How it is to play Burning Wheel with (the possibility of) different players around the table each game session? It seems to me very difficult to manage. It’s not an ideal situation for most RPG, but it seems even harder with BW. Any advices, comments?
If anything I’ve found BW more tolerant of characters doing their own things, sometimes together and sometimes not. Just make sure to involve people when they’re there and give characters decent off-screen reasons to excuse absences like any game and you’ll be fine.
It’s not ideal, but it’ll work.
and I suppose the absent PC can just decided that they “trained” if there is a huge time leap? (say a year or so during their missing session?)
Get a Job is also a big time-eater, and a great thing to do when you’re “off-screen.”
I’m in a semi-long term on and off campaign. Maybe 20 sessions worth? It’s pretty rare that every player can make it and it’s rarely a problem. PC’s just get relegated to background positions or ignored entirely if it’s not really important for them to be there. When they show up we figure out where they were and what they were up to.
I call it the “Meanwhile, Back at the Ranch” ploy (I love old westerns)
BW is by far the easiest system to handle missing players that I’ve tried. It rolls with the punches really well. On the flip side, if we’re doing BW, everybody usually shows up.