Campaign retooling - compatability

[Snargash Moonclaw]

I've been working on developing a fantasy setting off and on for a couple of years now and recently moved into a heavy development push in anticipation of moving back to Denver (from Portland, OR) next spring and starting a campaign there. Since I had abandoned all my old source books (AD&D 2nd ed, Shadowrun 3rd and GURPS 3rd) when I set out to build a homebrew setting I initially chose D&D 3.5 as being 1)already familiar to me and 2) the most common when looking at needing to advertise among strangers to start a gaming group which they already had resources for and were prepared to play. While the system present things I like about it, my primary emphasis is upon a heavy storytelling, narrative roleplaying intensive style of gaming - reliant on a lot of character backstory and development - things which, while certainly possible, are largely irrelevant to the game's mechanical structure and therefore poorly supported. I encountered a number of references to the Burning Wheel and it sounds like it is well geared toward the type of game I wish to run so I'm considering the possibility of retooling the setting. I'm primarily concerned with determining whether any thing in the concepts and flavor I've developed so far (using a very top-down approach) would be markedly incompatible/unworkable under the BW mechanics. The setting material can be found in The Campaign Builder's Guild wiki under the name "Panisadore" (http://www.thecbg.org/wiki/index.php/Introduction_to_Panisadore). If anyone with a solid grip on the system could take a look and advise re:feasability I would appreciate it. At present it's not overly humongous - about a dozen pages - some quite short, many rather meaty. If you're in Denver or Portland and find the project interesting please let me know as well - I enjoy the interplay of collaboration immensely and it sparks my creative output exponentially.

Have Fun, Play Well,
Amergin O'Kai

[zabieru]

I looked at that and tuned out (I hate D&D here's-my-giant-map-and-story-about-elven-history fantasy) but I can tell you that there's nothing in your giant map or story about elves that won't fit in the Burning Wheel. Here's the key point to consider:

The Burning Wheel is about a question. That question is "What do you believe, and how hard will you fight for it?" If your setting is about something else (like "let me tell you a story about elves" or "can you kill the evil god-king?" or even/especially "Here is what you believe, now go fight for it") then it won't work. I can't tell from what you said whether that's the case. I've seen a lot of groups who've said those same things and some of them meant what I meant, but others meant that the GM determined the broad plot points of the game (often with input from the players) or that the GM ultimately determined success or failure of large-scale initiatives in whatever way would produce the most pleasing story.

That's not bad game. I hear you talk about story there and that's one thing that I think. It's not bad game, but it's not the Burning Wheel. Sometimes BW games don't produce as novel-like a story as those games do, but the payoff is the intense personal investment because you're testing how hard you can play this guy's belief in a way that you just can't test it if you're believing something because the setting or GM says so, or if you know that ultimately, you're going to make the sacrifices that the GM thinks you should and win the prize or not win the prize.

If that fits your game, BW will be great. It'll work just fine, some of your modeling might be trickier than other bits but it can all be done (you'll need the Monster Burner).

If that doesn't fit your game, though... You could be playing in 14th Century France with light fantasy elements exactly like those depicted in the Character Burner, and your game would still suck.

I happen to think that's the only kind of game worth playing, but there are other styles that are worth other people playing them.

Also, I'm grumpy, so if this post reads grumpy, it's because of me, not you or your game or the Burning Wheel.

[Dwight]

To add to zabieru,

I'm primarily concerned with determining whether any thing in the concepts and flavor I've developed so far (using a very top-down approach) would be markedly incompatible/unworkable under the BW mechanics.
You won't know until you have found your players. Because your players have to buy into whatever setting you are selling. In fact I think you should boil that sucker down to the essense, like a paragraph. Or even into point form. Talk about the ability of all the races to interbreed but that it is very taboo, it's this lost secret to humans, the Great Mistake. Then encourage the other players to riff on that, if that's what you want these campaign to be about. So it's taboo. So what? Taboos are only cool if you are going to challenge them. ;) How's that going to happen? Because what you start with by yourself shouldn't entirely survive contact with the players. ;)

That's really the only way that the co-op you speak of in the first section is going to work anyway, whatever game you use. They will also, during play, embellish it. They'll build on and flesh out the history framework. You are really going to need to let folks in and tinker with this stuff. I wouldn't go any further than the wiki if I was you because what is likely to happen is that you'll become deeply invested in your creation and then entrenched and enclined to block other people's additions or tweaks. I don't know you personally, this is just a general statement, and certainly not a knock on you. It's just how us humans tend to operate. :D

I will also add that it's very obviously got the D&D setting (or meta-setting or whatever you want to call it) stamped all over. Moving to BW can give you an opportunity to have the setting what you really want! Kick out the grab-bag of kitsch that is the D&D setting. Make magic want you want it to be. Because magic is the lifeblood of the fantasy setting, the tone, the essense. It's what differentiates it from our world. Make it what you (and the players) want.

</soapbox> ;)

[Snargash Moonclaw]

Hmm. The thrust of the gaming style is toward creatig and weaving story. I'm one of those who creates rather detailed backstories for characters I play, so I'm GMing toward that style as well. I'll actually be pharming online among my old friends in Denver this fall to see who's interested in the style and setting - I know a lot of gamers in Denver who lean toward role over roll. The setting as presented will be pared down considerably from the CBG wiki version - that contains a lot of "spoiler" material that players wouldn't be aware of, or would only know various bits of, depending on background.
My biggest concerns about system mechanics are regarding implementing character creation for the Khurorkh in terms of some of its cultural norms. These are acually reflected rather clumsily I think through the character mechanics of D&D. A classless system is probably more likely to permit creation and play of this race/culture as I envision and try to describe it.

[Dwight]

Hmm. The thrust of the gaming style is toward creatig and weaving story. I'm one of those who creates rather detailed backstories for characters I play, so I'm GMing toward that style as well.
Burning Wheel works way better if you create the details for the backstories, effectively together, during play. Those 1500 word essays on a character tend to do little but get in the way (but then I find that in any game). Why? Once again entrenchment that gets in the way of co-op.


I'll actually be pharming online among my old friends in Denver this fall to see who's interested in the style and setting - I know a lot of gamers in Denver who lean toward role over roll.
The highlighted part concerns me. That can mean a lot of different things. Although it can mean Burning Wheel is the deal for you it can also mean exactly the opposite. However the last quote of yours I'm doing in the post suggests you might be the former because you are paying attention to mechanics.

The setting as presented will be pared down considerably from the CBG wiki version - that contains a lot of "spoiler" material that players wouldn't be aware of, or would only know various bits of, depending on background.
There's a guy around here named Paul. He'll talk about the "radical transparency" of Burning Wheel. Table secrets again tend to get in the way. In the way of playing together and in the way of enjoying all that great creative output from your friends. Instead put more trust everyone at the table to keep character and player info separate.


My biggest concerns about system mechanics are regarding implementing character creation for the Khurorkh in terms of some of its cultural norms. These are acually reflected rather clumsily I think through the character mechanics of D&D. A classless system is probably more likely to permit creation and play of this race/culture as I envision and try to describe it.
Well this is definitely something Burning Wheel does well. Standard procedure is to draw up cultural traits for different cultures in your setting (usually these are Character Traits). It puts a really "human" face on the mechanics, as they are word descriptions that have a common understand among the people at the table rather than just assigning something like a +2/-2 die modifier or such, although they can have some simple numbers attached to the Traits as well (Die Traits and Call-On Traits). For an example go down a few paragrahps to see the list of Cultural Traits for this Spanish Main setting. (http://burningwheel.org/forum/showpost.php?p=26046&postcount=12).

[zabieru]

There's a guy around here named Paul. He'll talk about the "radical transparency" of Burning Wheel. Table secrets again tend to get in the way. In the way of playing together and in the way of enjoying all that great creative output from your friends. Instead put more trust everyone at the table to keep character and player info separate.

To expand on this... You know in a movie that horrible feeling of watching someone walk towards a door when you know what's on the other side and they don't?

Try to create that feeling when no one knows what's on the other side of the door. See?

If your players are worth a damn, they'll use the knowledge you give to make things harder and cooler for themselves. If they use it to get free loots, you're probably boring the shit out of them and they're probably frustrating the hell out of you and you shouldn't be playing together.

It's still hard to tell (because of what Blakkie said about role vs roll) but I think you'd dig BW. You need to dig into it because if you fight it like you've fought other systems, it won't work (It sounds like you fought D&D, and that's right because D&D won't do the things you care about without fighting, but BW if you let it be BW will do those things, but if you fight it, that's you doing the work instead of letting the system do the work).

[Dwight]

To expand on this... You know in a movie that horrible feeling of watching someone walk towards a door when you know what's on the other side and they don't?
That's a great analogy. I'm going to tuck that in my pocket, if you don't mind. :D That's what I found, and I was finding this before I happened upon Burning Wheel, is that table secrets kill the suspense. Plus table secrets bring some other bad things to the table. I've come so 180 degrees on this, I was Mr. Secretman. I knew about the discord it could bring but I assumed it was the one true way to suspense. But then I looked at what really happened, at all the missed opportunity for suspense and tention and how seldom the secrets would bear this out (especially for all their headache), and I realized I was so off.

[zabieru]

That said... Knowing exactly what's on the other side of the door and how many arms it has ain't necessary. (Doesn't usually hurt, but it's not necessary)

But suspense is really about inevitability. If you're flailing in the dark, that's not really very scary. It's when you're on rails, walking towards something you know to be a mistake, that your gut really clenches up.

[Snargash Moonclaw]

BW sounds like it will do what I'm seeking. The secrecy facet simply arises from the fact that not everyone knows everything about everyone else. The setting manifests a wide panorama of desires and agendas which are not always clearly understood given that the inherent assumptions which a culture carries with it can be very misleading when encountering and trying to understand another culture. The setting has suficient history such that the astute within it can recognize and manipulate these misunderstandings to their advantage. Ultimately much of this forms the dynamic backdrop against which, as with the real world, characters choose what matters to them and seek to influence those courses as they believe best, but all currents will play out to some end regardless. Like the real world, some secrecy simply arises in the absence of investigation, and how much someone cares to know can be a deciding factor.

[zabieru]

Right, but reframe it. Watch 'Last Samurai.' Try to grit your teeth through Tom Cruise's presence, but examine how much we gain from knowing more than his character does about the culture. Think about what that movie would look like to an American of his character's generation (hint: it wouldn't make any damn sense. It'd be just a series of incomprehensible actions). Now, imagine that you're a fairly logical person who knows NOTHING about Japan and you're trying to push an agenda as Cruise's character, but the GM keeps you in the dark and all this shit keeps happening, like you try to respect a dude by learning what he studies, but he beats your ass for it! Think about how frustrated you'd be! You know you're supposed to do something here to advance the plot or make a statement about your character, but it seems like anything you do is just a tool for the GM to reinforce how much more he knows than you do!

We're not suggesting that your secrecy doesn't arise out of logic. We're just suggesting that just as "that's what my guy would do" is a terrible justification for ruining a game, "that's all your guy would know" is a terrible reason not to tell a player something. A lot of good game can come from players knowing things their characters don't. Consider: What if D'Artagnan's player hadn't been able to see that the other Musketeers were being played by the other players instead of the GM? He wouldn't have known to treat his interactions with those characters as significant! He'd never have gotten into all that glorious trouble! He'd have married a farmwife and had a happy life!

My experience is that when I've noticed GMs maintaining that sort of secrecy, I've felt mousetrapped when cultural factors have rebounded against me. When I've been in games where those sorts of things were on the table, I've often walked right into the same situations that made me so angry in that other game, but this time I did it because it'd be good story!

EDIT: Also, this is all suggestion. Try it sometime, see how it works. I bet it doesn't break anything, and it'll probably make good things happen, but if what you're doing now is awesome, keep doing it.

[Dwight]

My experience is that when I've noticed GMs maintaining that sort of secrecy, I've felt mousetrapped when cultural factors have rebounded against me. When I've been in games where those sorts of things were on the table, I've often walked right into the same situations that made me so angry in that other game, but this time I did it because it'd be good story!
BTW that behavior is heavily reinforced by BW rules as they are written. What you might be used to is you as the GM put up a metaphorical "Danger" sign and the rules scream at the players "go the otherway, disengage this, be extremely cautious here". Then you the GM try to chase down the players and pin them into finally facing the conflict. Given that, secrecy is one easy tool to dupe the player into finally facing the conflict. Problem is that breaks the player-to-GM trust (not just with the GM you happen to be playing with but in future games with other people too).

With BW when you put up the "Danger" sign you want that sucker in flashing neon because the mechanics are screaming at the player "march your PC right into this, this is what you showed up at the game for". From the player's point of view it is the entirely logical thing to do. It can take a bit for the players to believe this really is what they are suppose to do, depending on how much trust has be broken down and how well the GM does at breaking old "gottcha!" habits (EDIT: and trust the players, because this goes both ways). But once you get past that you save all that time you use to spend avoiding each other and get straight to the meat of any gaming, the conflict, and the players will start taking risks that you couldn't even trick them into in the past. Without the hard feelings that can come from that.

EDIT: It's a good idea to be very explicit with your players up front about this change in attitude. The change in how BW is different from other RPGs, the change in how you will run the game, and the expectation of how they will respond to this. Generally the more you can dump your ideas of how RPGs are "suppose" to be played the easier BW becomes.

[Snargash Moonclaw]

gah - that's the second time the editor has dumped every thing I've written when I tried to post it!

A lot of what I've referred to is not secrecy - it's simply more information than is reasonable to dump on players off the bat. Much of it is also rather irrelevant to those of another race. By and large however, the party as a whole will have most of it among them. Just as different characters in play will learn different "peices of the puzzle" so to speak - rogues and paladins (or some cognates) for example are going to find out different things from different sources - hell even if they talk to the same sources they're likely to get different stories. Part of the game is the characters cooperating and providing what the others lack. So, if you want to know what kind of gift to give a dwarf whose assistance you want, ask one. You should have some sense of what matters to them (and no, it's *not gold* here) but grasping the nuances - if there isn't a dwarf in the party doing a little research is not such a difficult proposition. Expecting a player to read 10 pages about dwarven culture, religion and spiritual cosmology on the other hand, (after which they would understand a great deal which their character would not even know existed) in many cases is an impossibility. (Even though the same players will spend hours on end poring over spell and monster descriptions of which they will never have any use. . .)

There are some "spoilers" - mostly religious - not everything is as it appears (except when it is). Some things they will have to make up there minds about - many of the gods don't even know exactly what's going on. When it comes to "eastern" religious themes, which run through much of the setting, as in our own world, the role and nature of "true enlightenment" cannot be conveyed in words - and few pursue an understanding of this determinedly. Characters who wish to however can achieve enlightenment, but no one will begin the game as a fully enlightened Buddha. In this case a degree of uncertainty is inherent in the setting. In most cases a degree of being "open to interpretation" is inherent. Often even a little bit of research will reveal varying, sometimes even contradictory answers. Which is the better and more effective, productive political system, communism or capitolism? Yes it's a trick question - but a whole lot of people wont' even grasp the fact that those are economic rather than political systems until they investigate. As for which is better, more productive - it still depends on who you ask, and remains open to debate, particularly given the fact that a true communist (or perhaps I should say Marxist) economy has never existed to compare. . .

At any rate, by the time I start talking to potential players, that wiki will be a hell of a lot bigger. I don't expect players to want to read all of it, but it's part of my creative process and I need to have things for my own reference even if no one wants to know about the characteristics of various naval vessels - just how long will it take to sail to XXX, can I find a ship going there and what will it cost? An introductory wiki needs to be pared down. The balance of the information may ultimately be available - and their are various portions of it which players will want to know fairly early on, but this will vary according to the players interest. There is little that is truly hidden, and not a lot which needs to be learned through process in game - the latter really occurs only when the process by which it is gained is utlimately more important than the information itself - see "enlightenment" above. . . In some cases the process may be inherent in story - if players like a good mystery then beginning an adventure knowing everything in advance will spoil the game. Since there is a lot of intrigue in the world, there are a lot of secrets at the deeper levels. For players wanting to explore the intrigues of these various organizations and conflicting interests part of the fun is the process of discovery. To those who aren't interested in an espionage style game, nearly all of the information is really irrelevant. Ultimately I expect to have the setting developed in breadth and depth comparable to any published setting. I don't know if I'll ever try and get it published, but it wil certainly be complete enough that if someone else were to refer to the wiki they could run a campaign in whatever style they wished as readily as with anything in print.

Have Fun, Play Well,
Amergin O'Kai

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[Dwight]

I need to have things for my own reference even if no one wants to know about the characteristics of various naval vessels - just how long will it take to sail to XXX, can I find a ship going there and what will it cost?
That be not the BW way. This is why I urged you to stop right at where you are. Because players can influence those things. Heavily. Shipping-Wise, World-Wise, Travel-Wise, Geography-Wise and so on are all Skills that allow a player to [attempt to] specify that kind of detail. Your job is to set tone and mood. The theme of the game. And to fill the world with just enough details (usually NPCs but other things too) to set up the core conflicts, as outlined in the PC Beliefs. Of course you get to add these details too as you go along if they come up. But the more you set in stone before the less input you get from your players.

Do you have the books yet?

Regarding the Religion 'spoilers' you can let them know that something isn't exactly as it seems with religion (or however you want to frame it), and let them know it isn't a single roll to determine it. Let them know that it's a puzzle that you intend to have them work at solving. This allows:
1) you to just drop the whole concept up front if they aren't interested in it
2) you to tweak the general concept if that's what interests the players
2) them to build on this part of your theme, otherwise they might not notice it and just ignore it
3) one or more players to list this in their Beliefs, it puts this cool aspect of the world into focus and lets you know which players are really, really into this so you can tweak the conflicts to reflect this

[Snargash Moonclaw]

N.B. - if some of the following comes through as irritation it is frustration from some evident miscommunication which seems to have increased rather than become clearer, not personal animosity - I appreciate the feed back and attempt/intent to answer the question I'm investigating.


That be not the BW way. This is why I urged you to stop right at where you are.

Whoa. I don't think it is your intent/meaning, but appears you have just told me *not* to develop the setting. The implications have been that players are expected to create the setting and the GM (DM, whatever) will run it. Don't know about you, but I have never encountered a group of players wanting to actually *Create* the setting - they expect the GM to do that (or run one that is published somewhere). However, your following comments modify that to state that the players only influence and provide input to the setting being developed. You have actually described *exactly* the approach I take. Everything I have stated in posts subsequent to the first is intended in context of previous statements as clarifications - that context begins with what is stated explicitly in the introduction page of the wiki,

"Rather than passive audience members asking a storyteller to relate some tale of one of their favorite heroes, a group of storytellers comes together to share and weave the tales of their favorite characters with each other in the context of a larger Story. Gaming rules simply provide conventions to facilitate this process in a consistent and coherent fashion which allows all the storytellers to participate equally." and further down,

"I've taken primarily a top-down approach, starting with the deities, races and general cultures to create a framework and leaving large portions of the map rather vague for now. Character concepts remain initially more fluid as there is more room to play with them, open spaces in which they can fit."

Further emphasized later by, "I am leaving the world open to the possibility of most races (and classes) players wish to explore with the exception of those specific to other settings, e.g., Kender, Warforged, etc" This last of course is referring to D&D specifics - dropping that system eliminates the need of restricting races that only make sense in the overall context of a given published setting as at this point races included are being redeveloped largely from scratch.


Because players can influence those things. Heavily. Shipping-Wise, World-Wise, Travel-Wise, Geography-Wise and so on are all Skills that allow a player to [attempt to] specify that kind of detail. Your job is to set tone and mood. The theme of the game. And to fill the world with just enough details (usually NPCs but other things too) to set up the core conflicts, as outlined in the PC Beliefs. Of course you get to add these details too as you go along if they come up. But the more you set in stone before the less input you get from your players.

Nothing is set in stone - as I've said before the setting as a dynamic and changing one in which I expect characters to influence the flow and course of that change. Currents they choose not to influence of course will also change. Initial setting development then establishes "start values" which are only completely true of the moment in game time payers first sit down together - from that point forward the world is changing. One of the key aspects of the top down approach however is that players can also input start values regarding things that matter. The world itself is established as the coastlines, major mountain ranges and rivers (those large enough to actually appear in the scale of the global polar projection) with a few major oceanic islands roughed in. Actual nations within these as drawn up consist of an Empire spanning the majority of islands in the equatorial sea between the continents, "tribal" peoples (culturally/socially speaking, and as highly "advanced" as any other) - in the remainder of the islands - with little more detail developed than that simple statement, two coastal kingdoms and a principal city lying between them, and general names, concepts of to neighboring areas. What is of particular note in my approach is the fact that the material in italics was directly developed from player input by way of character backstory. I'm including the relevant material written by the player in the next message to illustrate. (I'm now editing - this post has to break for length. . .) The whole point of working from the general framework down to details is that the framework is minimal structure surrounding numerous, large empty areas - both on the map and in the roster of races, social roles, nations, cultures, etc. Someone wants to play a classic "knight errant" serving a noble feudal king - great - together we put together a suitable kingdom, society, etc. and put it on the map - he wants to include the kingdom bordering a huge wilderness over-run with monsterous races and engaging in a centuries long struggle to hold them at bay - great - we get together and place this next to the kingdom - wants the knight to be of a race that is incapable of performing magic and largely immune to it and has had to develop mundane technologies to meet needs which magic does for everyone else - great - we create the race together. A group of storytellers weaving their stories together and participating equally. This is why I normally refer to the DM as the Story Guide and the players as Storytellers. If a player wants to design ships - fanfreakintastic! Problem there at the moment is locating a decent system/construction template for doing so. (As a player myself in other games I have spent countless hours doing just that with vehicles, drones, ships, fighters,etc.- Shadowrun rigger, old Spelljamming, Silent Death ship construction, Classic Battletech 'mech design, etc.) Those of us who enjoy this facet of gaming are only a small percentage of the overall. I could easily encounter a group of players who want to play a bunch of seagoing freetraders in the style of Firefly, simply trying to keep solvent and out of prison, where none of the players would have any desire to actually work through the nuts and bolts of designing a ship - merely suggesting modifications, customizing they would like to see or eventually purchase. I wold have to have ship designs established and available to reference and illustrate to them when they go shopping in the ship yard - hence my comment about Khurorkh vessels as an example. Somewhere in my replies I seem to have not been clear about the interactive approach that I take to this and actually given a very different impression of what I'm doing - but it is precisely because of that approach that I am investigating BW. Regarding religion you have also outlined exactly the approach I take - as well as a number of other facets of the world which aren't necessarily as they seem on the surface. Those which are of no interest to the players/characters, while remaining in play (Jessanak is still an evil, tyrannical asshole whether or not they ever interact with any of his followers - this is part of the tone of the Malenorian Empire. If they decide to explore things far from the equator they simply won't notice the effects of Malenorian policy on that region. . .) will have little bearing on the game. Another group may do the opposite - the actions of both separate groups might become noticeable to the other should they influence facets both overlap. The importance of character beliefs and values is also a key integral part of the setting development and one which I stress in character creation. While I have outlined a number of major deities, religious orders and societies and their respective ethea there is always room to add more should someone propose something I haven't yet thought of. Because the attention of the deities and the actions of their followers are also a very significant part of the setting's tone characters need to incorporate it. Apostacy or even atheism are possible - but they inherently need to be conscious, deliberate and reasoned choices to the character, not defaults for the lazy who don't wish to consider the matter - the world is such that it will confront characters who haven't figured out yet what the believe, care about with the need to seek these answers for themselves. Of course *that* is also a very viable character concept and many "psychodrama" type deep character immersion players actually like to include that (or some similar ethical, value oriented exploration) as a key focus of their character development through the course of the game. (Also a favorite of mine as a player. . .) The core concept then in world development is to build an open ended panorama - richly layered but very adaptable in which virtually any sort of campaign can be played - military, classic "heroic," deep intrigue and espionage (ala Le Carre and others) or more lighthearted (ala James Bond), wuxia and ninjas, ninjas vs pirates, wild rovers and highway men, Robin Hood, you name it. Just how much players want to take a hand in creating pieces of the setting is still up to them - they can do an entire region with ecology, politics, economics, various nations, specific native races and religions - the whole bloody works (these are after all two large continents to play in). In my experience, most won't want to (and they leave it up to me) and none will have to. I've also highly enjoyed co-gming games wit a friend in which we have both developed portions of the overall setting, collaberated on much of it and taken turns running stories and campaigns for the group - allowing us also to simply play characters and explore them.


Do you have the books yet?

Not yet - the whole purpose of this thread is to determine whether to invest my rather limited funds - I want to know if BW will portray certain central themes of the setting well, e.g. do the mechanics prevent the interaction of the deities relegating them purely to questions of faith (in which it makes no functional difference if they don't actually exist - you can't tell one way or the other until after you're dead) or does the system support their direct interaction with the world and its inhabitants (whereby their existence is certain and their "commandments" can be verified in person). DnD Mechanical concepts i.e. portfolios, domains et al regarding deities is evident in the Deities (http://www.thecbg.org/wiki/index.php/Deities) page and they are doing something I want in terms of how the deities interact with the world/people/abstract principals related to them and this part it does reasonably well, so I'm wanting to determine if BW mechanics do essentially the same thing since the deities interaction and the essential premises underlying the form that interaction takes (which DnD mechanics try to manifest,) is a critical part of the tone/mood/theme. It does appear to be pretty clear that BW is geared toward the style of gaming I want to engage in.

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Now playing: Track 2 (http://www.foxytunes.com/artist/-/track/track+2)
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[Snargash Moonclaw]

The following character backstory resulted in the Kingdom of D'Jelaekar, esp. the southern city of Pahkhearah and the Land of 3 Rivers further south - essentially the basic terrain and ecology of the region as well as the nomadic tribes throughout and further south of the Badlands, and the Harak Shyz'n (http://www.thecbg.org/wiki/index.php/Harak_Shyz%27n) (which gave the seed for the conceptof the Khurorkh Shyz'n (http://www.thecbg.org/wiki/index.php/Orders_and_Societies#.28Khurorkh.29_Shyz.27n) as a whole). Not much is written down yet for these outside hyz'nof handwritten notes in a few different places regarding early campaign developments from start value - the initial short adventure included the discovery of a significant cache of supplies (mostly nonperishable food -rice and beans- but including things like horseshoes and crates of arrowheads and spear hafts) which the character below would have not only recognized as meaningful but had training to actually deduce a great deal regarding purpose - how many for how long, etc. - as a logistics and intelligence officer. It also then points toward where to find answers to some of the questions the character has in the back story. Another character would have knowledge of some trade patterns which would point to extensive ship building - overall the party had pieces to provide several months advance warning of the war D'Jelaekhar plans to begin - along with reasons for at least a couple of them to recognize that they have stumbled upon things of significance. The Harak Shyz'n TOE is fully outlined in a wiki page linked from the Orders and Societies page. I'll add the two maps that this character backstory prompted at it end. A very few details where changed (e.g. his mentor to an officer rather than NCO, the broader scope of the Harak Shyz'n in which the academy fits, etc.) or further fleshed out from what follows.

still long - next

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Now playing: Thong Linh - Love Song (http://www.foxytunes.com/artist/thong+linh/track/love+song)
via FoxyTunes (http://www.foxytunes.com/signatunes/)

[Snargash Moonclaw]

Alright, here's what I have.

A lot of the details changed as I fleshed things out, but the basic concept remains intact. Hope you like it, I put a lot of work into it.

Also, I'm interested in hearing what you think of the Harak Shyz'n and the Society for Martially Minded Individuals, and how well that bit fits in with the way you envisioned Red Orcs.

Let me know what you think.

Alix

BACKGROUND: Tiak Ten-Fingers

The story of Tiak Ten-Fingers properly begins before he was born. The Akei Tai Var (translated to The People of the Wind and Earth) grew large in numbers and thus divided, as was their way. One half journeyed to the north, and contact with them was lost. The other half went to the rocky badlands of the south, and found a place living amongst a band of friendly desert nomads known as the Dizran-da. Most families remained intact through the division, but the Ten-Fingers were of the warrior caste. The low caste. Halflings characteristically relied primarily on the larger races to defend them, but even so, having defenders amongst their own people was sometimes necessary. However, the troupe was most famous for its silver-tongued traders and outlandish performers, slyly teasing coins from outsiders to earn their food and drink, and firmly backed up by a tradition of hard-working farmers and laborers ready to go wherever their skills were needed. And so, amongst other drawbacks of being members of an under-appreciated profession, the Ten-Fingers were expected to divide their family in accordance with the split, so that each division of the troupe would have warriors to protect them.
T'Zen Ten-Fingers, Tiak's maternal grandfather and the patriarch of the Ten-Finger family at the time, was a paragon of the halfling race and a revolutionary thinker. If T'zen were merely dissatisfied with his own place in the tribe, he could have arranged for a marriage into another family where he could then leave the Ten-Fingers and the warrior profession behind for good. But T'zen was dissatisfied with his families place. He wanted respect amongst the Akei Tai Var, and when he met the Dizran-da he saw opportunity. He noticed that the Dizran-da's warriors didn't simply remain quietly in the background to make sure that the important members of the tribe could do their work. Like the rest of their people, they were boisterous and fun loving. And they had an interesting way of making their own income: raiding.

Putting the skills of combat and stealth that his family had honed for generations into use, T'zen led his family into a small-scale yet wildly successful campaign for wealth and glory, robbing several nearby human settlements of their wealth and dignity. When he returned to the Dizran-da and boasted of his accomplishments, they were delighted at the feats of the "little warriors." They quickly agreed to allow the Ten-Fingers to join them on their forays, and over the years T'zen's family amassed great wealth, as well as a small magical armory. But to T'zen's chagrin, his family's success failed to elevate their status, and even served to further alienate them from the rest of the troupe, who were upset that mere warriors were beginning to amass more wealth than the others.

T'Zen died of natural causes without ever realizing his dream of raising his families social status. But as the last chapters of his story were written, the story of his grandson was just beginning. Tiak has fond if vague memories of his grandfather, a feisty, pipe-smoking old battle-axe who always seemed to have time to teach young Tiak a thing or two about how to hold the shortbow. But his memories of the turmoil that followed his grandfather's death are far more vivid. The Akei Tai Var elders asked Tereesa, T'zen's widow and the new Ten-Fingers matriarch to cease raiding, citing vague concerns of drawing enmity from the surrounding people. Tereesa refused but even so Rance, her son-in-law and Tiak's father, expressed concerns about her ability to lead the family in the right direction. He suggested that the family shift its power structure away from the elders and to patriarchy, and some of Tiak's family listened to him. But more resisted Rance's ideas, and the Ten-Fingers remained a divided family thereafter.

Being the youngest of Rance's five children, Tiak was oft-neglected and constantly starving for attention. Tereesa and her camp suspected him of sympathizing with his father's movement for patriarchy, and his father Rance mostly ignored him in favor of doting on his four older siblings. His only true friends were his two older sisters, Lereesa and Lola. In his youth he was desperate to prove himself and constantly doing more and more risky behavior in order to get attention. He was therefore an easy victim for the family's enemy, the Doraz-han.

Most of T'zen's victims either had the good grace to accept defeat, or were simply too embarrassed to admit that they got beat up by halflings. But the Doraz-han were an old and conservative tribe with a strict sense of honor, slowly dwindling in numbers due to their fierce independence and incompetence in diplomacy. They were outraged at the prospect of their young warriors being defeated by such little people and they swore revenge.

When Tiak turned 16, a few disgruntled youths of the Doraz-han approached him and invited him to journey with them to a nearby human city, less than a day's journey from the badlands. He agreed, hoping he would have an opportunity to prove himself to his family. But Tiak had not been briefed by his troupe on how to conduct himself within the city, and the youths were able to convince him to mug a young nobleman. Tiak beat up the foppish child with ease and helped himself to the human's coin purse, but didn't get far with it before he was arrested. Well pleased with themselves, the barbarian youths fled back to the badlands.

When Rance heard about what happened he came to the city himself so that he might attempt to appease the human authorities. Though Tiak was found to be guilty of assault and robbery, Rance succeeded partially in rescuing his son when he managed to bribe a sniveling, obese administrator named Norrik Runcible to put Tiak's name on a special list.

The Harak Shyz'n Society for Martially Minded Individuals had been founded by a band of Red Orc mercenaries known as the Harak Shyz'n. The Shyz'n had grown so successful that they had created the society in an effort to reach out to other races and expand their ranks with unique talents. Since recruits who could pay the entry fee of two hundred gold were relatively uncommon, and the city was having problems with dungeon overcrowding, the Shyz'n had entered an agreement to take a small number of promising criminals into their program and make a nominal effort to reform them. Tiak ended up as one of the conscripts of this program.

His father told him to stay with the society and learn all he could, so that after he was released he could graduate with honors and return to the Akei Tai Var with the skills that he learned among the humans. And though Tiak cooperated as best as he could, there were difficulties from the beginning. He couldn't understand why everyone was so bent on learning how to kill things, since it seemed to him that everyone knows that there are a variety of harmless poisons strong enough to render an ogre unconscious. The discipline required of military life was also completely alien to him. He didn't understand why he had to train constantly, when there were so many better things in life to enjoy. And it didn't help that he was the only halfling in the entire society. His fellows looked down at him as a weakling, and picked on him due to his continual inability to keep up during the marches. Through perseverance he overcame these difficulties and gained some friends within the Shyz'n ranks. Though his natural charisma and obvious bravery caused many people to see themselves as his friend, he privately felt little for them. They were friends, certainly, but they were human friends and not nearly as valuable as the ties he had with his own community.

[Snargash Moonclaw]

His education was primarily on the physical side, with some sparse but meaningful civilian schooling that meant eventually learned to read. After a month of drills, he was also expected to perform active duty. For him, this generally meant running back and forth delivering messages and suffering from the cruel jokes of his superiors.

One day Mage Sergeant Shatuka Arabet, a half-elven wizard and career soldier for the Shyz'n, commissioned him to be her scribe for the day, as she had previously taken note of his ability to receive information and process it quickly. While copying down the results of an experiment, Tiak stopped in his work, and asked why the experimenter hadn't tried every variable. Under her withering gaze, he crudely explained that the formula that was being used seemed to follow a natural progression, but that progression had been skipped in two places. Shatuka frowned over the scroll and then tucked it away. She then told Tiak that he a talent… one that could make him a wizard. She promised to file a request to be initiated into the wizardry program on his behalf, and write a letter of recommendation urging the society administrators to accept him in.

Tiak was ecstatic. Here was a whole new world that was now open to him, the world of the arcane. And when he unlocked those secrets it would no longer matter that he was a halfling among humans, since a wizard would be treated with respect no matter who he was.

A week later, his denial letter was delivered to him. The contemptuous words made it clear that the administrators thought that the idea of a halfling wizard was ridiculous, and furthermore, teaching a convicted criminal how to use magic was socially irresponsible. Tiak was crushed with the realization that his newfound talent would likely never be developed, and overcome with an emotion that he had never before experienced on a meaningful level: jealousy. He tried to shun Shatuka's company thereafter, but she saw that even untrained, his talent could be of some use, and would have none of his scorn. She filed another request that he be assigned to her as an aide, and in this matter she got her wish. Eventually he warmed to her, slowly understanding that since she was a half-elf, they shared a common bond in feeling out of place in this world.

Against all odds, Tiak survived his first year without being booted out and sent to rot in the city dungeon. It seemed that he would pay off his debt to society in another year and be allowed to leave, to return to his people and be happy and free. But then everything changed. A famine struck the land, causing starvation within the city, but hitting the surrounding communities even harder. The Dizran-da and the Akei Tai Var fell on difficult times, and the friendly nomads were no longer in a position to feed their halfling friends. For the troupe, the opportunity that had brought them to the badlands had now passed. It was finally time to move on. Tiak had always known that his troupe would not stay rooted to one place forever, but he had never imagined that when his halfling brothers and sisters left, he would not be leaving with them. His family still internally divided and at odds with the rest of their community, they could only leave him with vague promises to contact him once the troupe had settled down in a new land.

At this time Shatuka became preoccupied with trying to end or reduce the famine with a magical solution. One day, while they were pouring through reports and logs, Tiak noticed something unusual. The primary causes of the famine seemed to involve giants raiding the trade routes and stealing grain, as well as massive swarms of locusts destroying local crops. But since the city was only one of the Dizran-da's many trade partners, the famine shouldn't have affected them as greatly as it had, certainly not to the level that his family had reported the final time that they visited him. He pointed this apparent discrepancy out to Shatuka. Her gaze met his. And she shrugged. That was it. But Tiak had been working closely with Shatuka for a long time, and he noticed something in that look that intrigued him. He couldn't put his finger on anything specific, but he sensed that something had taken place beyond his locus of awareness, something with a deeper meaning.

Though Tiak was greatly intrigued, it would turn out that he would have very little time to ponder the incident. The very next day he received a letter saying that he had been accepted into the four-year intelligence program, for which training would begin the following week. Tiak was more than a little shocked at the news, since he had never even applied for the intelligence program.

Tiak was taught how to blend in with various people to avoid drawing suspicion, and obtain information held by people who did not want it to become known. Though he learned much from his teachers, he learned the most from active duty as Shatuka's aide, which he was still expected to continue. During the famine and after it had subsided, she began requesting that he go into the city and retrieve information and objects. It began as simple bits of gossip and common items that could easily be purchased, but gradually grew more difficult until he had to use all of his wiles to complete her obscure requests. When he failed, she taught him traits valuable to a wizard, and which were also valuable to a spy: Dedication, mastery, calm, and focus. Though her career was wildly different from his, Tiak would always regard Shatuka as the greatest influence in his training.

Tiak graduated at the top of his class, the first halfling to successfully complete the societies training program. When he began pooling his meager resources and making plans to track down his troupe, something stopped him. He remembered all those days in his childhood, when the Ten-Fingers would lounge around the Dezran-da tents, drinking jik and relaxing sometimes for weeks. He had accepted it without question when he was a child. But looking back through new eyes, he now regarded it as laziness. The more he recollected, the more he realized that he was preparing to return to a lifestyle that was worlds apart from the strict training he had received in the society. And to his shock, he found that he was reluctant to do so. Furthermore, he felt a strong sense of shame at his youthful stupidity that had ended him up on the wrong side of the judicial system. He realized that he did not want to be the person that had been driven to mug a human noble out of a desire to prove his worth. He wanted to be the man he was now: Strong, disciplined, and methodical.

The desire to return to his community was still strong, but it was tempered heavily by a fear that if he did so, he would find that he could never again be at home among his own people. In the end he rationalized, deciding that he was too poor to go on a fruitless quest to track down the Akei Tai Var, and instead he would be wise to accept the promotion that was offered to him upon his graduation and join the Harak Shyz'n as an intelligence officer and a career soldier.


http://www.thecbg.org/wiki/index.php/Image:Djelaekhar.jpg
http://www.thecbg.org/wiki/index.php/Image:SH1.jpg

[zabieru]

See, that's what we're talking about! You're not, as GM, the referee for the player's setting. It's all collaborative, shared all around the table. When a player says "I want to be from an ancient monarchy, my family's of old martial stock, driven into poverty" the correct answer is NEVER "Well, there's no place like that in my world, try again." Make it work! I promise you, that player will be happy to collaborate with you on the details of kingdom and family.

You're right that few if any groups of players will come to a GM with a fully-fleshed-out world and ask her to run it for them. But you're wrong that no player wants any hand in creation, as your example shows. We're merely suggesting that you never punish a player with your setting, and that you let players create things if they're things the group likes and they work with what's already on the table. It sounds like you're doing that already, so we're closer to agreement than argument. Consider, in running BW, whether any given detail will make a better story as open player knowledge, or as a secret. You'll find you get better game that way than you would simply by asking yourself if the characters have any way to know.

An example of this sort of thing: Vincent Baker wrote something, I think it was with regards to Dogs in the Vineyard, about how he handles NPCs lying to the players: He delivers their lines with a big knowing evil-bastard smile, a wink between GM and player. It's like incidental music in a movie: You know this guy's playing sly even though you're not sure what he's lying about or why and the characters on screen don't know anything.

My concern when I see huge backgrounds, particularly when they include tales of struggle and triumph like that one, is that the creators are "playing before the game starts." I know when I've been in games where I knew I'd have essentially no control over the thematic direction of the story and wasn't likely to have any chance to deal with my character's beliefs in play, I put the guy's real story into the background. That was kinda lame. Make sure you're starting the game BEFORE the real struggles in the character's life! They shouldn't be blank slates, but they SHOULD be just starting their tempering. Does that make sense? Do you know what I'm talking about?

So I'm hoping that our man's sturm und drang about getting into the academy and then about what to do afterwards was his A New Hope and you guys are pressed for time so you're skipping right to Empire Strikes Back, and he'll be coming out of the gate with some burning issues to confront and powerful beliefs to drive him into them. If, on the other hand, you get done with character burning and find that he's got beliefs like "I will be a good intelligence officer" and "I will have discipline and obey the law," you need to go back to the drawing board on that one.

[Saphim]

Yes players want to create settings, they just don't want to write 20,000 word expositions on it. Sitting around a table with snacks and talking about what would be cool to have in the game is the best way to create the setting, it makes sure everyone is involved.

[Dwight]

N.B. - if some of the following comes through as irritation it is frustration from some evident miscommunication which seems to have increased rather than become clearer, not personal animosity - I appreciate the feed back and attempt/intent to answer the question I'm investigating.
That's appreciated. Likewise please don't take what I have to say as telling you how to play RPGs. Instead it is the approach that BW is written for and performs best with.


Whoa. I don't think it is your intent/meaning, but appears you have just told me *not* to develop the setting.
Not till you are sitting at the table, with flesh and blood players. Absolutely! Then you do it together. You and the players sketch out what you'll be playing, like this. (http://burningwheel.org/forum/showthread.php?t=4298)

EDIT: You'll get your mind into the tone/theme of the setting and, create a few specific details in the world to get you going. Usually the core of this are the inital NPCs that PCs are likely to interact with and be challenged by (this info is found in the Beliefs and Relationships section of the PC character sheets). A Relationship Diagram is a good idea, to map how the PCs and NPCs are all linked to one another. This is information that's on the character sheet but it can help people see the whole thing graphically in one place.

Nobody brings a backstory for a character to the table that doesn't fit within what you fill out on the character sheet (but there is a LOT of condense info there). Don't worry if the characters seem "flat" compared to what you are used to, in terms of 'backstory'. In play these will become some of the most vibrant PCs you've ever seen.

I plan to post a little more later, specifically an example of how a question about the distance from one city to the next might come up in play and the answer get resolved right there and then. In the meantime check out this (http://burningwheel.org/forum/showthread.php?t=3695) as an example of 'gods' in play.

[Snargash Moonclaw]

Re: players desire to take part in the world creation:
This I have experienced as variable. Often players are more likely to want a hand in the creation of system mechanics or modification (if using a published system). That is - they have some very definite ideas about how they would like to see combat or magic or some other krunchberry taste in play. The character background example is also germane to this discussion in the fact that it is the most any player has demonstrated desire to input in this particular project. (Also part of why I'm putting it on hold til returning to Denver - I know people there who do want to do this.) In the overall world of gaming - that is looking at what all the gamers in your given city are doing, those who want to do this are a small percentage. This is why they're spending hundreds to thousands of dollars (literally over time) for the copious volumes of D&D, White Wolf WoD (table and LARP), etc., then doing it all over again when the publisher puts out a new edition - these are what, and how, the majority are wanting to play. However, these are also what many are playing by default - it's what they've come to expect and while it's not as fulfilling as they would like, they haven't experienced different to make a comparison, and it can often take some coaxing to get them to take a greater hand in the storyweaving. They're so used to sitting down to whatever the DM is serving at the table that they are at a loss as to what to do when they instead are given an empty plate and access to a well stocked kitchen by someone hosting a potluck. Back in Denver I know a number of people who at least enjoy cooking and sharing their dishes with friends if someone will host and provide the kitchen facilities. . .

I'll be looking into purchasing BW - and seeing about targeting said Denverites - learning curve to a new system is often a significant speedbump - if they're used to DnD there's still the tendency to choose known mediocrity over unknown 'might be better' that you have to learn and try to find out. . . Have some other comments/responses toward today's messages here - gotta leave for work though (I don't get holidays) so I'll be back in a couple of hours once I'm settled into the Monkey House and hooked into the nearby wi-fi feed. (My job provides lots of down time during which I do copious writing, artwork, etc.) If any care to discuss more directly I'm around on Yahoo Messenger as Breed_TwoSpirit and nearly always hanging out in the Campaign Builders Guild (still Snargash Moonclaw - I keep that pretty consistent in gaming boards, tho' sometimes show up as Sillyfaerie - usually linked to the Snargash handle as w/the CBG wiki.) I encountered BW reference and links to reviews via Gnome Stew - a lot of CBGers participate in discussions there. . .

And thanks for the input.

Have Fun, Play Well,
Amergin O'Kai



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Now playing: Lou Reed - Halloween Parade (http://www.foxytunes.com/artist/lou+reed/track/halloween+parade)
via FoxyTunes (http://www.foxytunes.com/signatunes/)

[Snargash Moonclaw]

One of the key things I'm getting about BW is that it actually to some (perhaps a large) degree mandates players participate in the campaign development in pretty much the fashion I have been trying to coax those playing D&D to do for years. I've been addressing gaming from a DMing style for decades which has always been clearly a minority report. I'm also noticing trends in current RPG gaming expectations which actually serve to make this even more the case overall since many are coming to the table for the first time with a presupposed definition of what a Role Playing Game is derived from having played so-called “RPGs” on their computers – and expecting a very similar experience at the table *only more so.* I'll leave my soapbox aside on this one – I'm pretty sure you can all think of examples of this which also serve to emphasize the reasons you choose to play BW over some other system. My impression of the most recent developments is that new games and editions tend to be moving further into this trend (D&D 4.0 being what specifically comes to my mind at the moment). DnD and virtually any system can permit this sort of play – it's what I've always done, and fortunately with good DM's who grasp the concept and could at least accommodate if not appreciate it. It's (and Shadowrun, et al among my list of enjoyments) just not designed with that style specifically in mind. But even Shadowrun can be – my friend whom I co-gmed a Denver set game did so – Shadowrun at least tried to address character depth in it's earlier editions with a suggested 20 questions – these were a necessary requirement as a starting point. Characters in the game were very full and round, the skills, stats, etc.. were simply shorthand for (game system) mechanical devices to reflect what they had learned and were capable of in the course of becoming who and what they chose to be. (And Shadowrun is a very crunch heavy, combat oriented game. Our characters could go on at great length about their social and spiritual philosophies, the role of violent conflict in society, and the ethical quandaries therein.) Perhaps it would be useful to point out that I have been a very dedicated Wiccan priest for 25 years, practicing shaman and spiritual counselor for most of those as well as practitioner of the Buddha Dharma (Ch'an – very Taoist influenced root of Zen) over the course of the last decade. Further, in seeming contradistinction, I'm a Cold War Army veteran; Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Warfare Specialist. All of this shows in my characters and settings. Nearly all of those with whom I game/have gamed with in Denver are likewise Pagan and steeped in mythology and its role in culture – including at least some concept of the part that traditional storytelling plays in that. Stating this serves to give context to the very first sentences of my introduction, “Tuatha Shanachie Corrsorcha (Gael: the Storytellers’ Clan of the Bright Crane), an RPG Storytelling Circle founded along the DragonSpine, is now opening a sept in The Rose City.
Gaming in TSC is based on the concept that RPGs are taking the magick of the traditional storyteller’s circle to a deeper level.”

In Denver this statement was exposited in greater length and detail as I was addressing people I could expect to be cognizant of concepts regarding traditional storytelling and the weaving of reality, both in the sense of mythical traditions and more “modern” ideas regarding life as narrative/narrative shaping of our lives. Something of significance occurs in the consciousness of people engaging in these “deeper” versions of RPGaming (as distinguished from hack-n-slash dungeon crawling, both at the table and on the computer) which I am explicitly declaring to be identical to the “something of significance which occurs in the consciousness of those engaging in the exchange of a traditional (and damnit – I just realized that I've left out of the initial quoted sentence in my introduction the key word!) oral storyteller's circle” but exponentially magnified by the fact that not only is each participant now actively and simultaneously engaging in both storytelling and storyreceiving, but all participants are likewise engaging in both acts at essentially the same time as all the others - and that very something is what we are expecting when, and hence the reason why, we continue to play and explore this sort of gaming in preference over representing the Lollipop Kids in hack-n-slash, dungeon crawling, power-up gobbling MunchkinLand.

I think part of the initial miscommunication regarding core underlying gaming concepts and how I have been implementing them arises from a lack of semantic clarity regarding two essential terms which often get blurred. Many of the participants over in the Campaign Builder's Guild, myself included, are actually working on (and helping each other, giving feedback and suggestions on, and generally enjoying watching/reading the creative process and products of) the game worlds, or settings, in which campaigns take place. To be more precise about this – Burning Sherwood is a campaign, not a setting. The setting is historical Earth (no not just medieval England, the whole bloody ball of bluegreen water is implied as surrounding and being travelable to from: when we state the campaign takes place in Sherwood Forest) with some modifications to history permitting the active presence and use of magic in that world. We've been discussing a lot about how we approach campaigns and I am basically approaching them in the very fashion people are referring to – hence it sounds like BW is what I'm looking for. What I am writing, and putting into the CBG wiki is the setting in which I wish to play those campaigns in that manner. The gods of Panisadore are essentially extremely powerful NPCs – how they interact with the less powerful is part of the tone/mood. Racial descriptions are very “broad brush painting” - giving a distinguishing mood/tone/flavor to the races. And even these macro elements are certainly (I would even say eagerly and joyfully) open to further input and expansion upon from participating storytellers. (The last line of my first post in this thread was an invitation to collaborate on these stories should the basic flavors presented in the wiki suit the tastes or intrigue the palates of others in the Denver or Portland areas reading them. Online collaboration is certainly possible too, but eventually poses a distinct difference in participation from the rest of those actually playing at the table.) To abuse the cooking analogy a bit more - certain flavors can only be produced if a kitchen contains the appropriate appliances/utensils needed - no charbroiled flavor if you don't have a suitable grill - if the system is the appliances and utensils in the kitchen I at least so far have not heard that BW lacks (or mutually excludes in any way) those with which I can produce the flavors I've outlined in the wiki so far. . . Hence should be worth the investment.

And a final note - as a writer Panisadore is also the background for much I wish to write and seek to publish - another reason to break it free of tell-tale D&D structural patterns and a principal reason why I am just going to keep on imagining/creating/writing more and more stuff about it. Don't worry - they're will still be plenty of room to throw lots of World Parties with any theme the Mardi Gras Crewes can come up with. . .

In accordance with Prophecy. . .

And as always,
Have Fun, Play Well,
Amergin O'Kai
(yes that really is my name. Which is why I go to SCA events as "John Smith")


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Now playing: Tom Waits - The Part You Throw Away (http://www.foxytunes.com/artist/tom+waits/track/the+part+you+throw+away)
via FoxyTunes (http://www.foxytunes.com/signatunes/)

[zabieru]

I think we're talking too much, getting our signals crossed. BW is $25 for a two-book set, one of the best deals in gaming. Read it, run The Sword. Try really hard to play it straight out of the book (imagine you'd only ever played football and four-square, and now were trying to learn kickball: you'd need to really try to understand how kickball worked, or else you'd run into huge problems because of things like trying to use a downs system to figure out when innings ended and so on...) It won't be a huge learning curve* but it will take a conscious effort to remember to do things how BW does them instead of hauling something out of your existing toolbox. HOWEVER, I think it's really, really worth it.

One thing that I can't stress enough, though, is to do a character burning session, all your players together (this doesn't apply to The Sword, of course), where you create your characters TOGETHER and build the campaign around them. You'll be surprised how much setting will come out of that (I'm mainly talking about microsetting, "where I'm from, where I am now, where I'm going, and who's standing in my way." I wonder if we're disconnected on that? Your last post sounds like you're maybe thinking of macrosetting, "What my world is like, what kind of people are in it, how they're ruled," like what the WoD provides by and large.)

*BW is a huge pile of stuff to learn, but it's also highly modularized. Hold to the advice in the book: Don't try to teach everything at once. Save Fight! and the Duel of Wits and Sorcery and Range & Cover, dole them out one, maybe two to a session. If you try to teach them all at the same time, it'll end in tears. The idea here is that the learning curve will be very high, but you can make it nicely gradual instead of steep if you follow the advice in the book.

[Snargash Moonclaw]

I gotta say - affordability is sweet. Scanning the PDFs - the underlying principal for the dice mechanic is actually quite simple and straight forward. Shadowrun does something similar, sliding an extra dimension regarding target numbers for success as while as the # of successes slider (sorta like open ended rolls but reroll sixes to succeed at a higher number instead of more successes at a lower number - you have to roll at least one six in your first pool of dice to succeed at a number higher than six - which makes seven = six by default :p - if you got that then you see the 2 slider matrix for difficulty adjustment, all of this really just means what I said at first - it's easy for me to grasp. . .) Life path concept makes sense - it's clear that some of what I've described setting wise would indicate designing appropriate locations/lifepaths to reflect it (e.g., the orc lifepaths describe the Pahrorkh rather well but not the Khurorkh). It looks like the underlying mechanics/formulae for doing so are present (and used for the additional material in "Falling Blossoms" et al) so I can expect to be able to represent the ideas I have in mind in a reasonably efficient manner. I have never wanted to reinvent the wheel and create a game system from scratch, although I've heavily modified some. THe first I ever played/GMed was the Fantasy Trip by Steve Jackson back in the early 80s under the Metagaming imprint. Also affordable, very rules lite. It was actually pretty much the alpha test prototype that eventually became GURPS. I had forgotten that Jackson had written it until I was exploring GURPS a few years ago and finding it so very strangely familiar! It was also gratifying to note that most of the mods I had made to TFP way back when where present in GURPS if not in the same manner (many were) then clearly addressing the same concerns in a way to achieve a very similar result. Anyway, BW seems constructed in a fashion to be directly customizable to setting/genre (which also means that I may finally get some folks to play a good steampunky campaign. . .)


(I'm mainly talking about microsetting, "where I'm from, where I am now, where I'm going, and who's standing in my way." I wonder if we're disconnected on that? Your last post sounds like you're maybe thinking of macrosetting, "What my world is like, what kind of people are in it, how they're ruled," like what the WoD provides by and large.)


Exactly! When it comes to the microsetting I have been trying very hard to get players to let go of the expectation that they need the DM to spoon feed them everything (along with the assumption that nothing which doesn't attack them is important, while anything that does must be important. . .) and declare what they want to do instead of trying to figure out what I expect them to be doing :confused: some get it; [head|desk]sadly some seem utterly baffled if no one walks up to them in some nameless tavern and pours out some sob story which they can't imagine why they would care about but jump up and run off to investigate/pursue/avenge/taunt a second time because that is obviously the standard introduction to today's adventure in wonderland and hope that it'll be fun and exciting and new. [/head|desk]

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Now playing: Gnarls Barkley - Charity Case (http://www.foxytunes.com/artist/gnarls+barkley/track/charity+case)
via FoxyTunes (http://www.foxytunes.com/signatunes/)

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Now playing: George Thorogood - I Drink Alone (http://www.foxytunes.com/artist/george+thorogood/track/i+drink+alone)
via FoxyTunes (http://www.foxytunes.com/signatunes/)

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Now playing: Jimi Hendrix - Night Bird Flying (http://www.foxytunes.com/artist/jimi+hendrix/track/night+bird+flying)
via FoxyTunes (http://www.foxytunes.com/signatunes/)

[zabieru]

Exactly! When it comes to the microsetting I have been trying very hard to get players to let go of the expectation that they need the DM to spoon feed them everything (along with the assumption that nothing which doesn't attack them is important, while anything that does must be important. . .) and declare what they want to do instead of trying to figure out what I expect them to be doing :confused: some get it; [head|desk]sadly some seem utterly baffled if no one walks up to them in some nameless tavern and pours out some sob story which they can't imagine why they would care about but jump up and run off to investigate/pursue/avenge/taunt a second time because that is obviously the standard introduction to today's adventure in wonderland and hope that it'll be fun and exciting and new. [/head|desk]


Group character burning is key to this. It's a lot to expect of someone, when you say "Come on Saturday with a character," to expect them to show up Saturday with a character fully placed in the world, but also readily transplantable to wherever the campaign's set, a character with fierce beliefs she'd be willing to sacrifice almost anything for, but also a character who's ready to sacrifice those beliefs to get along with the other party members without knowing anything about them... See what I mean?

Once you have the books, check the Fevered Circle here on the forums for advice on good beliefs. They're key to getting this sort of player engagement.

[Snargash Moonclaw]

Group character burning is key to this. It's a lot to expect of someone, when you say "Come on Saturday with a character," to expect them to show up Saturday with a character fully placed in the world, but also readily transplantable to wherever the campaign's set, a character with fierce beliefs she'd be willing to sacrifice almost anything for, but also a character who's ready to sacrifice those beliefs to get along with the other party members without knowing anything about them... See what I mean?

Yup. While there are pros and cons to creating characters all together, I can see how the pros are more significant given the nature of the system and how it plays. I've tended to work out character creation and backstory via email before first game day which permits my full attention to the player while working on it (one of the cons to group creation is the fact that I can only give my attention fully to one at a time - leaving others at times waiting) but that method doesn't permit the degree of collaboration that BW emphasizes. It may be possible to do so with group emailing - in which everyone sends all msgs to the entire group, thus creating a virtual gathering over a period of many days. However, this requires that everyone have copies of the books in advance in order to participate since loaning/sharing hardcopy text is obviated by the medium. I bring this up because, as I said in the beginning, I'll be trying to populate the storytelling circle via electronic media (LJ, Tribe.net and their likes) and then get the ball rolling via email some 6-8 months in advance (beginning this fall) so as to begin play very soon after the move next April. If everyone will need to buy copies in order to participate in the mail group I may need to begin the "advertising" stage sooner. I had partially planned the timing as permitting me a few more months here to fill more meta setting; comparable to them looking at Burning Sands and Blossoms Are Falling et al in order to decide whether they are interested in playing in one of those settings. I'll definitely need to have a lot accomplished in the retooling before that time as well - life paths to portray the principal races. Humans, elves and especially dwarves of Panisadore will almost certainly require some adjustment to match the alternative racial cultural models and their cosmological perspectives. Halflings and gnomes and Khurorkh of course will have to be worked out from scratch. Blossoms. . . is a strong potential purchase as well since there are parts of the world with a very Asian feel, particularly around the equator, and a very Japanese flavor directly on the equator - Blossoms. . . life paths I expect will prove very useful. A couple of other alt.settings might offer same, but I'm not sure yet. Funds right now are bitchingly tight, but I'll need to purchase ASAP. (Thank gods the core materials weigh in at $45 (and Monster Burner can probably wait a little after getting the others, so even that cost can be reduced in terms of initial outlay.)


Once you have the books, check the Fevered Circle here on the forums for advice on good beliefs. They're key to getting this sort of player engagement.

Definitely something stressed in playing Panisadore given the interaction of the gods and the influence of many of the orders and societies/lodges their churches participate in. I continually stressed "Figure out what really matters to you characters then choose a god or order to whom/which that likewise matters" Orders consist of members of multiple (3 to 7 different) churches reflecting common interests of the participants and their gods. It should be noted that the orders rather than the churches actually manifest polytheistic religions in which different orders tend to have somewhat different ways of seeing the same gods. (You may find this discussion interesting along these lines http://www.thecbg.org/e107_plugins/forum/forum_viewtopic.php?50830.last) Many churches participate in more than one order and many orders cooperate with each other in dealing with the different facets of various matters of common concern, e.g. as healing, taking care of the dead and providing relief services to the survivors of some calamity would involve three different orders dealing with those parts of the relief effort as a whole. Not surprisingly, there will be many churches common to two or even all three. In inserting the possibility of any character having a familiar (not just reserved to a couple of classes) the nature of that familiar relates to choice of deity or order - it will be the totem of they're god, or that of one of the gods of their chosen order, hence no familiar for the apostate and atheist - no resonance pattern in the character to create the totem bond.

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Now playing: Thao Som - Melodies for Two (http://www.foxytunes.com/artist/thao+som/track/melodies+for+two)
via FoxyTunes (http://www.foxytunes.com/signatunes/)

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Now playing: Thao Som - Melodies for Two (http://www.foxytunes.com/artist/thao+som/track/melodies+for+two)
via FoxyTunes (http://www.foxytunes.com/signatunes/)

[zabieru]

One option that I've used is to work concept, BITs (Beliefs, Instincts, and Traits), and background in the group session, then if anyone needs more mechanical attention, to do that one-on-one. The big advantage of the group session is that it's not one-on-one. Everyone's throwing out ideas and they're bouncing off one another and someone mentions turnip farming and someone else says "Oh shit, I think my dad was your cruel absentee landlord!" and you'd never have thought to suggest that to either player if they hadn't been in the same room (or maybe you would have, but I'm sure something will come up that you wouldn't).

Also, Beliefs in BW aren't exactly what you're thinking of... But that's a topic for another day, once you've read the books it may make perfect sense, and if it doesn't, ask then.

[Snargash Moonclaw]

that's the interaction in collaborative effort that I so like - it's very synergetic.

Beliefs I am getting - the underlying belief about reality, how the world works, what people are really, "there are 2 kinds of people, those who masturbate and those who lie about it... ". The Beliefs in BW are one the the things absent from DnD as an essential building block (they're glossed over and not truly relevant to the game system except in assigning an alignment value for detect spells, etc. to work with. . .) and likewise from most systems. My response to this condition has been to then make them an essential element of the setting, thereby correcting the lack. I bring up gods/orders/religions previously because those belief concepts are a major part of what I was taking into account as my starting point to imagine the gods, orders, religions, etc. . . and where I direct players to look first - then look for an icon that represents it as it were. But the first thing is to look at the belief - because that is what determines what the character does/chooses in significant circumstances (this is what happens in life) - thinking bout the relationship between the two then can determine someone's "real religion," not what they do on Sunday. I'm basically trying to create a setting tone of a world that reflects those fundamental reality beliefs back at the inhabitants in a very explicit fashion - which fashion then can be utilized in many ways as well. BW is bringing this into an integral mechanic of character creation and play which is great - Panisadore is a setting in which that mechanic is brightly reflected for all to see. A really good example follows - cut and paste from a thread on pet peeves in fantasy settings - many are fed up with "evil races" stereotyping, drow and orcs being presented as ready common examples of something people when they really think about go "huhwha... why???" because they are presented in a manner that really doesn't make any sense in most games. Italicized passages can be just as true of the actions and choices of individuals if they hold those cultural beliefs - my later comments re:individuals where in context that a culture's beliefs don't always have to manifest in an individual within that culture, i.e., not all southerners display characterstics of racism. . .



I can't scan the drow and orcs peeves without commenting! And, yeah, they tend to be presented as flat. Most "evil" cultures - designated so in terms of cultural values and perception of how the world works - tend to fall flat unless there is a good, comprehensible reason for the people in that culture to have come to embrace that set of values and hold that perception of what life really all boils down to. If so, then the society which the culture develops can reasonably reflect those values and beliefs in terms of how they go about their practical day to day activities and interactions with other cultures and the societies developed from them. I busted my brain hard in working out how that could actually arise from the non-evil elves and orcs in Panisadore - and I at least believe that I succeeded in doing so. The Druewenh and Pahrorkh essentially came to constitute each other's self-fulfilling prophecies - The Druewenh as leaders of the Fehladurh really were trying to enslave the 'orkh race - and the Pahr' faction saw this as the elves revealing their "true colors" - they saw the world as one in which deceit and power were used to control others for personal benefit to the others detriment - and considered this to be the factual norm to which they had been naively blind until the world got colder and darker and push came to shove and they saw what elves are really like. They then reacted in kind, thus proving the assertions of the Druewenh by which they had sought to justify their actions. This means that an "evil" culture inherently believes that the rest of the world's cultures are really the same way, they're just not honest about it with themselves or others until the chips are down and they are forced to reveal their true selves - and then the "evil" society developed from this cultural perspective acts in a manner reasonably (logically) consistent with that belief. Both Druewenh and Pahrorkh are therefore in agreement with each other that they both in fact represent the true members of their respective races - the Fehladurh and Khurorkh merely being the sham faces of their respective races - the Pahrorkh justify hatred of the Fehladurh on the grounds that they are really just Druewenh in disguise and the Druewenh perceive the Khurorkh in the same manner relative to the Pahrorkh. N.B. - all the preceding is with regard to cultures and societies - and says little regarding the individuals of which they're made. Rarely will individuals label their own cultural beliefs (as outlined above) as "evil" - they're just being realistic about the world. Individuals will simply make choices and take actions in their encounters/interactions with others that make sense to them in the context of those beliefs. Witness the "strange fruit" hanging from the trees of the deep south during the last century and decide whether southern culture and society is "evil." So, yes, the drow and the (grey) orcs in Panisadore are evil races pretty much as described (on the surface of things at any rate) in the MM, but I like to think that I have worked out a way in which they could exist as such without the rational absurdities needed to portray the collectives of hundreds of thousands of people who are all (as distinct individuals) consciously dedicated to promoting and explicitly pursuing the objectives that are defined by openly declared moral "values and principals of evil."


In Accordance with Prophecy. . .

Have Fun, Play Well,
Amergin O'Kai
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Now playing: Baka Beyond - Nahwia (http://www.foxytunes.com/artist/baka+beyond/track/nahwia)
via FoxyTunes (http://www.foxytunes.com/signatunes/)

[zabieru]

Nah, that's not what BW Beliefs are.

Read the books, we'll talk more later. The short version is, those beliefs will give you a sour, shitty game. Beliefs are direct, action-oriented, aiming the character at conflict like a knife at your gut. "I am my father's rightful heir, I will seize my birthright from my uncle by law or by blood!"

[Dwight]

Nah, that's not what BW Beliefs are.

Read the books, we'll talk more later. The short version is, those beliefs will give you a sour, shitty game. Beliefs are direct, action-oriented, aiming the character at conflict like a knife at your gut. "I am my father's rightful heir, I will seize my birthright from my uncle by law or by blood!"
Yeah, Amergin. I think this thread is sort of misnamed. It isn't the campaign that you have to worry about retooling for use with Burning Wheel. ;) You are going to find your conceptions of how to run an RPG shaken very deeply. I see it over and over reading your posts, I just haven't bothered to address all the instances. If you are ready for that then BW is for you. If you aren't then you are going to be flustered, confused, and disappointed as session after session you fight against the rules. *shrug* In the case of the later you'd be better off to skip Burning Wheel altogether and save your money for something else.

To give you a taste of gameplay, I'll [finally] give that example of handling the distance between cities. First off, you will only determine the distance when it matters to something in the game. The distance by itself really isn't the important thing, right? The important thing is something like "how long does it take to travel between the two locations", and even then that isn't so important as "what's going to take longer, traveling between the two locations or this other action/event?" So that opens up the question to lots of variables influencing what we really care about. The distance by itself has little relevance. With that in mind I'll construct an example, including what you'll have predetermined at the start of gaming.

Entry from the setting questionnaire, answered before the characters are even created:
What physical place does this conflict take place in? What ecology, environment, place?
... the population centers are widely dispersed with mostly wilderness, and poor roads, between them ...


Player #1: Oh oh, we've tipped our hand.
GM: Yes, you hear via chatter at the public house down the street that the local authority has sent to the Gilded City for a champion to stand up to you. He is nigh legend, purported to have armour that no man's blade can bear to stand against.
Player #2: Oh crap, Grey armour.
GM: Yup.
Player #1: No problem, I'll Enchant a weapon to prepare for this. It'll cut right through his armour. I happen to have the raw antecedent for that, I just haven't gotten around to extracting the antecedent and imbuing a weapon. It'll just take me about a week to prepare that.
GM: But the champion is likely to get here before you can complete that process.
Player #1: *gulp* Well I don't want to have to work Quickly, this is going to be hard enough as it is and I have to burn a lot of Artha to shift my Skill shade so I don't want to fail. :( Actually I'd rather have extra time to work on this Carefully.
Player #2: Nonsense, I know these roads (Road-Wise), this time of year they are usually soft and there's been more than average rain this year (Weather-Wise FoRK). No way he's going to make it in time.
Player #3: Yeah, that's right. He'll be coming by horse to bring his armour and weapons with him and that's a tricky, tough ride through soft ground (Logistics helping die).
GM: Well the champion is an accomplished rider (Riding) and this isn't his first time coming this way, he knows his way around (Travel-Wise FoRK). If you tie you'll have to work at a regular rate to enchant in time, if you beat him you'll have enough extra time to work Carefully. Otherwise you'll have to work Quickly as he'll only take 6 days (-10% required EDIT: meaning the player, to prepare the weapon in time, must roll one more successful die for enchanting than he'd normally have to).
Players : Sure, fair enough.

So the GM rolls the champion's Riding exponent + 1D for the Travel-Wise FoRK vs. Player #2 rolling his PC's Road-Wise exponent + 1D for the Weather-Wise FoRK + 1D for the help from Player #3's PC's Logistics Skill.

The character's Skills can determine the specifics of the reality. It's a bit like Quantum physics, if you have any understanding of that? There are a number of potential answers for a fact until we measure it (with the dice). At that point it becomes set firm to one of the potentials. In the above example we haven't even determined the exact number of leagues between cities. Although whoever wins the roll could describe the passage of the champion in that manner, with actual distances, the type of bogs in the middle, tree falls that slow the champion (or not if the GM won the roll), etc.

EDIT: BTW except for the Enchanting time ( rules available over here, as a preview for the new Magic Burner book (http://www.burningwheel.org/wiki/index.php?title=Category:Magic) ) it is very unlikely anyone at the table cracked open a book or looked on a table for the above discussion. They'd look at their Character sheet to check make sure they weren't missing any Skills that could help. I sort of cheated myself, I didn't check the rules of Enchanting so that time of 1 week might be off a bit. I just rolled that whole conversation off the top of my head (I've only quickly read the Enchanting chapter once, I've not yet used it even outside of a game). The reason is that a lot of Skills, especially Wises or for uses like this, mean what the people at the table agree they represent. You can have anything Xxxx-Wise, there is a single generic, couple-of-paragraph description with a simple Ob/Task table to cover all of them. Yet they are the most powerful Skills in the system (and hard to come by during character creation).

[Dwight]

I'm not sure if you have posed the question yet but if you are wondering "what can I do with all my free offline time to make our game better?" I've got a couple of suggestions. The first is instead of writing out setting info beforehand you can organize notes from the game (you'll want to keep these to track facts determined) into well written story, journal, and/or encyclopedia.

Second, read. Read, or reread, material that has a similar tone to the one you are looking to set. Take the time to notice and analyze the pacing, how the author introduces conflicts, what kinds of conflicts there are. Drink it up. This immensely improves your ability to handle the more dynamic nature of the game.

[Snargash Moonclaw]

The short version is, those beliefs will give you a sour, shitty game. Beliefs are direct, action-oriented, aiming the character at conflict like a knife at your gut. "I am my father's rightful heir, I will seize my birthright from my uncle by law or by blood!"

Perhaps I am using the term differently. If that matches the BW mechanic "Belief" then I am. I consider this important however for a number of reasons. The second half, "I will seize my birthright from my uncle by law or by blood!" is a declaration of a course of action - and defines a close ended game. e.g., Sr. Montoya, having slain The Six-Fingered Man, ended his story - and had to determine "what do I do now?" - either finding a new objective or retire from the campaign. This character, succeed or fail, will eventually have to do likewise. Not necessarily a flaw - but if the player has no idea what matters beyond this then the character is in danger of being rather flat. (I recognize that this is only 1 of 3 listed Beliefs and there are other components - such danger is certainly avoidable.) The first part, "I am my father's rightful heir," is significant, but fails to tell me a great deal about the character pertaining to it, which I would have a very definite understanding of were I to play hir. That is, does rightful succession actually matter to me at all, or is this the excuse I give to the world and/or myself to justify my behavior? If I were to find out that I have an older half brother by a previous, legitimate marriage who wishes to press his, clearly and truly rightful claim, will I support him, oppose him or just find something else to do with my life? While I might find that what I initially thought I would do is not the choice I really make should push come to shove - this is part of character growth through game and I might or might not realize in advance that my initial answer has changed as a result of my experiences between start of game and the pivotal event, I am going into it with a more comprehensive understanding of how I perceive and interact with my world - which influences my interactions with other PC's and NPC's alike. Is the real truth simply that I hate my uncle? If so do I admit this to myself (as character) or persist in trying to convince myself that I am seeking to right a wrong (which as player I would know - at least for a start point) - again subject to change, say perceiving far greater injustice in the world and being moved to hold that as more important than my own selfish desires should the two come into conflict in the course of the game. I lay all this out because it is an integral part of the sort of game I, and others I know, like to play, which is why I am looking for a system/mechanic to Storylead which supports it well if not emphasizes it. If I know what the character truly believes with regard to concepts of justice, and who does or doesn't "deserve" to be treated accordingly - that belief will be direct, action-oriented, aiming my character at conflict like a knife at my gut not only with regard to my uncle but in terms of a host of other potential conflicts which would arise in play as well. That the mechanic makes a point of having the player clearly state an active, specific example of how the bigger "meta-belief" plays a significant role in hir life is certainly a positive aspect. Other seeming major "meta-beliefs" may have no functional relevance - we don't know if Fagan, like most British subjects dwelling in England at the time, held a firm belief in the superiority of English culture over that of other European nations and the superiority of the European (white) race over other "barbaric coloured savages" or was actually a firm believer in racial equality - in the narrower context of the world-as-setting presented in Oliver Twist the question had no relevance whatsoever. It may be well to have such a complete comprehension of a character in playing one (I find it preferable) but not at the expense of boiling it down to truly relevant specifics and how they really work/play out in the character's life. On the other hand, a game in which only close-ended specifics such as the initial example matter and the broader importance of issues of justice, law, "might makes right" are meaningless to a character choosing to deeply embroil hirself in a specific issue involving/arising from them would probably not be a game I would care to play, much less fulfill that portion of the initial system qualifications I'm trying to determine about BW. I haven't actually drawn a conclusion in this regard from our conversations - and I am now in contact with someone here in Portland who has the books (beyond the basic 2) but hasn't had much chance to play it and will be actively investigating this in detail soon.

As always, Have Fun, Play Well,
Amergin O'Kai

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Now playing: Emerson, Lake & Palmer - C'est la Vie [Live] (http://www.foxytunes.com/artist/emerson%2c+lake+%26+palmer/track/cest+la+vie+%5blive%5d)
via FoxyTunes (http://www.foxytunes.com/signatunes/)

[Dwight]

...[that] is a declaration of a course of action...
As are all good BW Beliefs! Keep in mind that "Belief" is a label, not a definition. There is usually an ideological belief underlying it but it's more like a goal. When you "solve" one Belief you replace it with another, thus no, this is not a closed ended situation, more just defining what's going on for the leg of an adventure, campaign, or character life. Often you'll have a string of Beliefs in the form of "Ideology or Longterm goal; Action" where the ideology/longterm goal remains constant but the actions progress as you attain them.

So yeah, you do eventually have to figure out "what do I do now?" Nothing wrong with that. Especially since you've had some hot rolling action up until that point. EDIT: Plus the other players had a better idea of WTF they were getting into when they signed up to play with the character at the table, and they could help you out ... communication!

Other Beliefs never change, they are open-ended "Fate factories". The name coming from you receiving a Fate Artha for pursuing but not achieving a Belief. Beliefs such as "I'm always the toughest guy in the room; I must always let everyone know this and prove it to anyone that doubts it." That one is open-ended and isn't going to earn you a Persona Artha till you change it ... or it kills you (where upon you WIN!) But you don't want to fill your limited Belief slots with these because Persona Artha is usually more in demand than Fate. One Fate factory is usually plenty, if not too much (depending on whether or not you've got some Fate Factory Traits/Instincts to cover your Fate needs).

EDIT2: There are a few special case Beliefs that must stay the same or their is dire consequences, those fall in the the open-ended category. These are tied to Traits, and you'll lose the Trait if the Belief ever changes. An example of this is the Faithful Trait, which allows the character to pray for divine miracles (a type of magic).

[zabieru]

Third time's a charm: Read the books and we'll talk more.

While I'm in awe of your will to type, I don't really want to type up a complete paraphrase of the BW Beliefs mechanics, plus the Artha rules, plus the advice on writing good beliefs, complete with glosses on completing and changing beliefs.

All of the questions you raise are answered, and I think the answers will suit you. If, once you read the books, you don't see the answer to something, or you have further questions, reopen the conversation and I'd be delighted to talk more about it.

PS: When I say "belief" I might mean either a small-b dictionary-definition belief or a big-B game-mechanical Belief, but when I say "Belief," "Belief in BW," or "BW Belief," as I awkwardly and repeatedly have in the last several posts, you can be fairly confident that I mean the Burning Wheel game term.

PPS: The quick answer is that if your character small-b believes in freedom, there are at least four ways I can think of to model that well. Writing a vague, purposeless belief like "People were meant to live free" just isn't one of them.

[Snargash Moonclaw]

I'm not sure if you have posed the question yet but if you are wondering "what can I do with all my free offline time to make our game better?" I've got a couple of suggestions. The first is instead of writing out setting info beforehand you can organize notes from the game (you'll want to keep these to track facts determined) into well written story, journal, and/or encyclopedia.

Second, read. Read, or reread, material that has a similar tone to the one you are looking to set. Take the time to notice and analyze the pacing, how the author introduces conflicts, what kinds of conflicts there are. Drink it up. This immensely improves your ability to handle the more dynamic nature of the game.

The first I tend to do when playing as well as Storyleading. Of course, at present there is no active game. I tend to "novelize" from my character's POV after playing a session, and in both cases keep a lot of notes- usually "mind map" style - to shore up my memory for pertinent details - essentially encyclopedic since I want to be able to look something up readily - names and relationships can easily get scrambled when characters return to a town after 4 months of real time engaging in game sessions every other weekend. . .

Reading - something every writer should do a lot of. (Like many, I vacillate between periods of voracious reading and getting on intensely creative "rolls".) This does bring to mind something which is specifically not my desire/intent when Storyleading by means of any system - the close-ended railroad of "you play out my novel." Then again, I wouldn't want to play such a game. (I loved reading LoTR - I read it completely every year from 4th grade on into high school - I can't imagine playing anything more boring even if Tolkein himself GM'ed it - except the Dragonlance Chronicals modules which repeated every phase of those novels. . .) I create the setting because it's part of what I enjoy doing - participating in telling open ended stories set in it is one of aspect of what can be done with it. Writing short stories and novels is another. There are bits where they can cross paths, but those paths must diverge before long or they will lead both activities into bogs of mindless boredom. . . The point of this is that I continue describing parts of the setting because I can't not do so.

I have a question to refer to your example about travel times/distances and the mechanic; in a different setting context. Were it set, a la Burning Sherwood, in a magically inclusive version of historical England, say the time of Edward I, William Wallace and Robert Bruce. . . Would characters in Edinburgh arguing about how long it will take the champion to arrive from London still find the established distance equally irrelevant to the matter? "Narrative Causality" is something I strongly champion - the quantum determinant approach here has very strong appeal in making it a solid, workable "quantum metaphysic" - I'm wondering about the bounds of "willing suspension of disbelief" in determining the actual condition/state of Greebo (a.k.a. Pratchett's Uncertain Tomcat). If I went into a game set someplace "very like England, Wales and Scotland" in the period mentioned, knowing that the historical geography of the island is only a loose approximation of relative positions of the 3 nations I would respond to this quite differently than if I were told that the game was set on the island during said period + magic as I would have 2 different sets of expectations. . .

HF,PW,
AOK
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Now playing: Nawang Khechog - Peace in the World (http://www.foxytunes.com/artist/nawang+khechog/track/peace+in+the+world)
via FoxyTunes (http://www.foxytunes.com/signatunes/)

[Dwight]

I'm wondering about the bounds of "willing suspension of disbelief" in determining the actual condition/state...
The potential outcomes are determined and agreed to collectively by the table, only those everyone is able tolerate are acceptable outcomes. So the [subjective] stress level on the suspension of belief is within your own hands.

Translation: If someone is being much more hardass about their views regarding suspension of belief it will become apparent quickly and you can all discuss that for what it is (the first person to use the word "realism"/"realistic" gets a smack upside the head :p ).

Further even if you already knew the exact distance there are a large number of significant variables including riding skill, weather, interlopers, specifics of horse/rider health, etc. that are unknown. You may assign a die bonus or an Obstacle penalty as you see appropriate.

[Snargash Moonclaw]

<gyggle> Yes, I'm far more willing to type than most (while I don't touch type, as a classical pianist my keyboarding here gets rather close to it) - there is a process which occurs for me in the act of writing - so it's not what I expect others to do - and I likewise don't care to type out what can be found better explained elsewhere. Much of what I'm looking to find out I will be able to explore in depth soon. I do tend to look at a lot of "big picture" matters as a way of approaching both real and fantasy worlds. So I thank both of you for your participation in this interaction - it is informative to me beyond simply the specifics of system mechanics in which we have been focusing. (When I take a break from writing at some point and pick up the art materials again it may find creative expression in more visual forms. . .)

"People were meant to live free" is a good example. It can be powerful, driving and meaningful - but if so then the character can express this far more specifically - and needs to. To fall back on an earlier example in posting, William Wallace as a character would state and act on this in far more specific terms. Here we talk about the interplay between macro and micro. Macro setting reflects one, while the system mechanic incorporates the micro explicitly - a fact I like. I believe a good game involves a relatively smooth continuum between the two extremes - I'm looking for awareness of both. "I'm always the toughest guy in the room; I must always let everyone know this and prove it to anyone that doubts it," on the micro level begs the macro question of "why?" It can make for a good, driving characteristic of a character in play, but can mean many things which can present radically different "WTF they were getting into when they signed up to play with the character at the table," - the movie Once Were Warriors presents just such a character whom many would not bother to associate with. (It's an excellent movie from New Zealand about the Maori people in the present day. I highly recommend it but it is not an easy movie to watch. . .)

Anyway - BW clearly has a lot that recommends it to me. I recognize that I may find it doesn't quite do what I would like to with the setting, perhaps it will. On the other hand I expect I will find it something I would enjoy playing very much. There are a number of game types I enjoy - including Battletech, Silent Death as ongoing military campaigns - not role playing but with an underlying "story" connecting and interrelating the progression of engagements.

HF,PW,
AOK
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Now playing: Clannad - Croi Croga (http://www.foxytunes.com/artist/clannad/track/croi+croga)
via FoxyTunes (http://www.foxytunes.com/signatunes/)

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Now playing: Santana - (Da Le) Yalleo (http://www.foxytunes.com/artist/santana/track/(da+le)+yalleo)
via FoxyTunes (http://www.foxytunes.com/signatunes/)

[Snargash Moonclaw]

The potential outcomes are determined and agreed to collectively by the table, only those everyone is able tolerate are acceptable outcomes. So the [subjective] stress level on the suspension of belief is within your own hands.

Translation: If someone is being much more hardass about their views regarding suspension of belief it will become apparent quickly and you can all discuss that for what it is (the first person to use the word "realism"/"realistic" gets a smack upside the head :p ).

Further even if you already knew the exact distance there are a large number of significant variables including riding skill, weather, interlopers, specifics of horse/rider health, etc. that are unknown. You may assign a die bonus or an Obstacle penalty as you see appropriate.

Nod. Relatively smooth continuum. . .

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Now playing: Miles Davis - All Blues (http://www.foxytunes.com/artist/miles+davis/track/all+blues)
via FoxyTunes (http://www.foxytunes.com/signatunes/)

[zabieru]

"People were meant to live free" can be a powerful and driving small-b belief. It's a vague, purposeless mess of a big-b Belief. The main character of Braveheart has BW Beliefs like "Scots were meant to live free; I will drive the English from my hometown" which then gets changed to "...free; I will rally my people to war." and so forth.

Again, quit arguing and read the books, it'll make a lot more sense when you know what I'm talking about.

[elgorade]

"People were meant to live free" can be a powerful and driving small-b belief. It's a vague, purposeless mess of a big-b Belief. The main character of Braveheart has BW Beliefs like "Scots were meant to live free; I will drive the English from my hometown" which then gets changed to "...free; I will rally my people to war." and so forth.

Again, quit arguing and read the books, it'll make a lot more sense when you know what I'm talking about.

I think your advice to read the books is very much to the point.

That said, I am not sure the BW books have as much to the point advice about Beliefs as some of the posts of the forums do. In particular, I think the forum advice is much more clear and emphatic about semi-colon beliefs. I don't remember the books being as clear about wanting to write the belief in such a way that it both captures a view of the world (lower case b belief) and still can be completed and so paid in artha.

[Snargash Moonclaw]

"People were meant to live free" can be a powerful and driving small-b belief. It's a vague, purposeless mess of a big-b Belief. The main character of Braveheart has BW Beliefs like "Scots were meant to live free; I will drive the English from my hometown" which then gets changed to "...free; I will rally my people to war." and so forth.

Again, quit arguing and read the books, it'll make a lot more sense when you know what I'm talking about.

That wasn't an argument - you just spelled out precisely what I was saying - that he would "state and act on the belief in far more explicit terms." Please note that just above that quote I had even made the point of italicizing the fact that he needs to I am discussing more than simply the specific mechanics of any game here - because I'm looking at how a system interacts with a broader conceptual continuum. You appear to be perceiving my descriptions of those broader concepts as arguments about the system which they are not. However - if you are passing over these broader concepts as a way of saying that they simply don't have any relevance at all to playing BW in any way, while they are clearly quite important to what I am looking for in alternate game mechanics/systems then it would serve the conversation better to state such. That you haven't is part of why I continue to believe that I'm trying to look at a system to which (among other things) the mechanics of the "Beliefs" which I need to explore more fully and explicitly have (or at least readily, easily and clearly can have) a direct and meaningful interrelationship with the broader, meta-conceptual underlying "beliefs" which form a major part of the significant underpinnings of the personality and psyche of a given individual, real or imagined.


Have Fun, Play Well,
Amergin O'Kai

[Saphim]

Beliefs are not only "underpinnings of individuals" they are also player priorities which should not be forget... even when discussing roleplaying theory.

[Dwight]

Beliefs are not only "underpinnings of individuals" they are also player priorities which should not be forget... even when discussing roleplaying theory.
It seems people reading the book tend to pick up on that right about where Luke hits them with "P-l-a-y-e-r P-r-i-o-r-i-t-i-e-s". :D The text is really strong on getting that concept through. He didn't drive the 'call to action' home quite as hard. The Ranting Imp does have a couple sentences about that on the next page but it seems to not have been enough for most people to really internalize it on the first read through.