I have both systems, and the thing that drew me to TROS was the spiritual attribute system.

But no offense Jake, but along came BW and I fell totally for it.

However the big question is:
Have any one done any work on porting the SA system into BW?

I am lazy and just enough matamatician to see that adding 5 die to a roll in BW is hell of a lot. (PMF)!

I am also aware of the new Artha system, and I am fully adapting to it next session.

Any thoughts?

It seems to me that the BITs of Burning Wheel (mainly the BIs) are an equal match of the SAs already. By addressing them, you gain Artha, and by spending Artha, you can increase the potency of your tasks.

BITs of Burning Wheel (mainly the BIs) are an equal match of the SAs already

i've thought a bit about this.

Two ways to attack it, IMO.

First, port SAs over and replace Beliefs and Instincts. Allow bonus dice, but I would have the pools be finite and depleteing. Only refreshing when the player does some artha-earning worthy play. So if you add 5D to a roll, that's all you got for the situation.

Alternately, you could keep BITs and strip out the Artha system. Only by using BITs can players generate artha-like effects.

For example:
ReRoll Failures/Double Dice only: When defending Beliefs

Open-end for Luck (or bid for initiative) when manifesting an Instinct

Add +1D when invoking a Trait.

Minor Epiphanies when involved in a situation that activates one Belief, one Instinct and one Trait.

Just off the top of my head...

what do you think?

-L


btw, there will be NO knocking Riddle of Steel in this forum. The game is an AMAZING piece of work, let it be known that I drool with jealousy whenever I see it.

Good call Luke.
I think, despite some of the obvious mechanical simalarities, that porting SAs into BW straight would not work well.

First the pool size of a BW die pool is typically smaller than TRoS, so adding 5 extra dice is a bigger deal.

Second BW is a grittier system. TROS is fairly gritty without the SAs but with them can become quite blood opera (or anywhere in between). It was designed to handle that scaling quite well. I don't know what other ripple effects there would be in BW if the SAs were used to juice die rolls in pure TROS fashion. I suspect they'd be pretty substantial and probably dramatically impact the value of shades, and skill improvements.


As an additional note:

Neg, you are aware that the number attached to an SA in TROS has nothing to do with the intensity or degree of the SA. Your comment "Unlike the BW BITs which define the character in the same way but without the number." makes me ask.

If you want to get a TRoS level of Blood Opera into BW, I think a much less disruptive way to do it would be to relax the Artha reward requirements and award Artha more freely as BiTs are addressed. That will give you the specific effect that you're rewarding and make Artha more plentiful so that bumping rolls can be more frequent...on par with the frequency of SA dice in TRoS

(No plans on trashing TRoS here. The whole "TRoS and BW are like the same idea written by two different musicians" idea is something I really can see in these two games, although I think BW caters to ME better. In fact, once my game starts, I think my group might be the only one in the country simultaneously playing in a TRoS and BW campaign, alternating weeks. Could be wrong.)

In addition to relaxing Artha requirements, you could also allow Beliefs to work as Call-on Traits, such that when they come into play, you get an extra die in addition to any particular Artha goal. (I don't believe they work that way now, of course - they just give you Artha).

While small, on the scale of BW dice, it's substantial.

Ralph, I wouldn't worry too much about skill improvements, since they're based on the dice you're CURRENTLY rolling. Calling on extra dice all the time just means a slower and/or more difficult rate of advancement, as either you won't get as many Challenging results, or you'll get into the really-high Ob territory.

Lxndr wrote:
Ralph, I wouldn't worry too much about skill improvements, since they're based on the dice you're CURRENTLY rolling. Calling on extra dice all the time just means a slower and/or more difficult rate of advancement, as either you won't get as many Challenging results, or you'll get into the really-high Ob territory.

I suppose you could always make the ruling, if you wanted these not to impugn improvement:

"Determine the test type (Routine, Difficult, Challenging) without counting the Spiritual Attribute-type dice."

Between that, and using BW beliefs as call-ons... that's probably the closest "port" I can imagine. 'Cause it keeps character improvement the same (since, unlike TRoS skill tests, character improvements tests in BW don't need to be successful), increases the # of potential successes...

Just thinking aloud.

I would just like to note that when using FoRKs, Help and magic doodads, actual number of dice rolled are used to determine advancement. Hence you advance slower due to your dependency.

When spending Artha for Divine Inspiration (Double Dice), page 186 clearly states, these dice do not count toward the total dice rolled for determining tests for advancement.

In the original artha system, Divine Inspiration was the only expenditure which granted bonus dice. But in the new artha system the same philosophy stands for all bonus dice type material.

If we were to enforce the "total dice" rule with artha, then earning challenging tests for advancement would require that the character always fail. Artha provides room for them to succeed heroically and still benefit from it.

-L

Right. So there's precedent for my suggestion. :D

I knew that was the case with Artha, but my suggestion was, basically, "expand this case to these other call-on dice situations."

I really like the idea of making Character Traits into Call-On Traits. That's nifty.

funny funny funny,

i was just thinking about this last night! Character traits are, essentially, little call-ons. But how to mechanically differentiate?

How about you can use a character/call-on in a situation/adventure/session a number of times equal to the points you spent on it.

Alternately, perhaps character traits (when called on) allow you to re-roll one failed die of an appropriate test. Call-on's could allow you to reroll all failures on a roll once per s/a/s.

I really try to keep call-ons in play as "i'm a bad-ass, let me prove it!" Oops, bad dice! "I call on my call-on to make me a bad-ass!"

whaddya think?
-Luke

I like the idea.

But how about a twist?

One sets up a set of traits like the SAs, but instead of assign them points these become call-on "personality" traits for that character.

Its a bit more to put on the character sheet and one spares one's players the dilemma of: choosing call-on traits for power, or traits for flavour.

One would have to remove luck as it is amply covered by the trait Lucky, but passions, faith (not as the trait), destiny and conscience would be great.

wait, you lost me.

Spiritual Attributes become traits, how?

How are they advanced or prioritized?

How are they earned? Only in burning?

I think he's saying to basically add a category.

So instead of BIT, you have BITS (where S is "Spirit"). There you have Passions and Faiths and Destinies and Drives, and using THOSE gives you a bonus die. Rather than calling on your beliefs directly.

(It seems superfluous to me, since BITs can handle passions and faiths and drives... only Destinies don't exactly fit.)

ack. i dunno.

I really thought that between BITs we had that all covered.

Beliefs cover Passion and Drives

Instincts cross-over to Drives

Traits have a hand in Faith and Destiny -- think of it like your traits create the distorted shadow of your destiny throw on the distant wall of your future. You can make out some details, but everything is fuzzy until you get close (and hit it).

-L

Yeah, BITs more or less cover everything, except possibly Destiny - which is why my suggestion if allowing Beliefs and Instincts to work as Special Dice Traits (i.e. ones that, like extra Artha dice, didn't count towards "dice rolled" for test calculations).

Although I've got to admit that "Destiny" isn't NEARLY as defined in BW as it is in SAs. With TRoS, you can say "my destiny is to become king of this land" and woot, that's pretty specific. Traits, as you point out, are more like the distorted shadow than the stated goal.

I daresay, I don't like the idea of a strictly defined destiny. I like this to emerge in play as a product of the combination of all the other facets.

Yeah, destiny is the distillation of the facets of character.

But that's just me preference.

My group sat down Friday to try some of these ideas, and it felt wrong. You were all right when you said BITs cover it. these "SA traits" became a redundant layer on top of the the characters and we saw little point in adding it.

This might be that out TROS and BW games are totally different in tone and style, but the mix didn't work for us. Our conclusion is:

Though SAs work wonderfully in TROS they are superflous in BW.

To me both games are brilliant in their own right and this is how I should leave it be.

Thank you all for your response and input though.

Peace

K

I've been playing a Burning Wheel campign using The Riddle of Steel Combat notes posted over the summer. While I feel this system is superior (IMO) to the one in BW, I gotta say I prefer the concept of Artha to Spiritual attributes. I found that in play they just made tasks too easy, and all spiritual attributes are not created equally. Characters whose spiritual attributes don't come into play as much get penalized as this is used as the only advancement method. My 2 cents.

Bracken