Burning Several Characters at Once With One Copy of BWG

The title pretty much says it all. It’s the first session tonight of our first ever Burning Wheel game. We’ll just be burning up characters mostly, but I’m worried about the fact that I only have one copy of the rulebook. The group is between 3-5 players. Any ideas on how we could burn up characters at the same time?

You could have folks workshop stuff with the BWR online character burner. We’ve had sessions where folk use computers or tablets to do basic stuff and then fiddle details on paper afterwards.

Of course, you can only use it if you have a copy of BWR to enter the pass phrase though.

http://bwcharburner.appspot.com/

Some stuff has changed from BWR to BWG, traits, skills, requirements and leads, but it can help get the basic idea of a character down first. It will be much easier once the Gold version goes live.

Maybe encourage players to buy copies themselves first, offering a prize [+1 FP or Persona point] to each player that does.

  1. Use the worksheets! http://www.burningempires.com/store/index.php/free-pdfs/burning-wheel-gold-play-sheet-pdfs.html

  2. Try to hash out the bounds of the setting first (e.g. “we’ll all be human outcasts fighting against the oppressive duke”), and then quickly go through some rough ideas about each character (e.g. “I’ll be a noble-born freebooter”), and some proto-beliefs

  3. hand off to people to quickly choose their LPs and copy down to worksheets (maybe serve snacks and such at this point rather than the start). Try to dissuade the min-max impulses

  4. everyone starts crunching numbers, the book sitting out for reference on traits or whatever, but mostly have them crunch the numbers as per the worksheet

  5. for Health and Steel, the GM can ask the questions of all the players at the same time

I highly suggest you guys pick up at least one extra copy of the book. It’s very useful so players and the GM can look stuff up as needed. The book is meant to be referenced in play.

Cool idea, Durand!

Stormsweeper - thanks so much! These are awesome and are going to be very helpful.

Thanks guys. :slight_smile:

As Stormie says, don’t give them the book. You hold onto the book and ask them what their character is, where they were born, etc. Once they give you the loose concept, tell them their lifepaths. That’s right, just make the decision for them. Once you get the LPs down. Keep hold of the book and read out their skills and traits. Once they have their points, skills and traits, they should be able to use the worksheets to finish.

Good luck!

Thanks for the advice. :slight_smile:

Gosh, I should have asked for this advice earlier… that’s a great idea!