Burning Wheel: von Goten's Predicament

[rafial]

I took my first chance to spin The Wheel tonight, running the demo adventure available from the website (and kindly included in printed form with my copy of the game).  The venue was SGA Monday Night gaming.

The players were David and Lucas, new both to BW, and the Monday night group.  I provided them with the pregenerated sample characters from the BW website, as well a cheat sheat explaining the basic skill mechanic and listing regular and martial actions that I pasted up from a printout of the GM screen (available where you might expect).  Gotta give Luke props for the amount of support material he's made available.  Lucas selected Quenesh the Elf (who is also found in the rulebook) and David took Peter the Priest.

The sample adventure focuses primarily on tactical problem solving (the adventurers must rescue the titular von Goten from the roof of a farmhouse full of orcs, with only an hour to go before sunset), so it doesn't give a whole lot of room for the character exploration that I think is one particular strength of BW.  Nonetheless, both players immediately fell into character, and grabbed the opportunity to engage in some in character banter, which pleased me to no end.

The two characters selected were not the most combat heavy, so I set the opposition at 4 Goblin Sun-Blotters (archers) and the Knower of Secrets, an Orcish Shaman.   Fortunately, the players realized they were outmatched, and looked for clever solutions, with the Elf scouting the farm house, and the Priest attempting to recruit the assistance of local folk with firey preaching (very well role-played by David).

The Priest eventually persuaded the local carpenters to build some large movable barricades, but unforunately some poor rolling on the oratory left him with very few men actually willing to carry the barricades forward against orcish arrows.  The Elf meanwhile set himself in ambush, hoping to catch a few unwary goblins with arrow while they were distracted by the approach of the barricades.

We quickly learned how deadly BW combat can be, when after several rounds of arrow fire, the elf was brought down by very lucky shaft from one of the sun blotters (B10 hit!).  However, he had given the priest and the two young men brave enough to stick around time to bring their barricade up against the front door, where they held it in place while von Goten climbed off the roof, and then set fire to the farmhouse.

Only the Knower made it out of the conflagration.  I had already plotted him climbing out a window despite the sunlight to try and sneak up and lay a magic whammy on the people at the front door.  So the ending was a desparate fist fight between the Knower, the Priest, the one youth who aced his Steel Test at seeing a real live Orc, and the very wounded von Goten.  The Orc eventually succumed to nicks and pummeling, but did managed to slap the Priest with his Black Rust spell, which the doughty father was fortunately tough enough to survive.

The dying Quenesh was found on the rock pile at the back of the house, and a successful Minor Miracle from the Priest managed to pull him back from the brink.  And that was that.  Playing throught the demo took a little over two hours.

Now for some general comments.  First of all, I tried to play the system as close to written as I could, with the exception that I used Luke's new Artha system, because it just makes way more sense than the one in the book.  I started the characters with 2 fate and one persona point, which they definitely needed.  The various comments from experienced players about the need for Artha to keep you alive are right on the money.

BW is definately a system that will take a certain amount of experience to gain fluency with.  I definitely had to resort to more flipping through the rule books than I am normally comfortable with.  One handy chart that is not on the GM screen that I'm going to make for myself before next time is a list of the Martial manuevers showing the source of the test dice for each one.  i.e. Avoid dice are from Speed, Lock is Power vs. Agility or Power, etc.  I spent alot of time looking these up.  I'm sure after a while, you'll memorize them, but it's going to take practice.

Unfortunately in the process of trying to keep the rules straight, I kept forgetting to look for opportunities to give the characters Artha.  There were some really nice RP moments where I could have doled out a few more fate points, but didn't think of it.  My sense is that a BW GM should not fear having a fairly free hand with the Artha.   It'll all get used at the end of the day :)

As I suspected, scripting was the hard sell.  Neither player was actually ever willing to write their own script.  I put part of the reluctance down to unfamiliarity with their options, and party down to the fact that "plotting your moves" is a very alien concept to most RPG players.  I resorted to "interviewing" the players and writing down scripts for them, then playing them out and letting them know what was going on and when to roll dice.  It worked out okay.  And I must say, even with my lack of fluency and need to flip through books, the combat actually played out fairly quickly.  My biggest fear was that the fine grained system would bog down, but that did not happen.  I did notice however that the system can get stuck in situations where two sides are flailing away at each other for several rounds until somebody finally gets a lucky roll.

Despite the level of detail, I found the system fairly consistent in its use of mechanics, so that I was able to deduce the right way to apply them in many situation without having to resort to too much page flipping.

The players picked up pretty quickly on the idea of working on ways to lower their obstacle or get more dice by combining skills.  The biggest problem we had in this area was finding ways to boost the Priests faith.  The prayer obstacles begin at 4, which are pretty steep for starting character with Faith 5.  In fact, the poor priest failed every prayer roll he made except the last.  And even that was strictly speaking a failure, but the fact that he managed to squeeze two extra successes out of his lone initial six, caused me to declare it a success anyway.  What's a poor priest to do?

One other random mistake I made was mostly forgetting to roll armor dice for the orcs (the players had none), but the players needed all the help they could get.  The one time I did remember, it negated the one excellent shot Quenesh managed to get in, which felt rather cheap.

Final analysis?  BW was not an overwhelming hit, at least for this crowd, although the players did seem to like it okay.  David remarked that he enjoyed the "gritty" feel of the world and the system, while Lucas was interested in the skill and attribute development mechanic.  I think BW would play best with folks who are looking for some serious simulationism, and are willing to take on the necessary attention to detail and bookkeeping.  And, while the one-shot was fun, I think BW needs to be played as a campaign to be truely appreciated.

[Jack Spencer Jr]

The burning wheel link appears to be broken.
proper link

[Luke]

rafial,
thanks for the incredibly positive feedback! I really appreciate it. And sounds like you ran the game just fine. Quenesh and the Priest are a tough combo for that scenario. And of course players are going to get a little down about a game where goblin archers end the life of a 151 yr old elf in 1 shot! Yeesh, it even gives me the creeps!

And I think you are right, BW is best in a long term relationship. The game doesn't even get really rolling until after the first adventure is over.

-L

[rafial]

Quenesh and the Priest are a tough combo

Were I to run that combo again, I'd probably issue Quenesh some light armor (even a leather vest), and give the good Father a staff and the skill to use it.  It was kind of frustrating watching him pummel the Knower and land lots of B2 hits, which didn't even faze that wimpiest of Orcs.

And I just realized another mistake I made, which was not checking to see if missle weapons get VA.  Turns out hunting bows don't (just checked) but it never even crossed my mind.

Snail my little man, ever so slowly, climb Mt. Fuji.

[Luke]

quenesh does NOT need armor. Quenesh could actually probably better take on that scenario ALONE.  

The Elf's Threne of the Chameleon combined with his Stealthy skill should make him unspottable to simpletons like goblins. Even with 1 success over on his Threne and 2 success on his Stealthy the goblins (who DO NOT have Observation training) would need 6 Perception successes to spot him! That is highly unlikely.

Given that, Quenesh is very capable of slowly and patiently picking off his targets while they search in vain for him.

But that's another day and another demo.
-L

[rafial]

quenesh does NOT need armor. Quenesh could actually probably better take on that scenario ALONE.

This is great, getting an idea of how the rules are intended to be used and combined!

Interestingly, Quenesh did try to use Threne of the Chameleon.  If I remember correctly, he needs Ob 3, and has 4 dice in the song.  The player got two successes, and gave up.  Perhaps we played this wrong?

As for the stealth, I'll take the blame for that.  Quenesh got two successes on his stealth, which I applied to perceptions rolls until he started firing.  Sadly, he lined up an excellent shot on the Knower, and then totally blew the dice roll for the opening volley.  I made the assumption that if arrows where whacking into the window frame, the goblins would pretty quickly figure out where they were coming from.  (Crouching in the rock pile in this case).  I don't think I understood the role perception tests were supposed to play here.

[Luke]

Threne of the Chameleon is definitely a difficult spell to cast. Make sure your player noted his tests! But if he has the time, an Elf can ALWAYS use the Care of the Eternal rules and lower his Obstacle for Songs by half. It just takes a long time to sing.

Of if he doesn't think he has the time, the Elf can just keep singing his little ditty over and over until it clicks. Who knows, he might even cause some Wonderment.

As for bowfire vs Stealthy vs Perception: Have you ever been shot at? I have, and one rarely, if ever, can figure out where it is coming from before it is too late.

Stealthy remains in effect so long as the character/player plays the scenario reasonably consistently with his skill rolls. Should Quenesh sprint onto open ground... he's not going to be very Stealthy. But if he stays behind cover, picking his shots, then his Stealth is in full effect.

And if Quenesh sings the Threne and uses his Stealthy, then it is quite possible for him to creep across open ground without being noticed. It's a spell! Of course, you can use the Skill Obstacle Modifiers to listings to reduces the watcher's obstacle to spot Quenesh in such a scenario.

-L

ps: i've only ever been shot at with paintballs, not bullets. However, it is largely the same phenomenon.

[Luke]

One handy chart that is not on the GM screen that I'm going to make for myself before next time is a list of the Martial manuevers showing the source of the test dice for each one. i.e. Avoid dice are from Speed, Lock is Power vs. Agility or Power, etc. I spent alot of time looking these up. I'm sure after a while, you'll memorize them, but it's going to take practice.

Hey Rafial,

I was just curious. On the second page of the GM's Screen, in the Combat Column, there is a listing of Martial Actions: what they are called, what defends against them, and what ability you use to perform them. Is this what you were looking for? Or is it something else?

thanks again,
-Luke

[rafial]

Is this what you were looking for?

That's exactly what I was looking for, I just missed it first time around.  As I was prepping for play last night, I layed out the sheets from the GM screen, and had myself a little DOH moment.

[Lukas]

I was one of the players in this demo (Lukas/Quenesh), and I just wanted to say that David and I both greatly enjoyed the experience. While there were frustrating moments, it was a refreshing change of pace from most of the games we've played in the recent past. And many of our frustrations resulted from either poor dice rolling (which can happen in any game) or lack of knowledge concerning the system.

For instance, I assumed that there had to be some sort of "recharge time" with trying to use Threne of the Chamelion - i.e. I didn't think I could just keep rolling until I succeeded. Also, I made the mistake of assuming that simply because I was an elven ranger that I would be a crack shot with my bow. Not being familiar with the system, I had nothing with which to compare my character sheet's numbers in order to determine my relative level of skill.

In any case, I found it interesting and enjoyable enough that I ordered the books Monday night after I got home, so that I could look it over in more detail. It's definitely something that I would be interested in looking at for a long-term game.