Hi, everyone! First, a small introduction. I’m bravetraveler. I mostly post over on the Burning Wheel subreddit. But recently, I’ve been working on a guide/FAQ for the game, and noclue suggested that this might be something to bring over here. I agreed, obviously.
Back in February, I posted a thread on /r/BurningWheel to gauge interest in doing a few things for the community on reddit, the foremost being the creation of the guide/FAQ that I’m here to talk about. My desire to create this was influenced by the discussion in this thread, which clued me in to the fact that Dungeon World has this great fan-written guide that offers a perspective on the game that’s conducive to helping new and even experienced players gain a better perspective on Dungeon World. And because I’m a strong believer in the idea that Burning Wheel gets a bad rap as a game that’s too hard to learn and because I dearly want to change that perception, I saw that there was likely some value to the community as a whole in creating something similar for Burning Wheel.
So, yesterday evening, I posted my first draft of this guide/FAQ to /r/BurningWheel in the hope that it would spur discussion and perhaps even collaboration that would help correct my errors and identify the many, many things I failed to include. Of course, this is large, sprawling project. And just two months of work has barely scratched the surface. But it’s been educational and enjoyable for me, and I’m looking forward to the next stages. So far I’ve digested and condensed almost all of the four years of discussion that exist on /r/BurningWheel, and my next targets are these forums and their wiki. It would be nice to have most of it done by August when The Codex is scheduled for release, but perhaps that’s a little ambitious.
I see this project as something that’s not at all limited to or intrinsically a part of /r/BurningWheel. It’s an attempt to create something that will benefit everyone who plays the game–the entire Burning Wheel community–and especially those who will play the game. And so, that’s why I thought that cross-posting here would have value to the people who solely frequent these forums. It seems like it would be beneficial to us all to have an up-to-date locus for this sort of information rather than endlessly repeated questions and hit-or-miss forum/subreddit searches. And, of course, it would be wonderful to be able to link to a single, simple document when someone who has never played Burning Wheel asks “Where do I start?” or to be able to point to that same document when someone repeats the popular idea that Burning Wheel is “too hard to learn.”
With all of that being said, if you’d like to help with this project or use it in any way, I welcome you to do either. I know that regardless of how much I learn about the game, no matter how much I research or how much I play, someone is still going to know more about it than I will. So, I look to those of you who know better than I for guidance, if you’ll give it. Even if you just point me in the right direction, I’ll gladly do the legwork. I honestly love this game, and when I see people dismiss it for reasons that don’t reflect the reality that surrounds it…it makes me want to spend months of my life putting together a guide/FAQ for them. So, I hope that those of you who are willing will join me here, there, or anywhere to help make this a reality. I would truly appreciate your input and your time.