The Sword: A very crappy evening

[BWA]

I ran The Sword tonight for my group, as an introduction to Burning Wheel. We have decided to switch from D&D to BW, and we were going to run the demo game, then burn characters. Unfortunately, it went rather badly.

We had five players, so, at the suggestion of several people on the forum, I added Daphne the arch-priestess. Everyone decided to pick characters randomly, and I plunked them down in the dank, ancient dungeon and let them go.

It started out well; everyone was advancing their characters' beliefs about the sword. The guy playing the human thief made a break for the sword, another character stopped him, and then the priestess and the dwarf got into a Duel of Wits. That went fairly well too; I ws a little shaky on the mechanics, but we got through it quickly (the dwarf annihilated the priestess, mostly because the thief and the rat decided to give him helping dice, swayed by his mercenary speech rather than the priestess' altruistic one).

Then the elf player (the biggest fan of d20 and RPG combat in the group) instigated a fight, which was all well and good. So I broke out the Fight! rules, and everything went to hell in a handbasket.

All five players were attacking one another at this point, but my lack of familiarity with the combat system, combined with the complexity of a five-on-five brawl, dragged things down to a creeping halt. We played through one exchange, which took forever and a day, and then we called the whole thing off due to a serious case of group boredom.

After that the session got much better; we set the books aside and spent an hour or so working on the concept/plot for the campaign. Everyone was engaged, and we came up with a very cool, high-fantasy archetype campaign (one character is the royal bloodline in exile, with the other characters as his guardians and advisors and would-be power-brokers, trying to get back home from a distant land).

Now, this part of the session was completely rules-free, we didn't even have any books open. It's the same kind of campaign-burning this group has done before, but my hope is that BW will simply work better and be more fun than D&D. Some of the players (the ones who have read or heard about BW) agree with me, a couple are not convinced.

Fortunately, despite the lameness of tonight's game, everyone is still willing to try Burning Wheel. I apologized, and said (truthfully, I think), that my lack of rules knowledge is what made it so unfun. I hope that is the case.

I have played The Sword before (once as a demo in NYC run by BW's own Pete), and I've read the relevant rules pretty closely, so I'm pretty surprised that it went so badly.

[BWA]

My apologies if this should have gone in a different forum.

[stormsweeper]

Well, in actual play you're less likely to have all the players scripting all over the place. They'll be in a series of one-on-one fights, for the most part. Other than that, Fight! will go much smoother after a couple runs through it.

[steve]

I recently run the Sword and ended up with a huge 4 player fight and felt that getting used to the positioning system was absolutely crucial to having it run well.

Check out this page on the wiki as well for multilple combatant advise.

Multiple Combatants (http://www.burningwheel.org/wiki/index.php?title=Multiple_Combatants)

Multiple Combatants Example (http://www.burningwheel.org/wiki/index.php?title=Multiple_Combatants_Example)

The part on positioning intent was what really helped it gell for me.

[Glendower]

Fight is tough, and jumping into fight with 5 opponents is even tougher. Now, if they liked the Duel of Wits, it means that they aren't totally against the concept of scripting. That's good! I've had players drop the game like a hot potato the moment they hear that they have to write their actions in advance.

Start with the Bloody Verses test. It's a great introduction to harming one another. I like them for any minor dust up, and for starting players. It's also a good way to isolate stuff like how wounding someone works, as well as incidental, mark, and superb hits, and the effects of all or nothing armor. Then I suggest a full fight after they've got the hang of those basics.

So when you get to a full Fight I suggest you initially drop the positioning and stance part of fight, and just have them use the various maneuvers against one another. Then, once they know the difference between a lock and a strike, begin to layer the other two in.

I suggest positioning be the last detail of fight to add in, as I've found it to be a very hard concept for anyone coming off of D&D 3rd ed. Though interestingly, one person remarked that positioning reminded him of "Old D&D" back when miniatures weren't widely used.

Plus I'd suggest running 2-3 fights with one of the players, outside of the game. Order in a pizza and rent some samurai movies, and try kicking the hell out of each other with Sword characters, or with some contenders from the arena or the wiki.

I did these 2 on 2 fights in D&D to learn the system all the time, and they really helped me to understand the system so I can help others. I've done the same with Burning Wheel, and it's had some great results.

[Verrain]

In my experience, it is better to split the conflict into as many one on one fights as you can and have those not involved give helping dice to the combatants. Of course when everyone is out for themselves that is not really feasible.

[Drozdal]

I've merged this thread with the one of the same name.

[luke]

Run it again!

[hellbender]

This weekend I hope to run my first Burning Wheel game which will be a challenge considering I am coming from Castles & Crusades run, which is not a bad game, but certainly rules light and not nearly as detailed. I have a variant of The Sword that should make more sense with the background of the world. I am slightly nervous about getting everyone onboard and using multiple combatant rules but there is nothing for it but to dive in.

[elmago79]

Run it again!

I agree, you should try run it again. The 'everyone attacking each other' seems like a hangover from D&D rules.

Why did they were fighting for? Could you detail the situation a little bit further? Why did you decided to use the Fight! rules to solve whatever happened?

[BWA]

I agree, you should try run it again. The 'everyone attacking each other' seems like a hangover from D&D rules.

Well, I told everyone that one of the points of the demo game was to learn the social and physical combat rules. So everyone was just getting into the spirit. I don't think the game didn't work because my group is D&D players who like to attack each other, I think it just went super slow because it was complex and I didn't have the knowledge to run it well.

As for running The Sword again, our plan is to burn characters are our next session, and get right to it. Maybe we'll do some "this doesn't count" one-on-one fights and DoWs with the PCs once they're created.

In retrospect, I think splitting the fights into two groups would have been better, or even just using Bloody Versus tests instead. Live and learn.

[zabieru]

I don't think the game didn't work because my group is D&D players who like to attack each other, I think it just went super slow because it was complex and I didn't have the knowledge to run it well.
[snip]
In retrospect, I think splitting the fights into two groups would have been better, or even just using Bloody Versus tests instead. Live and learn.

You answered your own question there. D&D players do sometimes like to attack each other, but BW games are often very high pressure as well. D&D, however, frequently handles low-stakes, low-investment free for alls, and the rules work well for that. BW combat is deadly and not entered into for little reason, and the rules are meant to handle high-stakes, targeted fights. Splitting your players would not only have helped streamline things, it would have reminded them of their beliefs and their goals in the conflict. X is fighting to kill Y. Y is fighting to stop Z from getting to the sword. How best to model that? In D&D, sure, big furball. In BW? Y positions against X and Z, they each position only against Y. Actions are likely to break down similarly.

As you quite correctly surmised, this takes a lot of the bookkeeping load off of you. From the sound of things, you know where you need to be and I suspect your next outing will be much more successful. Good luck!