So I’ve been playing and running RPGs for ages (about 20 years), including every edition of D&D, World of Darkness, 7th Sea, L5R, Battletech, Cyberpunk, Nobilis, Pathfinder, Call of Cthulu and just about anything else you can think of. I just picked up Gold because it looked interesting and I had heard intriguing things about it.
There are many things I like on first read: Lifepaths as Character Creation and Beliefs both remind me of things I’ve liked a great deal in other systems. I like the advancement system in theory, and I’m eager to try it out. Lack of a game world doesn’t bother me, I like to make them up anyway.
The thing that concerns me a bit on first read is the combat system. A simple opposed roll to deal with brutes and thugs is fine. Bloody VS I’ll try out; it sounds to me like the combat option used most often. The Fight system makes me a little nervous. I tend to run relatively few combats per session (1-2) but when I do, they matter. So, I have a few questions.
How does this system hold up when half a dozen players are fighting a villain? Does it bog down? Do the ganging up rules work well when its the players doing it? Can it handle a lot of moving pieces - say, 8-12 characters between both sides facing off in a complex battle that involves melee, ranged attacks, and magic? How much overhead is there in terms of teaching players - scripting actions and the rules for what modifies what all seem like you would need some serious player training time. Are the combats exciting, adrenaline pumping, or just rules crunching complex?
Has anyone considered/made cards to lay down for scripting, as opposed to making lists? It struck me as one way to smooth the transition for players not used to things.
For my game, regardless of ranges, once a melee battle breaks out into a Fight! Everyone shifts into that system. So if the group is sneaking around intent on infiltrating a stronghold, they might begin with a versus roll to sneak. If they must take out a sentries before they can sound the alarm, speed tests and bloody versus. If they are trying to shoot their way out of the stronghold in range and cover when they are suddenly to close to shoot due to the flanking guards that are closing in EVERYBODY switches over to Fight! rules. Fight is the “Blow by Blow” mechanic of burning wheel (Range and Cover generally has 20 actions worth of things happening in each volley, 20 actions equals 5 vollys in Fight! for a B4 Reflex character). At this time any Steel Checks for Ambush, Outnumbered, Fear, ect. are taken into account (beginning of a Fight!) and away we go.
Anything that can be done outside of a Fight! we do as simply as possible. But when everything comes to a head, we break out the Fight! rules.
I do prescript minions and lackies, as well as foot soldiers and archers as these encounter groups have set responses due to training together, or limited available options. The same holds true fir any group type encounter.
The important thing to remember about Fight is that it’s not used in the same way that combat systems are used in most RPGs. It’s for the big moments when Beliefs are on the line, not for mass battles against minions. In my experience, you’ll usually see Fight brought out when there’s maybe 2-5 total characters involved, but the stakes are high.
I generally let the players call for it when it matters to them, rather than pushing it on them.
There’s definitely a learning curve involved with Fight, and there’s not really a way around it except for doing it. Everyone will make a lot of poor choices at first. But once you learn it, Fight is very elegant.
Fight works very well for XvX. That’s 1v1, or a pair of 1v1’s, or an arbitrary number of 1v1’s, although more than two or three and the GM workload becomes very heavy. Asymmetry without using the helping rules puts the 1 in the 1v2 at an extreme disadvantage and tends to lead to rapid, crushing defeat. With the helping rules 1v(more) is doable until the (more) provides so many dice that the 1 is overwhelmed.
With a bunch of separate 1v1’s the fight often swings by whoever wins first, because that person can go turn another fight into 2v1 and win it, and then there are two more 2v1’s or a 3v1, and it snowballs.
Fight works fine combining ranged (including magic) with melee. Ranged attacks have advantages in positioning, but the time it takes to set them up means if you don’t get a decisive first-strike advantage you’re in trouble, or at least desperately clawing out your own sword. Yes, Fight has a learning curve, but it’s not awful. It’s a very exciting system when used well (and sparingly, usually for few combatants) and not all that cognitively hard once you’ve gotten the rules down.
Half a dozen players sounds like kind of a lot for Burning Wheel in general. My preferred table size is 4.
Fight is complex enough that you’ll want your players to have some references to refer to and you’ll probably want to do a practice battle before it shows up in the game proper. It also helps if you have a Duel of Wits first, since it’s a simpler version of the same general concept. I’m not sure it’s more complex than, say, third edition D&D in practice, but it probably isn’t less complex, and it definitely takes some getting used to.
Whether it’s exciting or not probably depends on your group and on how well your players understand and use it. My group flinched away from Fight, accusing it of being “clunky”. They also tried it maybe all of three times in the whole campaign, and most of them didn’t have the book, so I’m not sure they ever understood it well enough to get good at it, or even competent. They’d also played nothing but 3e D&D for ever and always previous to Burning Wheel, so it wasn’t at all what they were used to.
So there IS overhead in teaching players, yes. Mine never quite got there and their enjoyment of Fight suffered for it. If your players are eager to learn it, you’ll probably have good results. If they’re reluctant, your experience is more likely to match mine.
Combat doesn’t play the same role in Burning Wheel that it does in games like 3e D&D. There isn’t that same assumption built into the system that you “need” to fight. 1-2 combats per session in BW actually sounds a bit heavy, to me. Maybe one every two or three sessions, assuming you also get some Duel of Wits and maybe Range and Cover in as well. (Actually, in my campaign it was a whole lot less than that - like I said, maybe three or four times in the entire 20-30 session campaign - but we went pretty light.) It’s fairly gritty and brutal and can easily have long-lasting effects on the PCs if they aren’t careful, so it’s something they should only be doing when they really have something to fight for. If you’re planning “combat encounters” or something, you’re probably doing it wrong.
I’d argue BW Fight is less complex overall compared to D20 combat, it’s just a different kind of complex, and is more front-loaded. Like anything else, it will take practice to become proficient as a player.
The responses are starting to help me get a feel here, thank you. It sounds like Fight! Only really handles duels well? Not say, something like party vs dragon?
Our groups tend to be in the 5-9 player range.
We have mix between people eager to learn systems and people less eager to learn.
I glanced over duel of wits, but not in as much detail. I expect most negotiation scenes will be resolved with RP and a few simple opposed rolls in our group, unless duel of wits is very simple and streamlined. The combat like social systems I’ve seen in Game of Thrones and Exalted were always to clunky for us.
Sure, but is that because the ST didn’t understand the power scale of the game, or because the system didn’t handle 4 on 1 well? It could as easily be a troll, ord chief on a wolf, whatever.
5 is my absolute upper limit for players, and that tends to stretch spotlight time pretty thin between players.
That said, a group of players vs 1 big monster is fine. It’s when you start getting into having multiple NPCs that it starts getting crazy. Not that it can’t be done, but it’s not super easy.
Also, don’t discount Duel of Wits. It’s easily one of the most powerful and dramatic systems in the game. Even more than Fight, in my opinion. Fight puts death on the line. Duel of Wits puts kingdoms, relationships, even immortal souls on the line. And, yes, it’s easier than Fight is, though it still takes some getting used to.
You may want to check out BWHQ for pdf files to help with game mechanics like fight (I think I remember someone mentioning them in another thread. I have not checked it for myself though)
The thing that concerns me a bit on first read is the combat system. A simple opposed roll to deal with brutes and thugs is fine.
But that’s not the extent of simple opposed rolls in BW. That’s the heart of the system, task and intent and making explicit the consequences of failure are really at the core of the game. The Fight! mechanic is a cool subsystem, that can be brought into play to focus on moments when character beliefs are on the line and you want a more strategic combat. But, you can have whole campaigns of play without ever touching it.
The Fight system makes me a little nervous. I tend to run relatively few combats per session (1-2) but when I do, they matter. So, I have a few questions.
1-2 full combats is the most I’ve ever had in a BW game, and those are often Duel of Wits rather than Fight.
How does this system hold up when half a dozen players are fighting a villain?
6 is a LOT of characters in BW. Having them all in one scene is even more a lot. We generally have 4 characters and they don’t spend a bunch of time walking around together without some reason.
Can it handle a lot of moving pieces - say, 8-12 characters between both sides facing off in a complex battle that involves melee, ranged attacks, and magic?
Umm, break them up into three seperate smaller battles. These two guys over hear attack the knight, while this sneaky guy sneaks up on the sorcerer…run them as separate but simultaneous encounters.
How much overhead is there in terms of teaching players - scripting actions and the rules for what modifies what all seem like you would need some serious player training time. Are the combats exciting, adrenaline pumping, or just rules crunching complex?
I’m on the edge of my seat in every BW combat because I know that one knick and a failed steel test and the fight may be over for me…so, exciting. As for training players, limit their choices to 4 basic fight actions at first. Add in locks and push in the next exchange. There’s diminishing returns for spending too much time thinking about an action, so encourage them to move along briskly. And make sure you and everyone else couches their moves in description, nothing’s more boring than a bunch of numbers.
I’ve run combats with 5 PCs up against a dozen or so NPCs. That combat (which started as range and cover against an even larger force and turned into a fight conflict) took about 2 hours, including the preparations and cleanup. It was the culmination of a campaign arc. Most of our fights are much smaller and shorter, though. The other day we had a fight and an rnc which took maybe an hour together, and I’m really rusty these days.
In fights where the pcs outnumber NPCs it’s often over in the first volley.
That is a whole lot of players for BW. The game requires a lot more GM individual attention on each character. This is a very, very heavy load. I feel experienced and I wouldn’t be comfortable with juggling that many beliefs.
Duel of Wits works very much like Fight, mechanically. It’s not clunky, but it is detailed. Definitely use it for the really important arguments, though. It makes them tense and exciting. It’s also important for breaking intra-party deadlocks. If the players/characters are at loggerheads over a course of action, well, DoW is made for resolving the situation.
A dragon, if it uses the Monster Burner stats, is nearly impossible for ordinary mortals with ordinary weapons to injure, let alone kill. It doesn’t matter how many, it will kill them with ease one by one. That’s one problem.
That disparity in combat tends to tilt very quickly, though. Either the target is going to be brought down in a swarm of attacks or it’s going to be impervious and crush everyone. A dragon is too strong. Trolls and Orcs will die quickly.
Nine players? I had almost that many in my Apocalypse World game due to a misunderstanding about how we intended to structure things. (Apocalypse World is about as character-focused as Burning Wheel is, which is to say, very.) In an average session, as many as half of the players got a chance to do anything at all.
That’s right, in a typical night, half the players just sat on their bums and listened for the ENTIRE SESSION. Needless to say, it was not the most successful campaign I’ve ever run.
6 is pushing it. 9 is right out. BW cares too much about its characters and what they want - they all need time to pursue those wants and to be characters.
My group is very good about role playing with each other while people do individual things, specially once the game has some steam - say, here or four sessions in. They’ve run entire sessions of RP by themselves before when I couldn’t make a night, so that doesn’t worry me so much. I do feel like I would need a spreadsheet of beliefs to stay organized.
For an epic end of game fight, two hours is a time I’m comfortable with. Sounds like most things get in a shot or two and then die, against an entire party.