Dear Forge,

Last night was the second real session of my Burning Wheel game. Congrats, Luke, BW, has officially been run in Japan. A lot of things are going superlatively, but last night's session also taught me a good lesson or two and brought up some worries about the continuing quality of the game...

But first, the players:

Gary (The Brit) / Tag the Smuggler and thief
Regina (The German) / Gorriff the [female] dwarf adventurer
Scott (The first American) / Selnik the religious fanatic
Drew (The second American) / Al-Azeez the sorceror

I'm not going to do full-on plot summary because I'm playing some cards I'd like to keep in my hand for the Burning Wheel game I'm running this fall. However, I'll sketch out my favorite scene and reflect on the game and my role and performance as the GM.

Looks like trouble?

In town, the Gorriff and Tag went over to a dive so Tag could look into the local criminal element, and make sure that they would leave the party and their company alone. After inquiring into attitudes on "legitimate business", "real legitimate business", and "actual real legitimate business (honest, guv')", they were just kind of hanging out enjoying some ale when a drunken lout came up, slamming his fist on the table (which I did, breaking up their conversation to delightful effect). He insulted the dwarf a bit, calling her a runt and a like, before he crossed the line by knocking over her beer. In a surprising show of strength, he resisted her first attempts to push him in the direction of Out (three 6s on three dice), so she doubled him over with a punch to the gut and started to drag him out the door. At just that moment, the innkeeper came back in from the kitchen, shouting "Oi, what's going on?!" Gorriff shouted back, striking a defiant note, "Just taking care of something irritating. That is, if you don't mind." (note that she clearly did not care one whit whether or not he minds)

It's a classic setup: barroom brawl leads to calling of authorities, maybe a chase scene, and at best just a whole lot of unwanted attention.

So imagine the grin on everyone's face when the innkeeper guffaws and replies, "Ha! Be my guest! I'll take a respectable, thirsty fellow like yourself as a customer over a troublesome drunk any day! Sorry for your trouble; here's another beer."

Worries

First, I need to have more content for sessions. Even with players who are wonderfully proactive and actually create more scenes of their own accord (such as the discussion of assorted variations on a theme of Legitimate Business [honest, guv'] mentioned above), I didn't have quite enough to even fill the relatively short 2.5 hour session. Anything resembling pacing just sort of fell apart into a travel montage for the last 20 minutes or so of play while I floundered a bit.

I suppose it might help if I throw in more fighting. A fight scene has a very low prep:execution ratio. This session had zero except the mini-barroom brawl, and I didn't even bother moving that into combat time. For a focused group (conversation only drifted off-topic once in the whole session, and that was during the 'floundering' phase), you can cover a lot of non-mechanical ground in 2.5 hours. Of course, fighting doesn't solve the second problem. If anything, it aggravates it.

The Second Worry

I'm worried that I'm doing a very bad job of balancing screen time. While Scott's been doing a great job with his religious fanatic, I don't think I've been giving him enough to do. He's the kind of character where most any conversation ends fairly quickly with a proclamation of faith (or chastisement for the other's lack of it) followed by awkward silence. Now, I think we've gotten a good amont of mileage out of that trope (he's stopped us all in our tracks at least once), but it doesn't really seem like enough.

Adding in more fighting is probably only going to make this worse, mostly because Selnik is practically useless at it. I suppose it could provide for some interesting role-playing opportunities, but it's by no means going to be the character's chance to shine. And I hesitate using him as a moral dilemma ('do you try to save the wacko priest at great risk to yourself?'), because if the other players decide the 'wrong' way, we've got one fewer PC running around.

Hmm, I think I need to slip in something that only he can do. Knowledge of lore or something.

At this point, I've basically been addressing Gary and Regina the large majority of the time, and trying to fit Scott in where I can, with mixed results. I'm hoping this will be easy to solve with a couple of e-mails. It's possible that I'm blowing this problem out of proportion, and he's enjoying himself anyway, but I still want to talk to him and see if we can't figure out some way to make this work better.

This is also particularly worrisome for the future. The BW game I'm starting in the fall is going to be rather large (six players!), so I have a feeling that effective management of screen time is going to become a very important skill to have.

The Third Worry

Starting last night, we had a new player, Drew. Seemed like a pretty cool guy.

Disclaimer: The following is not supposed to be a condemnation of any other playing styles in any objective sense (I'm sure some of you can see where this is going). Basically, I think that Drew is a poor fit for the Burning Wheel, and a poor fit for the way we've been playing (and rather enjoying, as far as I can tell) it.

The first thing that tripped a mental alarm was right at the start of chargen. I think it's telling that his favorite games are from the WoD. In those, you're presented with a few significant choices (which vampire clan to belong to, etc) that determine a large part about who your character is (or at least who he's supposed to be) and what he can do. Contrast that to BW, where you can build your character along hundreds of paths, most of which have relatively little mechanical difference and effect on Who You Are Now, and where the intangibles of a character are at least as important as the mechanics.

I tried to impress these values upon him during the process as much as possible, but I didn't want to stall the game (we were creating the character pre-session) since we're strapped for time as it is. I knew he didn't 'get it' when he asked if he could just skip over beliefs for now, as he didn't have any good ideas and we were out of time. I reluctantly agreed, just so we could keep the game as a whole going. Also, when I explained Instincts to him, his immediate first idea was "always keeps 'turn away blade' maintained." Now, that's a perfectly good instinct, but I'm worried that he chose it for all the wrong reasons.

I tried to give him some of creative control of his entrance in hopes of jump-starting his character a bit. I told him that the other characters had come into town in the company of a troop of thirteen elves, who were taking pains to hide their identity. Both of those things are very unusual in this part of the world, so the group should probably arouse some level of interest. They'll be around town for the next day or two; feel free to jump in whenever you like.

I started to get worried when the day was already over, and he hadn't made so much as a move. I mentioned his freedom of entrance one more time, just to be safe, and he dutifully showed up in the next seen. From there on, he did an okay job of responding to encounters that I set up or interactions started by the other players, but started little or nothing himself.

The other players managed to latch onto and develop endearing, enjoyable characterizations very quickly. Even though it's only been a couple of actual sessions, this has provided an energy and dynamic that has been a joy to GM for. Thus far I've gotten nothing from Drew. Al-Azeez is there, and interacts with people, but I have no sort of handle on who he is.

The first problem I can theoretically solve through my own effort, I think the second can be resolved fairly easily with a bit of discussion. Drew has me worried, because I'm afraid he's going to drag down the active dynamic we have going (especially with Gary out of town for the next two weeks...) and because I think he will likely start getting short shrift if he doesn't make any bids for the spotlight.

Does anyone have any suggestions on how to push a player towards stronger characterization and greater willingness to take intiative?

-Troubled in Tokyo

Is Drew really a problem?

He may just really like hanging out and watching the action. Give him something specifically for him, and work on the rest of the group.

With one of the other players out for two weeks, I can see the difficulties keeping the energy. Can you really tailor the adventures to the two remaining characters?

Actually, I'm hear that many players like coming to the table with not much more than a class in their fist, and develop their character in play. That can be valid, although it might not work as kosherly for BW.

EDIT: Or, y'know, it might. I'd like to hear what those more experienced with BW would say.

eef wrote: Is Drew really a problem?

Dev wrote: Actually, I'm hear that many players like coming to the table with not much more than a class in their fist, and develop their character in play. That can be valid, although it might not work as kosherly for BW.

Albert of Feh wrote:

Dev wrote: Actually, I'm hear that many players like coming to the table with not much more than a class in their fist, and develop their character in play. That can be valid, although it might not work as kosherly for BW.

I admit that this is my first Burning Wheel game, but applying this approach to it seems rather dodgy. Basically, just to start playing, your character needs to already have a background sketched out (through lifepaths), and creating Beliefs and Instincts (though not strictly necessary for a mechanically functional character) is a standard, and emphasized, part of chargen.

For me, a key way of motivating players to get excited about BITs is the fact that BITs coming in to play is what generates Artha. No BITs, no Artha. Even more specifically BITs causing complications/trouble generates Artha.

I highly recommend that you insist that all your players have one Belief that is tied directly into the campaign goal. Of course, this means you have to have a campaign goal! :o)

The biggest hurdle you need to overcome is motivation. By having everyone share a similar answer to the question "Why is your character not at home?," you often will find that GMing becomes a breeze, as the players provide all the drive to continue forth. This will also generate party cohesiveness without much effort. If everyone is out to get the McGuffin - for whatever personal reason - they will want to work together.

BITs are the way to overcome your troubles, especially Beliefs. I don't need a character history to tie in a new player to an existing campaign. I need a Belief that is in line with the rest of the party.

In my first BW campaign, I failed to come up with a campaign goal. I had a couple of adventure ideas that weren't tied together at all. The game suffered because of this. The players floundered and had no direction. Slowly, I formulated the goal by inserting an item and a villain. Suddenly, the party snapped to life and so did the campaign. When new players joined, I made sure one of their Beliefs involved that villain. Thus when they met up with the existing party, their mutual goal ensured motivated cooperation. It also ensured that everyone had an equal stake in getting the villain, which helps maintain equal screentime.

As for background, I never make a character with more background than what is hinted at by the lifepaths I choose. BITs and resources fill in the gaps. I prefer to develop such details during play, which is a great thing for GMs, I believe.

Tetsuki wrote: If he doesn't 'get it' yet, how about making it easier for him? You could just ask him a couple of questions about his character (for example: 'what does Al-Azeez want/hate/fear?') Once you've got the answers, ask him to play to them. Then throw in some Conflict.