People don't think. That's why we try to wake them the fuck up.
Is it not possible that someone has tried other role playing games and found that they prefer D&D.; I do agree with you in this regard, people need to have the opportunity to play other games. But what if for some people they try other games and find that D&D; was the game for them.
Then might I suggest vision correction? I'm not being contrary, really, and I'm not just being contrary for the sake of it - Odd, how you assume that because I disagree, I must be doing it for the sake of it, and am therefore a contrarian - The opposite position to "Burning wheel is Great! D&D; is Bad!" would be, obviously, "D&D; is Great! Burning Wheel is Bad!" - But what I've said so far is "In regards to having a good GM or a bad GM being a factor in if a particular game you're playing is good or bad, I don't think burning wheel is immune to that, based on my experience with the game. It's a good game, but it's not a magic solution to bad role-playing or bad GMs."
I'll extend that to that it's also probably more helpful for Bad GMs and Bad Roleplaying than D&D; is, in regards to teaching them to be better at the whole deal - It is, to quote Scott, A hard mode RPG, but nobody improved that much playing easy mode. D&D; provides a good foundation, but Burning wheel opens things up, for a player and a GM, and it's a good progression down the path that D&D; is the most common (and one of the better) Starting point of.
People don't think. That's why we try to wake them the fuck up.
Agreed. For every person who plays BW or similar games, there is another dozen, minimum, who play D&D; and similar games, and assume that's all that there is, and don't really think about it too much. They need to be pointed in other directions - sure, they might prefer D&D; in the end, but they have nothing to lose by trying markedly different systems like BW, or Freemarket.
Is it not possible that someone has tried other role playing games and found that they prefer D&D.; I do agree with you in this regard, people need to have the opportunity to play other games. But what if for some people they try other games and find that D&D; was the game for them.
I see this one all the time in every field of geekery. It consists of two phenomena.
One is the "used to it" principle. Someone who uses MS Office tries Open Office, and doesn't like it. Did they actually legitimately learn it? I'm not saying it is, but maybe OpenOffice was better for them, but they didn't put in the effort to learn it. They've spent years learning MS Office, so they are already more efficient at it. Any competitor you offer, they will always say it's worse because they are comparing a product they are unfamiliar with to something they have practiced for years. For whatever reason they can't recognize and separate their personal experience bias.
The second is the stubborn mule. Some guy who reads superhero comics will read one volume of manga and be like, "all manga sucks!" Uh dude, maybe you don't like that one manga, but you see there are a bajillion manga that are all very different from each other. You need to try a lot more before you can say shit like that. If some guy has legitimately played a fuckton of tabletop RPGs and still says they like D&D; best, I'll believe them. Someone who does a handful of tiny sessions of a couple games, I'm not buying it. They may not like those particular games, but to say D&D; is the best without ample comparison doesn't fly. Also, if you play an epic D&D; campaign for many years, you can't compare that experience to a one-shot convention demo.
Most people bring their emotions into these types of discussions. They can't leave the baggage and home and bring only the analytical mind.
It's not really very sensible to dismiss the idea that they might just, y'know, like the game without engaging either of those phenomena - For example - yes, I'm aware movies and Games are not the same thing - Evil Dead isn't exactly the best movie around, and certainly isn't anywhere near the top of the quality pile when you look at it entirely analytically, but plenty of people like it.
Burning Wheel only rewards players who don't play it safe, so you have to be willing to lay it out on the line to succeed.
Well, technically, so does D&D.; The only way to be rewarded is to go into a fight. In fact, because fighting and hitpoints are all you have, every fight is laying it on the line.
In Burning Wheel, you're only really "laying it on the line" if you don't know what you're doing. I know Fight! and the Duel of Wits well enough to destroy people with ease. No, Burning Wheel is about making decisions about where you want to go with the story. It puts you in the driver's seat. In fact, quite often, you are very comfortable in that seat. The GM only needs to make you feel uncomfortable in that seat every now and again in order to make you drive somewhere new.
Not every single decision in Burning Wheel is do or die. That gets old and boring very very quickly. Only a handful of decisions are so extreme.
More importantly, you will only succeed and advance if you can be really creative.
The required level of individual creativity in Burning Wheel is actually relatively low. The game works fine if you do nothing but string together tropes that you already know. You don't have to push yourself out of those tropes in order to succeed.
What Burning Wheel does differently is that the challenges you fight come from the players themselves. It creates a different kind of tension than does 4e.
D&D; 4E has no good mechanism for rewarding individuals.
This is also one of the major differences. Because BW works by challenging you with yourself, you are very personally engaged in the game. You always feel as though you are contributing in a unique and innovative way because the GM is pitting you against yourself.
A good GM will tie the lot of you together by playing you off of each other's backgrounds and tying all of those things together.
But it's not a fucking magic wand that turns everything into awesome.
This is also a very important thing to understand.
Burning Wheel tells a particular kind of story. Or rather, it lends a particular flavor to any story. That flavor is intense, character-driven drama. Dramatic changes and being dragged through the mud are common. If that is not the story you're after, Burning Wheel will not work for you.
Well, technically, so does D&D.; The only way to be rewarded is to go into a fight. In fact, because fighting and hitpoints are all you have, every fight is laying it on the line.
There's no real risk in D&D;, because even though death is possible, you can even raise dead or resurrect. In Burning Wheel, you'll get wounded right the fuck away and have serious consequences. If you die, you die. And not only that, but there are tons of consequences outside of just injury or dying. If you fail at rolls, then according to the rules, things will not go your way. They will go the opposite way. In D&D; if you fail, there are relatively few consequences, and you can often just try again.
The required level of individual creativity in Burning Wheel is actually relatively low. The game works fine if you do nothing but string together tropes that you already know. You don't have to push yourself out of those tropes in order to succeed.
The required level is indeed low. Otherwise, the game would be unplayable. But stringing tropes is like mashing buttons in a fighting game. A creative player is greatly rewarded because they will sneak in a zillion forks and blow the house down.
If you have a Persona point in BW, you never ever ever ever die.
A creative player is greatly rewarded because they will sneak in a zillion forks and blow the house down.
You don't even have to be that creative in order to FoRK. You just have to have a concept in mind.
They will go the opposite way.
That is the absolute most boring complication ever. In Burning Wheel, if you fail, it's much more fun to go sideways, or get a "yes, but" result.
Example: In my game, the Faithful character attempted to banish a Lesser Daemon. Minor Miracle, Ob 5. Blew two Persona points and I allowed some other advantage die, for a total of 8 dice. He failed the roll.
The "direct opposite" of banishing would probably be to empower the daemon. Boring and it doesn't challenge the character enough. Instead, I said, "OK, you banish the daemon, but because you've been leaning on that Faith crutch so hard, your god decides to test you. Say goodbye to Faith and say hello to Lost Faith." He loved it, and now he's taking his character in a brand new direction.
So, he got what he wanted, as well as a complication.
That is a far better situation than just directly opposing their intent. Remember, you need to antagonize the players, not simply oppose them.
That is usually non-trivial in cost - Minimum 5,000 GP(with the next two levels of it costing 10,000 and 25,000, all non-trivial sums for those levels, and it's per-subject raised - so two characters down is 10,000, 20,000, and 50,000 respectively, and so on), you usually lose at least one level, spell slots for some characters and stat losses for all characters, on top of what you may lose dropping a level or two, irreparable constitution losses, and there are a number of conditions under which a character can't be raised or resurrected, which depending on the campaign, can come into play before the resurrect or raise abilities come into play - and the earliest it comes into play, you have a maximum of five days to perform it, or it becomes impossible, and if you need to work up the cost of doing so, then you have to do it not only one person down, but also lugging around a corpse. Permanent effects stay, and a body is raised As is - if your fighter is missing an arm, and you raise him, he doesn't get that arm back, which incurs a number of major penalties, on top of those already incurred being raised - needless to say, a beheaded character can't be raised. On top of that, you need a specific class to cast it, though to be fair, the classes which can cast it are in most parties. The spells for doing this DO get more effective as they move up in the levels of the spell, they also bring new cost and conditions, and if you're running your game in such a way that raising or resurrecting your dead party members is trivial or easy all the time, then you're doing it very wrong, and need to learn how to GM better, ASAP.
In D&D; if you fail, there are relatively few consequences, and you can often just try again.
If this is the case, then you are(or your GM is) A fucking terrible GM. Sure, there are varying levels of consequence - a minor action failure shouldn't usually result in death - but if there is few or no consequences to failure, then you're flat-out doing it wrong.
Seriously, why is it that so many of your examples of why D&D; are bad are essentially cases of "Only if you're doing it really wrong, or are purposely setting out to break the game"?
One specific mechanical problem with D&D is that, if advancement (the primary means of mechanical reward) is uneven, the disparity between high and low powered characters is a game breaker.
If one's character in D&D is substantially lower level than others in the party (or is less powerful due to having fewer useful items), they become increasingly meaningless in the primary scope of mechanical conflict. They are simply less effective at pushing the narrative in any direction, and are likely to disengage.
If one's character in Burning Wheel is substantially lower powered than others in the party, they are less effective only at achieving what they want, but are equally effective at influencing the narrative. Failing at a roll is just as powerful as succeeding at one.
D&D heavily encourages advancement to be fairly uniform, removing one of the most powerful effects of the primary currency cycle of the game. This is a specific mechanical complaint. Does anyone disagree?
If this is the case, then you are(or your GM is) A fucking terrible GM. Sure, there are varying levels of consequence - a minor action failure shouldn't usually result in death - but if there is few or no consequences to failure, then you're flat-out doing it wrong.
Where in the rules of D&D; does it say that? Or is that what your DM says?
One specificmechanicalproblem with D&D; is that, if advancement (the primary means of mechanical reward) is uneven, the disparity between high and low powered characters is a game breaker.
If you actually read the rules of 4th edition, they pretty much make it so a party stays at the same level. They say that if someone misses a game they should still get a majority of the experience and if a character comes into the game late they should be the same level as everyone else. D&D; is a team game. Burning wheel is a (awesome) team destroying game ^_^ I'm not saying that's good, but the rules specifically state to keep your party at the same level. So this issue doesn't really happen.
One specificmechanicalproblem with D&D; is that, if advancement (the primary means of mechanical reward) is uneven, the disparity between high and low powered characters is a game breaker.
I agree, pretty much for the reason you state - if your party is too uneven, then unless your campaign is geared to compensate for it (for example, Rapidly raise them in level, which is the most likely, sacrificing that character, which is not very likely unless you have a good group, or forcing the character to be useful to the party in some manner, which is hard to do right, and rarely goes well), then you're going to have a rather poor game. It's geared for a party adventuring together, and advancing in level around the same times, and keeping roughly even in their advancement. If this is what you're doing with your D&D; game, while it's not impossible, it is certainly very difficult - more so than running a system more suited to that sort of game, say, Burning Wheel.
It's admittedly not a problem that comes up often, by the very nature of the game, however, when it does come up, it's not something that's easily dealt with.
Where in the rules of D&D; does it say that? Or is that what your DM says?
If you need your hand held that much throughout a game, then you honestly need to skip both BW and D&D;, and stick to, say, Munchkin or Ninja Burger. However, by the very nature of the D&D; challenge mechanic(Above a certain number is a pass, under a certain number is a fail, and for certain actions failure has a defined consequence, others it's GM's choice) this occurs. I'll come back to this in a minute, I need to check something before I say anything more.
Edit - I'm reading through the BW Core rules, and so far, It's basically saying "If you fail X challenge, you either fail, Fail worse, or Fail REALLY BAD" - beyond that, I found a GM tip that it's more fun to let your players live out consequences. So, other than telling you that if you fail, you fail, Where's the rule that says that an action must have consequences other than Admittedly, I have an old copy, which doesn't have the new errata, however, it would surprise me if such a basic mechanic was changed in the errata. It does not seem that Burning Wheel lays out that there must be consequences for failure that much more than D&D; does. To borrow a line from Scott, The story consequences are completely up to the Players and GM, and thus are nothing to do with Burning wheel.
That is one particular flaw in D&D, but I think the points that Churba and Pete just made illustrate a core difference quite nicely.
Consequence of failure to banish demon in BW? Lost Faith and maybe one artha point if you die.
Consequence of failure in D&D? Fight the demon! If you win, temporary loss of HP, which is not a real consequence. If you lose, you die and lose thousands of gold, levels, stats, and lots of numbers going down in general. If there is any other cool story consequence, like lost faith, that is completely on the part of the GM, and has nothing to do with D&D.
I'm not saying that's good, but the rules specifically state to keep your party at the same level. So this issue doesn't really happen.
Yes. This means that individual rewards are meaningless in the long run. They are not a true incentive for players themselves, but only for the group as a whole. There's no currency to encourage a player to take action from this.
Yes, I know that. The mechanics of D&D; don't support that, and you have to hack it in.
But your points about Burning Wheel are way off. Burning Wheel requires the amount of roleplaying ability that D&D; does of tactical ability. That is to say, not much. The only difference is that Burning Wheel makes it a part of the system.
The "challenges" in Burning Wheel are no more or less difficult than the challenges in D&D.; It's just that Burning Wheel gives you the option of presenting different kinds of challenges, and that relatively subtle difference creates a very different game narrative.
Consequence of failure in D&D;? Fight the demon! If you win, temporary loss of HP, which is not a real consequence. If you lose, you die and lose thousands of gold, levels, stats, and lots of numbers going down in general. If there is any other cool story consequence, like lost faith, that is completely on the part of the GM, and has nothing to do with D&D.;
To Borrow a line from Rym's playbook - Where in the D&D; rules does it say this? Or is that just what your (Terrible) GM says?
As you've said so many times yourself, If it's something the GM or Players do that isn't in the rules, then It's nothing to do with D&D.;
Consequence of failure to banish demon in BW? Lost Faith and maybe one artha point if you die.
Just as a personal side note, If that was the only consequence of failure to banish the demon in a game of burning wheel, then I'd be asking my GM post-game why there wasn't more consequences to it than a few lost numbers, even if those numbers have some effect on the way the character behaves. It's a demon, for fuck's sake, what, you fail to banish it and it just sits there picking it's teeth and filing the nails on it's third left hand?
And thus can't be used as evidence to support D&D; as a good mechanical system.
Or conversely, evidence to why it's bad. Blade cuts both ways, Rym.
Another personal side-note - This is actually turning into quite an enjoyable discussion, a pleasant surprise, when what was expected was more along the lines of "Christ, Not this shit again."
Burning Wheel requires the amount of roleplaying ability that D&D; does of tactical ability. That is to say, not much.
You keep getting hung up on "require." No, it doesn't require much, but it has a high cap. Just like in Marvel vs. Capcom 2 you can be kinda successful mashing buttons, but you can also do really well by actually doing combos and such. Mediocre role playing in BW will suffice, but amazing role playing will excel. In D&D;, your tactical skill is necessary to suffice, but the cap is low. Once you max it out, that's it. And the quality of your role playing, whether it's the best or none at all, has no in-game effect whatsoever in D&D;.
If that was the only consequence of failure to banish the demon in a game of burning wheel
Well, the character who lost his Faith is a religious zealot. To him, losing his Faith is just as good as dying. It's a much cooler consequence than physical damage. Also, that was negotiated with the player before the roll, which is what you're supposed to do.
There are countless other consequences that I could have used, but that was the most interesting to everyone. Obviously, winning would've been the preferred option, but this is still fun.
It's a demon, for fuck's sake, what, you fail to banish it and it just sits there picking it's teeth and filing the nails on it's third left hand?
No, the banishment part actually worked, so there was no daemon. But in order to do that, the character had to sacrifice part of himself.
And the quality of your role playing, whether it's the best or none at all, has no in-game effect whatsoever in D&D.;
And my point is that you are wrong about Burning Wheel. Really. There is a hard limit to how much mechanical advantage you can get from roleplaying in Burning Wheel, and you can achieve that without any innovation at all. Really. Yes you can. You can only FoRK so many things. Getting a Persona point is very mechanical. Once you know how to write a Belief, you can earn 1 - 3 Persona per session without trying. Meanwhile, the Deeds point is almost totally out of your hands, and entirely up to the GM's discretion.
I picked up the tail-end of one of Rym's sessions of The Sword at MAGFest, and directed a group of novice players into a gut-wrenching finale. They weren't good, not by any stretch. It was the combination of their individual contributions that made it awesome.
All the other roleplaying adds color, but the most mechanical reward that being an excellent roleplayer will get you is a Fate point for playing to traits, and the odd Moldbreaker/Embodiment point.
Well, the character who lost his Faith is a religious zealot. To him, losing his Faith is just as good as dying. It's a much cooler consequence than physical damage. Also, that was negotiated with the player before the roll, which is what you're supposed to do.
There are countless other consequences that I could have used, but that was the most interesting to everyone. Obviously, winning would've been the preferred option, but this is still fun.
This does make sense for such a character, however -
No, the banishment part actually worked, so there was no daemon.
If someone fails to banish a daemon, then then banishing part most likely shouldn't be working. It might not be an immediately apparent failure - say, the demon appears to have vanished, but has instead come to inhabit, say, a party member, or someone nearby, or the like, or maybe you closed the rift it used to enter the world, but it is still around somewhere - but having the banishing part work if you fail to banish it strikes me as a bit nonsensical, character sacrifice or no. Though, that's just a difference of opinion.
Churba successfully put his balls on your sword.
Hardly. What, You think that "Oh yeah, this bad thing that players and GM's might do that isn't laid out explicitly in the rules is evidence that it's bad" is acceptable, but "This good thing they do that isn't in the rules isn't evidence that it's good" isn't? Somehow, I don't think so. If it's something that the GM and the players do, and is therefore nothing to do with D&D;, then it's Not a positive or a negative for the system, it's simply nothing to do with the system.
I've seen FoRKing get crazy go nuts. People come up with some clever ass shit to incorporate skills into a roll that would otherwise seem completely unrelated. Also, when it comes down to the actual game, the psychological impact of awesome role playing can really come on strong. This happens a lot when you are eliciting help in a duel of wits. That's why the stronger role players often end up controlling more of the narrative, and games with multiple strong role players explode into epic.
People come up with some clever ass shit to incorporate skills into a roll that would otherwise seem completely unrelated.
Honest question - I can see your point on this, but is there a point where this just becomes Rules-lawyering, munchkining or gaming the system? I mean, just because, for example, a player CAN display the physics as to why The Flash(while they're playing the character) conceivably could whack off and ejaculate with such speed and power as to permanently blind their opponent, that doesn't mean that it's going to make for a good game, or that it should necessarily be allowed.
I can see your point on this, but is there a point where this just becomes Rules-lawyering, munchkining or gaming the system?
Sure. The system can sort of encourage this, actually. It's not actually a problem as long as it adds to the narrative. The problem is here:
That's why the stronger role players often end up controlling more of the narrative
Because one player should absolutely never control the narrative. If one player is overshadowing the rest, the job of the GM is to 1) rein in that player and 2) encourage the other players to do better.
Part of the job of the GM is to adjudicate FoRK's, advantage dice, and helping dice. If the GM allows one player to FoRK in a bunch of crap that doesn't seem related, he's being a doormat and that will let one player run the game. That is not what you should do. It's even in the rules.
The GM is allowed to say "no" to a FoRK, and he should if it results in one player totally outplaying everyone else without adding to the narrative. This is the part where Scott is very wrong. A player can only succeed so much, because it is partly the job of the GM to adjudicate player actions and rolls. This is why all FoRK's require the GM's say.
If someone fails to banish a daemon, then then banishing part most likely shouldn't be working.
Yes, that is one way to play it. That's the usual way, but Burning Wheel tells us only that we need consequences. The "yes, but" consequence makes for some excellent story.
And of course the failed banishment might have other consequences. Like, I don't know, maybe the guy will have to face down that very same daemon again on his quest to regain his faith.
It's not nonsensical to introduce a complication, because you can always tie the complication back in later. That's part of GM magic.
Comments
Is it not possible that someone has tried other role playing games and found that they prefer D&D.; I do agree with you in this regard, people need to have the opportunity to play other games. But what if for some people they try other games and find that D&D; was the game for them.
I'm not being contrary, really, and I'm not just being contrary for the sake of it - Odd, how you assume that because I disagree, I must be doing it for the sake of it, and am therefore a contrarian - The opposite position to "Burning wheel is Great! D&D; is Bad!" would be, obviously, "D&D; is Great! Burning Wheel is Bad!" - But what I've said so far is "In regards to having a good GM or a bad GM being a factor in if a particular game you're playing is good or bad, I don't think burning wheel is immune to that, based on my experience with the game. It's a good game, but it's not a magic solution to bad role-playing or bad GMs."
I'll extend that to that it's also probably more helpful for Bad GMs and Bad Roleplaying than D&D; is, in regards to teaching them to be better at the whole deal - It is, to quote Scott, A hard mode RPG, but nobody improved that much playing easy mode. D&D; provides a good foundation, but Burning wheel opens things up, for a player and a GM, and it's a good progression down the path that D&D; is the most common (and one of the better) Starting point of. Agreed. For every person who plays BW or similar games, there is another dozen, minimum, who play D&D; and similar games, and assume that's all that there is, and don't really think about it too much. They need to be pointed in other directions - sure, they might prefer D&D; in the end, but they have nothing to lose by trying markedly different systems like BW, or Freemarket.
One is the "used to it" principle. Someone who uses MS Office tries Open Office, and doesn't like it. Did they actually legitimately learn it? I'm not saying it is, but maybe OpenOffice was better for them, but they didn't put in the effort to learn it. They've spent years learning MS Office, so they are already more efficient at it. Any competitor you offer, they will always say it's worse because they are comparing a product they are unfamiliar with to something they have practiced for years. For whatever reason they can't recognize and separate their personal experience bias.
The second is the stubborn mule. Some guy who reads superhero comics will read one volume of manga and be like, "all manga sucks!" Uh dude, maybe you don't like that one manga, but you see there are a bajillion manga that are all very different from each other. You need to try a lot more before you can say shit like that. If some guy has legitimately played a fuckton of tabletop RPGs and still says they like D&D; best, I'll believe them. Someone who does a handful of tiny sessions of a couple games, I'm not buying it. They may not like those particular games, but to say D&D; is the best without ample comparison doesn't fly. Also, if you play an epic D&D; campaign for many years, you can't compare that experience to a one-shot convention demo.
Most people bring their emotions into these types of discussions. They can't leave the baggage and home and bring only the analytical mind.
In Burning Wheel, you're only really "laying it on the line" if you don't know what you're doing. I know Fight! and the Duel of Wits well enough to destroy people with ease. No, Burning Wheel is about making decisions about where you want to go with the story. It puts you in the driver's seat. In fact, quite often, you are very comfortable in that seat. The GM only needs to make you feel uncomfortable in that seat every now and again in order to make you drive somewhere new.
Not every single decision in Burning Wheel is do or die. That gets old and boring very very quickly. Only a handful of decisions are so extreme. The required level of individual creativity in Burning Wheel is actually relatively low. The game works fine if you do nothing but string together tropes that you already know. You don't have to push yourself out of those tropes in order to succeed.
What Burning Wheel does differently is that the challenges you fight come from the players themselves. It creates a different kind of tension than does 4e. This is also one of the major differences. Because BW works by challenging you with yourself, you are very personally engaged in the game. You always feel as though you are contributing in a unique and innovative way because the GM is pitting you against yourself.
A good GM will tie the lot of you together by playing you off of each other's backgrounds and tying all of those things together.
Burning Wheel tells a particular kind of story. Or rather, it lends a particular flavor to any story. That flavor is intense, character-driven drama. Dramatic changes and being dragged through the mud are common. If that is not the story you're after, Burning Wheel will not work for you.
Example: In my game, the Faithful character attempted to banish a Lesser Daemon. Minor Miracle, Ob 5. Blew two Persona points and I allowed some other advantage die, for a total of 8 dice. He failed the roll.
The "direct opposite" of banishing would probably be to empower the daemon. Boring and it doesn't challenge the character enough. Instead, I said, "OK, you banish the daemon, but because you've been leaning on that Faith crutch so hard, your god decides to test you. Say goodbye to Faith and say hello to Lost Faith." He loved it, and now he's taking his character in a brand new direction.
So, he got what he wanted, as well as a complication.
That is a far better situation than just directly opposing their intent. Remember, you need to antagonize the players, not simply oppose them.
The spells for doing this DO get more effective as they move up in the levels of the spell, they also bring new cost and conditions, and if you're running your game in such a way that raising or resurrecting your dead party members is trivial or easy all the time, then you're doing it very wrong, and need to learn how to GM better, ASAP. If this is the case, then you are(or your GM is) A fucking terrible GM. Sure, there are varying levels of consequence - a minor action failure shouldn't usually result in death - but if there is few or no consequences to failure, then you're flat-out doing it wrong.
Seriously, why is it that so many of your examples of why D&D; are bad are essentially cases of "Only if you're doing it really wrong, or are purposely setting out to break the game"?
One specific mechanical problem with D&D is that, if advancement (the primary means of mechanical reward) is uneven, the disparity between high and low powered characters is a game breaker.
If one's character in D&D is substantially lower level than others in the party (or is less powerful due to having fewer useful items), they become increasingly meaningless in the primary scope of mechanical conflict. They are simply less effective at pushing the narrative in any direction, and are likely to disengage.
If one's character in Burning Wheel is substantially lower powered than others in the party, they are less effective only at achieving what they want, but are equally effective at influencing the narrative. Failing at a roll is just as powerful as succeeding at one.
D&D heavily encourages advancement to be fairly uniform, removing one of the most powerful effects of the primary currency cycle of the game. This is a specific mechanical complaint. Does anyone disagree?
It's admittedly not a problem that comes up often, by the very nature of the game, however, when it does come up, it's not something that's easily dealt with. If you need your hand held that much throughout a game, then you honestly need to skip both BW and D&D;, and stick to, say, Munchkin or Ninja Burger. However, by the very nature of the D&D; challenge mechanic(Above a certain number is a pass, under a certain number is a fail, and for certain actions failure has a defined consequence, others it's GM's choice) this occurs. I'll come back to this in a minute, I need to check something before I say anything more.
Edit - I'm reading through the BW Core rules, and so far, It's basically saying "If you fail X challenge, you either fail, Fail worse, or Fail REALLY BAD" - beyond that, I found a GM tip that it's more fun to let your players live out consequences. So, other than telling you that if you fail, you fail, Where's the rule that says that an action must have consequences other than Admittedly, I have an old copy, which doesn't have the new errata, however, it would surprise me if such a basic mechanic was changed in the errata. It does not seem that Burning Wheel lays out that there must be consequences for failure that much more than D&D; does. To borrow a line from Scott, The story consequences are completely up to the Players and GM, and thus are nothing to do with Burning wheel.
Consequence of failure to banish demon in BW? Lost Faith and maybe one artha point if you die.
Consequence of failure in D&D? Fight the demon! If you win, temporary loss of HP, which is not a real consequence. If you lose, you die and lose thousands of gold, levels, stats, and lots of numbers going down in general. If there is any other cool story consequence, like lost faith, that is completely on the part of the GM, and has nothing to do with D&D.
But your points about Burning Wheel are way off. Burning Wheel requires the amount of roleplaying ability that D&D; does of tactical ability. That is to say, not much. The only difference is that Burning Wheel makes it a part of the system.
The "challenges" in Burning Wheel are no more or less difficult than the challenges in D&D.; It's just that Burning Wheel gives you the option of presenting different kinds of challenges, and that relatively subtle difference creates a very different game narrative.
As you've said so many times yourself, If it's something the GM or Players do that isn't in the rules, then It's nothing to do with D&D.; Just as a personal side note, If that was the only consequence of failure to banish the demon in a game of burning wheel, then I'd be asking my GM post-game why there wasn't more consequences to it than a few lost numbers, even if those numbers have some effect on the way the character behaves. It's a demon, for fuck's sake, what, you fail to banish it and it just sits there picking it's teeth and filing the nails on it's third left hand?
Another personal side-note - This is actually turning into quite an enjoyable discussion, a pleasant surprise, when what was expected was more along the lines of "Christ, Not this shit again."
There are countless other consequences that I could have used, but that was the most interesting to everyone. Obviously, winning would've been the preferred option, but this is still fun. No, the banishment part actually worked, so there was no daemon. But in order to do that, the character had to sacrifice part of himself.
I picked up the tail-end of one of Rym's sessions of The Sword at MAGFest, and directed a group of novice players into a gut-wrenching finale. They weren't good, not by any stretch. It was the combination of their individual contributions that made it awesome.
All the other roleplaying adds color, but the most mechanical reward that being an excellent roleplayer will get you is a Fate point for playing to traits, and the odd Moldbreaker/Embodiment point.
Part of the job of the GM is to adjudicate FoRK's, advantage dice, and helping dice. If the GM allows one player to FoRK in a bunch of crap that doesn't seem related, he's being a doormat and that will let one player run the game. That is not what you should do. It's even in the rules.
The GM is allowed to say "no" to a FoRK, and he should if it results in one player totally outplaying everyone else without adding to the narrative. This is the part where Scott is very wrong. A player can only succeed so much, because it is partly the job of the GM to adjudicate player actions and rolls. This is why all FoRK's require the GM's say. Yes, that is one way to play it. That's the usual way, but Burning Wheel tells us only that we need consequences. The "yes, but" consequence makes for some excellent story.
And of course the failed banishment might have other consequences. Like, I don't know, maybe the guy will have to face down that very same daemon again on his quest to regain his faith.
It's not nonsensical to introduce a complication, because you can always tie the complication back in later. That's part of GM magic.