Burning Wheel Rules Drift

[dunlaing]

No, no, it's "well educated, lives in a townhouse but buck naked,barefoot Bandit"

He has a house* but no shoes or clothes.

___________________________
*He sort of paid for a house. He wanted to spend 5 rp on his abode, and there was a cottage for 3 and a house for 10, so we decided that he could have a small townhouse in the city for 5rp--a little better than a cottage due to its location, but much smaller than a typical house.

[drozdal]

He has a house* but no shoes or clothes.

If I was Your GM, I would give you one free 1D Infamous Reputation as "The Naked Bandit". ;)

[dunlaing]

He's going to not purchase the paper and get the clothes and shoes instead. So much for el Bandito Nudisto.

[Eric Minton]

I had the same problem last night.  One of my players dumped most of her village-born veteran's resource points into superior arms and a warhorse, only to find that she didn't have enough RPs left for both clothing and shoes.  She was incensed, we exchanged some sharp words, and one of the other players (my boyfriend!) backed her up, saying I should just give her an extra RP.  So I walked out of the room.  (She's utterly reasonable about rules once actual play starts, but she's a real bully when it comes to character generation.  Dunno why.)

[Lance D. Allen]

I'll tell you why (or at least a good possible reason): It's conception -vs- doability. It's one of my big problems with Burning Wheel chargen. Of course, it's also my big problem with almost every game's chargen, so I'm not pointing fingers.

The thing is, you come into the chargen session with an idea. As you start working on it, your idea takes more shape, until you have this concept of a character you're really excited about. Then you get down into the numbers and realize you CANNOT make that character. The rules won't allow it.

Burning Wheel is peculiar in this in that you're struggling with the life-path system, trying to get a good, acceptable age and a good lifepath, and during the whole process, you're basically being forced to clarify the concept in your head. You're getting all of these numbers, and you're thinking you'll be fine to make the character you envision. You're getting more and more excited as the concept fleshes out. Then when you're done with the lifepaths, and it's time to assign numbers, it hits you.

Now, I've made it past this stage twice, and twice I've given my GM no end of grief. I'm still working on the second time, but the first time, I was able to come up with a character I wanted to play, and liked, but I had to change my concept a little bit.

The same thing I see happening with your paper-less bandit. It's a basic matter of difference of assumptions between Luke and the players, and I imagine familiarity with the game and the power levels will alleviate a lot of these issues.

[Luke]

I had the same problem last night.  One of my players dumped most of her village-born veteran's resource points into superior arms and a warhorse, only to find that she didn't have enough RPs left for both clothing and shoes.  She was incensed, we exchanged some sharp words, and one of the other players (my boyfriend!) backed her up, saying I should just give her an extra RP.  So I walked out of the room.  (She's utterly reasonable about rules once actual play starts, but she's a real bully when it comes to character generation.  Dunno why.)

Jeez. She's asking for the relic and a tank to drive it around on. Would she settle for a lesser warhorse? Have you checked out the Mount Burner? And if not, if she's desperate for the trappings of nobility, why not just make a noble? Or if she's playing a trait ridden character, why not take the sword as Family Heirloom (page 276 of the CB).

Oh, and I'll out myself here: Burning Wheel has a setting more strict and rigid, more detailed and full of life, than any splat book out there. It's called Lifepaths. If, on the odd chance your concept doesn't fit the lifepaths, you're asking to play something outside the setting. Like asking to play a ghost-hunting librarian in traditional DnD. The sneaky thing about BW is that it provides a lot more options than most games. And it works even better if you have a concept, like Wolfen said, and let the lifepaths sculpt it.

But if you have a concept that won't be sculpted, that's when you buy the Monster Burner.

-L

[dunlaing]

I actually like the Burning Wheel lifepath system very much. It's one of the things that sells me on the game. I like the fact that the first time I went in to create a character I was aiming for a pretty standard city thief and ended up with a Noble Bastard Dillettante. I think of it as a feature, not a bug.

One thing that's discouraging for people whose last two games were Capes and Over the Edge is that it takes a long time and is very involved, but that's what happens when you go from one extreme to another in anything, not just chargen systems.

[Thor Olavsrud]

One thing that's discouraging for people whose last two games were Capes and Over the Edge is that it takes a long time and is very involved, but that's what happens when you go from one extreme to another in anything, not just chargen systems.

I think it's also important to note that the lifepaths and other character burning choices can create the foundation for story. I think of it as writing that 10 page character backstory, except it's actually useful to the GM and players, only takes half an hour, and all fits on one sheet of paper.

[Eric Minton]

Jeez. She's asking for the relic and a tank to drive it around on. Would she settle for a lesser warhorse? Have you checked out the Mount Burner? And if not, if she's desperate for the trappings of nobility, why not just make a noble? Or if she's playing a trait ridden character, why not take the sword as Family Heirloom (page 276 of the CB).

Oh, she didn't come into this with a specific concept.  It's just that, like the rest of my players, she has no grounding in medieval history.  (Just, y'know, Gygax, Tolkien, Robert Jordan and Conan the Schwarzenegger.)  Without that context, a superior sword and a warhorse just look like handy things for an ex-soldier to have, rather than the trappings of nobility.  (On the other hand, if this stuff is noted in the gear descriptions, then I'll tell her to bloody well read the text next time.)

Given that the background includes a war against the etin-folk, a superior weapon actually makes some sense; weapons of exceptional quality would be common plunder when fighting against dark elves and dwarves.  As for a warhorse, that's another matter; I assume that a soldier's warhorse actually belongs to his lord?

[Luke]

Most soldiers walk.

She does have Mounted Combat and Riding, right?

Any chance you could start another thread with her character, so we could take a look?

-L