D experiences, and most of them were crap. I have only a few books, and character creation takes entirely too long. If Burning Wheel is a tabletop RPG that can be picked up and played pretty reasonably, then I will definitely seek out the books. I am not saying that I want an over simplified RPG experience, but I would like one that is more accessible to my friends with shorter attention spans. I do look forward to investigating more into what Burning Wheel is really about.

Magnum_Opus

This game looks sick. It sounds like its like D&D(or maybe because of chronology, D&D is like it) but much more open. I've heard you guys say it on the show but never really felt the need to look it up. I think I'll have to be grabbing a few of these. For some reason I must have always replaced burning wheel with burning man.

TheWhaleShark

This game looks sick. It sounds like its like D&D;(or maybe because of chronology, D&D; is like it) but much more open. I've heard you guys say it on the show but never really felt the need to look it up. I think I'll have to be grabbing a few of these. For some reason I must have always replaced burningwheelwith burningman.

If you love D&D;, but hate the fact that it really has no roleplaying element, Burning Wheel is for you. Once you play it, you'll never look back.

Cremlian

I'm in the Philly area. If anyone is interested in playing Burning Wheel (or any other rpg) or just playing it more frequently, I could put some effort into getting you into a game. Just shoot me an email (you can catch it in my user account).

p.s. - I'll be at Ubercon from Friday evening through Sunday morning, if anyone wants to meet up there.

My local gaming group is thinking of starting up a game again..

ladyobsolete

I have tried to get my hands on Burning Wheel for a while now but my gaming store couldn't find it--though it was listed in their inventory. I suppose I should just buy it online. Maybe I can make a trip down there one last time.

Mr. Eric

I think roleplaying is incredibly boring.