[Ubercon] “Burning Wheel”

[Mel White]

At Ubercon 2006, I had the opportunity to play Burning Wheel for the first time.  The game was superb.  We played the 'Inheritance' scenario, where player character conflict is paramount in light of the different goals of each.  The Duel of Wits mechanic, which establishes rules to adjudicate 'social' conflict (arguments, debates, etc.) was the key tool allowing satisfactory resolution of player character conflict, short of combat. 
I'll briefly recap the scenario for those who are unfamiliar with it from play or from other AP posts.  A Viking family has gathered upon the occasion of the death of the family patriarch, and the subsequent reading of his will.  The ten (!) player characters in the scenario face challenges in the conflicts between the terms of the grandfather's will, conflicting internal goals, and the actions or goals of the other player characters.  Key to the conflict is the return of an exiled grandson, Einherjar, exiled for murdering his brother, Baldir.  Einherjar is hated by his father, Tyrvald, and by another brother, Grisbaern, and by Baldir's secret betrothed, Ran.  The other player characters were Kaare (a one-armed berserker, cousin to Tyrvald), Gerjon (a Viking shamaness, Kaare's wife and Ran's mother), Jacke (the dwarf advisor to the dead grandfather), Fulla (Tyrvald's wife and the mother of Baldir, Einherjar, and Grisbaern), Angmar (a Christian priest), and Turvandil (Einherjar's man-at-arms and friend).     
We had a full ten players for the ten characters.  Despite the size of this group, we were able to come to a credible, if tragic, conclusion.  I'm pretty sure, though, that we only scraped the surface of the potential conflicts for the various characters.  The 'Epilogue' to our game made this clear.  The Epilogue (a 5-minute session after the end of the scheduled time) answered the question, 'would the Prince's foreign man-at-arms carry through on his love for the beautiful Viking maiden?'  I think that was the first time many of us were aware of the man-at-arm's feelings.   
There were three Duels of Wits that I recall.  The first was between Tyrvald and his son Einherjar.  Tyrvald's stakes were that Einherjar would immediately leave the lodge, never to return.  Einherjar's stakes were that he would partake in the feast and leave the next morning.  This was an interesting conflict because it began to reveal the goals of some of the characters.  Jacke, for example, supported Einherjar, despite the fact that Jacke, as Tyrvald's adviser and employee, would probably have been able to curry favor with Tyrvald by sticking to Tyrvald's position.  That act seemed to indicate that Jacke was a 'free agent'—and possibly could be won over to my character, Fulla's side in future conflicts, but also pursuing an agenda that was based not just on self-interest—and thus harder to influence. 
The second Duel occurred soon after Jacke began reading the will, and asked Einherjar if he atoned for his acts.  Einherjar said yes, but words were not good enough for Tyrvald (as well as Gerjon and Ran).  He again wanted Einherjar out.  Einherjar, in another cool roleplaying moment, offered to chop off his own hand—both hands even(!)—to satisfy his weregild.  Fulla would not let him do that, and I don't think it would have been good enough for Tyvald anyway.  After some player-v-player debate, we determined we had a conflict that had to be resolved via a Duel, for neither side was budging.  Tyrvald's stakes were that Einherjar would return to exile, and renounce any claim to being a part of the family.  Fulla's stakes were that Einherjar would remain his father's heir within the family.  Fulla wanted to make sure that Einherjar was not deprived of his inheritance.  Fulla proved to be very powerful in the Duel of Wits.  The mechanics of a Duel are that each side predetermines a course of action for three rounds of conflict.  The courses of action are selected from a list which includes actions such as Point, Dismiss, (verbal) Feint, Incite, and many others.  Each round, each side simultaneously reveals its choice, and the combination may lead to modifiers (additional dice) for one side or the other.  This was a good learning experience, for we picked the actions without really consulting the charts regarding the specifics of each.  At any rate, despite a poorly timed verbal Feint, Fulla won the Duel and managed to convince Tyrvald that he could not deny Einherjar his inheritance from Grandfather—although Ran at the end of the Duel 'forced' a compromise whereby Einherjar could never marry!  She's so mean!     
The third Duel of Wits was between Fulla and Jacke, the dwarf.  Jacke is the only character that could read the grandfather's will, because it was written in dwarven runes.    Jacke indicated that the will revealed Grandfather wanted Tyrvald and the other male members of the family to convert.  Jacke also revealed that the distribution of grandfather's estate was to be split among the male heirs (Tyrvald, Karre, Einherjar, and Grisbaern).  Unexpectedly, Karre said that he would convert!  And because Karre agreed to convert, Fulla announced that she, too, would 'convert' as inspiration for the others.  Fulla figured this would be a good way to convert without anyone realizing she was already a Christian.  My memory is a little hazy regarding the next sequence of events.  Karre quickly backed down from conversion...he wanted to convert in name but still follow the old ways.  Fulla was sort of trapped and, being a bit of a martyr, decided the time had come to reveal that she had converted to Christianity 'ten years ago'.  That, of course, being the time of Bardir's death and Einherjar's exile caused Tyrvald to demand to know the circumstances of Fulla's conversion and whether or not it was linked to Bardir's death.  Which it was.  So now things are in an uproar, the men won't convert despite Grandfather's wishes, Fulla's been a Christian for years, and Einherjar had killed Baldir defending Fulla!  Jacke claims, however, that Grandfather had not required the men to convert in order to gain their inheritance, he was just indicating a hope.  Jacke and Fulla square off.  Fulla wants the men to convert so that the whole family can live together as Christians and so the men won't be damned to Hell.  She accuses Jacke of lying, and implores Tyrvald to follow his own words (spoken earlier in the game) of 'only believing what he himself can see'.  Ran volunteers to try to read the dwarven runes but can only read enough to confirm the breakdown of the shares.  In the subsequent Duel of Wits, Fulla's stakes were along the lines of 'Jacke lies, cannot be trusted in the reading of the will, and must himself be exiled.'  Jacke's stakes were for the will to stand as he had originally interpreted.  Fulla again demonstrated how powerful she can be in a Duel of Wits, winning handily, with the support of Einherjar, Arvandil, Angmar and I think Karre.  Jacke was supported by Ran, Grisbaern, Tyrvalt, and Gerjon.  Fulla's side won the Duel.  At that point, Jacke sought a compromise that the Priest must also be exiled...although Fulla would have agreed to some sort of compromise, she could not allow her Confessor to be exiled.  Jacke then, in effect, said 'He's going one way or another!' and attacked Angmar, the Priest.  Nothing came of the attack, though, for Tyrvald and others quickly intervened.  Jacke began his exile.  [I actually feel bad about this—it meant Mike, the guy playing Jacke kept mostly quiet for the remainder of the game since his character was not present.  Fortunately, I think we were in the last 15 minutes or so of the game by then.  Next time, though, no exiling.]   
We were left in a quandary—we had a Will that no one could read.  We agreed to let Angmar try to read the Will.  He sought a miracle!  But failed.  And, while he could have made something up, his honesty prohibited him from doing so.  So, Fulla suggested that Tyrvald should interpret the Will, having heard his father's wishes and being 'his father's son'.  I think I was hoping for a miracle at that point, that Tyrvald's player would find some reason to give a little.  Realizing Fulla's effectiveness at a Duel of Wits, I tried to entice Tyrvald's player into an additional Duel in order to influence Tyrvald's reading of the Will.  But he wasn't falling for it!  Tyrvald decreed that the Will stood as Jacke had read.  No one need convert to Christianity.  Heartbroken, Fulla says that if Tyrvald does not follow Grandfather's wishes and convert, then she is no longer his wife.  Tyrvald says, 'then go.'  Ouch.  So, in the end, Fulla, Einherjar, Angmar, accompanied by Arvandil leave the village in exile.  I imagine Jacke watches them smugly from some cave somewhere.  Not the most tragic of endings, but there are worse fates than death.   
There were some really great roleplaying moments in the game.  The first was the decision by Angmar, the priest, to seek a firebrand to throw onto the Grandfather's funeral pyre.  I wondered if it was the priest's first step towards converting the Vikings, by showing some empathy for a pagan ritual.  Equally intriguing was the Priestess' decision to grant Angmar the firebrand, despite his lack of belief in the ritual itself.  This sequence was particularly cool because it provided a lot of uncertainty regarding any specific redlines for those two player characters.  It gave them a lot of depth.  And I should point out that they were played bythe two youngest people at the table, probably 12-13 years old (Mandy and Tim, I think).  Another scene that stands out for me involves the beautiful Viking princess Ran (played superbly by a young woman named Jess).  Ran had secretly been lovers with Baldir (the deceased brother) and so hated Einherjar for killing him.  When my character, Fulla, revealed that Einherjar had killed Baldir in defense of Fulla, Ran wanted to know why.  So, on the spot, Fulla lied about the incident, claiming that Baldir had attacked Fulla because Fulla forbade Baldir from marrying Ran.  This was eminently believable to Ran, and made Baldir into even more of a hero to her—he died for her!  However, later in the game, Fulla revealed the truth, that Baldir had caught Einherjar and Fulla praying as Christians, and had attacked them both.  His death had nothing to do with Ran.  Jess' portrayal of Ran's realization as she struggled to reconcile these two conflicting pieces of information was really fun to watch—subtle and sublime. 
In conclusion, a great game and a great scenario.  I would play it again either as Fulla or any of the other characters.  In fact, I'd love to know more about those other characters' motivations and would play just to find out!
Mel