Judd
04-12-2005, 11:18 PM
I sent this e-mail to my players concerning Burning Wheel.
I realize that I am preaching to the choir here but fuckit, here it is:
The Elves in BW are the finest I have ever seen them
in any game. I've heard that the Orcs and Dwarves are
at least as cool as them now in the Revision too.
I think we will find that the Burning Wheel races
harken more closely back to Tolkien and the myths he
built on rather than the decades of immitators and
D&D-isms we've come to take for granted.
Elves are tragic immortal figures. There is a stat
for Grief and if you hit 10, your PC goes into the
West, succuming to the pain of it all. Their magic
involves singing. The Song of the Sword's pretty
damned cool but there are songs for all matter of
things.
I don't want my Elves to be some shmoe. I don't want
some elf who lives in an apartment on the 200 block of
Waterdeep. Fuck that. I want my Elves to by sons and
daughters of kings and queens. I want doomed love and
kinslaying. I want a very Celtic and Norse
mythological vibe here.
Paula put it well when she played an Elf in BW,
"Killing a human is like destroying a house but
killing an elf is like destroying a cathedral."
Orcs are also immortal, though few probably know this,
as their lives are almost always brutally short.
Their blood and saliva is poison to mortal humans and
they have a stat called Hatred. They are brutal.
This is not to say that Dwarves are not cool too.
Their stat is Greed and they have Grudges and amazing
crafts but I haven't seen their deal-y-o in the
revision yet but when I do, I'll letcha know.
There are a few other species that I don't know so
well:
Giant Spiders: I don't know much about 'em, having
just skimmed over them in the Monster Burner.
Trolls: Big sum-bitches who tear the roof off of
cottages and eat the villagers. Brutal...dumb...slow.
Great Wolves: Giant wolves that can talk...how cool
is that? If anyone wants to play the wolf that
Jevon's Orc or Mario's Goblin rides, we could talk
with them and work that out.
And Humans:
Let us not forget our soft, pink mortal friends, shall
we? The magic system in BW is malleable. We can go
with a choose a spell type of system, which works just
fine or we can summon spirits or a kind of Ars
MAgica-like system but probably not quite as powerful.
I think we will like that magic is dangerous and
interesting.
If a spell goes wrong, it can go VERY, very wrong.
I've had great fun running humans with Kolja and Joe
and with Pete and Witt.
I realize that I am preaching to the choir here but fuckit, here it is:
The Elves in BW are the finest I have ever seen them
in any game. I've heard that the Orcs and Dwarves are
at least as cool as them now in the Revision too.
I think we will find that the Burning Wheel races
harken more closely back to Tolkien and the myths he
built on rather than the decades of immitators and
D&D-isms we've come to take for granted.
Elves are tragic immortal figures. There is a stat
for Grief and if you hit 10, your PC goes into the
West, succuming to the pain of it all. Their magic
involves singing. The Song of the Sword's pretty
damned cool but there are songs for all matter of
things.
I don't want my Elves to be some shmoe. I don't want
some elf who lives in an apartment on the 200 block of
Waterdeep. Fuck that. I want my Elves to by sons and
daughters of kings and queens. I want doomed love and
kinslaying. I want a very Celtic and Norse
mythological vibe here.
Paula put it well when she played an Elf in BW,
"Killing a human is like destroying a house but
killing an elf is like destroying a cathedral."
Orcs are also immortal, though few probably know this,
as their lives are almost always brutally short.
Their blood and saliva is poison to mortal humans and
they have a stat called Hatred. They are brutal.
This is not to say that Dwarves are not cool too.
Their stat is Greed and they have Grudges and amazing
crafts but I haven't seen their deal-y-o in the
revision yet but when I do, I'll letcha know.
There are a few other species that I don't know so
well:
Giant Spiders: I don't know much about 'em, having
just skimmed over them in the Monster Burner.
Trolls: Big sum-bitches who tear the roof off of
cottages and eat the villagers. Brutal...dumb...slow.
Great Wolves: Giant wolves that can talk...how cool
is that? If anyone wants to play the wolf that
Jevon's Orc or Mario's Goblin rides, we could talk
with them and work that out.
And Humans:
Let us not forget our soft, pink mortal friends, shall
we? The magic system in BW is malleable. We can go
with a choose a spell type of system, which works just
fine or we can summon spirits or a kind of Ars
MAgica-like system but probably not quite as powerful.
I think we will like that magic is dangerous and
interesting.
If a spell goes wrong, it can go VERY, very wrong.
I've had great fun running humans with Kolja and Joe
and with Pete and Witt.