Have Burning Games soured you on other RPGs?

[StanTheMan]

Not sure where to post this; please move it if there's a more appropriate forum. Thank you.

Now, onto what I want to say.

Basically, has your love of Burning Games (here I mean Burning Wheel, Burning Empires, and Mouse Guard) soured you on other games, which, before you knew Burning, were perfectly fine?

Here's what I'm getting at. I've had a long, weird relationship with BW. It blew up TWO of my gaming groups, and BE did in a third, sort of. And despite selling off all my BW stuff some years ago, I got back into it maybe 4 months ago (with a copy of BE, shortly followed with a copy of MG). Something in reading BE this time around clicked for me. I suddenly KNEW why my past gaming had been so...uninteresting, or at least, uninteresting for me. It was surprise.

Really. BW games have put back in the element of surprise for me. Because of the way the rules work, especially things like the scripted conflict mechanics and setting stakes and such not, I, as GM, have no idea where the story will go. I LOVE being able to mechanically influence players' actions, rather than going through the "wear down the GM until he gives up" argument line. I LOVE that players can whip NPCs into being with me have to figure out if they can, how, etc.

Of course, it took a whole new group to able to do that, but it's worked. Because of these games, my gaming is fun again. Just did my second session of BE, for example, and what had been a horrorfest of slowness and frustration with three past groups became something beautiful. They were on edge, they really went after what they wanted proactively, etc etc. Really, quite the experience.

Thing is, now, I look at my other RPGs, and I don't know what I ought to do with them. The ones without super-clear premises or social conflict systems are just sort of alien to me now. I can only really envisage running, say, Nobilis 2nd (because it's so darn cool) and Strands of Fate (because it has a social conflict system). Maybe Diaspora. But the rest of my collection? Boring...I can feel the "GM-writes-the-whole-story" vibe a mile away, and it bores me silly.

And I blame it all on Burning Games. In a good way of course! I'm, with only 2 sessions of BE, having more fun that all the gaming I've done this year so far. And I think my players too. Or at least, I seem to have their attention now. ;)

So, is it the same for you? Have Burning Games changed you as far as other RPGs go? Or is it just one your many fun gaming tools? Or what?

[savagehominid]

I appreciate some games more now than I did. Burning Wheel scratched an itch for crunchy combat, costly sorcerery, all built around a player-driven (but not determined in the pass-the-conch-way) narrative. I now look at RPGs and ask myself, okay what is this game really about, and take a look out how the mechanics would influence decisions.

I enjoy gaming more now, and yes, I did have a group blow up to (but that was looooong coming, the friendship was tenuous), but when I do game (boo work)! I know find myself having more fun than I've had since the days of Hackmaster in late middleschool/early highschool.

[Apreche]

For me, those other games you are talking about are still playable, but not as role playing games. I can totally still play D&D, but if its presented as a role playing game, it won't work for me. Instead, I have to play it as it was originally intended, as a dungeoneering and combat game. If I'm going to crawl a dungeon I would much rather use an open ended pen+paper "RPG" system than play a game like Descent or Hero Quest.

If I want a story, I need a story game. That doesn't mean non-story games are unplayable. I just can't abide someone trying to tack on a story to them.

[Durand Durand]

I don't think it has. Gaming taught me long ago that players [myself included], with de-rail the best laid railroading plans of any GM. A friend taught me years ago to aim at certain scenes you think you'd like to play, might possibly play, and outcomes that may result, and to work around them to get everything else. Thinking of recent indie RPG's, a lot of them favour ideas like player pursued goals, interesting social mechanics and story related rewards and challenges. If anything, I think these games have enhanced my appreciation of the crafting of a good campaign, given me insight into how to help build a better game for everyone at the table and made things a lot more fun.

I find I like a lot of rules light games like FATE and PDQ, where rules are essentially secondary to the pursuit of drama, and designed to help add that four-colour flavour. I have MG, and have yet to play the slimmed down rules it has, but I want to. That said, I really want try more BW, see where it can go too.

[Totally Guy]

I've just quit a Delta Green game because I felt that I wasn't meaningfully interacting with the game.

We'd just finished a ShadowRun game which was ok. After thet the GM said he wanted to be a player for a change so I suggested that I run a game. I said that I could run Lacuna, Mouse Guard, Pendragon (which I have now stopped reading part way through :( ) or Apocalypse World. The other player suggested that he could run D&D 3.5.

The ShadowRun GM declined playing all these games. I didn't suggest BW... I don't think it's for them. He suggested round robin GMing some Delta Green and he lent me the BRP book.

The next week I told the group that I'd not be happy GMing this game. It's really not my style. I didn't have any great vision or enthusiasm for GMing it.

I think we played 5 sessions. I had fun but I didn't have satisfaction. I tried to explain what the problems were but I couldn't form it coherently from my brain to my mouth. So I said I'd have to think about what my problem was. It didn't help that every time we tried to talk I'd have to hear the "It's never the game's fault, it's always the players you choose to play with" attitude. This makes it dangerous to criticise as everything you say becomes inherently personal.

The other week I wrote a list of the problems I'd been having with the game and sent it to the group. Perhaps the list was too long :p. A lot of the problems I had wouldn't have been problems with BW, roadblocks on failures, missions being impersonal by design... But also I complained about drifting from the BRP rules (a failed roll producting successful results and vice versa). I also made the point that I wasn't trying to be personally offensive as I believe that a game itself matters as well as the people involved.

The old GM hasn't spoken to me since.

The other player has invited me to go running with him (which I couldn't do, I was day tripping in Bram Stoker's home town).

I think we're on a break. I feel like a total jerk. Like the worst of the classic BW fanboy behaviour. I mean he knows it's my favourite game after all.

(Hey Apreche, I joined your GeekNight forums a couple of weeks back as Totally Guy, I've only made a couple of posts so far. I'm big time lurking though. :p )

[StanTheMan]

I've just quit a Delta Green game because I felt that I wasn't meaningfully interacting with the game.

We'd just finished a ShadowRun game which was ok. After thet the GM said he wanted to be a player for a change so I suggested that I run a game. I said that I could run Lacuna, Mouse Guard, Pendragon (which I have now stopped reading part way through :( ) or Apocalypse World. The other player suggested that he could run D&D 3.5.

The ShadowRun GM declined playing all these games. I didn't suggest BW... I don't think it's for them. He suggested round robin GMing some Delta Green and he lent me the BRP book.

The next week I told the group that I'd not be happy GMing this game. It's really not my style. I didn't have any great vision or enthusiasm for GMing it.

I think we played 5 sessions. I had fun but I didn't have satisfaction. I tried to explain what the problems were but I couldn't form it coherently from my brain to my mouth. So I said I'd have to think about what my problem was. It didn't help that every time we tried to talk I'd have to hear the "It's never the game's fault, it's always the players you choose to play with" attitude. This makes it dangerous to criticise as everything you say becomes inherently personal.

The other week I wrote a list of the problems I'd been having with the game and sent it to the group. Perhaps the list was too long :p. A lot of the problems I had wouldn't have been problems with BW, roadblocks on failures, missions being impersonal by design... But also I complained about drifting from the BRP rules (a failed roll producting successful results and vice versa). I also made the point that I wasn't trying to be personally offensive as I believe that a game itself matters as well as the people involved.

The old GM hasn't spoken to me since.

The other player has invited me to go running with him (which I couldn't do, I was day tripping in Bram Stoker's home town).

I think we're on a break. I feel like a total jerk. Like the worst of the classic BW fanboy behaviour. I mean he knows it's my favourite game after all.



Shouldn't feel bad mate; it's the thing I had problems with in my past groups, as I mentioned. I just don't find most games terribly exciting with things like real social conflict mechanics and the like. And I like the was BW (and MG and BE) handle setting tasks and so on. I even like that much of the bookkeeping is for players to do, not the GM. I remember running quite a lot of games where I'd do most of the number crunching, like I'm some sort of math slave or something, or keeping notes of everything. Not anymore. BW is built differently my friends!

P.S. - Forgot to add. You've every right to have the sort of game you want mate also. Of course, that usually means running it. And it can mean changing groups. I did it three times and finally got a group of people who can work with me (though it looks like one guy will drop; note, he wasn't part of the BE game at all, because he didn't want to have to make his character himself!).

[Dwight]

Basically, has your love of Burning Games (here I mean Burning Wheel, Burning Empires, and Mouse Guard) soured you on other games, which, before you knew Burning, were perfectly fine?
No, I was sour on said RPGs before I found Burning Wheel. I had stopped playing RPGs because of it, full stop. I had some vague idea what my objections were and even some of the goals, mostly defined in terms of symptoms. Certainly not specifics of potential solutions [besides just not playing RPGs]. Though now I can better name and describe them, objections and solutions, in part because of Burning Wheel. Also in part because of other RPG games I've played.

I will now play other RPGs for short periods. It looks like I'm going to give Aces & Eights a go sometime this fall. So I'd say that BW has in part lead me in the opposite direction, that I'm now be more likely to play other RPGs, of course coming from a full stop. I've ended up with a better understanding of what the games expect from me, and what not to expect from them. For example....

Thing is, now, I look at my other RPGs, and I don't know what I ought to do with them. The ones without super-clear premises or social conflict systems are just sort of alien to me now.
I find this most an issue with games that claim to have some sort of social conflict system but have a really screwed up one or effectively nonexistant one.

I'm looking at you WHFRP 3.

With the others I expect my interest level to drop off fairly quickly but at least they are being up front about that and I can set my expectations accordingly.

[foxworthy]

Yes.

It also soured me on the group I use to play with as well. You see six years ago when I posted a thread on RPG.net looking for a new game system for my group I had some basic benchmarks. A really simple fantasy game was it. The games I was thinking about buying at the time, and that I mentioned in the thread were BWR, WHFRPG and Starship Troopers [In the end I did eventually get all those games.]

Out of all the suggestions that popped up the one I just the most info on was BWR. I ironically got a lot of info from a BWR fan who posted after Luke posted in the thread. Luke's post was giving me links to Shadow of Yesteryear and Sorcerer and then Burning Wheel [in that order]. I eventually realized that Luke was the guy who created BWR and I thought it was cool that he gave me links to games he thought were more fitting for my group than the one he wrote himself. So I downloaded all the free stuff in the thread and then bought BWR.

It turned out that the only game in the list the group would try was Starship Troopers, and they did that three years later.

But BWR made me realize what I wanted out of a game, and what I wanted out of a group. I ended up dropping in and out of my old group for months at a time trying to get the flame back for playing RPGs. I even ended up going to my FLGS and playing 4e LFR there trying to get my RPG fix. Which, as an aside, is one of the worst places to try and find people to play non-D&D games. I eventually found a couple people willing to give BW a try along with a couple people from my old group who got a bit jaded as well and since then I've been running a monthly BWR [now Gold] game and haven't looked back.

I pretty much only want to play BW games right now as I can't find any other game system/genre I really want to game. Except for Pendragon, that's will always be my first love of RPGs. Of course I only get to play LFR and Savage Worlds because I'm the only one willing to run BW or Pendragon games. Now I just need to get my BWG players to learn the rules...

[Odie]

Yeah, completely so, I'm afraid. Burning Wheel does so much right that it's hard to go back to any game that gets it only mostly right. My group is dying to make a triumphant comeback to White Wolf's Hunter: the Reckoning, but jeez, I'm not sure I can manage it without Circles and Resources. Or a halfways-decent social conflict resolution system. I bought Nobilis 3rd Ed, and that's pretty good, but it's just a totally different beast than the Wheel, I'm not sure it can scratch the same itch. I have and love Monsters & Other Childish Things and The Dreadful Secrets of Candlewick Vale, but every time I start playing them, I miss all the BWisms.

I'm kind of like Apreche. I can pull out classic Deadlands, but I have to mentally prep myself going in, knowing that it's not going to be a roleplaying experience like BW brings. I could play D&D, but it'd be playing up the combat dungeon-crawl game aspects. I dunno what else I even have on my shelf I'd be interested in these days.

Thanks a friggin' lot, you bastards. ;)

-B

[StanTheMan]

Yeah, completely so, I'm afraid. Burning Wheel does so much right that it's hard to go back to any game that gets it only mostly right. My group is dying to make a triumphant comeback to White Wolf's Hunter: the Reckoning, but jeez, I'm not sure I can manage it without Circles and Resources. Or a halfways-decent social conflict resolution system. I bought Nobilis 3rd Ed, and that's pretty good, but it's just a totally different beast than the Wheel, I'm not sure it can scratch the same itch. I have and love Monsters & Other Childish Things and The Dreadful Secrets of Candlewick Vale, but every time I start playing them, I miss all the BWisms.

I'm kind of like Apreche. I can pull out classic Deadlands, but I have to mentally prep myself going in, knowing that it's not going to be a roleplaying experience like BW brings. I could play D&D, but it'd be playing up the combat dungeon-crawl game aspects. I dunno what else I even have on my shelf I'd be interested in these days.

Thanks a friggin' lot, you bastards. ;)

-B

I think this is where I am, as I said in the OP. As Fox and Dwight said, there was a vague uneasiness with my gaming. I switched games often (like, I'd run two sessions of whatever, switch systems but keep the setting, and then drop the game entirely for something else). In the beginning of my noticing that I was unhappy, years ago, I chalked it up to something I was doing. Later, I blamed players. Fact is, it was the system (and of course, the emergent behaviors that people display playing those games). Not to mention the way I'd been a certain sort of GM for so long with those games.

Then I met BW. I argued against it often, here on these very boards and on others. I thrashed and howled. I tried it on two groups as a GM, and in one as a player in BE, and all imploded after a few games (and the BE one imploded MID-GAME!). And yet...there was something about it. I even sold my BW books (and now I'm REALLY sad about that), as I mentioned, and starting reading message boards to get a taste of what it was that I was missing, because I finally figured out it WAS the system (and my needs) that were driving my gaming dissatisfaction.

And that led me to BE. And from there MG. And I had asked a game store I usually visited in Vienna on my business trips to hold BWR for me, when I heard the announcement of BWG. And then I was finally able to get that in my hands last Thursday.

As I said, two months ago I did the first pre-session of BE. Two weeks ago I ran the first real session of BE. Everything worked. It was gorgeous. And now I know that it's the intensity, the integration of mechanics, and more importantly, the mechanics that just make it fun for me were all there (seriously, robust social conflict systems rock; as I said, it's hard for me to take a game without them seriously now).

Of course, some games will try. I've heard GURPS is putting out exactly such a book. If they do...well, it'll finally let me do my X-Men game where talking matters as much as super-powers. Finally. But until then, I've got BE, MG, and now BWG. And that's all just fine.

[StanTheMan]

I will now play other RPGs for short periods. It looks like I'm going to give Aces & Eights a go sometime this fall. So I'd say that BW has in part lead me in the opposite direction, that I'm now be more likely to play other RPGs, of course coming from a full stop. I've ended up with a better understanding of what the games expect from me, and what not to expect from them. For example....

[...]

With the others I expect my interest level to drop off fairly quickly but at least they are being up front about that and I can set my expectations accordingly.

Probably where I'll end up, since I'm sure someone will want to play something else. I've already resigned myself to run Nobilis 2nd after the BE campaign (I like Nobilis, so, it isn't too much of a sacrifice). Still, no dice! And I like manipulating the dice in Burning Games! It's fun in and of itself in it's way.

[Totally Guy]

There are games that I've only discovered by looking at things that I like about BW.

I'd really like to try In A Wicked Age as it looks like it does a small "fight for what you believe" session and builds a mythology around them. My friend is really into Apocalypse World too which I'm really pleased about but he plays it with another group (He tells me he doesn't always obey the MC move rules. So I think he'd be worried if I was playing it because I'd actually notice it because I care about that kind of thing).

Then there's Lacuna which I bought from the compleat strategist during my visit to NYC for 10-10-10. That's pretty awesome. Inspectres too.

There's a certain thing that these games do that I really like but have difficulty putting into words. I guess these games all kind of play themselves. The act of playing them creates more content.

I'm thankful for Mouse Guard's success as otherwise I'd have probably missed this kind of game for many years.

[TiresiasBC]

I've only GMed a couple one-offs, so I haven't seen the Burning systems at work much, but I was "pre-spoiled" by the success of one of my campaigns in another RPG. I was trying for an epic feel, one of those "resealing rifts in reality lest reality dissolve" things, plus a Big Bad who had his own reasons for wanting that to happen. Anyway. The point is that once things got epic enough, much of what was going to happen was preordained: the players were going to seal rifts! It was just a matter of how (usually combat with a bit of roleplaying). Once I saw the story arc as fairly inevitable, my interest waned. It was more fun when even I didn't know what was going to happen, and they did do enough crazy stuff that I had to ad lib a lot, which was great - but it was just me, unsupported by the system. My players loved it, and were disappointed when I suspended the campaign. I had every intention of returning to it, but now I don't know if I could.

Just from reading the Burning Wheel rules a few times through, I get that tingly feeling that so much more is possible. I've already lost one player (amicably, at least) to the system change, and I have a feeling I may lose another, but I believe once we really learn the system it'll be worth it in terms of narrative payload. Let It Ride and the Circles mechanic alone are revolutionary to my group, let alone the whole system together.

My thought has been that Burning Wheel is a game for GMs to play together. The two players I have who seem most into it? They're both currently running games.

The player I've lost and the player I think I might lose? They're much more into "winning" the game. I think Burning Wheel is a rough transition for those sorts of players.

I think Burning Wheel is spoiling me.

[DavetheLost]

The only Burning Game I have experience with is Mouse Guard. It hasn't soured me on other games. Other gamers did that.

Mouse Guard runs the way I like to rugames. A very strong storyline, a theme, plot, character, all the stuff that makes for good fiction. All the stuff that seems to be missing from so many games. I still love King Arthur Pendragon, another game where the mechanics and the themes and "feel" of the game mess inextricably.

I also write and play Tunnels&Trolls solo adventures. The ones I like best have strong story lines to the adventure.

A lot of games and gamers just seem to be a collection assorted mechanics, sometimes with k3wl gimmick, loosely bolted on to a cliched setting. And then the adventures feel anything but adventurous. Characters are cardboard cutouts with no real motivations and no meaningful connections to the game world.

In both MG and KAP characters personalities, beliefs, and social connections form an integral part of the game.

[DarthMidget]

I wouldn't say it has soured me, but it definitely has given me a lot of insight as to why I really like some types of games and not others. It's definitely made me a much better GM.

[Deliverator]

There are lots of other great indie games that I love, but BW and its cousins are the only ones really suited to the kind of campaign play I crave. (Except for Riddle of Steel, which exhibits sort of an interesting parallel development with BW, but is unfortunately somewhat incomplete and in need of a second edition, which can't happen because of copyright BS.)

Some of my other favorites are: Polaris, Dogs in the Vineyard, Steal Away Jordan, 1,001 Nights, Apocalypse World, Dungeon World, 3:16, and Lady Blackbird.

Oh and let's not forget Freemarket—I'd love to play a campaign of that sometime.

Matt

[noclue]

There are lots of other great indie games that I love, but BW and its cousins are the only ones really suited to the kind of campaign play I crave. (Except for Riddle of Steel, which exhibits sort of an interesting parallel development with BW, but is unfortunately somewhat incomplete and in need of a second edition, which can't happen because of copyright BS.)

Some of my other favorites are: Polaris, Dogs in the Vineyard, Steal Away Jordan, 1,001 Nights, Apocalypse World, Dungeon World, 3:16, and Lady Blackbird.

Oh and let's not forget Freemarket—I'd love to play a campaign of that sometime.

Matt

This is basically where I'm at as well.

[StanTheMan]

There are lots of other great indie games that I love, but BW and its cousins are the only ones really suited to the kind of campaign play I crave. (Except for Riddle of Steel, which exhibits sort of an interesting parallel development with BW, but is unfortunately somewhat incomplete and in need of a second edition, which can't happen because of copyright BS.)

Some of my other favorites are: Polaris, Dogs in the Vineyard, Steal Away Jordan, 1,001 Nights, Apocalypse World, Dungeon World, 3:16, and Lady Blackbird.

Oh and let's not forget Freemarket—I'd love to play a campaign of that sometime.

Matt

It's interesting. I've only played and run Dogs in the Vineyard, which I loved, and then stupidly sold when my old group just didn't get it (that's the first group BW finally destroyed some years ago). I've been kicking myself ever since. Haven't really looked at the other ones though, and I ought to, maybe.

[StanTheMan]

For me, those other games you are talking about are still playable, but not as role playing games. I can totally still play D&D, but if its presented as a role playing game, it won't work for me. Instead, I have to play it as it was originally intended, as a dungeoneering and combat game. If I'm going to crawl a dungeon I would much rather use an open ended pen+paper "RPG" system than play a game like Descent or Hero Quest.

If I want a story, I need a story game. That doesn't mean non-story games are unplayable. I just can't abide someone trying to tack on a story to them.

Meant to comment on this earlier.

It's an intersting way to look at it. If I understand you, playing BW has led you to conclude that certain games, in yopur mind, aren't the same sorts of games you'd give "roleplaying" effort to, yeah? I'll have a think on this - it's a neat idea, for sure.

[LincolnSmash]

I don't know that it's soured me, but games like BW and other indie titles have really shown me how to really dive into play and make it work. We were largely isolated from "the hobby" back in high-school and early college, and I remember failed campaign after failed campaign, never quite sure why things always seemed to fizzle, or why getting satisfying play was so hard. During my first foray into GMing, I used to let my players tell me what sort of conflicts they'd want to see happen, or where they'd like to see the story go, and that helped our Exalted game last longer than any others, but back then I wasn't posting online and I thought we were "weird" for defying the traditional GM/player relationship or explicitly acknowledging player goals and priorities rather than doing the usual "craft an adventure and hope the players like it" method of GMing that was all too common.

When I finally stumbled upon BW and other games that actually tell you what play is about, and how to make it all work rather than throwing a task resolution system at you and saying "go tell a story or something", it was a godsend. Not to mention that Tolkien was one of the first fantasy authors I began reading as a kid, and so D&D and other sword & sorcery type games never really did it for me -- I wanted a game that did Tolkien well, and I never found it until I found BW. I had also sworn off crunchy systems, until I realized my frustration wasn't with crunch, but with crunch that didn't actually have a meaningful effect on play.

In a way, Burning Wheel was what I was always looking for in a fantasy game, I just didn't know it existed until a few years ago.

[Udo Femi]

BW has changed my gaming habits.
Now I just can't play (or GM) a game where there is nothing personal written on the PC sheet. Call it Belief, Motivation, Drive, Aspect, whatever fits. But something that describes and fuels the character behaviour, more than stats, skill ratings or any numerical value. An interface between the GM, the world and the player. Something that says: "hey, mates ! this is what I'm interested in for this game ! I want to be challenged on that, I want to explore this path, I want to have decisions around that particular point..." A call not only to the GM but also to my fellow players.

Since I read BW and started playing it, I haven't played other RPG that don't fall into this category for more than 1 or 2 sessions, for one-shot games. However I've brought to the table and spread around the love of games like DitV, Spirit of the Century, Mouse Guard, Burning Empires (we had a fracking hell of a Battlestar Galactica campaign using BE rules !), Trail of Cthuluhu (I'm currently GMing the Old One fungi of Yuggoth, Gumshoe-style), Lady Blackbird, and other Indy stuff.

Now we're playing Remember Tomorrow and planning a Gotham campaign using Smallville RPG rules. no turning back !

[Dwight]

It's interesting. I've only played and run Dogs in the Vineyard, which I loved, and then stupidly sold when my old group just didn't get it (that's the first group BW finally destroyed some years ago). I've been kicking myself ever since. Haven't really looked at the other ones though, and I ought to, maybe.

Dogs In The Vineyard isn't the anti-BW but it is a close approximation in some aspects. It lacks mechanical resistance to the players, the players are expected to rely heavily on themselves to regulate and limit their own character's powers. It is an adhoc over-the-top superpowers game in Westernish drag.

[Fuseboy]

I would say yes, definitely. A friend of mine was recently talking up some sort of task resolution mechanic, and I realized I couldn't care less. I'm used to BW's dice pools just by long exposure, but it strikes me you could replace them with some other system (d20 + modifiers) and the game would still have its heart intact. But take away beliefs and the related artha awards, and the dynamic at the table is completely different.


My thought has been that Burning Wheel is a game for GMs to play together.

I have definitely noticed this too. I think it helps to be interested in what BW is actually about - some people aren't that interested in character development that occurs during the adventure - redemption, bitter loss, triumph, etc. - they're looking for a pleasant tactical challenge, maybe some yuks.


I thought we were "weird" for defying the traditional GM/player relationship or explicitly acknowledging player goals and priorities rather than doing the usual "craft an adventure and hope the players like it" method of GMing

Someone else on the forums mentioned this, and it stuck out to me. This happens in romantic relationships, too - people don't ask for what they want, they wait for their idealized partner to meet their needs. Somehow it's 'unromantic' to spell it all out. (Where does this come from? Is it an echo of childhood, when parents see through us and anticipate our needs? Where you can be throwing a tantrum about a toy, but the parent has the wisdom to realize that you're hungry and tired, and solves the problem without you needing to figure out your own needs?)

[Dwight]

My thought has been that Burning Wheel is a game for GMs to play together. The two players I have who seem most into it? They're both currently running games.
I've found the correlation only lose. The first player I had that really dug in and picked up on the game had only tried GMing once and positively loathed the role of GM, this compared to the players that took a lot more to come around to BW (or never did). Myself, I'm much rather not be the GM in a game.

I suspect the misconception stems from things that BW expects from the players such as rules mastery and participating actively in driving the direction of the action are effectively forbidden in many RPGs.

P.S. I also play to "win", but what I don't do is avoid risk (or avoid engaging game mechanics in word and spirit) to accomplish that.

[krinnen]

Definitely. It has destroyed my gaming life. It has made me unable to enjoy other, more mainstream stuff. And what's even weirder, I can't seem to enjoy other, more stroy-gamey types of games. It's like BW contains the right amount of character driven story, GM antagonism, crunch and flavor to make it perfect. I can't function without Let it Ride; I refuse to play without social conflict resolution mechanics; I can't play without beliefs, or some other kind of formalised player input for the GM to work with. Oh, and Artha (or fate, destiny, karma, etc, etc).

There's an exception, though: I still enjoy killing monsters and taking their loot in D&D 4e... but don't come to me with the latest version of your regular-vanilla-boring-mechanics-task-resolution-GM-driven-rpg, because my stomach just can't take it anymore.

[smeelbo]

On the contrary, Burning Wheel has revitalized my other RPG's, both as a player and as a GM. It showed me that D&D characters are not in fact characters, but meat puppets that act as the player commands, regardless of whether their behavior makes any sense or not. I've taken what I've learned to all my other games. I do a lot with various FATE games lately (I was in 4 different FATE RPGs last weekend at CelestiCon), and I take what I've learned there to other games as well.


That which does not kill you....hurts a lot!"
Smeelbo

[Bobo]

BW has certainly changed the way I think about playing RPGs. It taught me to embrace conflict and complications. This has lessened my enjoyment of games that do not challenge the characters and rely on problem solving instead.

On the other hand, it has fanned my love for Pendragon. The passions and traits system, coupled with the strong literary model the game is based on, is glorious. I have also learned to enjoy the pain when the uncaring old-school system kicks you in the nuts. There’s an emoticon for that, I think. It looks something like this:
http://i.somethingawful.com/forumsystem/emoticons/emot-black101.gif

[secular glitch]

D&D 4E damn near killed RPGs for me. BW brought them back. Although I have limited experience actually playing the game, just the ideas and possibilities that the game provides is enough to get me excited. I don't see myself ever going to back to traditional style games.

[Wayfarer]

BW made me aware of what I like and don't like in other games. Stories that are driven by characters, that react to what players are interested in via their characters? Good things! Plots on rails? Boring! What most games lack is a way to get the game re-centered on what players find interesting the way BW builds in with instincts and beliefs. If you're lucky and interests align with plot, everything runs smoothly. You have to be lucky or you have to have a GM who puts in the work and basically makes the game work.

In fact, that's what Luke did: GM-proof the game substantially. Or, put another way, he made a game that GMs whose style I don't like can't really run the game without changing their style. It puts the game type I like front and center, rather than in the background.

That said, with good GMs I actually like other games a lot. BW has robust meta-mechanics and resolution systems, but it's a generalist system. The specificity, detail, and interrelation of all the very setting-linked supernatural mechanics in a World of Darkness game can do things BW can't. It's just best if that WoD game is still run with a BW mentality. (Actually, most of the complaints about Promethean could probably be resolved by making it a BW game. Unfortunately, porting all those integral mechanics would be nightmarish because BW doesn't really play well with very different stats and systems.

Oddly, while I like BW's advancement by doing tough things mechanics, I don't find it necessary. I think I prefer standard experience systems on the whole; less bookkeeping and more flexibility, realism be damned. But what I have learned from it, and from Luke in person, is that the game is much better when you hurl your character heedlessly into danger. And that's often a test of the GM's mettle: if leaping off cliffs, charging armies alone, and spitting in the king's face in court don't bring down pain, there's no real threat and the campaign lacks teeth. When your character has been maimed, imprisoned, rescued, and branded a notorious renegade, you know you've got an exciting game that'll work with the characters' needs no matter what the system is.

[Durand Durand]

This assorted chatter makes me think of one aspect I really like about BW; character backstory. I love the way games like BW [& Sotc, &c] encourage the creation of backstory on the fly with Circles and Wises. I cast my mind back to a long past Sci-Fi campaign where a GM had asked for a detailed history for each PC. 2000 words later I had a detailed account of my PC's immediate family, nephews, nieces, cousins, former loves & confidantes, professional and academic contacts, and attitudes to her superiors, her political leanings within her socialist state and much more. The GM then proceeded to blow up my home world because he found it a bit daunting to process all the detail at the onset of the campaign. With BW Circles mechanics you are encouraged to build up past connections and relationships in play, better still, sometimes you don't get what you are after. Try to Circle up your brother the Scribe when you need him, and fail, suddenly you find out he died a couple months ago, leaving a widow and two kids on skid row and you need to help them out. Great twists and turns at every point, kind of like life, you don't always get what you want.

This is what I want out of a game, complicated lives. A good GM and player group can produce these outcomes with any game, but BW is different to you Run-of-the-Mill RPG in that mechanics actively work towards producing this great work of fiction.

[Dwight]

Oddly, while I like BW's advancement by doing tough things mechanics, I don't find it necessary. I think I prefer standard experience systems on the whole; less bookkeeping and more flexibility, realism be damned.

The dreaded 'R' word! My impression is that verisimilitude is at most 3rd down on the list of reasons for BW advancement as it is. Maybe some sense of "realism" was a big motivation initially, Luke & company would need to chime in on that, but it isn't even close to the biggest benefit IMO. The top two being rewarding risk and encouraging variety in actions (skill use). This comes from having exported Circles and Resources to other systems without the advancement through use mechanic.

[Irminsul]

Oddly, while I like BW's advancement by doing tough things mechanics, I don't find it necessary. I think I prefer standard experience systems on the whole; less bookkeeping and more flexibility

Actually there is a lot more going on there than first appears (and you're new I'll try and go easy on you this time :) )

Why do characters do these crazy dangerous things? Because they will be rewarded for it. And the advancement system is tied up in the reward system: through getting their skills up by using them, by being forced to use Fate and Persona (and Deeds) points to get the skills up. And how do they earn those Fate and Persona points? By playing their character and following their Beliefs.

You see it is all tied together in BW. It all works together like a finely tuned machine. Not like other systems that hand out XP based on... what? "Following a story", GM whimsy, gold pieces, etc. Blech.

[Gentleman Tiger]

It catalized how I felt about games, certainly. When I read it, it made me finally understand what I hadn't been able to understand about games, even ones that worked pretty well. I tried to run Pathfinder over the summer, and while it was the most fun I'd ever had running 3.x D&D, every time I looked at one of those damn books for anything other than new options it felt like someone was plunging a dagger into my head, like it was offended you'd even look to the game for guidance and rules.

Of course, I'm totally addicted to Indie games now, and next to BW, Apocalypse World is my favorite RPG for instance. Burning Wheel isn't my only game, but it's the closest thing as a perfect game for me I've ever found.

[noclue]

The dreaded 'R' word! My impression is that verisimilitude is at most 3rd down on the list of reasons for BW advancement as it is. Maybe some sense of "realism" was a big motivation initially, Luke & company would need to chime in on that, but it isn't even close to the biggest benefit IMO. The top two being rewarding risk and encouraging variety in actions (skill use). This comes from having exported Circles and Resources to other systems without the advancement through use mechanic.
Luke, on Realism:

And I swear, I never mentioned realism. I am absolutely not bent on such a concept. In fact, I have an entire clan of armored orcs here who are rather insulted by such comments. Be glad there's an ocean between us! ;)

I am really bent on consistency, accurate representation, the right "feel" and playability.
From here (http://indie-rpgs.com/archive/index.php?topic=9384.15)

[Wayfarer]

That "realism" was tongue in cheek!

I know why the advancement works like it does, and it accomplishes several things. One, it keeps characters advancing in what they use, which actually means skills that advance are necessarily the useful ones—no chance to to buy up skills that the GM never calls for. Two, the advancement curve keeps power relatively in check. Three, advancement for doing awesome things provokes awesome things. And that last one is huge, because it drives games to be awesome.

The downsides: I find the bookkeeping intrusive. It's not a game-breaker, obviously, but I don't love it. It lets proactive players advance much faster than the wallflowers, and while in theory this can kick wallflowers into being more active, in practice I've found it can just lead to shy players falling behind in skills they used to be best at. And I've found that conservative players sometimes turtle in BW as well, which means characters don't charge into danger and don't advance, which really loses player attention fast. The biggest problem, though, is the inattentive or inaccurate players. Having someone who forgets to mark and never advances next to someone who miscalculates difficulties and logs those difficult and challenging tests too often can be tough on player harmony.

The big thing I want to keep is characters that, to borrow an example from Luke, jump screaming from balconies with knives. The doing heroic, impossible things is great, and risk keeps the engagement and adrenaline flowing! There are other rewards in the toolkit to make that happen, though. Artha and equivalents work well. Making the story run on awesome things helps too! And as a player who likes the fun of making character build decisions, and who plays with others who do, I see value in having that chance to see your X experience points and deciding what level to take, or what skill to buy, or whether to save up for that even more impressive thing later.

I've seen distaste for games that run on experience handouts, and they can certainly be done wrong, but they also have advantages. Advancement should be level. Players who like tinkering can tinker their characters. You get permanent rewards for accomplishments, not just actions—BW lets you log tests for using Persuasion and Falsehood and gives artha for pulling off goals with it, but other games will give you the permanent, advancement reward for the character accomplishment.

Again, I'd say that BW's system is the best that I've seen in writing, but it's not the best I've seen used. And I'm not convinced that those other systems I like more (as a matter of taste, let me emphasize!) couldn't be codified as well. They wouldn't work in BW, because all the spokes fall off without the hub, but I like 'em.

[Deliverator]

How many people do you have in your group, wayfarer? Sounds like too many.

Anyway, just want to chime in to say that, from my perspective as a teacher, the advancement system actually seems pretty realistic and accords well with modern ed theory. Whether Luke means it to or not.

Matt

[Dwight]

Luke, on Realism:

I was talking about originally, BW started out as a Shadowrun hack after all. A sense of verisimilitude is as good a motivation as any for something to be initially considered. Verisimilitude is something entirely different than realism, verisimilitude is concern with the right "feel", the facade of a natural feel stemming from emotions.

Realism is concerns itself with the objective facts behind the emotional facade. (EDIT: Which is why the word is so often misused with RPGs, because the speaker's grasp on the objective facts and also what they really desire is quite tenuous. )

[Dwight]

@Wayfarer

Have you tried group reviewing the test loggings at the end of the session? I found that helps immensely.

[Wayfarer]

If I remind everyone to log tests and try to keep notes myself, the tests work. Just not ideally. I've done it with groups of three to five; three was fine, but four started to have character growth problems.

I'm not saying I think the system is bad by any means. It isn't, it's great! It's just that in theory I thought it would be a perfect system, but in practice it has its warts. Maybe something like the opposite of the standard BW saw of "you won't understand why it's this way until you try it and see how great it is." It's great, but it's not quite as perfect as I hoped just from reading.

[Dwight]

Fivish players in the low proficiency range does make it hard, agreed. The system relies on the load to be spread around the table and when a significant portion of the load falls to one person at the table it is naturally going to become onerous.

Incidentally I remember rolls without writing them down. I think that is a product of:
1) I normally keep sessions to 2.5 hours or less, 3 hours is an extra-ordinarily long session.
2) I am extremely diligent of making big things turn on every roll. High suspense makes it memorable, so remembering the plot turns (the story of what happened in fiction) heavily aids in memory of the die rolls.
3) At the end of an DOW, R&C, or Fight! I do an mini roll-up of skills used and test logging for that conflict. That is the one place I don't remember so well, because baked into their design are some vestigial "low importance" rolls that are outside my purview as a GM to eliminate that can occasionally be the highest category test for a skill.

P.S. I personally was quite concerned about the bookkeeping during initial reading of the rules, play convinced me otherwise. But then I have a huge aversion to bookkeeping [in life in general].

[Evil Peter]

I'd begin with making sure that everyone gets the development curve for Difficult tests so everyone can mark their tests easily by heart.

For dice pools of 1-3 the Ob's that are Difficult are those equal to the number of dice rolled. For dice pools of 4-6 the Difficult Ob's also include the Ob one point lower than the number of dice and for pools of 7+ it goes down to two points lower than the number of dice.

Everything under that is of course Routine and everything above is Challenging. It's a fairly simple logical development that everyone should be able to learn if they aren't unwilling.

[Etsu Riot]

In some way, yes. The Burning Wheel and Mouse Guard improved the way I see and play role-playing games, and I hope Burning Empires will do the same eventually. But I never thought traditional games (http://socratesrpg.blogspot.com/2006/02/what-is-traditional-game.html) were so great, really. Now I only play story-games and I hope to play Gumshoe again in the future. (It has been over a year since the last time.)


One, it keeps characters advancing in what they use, which actually means skills that advance are necessarily the useful ones—no chance to to buy up skills that the GM never calls for.
I think there is not such thing as "useless" Skills. You can use whatever Skill you like, always. It depends on the player to decide what to do to get his Intent done (the player/character Intent), not the GM, and the direction the player wants the story goes. No Skills are better than others.


The downsides: I find the bookkeeping intrusive.
What bookkeeping? It's all in the back of the Official Long-Term Game Character Sheet (http://www.burningwheel.org/wiki/index.php?title=Downloads#BWHQ_Official_Long-Term_Game_Character_Sheet_Booklet).


Advancement should be level.
In The Burning Wheel at least, Advancement System it's not the same that Reward System (http://socratesrpg.blogspot.com/2006/01/is-play-its-own-reward.html), IMO.

In Gumshoe System for example (in a Trail of Cthulhu purist game specially) advancement means the fall of the character. Advancement (http://socratesrpg.blogspot.com/2008/03/is-character-advancement-necessary.html) means change, not improvement necessarily.

Perhaps I misunderstood what you meant.


Again, I'd say that BW's system is the best that I've seen in writing, but it's not the best I've seen used.
But, do you play as it's writen? Don't get me wrong. Maybe you did, but you did not like it. That's Ok. But some of your fellow players do not seem to be very proactive.

[Z-Dog]

BW hasn't soured me, it's made me realize what I was doing wrong:

I was trying to have one kind of fun, everyone else was having their kind of fun.

Played a few games of MG with people who were sold/really wanted to do MG and it was amazing. You could see people stretching, trying out new stuff.

[Wayfarer]

To clarify: I had a group that just could never be bothered to pay attention to the fact that they had to record tests. They couldn't remember the difficulty even though it was on the character sheets. This did not improve over months of play. Sometimes I'm sure it's not a problem, but for me the adventure hit a hiccup after every roll: "Did you mark that? Log the test. Yes, Roden-wise. You know how many dice you rolled, look it up on your chart!"

1. BW does not have useless skills. Or, in an inversion, it makes no attempt to balance skills at all. They also build organically and can level out on their own at best. And if you want to use it, you come up with the pretext. That's great! But compare something like D&D, where you can pour your character advancement into a skill that is not rolled a single time in play. That's a waste, and that's a big advantage of BW.

2. The bookkeeping is those constant reminders. My players grumbled when they realized they weren't advancing because they forgot, but they also just never remembered in the moment to record.

3. When I said "advancement should be level" I was referring to games like D&D, World of Darkness, and other more traditional RPGs. They often fall apart spectacularly if character advancement isn't equal between players. And yes, in BW character advancement is still part of the player reward system. It isn't the only one, but there's that visceral glow of happiness when your character gets better at something that's hard to replace.

4. Yes, I play BW as written. I don't think I could mod it much without wrecking it. And I do like it! In particular, I think even BW run by a fairly poor GM, run by the rules, can provide emergent awesome. Most other games have a strict garbage in, garbage out relationship to GMs. And when run well, BW can be a fantastic game. The advancement system just has its flaws, like every system. It works, and it does some things very well, but it also does some things not so very well. And that's more or less what every game is, isn't it? We play the ones that do the things we love best.

[Zelbinian]

This thread has become derailed a bit with the advancement thing, but... fuck it, I'm gonna keep it on the side track.

Wayfarer: I often had the same feelings as you regarding bookkeeping. But I've engineered some processes that work through trial and error.

1. I have a player not in the spotlight mark down the tests people are doing.
2. At the end of each scene, the tests are noted by all the players. This is quick, because it's usually just a handful of rolls, and it's often so they quickly learn the advancement system and don't need as much hand-holding. Also, they want to get back to playing, so they finish it quickly.
3. If you're playing online, I highly *highly* recommend you hop on IRC with us and use BurningBot in a private chat. The chat log is the history of all the rolls, which serves as an advancement reminder system and notes for the AP.

Hope that helps.

[Aramis]

BE absolutely ruined my taste for traditional crunchy rules.

I can handle stuff like Buffy... (Unisystem lite)... but anything less story-focused is just a no-go.

It's opened me up to FATE and Blood & Honor (John Wick), as well... and a very different approach to gaming.

So not "to all other games" but definitely it has ruined my love of MegaTraveller, Cyclopedia D&D, and Rolemaster.

[StanTheMan]

BE absolutely ruined my taste for traditional crunchy rules.

I can handle stuff like Buffy... (Unisystem lite)... but anything less story-focused is just a no-go.

It's opened me up to FATE and Blood & Honor (John Wick), as well... and a very different approach to gaming.

So not "to all other games" but definitely it has ruined my love of MegaTraveller, Cyclopedia D&D, and Rolemaster.

Sorry, just to see if I get you, you mean, if it's crunchy, but there's not "story elements" as Burning Games have (like Beliefs and Instincts), then the system is a no-go for you? If so, that's something I totally get. Or to put another way - in my thinking, why bother with all those difficult mechanics if there's no "payoff" story-wise at the end? Especially for when the rules are crunchy as hell but STILL don't have a decent social conflict system. I'm done with "pure" combat simulations, thank you.

[Cavallo]

I can't play any other game. Seriously. I can't get excited. I might do ok with more story focused games (PTA, Dresden, Technoir, The One Ring) but it's hard to get engaged by system. And I can't even bear those boooooooring games I used to play. Yes, BRP, I'm pointing at you. You are BW antythesis! Probably worst mainstream and still widely used rules system created ever.

[Aramis]

Sorry, just to see if I get you, you mean, if it's crunchy, but there's not "story elements" as Burning Games have (like Beliefs and Instincts), then the system is a no-go for you? If so, that's something I totally get. Or to put another way - in my thinking, why bother with all those difficult mechanics if there's no "payoff" story-wise at the end? Especially for when the rules are crunchy as hell but STILL don't have a decent social conflict system. I'm done with "pure" combat simulations, thank you.

Yep.

I don't mind pure combat simulation, really, but I want/need more story enforcement than physics enforcement.

I may run MT or MGT again... but I'm no longer enthusiastic about it, and even Cyclopedia D&D no longer appeals.

I do keep T&T and TFT handy for solos.

Really, tho', it's a process of dissatisfaction that started long before I ever heard of BW/BE or "Storygames"... It started back in about 1992, when I realized GURPS was just too much work, but Hero wasn't. The difference? Hero System was much looser a set of mechanics, and so was much easier to fit to different settings. Then, the next major jump was in about 1996, when I got into Pendragon, with it's instant "rewards" for (mis)behaviors.

Then, in about 2002, I read my first real Story-game system... Hero Wars...
I really didn't grok it.
And Sorcerer. I didn't grok it, either, at the time.

There are several games of that era (1995-2003) that so desperately want to be storygames, and are much more enjoyably run as storygames with the BW "Failure isn't always a failure" model. Castle Falkenstein, Dragonlance 5th Age, and BTVS come to mind. Games that can be run Traditional-style "Failed Roll means falied action"...

And then I downloaded BE. Really, it was a wakeup call. And BE lead me to BWR. And BWR to MG. But from BWR, I also started looking at other, narrative-emphasis games. I really love John Wick's Blood and Honor; it's awesome in very different ways from BW/BE/MG, but is equally as story-focused. And with very little crunch.

What I've come to realize is the big lesson of BW: Know your reward cycles, and work them mercilessly to get PC's involved.

[Etsu Riot]

In the other hand, BW has also made me appreciate much more other game mechanics. For example, lately I'm very attracted to the concept of hybrid RPGs and board games like D&D 4e (I say this not to the detriment of the game, quite the opposite), because it allows me to focus on the experience from another angle, perhaps closer to those videogames that I love: Dragon Age, Neverwinter Nights, Knights of the Old Republic, and using my Burning Wheel-wise to give the narration more vivid Color and mood. So, recently at least, BW and other story games made ​​me learn to better enjoy other styles of play, because I like board games too.

I think we have story games, miniature games and investigative games, all are diferent beasts, but every style can be fun as well. And all are role-playing games after all. So why not?

Keep burning and keep playing. ;D

[StanTheMan]

snip snip snip

I got you. Hmm, it's interesting. Despite the man's ego I've got and love reading Wick's Houses of the Blooded. And I'm interested in Blood and Honor (that's the samurai Japan game, no?).

Basically, it comes down to there being some sort of reward cycle OTHER THAN mere experience or patting on the head. BW does it grandly. It also fixes a lot of things that I think are bad in most of our other games.

For example, still reading Traveller and such not. Enjoy it okay, but I realize that it's going to be hard for me to run it. Why? No rewards of any sort EXCEPT cash - no moving up, and much more importantly, no change. Characters essentially remain static; there's no "story" stats anywhere at all (save some notion of contacts, allies, rivals and enemies, but then nothing is done with it mechanically interesting). I mean, how does a character change, except by players remembering how this character acts and the like. That's it. Nothing on the sheet - no Beliefs, no Instincts, no Traits, no ticks next to the skills he's using or learning. Nothing. Bland bland bland.

[Aramis]

Stan,

Yes, Blood and Honor is simplified Houses of the Blooded rethemed to samurai.

The Traveller reward cycles:
CT: Cash only
MT: cash and specific skill or stat experience (Stat advancement is only earned by training, not by use)
TNE: Cash, general skill experience and initiative experience
T4: cash and rolls to use on skills used
T20: cash and general XP used to buy character levels
GT: Cash, general experience used to buy skills or attributes
MGT: Cash, specific skill experience
T5: not supposed to discuss yet.

You can, however, easily implement fate and persona in MT or MGT, since both are 2d6 roll high.
Fate: allows rerolling 1d6 (of the two thrown)
Persona: adds +1 skill level
Deeds: doubles skill total.

Or, for that matter, any of them can easily use (att/5)+skill or (Att/4)+skill (round down) as a BW style dice-pool, and then just use fate, persona, and deeds normally as if it were the BW skill level.

[StanTheMan]

Stan,

Yes, Blood and Honor is simplified Houses of the Blooded rethemed to samurai.

The Traveller reward cycles:
CT: Cash only
MT: cash and specific skill or stat experience (Stat advancement is only earned by training, not by use)
TNE: Cash, general skill experience and initiative experience
T4: cash and rolls to use on skills used
T20: cash and general XP used to buy character levels
GT: Cash, general experience used to buy skills or attributes
MGT: Cash, specific skill experience
T5: not supposed to discuss yet.

You can, however, easily implement fate and persona in MT or MGT, since both are 2d6 roll high.
Fate: allows rerolling 1d6 (of the two thrown)
Persona: adds +1 skill level
Deeds: doubles skill total.

Or, for that matter, any of them can easily use (att/5)+skill or (Att/4)+skill (round down) as a BW style dice-pool, and then just use fate, persona, and deeds normally as if it were the BW skill level.

Hmm...you sir, win a gold star! Thanks for that. I'll have a think then. I quite like the "lifepath" stuff in Traveller, and the basic idea, just year, the reward cycle was missing.

[Zelbinian]

From the GMing side of the table, I've found that once you've run a system that has BITs, it's so hard to go back to a system that doesn't.

[Aramis]

From the GMing side of the table, I've found that once you've run a system that has BITs, it's so hard to go back to a system that doesn't.

For me, not so much, so long as it has some open ended element for players to say "Poke Here"... Aspects work.

[Taladel]

From the GMing side of the table, I've found that once you've run a system that has BITs, it's so hard to go back to a system that doesn't.

You can hack it into 4E without too much fuss, actually. It just has to be part of the campaign planning process.

[Elf_NFB]

Not sure where to post this; please move it if there's a more appropriate forum. Thank you.

Now, onto what I want to say.

Basically, has your love of Burning Games (here I mean Burning Wheel, Burning Empires, and Mouse Guard) soured you on other games, which, before you knew Burning, were perfectly fine?

Actually, I think it's made my other games better. I get into character easier. I really don't care if everyone at the table knows my PC is going evil and MAY turn on the party. Burning Wheel has gotten me to give up a lot of those old "must WIN DnD" hang ups I had.

[TiresiasBC]

You can hack it into 4E without too much fuss, actually. It just has to be part of the campaign planning process.

Kind of an aside, but the rules for Force Points and Destiny Points in Star Wars: Saga Edition (basically D&D 3.75) apply almost perfectly for Persona Points and Deeds points: add 1d6 to a roll and auto-crit, respectively. If and when I revisit my old D&D campaign, that's what I'm going to do, and probably have Fate points add something to a roll or, more likely, to damage.

Burning Wheel has spoiled me by giving me what I always wanted, as I mentioned previously. Part of why I got bored with my D&D game was that I'd already used everybody's background hooks. Took a long time, but I did it! And then all that was left was my main plotline, and no one had reasons to deviate. Bringing Beliefs into it should rescue things by providing more hooks. I may disagree a bit with Zelbinian above: I don't think it's harder to run, mechanically speaking, without BITs... it's just harder, as both GM and player, to care!

[StanTheMan]

Bit of an update:

So, group does some playing around, and we end up doing Legends of Anglerre as a one shot. It's well liked and folks are happy. One guy wonders if we can do our BE game in FATE. Sure says I; after all, FATE scratches some of the same itches as Burning games anyway, and its got subsystems for stuff we like. Whee! thinks I.

Well, it's taken me two weeks, but, well, apparently system matters. ;) Whatever I came up with conversion-wise just didn't cut it, and I admitted to my group last night by email that, really, we've got to keep BE in BE if we want to same experience, and I'm not willing to more the game elsewhere.

So...yeah, I'm now REALLY spoiled. I could enjoy another game, but not for something already done in Burning.