[Burning Wheel] First light in a nordic land

[Kaare_Berg]

I steal ideas.

I never claim they are my own, but I steal ideas and use them shamelessly. Which is why I love this site, and why I figured I'd give some back.

So finally after a six month hiatus I broke out the dice and the rule book and my group sat down to create characters in my new love, the BW game.

Burning Wheel character generation is very concept driven, and our only problem arose here as one of the players didn't have a strong concept. All too familiar with the problem discussed by Abzu in http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=8846 I tried to guide the player to avoid the same problem since my player was set on playing a mage (he hadn't even thought of this until he came to my table).
Which is the point where my argument becomes circular, because what had initially been a problem: a great selection of options, but no concept to steer the choices. Turned miracoulusly into a solution: lots of options fires up the imagination creates a concept.

So these where the characters we ended up with after four hours of char gen:

Tengel;
A former Lord who having commited some unamed atrocity killed his only love and thus set out on a pilgimage to redeem himself. Found peace and quiet in the small frontier town of Laranne where he for some unamed reason was granted and settled in a small manor.

Liam;
A ranger/hunter whoose rootless life led him to the far north, where he poverty striken lived as a hunter. He became attached to Tengel's houshold when the knight took up falconry.

Calm;
A thief who upon being hanged manifested the Gift, and was bought free by a mage who then trained him. After years and years of dry studies he was released from his apprenticeship. He traveled the lands disguised as a falconer ( this didn' quite gel with me but it gelled with the player so i let it ride). In this respect he came into the houshold of Tengel.

The backgrounds of the characters have been purpously left open for later exploration, but most of them had tantalising bits for me to exploit. Their link is thin and tasted a bit contrived to me, but it was midnight and we were eager to get going so we let it ride as a bit of narrative casuality.

I tried to have them join me in a joint build up of the settings NPCs, but as I stated it was late and those dicebags were itching.

The setting is a mix between the world of Ultima CRPG (prior to number 8 and 9) and the setting from Riotminds Drakar og Demonar (a swedish rpg with a distinct nordic feel, riotminds.com if y'all want to check it out. Unbelivable art design).
I have had the following premises in mind:
1. There is a history and a name behind everything. There is no faceless beasties or random dungeons.
2. A medium fantasy setting where the social dynamics of the medival age need not be accuratly portraied.
3. The world is not static, the end of the third age is coming (shameless Toliken rip-off but it is those times).
4. Epic campaign plot told through small chapters.

The starting locale is a small town, Laranne, on an obsolete traderoute, a few years after the dwarves closed their gates (Kublai at the BW forum, thank you). The type of place where people either go to forget or be forgotten.

The starting situation was a man in royal guard tabard rode and collapsed into a village that for obvious reasons was called Laketown and collapsed. Since all the local lords (read knights) had been called in to the Lord of Laranne and Tengel was just there to oversee his serfs carting the last flour home it fell upon Tengel to investigate. (yep kinda like the "you are all at the tavern" opening, but give me a break, it was midnight)

At first Tengel wanted to send the ranger to investigate, but the mage reminded Tengel that it might be seen as cowardice not to go himself. (sparing me having to deal with a split party.) Our three heroes, after a few hours prep time, set out to investigate.

As they rode into the forest my players began to get in the groove. A few simple skill rolls and they had the system down. Then they set camp, and I found them all adding small details to the game. Tengel sat and smoked his pipe during his watch, the ranger relaxed as them sounds around them were all natural, and the mage heard some heavy steps far away. He cast a spell and barely had enough sucesses to notice something big pass the edge of his Sense. he held the spell come morning, and when the others woke up he made a point of remarking how the first thing they noticed was that the fire had gone out. A small detail but it did wonders for the mood.

The party then followed the tracks figuring that the Troll and the four metal shod humaniods that followed it were a greater threat to the valley than the dead guardsman and whatever killed him (turned out it was the same group).

The ranger shone (5 sucesses on his first track roll so he could even tell that the troll carried something) and led the party all day up in to the mountains. The ranger spotted an ambush and a brief but tense battle followed as two brigands tried to take them on. Aside from som initial scripting trouble, scripted combat worked real well.
Tengel rode around an archer, climbed said archers elevated position and pushed him off. Then quickly followed the man down and finished him with a great strike.
Calm the mage cast a protective spell and was saved from the second brigand who had snuck up on him. After a few rounds of tumbling back and forth Calm finished his assilant before the other two could come to his rescue.
The ranger who had so far been invaluable, was busy sniping with his bow, but never had an impact on the fight. Dosen't mean his player didn't shine through, with small details like, "while keeping my aim I step past the tree to get a better shot, and spotting an opening I fire." Though he only gave the brigand a light wound, his arrow gave Calm the opening he needed.

Question to Abzu: does lock prevent sustaining and casting of spells as long as it is not a complete lock (only one die)?

After this battle the three continued, now with a healthy respect for the combat system, and more than a little trepidation towards the coming confrontation with the troll (even the knight was for sneaking in and freeing the captive which they by now had guessed the troll was carrying.)

Before they got this far they met a friendly small troll, had dinner with him and shared his fire for the night. Some in character acting and we called it the night (three am).

All in all the system worked well, and my players felt liberated by the combination of the setting and system and we had a great game. However my attempt at mutual creation of the supporting cast failed, and I wondered if anyone have any input of how to pull this off.

K

[Luke]

Thanks for the post, kaare. Very cool!

Question to Abzu: does lock prevent sustaining and casting of spells as long as it is not a complete lock (only one die)?

On page 129 of the BW in the Spell Interrupt section, "Being Restrained" is stated as a cause for being unable to cast. Being restrained indicates any degree of lock, it's very ease for someone to twist the arm or bend the pinky and cause the spell to go awry.

However, on page 130, Sustaining Spells clearly states that in order for sustained spells to be forced down, a sorcerer must either suffer a pain modifier or lose consciousness.


Don't tell me you already had a bandit Get Inside and Lock your sorcerer?! You're evil!

-L

[Kaare_Berg]

Hey! Evil?
it seem logical for the desperate man to try, and aside from the little mistake about letting a mage cast a spell while locked, it would have worked too. Now that would have been an intresting stand off:

"drop your weapons or I slit his throat" kinda deal.

Turn Aside Blade has made my player mortified of drain, and he keeps casting low OB spells to make sure.

Next installment will be called Troll Winter, and it will take place a few months later. I'll blue-book the rest of this session because the one player can't make it, and I might have a few other players join. And I can't be bothered with bending narrative casuality to the extent it takes to bring them in at the current location.

And it was a simple introductionary scenario. The next will be a bit more involved.

Hmmmph, evil ...

then again it sounds  . . . well . . . it sounds good.

[Luke]

my playeres are very well aware of the techniques to bypass Turn Aside the Blade, they plot and scheme and brag about what they will do should they ever encounter a wizard!

but should I ever use the Get Inside/Lock technique on one of their wizards, they would scream bloody murder!

Roleplaying the villains: It does take a certain prescience and presence of mind to realize what is happening when all of your blows are going astray. More often than not, I have the opposition simply run in terror. A man that cannot be affected by mortal weapons is a formidable opponent! Especially for a man of the sword, it boggles the mind! Generally, the last thing a person wants to do is get closer to such a being.

That's my only minor point, really. Sir Bandit would probably have been more frightened of the situation than having the steel to calmly slip Inside and take him hostage. Unless Sir Bandit was some kind of witchhunter, that is...

heh.
thanks!
-L

[taepoong]

This sounds like a great start, Kaare!

I am so pleased you liked the closing of the Dwarven gates! (yes, I am Kublai.) In turn, you've given me an idea for the future of the human town outside the gates. Thanks!

If your ranger begins to feel left out of the fights, which is often the case for archers, I am sure he will soon develop his own melee skills. A ranger with a knife is a nasty thing, let me assure you!

I hope we get to hear more about your adventures!

[Kaare_Berg]

Thanks Abzu,

Valid point about the bandit running away. I'll do that next time and watch the mage player shudder in delight. And just when he feels invunerable grab him with something big and nasty and let him experience fear.

Don't worry about the archer, Taepoong, he was just not as effective because the others were effective, and when he fired (normal hunting bow, no VA) the leather jerkin wore by bandit one saved him, and by the time he had drawn his bow the bandit was dead.

He then aimed for an unarmored part, and despite an amazing roll only caused an incidental hit ( a roll of one on the DOF).

And who knows, you might in the future discover more small bits from your verdana setting creeping in.

Over to something else though, somewhere on this site I found a thread where someone discussed a sort of group session to create the people inhabiting a given setting involved in a given problem. It is the sort of thing I would love to involve my players in since it would give them greater investment in the setting. Does anyone have any input on this?

[Christopher Weeks]

Over to something else though, somewhere on this site I found a thread where someone discussed a sort of group session to create the people inhabiting a given setting involved in a given problem. It is the sort of thing I would love to involve my players in since it would give them greater investment in the setting. Does anyone have any input on this?

I think it's a great first step.  And you can pause the campaign as often as needed to continue to inject player-as-author content.  I've seen people discuss freeform methods, but I'd use Universalis for world- and setting-building.  Related ideas can be seen here, here, and here.

Chris

[Judd]

http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=8866

The above link is about a game that should've been about making a setting in a collaborative manner and then playing in it but it has ended up an Actual Play cautionary tale on how not to under-prepare.

Hope it helps in some way.  Good luck.

[drozdal]

Hi Kaare Berg

He then aimed for an unarmored part, and despite an amazing roll only caused an incidental hit ( a roll of one on the DOF).

So those extra succeses that he got didin't went into DOF modifier? If you roll amizingly (mean some extras abobe obstacle) those add some to you DOF roll - it is somewhere in the rules.

Just my clarification :)

Kublai wrote:

In turn, you've given me an idea for the future of the human town outside the gates. Thanks!

mutter, mutter, grumble, grumble

Dro

[Kaare_Berg]

Dro,

they went in, but even after aiming his ob was 2+ and 5 sucesses out of 6 was enough to give his DOF +1. Which still is incidental.

It did however cause the Bandit to loose a die, and one second later most of his soul to a well cast Emperor's Hand.

Paka, Chris,

Thanks for the feed back. Teach me to read all posts before I post replys please.

*edited because of above example of neglect.