Why I am going to buy Burning Wheel

[joshua neff]

The Burning Wheel books are certainly of a more functional size than the coffeetable-sized Nobilis book.

[dunlaing]

Yay! My copy arrived yesterday! (#660: get your orde rin now o try for #666!) All three books look quite nice.

I burned my first character after reading the Spokes. I didn't really know exactly what I was going for, but I thought that some sort of rougish fellow would be good. I also don't necessarily have a huge grasp of all the rules (having only read the spokes) but was pleasantly surprised by my character I created with 4 lifepaths:

I started out as a Born Noble. I decided I wanted my rogue to be a rogue more by desire than necessity. I picked up Mark of Privilege here. Looking over the other Noble lifepaths, one caught my eye right away...

But first, a spot of confusion: the Lord lifepath requires either Knight or the "Your Lordship" trait. How is one supposed to get the "Your Lordship" trait at this point in the character generation process. Is it enough to have een Born Noble and simply agree to pick up Your Lordship when you get to the Traits step, or do you have to take Born Noble again to actually gain the Your Lordship trait before that?

My second Lifepath was Bastard! I gained an infamous reputation among the nobility and pick up a Wise on Family Secrets. How cool is that? At this point, my roguish fellow isn't all that rogue-y, so, at the tender age of 14, I take the Lead to the Outcast setting.

Looking over the Liffepaths in the Outcast setting, I like both Outlaw and Strider, but decide that the actual Outlaw trait is a bit too scary (especially since I am thinking of the character as a city-based character). Besides, my eye chances upon the Blackmailer lifepath and I take it! I pick up some skill in Forgery, gain the Coldhearted trait, and use my ill-gotten gains to move back to the City setting.

Once in the city, I have a bit of a change of heart about the character. I decide that I like the blackmailing bastard as a social animal and less of a thief-y type. So I pick up the Dilettante lifepath and spend a few years living on the blackmail earnings.

My lifepaths (and leads) left me at Age 22 with +2 M and a +1 M/P. After thinking it over, I put the M/P into M and end up with Will B4 and Perception B6. I then assignn Power B3, Forte B4, Agility B4, and Speed B5. That gives me a Health of 5, Mortal Wound of 9, Reflexes of 5, and Steel of 4.

For Skills, I am required to take Family Secret-wise, Forgery, and Sorcery-wise. I also open up all of my other lifepath skills (I have 12 regular points and only 8 lifepath skills) and bump a few up. A lot of them are Perception skills and I bump the others, so they are all B3 at this point. My skills now include Etiquette, Extortion, Ugly Truth, Falsehood, and Oscure History. With my general oints, I open Sword and Stealthy (holdovers from the original concept), raise them each to B3, and raise Falsehood to B4.

For Traits, I am required to take Mark of Privilege, Bastard, Cold-Hearted, and Superstitious. With my remaining 2 points, I pick up Aura of Innocence. I intend to use that for getting me out of the trouble my Falsehood, Extortion, Forgery, et al will get me in.

I have 48 Resource Points, so I pick up a Relationship with my younger half-brother, Esteban, who is the local lord (he's legitimate) and whom I am blackmailing. :) I also pick up run of the mill arms and finery. Then I spend 15 rp on a Villa (which poor Esteban has had to buy to keep me quiet) and then spend 10 points on a 1D Affiliation to the Order of Watchers, a group of concerned citizens in the city who are suspicious of sorcerers and 7 points on a 1D reputation within that group as a man in the know with connections.

I now try to figure out my starting Resources. I have to say, I'm lost here. I've spent 32 points on property, affiliations, and reputations, which would equate to a B2 Resources; but my traits give me an additional 1D reputation and an additional 1D affiliation, which would be worth another 17 points in affiliations and reputations for 49 points or a B3 Resources. Which is it? I don't know.

Finally, Beliefs and Instincts. This is a bit tough since I only created the character for fun, not for a campaign (and thus have no way to tie his Beliefs into the campaign) and have no knowledge of the Rim of the Wheel (and thus have no way to know what instincts are good from a Gamist perspective), but I push on anyway.

Beliefs:
Esteban deserves everything I do to him
I am entitled to a life of leisure
I can get away with anything

Instincts:
When accused, act innocent
When left alone in others' houses, sneak around
Protect my children, even bastards

conclusion: "Burning" this character (Ricardo Montega) was a lot of fun. Just from picking lifepaths that jumped out at me, I ended up with a character with oodles of backstory. (Why was he outcast at 14? Because his father died and Esteban was placed on the throne at the young age of 10 and his advisors feared that Ricardo would try to take the throne from the underaged lord. Of course, Ricardo blames Esteban for it.) he genuinely seems like he would be a fun character to play and I probably would not have come up with him in another character creation system, without the lifepaths.

I'm starting to read the Rim of the Wheel now, so I still don't know how much I'll like the system (and won't really know that until I play it anyway), but I'm digging the character creation a lot already!

[Luke]

Excellent starting point, my friend. Excellent.

To answer your questions: If you take the Lord lifepath (and don't take Knight), you've got to have the Your Lordship trait as one of your final LP traits. You must spend a trait point on it at some time.

Resources: I think you're getting a bit ahead of yourself. You spent 32 points on property, etc. Divide that number by 15 to get your starting Resources exponent. There's nothing more to it.

Your trait based Rep and Aff didn't cost any Resource points to get, so you don't use them to factor the ability exponent.

cool Beliefs, btw!

Your last Instinct sounds a bit more like a Belief. Can you explain how you would use it in play in a "stimulus/response" way?

-L

[dunlaing]

cool Beliefs, btw!

Thank you. And thanks for the answers to my questions, they were both clear and made sense. I thought that the things from traits would not count for Resources, but I wasn't sure.

Your last Instinct sounds a bit more like a Belief. Can you explain how you would use it in play in a "stimulus/response" way?

Well, it is my first character. :)

I was actually having a lot of trouble with that last one. It could be that it's a belief and that's why I was having trouble with it. I figured that having it as an instinct would cause the theoretical GM to introduce a bastard child and put Ricardo into situations where he had to protect him. I can see that you're right and it's more of a Belief and that a better Instinct would probably be more along the lines of "In a fight, always push children behind myself." In that case, it would be a clear action that takes place in clear situations, right?

____________________

I read a bit more and realized that Ricardo's a bit "broken." For his character concept, he should have at least one skill that he can use for a Duel of the Wits, but he doesn't have any. If I were playing him, I'd probably drop the Sword and Stealthy each down to B2 (saving 2 general skill points) and open up Persuasion at B2 and raise it to B3 with those points.

[Luke]

that's an excellent instinct, and additionally excellent skill choices. Would make him eminently playable.

-L

[dunlaing]

You know, I was planning on starting upa Star Wars game the Friday after next, but this guy just won't get out of my head. It really makes me want to run Burning Wheel and have the PCs working for Ricardo.