The Forge Archives

I've been running a Burning Wheel campaign that began in February. Characters are all four or five lifepaths and were all destined to be part of a rebel insurgent cell in a city under tyrannical and mystically suspect rule.

One character was brought in who had participated in a number of previous games, but he had started as a 3 LP peasant bandit and worked his way into competency. Everyone else were fresh characters for this scenario.

We have seven players when everyone's at the table. Usually we only have five or six people, but this works out due to the fluid nature of the cell; people are always disappearing suddenly, going underground.

Tonight everyone but our two fixers was there. When the money-men are away, there's really nothing for the others to do but cause trouble. They know it, I know it.

Also, tonight was a short session. I prefer a 6-hour game, but we were cut down to about four and a half.

The first two hours was a classic "let's plan and argue" session. Many players and GMs hate this. I actually enjoy it and, in fact, encourage it. Why? Because in BW we can mechanically handle so much of daily life via the practice rules -- players state, "I'm doing X all month long," we note the test and move on. No muss, no fuss. This leaves kind of a gaping hole, what do with the rest of that session time? Gotta fill it! I often let them ramble and argue for a while before prompting them with the latest atrocity or crackdown. (However, last session I dropped so much into their lap, I was determined to wait them out this time and see what they came up with. For TWO game sessions they have been in hiding. Not a bad idea since their last cell hideout was surrounded by musket-bearing hobgoblins and shot to pieces. They barely escaped with their lives, and subsequently went deep underground. Literally. (But that's another story.))

So they argue. I encourage it. Why? Because at the table we have many opposing Beliefs (in the BW game-mechanical sense) and philosophies. This is their chance to stake their moral ground. I'm not going to spend a session playing devil's advocate for each of them. They do it themselves. And when they stand up for their Beliefs or play out their Instincts (one player's character has an Instinct to always back-up another player character) I give them artha. Right there, on the spot. Not a lot, usually just a Fate point here and there, but enough to let them know I'm listening and I think it's worthy.

Since these discussions are all rp, no dice are rolled, and artha is earned and saved.

I should also describe another mechanic/tool I've been using in the campaign. They are in a despotic city with a very efficient secret police. This is something that can wreak havoc on a game. Obviously, no one wants the PCs to get caught. Especially not me! How to handle it? I told them flat out: "You're being hunted; the district is under martial law. Every time you want to leave this location you must make an Inconspicuous or Stealthy test. I will then roll the watch's Perception. If I win, you're spotted."

This has lead to some really fun stuff. They were spotted left and right around the city -- chased and harried until they were at wit's end. Until they finally were too scared to go out. Did this end the game? No. It created a metric ton of tension, though. They only leave their hideout now under the direst of circumstances. They spend a lot of Travis Bickle time --  working out, developing twisted philosophies and concealed weapons.

So tonight, after a rousing two-hour argument (I'm not being facetious in the least), they came up with "The Plan." It took a month of game time to prepare, and an interesting, unexpected roll to kick into play.

They had been gathering materials to build bombs for the past two months. In fact, one of their fixers blew all of his Resources to score the munitions needed. They got the stuff, though. Their munitions expert "practiced munitions" for a month prior (basically front-loading a skill test done Patiently).  

However, this self-same munitions expert (a VERY high-profile target for the secret police) was desperate to contact his old friend and lieutenant. Not being able to go out himself, he kept pestering one of the other players to seek out this contact for him. This seeking and pestering had been going on for a number of gaming sessions. The seeking player had been testing his character's [Specific City]-wise skill in order to track down this man. So far, he'd heard rumors at three successes, but not got anything concrete. Tonight he opened up with a 5-success roll. Hm, that warranted quite a bit of information. However, I was loathe to have him just bump into the contact and "deliver the message". How boring; and it took some decision-making out of the players' hands and tossed it into mine. Bleh.

So instead of the bump, I gave him a rumor and a sighting. He ended up seeing the munitions PC's old unit clandestinely training up river for an assault on the foreign navy in the harbor.

This is what really kicked the discussion into overdrive. One of the PCs was a member of that navy, one of the PCs was formerly part of that covert unit, one of the PCs was a religious figure revered by that unit.

In the end, the navy PC was given the information about the raid to give to his superiors so the navy could set up an ambush. The player had to pass an Ob 5 Falsehood test in order to covey this information convincingly to his superiors. He passed and the navy agreed to the raid. However, he was ordered to be on the bow of the lead ship in an advisory capacity. The religious figure was then sent up river to warn the covert unit that the navy had found them out and that they were going to be raided. He had to pass an Ob 5 Suasion test in order to prove that he was man of his word and just. He also passed.

If you're not familiar with the game, both of those are very difficulty tests. Both characters had a respective skill of B5 and added at least one FoRK and a Persona point. I also made it clear that failure was going to be disastrous. The entire table was on edge for both rolls, as each player in turn delivered their message. During the priest's scene, as he delivered his message to the player's old commander, that the munitions PC's player had his head in his hands and was literally sweating.

Success. They were assured that the government and the foreign navy were destined for an entanglement. Let's look at why for a moment. The answer is simple: Both player stated their intent, roleplayed their scene, were told the consequences of success and failure and both happened to be successful. Thus the order of coming events was dictated by the results of those rolls. The outcome is, essentially, set in stone and I cannot (and would not) change that. They get to sit back and listen to a narration of the aftermath of their meddling -- all based on the results of that one test.

But not before they get into a heap of trouble. Don't forget the bomb. The bomb, you say? The seat of government in this city is called simply, The Dome. It is, in fact, an ancient citadel topped with a beautiful, mosque-like dome. It is visible to the entire city. The players have had it in their collective sights for some time now. Tonight they agreed that they were going to make a permanent mark on the skyline. Just before the navy set out to head up river, they planned on sneaking into the Dome and detonating a bomb -- hopefully bringing the architecture to the ground.

So the player had to make a munitions test to build the explosive. He spent a point of Persona and, after rolling many 6s, a point of Fate. On his munitions skill of B6, he rolled 9 successes. Holy. Fucking. Hell. A nine-success bomb. That's bad. They immediately named it "Fat Boy."

Guessing where this was heading, I immediately informed the father of the bomb that he was certain, were anyone else to handle Fat Boy, that they and half a city-block's worth of people would be annihilated. He had to be the one to set it and trigger it. (He was NOT getting out of it by handing it off.)

The initial plan was to steal inside the Dome, plant the bomb at the apex of said structure and flee. After doing some research into the structure, they saw this as infeasible -- primarily because none of them had a climbing skill to reach the apex, especially not Fat Boy's father.

So they settled for climbing to the external apex -- something more easily done with ropes and ladders -- tying Fat Boy to the weather vane and taking off. This would involve a night raid on the Dome -- a heavily guarded walled compound surrounded the structure.

At this point we had an hour and a half to play. Super-stealthy scenarios such as these can drag on for months. We all wanted to finish it tonight. I paused a moment, did a little soul-searching, and decided that we could do it. We had to cut down the chatter, but if we focussed we'd know success or failure tonight.

I decided that there would be about a half-dozen tests required to get them to where they needed to be. Nearly all of them were Stealthy, Climbing, Speed and Perception tests. At each juncture I asked them for their intent -- what exactly were they doing and what they hoped to accomplish -- let them roll the dice and rolled the opposing dice right in front of them.

The opposition, in this case, was the host of guards and dogs patrolling the compound.

The first Stealthy test was to get to the compound unnoticed. They succeeded (barely). The second was Perception. One Perception test was made for the whole raid -- Let it Ride was in effect. Another Stealthy test was made -- one outside the walls, and one inside. Speed tests were made to surmount the walls and leap down from unsafe heights.

They were spotted almost immediately upon entering the compound. It was dark, so the guards didn't make them, but the dogs did. The barking started up and the PCs fled into the compound which was a warren of small houses and offices. Due to their 1-success Perception tests, they were nearly seperated.

They finally made it to the base of the Dome. Someone had to scale it and affix their specially built rope ladder to the first level of the roof (three stories up) so all could get off the ground and avoid detection. They had brought along an NPC with a Climbing skill for just this purpose.

"It all rides on him," I ironically muttered as I rolled his B4 Climbing skill. I was looking for three or four successes. Amazingly, I got none. In fact, I rolled three 1s and a 2. Wow. That's bad. "Fuck it," I said to myself and then announced, "Tungban makes it halfway up before he slips and falls, he hits the ground and you hear something break."

He was their only climber. Now what? The climb was suicidal. "Any volunteers?" one player asked ruefully. One of the other players shot up in his seat, "I'll do it!" His character was a daughter of members of the ousted government. Far more a social character than anything else, the group had begged him to have her stay behind. He insisted that she be allowed to come. Impressing us all, he literally leapt at the chance to prove us all wrong.

Did I mention that we love a crunchy, grainy game? He had no Climbing skill. Everyone knew this. In BW, when you don't have a skill, you use a root stat. Speed's the root for Climbing. He happened to have a B6 Speed. I (and other veteran players) informed him of my sadistic falling rules -- the consequences of failure were dire. He dumped artha into the roll and turned up an amazing six successes. With a double-obstacle penalty, it was just enough to get him up there.

The rest of the group followed up the rope ladder. But his journey wasn't over, his character had to finish the climb to the top of the Dome itself. An arduous ascent around a smooth, copper-plated structure. He undertook it without hesitation. He poured on the artha and rolled very respectful five successes. Failure. He needed six actual successes on the dice. Without batting an eye or missing a beat, I describe the painstaking and tremendous climb. His character overcame the Dome, but the cost of the failed test was paid in time -- I narrated hours of painful climbing before he dropped down the rope ladder. Plenty of time for the dogs to finally track the characters to where they had ascended the building. The dog handlers didn't quite intuit why their dogs were bouncing up the wall, but it didn't matter. They were essentially discovered -- it was only a matter of minutes before they were surrounded beyond hope of escape.

At the top of the Dome, the munitions expert finished his ascent up the rope ladder. He fixed his bomb and waited for the signal to ignite the fuse. Given the superiority of his Munitions test, I simply asked for an Ob 1 Agility test to afix the bomb via rope to the top of the structure. I also took the time to give a nice description of the soon to be awakened city.

Meanwhile, the other characters had opened fire with their skiff bows on the guards down below. One player didn't even have the Bow skill, but he managed to deliver a Midi wound to one of the men. Interestingly, the other, more competent, character was rolling abysmally. In the end, neither guard was killed, both ended up screaming and calling for help as the arrows rained down.

But it was too late. The bomb was set and the fuse lit. The group barrelled down the ladder -- into the jaws of one of the waiting dogs. A small scuffle ensued and one of the characters was wounded, but it was minor and the dog came out the worse.

Moments later they were greeted with a sucking rush of air, a rumble, a bizarre crackling as debris rained down from above. This ancient landmark now looked as if God had brushed his hand across the side and knocked a massive, jagged and gaping mouth in the structure.

Success. But they weren't out of it yet. Stealthy tests were required to evade the dogs. Amazingly, I rolled only 1 success on the Perception of the pursuers. All but one of the characters got away. The one caught was the self-same character who had saved the endeavor with her lucky climb. A chase ensued. Speed vs Speed. I had helping dice and bonus dice because the dogs had faster Multipliers. He had no more artha to spend. They tied at 4 successes. Not too good. That meant it would go to another roll, and the numbers were in my favor. I asked him if his character had any tie-breaking traits. "Um, how about Nimble?" he asked. Perfect! He won the test, but by a narrow margin.

He dodged the dogs, but I narrated that he was unable to flee the compound. We ended with his character huddled in a strange kitchen, hiding from his pursuers. His friends don't know where he's gone.  And the sun rises over this broken dome, cracked and smoking -- the city is silent and standing in the streets, staring.

A good session with lots of character building and fun action. We had two months of practice, artha earned through exercising Beliefs in inter-character play, skills going up mid-scene (one character's Stealthy went up as soon as they tested to get into the compound), tons of artha spent on goals meaningful to the players, and other tests toward advancement earned in the thick of it, no melee combat and a healthy serving of nail-biting tension. Everyone was on their feet for those Climbing tests!

Not to mention that the players pulled off an amazing coup. By doing something unexpected and spontaneous, they struck an undeniable and ineffable blow against their oppressors. Everyone walked away from that session happy.

===
As a postscript: We're playing in New York City. Once, we could walk out to Sixth Ave from my house -- one block away -- and look down the island to the World Trade Center. The parallels of what we were doing were obvious to us, and probably quite deliberate. There was one joke made in poor taste about the scene, but aside from that outburst the tragedy wasn't really mentioned. Not that I think it should have been, but given the context of our game and what we were essentially reenacting, I felt it was worth noting.

hope that helps. feel free to ask questions.
-L

This was easily the most enjoyable role-playing experience I've ever had as a PC.

Not only did the plot advance in a dynamic and appropriately timed way, the mechanics of the BW system really, really affected the story in concise, direct ways that helped us navigate a very complex set of circumstances.

The "montage" (Travis Bickle) sequences were satisflying and thorough - I felt as if we were accomplishing things in an active fashion (rather than a narative of "months pass and you ready yourselves"), as my skills were honed and our plans laid.

The Stealthing to the Dome scene was tremendous - especially with precedents set about failed stealth in the past!
I impressed with the results and I was litereally sweating out of fear! Honestly, as you can see by the descriptions of our rolls, we were genuinely lucky!

The best part (for me) was the way the various Falsehood/Suasion tests affected the game - and my PC wasn't even there! The narrations of the results I assume will be in the next session (the immediate future for out PCs), but the results of the tests spoke for themselves - I don't think anyone at the table thought twice about whether or not things would happen! In fact, the Navy PC's comment to me (the Munitions PC) after my orchestrating the Religious PC's warning to my old unit was: "If I get killed in the raid tomorrow, my blood will be on your hands."

Drama!

Thanks Luke - ROK!

Hi Luke,

Sounds like a great game. Interesting to read how the creator of the game plays it. The way you play it is vastly different from the way I do, but then that's the beauty of BW.

QuoteSuper-stealthy scenarios such as these can drag on for months.

I am often faced with the same dilemma. After the let-it-ride rule, this has changed. In addition to cutting down on the amount of the rolls, the tension of the players when they know it is "make or break" is great.

However:

Quote"It all rides on him," I ironically muttered as I rolled his B4 Climbing skill. I was looking for three or four successes. Amazingly, I got none. In fact, I rolled three 1s and a 2. Wow. That's bad. "Fuck it," I said to myself and then announced, "Tungban makes it halfway up before he slips and falls, he hits the ground and you hear something break."

With the danger of being flamed to crisp, Why?
The players had the forsight to bring along a professional climber to make sure that Fat Boy got in posistion. They had planned this for ages, dumped artha into the construction and built the mother of all bombs.
And then a npc fails a skill roll and they are stuck.

Now you got lucky and had a wonderfull moment where one of you players had what my group now calls a Joshua Moment. But that is not my point.

From previous discussions I know your aversion to fudging, and despite Artha pumping, there is no way to be sure that the pcs are going to make the climb. So everything "in theory" hinges on this npc making the roll.
Then why roll?
His failure runs the risk of destroying the players plan, while his success pushes it on towards their moment of glory. As long as he has the skill nessesary, and the players know this, let him make it.

If there is any one roll that should jeapordise their plans it should be theirs, here I am not talking about opposing combat rolls, nor guards perception rolls or rolls like these. What we are looking at here is the one NPC whose skill is vital for the continuation of the plan, who then fails miserably because of the dice, and for no other reason.

Which leads to my point and an attempt to lift this argument beyond the matter of Tungban;

Npcs are incidental to the meat of the game: the players and their goals. Thus their success on skill rolls where the players actions have no impact should be determined by what need it serves the ongoing story, not by the dice.

There I've said it and now bow my head and await the flack.

Love your game.

K

Hi Kaare,

Thanks for your questions. Every detaill that you mentioned went through my head as I picked up the dice to roll for this NPC. I decided to risk it and make the roll because I knew that there were alternate ways to get plan completed (other places to put the bomb, other people to scale the building), and because this was an NPC doing something crucial for the story. It was so important, in fact, that it really should have been done by a player's character.

You should have seen the look on the players' faces when i asked for volunteers. We had five very sad and one extremely happy faces. The one player wanted this chance to prove himself. In fact, I'd go so far as to say he absolutley needed it in order for him to have as much fun as he could. His character was on the margins of the mission. The fall gave him a chance to step into the spotlight and save the day. If he didn't have this chance, I am certain he would have merely been a cheerleader for the night. And that's no fun. After he had made his climb (to much praise), the player was completetly drained -- it was an emotional moment!

The simple Climbing test turned into a point of great dramatic tension. It galvanized the whole table. They are still talking about "the climb!"

Game-wise, I had to present this obstacle to the players. We had talked about it all night, it was important to maintaining our illusion of immersion. Glossing over it would have dampened the feeling of excitement and danger.

Mechanics-wise, I put the Climbing test in the player's hands because I knew that BW can mechanically handle such situations. First, you have the root stat rules -- you can always roll that Double Obstacle test! Second, there was artha. If the player's wanted to succeed at this roll they would (and would have to) spend artha.

Which illustrates the purpose and practice of artha perfectly -- gained through interactive and interesting play, it is used/invested by players in scenes where they want to shine. It's not a sure thing, as we all know, but it does massage some of the ugliness out of crucial die rolls.

hope that helps,
-Luke

Mulling it over, I feel the players were wrong in not trying the climb by themselves in the first place. To rely on an NPC to do a PC's job is always a poor call by the players. I know that Tungban was certainly the most apt man for the job, but I think the dice reinforced my opinion! Even the game itself said, "No NPC shall do the deed!"

That being said, had I been there with my PC, I certainly wouldn't have volunteered my fat merchant to do it. But there are some bad ass cowboys in our party! Certainly the swordmaster or the elite hobgoblin or the snakeman could've pulled off the job. They are all very athletic even though they don't have the skill. They did all have lots of Artha, after all!

The fact that a PC ended up doing the job anyway proves my mystical point.

As a PC at the table, I am in total agreement that one of our own should have made the climb. In fact, I (Elite Hobgoblin, Father of Fat Boy) regret not having done it myself. That said, I think we would have failed if I had (low Speed, Fat Boy strapped to my back, no climbing experience). As ususal, my Hubris would have foiled a perfectly good plan.

That said, and more to the point, I think that the dice in this instance really helped enhance the story line. At the moment, I really felt like the NPC who's task was to climb the Dome, was a heavily recruited NPC -the pride of many attempts to recruit valuable resources by various party members. It was partially his presence that had given us the confidence to go forth. His failure and limb-breakage was one of those lynchpin moments in a plot where "all seems lost" and the onus (sp?) fell back again to us - the Heroes.

Yes, this may be classified as one of those so-called "Joshua moments" (every group has their term for it), but to me that's part of it - using the circumstances to collectively cultivate plot. In this instane, as Abzu illuminates, it galvanized the group, the plot and the moment. By facilitating the "peripheral" PC's involvement in the heroics, an epic moment was spawned - initiatied by essentially bad luck (the failed die roll of a carefully placed climbing expert).

Bravo to missed NPC rolls and Heroic PCs!