Drifting D&D to Be Like Burning Wheel

[cathexis]

I totally agree Luke.

The problem that I will face, if I choose to even attempt it, is to find a way to get traditional players to give something new a chance. First I'm going to have to earn the right to run by being a good player and earning some "street cred" as it were.

I've been thinking it over and I've come to the conclusion that if I do get an opportunity to attempt to run something for them I might have to run D&D or something similar. But then I have to try and put some good 'ol Burning Wheel philosophy into the game.

And honestly I'm not sure that the square peg can go in the round hole.

I'm going to be relying on Burning Thac0 ideas if I attempt it with another game - which I'm not sure I should even do.

Should I attempt to run a Burning Thac0 game using D&D? Is it going to be doomed to failure?

The dirty little secret here is that Burning Wheel the Game and Burning Wheel the Philosophy are two very different things, and that Burning Wheel the Philosophy can be played with pretty much any game in existence. Sure BWtG is designed to facilitate BWtP but with only a little hand waving you can get D&D to play like Burning Wheel without them realizing it.

Some examples: if something is happening that's lame to have to dice over, say yes. Pretend that Let it Ride is written into the rules and don't do rerolls. If the players fail a roll make something interesting happen instead of halting forward progress. If players push towards goals give them experience.

The important thing here in my mind is that the first few times that they fail at something, don't punish them for it. A lot of danger-adverse play comes from failing non-important die rolls and getting kicked in the teeth over it. Sure it's coddling the players a bit, but you have to remember that failure in a lot of games can produce a kind of "whipped puppy-gamer" effect, and you need to counteract that by showing them that every time the dice are picked up something cool happens.

[luke]

I thoroughly disagree with Colin on this point!

[noclue]

I have to say, I disagree as well. Making D&D play like BW and support the philosophy that's baked into the game is a lot like teaching fish to fly. Sure there are a few flying fish, but they ain't birds.

[cathexis]

You would :P

I'd prefer to play BW with the BW rules, but in a pinch you can use a lot of the stuff that makes BW awesome without requiring mechanical backing. For instance: LIR as a concept and play style is amazing, regardless of the rules enforcement. What (in my mind) makes BW all kinds of great is that it's one of the few games that mechanically implements a lot of advice about how to play a non-dysfunctional game. You can remove the system and still have the advice, and if you're dealing with people who are this adverse to putting their characters at risk, it might be better to introduce them to those concepts without overwhelming them with a scary new system at the same time.

[noclue]

What (in my mind) makes BW all kinds of great is that it's one of the few games that mechanically implements a lot of advice about how to play a non-dysfunctional game.

Here we agree.


You can remove the system and still have the advice.Here, not so much. A bunch of Burning Wheel players can graft LiR, task and intent, failure, and BITs onto D&D. Sure. But that takes player buy-in like nobody's business. LiR only works if the players buy in. Try telling the thief that he can't roll again to pick locks. Other BW concepts are similar. Tell the thief that if he makes his detect traps roll everything's cool, but if he misses the roll, there is a trap and he's sprung it regardless of his 10' pole. The game also has no built in reward for following BITs, let alone invoking traits to screw yourself over. Not that these players are likely to be doing that anyway.

Also, LiR is a mechanic not just a concept.

[cathexis]

There are a lot of ways to make negative LiR happen without player buy-in, the most important one involves internalizing and using the bit on failure right before the Let it Ride heading. Let it Ride exists (in my mind) to force people to use the guidelines in the success and failure sections, however if you're getting task intents out of people (fairly easy, pretty much all you need to do is ask) it's fairly rare to see retesting occure. As long as the GM puts a consequence for failure out there that is immediate and more interesting than "it doesn't work," retesting tends to fall away even if it's allowed by the system. Yes it makes the GM have to think more but as I (think I) said earlier, a lot of Burning Wheel (to me) is a rules codification of positive table behaviors.

I thought I said something about giving XP rewards (already an arbitrary thing that's totally up to GM whimsy) to players who push for character goals and ideals (which to me look a lot like a non-mechanical equivalent of the B portion of BIT). In a merit/flaw system, treat them like traits and give XP out for complications caused by them.

Maybe I'm just being really dense right now but I don't see what the problem is with using the good ideas in one thing to change how something else plays out. I'll give you that people will probably have a richer experience playing a system that mechanically supports its guiding design philosophy, however that doesn't invalidate the statement that you can take the system of one game and the ideas of another and play a hybrid game that looks like the first but feels like the second.

AAAANNNND I'm done and going to bed.

[noclue]

LiR, Task and Intent, explicit and interesting failure conditions, reward for playing toward goals, reward for traits that complicate things...

I thought you said the BW philosophy and the BW mechanics were seperable and it would only take "a little hand waving" to make one into the other. ;)

[Berandor]

So what about take 20 in D&D? Or about take 10, or passive skills of whatever they're called in 4e? Take 20 only works when I could retest, which with LiR I can't. On the other hand, with LiR it means that my first Search check is used for the entire dungeon.

Lifting these things can work, but doing so with players who don't know them and who are ingrained in a different kind of play and a different system... I'd rather test a new system then mucking with the one they like.

[Wightbred]

I realise this is getting a little away from the OP, but I think it follows where the thread is heading. I'm very interested in trying to use BW/BE/MG concepts in 4th Edition D&D (and other systems).

I play with a group of guys I'm keen to keep playing with, some of whom I've played with for 20+ years. We have recently discovered MG and a few of us are very excited. However, like the posts above I'm having real trouble going back.

However, the group as a whole has agreed to keep pursuing the D&D 4e game we are currently playing from now (level 5) until the end (level 30). Most players see the strength of MG, but don't want to abandon the campaign and are not ready to port it to BW or MG.

They are keen for me to inject some more MG elements and feel. But I am really struggling to do this in D&D 4e, particularly the combat which to me now feels like a mini game which uses minis and breaks the roleplaying "flow" of the session.

Currently we have BIG for each character, which helps, but we don't want to worry about individual XP so we don't currently have a reward attached. This is potentially not the massive gap it seems as we have a group that is very keen to roleplay their characters, but a reward would be an affirmation of what is important to us.

We are also running with a bunch of simple borrowed guidelines like LIR and twists on failure.

On this basis I'm keen to hear any other ideas how MG or BW concepts this can be integrated in to other games.

[Berandor]

Doesn't 4e have some kind of "quest" mechanic you could tie to beliefs?

Also, forgive me, but seeing a cool game and still not wanting to change a running campaign is fine, but when you're at five and looking at level thirty? That's insane, and seems more like a numbers game than a story-determined campaign. I mean, in 3e it took us almost four years to go from level 1 to 20 (with an admittedly irregular schedule, but also fast level-ups). "We might switch, but only in 25 levels" sounds really strange to me. Maybe a story goal might work the same? "We just want to get rid of the duke and his pansies first"?

[luke]

I split these posts. Too much drift.

Anyway, back to the off-topic: If there's no reward system supporting the behaviors, then you're back to a familiar land -- a traditional RPG house-ruled to suit a group's playstyle.

If you're hacking on major philosophical changes to a game without explicit buy-in from the group -- if you're hacking philosophy to change the way the group plays -- you're in familiar territory again: the train wreck yard. It's only a matter of time before someone cites a rule and demands its application and you say, "but we don't play that way." Well how the hell do we play this game then if we don't follow the rules?

Oh, right! It's all about the GM and his vision. We should trust him completely with our fun. We'll just sit back and let him tell us what the rules are and when they apply. He'll be just and fair. He'll tell us a good story.

And then where are we? We're right back to where we fucking started.

[Thanuir]

So what about take 20 in D&D? Or about take 10, or passive skills of whatever they're called in 4e? Take 20 only works when I could retest, which with LiR I can't. On the other hand, with LiR it means that my first Search check is used for the entire dungeon.

Take twenty is (a limited form of) say yes; when time is not a concern and price for failure is not really interesting, don't bother rolling the dice.

[luke]

Take twenty is (a limited form of) say yes; when time is not a concern and price for failure is not really interesting, don't bother rolling the dice.

But it's gimpy. It focuses on task resolution, not on story, pacing or anything else more germane.

Task resolution gets us stuck on ridiculous examples, "Don't roll to walk up the stairs." No shit.

Rather than positive examples like "test when you are in jeopardy." Or even procedural examples, "you test to overcome obstacles placed in your path by the GM."

[Irminsul]

I split these posts. Too much drift.

Anyway, back to the off-topic: If there's no reward system supporting the behaviors, then you're back to a familiar land -- a traditional RPG house-ruled to suit a group's playstyle.

If you're hacking on major philosophical changes to a game without explicit buy-in from the group -- if you're hacking philosophy to change the way the group plays -- you're in familiar territory again: the train wreck yard. It's only a matter of time before someone cites a rule and demands its application and you say, "but we don't play that way." Well how the hell do we play this game then if we don't follow the rules?

Oh, right! It's all about the GM and his vision. We should trust him completely with our fun. We'll just sit back and let him tell us what the rules are and when they apply. He'll be just and fair. He'll tell us a good story.

And then where are we? We're right back to where we fucking started.

Yep! That's what I was thinking - thanks for putting everything in to perspective clearly.

[Fuseboy]

But it's gimpy. It focuses on task resolution, not on story, pacing or anything else more germane.

We once followed a bad guy into an empty room - convinced there was a secret door, we hunted to no avail. I felt like if we didn't find it, we'd just be missing some of the story, so we organized ourselves into a 'Take 20' team. With four helpers, the elf 'Took 20' on all 35 or so 10' sections of wall. Eventually we found it! (sigh)

[noclue]

so we organized ourselves into a 'Take 20' team. With four helpers, the elf 'Took 20' on all 35 or so 10' sections of wall. Eventually we found it! (sigh)

Someone put out my eyes please.

[Berandor]

To be honest, even when playing D&D, I would have handwaved that.

[buzz]

The Forge is down right now, else I would point you to the seminal: "Mike's Standard Rant #7: You Can't Sneak Up on Mode". You can't trick people into playing something new. You pitch the idea of trying something new. If they are not interested, you go find some other people who are.

As for taking lessons from BW and applying them to D&D, sure you can. But, emphasis on lessons and not specific rules. E.g., LIR is not entirely applicable to D&D task resolution. However, the idea of "saying yes" has even been canonized in the 4e DMG.

But D&D is its own game. You can' just 'port over BITs and expect them to work. To say you can is like saying System Doesn't Matter, and that just ain't true.

[Wightbred]

This is some very useful advice from my perspective, thanks.

We have been trying to port MG concepts in to help improve our D&D 4e game with everyones consent, but it is not really working. We've added BIT without reward, quote LIR when the GM asks for a second skill check and have used some of the concepts from this blog: http://chattydm.net/2009/09/08/primalwithin-chronicles-city-of-the-overmind-part-1/. All of these have helped a little, but this is window dressing, not the core of the problem.

I see now the core of the problem is:
- We as a group (we share the GM load, but I'm not currently GMing) want a character based game where conflict is important but not necessarily combat.
- Myself primarily and a few others feel the D&D 4e system is hampering us in achieving this and BW or MG would be a far better system to run it in. The others feel the current system is generally fine and don't want to change system.

I now see window dressing D&D 4e with MG won't solve this. Only addressing the difference of opinion in the group will.

Thanks.

[buzz]

Myself primarily and a few others feel the D&D 4e system is hampering us in achieving this and BW or MG would be a far better system to run it in. The others feel the current system is generally fine and don't want to change system.
After, literally, years of dealing with this kind of situation in my regular D&D group, we finally cut the cord. Those of us who wanted to get away from D&D (at least for a while; never say never) just split off and formed our own group.

Honestly, sometimes that's the real answer. If the other people are genuinely happy with D&D (or aren't but have no interest in change), you can't really force them to feel otherwise.

[Wightbred]

Also, forgive me, but seeing a cool game and still not wanting to change a running campaign is fine, but when you're at five and looking at level thirty? That's insane, and seems more like a numbers game than a story-determined campaign. I mean, in 3e it took us almost four years to go from level 1 to 20 (with an admittedly irregular schedule, but also fast level-ups). "We might switch, but only in 25 levels" sounds really strange to me. Maybe a story goal might work the same? "We just want to get rid of the duke and his pansies first"?

Just a quick comment on this as I don't want to give the wrong impression about the people I play with. We've swapped systems and campaigns a few times recently so we are all keen to finish a full story. The one we planned out (before we played MG) includes a series of character-related goals which we originally planned would take us a lot of game time, like a few seasons of a TV series. I paraphrased this as getting to "level 30" because this is probably what would happen.

Now looking from a MG, BE or BW perspective I wonder if we couldn't get to these character goals in a couple of hours by cutting the fluff and running the game as a movie instead of a TV series...

[Wightbred]

Honestly, sometimes that's the real answer. If the other people are genuinely happy with D&D (or aren't but have no interest in change), you can't really force them to feel otherwise.

Thanks Buzz, this is sound advice. I've been shying away from it because we are all saying we want the same things, we just disagree about whether D&D 4e can deliver them.

[Blackberry]

True20 is a D20 derivative that attempts to adopt many similar concepts to Burning Wheel. I transitioned my group to it as a stepping stone to Burning Wheel.

True20 uses a wound system, in-game awards for roleplaying to your character's virtue and vice, and a magic system based on making checks for fatigue after casting spells.

[buzz]

Tangent...

I played True20 with Monte Cook (name drop!) a few Gamedays back. When we were told how Conviction points (sort of like Artha, but not) renewed at the beginning of each day, he joked that it was in your PC's interest to be really heroic before they went to bed each night. :)

Anyway, we had fun, but I was really not impressed with True20. Granted, it was one session.

[Judd]

Can you use techniques that are ingrained into the system of BW in your D&D games?

Yes.

Will it make your games better?

Maybe, if they back up the style of play you and your friends are going for?

Will it make D&D do what BW does?

Nope.

I say: Let BW be BW and D&D be D&D.

BW has a whole lotta moving parts. Most games, you play for a few nights and you see most of the cogs in the machine move. In BW, you really have to play the game for a few years to see all of the cogs move.

You do not have to play for years to have fun or to have a rewarding campaign but to see all of the pieces move, from earning your first Persona Artha, to a trait vote to getting your first gray shaded stat through play means getting behind a long haul of a campaign.

There are lots of moving pieces that people don't quite grok until they have played with them directly, seeing how they make the game better, from the obvious stuff, Let it Ride and the Artha Cycle to renewing taxed Resources and over to the training rules and the glory of compromises in Duels of Wits.

Game mechanics should be helping you and your friends have fun games. In my shitty gaming metaphor #27, wherein gaming = swimming, the mechanics are the current in the water. I want to be swimming with the current, the mechanics helping the game move in the direction that we have all agreed to swim towards.

[Z-Dog]

My friend got interested in Beliefs after reading that thread about BW in some Dnd forums (Steal this Idea?). He asked me how to write them for Dnd.

I gave him advice, but the more I think now, the less sure I am it'll work.

Writing Beliefs for Dnd is cool, you're giving the DM some ideas about what you want to do and where you want to go. And providing a reward for pursuing those Beliefs is cool too. I suggested awarding XP.

But if Bob the Fighter pursues his Beliefs about Confronting His Father, Finding His Lost Brother, and Slaying Any Monsters in the Town, it's going to make the game MOVE, but reward-wise he's going to get better at Slaying Monsters. Bzzzst! Big disconnect.

Talking with him last night, the only thing would could think would work would be fighting. You know, every time you want something, you have to fight someone for it, like in a martial arts movie.

"You wish to learn the location of the hidden dungeon? Well then, you must fight me for that information!"

"You wish to pursuade me to sell this magic sword for half price? Well then, you must fight me for it!"

"You want me to take you through the trackless wilderness? Well then, prove to me your worth: fight!"


But yeah, I'm with Paka above: let Dnd be Dnd...it's a beautiful, awesome system and it does what it does very, very well. Ain't nothing like planning to take down a dragon and busting out the battle map.

[-Ice]

Sorry, I'm warning everyone that I come from MG and have no idea of BW, but I just want to input my 2cents.

I come from D&D as well, and have read up on it since 3.0. Writing Beliefs, Instincts, and Goals in D&D is possible, heck, what's stopping you from doing that on every game system? So it is possible, and it is cool. In D&D, this is basically handled by a questionnaire the GM hands out at the beginning of a new campaign (or as is necessary), and the questions basically ask if the players want more hack-n-slash or more intrigue, what does the PC want to accomplish, what does the PC consider important for him, what does the PC want to get out of the game/story?

What makes it work for MG is that this mechanic (the BIG) is built-in into the system. The players have to do it, it's not up to the GM whether he hands out a questionnaire or not, the players end up doing it one way or another, at least every game session (for goals) or perhaps on a campaign "milestone" (for the B and I). And players do it and feel good doing it because it is rewarded. In D&D, it just serves as the guide for the GM to craft his story, but in a game system where challenges are counted and measured based on XP total, you can see where ROLE playing takes a sideline to ROLL playing.

Another aspect is the traits. Sure, this could be the "feats" mechanic in D&D, but while all feats are there to make your PC greater, this is not the case for traits. Heck, invoking ANYTHING to hinder your roll is unheard of in D&D, it's always 'add modifiers' and 'higher is better.' In 3.5, the races had modifiers that increase a certain stat while it decreased another stat, in 4.0, they took out the negative modifiers since they want to concentrate on 'positives.'

So yeah, I'm for leaving things alone. D&D is D&D and MG/BW is MG/BW. Both are great, but a pity one (D&D) can't really benefit from the genius of the other (MG/BW).

[buzz]

...you can see where ROLE playing takes a sideline to ROLL playing.
:mad:

Sorry.

[elgorade]

Anyway, back to the off-topic: If there's no reward system supporting the behaviors, then you're back to a familiar land -- a traditional RPG house-ruled to suit a group's playstyle.

If you're hacking on major philosophical changes to a game without explicit buy-in from the group -- if you're hacking philosophy to change the way the group plays -- you're in familiar territory again: the train wreck yard. It's only a matter of time before someone cites a rule and demands its application and you say, "but we don't play that way." Well how the hell do we play this game then if we don't follow the rules?

Oh, right! It's all about the GM and his vision. We should trust him completely with our fun. We'll just sit back and let him tell us what the rules are and when they apply. He'll be just and fair. He'll tell us a good story.

And then where are we? We're right back to where we fucking started.

Sad to say, but been there, done that and it was just as bad as described.

[MadJay]

Sad to say, but been there, done that and it was just as bad as described.

Indeed - far better to cut bait, find new folks. I got some horror stories from the drift and jive, for ya - but here's a better story:
My current group has had a great run on BW followed up by MG (Both APs are posted here) -and we're currently playing Robert Bohl's Misspent Youth, with some board gaming action thrown in.
We started out as a trio of strangers right that met right here in these forums. I got here through frustration from two gaming groups of drift, I gave up and went in search of local BW players. (and I found many folks who own the books BW/BE - and are SCARED to run/play it?!?! WTF? another thread!).
We're a 5 man group these days and I've long since sold off my D&D stock, Daddy's gotta new pair of shoes...that fit.

Find new folks - everyone'll be happier for it.

[Aramis]

I adopted a few bits (Let it Ride, complication instead of failure) in an AD&D game early this year. 3 of 5 liked it; the other 2 hated it. All agreed to it ahead of time as an experiment.

[Fuseboy]

But if Bob the Fighter pursues his Beliefs about Confronting His Father, Finding His Lost Brother, and Slaying Any Monsters in the Town, it's going to make the game MOVE, but reward-wise he's going to get better at Slaying Monsters. Bzzzst! Big disconnect.

I think this is one of D&D's big selling points, actually. I'm a player - I can buy a book about fighters, wizards, or whatever class I am, and drool over all the cool things I'll be able to do at higher levels. I can do this without knowing what the story will be - secure in the knowledge that no matter what happens during play, as long as I survive, I'll get my new power.

This taps into the disposable income of the players brilliantly. (Come to think of it, it's a lot like buying rewards with a loyalty points! Put in your time at the table and in two sessions you'll have this great new feat.) It also allows players to form plans and feel creatively involved, to an extent, even if the GM is playing from a published module.

[technomonkey]

I agree that D&D is D&D and thinking that you're going to get BW out of it is going to lead to trouble. But that doesn't mean we can't get something in between.

LiR: you don't have to jump from the miniscule (what are the actual rules in D&D, you roll sneak for every 5'? every 'turn'?) to the gigantic (one roll for the entire dungeon). Just change it to something moderate. Attach Intent to each roll. This roll gets you X, if you fail Y will happen. Just get rid of the annoying part of D&D where you roll five times to sneak up on one guy. Or you roll a bunch of times in a row for some skill and you don't really know what each roll is determining.

BITs/BIG: Mouse Guard style seems appropriate, having three seems like a lot. Having the reward be XP I think is a really bad idea. This'll muck up advancement, especially if some players are buying into this more than others. BW doesn't reward playing BITs with advancement, so why should you make D&D? Instead, give out d6s to add to rolls or something. Or rerolls?

I do think running D&D like the GM's turn of Mouse Guard could be interesting.

[buzz]

I think that some of these concepts already exist as much as they are possible to in D&D. 4e's DMG talks about "saying yes." Certain skills and skill challenges have definite endpoints, i.e., you can't just keep rolling over and over again to bluff the duke. And I believe the books do talk about player-authored quests; if not, the subject has been raised by WotC on DDI. That's about as close as you can get to BW's Beliefs. Asking for more than this is just doomed.

However, it doesn't mean D&D has to be illusion-y, railroaded pseudo-fun. The whole concept of sandbox play hinges on the DM sitting back and simply reacting to the direction the players want to take. It may not facilitate addressing premise, but it can still be collaborative, adventurous, tactical fun.