Hi everyone, I’m relatively new to the forum, but was hoping someone could help me with a question.
I apologize if this has been posted elsewhere.
I’m in the process of running “The Sword” tonight as the first Burning Wheel session/introduction for my players.
I’m going to introduce the different mechanics as the players decide, but I’m trying to be as prepared as a I can be. I’m going to go with Bloody Versus as the initial combat unless they players are really pushing for full-on fight.
Let’s assume a player is successfully hit in a Bloody Versus. Do I work with the players to determine where the hit is based on the severity of the weapon or does the defender determine where they are hit still? I wasn’t sure if the defender determines in both Fight and Bloody Versus or if it’s just in Fight.
Ex: Fidhean gets a success on his sword which is and Incidental:B3 against Robard. Does Robard pick where he’s hit or do I work with Fidhean to determine what happened?
Welcome. In Bloody Versus you simply apply the wound result as per the weapon rules. There is no targeting mechanic.
Fictionally, a Bloody Versus is assumed to be a back and forth struggle until there is a victor.
With your example above, the fiction of how Robard took the B3 wound can be whatever is deemed appropriate. A single blow? An accumulation of small wounds? Did he just knock his head on a beam? I usually ask the players to narrate appropriately and allow them to have a little fun with it.
Further, you should remember that you are already including any advantages for armor in Bloody Versus in the die pool for defense. Targeting is a big deal in Fight because armor dice are rolled separately, wherever the blow lands, per the armor rules, but targeting is not used in Bloody Versus.
I like to ask the players where they got hit in a BV, just to add to the fiction. Grover’s right that you don’t need to worry about the mechanical bits of hit locations.
Thank you for the clarification and recommendations.
I think I understand the mechanics well enough to have fun with “The Sword” as our introduction to Burning Wheel.
I’ll have the players tell me where they are hit in BV. I do like the idea of adding a Die of Fate to the situation too. I’ll add that to it and see how it goes. Haha.
So, last night I ran “The Sword” and I think it worked well enough. I introduced most mechanics except for the Fight rules. I used Bloody Versus as a quick fighting, but plan on including Fight in further adventures. I had some time constraints to manage due to people’s schedules.
I had four players for the scenario, and it seemed like two players loved the system, but the other two were a little put off by how technical the game can be compared to something like Savage Worlds. I’m going to have a longer discussion with the players that were put off to see what issues they had and maybe I can explain it better. If I can’t get them to try it further then I might just run the other 2 players in Dinner for One as a smaller group. I want to run Trouble in Hochen, but I can’t find a copy of the Adventure Burner.
For those two players: give them time to get used to it and they might come around. I’ve got a player right now who absolutely HATED the scripting mechanics when we ran The Sword, but now that she’s had two more sessions under her belt she’s really starting to come around to them. She “gets” them now. Your players very well may need that time.
I tried Mouseguard years ago and didn’t care for it very much. It was a one-off thing. Now I really like Burning Wheel. Yes there are differences, but in the context of a one-off, they’re close enough.
So I second the “give it another go” thought. I was expecting something very different. I approached the experience looking for the same things I was used to from other RPG systems. And so I missed many of the good things about the game.
That said, no one system is good for everybody. Could be that these players just don’t want what Burning Wheel has to offer.
After the holidays, I’m going to talk to the two players to see if they’d be willing to give it another chance as well as explain what they didn’t like about the game. I get the feeling that one of the players won’t want to try again. His Elf entered a duel of wits with the Dwarf, but didn’t want much more from the duel aside from getting the sword to take with him which is the opposite of the Dwarf and assumed. I tried to get him to raise the stakes a little more. He then lost the duel, but it ended up being a major compromise situation where he still didn’t want much since he didn’t win the sword.
I’ll have a talk and see what happens. I don’t want to push him too hard about not playing, but at the same time I think it needs a discussion to clarify any issues he had.
I’d love to get these two to try at least once more, but my gut is telling me that they won’t.
Has anyone run Dinner for One with only two players? If I end up just having two players, I was going to modify the difficulty to make it still work since I think it’s supposed to have at least four players.
We played The Sword last week. My dwarf lost a DoW to the Elf, so now the sword must travel to the elflands before it finally comes home to my people. But, at least I got a compromise, so the sword stays in my possession the whole way.