1) There is no such thing as balance because Artha should make up for any short comings or the players should just plain know better.
The system makes no assumptions about balance. Different stocks aren’t equally powerful. Different lifepaths aren’t going to result in equal characters. Some choices are mechanically better. You can milk some of that for artha, but that’s not a source of balance. If you want a balanced party you have to get the players to make one. On the other hand, BW is much less balance-reliant than, say, D&D. It’s driven by Beliefs, not stats, and everyone has the same number of those. A knight may be great in a Fihjt, but when you’re tromping through the wilderness the lowly woodcutter may have the survival skills you need. It’s in part the GM’s job to figure out what different characters excel at and give everyone a chance to shine—but that’s part of many games.
2) NPCs should be based on the Rogue’s Gallery in the back of the book, in accordance with their profession and expertise.
Maybe if you need full stats. Most NPCs can be made on the fly. B2 for things they’re awful at, B3 for what they’re okay at, B4 for what they’re pretty good at, B5 if they’re quite skilled. Roughly that. You’ll get a sense of numbers to make up in play. Or you can do it like me and make NPCs act as obstacles. A slightly obstructive bureaucrat might be Ob 2 on social checks, a run of the mill town guard Ob 3 for combat, the sentries at a camp Ob 4 for sneaking, the Orc champion Ob 5 for any way of circumventing him, and so on.
3) It’s up to the player to not get themselves killed, unless they’re willing to die for their BITs; in which case, all the more powerful the story.
Again, not quite. Of course it’s up to players not to make suicidal choices, but it’s up to the GM not to make death a possibility unless it should be. Failure consequences are whatever you want; don’t make it death unless it’s necessary. Fight will rarely result in kills; don’t throw overwhelming opposition with B6 Power and weapon skills unless there’s compelling reason to do so. In the course of normal BW there won’t be constant Fights and most Fights cannot be lethal. Enemies can execute PCs if they’ve won, but you don’t have to make them do so. Make a story in which they wouldn’t, then don’t.
4) It’s up to the GM to figure ways to keep the story moving, even if the characters keep failing. Come up with non-dead ends they can follow, even as they get frustrated that they can’t pick locks, convert people to their cause, take on an army, or bake a pretty cake.
Well covered already. It’s critical that failure is a failure of intent, not necessarily of task. I in particular like to tailor it to the characters’ skills and lifepaths. You don’t want to pick a lock, you want to pick a lock for a reason. To get into the castle, yes, but you don’t just want that, you want to get in for a reason. BW rolls cover much more than rolls in other games.
“I want to defeat these Orcs so I can rescue the princess!”
For a peasant with B2 Sword, I might say that failure means taking serious injuries in the course of victory (or defeat). For a knight with B5 Sword, failure might mean dispatching the Orcs too slowly to reach the princess before she is taken to another castle.
For Persuasion, you may be convincing someone that the king has fallen to evil so that he will send his soldiers to join the rebellion. A success gets you that intent. A failure might still convince him to do so, but he’s not willing to fully fund and equip them. Now you have another problem on your hands—logistics. Or he says sure and then secretly reports you to the king. Or he’s willing, but only if you can get better evidence of the king’s evil.
5) Stop whining you number crunching, D&D playing, computer loving, n00b, and really give it an actual chance before you complain.
Giving it a chance will set some of your concerns to rest, but it’s good to figure this out in advance because BW is easy to screw up out of the gate and the less you do that the better the game will be.
One major point that I think needs repeating: intent and task in BW cover much bigger swaths of activity (and that’s part of Let It Ride). If you want to assassinate someone, you could roll Stealthy to sneak to their bedroom, or you could use Lockpick to break in, or you could use Intimidation and bribes to cow the guards into letting you do your bloody work. As soon as the GM agrees to the intent and task, you roll and that’s it. That lockpick roll will be enough to get past all obstacles and kill the target because that’s the intent. A failure roll could well mean you pick the lock but the guards are on alert—the failure isn’t always exactly linked to the task, although it should be most of the time. If you want to focus on an activity, make the players break down the intent into sub-intents. (That’s part of saying no, actually, and why you can’t use Persuasion to get a king to give you his throne. That’s material for a campaign, not a single roll—unless you’re okay with a single roll, in which case go ahead!)
