[The Burning Wheel] The Gift -- at MACE 2005

[Luke]

Luke, if my counselors had agreed with me and we walked away from the table, what would you have done? The Dwarven Prince was about to throw me out anyway. Would the game have ended there?

I dunno. It would have depended on what the other players wanted. Given what I know now, I suspect that "walking away" would have actually created some air in that game and would have improved play. It would have given the other players narrative license to maneuver. But it's different every time, so it's difficult to predict.

As for BITs driving the system...
Well guys, I admit that I deemphasize one of the prime mechanics in the demos, Artha. Awarding those points for playing on or against Beliets, etc is a big part of the engine of BW. The other part is that the players in the demo don't write those Beliefs, I do. Writing (and rewriting) Beliefs is a major mechanic in the game.

And though Beliefs mechanics are fairly straightforward, they are no less important and no less featured than any other mechanic in the game. In fact, Beliefs need a different handling in order to make the game go. Adding dice mechanics to Beliefs in Burning Wheel would fill in the "fruitful void."

conflict/challenge with/to a Belief
decide how to confront said challenge; which ability?
violence or conspicuous avoidance thereof utilizing chosen ability and chosen system
artha and advancement
escalation to further, more extreme, violence or wilful cessation of violence or hard right turn away from conflict

Note well that the little burning wheel of the fruitful void can't get started without a Belief.

-L

[Adam Dray]

Bret, I don't think I Turtled at the end of the game but I definitely did during the first half of the game. I specifically remember one volley in the DoW in which I didn't contribute anything at all -- despite a desperate desire to do so -- and I think it was due to my paralysis because of the reasons I explained above. From what I understand of BW now, when I had my guy leap over the table and attack the Dwarven Prince, I would have rewritten my "Any obstacle can be overcome with the application of etiquette and grace" Belief. The rudeness of the Dwarves was a major test of Finrir's Beliefs and he'd have failed himself at that point when he acted against Instinct. I think.


Brand, I think you nailed my feeling. I was in an impossible situation of the GM's devising and that is what felt like railroading to me (more than just a Kicker) -- combined with the way that Luke seemed to feed us information about the rules.

Adam, if you had come up with the character and the kicker yourself, rather than "inheriting" it from Luke, do you think it would have influenced how you felt about the game, the character, and the situation? How much of your discomfort was from trying to win or have everything, and how much from finding yourself in an intensely conflicted situation in which you had no say in the setup of the situation?

I think when a GM puts my character in an "impossible" situation, I see it as a Step On Up challenge. When I put my character in an impossible situation, it's to Address Premise. I am not saying this is a universal for all people and all GMs or anything. Just what I feel.

If I had created the character myself, I would have felt more comfortable changing my BITs in play. In a con situation, I assume that I'm supposed to play as written. If every player ignored the sheet, the whole thing goes to hell, no? Why would the GM bother writing the character otherwise? Certainly, the rules by which I could change my character during play were not explained, so I defaulted to "I am not supposed to do that."

What if you had, in a normal Burning Wheel game, decided on your own that your character had forgotten the gift in order to set up the conflict?

That would be damned juicy role-play. I don't feel, however, that Finrir as written (the paragon of politeness) could do such a thing -- it would be against his Beliefs and Instincts.


Luke, I would gladly have played one Duel of Wits instead of two in order to spend some time learning to use the BITs and Artha and all that. I mean to say that you can run "The Gift" as written in the space of four hours and just focus more on some of those other aspects. The second DoW didn't really contribute anything additional to selling the game. Additionally, understanding those things would alleviate a lot of the confusion that made me think the game was complicated. I believe that understanding and playing those mechanics -- even if it complicates the demo -- will sell the game better than muddling around the mechanics and feeling confused as a player. Just one guy's opinion though.

I wasn't advocating adding dice mechanics to Beliefs. I thought someone said there were some dice mechanics so I was just saying, "Cool, would have liked to have understood those." But there seem to be rewriting mechanics that we didn't explore, and those would have made the demo game a thousand times cooler.

I don't want you to fill in Burning Wheel's "Fruitful Void" with mechanics. I want to experience filling it in myself during play. I think a Burning Wheel demo is incomplete, even soulless, without the player's ability to experience the Fruitful Void himself. I think it's a mistake to decapitate your game system in pursuit of demo-accessibility. What are you really demoing then?

[Brand_Robins]

What if you had, in a normal Burning Wheel game, decided on your own that your character had forgotten the gift in order to set up the conflict?

That would be damned juicy role-play. I don't feel, however, that Finrir as written (the paragon of politeness) could do such a thing -- it would be against his Beliefs and Instincts.

Everything else in the post aside: who said anything about he (the character) doing it? I asked about you, the player, setting it up. After all, it wasn't his failure -- it was the failure of his staff. And doesn't some good address of premise come from what happens when the character has done somethings he wouldn't normally do?

However, stance niggling aside, I think we're agreeing in general about kickers.

So now: would it have helped you if you'd had more understanding of the situation going in? I mean I assume you've probably read over the adventure by this point. Had you read the whole thing ahead of play, and then played knowing what was going on (which Luke even talks about in the text) do you think it would have helped? Hurt?

What things might have helped you bridge the gap between a kicker you would have made if the character was your own, and the one that Luke made in order to create explosions?

[Luke]

I think it's a mistake to decapitate your game system in pursuit of demo-accessibility. What are you really demoing then?

Adam, we didn't connect during a somewhat off demo. I wish we did, but sometime the demos don't hit. However, more often than not, they do. Certainly no reason to get all fatalistic.

-L

[Adam Dray]

Brand,

I wasn't answering for my character, I swear. My answer as a player is there: "That would be damned juicy role-play." In other words, yummy.

I actually haven't had the extra time to read the adventure yet. Probably will tonight. I'll answer your question about if the knowledge would have helped or hurt after I do.

What things might have helped you bridge the gap between a kicker you would have made if the character was your own, and the one that Luke made in order to create explosions?

I'm aware that my answers below may be largely gamer baggage. Still, you asked what might have helped. Here goes.

I think I was waiting for permission to take ownership of the character. This isn't usually an issue in RPGs where the players make their own characters. I felt like the steward of the character and felt beholden to play him as written. I had no knowledge of the Burning Wheel rules that encourage players to rewrite BITs at crucial moments of play.

I wish I could have understood my character better, mechanically. Luke could simplify the character or to explain the options better (at expense of time spent role-playing the second DoW).

I also felt constrained by the kicker and felt that I had to play a certain way or there'd be no game. That's my own gamer baggage and I don't think it's Luke responsibility to fix it. But the distance the kicker goes seems unusual to me -- a lot like the old "okay, you awake to find that you're in prison with no equipment" sort of "kicker." Since "The Gift" works very well for many, many people, I assume that's also my gamer baggage at work.

[Adam Dray]

Luke,

Sorry about the colorful language. I don't mean to be fatalistic.

You say, "we didn't connect during a somewhat off demo." This may be semantic quibbling, but I think we did connect, you and I. You ran an energetic and exciting game, listened to me, and gave me lots of feedback. That said, I didn't connect with Burning Wheel during the demo. I am starting to connect with Burning Wheel now, as I understand it better. That's why I think the demo didn't serve me well. I doubt I (or many a Forge game designer) is your core demographic but I firmly believe that you should showcase the coolest things in the game during your demo. Lots of people are telling me that the coolest things are BITs and Artha. You even called those things the Fruitful Void around which the game centers. I just don't feel I got an accurate picture of Burning Wheel from the demo.

I offered one suggestion (replace the second DoW with some time playing with BITs and Artha) based on a very limited experience with the game. I am willing to be totally fucking wrong. =)

[Adam Dray]

What I haven't mentioned here, and probably should have, is that the demo didn't work for everyone else at the table. There was another player, Bob, who actually left. I have no idea what his reasons were. I got to see Bob play a bit of Dogs in the Vineyard (run by Eric, but that wasn't the session I played) and I got to play with Bob in the Roach game.

Bob actually freaked out a bit and left in a weird way. I think Luke got to chat with Bob and he might be able to shed more light on what happened there. We were just getting into the second Duel of Wits and Bob interrupted without any warning and told Luke that it "isn't working at all" for him and that he wasn't "having any fun." He passed off control of the DoW to another Dwarf player and Bob diddled with his dice and pencil for 5-10 minutes before disappearing from the table. We finished the game without refilling that slot.

I mention this only because it might have contributed to Luke's feeling that it was a "somewhat off demo."

(Despite my apparent whining here, understand that I had a lot of fun and never considered leaving the game.)

[JamesDJIII]

I too played in this game as the Elven LoreMaster.  I've already commented on burningwheel.org. Short summary: Luke is a mad man. I wish there had been more mechanic demo in the demo.

I'll add that it was a bit uncomfortable being the dimwit who "forgot" the Gift. Adam spent many a minute glowering at me, immersed up to his chin, I'd say, as a fuming Elven Prince. All in good fun!

I understand why the setup was as it was - but I think as a player I really had no firm grasp on what the game boundaries were. That's probabaly baggage from every convention game I've ever played. You see the rails, you just just follow them. The Gift didn't seem to have any rails once we got past the opening scene.

Ooooh - one more thing - I read the Gift pdf later. I didn't notice the Dwarves using their scene framing power AT ALL. Did I just not notice it?

[Adam Dray]

Hi, James! Glad to see you here.

I hope it was obvious that the glaring was the Elf's, not the player's. ;)  I would have given the LoreMaster as a gift to the Dwarven Prince if I thought it would have satisfied his Greed. ;)

I think the Dwarves framed one scene -- the first after my little one-on-one negotiation with the other Prince. After that, we proceeded through two Duels of Wits and a Duel of Swords in the same scene, more or less. Luke framed the later scene in the Dwarven Vault, I believe.

[Steve Segedy]

Hey folks,

I thought I'd chime in here as well, considering both the other Elven players from that demo have spoken ;)

I was playing Eonwe, the Captain, and I enjoyed the game as well.  I think some of the troubles that Adam has pointed out might be related to the way the demo hits the ground running.  I remember having a bit of trouble getting into the skin of my character and figuring out the scenario simply because so much of my action was predicated on the other elves, who I (as a player) didn't know anything about.  For example, if we had been able to step aside (huddling the teams) and spend 5 minutes getting to know each other, that might have helped me jump in more fiercely. 

Another thing that tripped me up a bit was (arrogantly) thinking I should coach Adam and James on Burning Wheel mechanics. Having had a bit of experience with BW before the demo-- and being eager to learn more directly from Luke-- I was trying to point out that they could use Resources to try and conjure a gift, completely unaware (not having read the scenario) that not having it was the whole point.  I just assumed James creatively "forgot" the gift just to start trouble...

As for the player who withdrew, I have to say that the second DoW did go on somewhat longer than it needed to.  I think those of us that were participating in it were starting to run out of ways to make our points, and we were arguing in circles.  Nonetheless, the Body of Argument pools weren't yet empty, so we kept going.   I suppose we could have started the fight earlier.

I should point out that, regardless of the issues I saw above, I did enjoy the game-- I even bought a copy afterwards!

[Jonathan Walton]

So I totally had a somewhat similar experience in Luke's viking inheritance demo at same con (and actually already posted about it on my LiveJournal), but I'll start a new thread instead of highjacking Adam's.