Running First Burning Wheel Game

[Count Zero]

So I am getting ready to run my first Burning Wheel game. I am setting it in a semi-historical medieval setting where the Emperor of the Holy Empire lead an army of knights to free the Holy Land from the hands of the unbeliever. The Emperor fell in battle from a peasant archer's arrow. The death of the Emperor caused the Crusaders to rout and the characters are returning to the Holy Empire on the heels of the news of the Emperor's death. The Emperor left no heir so the various parts of the Empire are gearing up for war.

I am obviously basing this off the Christian Crusades against the Muslims. What I need are resources to help make it feel a little more authentic. Does anyone know any good books or web sites (preferred) they could recommend for ideas and imagery?

[Burnt]

I once saw Robin Hood with Kevin Costner.

[ChrisG]

Personally, I think the Lifepaths of Man are all you need to do a very good medieval game, but who are the characters and what are their BITRs? That will help us figure out what kinds of resources are helpful--after all, there's a big difference between a gang of poor knights, struggling to make their way home and a court of scheming nobles, vying for the throne.

[luke]

you might try the bibliography in Burning Wheel. it's got nearly all of the books I'd recommend.

For you, I'd start with Tuchman. The first few chapters of Bible and Sword and the entirety of A Distant Mirror.

-L

[Count Zero]

Personally, I think the Lifepaths of Man are all you need to do a very good medieval game, but who are the characters and what are their BITRs? That will help us figure out what kinds of resources are helpful--after all, there's a big difference between a gang of poor knights, struggling to make their way home and a court of scheming nobles, vying for the throne.

Generally, just culture and heraldry of the time. I recently watched Kingdom of Heaven and basically it was going to be set after events like that on some level.

I was going to start in the "Holy Land" with the characters just trying to get back, then introduce the home culture by their arrivial, and have it lead in to intrigue and establishing a king of the land by the end.

I planned on using flashbacks to the fighting to introduce NPC's they knew from the war and such.

[Count Zero]

you might try the bibliography in Burning Wheel. it's got nearly all of the books I'd recommend.

For you, I'd start with Tuchman. The first few chapters of Bible and Sword and the entirety of A Distant Mirror.

-L

I will take a look at those thanks.

The one thing that would be handy is simple social structure of the knights and such. I have never really be able to find a good discription of the social structure and how titles apply.

[luke]

well, the nobility section in burning wheel actually is a nice clear break down of the hierarchy. Each step owes fealty to the next step up. Each step gets their land and title from the next step up. Until you get to Duke and Prince, they are independent titles -- sovereigns who grant vassalage on their own.

If you have store that sells the Osprey stuff in your hood, you might glance through them. They usually have very clear breakdowns of hierarchy.

-L

[Piers]

For general, accessible history of the Crusades, I'd suggest Stephen Runciman's three volume, History of the Crusades. It's old, long (runs to about 1000 pages), but damn is it good stuff. It made me run a four year Ars Magica campaign set in the Holy Land, and boy is it absolutely full of grist for your campaign. Any given page will have enough messed up stuff to spawn a couple of sessions, and there is plenty of room for the characters in amongst all this. (It'll also teach you that there is nothing useful in Kingdom of Heaven except the costuming--but that's just me being bitter.)

If that's a little too much for you, there's a good BBc mini-series on the Crusades from six or seven years back, that's well worth seeing. It's narrated by Terry Jones of Monty Python fame, and if it races over details that's okay. It gives you the flavour.

And, yeah, Burning Wheel is just the sort of system to use for this. Gritty, player focused, and with the lifepath rules, you end up with such interesting characters going in that the sessions can't help but be interesting.

Piers

[Fuseboy]

I hope I don't kick this into a tangent..

I didn't get time to watch it all, but one of the Kingdom of Heaven special features did have quite a few interesting tidbits of crusade-era trivia.

One tidbit that I find fascinating is the bit about a swordmaking technique based on pouring metal into a mold. I guess this was an Arabic technique originally; the word khalibre, for mold, survives as calibre (as in bullets). Swords produced in this way might have been referred to as ex khalibre - the sword from the mold.

Dunno if that's apocryphal or not.

Rest of post contains mild Kingdom of Heaven spoilers, hence the colour. Select it to read it.

I have to say that I was pretty interested in the motley bunch attached to Neeson's character. What a disappointment it was when this assortment of experienced guys bites it in scene five. Why are modern movies filled with preening models?

[Count Zero]

For general, accessible history of the Crusades, I'd suggest Stephen Runciman's three volume, History of the Crusades. It's old, long (runs to about 1000 pages), but damn is it good stuff. It made me run a four year Ars Magica campaign set in the Holy Land, and boy is it absolutely full of grist for your campaign. Any given page will have enough messed up stuff to spawn a couple of sessions, and there is plenty of room for the characters in amongst all this. (It'll also teach you that there is nothing useful in Kingdom of Heaven except the costuming--but that's just me being bitter.)

If that's a little too much for you, there's a good BBc mini-series on the Crusades from six or seven years back, that's well worth seeing. It's narrated by Terry Jones of Monty Python fame, and if it races over details that's okay. It gives you the flavour.

And, yeah, Burning Wheel is just the sort of system to use for this. Gritty, player focused, and with the lifepath rules, you end up with such interesting characters going in that the sessions can't help but be interesting.

Piers

That is a little heavy for what I am going to do, but I may check it out simply to understand some of the things that may be effecting current conflicts today.

Yeah, with Burning Wheel I did notice that it was just the right mix of historial accuracy that I need to run a good "semi-historical" campaign.

[Count Zero]

I have never actually played the game before, neither have any of the other players. We had just finished a mini-Campaign of Shadowrun 4th edition and we wanted to try something new. Since I am the guy with the books, I am going to run it for them.

As I am getting this game up and running, I was wondering if there are any pitfalls that experienced Burning Wheel GM's can tell me about? I have 3 players, all have a wide variety of games under their belts. They have more of a narrativist aspect to them, but they enjoy good action.

I realize this can be a crunchy system on some level so there are some things I am getting ready:

1. Lamenated Fight! Scripting Sheets and a collection of grease pencils or dry erase markers

2. The sheet from the GM screen explaining Athra and its usage.

What else would you veteran GM's of the system recommend?

Also, is there any place I can find premade Knights and similar combatants for the occassions when they actually do fight?

[ChrisG]

I recommend running The Gift or The Sword first, so you guys can experiment with characters that don't have a lot of emotional investment. Then, once you've drunk the kool-aid ( ;) ) you can do the setting/situation collaboration and character burning for real.

Either way, I recommend using just a sub-set of the stuff from "The Rim".

Resources and Circles are pretty easy to grok and use. DoW is a must (and with the cheat sheets, not too tricky).

I'd recommend using Bloody Versus instead of the full Fight! rules, but that's because my first Fight! bogged down play tremendously while we parsed the various options (which only seem excessively crunchy at first).

If you want to test Fight! I'd suggest running it w/out Positioning tests. Just have players script their actions--Strike, Avoid, etc--and play them out.

DoW, Resources, Circles and simplified Fight! or Bloody Versus should be plenty. Have fun! I had a blast my first BW game. :)

[Omar]

This might not be exactly what you're looking for, but in a Medieval History class I took we read a book called "An Arab Syrian Gentleman and Warrior in the Period of the Crusades". It's the journal of a guy named Usama bin Sabah, a contemporary and comrade of Saladin. It's his own experiences in his own words. If you're looking for the PoV of 'the other side', I don't think you can do much better. Even if it's not what you need for your game, it's an absolutely fascinating window to the path.

[Count Zero]

This might not be exactly what you're looking for, but in a Medieval History class I took we read a book called "An Arab Syrian Gentleman and Warrior in the Period of the Crusades". It's the journal of a guy named Usama bin Sabah, a contemporary and comrade of Saladin. It's his own experiences in his own words. If you're looking for the PoV of 'the other side', I don't think you can do much better. Even if it's not what you need for your game, it's an absolutely fascinating window to the path.

My wife has a book on the crusades called "The Crusades through Arab Eyes" that I am going to read when I get the chance.

[Count Zero]

Okay, so here are the character types I have at this point. Remember they are returning from a failed crusade. I don't have their names on hand so I will go by character types.

Knighted Lord: He has two siblings who have been working towards controlling his estate and eliminating him while he was away. He has a half brother who is a bastard. He has an instinct that he must stick up for his half brother (I thought it might make a better belief, but the player insisted).

Bastard Noble: He is the half-brother of the Knighted Lord and is about 10 years younger. They served together during the Crusades. The character has an instinct that he throws himself in front of anyone who attacks his half brother. He also has an overbearing mother (and a belief revolving around her) who is also the mother of the Knighted Lord.

Peasent Conscript: The character is wood cutter that was conscripted to go on the crusade. He is the salt of the earth type. He is a good fighter. He doesn't have much too him at this point. Two of his beliefs are "A hard days work is its own reward" and "Sleep is the best reward". I could have some fun situations, but I worry that I might not be able to give him a lot of interation opportunities.

A simple Priest: The final characters is a non-combatant priest who is interested in forbidden knowledge. He has Faith, but I was not going to have any magic (so it was going to be a luck sort of thing). He also, has an instinct of "Always be the first to cast a stone". It has a neat sound to it and it could be taken either literally or figuratively.

Considering this information, are there any tips you might have. Any way in which we might need to adjust the characters or anything the character should be sure to have.

[luke]

The Peasant Conscript is a clear red flag character. He does not fit in with the rest. Not in power-level or in motivation. Tell that player emphatically: You must bond/bind yourself to the other players.

Also, I'd shy away from the Peasant/Conscript/Woodcutter lps. If he really went to war, try to get a soldier LP in there, or Captive of War or something interesting with odd skills/wises that will help him in the long run.

anyway, Red Flag. Without knowing anything further, I'd say the player isn't interested in the game concept. Convince me otherwise! Better yet, have him do it!

-L

[Count Zero]

The Peasant Conscript is a clear red flag character. He does not fit in with the rest. Not in power-level or in motivation. Tell that player emphatically: You must bond/bind yourself to the other players.

Also, I'd shy away from the Peasant/Conscript/Woodcutter lps. If he really went to war, try to get a soldier LP in there, or Captive of War or something interesting with odd skills/wises that will help him in the long run.

anyway, Red Flag. Without knowing anything further, I'd say the player isn't interested in the game concept. Convince me otherwise! Better yet, have him do it!

-L

Actually, the Peasant character was a bit of a red flag for myself also. I got the feeling the player really wasn't into the concept. He also has the Sergeant LP, so he has fought with the other characters. The problem is the player purchased no relationships or affiliations. He has not family or other things to come back to. His beliefs are rather boring to be honest. Not much to play with for anything more than comic relief.

[luke]

Ok, sounds like there's some room to maneuver. Sgt LP means that he had to take Foot Soldier or something. Excellent. That means his got some viable adventuriness in him. The character's prolly poor, but I'd take a guess that the player invested heavily in equipment, rather than the other stuff. Would a folksy, world-weary Sgt give a shit about his armor any more? Probably not. Encourage him to drop it in the interest of taking something else that will get him into the action -- a twisted up relationship, for example.

What if, while he was away, his hard working family fell to brigandage and indolence. Now you're actually challenging both of those (rather weak) Beliefs -- his family doesn't do honest work any more, and they're carousing all night so there's no sleep to be had.

See if a conflict like that would interest him. Talk to him about it before you play. If it does, build on it. Work it into the launch for the game. If it doesn't then the Red Flag remains up.

-L

[Count Zero]

Ok, sounds like there's some room to maneuver. Sgt LP means that he had to take Foot Soldier or something. Excellent. That means his got some viable adventuriness in him. The character's prolly poor, but I'd take a guess that the player invested heavily in equipment, rather than the other stuff. Would a folksy, world-weary Sgt give a shit about his armor any more? Probably not. Encourage him to drop it in the interest of taking something else that will get him into the action -- a twisted up relationship, for example.

What if, while he was away, his hard working family fell to brigandage and indolence. Now you're actually challenging both of those (rather weak) Beliefs -- his family doesn't do honest work any more, and they're carousing all night so there's no sleep to be had.

See if a conflict like that would interest him. Talk to him about it before you play. If it does, build on it. Work it into the launch for the game. If it doesn't then the Red Flag remains up.

-L

I actually talked with him. He is excited about the game, but he is willing to be the servant and attendant to the Nobles for a little while.

I will raise those ideas (i.e. the family ones) to him though, those are really good ideas. The sleep based belief is one of those semi-silly ones. He has one other that I can't remember.

[Count Zero]

Talked to the Conscript player today about some ideas for his character.

He wants to have a twin brother so if we go with the bandit theme, he can be mistaken for his brother. If I really want to mess with him.

Thanks for the tips the advice.