I just had to stop in and say what an awesome game this is…
I’ve known about BW for a long time, but I guess I was scared away by claims that it was complex (??? - it’s not). I’m just a little way into reading through BWG, and just… wow! I’ve been waiting around for a while for this other game to come out (let’s just say it deals with the works of “The Professor”), but this game is pretty impressive. I won’t even go into how much you’re getting for the price, and how very few games present the rules in such an entertaining manner. I also know a lot of this has been said before, so…
I’m losing precious sleep to type this, but I had to say it. Keep up the good work BWHQ, and hello forum members! I’m sure I’ll be back with questions!
Don’t feel strange mate. For a lot of us, BWG (and all the Burning games really) get a lot of the things we all like in games right. And heck, I’d say BWG runs a mean game of “The Professor’s” better than anything else out there. Heck, reading the Elven lifepaths, I can easily see a game where, um, a bunch of elves have a giant hissy-fit about some shiny magical crystal orbs. For a thousand years. And with BWG, not only would that mess make sense, but you’d feel it. For sure.
Ok, first question (go easy on the noob, burners).
I was burning up an old character concept of my wife’s, and I noticed that two traits in her lifepaths seemed awfully contradictory. One trait was required (plain faced), but the other would have been chosen (from the list - drop dead gorgeous). No need to go iinto detail on the concept (spooky-cute-half-something-barmaid-pickpocket).
I’m not one to disallow bending the rules to fit character concept, and it’s even possible given the character that she could utilize both, but has anyone else had a character with conflicting traits? Did I miss a rule? How did u handle it?
It’s quite possible to wind up with contradictory traits, or other traits you’d rather not have.
You can always get traits voted off if you don’t play them. I’d expect that perhaps Plain Faced might get voted off if the player really played up the Drop Dead Gorgeous. But maybe you can reason your way through the two traits.
Maybe the character is Drop Dead Gorgeous because of make up applied and hair style and such. If she leaves off the makeup and lets down the hair, she’s not very distinguishable.
On a related note I read an article from a Melbourne University study a few years ago that showed a bunch of folks a few thousand photo’s and told them to point out the pretty ones. It was established that “beautiful” people had the most average faces in all aspects. Six months later they these faces were pored over again and people were told to pick out the faces they remember. Results showed that the pretty folk are also the least memorable compared to persons who had a big nose, bushy eyebrows, a mole or other distinctive characteristics.
This works pretty well for me. I can really see a character having both traits. The aforementioned butter face is one option, of course, but it’s just as easy to think that she has the ability to not be noticed or to REALLY be noticed. Pretty cool, actually.
Yes, I think this is actually a potentially very cool happy accident. Just those two traits in combination gave me an idea of the character: The slightly self-conscious girl who hasn’t realized how beautiful she’s become. Great stuff!
