Earning Deeds points

Burning Wheel First Reading
21

I think that’s commonly done, but it’s against the word and spirit of the artha rules. Great deeds are persona. Great deeds that don’t benefit you or are against your BITs and for someone else’s are worth deeds.

I think I went overboard on the self-sacrifice beliefs thing. Yeah, you’re right. But not every sacrifice on the altar of a noble belief is worth deeds either. “Constantly earning deeds” sets off alarm bells for me. Remember, it’s not just self-sacrifice. It has to be setting-changing as well. The deeds point likely comes after those noble beliefs are milked for a boatload of persona too.

22

I think I’ve only earned 2 deeds points ever.

23

I didn’t notice this post… you posted while I was posting mine XD

So, I guess that the #1 truth I can take from this thread is that everyone approaches deeds artha differently. It’ll be handled a trifle uniquely for every group.

So perhaps… perhaps the best answer, then, is that the group should decide what deeds artha entails, and that, for the game being played, it is a definition that makes everyone happy, a definition that suits the setting and the mood of the group. Like, a dead serious gritty game might give deeds out once in a blue moon, but a light hearted, high fantasy game might give out deeds points every time anything setting-changing happens.

As far as my deeds-heavy character goes, it’s kind of along that vein. All we’re doing is changing the world. We’ve gotten ourselves in deep with some major stuff, prepping the mortal world from an incoming army of demons, creating and leading a rebellion against the standing legal order, which binds magic users into slavery, and so forth.

Legends are already being told about all three of our characters, and more is added to that legend every few sessions. We’re at the point where we can’t go anywhere now without being harassed (sometimes nicely, sometimes… very much not). So, by almost any definition of deeds, it applies to that group.

Mind, we’ve been playing that game IRL for about 5 years, so it’s honestly reasonable for us to have gotten to this point now. We would have gotten deeds like once every 15 sessions when we first started. Now, we rarely do anything that isn’t worldchanging. If there’s a non-world-changing task that needs to be done, it’s not worth our time; we’d just delegate it.

24

That’s how I do deeds points: does the action go far beyond their intentions and put them into legend? That’s a deeds point.

25

Remember, acting towards a Belief isn’t the only way you can earn artha in relation to that Belief. You don’t earn Moldbreaker points unexpectedly. :slight_smile: Burning Wheel is set up so that as the GM challenges your Beliefs, you have flashpoints. You can react in more than one way to that challenge. A GM can totally challenge your Belief so solidly that you turn around and perform a Deeds-worthy act.

Case in point, let’s say you have this “I will destroy the Assassin’s Guild by killing its head, Grey Voice.” Belief. The GM challenges you…by telling you that when you finally sneak into the headquarters, you find Grey Voice in a moment of weakness, shaken and meditating on their guilt for killing so many people.

If you take the opportunity to murder Grey Voice, that will earn you a Persona point.

If you take the opportunity to attempt to connect with Grey Voice, and to offer them redemption from their crimes, that’s the legendary sort of act that merits Deeds. You’ve just connected with the head of the clan of Assassins and persuaded them to mend their ways. Like, wow.

Actually, you probably earn a Persona point for Moldbreaker on that Belief, too.

See how it’s still connected to the Belief, but you found a way to turn it into a Deeds point?

26

In the situation presented by the GM, I can absolutely see why ignoring the “bait,” if you will, of the repentant guildmaster would forfeit the deeds point. There’s more than one way to take up that bait and turn it into something much more epic than just stabbing him and moving on.

That said…

If the GM hadn’t presented that twist, however, then just killing Grey Voice should have gotten the deeds point, right? It’s still kind of “wow” to take down an assassin’s guild like that. Adding in bait like that is undeniably a good thing, gameplay-wise, but I can’t imagine that deeds points should be contingent on the GMs offering that sort of break.

I’m thinking of my character Kiara again - the legendary character I’m playing. Back in that war situation I briefly mentioned, her belief, at one point, should have read something like, “To save the people of this city, I must end the war, by peace, if at all possible, and to that end, I will walk directly into the enemy camp and address their goddess, to persuade her to back down.”

Talk about a sweaty situation. I had no way to know I’d survive that, and we kind of collectively agreed it was a stupid thing to do, but winning the war kind of meant genocide.

As it happened, well, our attempts got badly sabotaged. Namely, the getting-framed-for-murder thing… of the city’s leader, no less. While in jail (sigh), we had to coordinate with the city’s military, and arrange a military coup over the government - which, ironically, we had set off just as the war general was about to execute me for murder.

Buuuuut… since we’d kind of completely destroyed the city’s government, we really weren’t in a position to negotiate peace, and the enemy had no reason to surrender.

So instead of following my original intention, while my character wept inside for the inevitable loss of life, we fought for the quickest, cleanest war we could manage. It was beautiful, in a heart-wrenchingly terrible way. In that first battle, we wiped out their largest army to the last warrior, and when we slew their goddess, they broke and fled, but couldn’t escape.

We chose which side of that conflict would win, and made it happen. I sat in that stupid jail cell for a week, despite the fact that I could have escaped at any time. That was a sacrifice… one of many. We didn’t have to favour the city - their enemies had a legitimate case to make, but we chose against them for a large variety of reasons. It felt most moral to favor the city, despite their… unwillingness to accept our help >.>

Anyway, the “twist” in this context happened way before the actual battle. So my beliefs would have been dramatically updated.

That war was the most public thing we ever did, and so it’s the basis of most of the fuss we get. Nations fear us (though for the skill at warfare or destroying the government, I’m not sure :P), people praise us, blah blah. We’re known as heroes, as saviours. But anytime the war is mentioned, all of our characters get a little sad.

So… was it world changing? Yeah, in more than one way… while we didn’t commit genocide ourselves, the army wasn’t ours to command, and that’s what they did. Just victory would have done it, but a species genocide…

Was it contrary to our beliefs… or rather, what they’d have been if we’d been playing BW? Yes, compared to our original beliefs, but once we changed the plan, our beliefs would have changed with it. And things more-or-less went according to our final (, emotionally agonizing) plan. So… no?

That victory, in my mind, is the single most incontrovertible deeds point earning event of my entire gaming career. We’ve changed the world more than that, but not in a single decision, not in a single session’s implementation. The last minute surprise was the damned goddess showing up and impaling our airship on a 6 story tall spike of earth and stone. We hadn’t realized she could do that >.>

Edit: Sorry for ginormous post of doom. I’m just trying to build a mental framework for deeds artha, and I keep managing to confuse myself.

27

If the GM hadn’t presented that twist, however, then just killing Grey Voice should have gotten the deeds point, right? It’s still kind of “wow” to take down an assassin’s guild like that. Adding in bait like that is undeniably a good thing, gameplay-wise, but I can’t imagine that deeds points should be contingent on the GMs offering that sort of break.

No. Wow moments aren’t necessarily deeds moments. It’s still fulfilling a belief. An epic fulfillment of a long-term belief, yes, but nothing more than that. You get persona. Now, if you’re angling for deeds, you come across the guildmaster and then say, “You know what? I came to kill you, but that isn’t really what would satisfy me. It won’t make up for all the blood spilled. I can take your life, but what I want is for you to make amends.” And then find a way to make it happen. That is a deeds moment.

As far as your story about Kiara, I see how you did something huge. And probably setting-changing, although that’s very dependent on the scope of a game—destroying a city in a game about a street gang is huge, destroying a city in a game of kings and emperors is just a day’s work. You did something heart-wrenching. What I don’t see is whether you did it because it was necessary for your characters and their goals or if it was for others. You decided the city should win, sure, and made it happen, but nothing says to me that this called for great personal sacrifice or any sacrifice of your own goals. It’s just an important thing that happened in a high-stakes game.

Or am I misunderstanding?

28

Killing a deity would certainly qualify as a world changing event! But was that done during your pathfinder days or as a part of BWG?

I’ve yet to award or receive a Deeds point in BWG. Unfortunately, our group has only been playing sporadically at best (and have yet to reconvene after our summer break) but I do believe in the power of the group vote for any and all awards.

29

We haven’t switched that game over to BW yet. We’re playing a modified version of Pathfinder that, by this point, has almost no resemblance to Pathfinder - really, we’re just using the basic skeleton of D&D, and everything else is custom, but even then, the skeleton is constantly getting in the way, since it’s so combat focused.

As far as why we did that massive event…

With our characters, the distinction between “personal objectives” and “objectives beyond personal desires” is a bit, well, fuzzy. After all, we’ve dedicated ourselves to a cause. Two, actually - freeing magic users from slavery, and prepping the world for a demon army.

Both are, arguably, fairly selfish to some extent - we are, ourselves, magic users, and if the demons consume our… eh… realm? I guess? Then everything we’ve known will be destroyed.

But then, we’ve also turned down rather lucrative offers of personal freedom and safety.

So that war situation. We knew there was a war, that the nagas had slaughtered 350,000 or so humanoids, almost the entire population of the nation Aquas. The final city was the city of Water (major elemental theme), with all the refugees that had managed to survive. Total population about about 100,000 people.

We went there because we needed an ancient artifact, hidden long ago in each of the nation’s academies. So, we went to negotiate for this item with the leaders of Aquas.

The war, of course, is an issue.

Easiest solution? Take down the magic barrier blocking the nagas, let the nagas kill the inhabitants of the city, then go into the empty academy, get the artifact, and move on. We’re on a time limit, let’s move, folks!

But we couldn’t abandon those people.

We, instead, spoke to the nagas, and oh my god, they were dicks. They captured us, right from the get-go, and we couldn’t even fight back, because we wanted to avoid hostilities. They took one of my people as hostage, to force our cooperation. He escaped them, of course, but damn, I was pissed. They would hear nothing of peace. They’d endured the disagreements with Aquas long enough, the only recourse they’d accept, now, was utter annihilation of them. I was able to talk them down into accepting the citizens as slaves, but I couldn’t push it any further.

Not happy with the nagas.

Then we spoke to the people of the city of Water. Of course, they immediately despise me and mine, because we’re magic users, not contained in an Academy, but because we offered the potential to win the war, they grudgingly accepted our survival. This nation hadn’t heard of us yet, mostly because of the barrier which blocked all communications for the last several months.

They were starving. Dying in the streets. Looking for someone to blame, someone to hate. Tensions were high. I tried to talk to the leaders about talking peace, but had to go through lots of red tape. Got accused of something, arrested, got let go, went through more hassle to talk to the leader. He agreed to meet with me privately, and as I was on my way there, I found his corpse, killed with magic very similar to my own…

… just as guards were coming around the corner.

I could totally have just taken the damned barrier down, anytime I wanted. They couldn’t stop me and my group. They didn’t have a prayer. I could have wiped them out, made allies of the nagas, gotten the artifact, and kept the ruined cities and academy as strongholds, safe places to send my own people, as I liberated them from the other nations.

It would have been easy. Profitable. It would NOT have involved being locked in a dark hole for a damned week, without proper food and water, being guarded by people who insisted that I was evil, simply because I had magic.

But we didn’t even consider it. Well, aside from grumblings about how ungrateful the idiots were. Their lives mattered, no matter how dedicated to getting themselves killed they seemed to be. So, despite our irritation and misgivings, we dedicated ourselves, risking everything, just to save their annoying butts.

And what do we get? “Thanks for saving us, our people recognize you as heroes, but now that the war is over, magic-users are no longer allowed in the city. Please escort our magic users, that we’d forced onto the battlefield to serve us, back into the Academy, into enslavement, thanks. And don’t ever come back, because you’re dangerous, and magic users suck.”

Stupid bastards.

But the common man had a different opinion. The politicians sucked, but the people were grateful, and word spread.

The whole thing was a right mess. We lost someone, very dear to Kiara. But she found the strength to keep going, and we’re back at it, making more legends.

Again, that’s the most deeds-worthy thing I can imagine.

Also, actually, we… ah… never got the artifact. Time-crunch and all that, heh. gulps So we’ll be going back, after we do this other thing. >.>

30

Some people play BW and give deeds points for great campaign milestones. I don’t think this is necessarily bad, but it is not using the rules as intended.

As written, I don’t think you met the requirements. There was no great self-sacrifice. There was loss, and there was certainly plenty of inconvenience, but there was no giving up of something very important for anyone else.

It’s certainly a good story, but what is the key moment or decision that you see as deeds-worhty?

31

We gave up time - extremely valuable time.

We surrendered our lives to their choices - the war general could have executed me. Kiara’s strong, but not immortal.

We gave up the extraordinary opportunity of all that unclaimed land. At least, the land would be unclaimed in short order, if we did nothing. The barrier was going to fall shortly, and when it did, the nagas would wipe them out.

We gave up vengeance - we were wronged time and time again, and did nothing against those that harmed us. This really kind of was a big deal, emotionally. The story’s more involved than I presented, a lot went on in that city. One of our personal enemies was right in front of us, mocking and insulting us as we did nothing - for the sake of the others. We couldn’t even reveal the animosity.

This wasn’t a single moment or decision that’s the crux. It was a multitude that aligned together.

#1. Deciding that the lives of a city of mundanes was worth sacrificing our personal objectives for - magic users would have had greater benefit from destroying the city and claiming the land.

#2. Deciding that all of our personal emotions and desires - vengeance, respect, dignity - were to be sacrificed for the welfare of the citizens.

#3. Deciding to fight for peace at all costs, no matter how grave, no matter how enormous the consequence. We didn’t have the chance to go through with it, but the choice to go talk peace with their goddess comes to mind, and we thoroughly regretted the loss of that chance.

#4. During the battle, things got dicey, and Kiara - despite her complete mortality - rushed to the battlefield, desperate to help the others. I could have run away, could have done any of a bazillion things that could be considered sane. Screw sanity. She rushed in, sacrificing herself in a blaze of glory, and fell - in game terms, I died, and was resurrected with one of those “one round after death” things, as someone got to me the round after I died. That’s the only form of resurrection in the world - raise dead and the like aren’t possible. Once you’re dead, you’re dead.

That was terrifying.

#5. I sent my little sister - another of the PCs - to the front lines (she wanted to go there, but Kiara’s the official leader), because, despite the incredible risk to her, such positioning would save the lives of soldiers. That was very emotionally challenging for everyone involved.

Ultimately, we made the choice to save mundanes that hated us and wanted to see us dead, at great personal cost, and at the cost of multiple objectives and potential benefits for the causes for which we fought - because we valued their lives.

Again, I just can’t imagine how that’s not deeds worthy.

32

So you sacrificed the time needed to obtain your goal (artifact) to help people who were in direct opposition to your belief (freeing mages from slavery) endured countless insults and hardships, counter intuitive to your normal way of doing things (instincts and traits) killing a godess and ending a war all for the very people who are still enslaving mages and still hold the artifact you needed in the first place. (Which they have no intention of parting with). Sounds Deeds worthy to me.

33

When you put it that way, I agree!

Although “we sacrificed our time to prevent the utter slaughter of some guys” sounds pretty funny. I know, I know, the time was important, but…

34

I’ve got to say, though, if it’s got to be epic to quite that scale to justify a deeds, then… I honestly can’t imagine how you’re supposed to get deeds in normal games.

While I’m glad that at least the single most epic (and agonizing, heart-wrenching, utterly retarded (stupid, ungrateful, louts, grumble grumble) moment was worthy of a deeds point by any measure, I do believe we’ll take a slightly less extreme interpretation of how to earn the silly things.

Because otherwise, I would never have been able to so much as grey-shift absolutely anything in my entire 7 years of gaming, even if all of it were Burning Wheel, in all the games I’ve played.

35

I keep wishing I could weigh in on this topic more, but I’m still somewhat vague on Deeds myself. So I’m following keenly but short on any actual advice.
I will say this, though: I’m pretty sure you can reasonably award deeds for stuff that’s not quite so epic as that.

The one and only deeds point I awarded in my last campaign was for the player who had his character turn aside from actively pursuing a hated enemy to save some city watch members from a burning building - he stayed inside to make sure every last one of them made it out, and got horribly burned in the process. All of the watchmen lived.
Would bards sing of what he did? Maybe not, but he was a hero to the city watch. (His hated enemy, on the other hand - who he had a belief about - got away.)

I’m fairly certain that it was a reasonable call to give a deeds point to that player. At least it was in our fairly mundane game. For your epic characters, maybe they’re powerful enough that saving someone from a burning building wouldn’t impress anyone.
But no, I don’t think every deeds has to involve the fate of empires.

36

It’s easy to be over-generous with deeds in epic games; scope isn’t the same as significance. You have to do things on a crazy scale if your game is on an epic scale to begin with. For more mundane games the actions that lead to deeds are scaled down.

Looking back, I had a game about a street gang where the watch was onto them and one character decided to stop as they all fled and delay the watch so the others could escape. He was facing the loss of a hand at best and hanging at worst and knew he couldn’t fight off the guards, but he did it to save the rest of the gang. (Of note, he had no beliefs about loyalty to the others. There was no honor among those thieves!) He got a deeds point—he suffered, and while he didn’t change the setting, his actions prevented a huge change to the setting. Because in this case, the setting was really the criminal underbelly of a city, and having all of the major underworld figures hauled in by the watch would have completely changed everything.

37

Somehow, I suspect, in that game… were we to save some people from a burning building… politicians would still somehow manage to twist that. Saying something like, we’re only trying to coerce the common man into thinking we’re not monsters, or something equally disgusting.

I hate politicians. Doubly so in this game. Triply so because, as the leader of the rebellion, I’m kind of stuck being a politician. Blargh.

Mind, I can’t really blame them, since we’ve destroyed the government of every nation we’ve visited thus far. I mean, the first one, we only killed the king, so really, the nation was just fine - his sister took over as queen. But between Aquas’s military takeover, and then Aeros’s utter annihilation of all order… which really wasn’t what we were going for… I can’t blame people in positions of power for being kind of nervous when we show up.

If the DM gave us a deeds point every time we radically altered the world’s dynamic of power, for the sake of the wellbeing of others, then we’d be getting deeds points every 5-6 sessions. Probably. Which seems a reasonable rate, considering the fact that we’re supposed to be getting to a kind of epic scale.

Really, seems to me, that the whole deeds allocation should be based on the game’s expectations - group intentions, theme, etc - and not strict to the letter of the text. This game had humble beginnings, all those years ago, but it’s thoroughly epic now, and deeds points - and thus, shade-shifting - are BW’s expression of that.

38

So, in the Adventure Burner (which I realize is out of print, and thus hard to find and expensive), there’s a bit about how Deeds points aren’t earned, they’re given. It’s up to the GM when and how to award Deeds. Completing a big-picture goal is totally an acceptable criteria, so long as the characters risk a great deal to do so. It’s not entirely about self-sacrifice, it’s about accomplishing things that are bigger than just your character(s), in the face of overwhelming odds, and/or incredibly uncertain outcomes.

39

“Epic” doesn’t enter into at it all, to me.

40

Would a movie example help this thread?

Indiana Jones’ goal was to find the lost magic stone from the village. He freed all the slaves along the way and took down a major cult. He didn’t have Beliefs about those two last things, imo. He gets a Persona for retrieving the stone, and a Deed for the other stuff.