Dungeon crawling and Let it Ride

Burning Wheel Subsystem Advice and Guidance
1

Hi! I’ve recently started a new campaign, and the players wanted some dungeon crawling, so it begun with them researching an old underground lab. 1st session has been quite good, but I had a doubt with how to apply Let it Ride in this kind of play. I’ll explain myself with some examples:

The ranger had an instinct about searching for traps and secret doors in every room. What I did was to make him roll for the first room (success), and then have that success apply to the next important rooms, until a summoning roll was botched and chaos ensued. The same thing with a power roll a character made to block a door with furniture, when he wanted to turn a table for cover next room, I didn’t have him roll again.

I recall that BWRevised had little bubbles next to stats to log LiR successes, but they’re not in the BWG character sheet. I’ve been thinking about logging in a piece of paper LiR successes or failures for the whole group, and when some big failure shakes the situation, cross them out and start all over again.

The other option would be to allow to roll perception, scavenge, etc., every important room, but only log the highest Ob test for advancement. But as the Codex suggests, LiR is intended to apply to the remainder of the session, so I think the first approach is better.

What do you think? Any general advice about Let it Ride that might be useful? How do you handle this rule when exploring dungeons?

2

Can I ask why your not playing Torchbearer for this? Seems perfect for that type of game.

3

If nobody had an instinct about traps, then I’d just call for an Observation roll in the first room, with the successes Riding fit all traps and secret rooms in the dungeon. Failure means you trigger traps (and must test to avoid the effects) and fail to find the secret rooms, or fall through them accidentally, without the party noticing, Scooby Doo style. This is a stronger version of LiR than is required, however: RAW would say that LiR just means you can’t test for the same trap (or the duplicate trap the next room over) twice. And I suspect that many here would say that if there is no belief/instinct about it, you should use traps very sparingly.

But a player has an instinct about this, which means you should treat it as Important. Ideally, you should try to play with the fiction such that the player has the opportunity to play their instinct for Artha. But regardless of that, I’d have each trap and secret room be separate. If the traps are sufficiently different, then the Task is sufficiently different to justify a separate roll. This of course must be balanced by not stuffing your dungeon with traps and secrets.

Ultimately, though, it depends on how you make your dungeons. I personally wouldn’t run a room by room dungeon crawl in BW. I’d have a couple preset rooms and maybe appropriate traps in those, but skip through the boring “investigate every room” parts. Additional traps and hazards would come up as failure consequences: a failed Orienteering roll gets you lost in the twisting caverns, and you feel the tug of a tripwire on your foot. Roll Speed to avoid the dart trap. And here is where the player should be screaming “hold on, I would have been on the lookout for that trap!”, and you let them roll as per their instinct.

4

The other thing to keep in mind is that Instincts can and should be played against the player, so while they have a Macro to protect themselves from traps it also means that when there is a time constraint they are going to want to check for traps and this can and should create issues for them. As a Burning Wheel GM make sure that you pit the player against their BITs as often as possible.

I would play the LiR rules against that trap, treating each trap as a different encounter or NPC. That way if they come across a bladed pendulum trap that resets once they succeed on that test they can pass by that trap each time and don’t have to worry about it.

I do second the statement though that maybe Torchbearer would be a better fit for a dungeon crawl adventure, as long as you are having fun though who am I to tell you what to do. :-p

5

I can’t speak for Khimus, and I haven’t really sunk my teeth into Torchbearer as much as I would like to, so take this with a bit of salt.

But I think, even if TB is the outgrowth of the Burning Thac0 playstyle, its not a straight upgrade from Burning Wheel in that regard. To me, Burning Wheel is still pretty gritty, but it is still a step above TB on that ladder. In Burning Wheel, you can be only as concerned with rations and supplies as you want to be, while in TB if you take out the grind, it breaks. TB your character’s drives and motivations (BIG) matter, but they are subservient to the dungeon crawl, in the sense that the dungeon crawl is what the game is ABOUT. BW, on the other hand is a game ABOUT your BITs, and the dungeon is subservient to that.

Torchbearer has the advantage of being more focused, but it is nothing that a good campaign burning (including a clear discussing of expectations) can’t solve in Burning Wheel. They are just slightly different playstyles for the same over arching goal of “Robbing tombs for money”, but I wouldn’t call either one “better”

6

Well, I had written a reply, my browser ate it, but back on topic…

Can I ask why your not playing Torchbearer for this? Seems perfect for that type of game.

Well, the short answer is that I don’t have it, read it, nor tried it yet, so it’d have demanded a bigger effort than GMing a game I already know. The long answer is that the dungeoneering has only been the entry point for the campaign, not its laser focus. Of the 4 sessions we played so far, only one and a half were spent on a dungeon. After that, we’ve been playing on cities (though there’ll be another dungeon in the future). I like that flexibility.

Ultimately, though, it depends on how you make your dungeons. I personally wouldn’t run a room by room dungeon crawl in BW. I’d have a couple preset rooms and maybe appropriate traps in those, but skip through the boring “investigate every room” parts. Additional traps and hazards would come up as failure consequences: a failed Orienteering roll gets you lost in the twisting caverns, and you feel the tug of a tripwire on your foot. Roll Speed to avoid the dart trap. And here is where the player should be screaming “hold on, I would have been on the lookout for that trap!”, and you let them roll as per their instinct.

That’s a good idea. I only sketched the most important rooms, but ended up with 5 or 6. Still, it felt nice in game, but could have been handled with less rooms. I also agree with your other suggestion, I might have been over-applying LiR, and could handle to roll 2 or 3 times a session to detect traps or secret doors. So far in the campaign, there haven’t been that many advances to be worried about the amount of rolls.

The other thing to keep in mind is that Instincts can and should be played against the player, so while they have a Macro to protect themselves from traps it also means that when there is a time constraint they are going to want to check for traps and this can and should create issues for them. As a Burning Wheel GM make sure that you pit the player against their BITs as often as possible.

mmmh, if I recall the Adventure Burner correctly, players are the only one to decide when do they want to activate their instincts. They can totally turn them off if they think they’ll be put in danger in any occasion. Still, those ideas are pretty good. I was thinking his paranoia might make him check for traps every room even in the safety of a city, but it’s for him to decide to play that way.

So far, the campaign’s been really good. The group might go explore a new dungeon in 2 weeks, so there’s time to do some prep and apply your advice. Thanks!

7

Traps are tricky. I like springing them on my players, then having them roll to avoid or get out of trouble. This typically calls for some attribute roll. (Power to climb, agility to pull hand back, speed to balance, etc). More sophisticated traps with magical or highly technical elements may call for skill rolls. For the instinct in question I may allow a Observation test beforehand to avoid it. None of these would need LiR.

Another interesting way to get instincts in play is to include them in failure consequences for other tests.
Failing Stealthy-- the ranger believes there is a trap somewhere essential.
Failing Sword-- the ranger discovers a trap beneath one of his companions. Mid fight!

Rolling to detects trap before the trap becomes an issue smacks of DnD style “Roll Perception to look for monsters” (there are none)

-k

8

I’ve found this article useful in terms of Traps: http://theangrygm.com/traps-suck/