Requesting guidelines...

[Angaros]

In the CB Classic forum, there is a great thread about how to create useable instincts for your character. Last session I had to make a new character with one of the players and that thread proved immensely valuable when explaining what instincts are, how they work and how to create them. Great work. So, what I was hoping to get was advice from Luke, Thor and Kublai (the three wise men) on how to create good beliefs as well. Something in the line of the instincts thread would be super. I know Luke might not be avaliable for a month or so, but perhaps Thor and Kublai have time? :)

edit: Oh, and moving that classic thread here would be great too so that it doesn't get missed. Too good for that.

[Paka]

I am just going out on a limb and guessing here but I bet that thread's contents are now in the Character Burner of the revised edition.

[Thor Olavsrud]

Yep. Judd's right. I think we've made it much clearer this time around. However, to get more of an idea of the sorts of thing we look for, check out this thread (http://burningwheel.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1144).

[Angaros]

Good to hear. It was that thread that got me writing this one btw. :)

[luke]

As Thor said, it's all in the book. We really went out of our way to be explicit. And it's been an interesting experiment. So far, folks who've been playing BW keep writing the same crap Beliefs and shite Instincts. I'm really looking to see how new players will take the new material and use it.

Honestly, though, I'm not going to spend the rest of my life rehashing BITs. If ya'll don't get it based on what we wrote this time... ::shrugs:: I don't know what to tell you.

-L

[Thor Olavsrud]

I'm going to attempt to give you an idea of how Beliefs shape a campaign. Last year (September-October), Kublai ran a game for some of the Nerds here in NYC. It was a dwarf campaign, as we were eager to playtest some of the new ideas that were going into the Dwarf chapter.

The basic setup was something like this:
Long ago, there was a High King among the dwarves, and in his Hall there was a gate that led to Hell. Through the efforts of the five clans, a mighty, magical, mithril chain was forged to hold the gate closed. It had five links, each forged by one of the clans.

But one of the clans broke its Oath, and its link broke. Not entirely, but just enough that things from the Dark could squeeze through the gap in the door. The High King and his regalia was lost at that time, and none knew where the High King's Hall had stood.

Millennia later, some Dwarves broke open an abandoned shaft and found a runestone with the first verses of an enigmatic song engraved upon it. While most thought them fools, six dwarves representing the five clans decided they would follow the song and find the High King's Hall and its regalia. They were: The Idealistic and Ambitious Prince, The Battle Weary High Captain and his Brutal Graybeard, The Knowledge-Hungry Artificer, The Delver Born to Lead, and The Curious Adventurer.

And thus the Fool's Quest was born.

Now, all of the above had been discussed and decided upon at a character creation session. We knew what the goal of the campaign was, and we knew some of the details (oath-breakers, broken chain, etc.)

Here are a few of the Beliefs we came up with (I won't list them all):
The Prince:
- I need to unify the Dwarfs.
- The Oath-breakers must be punished.
- No fight is finished until an orc dies by my blade.

The Captain:
- Only a High King will end war.
- The High King must be worthy.
- War only begets war.

The Delver:
- The key to becoming chief of my clan lies in the High King's Hall.
- Division will destroy us all.
- I lead, no one else, in the deep tunnels.

In addition, my Delver had the Oath-Swearer trait. So at the beginning of the campaign, he swore the entire band to an Oath, giving everyone a fourth Belief: Together, we shall reclaim the High King's Hall!

Now, looking back on it, I would reword those beliefs a bit (even some of my own). A good belief should reflect Action that you will undertake.

Not: Division will destroy us all.
But: I must settle disputes, for division will destroy us all.

Not: The Oath-breakers must be punished.
But: The Oath-breakers will be punished by my hand!

Do you see the difference?

Anyway, in our case the difference was cosmetic, because the Beliefs really crystallized this way in play anyhow. These Beliefs did not just inform the situations Kublai placed us in throughout the campaign, they became the central elements. In the final moments, Beliefs were firing every few seconds.

By the end of the campaign, we were in the High King's Hall, trying to decide who among us would take up the High King's scepter, become the new High King, and reforge the chain. Our major enemy was our own Greed, as we all struggled with ourselves, knowing that if we succumbed to Greed, and took the scepter, we would not be worthy to wield it!

Abzu, guest-starring as a Dark Elf filled to the brim with Spite, was making it even more difficult for us, urging us to give in to our Greed.

Only two of us passed our Greed tests here (and my character had to spend a Deeds point to do it!). Fortunately, the Prince, who also passed the test, made a test (Command or Oratory I think), and invoked our Oath Belief! The other dwarves elected to go with the "She's Magnificent" Greed Hesitation rather than the "Now's My Chance!" Greed Hesitation, and fell to their knees weeping!

The High Captain, invoked his "The High King Must Be Worthy" belief to turn down the scepter! Even though the other dwarves urged him to take it.

The Prince took up his scepter, ready to take on the role of High King, when we discovered the chain, and the remains of the previous High King, clearly bearing the rune of the Prince's clan. From the evidence, it was perfectly clear that The High King had been the Oath-breaker!

Uh-oh! The Prince is ready to be High King, and yet he believes he MUST punish the Oath-breakers! Can you say climax?

The Prince dropped the scepter, saying he was not worthy to be High King (clearly the Captain's beliefs were rubbing off on him).

Fortunately, the my delver was equipped with a belief for just this moment! Division will destroy us all. Time to settle it (especially with that Dispute-Settler trait I had)!

"The hand that wielded that axe," the delver said, gesturing to the Oath-Breaker's axe, "is not worthy to wield the scepter. Justice is required! Hold out your right arm!"

The Prince's ardent then came forward and chopped off the arm! The debt was settled, the oath-breaking repaid, and the Prince became the High King and reforged the chain.

All those beliefs are what our campaign was ABOUT! It's not hard. You can do it too. All it requires is collaboration between the players and the GM.

[jc_madden]

That is truly great. What annoys me most about my players is when we start a new game they all make characters at home and then when they get together nothing clicks. There's never any party cohesion. This time around they're still doing it from home but only because we can't spend a whole session making characters (if we could I'd make them) because I am only running the weekends when we aren't all together. But for some reason I think due partly to the BITs and secondly because the last game I ran was pretty brutal they know they need to work together so they've been on the phone constantly with eachother. I know because any time one calls me they tell me something that everyone else already told me. That makes me happy to see them working together. I can't wait to see how it goes!

[luke]

JC, you've got to have a character burning session. Even if it ain't DnD. You've got to sit everyone down and force them to build their connections into, around and over the conflict at hand. Furtive phone calls isn't enough. That's just going to allow factions to develop and for them to try to spring "surprises" on you.

Wouldn't it be better to have those surprises out in the open so you can REALLY fuck with them?

Players: "We've formed an alliance. We're going to smuggle weapons behind the scenes, but we're going to keep a well-stocked armory for ourselves."

JC: "Oh ho! Well, seems the local smuggling ring you're employing is getting a little big for their britches. One of their touts shows up at the bar and explains that if they don't get get a bigger cut, it's possible that the magistrate just might hear something..."

-L

[Angaros]

Thor, that is just great. Thanks!!! :) This campaign was started before I fell in love with BW so the characters were already made and the campaign in motion when we converted. Since then two new characters have been made (one died and a new player joined the group as another left) using BW from the start. The advice you and the other NY guys have given about having a Character Burning session and involving the players more when laying out the campaign and it's goals are also good. Next time I start a campaign I sure know what to do. Or at least what not to do. Learning from my mistakes I am.

[jc_madden]

I don't want to DErail this thread so I'm splitting it, you can read my response to your post here (http://burningwheel.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=10215#10215) Abzu.

And Angaros, I'd be interested to hear more about your campaign especially the differences between the characters who converted vs. the ones who were created using BW. Thanks.

[Angaros]

And Angaros, I'd be interested to hear more about your campaign especially the differences between the characters who converted vs. the ones who were created using BW. Thanks.
I've been meaning to get some info on the campaign posted on the forum, but so far I've been busy doing other things.

Before using BW we used my homemade system for this Hârn-campaign. That system is skill-based, uses d20 and has a combat system that is more or less a merge of HârnMaster and TRoS. The character creation system is random for attributes and point-based for skills, virtues and flaws. The v&f were similar to those in Ars Magica. The main difference between the converted and BW-made characters were that my own system was more generous in terms of skill points. The converts (that really hadn't advanced much since creation in the old system) came out as equivalent to 5 LP characters with ~30 skill points, and a generous amount of stat points. It's worth mentioning that skills in my old system were more general as well. In the spirit of TRoS for example, there was a "Mass weapon & shield" skill covering the use of any hafted weapon with a lump at one end (axes, maces, hammers, etc.). I still like that skill setup a lot. FoRKs give me loads of headaches...

[Kublai]

In BW's longest running campaign, we recently took some time in our session to realign our BITs. This should be something that is encouraged by the GM. Our characters had finished some big goals and their BITs were now irrelevant. Some Beliefs had vanished with the achievement of those goals, some Instincts became Traits, and old traits had gone and new ones appeared.

Therefore we took some time and had a mini-BITs session before we started playing again. As a group, we discussed new goals and then tied in new Beliefs to those goals. It was just as fun as when we did it for the first time.

So what I am trying to say is that don't feel that just because your campaign is old it doesn't mean you can't take time to hold a BITs session to make sure everyone is on the same page.