I had played in a gaming group for about the past 10 years. My best friend and I rotated GM duties and he and I have played games (many many RPGs) together since we were in HS in the late 80’s (Stranger Things was made for us)
He moved for work and we are planning on meeting in about 6-8 weeks for a weekend of gaming. It will just be the 2 of us and we are planing on playing Burning Wheel (We have Gold and Codex, plus I have the revised books). We have played BW but it didn’t go well, due to issues that I don’t believe will be present. (I’m just giving the TLDR version) This will likely turn into a 4 times a year activity.
We are going to both burn up characters and create the setting collaboratively and I will run a session and then he will run a session. With a few board games thrown into the mix over the weekend.
Any advise for us?
How many lifepaths? (Im thinking 3 or 4)
Should we time the sessions and rotate every 2 or so hours or muscle through and complete just 2 long session?
Should we make companions for the characters? (this one would be dictated by the characters more than anything, probably)
We will likely post characters here as well as we continue, for belief and instinct help.
Away from books, does the Codex have the AdBu section on one on one advice? Because if it does, that’s a really good section, and I would start there.
As for your specific questions…
Any advise for us?
Go big or go home. You don’t have another PC to pick up the slack in one on one if you have weaksauce beliefs. Have yours character have some big goals and push towards them hard.
This forum gives really good advice on tightening up beliefs, but it is also important to remember that they have to be things that both the player wants to pursue and the GM wants to challenge.
How many lifepaths? (Im thinking 3 or 4)
It’s really up to you guys in the type of stories you want to tell. More lifepaths is (generally) older, and more competent, while less is younger with a lot more room to grow. I personally think it would be neat since you guys are playing in the same setting to do something like having one of you be a 2-3 LP street level character while the other is a 5-6 LP Noble, but that’s just my suggestion. In generally 3 to 4 is the sweet spot and I would generally err on the side of 4 LPs for a one on one.
Should we time the sessions and rotate every 2 or so hours or muscle through and complete just 2 long session?
Switch whenever you guys do artha. My suggestion on when to do artha is to loosley time it. Pick an amount of time (2 hours is fine), then when you are around that time, look for a good time to come up for air, basically a time when you would bring a normal session to a close, but instead of everyone going home, you take a break, talk about last game, and what you wanna do in the next game. If you hit a good stopping point well before 2 hours or get really into one bit and go a bit long, I wouldn’t worry about it. The important thing is that you do regular breaks for artha and to re-evaluate beliefs.
Should we make companions for the characters? (this one would be dictated by the characters more than anything, probably)
The general recommendation is yes. Being able to help/get help is an important part of the advancement economy. For a 1 on 1 game, I wouldn’t worry about following the bodyguard/squire rules (although I would say they should still be a relationship), they can be whatever amount of LPs makes sense for the concept. You should give them BITs of their own, but remember that they are not PCs, so theirs can be a lot more passive than the PC’s BITs, and shouldn’t really be there to take up too much spotlight.