I feel lied to.

Burning Wheel First Reading
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Firstly, I’m sorry if I sound cranky, that’s because I am. Secondly, let me just say, what I’ve read sounds like a very good core system. So please, don’t assume that I am blasting the system’s quality or content. But, as a first time GM for a group of first time players, I have some preferences, complaints, and grievances that I feel I need to voice. And I’m sure I’ll feel better once I’ve communicated them.
So, I first picked up Burning Wheel Gold many months ago. A friend of mine told me about Mouse Guard, and how the scripting system for verbal combat worked. I felt it deserved an in depth look. I learned that Mouse Guard was based on Burning Wheel, and that a new edition was recently published. I read the first 75 pages, and liked what I saw. What’s more, I like that there was one core book at an affordable price; to the point that I could buy it, read it, and if I could never get a game together, put it on a shelf, and not feel it was a waste of money.
Getting the book home, I try to read it cover to cover, but I eventually broke down and flipped back and forth to different sections as they were mentioned. All in all, it looked good. And after some time, and convening, my group is more than willing to give it a try. I even convinced three of them to pick up a copy themselves(You’re welcome Luke). Re-reading the book, to make sure that I could GM it competently, I’ve begun to notice things; terrible things.
One, there is no math, rule of thumb, guideline, or even helpful tip for how to set up an encounter. How do I not kill the party with a combat system so fatal? How do I ensure that an encounter is fun, challenging, but not impossible? How do I make social interactions be possible but not just hand them everything they want, all the time. There is no math for this. The only thing I see, is the rule of thumb, failing a test is the introduction of complications, not lack of success.
So, ridiculous abstraction One: A two LP Man walks up to the elven king. “May I have your kingdom?” B2d persuasion vs. G6d Ugly Truth + disadvantage, because the request is completely impractical, + FoRK for soothing platitudes. Result, 1v6. “You couldn’t possibly begin to even understand how to run a kingdom of immortals. But… sense you asked nicely, I’ll let you have it, if you do a fetch quest for me.” Say “Yes”, or roll dice. But failed tests aren’t failures, but complications. Apparently, there is no, “No.” Where do I find the rules for how to balance a combat, verbal or otherwise? Apparently, in the Adventure Burner; a book from the previous edition, that’s no longer in print. Not available.
A player wants to play a druid, he winds up taking cultist and rogue wizard. Makes sense. What’s this? Sorcery, Enchanting, AND Summoning. Where’s the chapters for Enchanting and Summoning? See the Magic Burner. How does Destroy impetus work mechanically? See the Magic Burner. How do I make my own spells? See Magic Burner. There is no Magic Burner for gold. Most of the magic burner for revised is still compatible. MOST OF. Is it out of print? It’s not in my local stores? What parts aren’t compatible? Are you eventually going to be updating for gold? Do you want me to buy it twice?
There’s another book, the Monster Burner (Revised). Filled with out of date monsters, and guidelines(not rules) for how to make them. Balance? Nah. Once again, is this out of print? Not in my local stores.
Character Burner program/app: So, I was looking for some tools to maybe help things go faster. And I found an incomplete Character Burner on Google docs. It’s no longer in development because it was announced that an official one would be in development. There’s even several forum posts by Luke asking us what we would want on a kickstarter for it. Nine months ago, roughly the time I purchased the book, you asked what we wanted. Where is the “Shut up and take my money” button? I can’t find the kick starter anywhere. Work on the unofficial burner has stopped. Work on the official burner is no where to be found.
Where can I buy a PDF copy of the book? I can’t. With over 600 pages, and sections that reference chapters that reference other sections that reference other books from other editions, it’d be nice to have the ability to have this book opened to multiple pages. I could have each of the life paths, that I’m considering opened in front of me. I could even copy and paste them into a document, so I can have them all next to each other. I could click a button and have it open to the outcast section in the man-stock burner. I could type in a skill name, and quickly thumb through all classes that have it. I could see what actions one could use to Obfuscate, and what I’d be rolling against. I could not put tabs in my physical copy. I understand that piracy is a real concern and a direct impact on the sales of books, and therefor the production of future books. I understand that when Revised was released, Luke also released the original PDF for sale, and the whopping 10 copies it sold. But I also note that it’s no longer in the store. In fact, only 5 items are in the Burning Wheel store: Burning Wheel Gold, Burning Empires, two burning empires Comics, and the free first 74 Pages of BWG. This cannot be. If you refer me to buy a book, why do you not sell it to me? If you worry about the loss of profit of a PDF theft, why is it no longer available to the honest gamer, to help make up for those losses?(I mean, once it’s on the internet for illegal download, damage done. No where to go but up.) And why can’t I get a strait answer about any of my questions?
All I can say is, thank god for this community. I have found many pages of suggestions and practiced experience on how to balance a game. I’ve read several home brewed patches for converting back and fourth between revised and gold. I’ve seen a love and devotion to this game system, that I’ve begun to worry is dead, and no longer in development.
To Recap:
No DMG equivalent. No balance. No official math, rules or guidelines.
References books that don’t exist, aren’t fully compatible, or unavailable for purchase at local gaming stores and even the Official Burning Wheel store.
No computer/tablet based support. No apps. No PDF. No nothing. It’s the 21st century. Even us classic gamers have computers to make our lives easier.

Thank you for your time. I hope I didn’t offend or make a fool of my self.
And now I hope that I didn’t double post.

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You have a handful of valid criticisms in there (outdated MonBu/MagBu, AdBu unavailable, no news about character creator), but they are mixed with some basic misunderstanding of the nature of the game (i.e. balance stuff).

BTW, the GM can certainly say No to a foolish intent, but I’m not sure it is spelled out somewhere in Gold.

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  1. All what you need is in the book. You don’t need the Magic Burner or the Monster Burner or the Adventure Burner. That’s advanced material and you don’t need that yet. (Definitely, absolutely, you don’t need that yet.)

  2. There is no need for balancing or math in this game. You don’t set up an “encounter” or anything similar. There is no party (what’s that?) and you can kill the characters, or at least you can try. Your NPCs can and must try to hurt the protagonist. It’s all right. It’s their job. (Your NPCs can do all kind of shit. Do you saw Games of Thrones? It’s something like that.)

  3. Sorcery is in the book. Enchanting is for free. (Usually, you don’t mix different types of magic together in one campaign.)

  4. “May I have your kingdom?” “Sure, why not? That’s Persuation Vs Ob = Will. (I don’t have to roll the dice.) Try to persuade me not to cut your head and put it on a pike where everyone can see it. If you win, I will kick your ass out of here for wasting my time. If you fail, I will instruct my guard to cut your head and put it on a pike where everyone can see it. Thank you very much.” (That’s was my king’s voice. Don’t take it too seriously.) Not a valid Intent, I’m afraid, unless you have an army at the gates of the castle to back up your words.

  5. This is a pen and paper roll-playing game. You don’t need a computer or PDF or whatever.

And Marune is right. You did not understand this game yet.

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It’s cool. I get it. BW isn’t like most RPGs. It fucks with your expectations, and that’s okay. It’s not intended to be a replacement for D&D or Pathfinder. Burning Wheel is a technical game, and, if you’re willing to put in the time to learn it, is incredibly rewarding. But it’s not easy.

Go back and read the first 74 pages of the book a couple of times through. Try to see how the basic pieces work together - intent, task, consequences, resolution. Once you’ve got a handle on it, go download The Sword, get your players together, pass out the pregen characters, and run that. Stick to versus tests or tests against a static obstacle. See how it works together. You won’t get BW from reading the book, you need to play it. I guarantee mistakes will be made, but that’s okay. I still make them, and I’ve been running BW since 2007 or so.

When you’ve done that, come tell us how it went. I can guarantee you that most of us love to hear how The Sword goes down with people - it never ends the same way twice!

Etsu has some good points about not needing the supplemental material - you can run a complete and satisfying campaign with the core rules. Don’t worry about the Magic or Monster burners yet. All of the really important stuff from the Adventure Burner was put into the current edition - the only thing you’d be missing out on is some commentary, most of which is still here in the forums (which is where most of it came from to begin with - the AdBu just distilled it down). There isn’t a person here who won’t, given the opportunity, be more than happy to answer questions, give advice or provide feedback on the game.

Anyway, I don’t want to dogpile on you here. But trust me, go back over the Hub and Spokes rules, then run The Sword. It’ll make the game soooo much more clear.

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You do sound a little cranky, but that’s okay. We can take it. Go ahead and vent.

Re-reading the book, to make sure that I could GM it competently, I’ve begun to notice things; terrible things.

That sounds so ominous.

One, there is no math, rule of thumb, guideline, or even helpful tip for how to set up an encounter. How do I not kill the party with a combat system so fatal?

Have you tried to kill anyone with the combat system? It ain’t that easy. Especially since if the player has even a single Persona point to spend, you can’t kill them no matter what you do.

How do I ensure that an encounter is fun, challenging, but not impossible?

Umm, for a 4 LP game you could give your NPCs a B5 or B6 in something you want them to be extremely good at, maybe a B4 in something their pretty good at and B3 in everything else. Basically what you see on your PC’s sheets, but less detailed. That would probably do the trick.

How do I make social interactions be possible but not just hand them everything they want, all the time. There is no math for this. The only thing I see, is the rule of thumb, failing a test is the introduction of complications, not lack of success.

It doesn’t say that.

So, ridiculous abstraction One: A two LP Man walks up to the elven king. “May I have your kingdom?” B2d persuasion vs. G6d Ugly Truth + disadvantage, because the request is completely impractical, + FoRK for soothing platitudes. Result, 1v6. “You couldn’t possibly begin to even understand how to run a kingdom of immortals. But… sense you asked nicely, I’ll let you have it, if you do a fetch quest for me.”

Or, you could just not agree to those stakes and ask for something else.

Say “Yes”, or roll dice. But failed tests aren’t failures, but complications.

Second time you’ve said that. It’s not true. “When the dice are rolled and don’t produce enough successes to meet the obstacle, the character fails. What does this mean? It means the stated intent does not come to pass. Page 31.”

What failure is not is a roadblock or a dead end. “When a test is failed, the GM introduces a complication…Try not to present flat negative results–You don’t pick the lock. Page 31.”

Apparently, there is no, “No.”

Where do you get that from? That’s not what Say “Yes” or roll the dice is talking about.

Where do I find the rules for how to balance a combat, verbal or otherwise? Apparently, in the Adventure Burner; a book from the previous edition, that’s no longer in print. Not available.

We have been playing BW for years before the AdBu ever was published. You don’t need it.

Where’s the chapters for Enchanting and Summoning? See the Magic Burner.

I’ll give you this one, but really Summoning in the Core Book is just a skill. You can set the Obstacle for summoning like any skill. Ob 1-2 is easy, Ob 3-4 is medium, Ob 5-6 is hard, Ob 7-8+ is really hard. If the PC is rolling 6 dice they can hit an Ob3 about 50% of the time (I don’t recall if Summoning explodes 6s like Sorcery does).

There’s another book, the Monster Burner (Revised). Filled with out of date monsters, and guidelines(not rules) for how to make them. Balance? Nah. Once again, is this out of print? Not in my local stores.

It’s a great book, but you don’t need it.

Character Burner program/app: So, I was looking for some tools to maybe help things go faster. And I found an incomplete Character Burner on Google docs. It’s no longer in development because it was announced that an official one would be in development. There’s even several forum posts by Luke asking us what we would want on a kickstarter for it. Nine months ago, roughly the time I purchased the book, you asked what we wanted. Where is the “Shut up and take my money” button? I can’t find the kick starter anywhere. Work on the unofficial burner has stopped. Work on the official burner is no where to be found.

An online character Burner might be nice. But, it’s hardly something to get upset about.

Where can I buy a PDF copy of the book? I can’t…

That would be correct. That’s not likely to change.

And why can’t I get a strait answer about any of my questions?

What question have you not been able to get a straight answer about?

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If you can’t get past the lack of competitive balance, Burning Wheel may not be the game for you.

Take a look at the Student lifepath in the City setting. In just four years, you get 11 skill points and three trait point, compared to most lifepaths, which give you 4-6 skill points and 1-2 trait points. So, why is student so overpowered in BW? Because it’s overpowered in real life, too – there’s a reason why in real life, everyone who can takes Student multiple times. Or Elves. Elves have a racial common trait called Essence of Earth, which according to the rules for Trait Burning in the Monster Burner, is worth 11 trait points – more than most human characters will ever get, and Elves get it for free. And they also get a bunch of other traits for free, too, plus better stat pools. So, why are Elves so much better than Humans? Because in the source material that BW Elves are based off of (as well as most other RPG Elves), Elves just are better than humans.

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Cheaty Elves :wink:

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BW doesn’t tell the same kinds of stories as D&D does. D&D stories are usually about resource management over multiple combat encounters. You want to kill the sorcerer in his tower, but first you have to get through his minions and traps, spending hit points, spells, potions, etc. to do so. One of the major sources of drama is whether you’ll have enough power to defeat him when you reach him. In BW you don’t forget how to use spells when you cast them and if an ax gets through your armor, once, you’re probably done fighting for weeks or months.

One thing I love about BW stories is that BW characters fit in the world. They’re farmers or noblemen or archivists or whatever, whereas D&D doesn’t give you rules for playing people like that. In D&D you’re pretty much always an itinerant murder hobo. I like playing a murder hobo, but not all the time.

I hope you jump in with both feet and try playing it on its own terms, rather than telling a D&D story with BW rules!

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Check out p 562 for rules for creating opposition.

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I don’t think game balance is that important. The PC’s need to learn to pick battles they can win. The most fun part I found in the game was the PCs struggle against overwhelming odds, we were constantly screwing up, being screwed over and often poor as church mice and suffering badly. As a result those occasional victories tasted like pure ambrosia at the table.

If you’re interested in Monster Burner or Magic Burner, both a quite easy and cheap to find at online retailers.

http://www.nobleknight.com/ViewProducts.asp_Q_ProductLineID_E_-1659907875_A_ManufacturerID_E_-1021961780_A_CategoryID_E_16_A_GenreID_E_

My local brick and mortar stores here in Australia still stock it, and I believe some major global distributors still have copies. Converting the Revised Ed materials over to Gold is a reasonably simple task.

That said, only once at our game table have we used anything from the Magic Burner, as a minor addition to our game. Using Summoning in play was a stupidly dangerous thing to try and it went horribly wrong with consquences that bankrupted a couple PCs, led us into darkness, betrayal and loss. It was great fun.

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We should create a separate thread about game balance. A few new burners have asked enough to warrant it.

http://www.burningwheel.org/forum/showthread.php?13327-BW-Game-Balance-and-You!

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Also, look through these resources for your Magic Burner questions:
http://www.burningwheel.org/wiki/index.php?title=Downloads#The_Magic_Burner

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You must unlearn what you have learned. Yes this system requires a bit more judgment on the GMs part to confront the PCs with appropriate challenges and scenes, but honestly that’s true in any system. Even DnD can’t distill the construction of a compelling encounter down to pure math.

I find that the balance in this game comes from the collaboration. Everyone is participating. The DM is not delivering a campaign from on high to the passive players, who must encounter whatever the DM deems they shall. The entire establishment of the setting and situation is a collaborative exercise, so unfairness or unbalance can be vetoed by the players up front. This holds true during the game also. The process of negotiating a valid task and intent and the consequences for failure is collaborative. The GM can say that a given intent just isn’t possible given the situation (I want to jump to the moon), while a player can opt out of an action if he feels the consequences are too severe (usually, depends on the table). If I tell them that they’ll be consumed by a demon of they fail this Stealthy check, they’re well within their rights to call bullshit.

Also, pre-session encounter planning is not nearly the same as in other RPGs. Do not initiate any encounter that does not challenge at least one belief of one player. This guideline goes a long way towards creating balance also. The only concern of balance is whether everyone at the table is having fun. The players are telling you what they want to do with their characters through their beliefs. Challenging those creates the fun in BW. Even if one player is a crippled, mute, deaf peasant and another is an immortal elven prince, if you’ve all somehow created a compelling shared situation, you’re challenging their beliefs, and you’re all having fun, then the game is balanced. Balance need only concern itself with math when balanced math is necessary for fun at the table. BW isn’t really that kind of animal. Math does play a role in the lifepaths and traits, and I’d say the game would be unbalanced (for lack of a better word) if the intent of your character concept wasn’t mechanically reflected at the table after you burned him up, but I’ve never really seen this, especially given the fact that it’s pretty easy to tweak lifepaths.

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Thank you all for your advice, references, and candor in general. I suppose that my problem with the system can be dissolved down to a very simple idea. If this is supposed to be realistic game, where people act like people, and actions have consequences, then players will die. Someone mentioned Game of Thrones. In Game of Thrones, a main character spends most of this time doing nothing, then the second he takes action, he’s betrayed, imprisoned for days, is beheaded. Why? Because this is realistic. One man vs the kings guard is not going to win. Most people can’t escape from dungeons where they are chained to the walls. And when the king wants your head, he can certainly well lop it off.
In other RPG, if you were supposed to fight the king’s guard, they would be an appropriate level to challenge you. In burning wheel, they are trained professionals that out number you, regardless of weather or not you should be fighting them. In other RPGs the orcs that attack that village would send a reasonably small band, with one or two fairly seasoned commanders. In a more realistic setting, they would send a force, strong enough to raise the village, and carry back everything of value, before sunrise. A few men with swords and bows would not stand a chance on some rage junky savages, even if they are cowards at heart.
In other RPGs, if you were thrown into prison, you could find some way out. Trick the guard, pick a lock, squeeze through some bars. In burning wheel, he’s a professional guard. Even if he’s not the best in the world, he’s still not a shlub at his job. In a realistic world, the king would have his head if he let you escape, and he knows it. You can’t pick the lock. You have no picks, your hands are bound to the wall, and it’s too dark to see anything. And even if you could undo your chains, the bars on the prison walls, are made so you can’t squeeze through. Breaking them would make enough noise to alert a guard. After all, he’s a guard, he should be guarding.
In other RPGs, if you were on the chopping block, you could at least convince the king to let you “take the black”, and live to fight another day. (That last bit sounds very burring wheel, from what I gather.)
My point is, people that are in charge, are in charge for a reason. They are the best in some field, and they surround them selves with the best in others. A King may not be the best diplomat, but he’s probably the richest, and have the most authority about who lives and dies. His private guards are there because they have proven, not only their skill in battle, but their unquestioned loyalty. His advisers are there because they are better at talking than you. His chef is there because he’s better at cooking than you. The raiding party of orcs are there because they feel they have a good chance of winning.
With everyone in a mostly organic feeling world, where does that put players? They aren’t experts in their field. They aren’t a cut above the rest. They are Eddard Stark, fumbling around in the dark, with the odds stacked against them. And the second they pick the wrong fight, they are the king’s new wall decor.
You can argue that a game needs no balance, or you can admit that there are rules of thumb that you go by to make sure that the players have a good time, and don’t die right off the bat. Guidelines of what not to throw at the players and expect success are all I’m really looking for. Be it math(Average ob = Number of Lifepaths + 1) or expert narrative advice that comes with experiences(telling a scene in a convincing way that explains why they didn’t just have you arrested or ran through), there must be some more practicable advice than “No math. No balance. No rules. Numbers are meaningless.” I’m afraid that I’m going to have to dust off my calculator to do the math myself.
Once again. Base system looks great. Gaping holes in execution are not explained. Some skills, to even know roughly what it means to use the skills, reference chapters of books from previous editions that aren’t updated. Let developers work on apps and programs until you’re actually going to. (Maybe even pay them when their done, thank them for their time, and make it official?)

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I don’t think Burning Wheel is supposed to be realistic. Certainly not if by realistic you mean that death is common, or that the characters will end up in situations with no possible escape. I think think the latter is even explicitly forbidden- as noclue said, failure shouldn’t be a roadblock or a dead end.
Also, Artha is great for leveling the playing field.

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Well, maybe Game of Thrones was not the best example of all. In Burning Wheel, characters are the protagonist of the story. (The story is something that emerges from the mechanics, from the consequences of the characters actions, not something you will plan in advance.) A character may be the king, or the queen, or a prince, or the cook, or an importan orc leader, or whatever. It’s not about “realism” (whatever it means to you) at least that’s what you want. You don’t make your character a nobody if you want to play a game about kings and queens and wars. You put him in charge. You give him an army (or the will of raise an army) and then you go from there.

Remember: In this game the players don’t make characters in a vacum and then you put obstacles in their way. You all invent a situation and make the characters part of that situation and to take a stand about that situation. What is your character stand for? They just not happen to be there. They are in the center of the storm and have a very clear idea of ​​what to do about it. Your job as a GM is not to prepare encounters for them. Your job is to read the characters Beliefs and make hard for them to acomplish them, and then you bring consequences to the characters actions.

For instance, you don’t make the players roll dice if you don’t want them to fail, because you want to use their failure to move the story in the direction you want. You don’t throw things at players and expect them to have success. You want them to fail. You don’t put orcs in their way so they can fight the orcs and win. You put orcs in their way because it affects some character Belief, and say: “Look, there are orcs in your way. What do you do?” “We fight with them!” “Are you sure? There are too many of them.” “Well, then we find another way.” “OK, that’s cool. You will need to make a test to find your way to the girl’s chamber, but if you fail prince Cadwell will reach her room before you, and he will take what he believes belongs to him: Lady Abigail’s virginity.”

So, if they want to fight the orcs it’s their choice, not yours. Let them. It’s very hard to kill the characters anyway. (An make it a hard choice, not an easy one.)

17

Heyyyyy… isn’t this exactly what I’ve done for you in the other thread I linked to just above? I spent a lot of time on that specifically for your benefit!

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The level of realism is whatever the players and GM choose it to be. What I think we’re getting at is that there’s nothing in BW to suggest that you should only send a small party of weakling guards because “it’s level-appropriate”. Nobody wants to play a game where you’re thrown in the dungeon and spend the rest of the campaign chained to the wall because “it’s realistic”.

Most of all, it’s a game of challenging who the characters are and what they believe in. In Burning Wheel terms, Ned Stark faced a decision: would he stand behind his code of conduct even though it might cost him his life? Maybe a better example is: will he keep investigating Robert’s bastards even knowing that it may put his family at risk? (That’s a great GM trick, by the way: pit two of a character’s Beliefs, such as “As the Hand I’m honor-bound to investigate these claims” and “My family is everything to me; I will keep them safe” against each other.)

19

I guess it is normal to think that BW is about being “realistic” when said that it is not about overcoming challenges.

But no, that’s not it, even if the lifepaths, the huge skill list and some details in Fight! point towards that direction.

To understand what BW is about, you have to understand that “Fight for what you believe” is aimed at the players, not at the characters.

20

Burning Wheel is a lot more robust, balance-wise, than D&D. That’s because it has a much narrower frame of reference. You don’t need to worry as much about things which would be great concerns in D&D. Push back with what fits the world. The bandit merchant is flanked by his thugs. If the players want to face them down, they can.

The game is definitely consequence-based, but it’s only as realistic as you want it to be. The “when you fail, fail forward” is there to prevent situations such as you describe (fumbling around unable to do anything). That’s the proper application of the “failure means a twist”. Some things are flat-out impossible, others have wiggle-room and advance the story when you fail.

Level-appropriateness is the one big thing that’s not so big in Burning Wheel. Mainly, that’s because (power-wise), there’s only generally 2-4 D&D levels’ worth of difference between characters. Max. And you have a pretty good idea of who the uber-powerful ones are. Again, though–the idea is to set things up so that failure doesn’t mean a dead-end. Also, running from a fight is a totally valid option. (Note that “run screaming” is one of the Steel actions, and it can save your bacon like none other.)