banging beliefs with new players

[Thor]

This should be on the Wiki. Anyone mind if I slap it up there?

I think someone put the core ideas up here. Feel free to expand and clarify though!

[Omar]

Way ahead a me, as usual

[Thor]

Way ahead a me, as usual

Wasn't me. I'm not even sure who it was! But definitely feel free to expand upon it if you think more needs to be said.

[Drozdal]

This should be on the Wiki. Anyone mind if I slap it up there?

[Ahnold]Do It, Do it NOW![/Ahnold]

[gooderguy]

okay, so we've sort of got the beliefs down, right, and i feel like i'm hitting them succesfully, but now i'm not sure about when/how/why to hand out artha. i feel like i'm hesitating, perhaps being stingy, or perhaps just not comfortable with rewarding artha.

it's almost as if now that we feel we have our beliefs down, players are begging for artha. in the shadow of yesterday, they encourage players to be the ones to say, "that earns me a reward, right?" is that the same in burning wheel? should i wait for the players to ask for it? i dunno, for some reason i feel like artha should be obvious, like 'that scene was awesome, get a fate point for standing up to that guy despite you instinct to turn away from conflict because of your belief' or 'sweet speech, get a point of artha for moving the storyline along cuz of your belief that words are more powerful than the sword' etc.

should artha be flying, or should i be stingy? should i wait for them to ask for it, or only throw it out when I feel it's too cool a scene not to reward?

[luke]

both of the conditions you cited are the correct time for artha. If you're "banging beliefs" then those conditions should be coming up fairly often. When they come up, make sure the player is rewarded.

Think of it this way, the GM doesn't give out Fate points. The player gets Fate points when he plays his Beliefs. The GM's job is to make sure he notes the point.

-L

[rafial]

My personal take: I reward artha on the spot when it's bloody obvious I should, I encourage people to say "I think I should get artha for that", or even better "I think Bob should get artha for that" (and I consider all such requests, but don't necessarily grant them) and at the end of the night I usuallly hold an open review of the list of artha earning situations to see if there is anything we missed.

I personally like to be fairly liberal with the Artha.

[Thor]

How much Artha to give is really going to be up to you (as a group). We like to hand out enough that it's available, but not so much that players have no problem spending it on every roll.

Generally, this is how I play it:

During the session, if a player is faced with a really tough decision that hinges on a Belief but is going to lead to trouble, I'll bribe them:

"If you do [X thing in line with your Beliefs that will open up a ton of trouble for you and the others] I'll give you a point of Fate."

I don't chastise them or even pressure them if they choose to go against it. They just get a reward if they go with it. I also note down if they went against a Belief in a really cool way, so I can nominate them for Moldbreaker later.

At the end of the session, we go around and ask who feels like they played a Belief (explain the reasoning)? Who feels they played against an Instinct? Who used a trait to send the story in an interesting or unexpected direction? Who resolved the goal of a Belief?

Players should be earning between 1 to 3 Fate points from this per session. And they should be earning at least a Persona point at least every few sessions.

Make sure to vote for Workhorse and MVP too.

If that's not a fast enough rate, try breaking each session into two segments. Play half, do Artha. Play the second half, do Artha.

Make sense?

[gooderguy]

yeah, that's how i tried to approach it, but i feel like the end of our session is always a 'oh no, we've got to go rush off to do x. bye.' and then it's all gone. i guess i have to work on wrapping up with a reveiw everytime.

thanks for the breakdown, though, guys. i'll keep it in mind.