Switching Gears: introducing BW to a conventional group

[Dregg]

First I have to say that I was reading through my copy of the revised Burning Wheel, and it is pure brilliance. There is alot more meat and filler in the new books and that is a good thing, as much as I love the older edition of the game I seemed very confused when burning characters.
Anyway Abzu, awesome work!

Now, my gaming group out here on Long Island showed some interest in me running a one shot of BW, thay have always heard of the rules and I believe one of them owns the 1st edition. We as a group have played OGL games, Cyberpunk, Unisystem, and Warhammer but I have never introduced anything abstract before. They are will to learn, but I am more concerned on how to introduce the game to them?
I guess what I am asking is should I go pregen on the characters for the first run, or have them create their own? Any sort of first adventure advice, should I go combat or verbal conflict? What seems to work with the newbies at conventions?

Thanks again

[thrall]

My experience with one-shots in general is that, especially with systems the group isn't familiar with, character generation takes up a lot of time and you have less time to show them how the game works in actual play.

I first played BW at this past Origins using pregen characters (run by abzu), and it was awesome!

So, I don't think pregens harm anything and they give you more time to play the actual game :D

YMMV, of course.

[TimP]

Dregg,

I'd strongly suggest that you provide pre-gens for any Burning Wheel one-shot, as there won't be any time to play if you don't. First time character generation in BW takes a MINIMUM of three hours I've found (unless you have several experienced players to tutor the others).

As far as mechanics, I would suggest stressing melee combat for any first-time exposure to the system. It seems to be what makes or breaks the game for most folks. When I ran a BW one-shot I provided the players with a fairly precise synopsis of the rules/maneuvers and told them 'Just write down what you want your character to do, I'll interpret your actions into the system's terms'. The player's seemed to really dig the free-form approach and got very creative with their combat actions.

The most important things with any pre-gens are cool BITs. Build enough of the right kind of intra-party conflict into them and your demo will literally run itself.

Good luck!


Tim

[Judd]

Dregg,

If you check here for the King in Gray (http://burningwheel.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1476&highlight=), politics in the elven court.

you will see one of the one-shot that I have run and the pre-made PC's I used.

If you need any help, let me know.