Mechavomit
08-19-2004, 03:56 AM
I've been meaning to post this for a few months now. In my defense, lurking is a very hard habit to break.
Anyhow, a couple months back, I finally got to run BW. I'd only been waiting around five months. I finally told people, we're playing Burning Wheel, my foot is down, the decision is made. So I sent out a few emails, summarizing bits about the rules and what I expected, then we got together for character generation and a bit of a demo. I ran Van Goten's etc.
My group is hardly worthy of the name, only because I'm the only real serious one, and we don't get together enough. I had three players, and each of them had experience pretty much limited to D&D in various incarnations. A few months earlier we'd tried our hands at 3E, only with so many of the rules carved out that it was pretty boring. I'm not a big fan of a lot of D&D's tropes anyhow, but that's neither here nor there. I'd convinced the lot to give the Wheel a go.
I'm about to explain a little bit about why Burning Wheel was such a success, but I need to note something first. One of my sisters was among the players (I have another sister who's very serious about RPGs and is dying to play BW, but alas she's in the wrong state) and she was terrible with D&D. What I want to make clear is that she's not stupid--she's actually very smart. She's just horrible with mathematical formulae in most incarnations, and she has this very strange block with THAC0 from 2nd Edition. She could never get it. Ever. Had to have the byzantine subtractions explained every single time we played. Eventually she'd just roll and shout her THAC0 and ask everyone if she hit. 3rd Edition was better, but there's a lot of rules in combat that you really need to get the most of the system. We don't like miniatures, nobody likes keeping track of attacks of opportunity and so on.
Anyhow, this is what impressed me most: my sister took to Burning Wheel like she'd read the whole rulebook cover to cover. It was completely natural. Most of the time she was explaining things to the other two players, who I considered to be much more facile with using systems. She also played the group's magic user, and I explained the sorcery rolls and all to her once or twice, and she started doing her rolls without me prompting and telling me her successes, and taking away Forte dice (she absolutely loves Shards, and used it with abandon). She excelled at the scripting, too. Actually, everybody took to scripting with surprising ease, but she was the one who surprised me.
Actually, the only part with any hitches worth mentioning was character generation, and I blame that on only having the one Character Burner. The only complaint anyone had was a lack of granularity in the weapons. He wanted an extended equipment list. He came up with his own solution, and wants to play a magic user when/if we play again. I'm not sure everyone was converted to the extent I was--but the demo was short, and kind of disjointed as it was my first time running, in person, a game more mechanically complex than kill puppies for satan. I will say that I know my sister enjoyed it a lot more than I'd seen her enjoy D&D, because she was actually getting what she wanted out of the system. That was great.
"That was great" generally sums up my feelings about how things worked. I was concerned about scripting, but it went so smoothly once we started. So that was great.
Anyhow, a couple months back, I finally got to run BW. I'd only been waiting around five months. I finally told people, we're playing Burning Wheel, my foot is down, the decision is made. So I sent out a few emails, summarizing bits about the rules and what I expected, then we got together for character generation and a bit of a demo. I ran Van Goten's etc.
My group is hardly worthy of the name, only because I'm the only real serious one, and we don't get together enough. I had three players, and each of them had experience pretty much limited to D&D in various incarnations. A few months earlier we'd tried our hands at 3E, only with so many of the rules carved out that it was pretty boring. I'm not a big fan of a lot of D&D's tropes anyhow, but that's neither here nor there. I'd convinced the lot to give the Wheel a go.
I'm about to explain a little bit about why Burning Wheel was such a success, but I need to note something first. One of my sisters was among the players (I have another sister who's very serious about RPGs and is dying to play BW, but alas she's in the wrong state) and she was terrible with D&D. What I want to make clear is that she's not stupid--she's actually very smart. She's just horrible with mathematical formulae in most incarnations, and she has this very strange block with THAC0 from 2nd Edition. She could never get it. Ever. Had to have the byzantine subtractions explained every single time we played. Eventually she'd just roll and shout her THAC0 and ask everyone if she hit. 3rd Edition was better, but there's a lot of rules in combat that you really need to get the most of the system. We don't like miniatures, nobody likes keeping track of attacks of opportunity and so on.
Anyhow, this is what impressed me most: my sister took to Burning Wheel like she'd read the whole rulebook cover to cover. It was completely natural. Most of the time she was explaining things to the other two players, who I considered to be much more facile with using systems. She also played the group's magic user, and I explained the sorcery rolls and all to her once or twice, and she started doing her rolls without me prompting and telling me her successes, and taking away Forte dice (she absolutely loves Shards, and used it with abandon). She excelled at the scripting, too. Actually, everybody took to scripting with surprising ease, but she was the one who surprised me.
Actually, the only part with any hitches worth mentioning was character generation, and I blame that on only having the one Character Burner. The only complaint anyone had was a lack of granularity in the weapons. He wanted an extended equipment list. He came up with his own solution, and wants to play a magic user when/if we play again. I'm not sure everyone was converted to the extent I was--but the demo was short, and kind of disjointed as it was my first time running, in person, a game more mechanically complex than kill puppies for satan. I will say that I know my sister enjoyed it a lot more than I'd seen her enjoy D&D, because she was actually getting what she wanted out of the system. That was great.
"That was great" generally sums up my feelings about how things worked. I was concerned about scripting, but it went so smoothly once we started. So that was great.