How easy is it to adapt Burning Empires to settings other than the built-in one (parasitic worms fighting a galactic battle against humanity)?
For example, would it be easy to play out the galactic conflict in the Star Wars universe?
I think Star Wars would be easy, but folks think I’m crazy.
Yeah, I gathered that from the BE development story. 
I mostly wanted to check to see if the rules were so tightly bound to the setting that they couldn’t be transferred … but BW is one of the most adaptable systems I’ve seen. I suspect BE is much the same. Thanks!
Of course, no one has ever done the Force to my satisfaction in Burning Wheel. So maybe it can’t be done.
Well, I’ve never seen the Force done to my complete satisfaction anywhere. Between traits, emotional attributes, and the various types of magic, I suspect BW can do it as well as any.
I think Star Wars would be great for Burning. Characters were frequently painted with a broad pen in their driest sense, but had space beyond that to expand and grow. Whiny farmhands. Brash smugglers. Young senators who are not a committee.
I wanted to do fantasy with Burning Empires, Sick-sad-insane cosmic fantasy games that I have done for a while, something like China Mieville’s Bas-Lag with some D-n-D Spelljammer snaked in meets Neon Genesis Evangelion, but with less anime histrionics and more Lovecraftian psycho-horror. I haven’t been able to figure out exactly how just yet.
The Force as a megalomania-inducing parasitic disease works for me.
How about the Force as an emotional attribute. Spending the proper Artha allows the PC to “Use the Force” in any of the following ways:
[ol]
[li]Fate - FoRK your Force exponent into a skill test.
[/li][li]Persona - use your Force exponent in place of your skill exponent.
[/li][li]Deeds - add your Force exponent to your skill exponent for a single test.
[/li][/ol]
Force powers (which could be used at will with the Force) include:
[ol]
[li]Telepathy - these are not the droids for which you are looking.
[/li][li]Telekinesis - picking stuff up with your brains.
[/li][li]Augment - manipulating one’s body to make it stronger or faster.
[/li][li]Second sight - looking into the future to see one’s friends being hurt; seeing something happening halfway across the universe.
[/li][li]Phenomenon - controlling, summoning, or defending against lighting or some other raw energy.
[/li][/ol]
Everyone with the Force attribute lists “Fear” as an unopened skill with an aptitude of 10. Have a list of situational tests that encompass fear and each time the PC encounters one of those situations, they take a test towards the “Fear” skill. On the tenth test, the PC takes the character trait “Fearful.” Then the PC gets “Anger” as an unopened skill with an aptitude of 10. Have some situational tests, and the end result is the character trait “Angry.” Same deal now with a “Suffering” skill, which will result in the character trait “Tormented.” The character is now given over to the Dark Side.
Invoking the Dark Side can be similar to Using the Force and done at any time (even if not given over to the Dark Side), except that the user gets an additional bonus die for each of the above character traits he currently has.
Each time the Dark Side is invoked, along with recording a test for the Force attribute, the PC records an aptitude test for whatever emotion he is currently dealing with along the Path to the Dark Side.
Any time a player might be awarded a Persona point, he may forgo it in return for removing a single test pip from whatever emotion he is dealing with. If he is already at zero pips for the current emotion, forgoing the Persona has no effect. He must choose this action now and cannot reduce pips later by spending Persona.
Any time a player might be awarded a Deeds point, he may forgo it in return for removing the most advanced “path to the Dark Side” emotion character trait he has received. The emotion he is dealing with will be regressed appropriately (Suffering will turn to Anger, Anger will turn to Fear). If he does not have any of the Dark Side emotion character traits (e.g. - he has not yet received “Fearful”), the player may forgo the Deeds to erase all tests for the current emotion.
Normally I don’t but without further explanation I don’t see what you do. So either it’s in my blindspot or you are a loon.
P.S. If I was to do an RPG campaign of Battlestar Galactica my list of games to do it would start and end with BE. I swear the writters of the first 2 seasons, up till the settlement of New Carprica, used a time machine to travel forward so they could create the nBSG script by playing a game of Burning Empires.
I’ve got an idea for a sort of ‘demo game’ (or ‘gateway drug’) to run people through that is set on a sleeper ship fleeing a Void World towards the dubious safety of the Iron Empires. It’d be ‘quicker’ in terms of time-scale than normal BE, with less of the grand politics of BE and more of the survival horror. I imagine it like Alien a bit at the start, and more like Aliens by the time the “Invasion” phase rolls around.
I also think the three-phase system would rock for a Crusade game with “Attack!”, “Consolidate!”, and “Defend!” phases; if the Crusaders win the Defend! phase then the Kingdom of Jerusalem stands - if they don’t than a Saladin-analogue drives them into the sea (or Cyprus).
Whether or not he’s right, Luke is definitely a tad loony.
I think so, too, but again, I’ve been dubbed mad over at the Big Purple for saying such things.
By fools.
Now I never saw BSG till after I first read BE. No cable/satellite, I watch all my “TV” via DVD so I’ve got some lag. But all I saw was BITs, Duel of Wits, Circles, Enmity Clauses, Resources, Firefight!, and Maneuver rolls. With the occasional ICHASHITF. When they successfully stuffed the ballot boxes and got away with it but then Ros said conceded anyway? I thought “Oh oh, the PCs had made all the rolls in play but lost the Maneuver roll and the last of their disposition.”
Really, are these people that have even fully read the rules and watched nBSG??? [/rant]
EDIT: Or are they just garden variety nutjobs that contest the existence of contemporary time travel? 
Isn’t the idea of “contemporary time travel” kind of weird? Surely time travel is always contemporary - to some subjective observer’s p.o.v.?
Urge to play U.S. Patent Number 1. rising…