Burning Failure

[santovendetta]

I'm not sure this is the right place for it, but I'd like to discuss a little roleplaying theory.

http://www.frontrowcrew.com/?p=239

Firstly, that interview should be required listening to anyone playing BW. For me it shed a lot of light on the concept of BW, particularly the parts about not being afraid to make a character who will fail. I remember my group's first campaign we all made 8LP ancient humans because we wanted enough skill and trait points to be good at everything we wanted. Of course this was a huge mistake, we all wanted our character's to be really good but we ended up with a group of people whose adventures were all behind them. To try and make a long story short I was thinking about it after listening to that interview and I realized all my favorite characters were the ones that I thought were gimped and underpowered, those are the ones that really bring out my A-game and cause the best hijinks for the table. Anyway like Luke said how BW didn't work when he tried to run traditional style RPG demos because that's what he thought the player expected, we players also need to shake the traditional out of our heads and sacrifice power for fun.

Well, I'm not sure the point of this but I am interested in hearing about your untraditional characters and other ideas about the nature of Burning Wheel.

[Black Spectrum]

Very interesting interview, though it seemed to me that Luke was frothing more than usual. ;)

Anyway, I completely agree. One of the things I absolutely adore about BW, is the fact that you can (and is encouraged to) make a "suboptimal" character, and not have the game come to a grinding halt, because you keep failing your checks. Quite the contrary in fact - the game often gets more interesting and unpredictable when failure is involved, in my experience.

I find it quite liberating to be able to play a character that does not have to be all-powerful and flawless, as no matter the system, you will botch a roll every once in a while (which will "contrary to the concept"). E.g. let's say you want to play Drizzt. In the novels, Drizzt never makes a poor decision, slips, fumbles, or otherwise muck up. In an rpg, statistics will make sure you do. And that is a good thing, because it makes the character more human and easier to relate to.

Hmm. That didn't come out as coherent as I would have liked it to. Oh well...

[Z-Dog]

Yeah, my favs were always gimps/weaklings/crazies.

I never expected them to do much and then I did so much with them.

The nut job char I came up w/ for 1-shots were always the ones I wanted to turn into long-term char.

----

PS Luke unusually frothy? Allright! Give me a front row seat!

[Paul B]

My screwed-up NPCs are way, way more fun (and sometimes more effective!) to play than the guys I try to make badass. But my investment in an NPC takes up a very different place in my head than a PC.

I'm thinking my BW/E education won't be complete 'til I've had a chance to play a couple PCs. The confrontational style in BE helps, some, but I know for sure it's not the same.

p.

[LukeS.]

I listened to that interview not long ago, and that bit really resonated with me: I always make characters who are flawed or weak in some way. It does make the game more interesting. I am in complete agreement with Luke.

For instance, I once played a character in a DnD game who was a noble prince, but I didn't choose him because I wanted access to cool stuff; instead I wanted to play a rich kid who craved adventure and street cred. He was very conflicted because he thought himself superior to the other dirty adventurers in the group, but at the same time he wanted to gain their respect.

I once played a gnome who was the world's best maker of clocks...and who had pretty much no other adventuring-type skills and didn't know what he was doing in dungeons.

Really I could list any character I've made for a serious campaign, they'd all fit here.

Lots of other gamers, those whom I call "wish-fulfillment gamers," don't understand this tendency of mine at all.

[pseudoidiot]

Lots of other gamers, those whom I call "wish-fulfillment gamers," don't understand this tendency of mine at all.

I know what you mean here. I'm sort of that way with power players and general munchkinliness. I'm not necessarily the type of player to purposely add flaws to characters like you talk about (although I've done it before), but I'm certainly not at the other end of that, either. I've been in power gamer-type games, and I just don't enjoy them, "Oh no, another dragon *yawn*."

I think part of the problem with D&D* is that it's so much more difficult to play "gimped" characters. It's very much about having your niche, and if you're not good at yours or if you branch out it can be a lot less fun (not for all people, of course). It's like D&D is so focused on success that failure isn't interesting, or it can be, but it usually still sucks. There's less motivation to really push your character instead of just doing what you know what they can do. It can be pretty often you hear something like, "I need to roll a 20 to succeed at that, let's find another way."

*Not picking on D&D, I still very much enjoy it, but it's a good example and by no means the only one.

[Z-Dog]

...continuing the line of thought above

what drives me crazy is there is nothing for failure...it's a roll of the dice...hit/miss...didn't work...nothing happened....

what I like about BW/BE is there's almost always more interesting things going on when you fail!

I love failed Circles tests! Love 'em! I'm trying to round up kick ass opposition to my players and I make myself an enemy.

It just keeps things so fun and UN-predictable.

I like how SoTC says something like: think of success...now think of failure...if they're BOTH not interesting, than don't roll!

Failure shouldn't "do nothing"

Failure should be a branch in the story...a left turn instead of a right....

sometimes we zigs and sometimes we zags! but it should always be interesting...

[Kublai]

Poor guy. He zigged when he should've zagged.

[Paul B]

I'm watching one of my players verrrry slowly but surely come around to this way of thinking. I've got a BE game with three players + me. I've got three squirrelly, ambitious, greedy, generally wacked-out Figures of Note. I get paid big-time every maneuver; I loves me some Artha-flavored incentives.

Player 1, Rob, is really relishing getting paid for playing how he always plays -- that is, suboptimally but richly. He's gotten dicked over for decades, now, playing hardcore tactical games like D&D, Exalted, Alternity, etc. Now the shoe's on the other foot and the guy is racking in at least as much Artha as me every turn. And his character is fucked up.

Player 2, Aaron, hasn't played RPGs in 15 years but his first instinct was to play a very internally conflicted, enemies everywhere character. Unfortunately, he didn't get paid well because we didn't do a good job of matching his play to his BITs. The turn we stopped and rewrote his whole BIT profile he got killed! But we awarded him Artha posthumously, and he scored big.

Player 3, Micah, is my problem child. His character is very effective in mechanical terms and utterly uneffective when it comes to having Artha at his disposal. He's been nursing the same 2-3 Fate and 1 Persona for five maneuvers now. He sees us racking up big points and getting big stuff done in-game when it matters (after all, we still like being effective now and again), but he just cannot make that step over to letting his character be "suboptimal" in his eyes.

This was the exact same situation that chased away my other BE players. Too many years of working too hard to earn too many buffs, and now they just cannot wrap their heads around getting paid for dramatic, rather than "effective", play.

p.

[Thor]

Paul, I suspect that maybe this discussion should be it's own thread. For now we'll keep it here, but if you really want to dig into your situation, we should probably take it to Fevered Circle.

Anyway, the first question that popped into my head when you described Micah was this: How diligently do you guys use the Advancement system? Is the group careful about marking all tests? Have you seen a lot of skills or stats increase their exponents?

[Paul B]

Oh, it's all good and both he and I know what needs to be done with his character. It's strictly a mindset thing. We're playing the rules by the letter, we all know the systems very well. We're just easing him in to the idea that drama is more important than being a total badass.

p.