So Burning Wheel arrived to my door on Saturday (well, actually on Friday night, but I got home at 2 AM, so I didn't check my mail until Saturday.)

Great production quality, especially considering the low price. It's a good looking book.

I started reading it. I'm about halfway through, somewhere in the damage section. I thought I'd give my first impressions as I progress and ask a few questions along the way :

First of all, it's a lot crunchier than I expected and lot crunchier than I'm used to these days. However, most of it so far seems like crunch that makes sense, and is therefore less daunting. Still, I can see that it's not a game you'd pick up for a one-off. Too much stuff you need to know.

In many ways, the system reminds me of Rêve de Dragon. It has a fine granularity, but tries to have an all-encompassing mechanic so that most if not all rules use the same resolution. It also emulates gritty realism, not only in combats. (This game is available in english as Rêve for anyone interested.)

A couple of things jumped at me :

- Advancement : beyond that fact that these are by far the most detailed advancement rules evar, I was wondering if there could be a risk of misuse for advancement purposes. Ie. players taking unnecessary in character risks to get their difficult and challenging checks. It's something I saw occasionally in Rêve, which has a similar mechanic. Can anyone running the game comment on that ?

- Armor : even though the combat section is hard to grok just by reading it, I love the concepts and I can easily see it work. The armor thing I don't like so much though. Why change the DNs ? It was all so elegant with fixed DNs ? I'm sure that in such a finely crafted system, there must have been a reason why armor didn't just increase Ob ? Also, in the mechanics as described, the average armor will last no more than five or six fights, right ? I'm not familiar with armomr, but that sounds harsh... And finally, is there a reason why armor is all or nothing ? In a dicepool system, armor could have reduced damage without cancelling it if not enough successes were rolled. That would make combat deadlier though, so the impact may be horrible, I dunno...

- Missile and Thrown : why isn't damage based on success ? I can't see any mechanical reason here, and I can't see any realism reasons either, despite the in-game explanations. A good marksman is a good marksman, why would the damage he deals be more random than that of a good swordsman ? Would assigning an Add to missile and thrown weapons really cause any problem ? Incidentally, the game strongly downplays the efficiency of missile and thrown weapons already by making them hard to use often, which I quite like, but I wish they went by the same mechanic as the rest...

- I haven't gone much beyond that. There are a couple of things I really love. Little touches, like your lifestyle affecting your health or the 'Get inside' move. Incidentally, just by reading, it seemed to me that this game would at last do the dagger justice. I can just see an efficient two-dagger fighter, which is mostly impossible in any other fantasy game out there...

I'll post my further comments as I go along, if that's OK with everyone.

OK, so I've more or less finished reading the first book (so no comments on chargen yet).

Magic looks OK, but didn't jump at my throat screaming 'cool'. I understand there are alternative systems out there, I got to look for that.

Faith is way cool though. This is how divine interventions should work in any game.

I've been toying with such an idea ever since I read Harn Religion, and if I adopt BW for my setting (still pending playtest, but it looks likely at this stage) I'll probably add a simple devotion score which accrues with religious actions (devotion) and goes down by the number of successes on any intervention you manage. I like the idea of faithful 'earning' their deity's help.

Artha is damn cool as well. I like the fact that you can both use it in game and invest it in longer forms.

these issues have been addressed in a variety of other posts but I'll recap here:

Advancement via risk -- that was one of the intents behind the rules, to force players to push their characters and take risks. I have found it to work very well in game.

armor DNs and deflection -- the variable DN is used to create a finer grain than what is available with the obstacle system. It is not something I consider perfect, but the armor system is so easy to use and possesses such depth that I find it will worth sacrifice. That said, we are experimenting with an alternate armor system that uses dice instead of DN.

A tenet of the armor system is that armor must be potentially able to completely deflect an attack. Using obstacle and reducing successes gets very problematic when trying to keep armor dice to a controllable level.

Marksman vs Swordsman The DOF is completely and utterly necessary because the world is not populated by good marksmen, but many many many many bad marksmen pick up stones, bows and guns and still manage to inflict grievous harm. Damage and accuracy had to be separated in missile weapons to represent this. While a case could be made for inexperienced swordsmen and swords, I think the level of incident is far more rare and can easily be explained in the system using Beginner's Luck or even Artha. And one must recognize the killing power of a sword comes directly from the user's strength and skill. The bows and guns in particular are mechanical devices completely separate from the user and possessed of their own killing potential.

thanks for your comments!
-Luke

abzu wrote: these issues have been addressed in a variety of other posts but I'll recap here:

Advancement via risk -- that was one of the intents behind the rules, to force players to push their characters and take risks. I have found it to work very well in game.

armor DNs and deflection -- the variable DN is used to create a finer grain than what is available with the obstacle system. It is not something I consider perfect, but the armor system is so easy to use and possesses such depth that I find it will worth sacrifice. That said, we are experimenting with an alternate armor system that uses dice instead of DN.

A tenet of the armor system is that armor must be potentially able to completely deflect an attack. Using obstacle and reducing successes gets very problematic when trying to keep armor dice to a controllable level.

Marksman vs Swordsman The DOF is completely and utterly necessary because the world is not populated by good marksmen, but many many many many bad marksmen pick up stones, bows and guns and still manage to inflict grievous harm. Damage and accuracy had to be separated in missile weapons to represent this. While a case could be made for inexperienced swordsmen and swords, I think the level of incident is far more rare and can easily be explained in the system using Beginner's Luck or even Artha. And one must recognize the killing power of a sword comes directly from the user's strength and skill. The bows and guns in particular are mechanical devices completely separate from the user and possessed of their own killing potential.

thanks for your comments!
-Luke

Sammael99 wrote:
Magic looks OK, but didn't jump at my throat screaming 'cool'. I understand there are alternative systems out there, I got to look for that.

Artha is damn cool as well. I like the fact that you can both use it in game and invest it in longer forms.

abzu wrote: Advancement via risk -- that was one of the intents behind the rules, to force players to push their characters and take risks. I have found it to work very well in game.

Sammael99 wrote:
- Advancement : Ie. players taking unnecessary in character risks to get their difficult and challenging checks.

- Armor : even though the combat section is hard to grok just by reading it, I love the concepts and I can easily see it work. The armor thing I don't like so much though. Why change the DNs ?

- Missile and Thrown : why isn't damage based on success ?

- Incidentally, just by reading, it seemed to me that this game would at last do the dagger justice. I can just see an efficient two-dagger fighter, which is mostly impossible in any other fantasy game out there...

taepoong wrote:
All armor has a DN of 4. This works out just fine for me, but it allows for more successes than the previous system. This is also fine with me because I use the new, graver Wound system.
...

It's an all-or-nothing system, just like in the book. One 4+ wards off any damage. No successes and full damage.

I've talked to Abzu about this system and he feels 4+ makes it too easy. He wants me to try a 5+. But I remember my Warhammer days and nobody ever made an armor save of 5+! :o( Maybe it was just my bad luck?

I like your idea of a DN of 4, but knowing the odds, I'd have to agree with Luke - it's just too easy. what if instead of a single success, you altered it to be that you had to at least match the number of successes of the attacker? That could make it a little more interesting.

taepoong wrote:
I, too, want to see no variable DNs at all in BW. That is why I've been playtesting a new armor system in my campaign. Please review:

All armor has a DN of 4. This works out just fine for me, but it allows for more successes than the previous system. This is also fine with me because I use the new, graver Wound system.

Leather - 1D per location
Plated Leather - 2D
Chain - 3D
Plated Chain - 4D
*Chest location gets an extra 1D.

-Shield Dice convert directly with a fixed DN of 4.
-Weapon VA reduces dice.
-All shots must be Called Shots. Any shot not Called defaults to a Called Shot to the Chest.

Well, we've been playing with a ruleset that's a bit more rewarding for the skilled marksman. It works great!

Exceeding Obstacle gives a +1 to the DOF.
Doubling Obstacle gives a +2 to the DOF.
Tripling Obstacle grants a +3 to the DOF.
And so forth and so on.

Durgil wrote: I like your idea of a DN of 4, but knowing the odds, I'd have to agree with Luke - it's just too easy. what if instead of a single success, you altered it to be that you had to at least match the number of successes of the attacker? That could make it a little more interesting.

abzu wrote:

Durgil wrote: I like your idea of a DN of 4, but knowing the odds, I'd have to agree with Luke - it's just too easy. what if instead of a single success, you altered it to be that you had to at least match the number of successes of the attacker? That could make it a little more interesting.

You could try something like this. Even use Armor dice as Block dice.

But this weights the "balance" of attack and defense in favor of attack.

Getting hit on the head with an Axe (VA 2) while wearing a helmet (3D) would mean you only roll one die and only have a 50/50 chance of reducing the incoming attack by one success.

In all my research about armor -- and i did a little -- i was led to believe armor did not work this way. This would not represent the dozens of blows needed to bring down armored knights.

In any case, there is a limit here between simulationism and playability. I suspect that such a blow would cause damage most of the time irrespective of armor, wouldn't it ?

For me, finding a new armor system isn't about trying to fix the official one - which works just fine really. It's all about living up to the dream of a fixed DN throughout the entire system. "One DN to rule them all..." and all that! ;o)

taepoong wrote: For me, finding a new armor system isn't about trying to fix the official one - which works just fine really. It's all about living up to the dream of a fixed DN throughout the entire system. "One DN to rule them all..." and all that! ;o)

Oh, and another thing I totally failed to understand : the grey and white levels on the injury greyscale (can't remember the correct name)

I understand how you can have would levels there. I don't understand how you deal with regular damage on that scale...

You go through your paths, listing skills you pick and skillpoints. But you only allocate skillpoints globally at the end. You don't allocate for each lifepath. Is that correct ?

Lxndr wrote:

You go through your paths, listing skills you pick and skillpoints. But you only allocate skillpoints globally at the end. You don't allocate for each lifepath. Is that correct ?

Well, each lifepath REQUIRES you to allocate to one particular skill - the first one available on each list. Beyond that, yeah, you can use your LP skillpoints on ANY skill THAT YOUR LPs give you. So you do sort of "allocate for each lifepath" but not quite.

If you have excel to access, try this:

www.twistedconfessions.com/files/burner.xls

As far as I'm aware, it handles the character generation rules flawlessly. Create a few characters using its guidelines, and you'll be good to go.

Lxndr wrote: If you have excel to access, try this:

www.twistedconfessions.com/files/burner.xls

As far as I'm aware, it handles the character generation rules flawlessly. Create a few characters using its guidelines, and you'll be good to go.

Bah.

I wanted to replace the character burner WORKSHEET, not replace the whole Character Burner. ;)

I'll be honest with you abzu, although I love the game as I'm reading it, I know it'll be atough sell to my players. We play on average 4-5 hours a month these days, and crunchy system have a much steeper learning curve than light ones. So I need all the 'generic rules' I can get.

I can be used to do fantastic one-offs! Really intense and really quick.

Valamir wrote:

I can be used to do fantastic one-offs! Really intense and really quick.

Now we know Luke's day job...:-)

Sammael99 wrote: Oh, and another thing I totally failed to understand : the grey and white levels on the injury greyscale (can't remember the correct name)

I understand how you can have would levels there. I don't understand how you deal with regular damage on that scale...

Conversely, if you have a character with a Mortal Wound in the low Grey, their less severe wounds levels will scatter down into the Black.

Huh... So I just realized that even the biggest baddest supernatural entity with a W16 MW (so by definition a W16 Power and Forte) has a B9 superficial (and if I'm doing it in my head right, a G1 Light wound).

If you prick them, do they not bleed?

yeah, you're on the right track, but this should all really be in another thread.

Wilhelm noticed that I revised the grayscale to accomodate 16 pips for each shade. This necessitates a readjustment of the factoring of wound tolerances for the Gray and White shade Mortal Wounds. Nothing too involved, but worth noting.

-L