Sheesh, Another Review

[luke]

http://roleplaygames.about.com/cs/productreviews/fr/burningfull.htm

They're coming fast and furious these days, this one's over at About.com.

For all those of you who don't want to pay for negative traits, she doesn't want to pay for them either.

8)
-Luke

[Durgil]

I cannot believe that she found a problem with BW's system consistency. I know that there are a few occasions where this happens, but it's not nearly as bad as any other systems that I've seen. On top of that Luke and the gang are working towards a more unified system with those areas that are resolved slightly differently such as wounds and armour. I mean really, show me a system that deals with ALL combat the same exact way.

[Lxndr]

Fastlane, coming in April!

But, yeah, I know what you mean.

[Lxndr]

Okay, let me expand on my (rather flippant) answer above.

There are a lot of games out there that handle "all sorts of combat the exact same way." They just tend to be rather extreme on the rules-light scale and, moreover, tend to be the sorts of games that handle EVERYTHING the exact same way. Trollbabe, Fastlane, The Pool, HeroQuest, Universalis. They're also games that are generally low on the objective realism scale (although, like any good game, they're internally consistent).

Any game with, well, systemic meat and crunch (as opposed to the "creamy" systems above) is going to have different subsystems that handle things differently - Burning Wheel definitely has meat, and I think I'm paraphrasing Luke himself when I say that he likes exceptions and special cases (hell, so do I). But, despite the exceptions and special cases, I would have to disagree with anyone who calls BW "inconsistent." Consistency isn't the same thing as "same rules. similar situations," although it can benefit from that. Consistency is more philosophical. And BW has a coherent philosophy, by far, which illustrates itself in every manifestation of its system that I've come across.

So, yeah. That's a better reply to the thread. See y'all later.