Groan...

[AnyaTheBlue]

I have been eagerly consuming my copy of BW piecemeal since I got it a couple of weeks ago.

Fantastic stuff.

But.  But....but....but....

Fiber ball?

Geez.

[Luke]

yes, groan!

But it's meant to be funny. Because you know what I groan at? Detailed technical discussions of the radius, blast, overpressure, heat and vacuum of a fireball/

THAT makes me groan.

So I joke, I joke.

-L

[AnyaTheBlue]

My smiley fell off the end of my post, there.

I could see that a) there were plenty of other damaging fire spells, b) the name was an obvious pun, c) you could switch 'earth' to 'fire' and have a fireball if you wanted to, and d) I pretty much agree with you about all that area of affect junk.

Did you ever played Wizardry I, back in the old days of computer games?  My brother and I had a copy.  There was a high level wizards spell whose description basically said it was the equivalent of a tactical nuclear strike that the party is protected from -- all the monsters took huge amounts of damage, and the party was left unscathed.  No muss, no fuss, no messing around with area of affect.  I think they must have have had a similar frustration with fireball, and chose to just make it completely overwhelming instead of fiddly.  Of course, there wasn't any sense of tactical movement in it -- it did fit on two one sided floppies, after all...

Anyway, fantastic game!  More!  More!  =)

[Luke]

i loved Wizardry. Though I never did see that particular spell, but I did love the wizardy and bard's tale convention of showing what spells you had cast as little icons floating in the corner of the screen. really cool.

I was terrible at those games. the crpgs. i never had the patience to go through all the jiggy steps necessary to get anything done. i've been partial to the free form control of rpgs.

anyway, i'm very (very) glad you like the game.

how did you hear about us?

-Luke

[AnyaTheBlue]

Ah, I think the spell was called 'Tiltowait'.  Can't recall.  It was probably only in the first few Wizardy games, now that I think about it.

I never finished most of the computer 'RPGs' that I played.  I just wandered around, killed monsters, and took their stuff =)

I found Burning Wheel through here, actually, and mentions on RPG.net.  And I'm glad I did!

(I've got #314, which made me very happy.  Pi!)

My only real problem is that through the Forge I've now gotten about 10 different new systems, all in the past five or six months, that I'd like to play right now, in addition to the various games that I was already enamored of or addicted to because of previous gaming experience (I started in '81, and they tend to accumulate).  Famine or feast, it seems!

I have to say, if you'll permit me a brief fan-girl rant, that The Burning Wheel definitely evokes a more purely Tolkien-esque vibe for me than any other FRPG that I've ever seen, most definitely including MERP and CODA LotR.  The Orcs and Hatred go a long ways towards accomplishing that, for me =)

[Luke]

I have to say, if you'll permit me a brief fan-girl rant, that The Burning Wheel definitely evokes a more purely Tolkien-esque vibe for me than any other FRPG that I've ever seen, most definitely including MERP and CODA LotR. The Orcs and Hatred go a long ways towards accomplishing that, for me

Hi Anya,

thanks for the very kind words. I am a big fan of the Silmarillion. I let it inspire me, and I tried hard to get at the essence of what was being said and not our preconceptions of what has been done and what should be done.

that said, the "tolkienesque" feel is just one example of the life BW can breath into a setting and its characters. If everything thing goes according to plan, there will be more "Burners" in the future that allow you to investigage many different types of settings.

and i agree, there are too many good games to play them all.
but at the very least you should come down to GenCon next year and swing by the Forge booth. It might be the one time you get to play all of those games!

-L