I reran the BW demo adventure (von Goten's Predicament) for a different audience last night. Again, I had two players (James and Matt), this time they selected the Dwarf and the Elf. These players appeared to be in a more hacky and slashy mood, and that combined with the fact that they were a little more combat capable team led for a game that was less interacting with NPCs and more bashing things.

The started out intending to talk to the crowd of farmers, but when von Goten called out to them, they immediately started heading for the house. von Goten warned them there might be archers, so the Elf decided to use stealth and his Threne to sneak around the house. I remembered to apply the wonderment rules to the Dwarf, who was standing right next to him, and the dwarf totally blew his steel test (8 actions of hesitation) which led to a great scene of the Dwarf standing in the middle of the field with a glazed look on his face and suddenly realizing his companion was nowhere to be seen. Based on Luke's critique of my last run, I suggested the Elf use "Care of the Eternal" to get his Threne obstacle down to 1, and between Threne and Stealth he stacked up 5 successes toward not being seen.

The Dwarf then decided to approach the house to "negotiate" with the orcs. The archers opened up on him as he struggled over the field wall, toppling him to the ground (but unharmed, thanks to armor) and then we got to watch the dwarf "sprint" across open ground around the side of the house, an arrow knocking off his helm in the process. Let me say that in BW, heavy armor can be very effective.

The Knower then browbeat the Worg into going out the front door to attack the Dwarf. While he was doing this, the Elf lined up a perfect shot on him, and for the second time in as many games, the Elf's opening shot went awry and the Knower ducked out of sight.

I was very pleased that the players in this game were willing to give scripting a try in its full glory. One thing about a very detail oriented combat system like BW is that it will definately take time to learn how to play different sorts of characters to best advantage. In my case, I badly mishandled the Worg. He was much faster than the Dwarf, and kept getting hits on him, but was unable to get through the armor, while the Dwarf kept plugging away with his hammer, and finally managed to tag the Worg. Once the Worg had a -1 DN on him, it started to go downhill, so I just had the Worg run away, since he's not all that attached to the Orcs anyway. In restrospect, I realize the Worg needed to Get Inside, and then start doing called shots on unarmored chunks of the Dwarf. On the other hand, I forgot to encourage the characters to FoRK dice for their combat skill, which left the poor dwarf rolling only 3 dice for his hammer. Also we couldn't figure out what skill to use for a shield bash, so I ruled it as Brawl.

Meanwhile, the Sun Blotters were busy trying to spot the unspottable Elf, who lined up another shot on them. He got a good hit on one of them, which was stopped by armor, but this time I ruled that the goblin would have to make a Steel roll, as he had just been shot out of nowhere. He failed massively. I managed to forget his "run screaming instinct" so he stood and drooled, while the Elf just ran up and spitted him on his sword.

The Dwarf meanwhile burst into the cabin, and took the brunt of the Knower's Black Rust spell, which he had been holding for just such an eventuality. It resulted in a light wound, which rendered the dwarf pretty ineffective (-2 DN!), and he might have been in trouble, except the Elf came through the window in a killing frenzy and quickly dispatched the remaining goblin and the Knower. The second goblin didn't even have time to get his sword out, poor thing. The Knower tried to run and got chased down by the Elf. I didn't quite know how to handle that under the BW rules, so I winged it as an opposed Speed test.

Both players had prior Riddle of Steel experience, so they compared their reactions to BW vs ROS. James said that he felt that ROS combat was a bit more "immersive" for him, that BW didn't make him feel that he had as much at stake. Both players compared scripting to RoboRally, and Matt commented that it made things feel more like a board game, and less like an RPG.

The players made an effort to keep track of the tests they made for advancement purposes. James was a little put off by the need to look things up on the chart to figure out if they were Routine, Difficult or Challenging, as it seemed to slow down play. However, overall Matt commented at the end that play was not as slow as he had feared when he first saw all the numbers on the sheet.

Since both Matt & James are Forgies, I hope they'll add their personal reactions and opinions to the thread to round out the picture.

I mentioned this to Wil last night: crunchy systems don't do it for me so much anymore. I really like BW for what it is and am really impressed with the work Luke's put into it. Definitely a labor of love. My conclusion is both "bravo" and "it's not quite my thing."

I read through Wil's previous post after playing, and noted the strategy and tactics employed by the players on Monday. I'm such a non-strategy kind of guy. I wanted the dwarf to get in there with a yee-haa and do cool stuff. Oops. It ended up with a few cool moments, like the helmet flying off, and so on, but I felt like it happened by accident, not by direction.

Scripting was definitely not my favorite thing, especially with a dwarf with a speed of 3. And now that I think of it, speed isn't my favorite thing either. Low speed = I get to participate less in combat. And though I don't own the books, I'm going to assume that since combat stuff takes up more than 1/4 of the character sheet, it's significant to the game.

The mechanics are otherwise pretty clever. I like how they all work, even if I prefer less of them. stances modifying dice pools, the jumps from Incidental to Mark, and different wound categories. All pretty neat. And steel tests stand out, I think, as an example of the kind of play that this game facilitates well.

It's just not my kind of play preference. It strikes me as a great game, and that players who like the type of play that it offers will really enjoy it. And in that regard I applaud Luke for obviously succeeding at what he set out to do. I hope it does well.

Matt neglected to mention he wrote a really nice review based on our playtest at: http://games.itsmrwilson.com/bw-review.html

Rafial,

It sounds like you ran the game perfectly. All your instincts as to what tests to apply when were dead on! A testament to your skills as a GM.

-L

rafial wrote: Matt neglected to mention he wrote a really nice review based on our playtest at: http://games.itsmrwilson.com/bw-review.html

Once the Worg had a -1 DN on him, it started to go downhill, so I just had the Worg run away, since he's not all that attached to the Orcs anyway. In restrospect, I realize the Worg needed to Get Inside, and then start doing called shots on unarmored chunks of the Dwarf