Rolling to make it real, and its limitations

I’m just now starting to really hook onto the notion that BE players are stating things and making them true through successful rolls. This seems to be a primary function of the -wise skills, yes? (That and giving you FoRKs all over the place of course). I’m wondering what the limitations of this whole quantum approach to play might be.

A common Vaylen skill is Human-wise. Does this mean a Vaylen can make a (non-precedent-breaking) statement about Humans and make it true? Or just Human culture? Anything having to do with Humans? Same with Child-wise: I guess if it doesn’t break the fictional precedent set in the game, then anything goes, right? Things like…childhood games on this planet, or favorite toys or sugary cereals. Could my humans make Vaylen-wise rolls to introduce new facts about the Vaylen that don’t directly contradict canon? (They’re allergic to soy products! Mandate tofu in everyone’s diet and keep an eye on the allergic reactions!)

I was contemplating a skill someone mentioned in passing in one of the forums here: Vaylen Conspiracy-wise. Would a roll on that let you create facts about the actual Vaylen conspiracy? (Roll one: All communications between the on-planet Vaylen and their masters in deep space occurs through this single, unguarded transmission tower. Roll two: Signals to jam that tower!) Or just the conspiracy theories floating around?

In terms of tactical use of this it’s-real-if-you-roll concept, does anyone have good hints or tips? My players could really use it. I have some ideas but I’d like to get confirmation that, yes, this is the correct application of this concept:

  • Using a -wise to establish a fact the character now knows that can implicate a character in a crime. Let’s say my wild-eyed conspiracy theorist uses his Building scene to make a Dark Shattered Underbelly-wise roll. He wants to make true the “fact” that Vaylen agents have been hulling random vagrants…and that he’d seen it done! It’s not a theory, it’s not some crazy idea, it’s a fact. Is this how it’s supposed to work? What would the Ob be for that sort of thing? Can you really use your -wises to make the other side make stupid mistakes like allowing someone to see a field hull?

  • More directly, could I make it true that I know color soldier A is hulled (Anvil-wise, roll 1), then make it true that his chain of command knows it (Soldiering, roll 2), and then charge all officers on that base for conspiring with the enemy (Imperial Law-wise, roll 3)?

  • On that note, using a -wise to establish facts that will cause problems to anyone belonging to a group. My foppish Noble uses his Noble-wise to know, for a fact, that a fellow court member is a pedophile. True? I guess in this case it’s trivial because I couldn’t do that to a FoN or another character – I could only do it to a color character, a relationship or someone I’d paid for somehow.

  • Are established, “owned” characters in fact immune to this sort of tactic? I can’t find that anywhere in the rules but it seems understood on the forums. Or can I edit someone’s character if I can beat them in some kind of Versus test? I have no idea what you’d roll against to make it true your bathtub is full of Naiven.

Anyway, whatever tactical insights or corrections to these examples anyone could make would be great. If I’m right, this both simplifies and greatly complicates the next turn. :smiley:

p.

Hey Paul-

Remember the mantra “intent and task.” It’s difficult to talk about one without the other. Wises are used as FoRKs and also to establish facts in the game, there are some listed obstacles on page 223.

Intent: why is the player making the test?

A race to establish facts does not win the game, so creating information about anything is part of a greater goal that the players (or GM) may be hoping to fulfill.

Facts can be contradicted, twisted, and outright dismissed due to the power of psychology, propaganda, counter propaganda, or a duel of wits. The important thing is to figure out the intent behind establishing the facts. Using a wise is very effective in link tests.

If your goal is to implicate an entire base for being Vaylen collaborators, you could achieve that through all sorts of tasks. It could end up as a conflict scene.

Also, see link tests. Wiithin each skill description there is often a example obstacle list of what it’s useful/appropriate for. If there is a skill that was created to achieve a specific task, then a wise can be used as a FoRK or for a linked test, but the intended skill is best used to achieve the task (eg: Imperial Law and then Investigative Logic for determining and charging a crime). This isn’t set in stone, but being familiar with the skills helps in making those judgement calls.

Also, see the description of soldiering - it’s more about digging latrines than bureacracy.

BE doesn’t encourage “my guy” behavior in terms of character ownership, and if players are just interested in creating negative facts about other characters to screw with each other, something else is going on.

But framing/extortion/blackmailing is very much supported, and can be achieved through all sorts of means. The most important thing is for the player to explain what their intent is before the dice hit the table.

Remember the mantra. You’ll do fine.

mmt

Helpful response. Thank you.

It’s the “yes, but why?” aspect of intent-making that’s making us bonkers. That, and the fact you can accomplish your intent in highly variable ways and the fact that how you accomplish your intent has everything to do with the moment you stop asking “yes, but why?”

Let’s say the player’s intent is to get some kind of hard, incontrovertible evidence that the GM’s FoN is knee-deep in Naiven. That’s what the player wants. The player wants something he can hang his character’s action on because he’s given this blank slate and told “Okay! You’re a dude, what do you do?” and then he’s told “Okay! Look at your dude’s beliefs and base your choices on that” and then he’s told “Okay! There’s also this strategic game going on, so whatever you choose to do make sure it supports the overall strategy while you pursue your character’s belief(s). Oh, and do it with no direct impetus from the GM.”

Frustrating, no? It’s exactly the same thing on the GM’s side. First person to start pursuing their personal or large-scale goals is the first one to hand ammo to the other side.

Now…if the player can make something real by introducing a hard fact into the world, cool, he has something to work with. The player’s intent is always going to be, “Give me something for my character to do”, but that’s different from the character-level intent the game’s asking for. I think.

I mean, shit, there is no clear discussion of when to stop seeking intent! Let’s say my player says he wants to investigate the mysterious disappearance of homeless from the streets. He uses a color scene to set up the idea that, yes, there are mysterious disappearances. I’m only guessing that this is an appropriate use of color scenes. Maybe it’s not. I feel like I keep being told I’m not doing that part right. Anyway.

The GM says, “why do you want to investigate these disappearances?”

Player says, “Because I want to trace these disappearances back to the Vaylen who’s responsible.”

GM says, “Why do you want to trace that back to the responsible Vaylen?”

Player says, “So I can invade his base and shut down his operation.”

GM says, “Yes, but why do you want to shut down his operation?”

And so on ad absurdum. When do you finally stop and say, “This is enough intent; now figure out the task(s) to make it happen”? The step before the player throws his hands up and says “It’s my intent because I have nothing else to do in this game!”? Two steps prior to that?

Because whenever you stop setting your intent, you just have to unravel it the other way anyway: To shut down the Vaylen’s base I have to find his base, and to find his base I have to be able to follow his actions or his communications (created when? who’s responsible?), and to track the guy I have a half-dozen branching ways to do that (signals, Circles, accounting, investigative logic, whatever), and so on and so forth.

Advice like “don’t be a dick” and “collaborate to create a shared story space” or whatever is nice and all but not in a game where there’s a competitive element. It’s only a competition if everyone can agree to the ground rules. On both the intent and the task side, the slope is almost infinitely slippery.

I want to figure this out. I really do. Right now, every “actual play” I read features a very different level of interpretation of these rules. I need some tactical discussion to see this stuff in action.

Too much caffeine this afternoon,

p.

I am not sure if this is going to help as I think in the end the line can only be drawn on experience and judgement but I find that the best way to deal with intent is to ask, if you succeed at your task what is it you hope to achieve. This lets the scene boundaries limit how much intent is needed.

Using your example of a PC who is wants to investigate the mysterious disappearance of homeless from the streets. If the PCs investigations are successful, then he will find out that there is a Vaylen behind them.

Tracking down the Vaylen, the invasion of his base and shutting down his operation require further tasks to make the narrative flow and so are all more obviously beyond the initial investigation and therefore seperate scenes, tasks and intents.

In most cases, your first answer to “why?” will be the intent for the scene. The following “why’s” are intents for future scenes.

Related to this is the idea to build toward conflict (as explained in the book and recently discussed in detail over at Gaetime LJ). Both the GM and players should break down what they are trying to do into steps and move toward a conflict. Not only is this dramatic as it sets up a number of options for each player to weigh and decide on, but it allows both the GM and other players to contribute to ideas and effect a shared narration. As such, keep your intents and scenes focussed on the immediate task. Leave the other stuff to later scenes.

Okay, good advice Luke. Thank you!

One comment on this:

See, this feels redundant and/or undermining to me. Let’s say I have a player who wants to perform a task: Gather a crowd of angry Kerrn slaves. I say, wait, hold on, what’s your intent for these angry slaves? Then he says, I want to create a massive distraction to cover for me breaking into this building. Then I have to go back with a “why” on that. He comes back with, To get documented dirt on the Vaylen agent so I can have him arrested.

What started as a simple desire to create a distraction has now instead become a Security roll (probably, to break into the building) and possibly an Imperial Law-wise roll to make it true that whatever the guy in the building is doing is clearly illegal under RICO or whatever. That’s what’s making my players roll their eyes: “So…despite my awesome connections into Kerrn society, my ability to rustle up a crowd has become a Security roll?”

The players want to be able to plan their own actions. If I spend my time as GM deconstructing and then reconstructing their actions, I’m keeping them from understanding what their characters are capable of. It’s very hard for them to look at their character sheet and know what they’re actually capable of.

p.

:slight_smile: Hence my first comment about not being useful. The amount you can do in with one roll or a scene is a matter of experience and judgement. From the example you give me this time, I would say that the player would say something like “I want to get the document with the dirt that I know is in the X building” (intent) and then describe how he does that through tasks - gathering the Kerrns, breaking into the building and then finding the documents. Sounds like a single Build scene to me and as a GM I would simply jump into the RPGing of it.

I don’t know what else to say except that you should just take a moment and don’t overanalyse this too much. I have had very little issue with the kind of stuff you are raising here in play and I am sure that you and your players will be able to work out any issues that arise. As noted above, most of the time it is really obvious to the point that our group does not always even explicitly set out intent.

A side note, but worth making:

Remember this is not one of those Commie pinko hippie roleplaying games without a GM, where anything a player says, goes (like, say, the one I’m trying to design…). There is a “real world” the players are imagining together, and the GM remains the guardian of its internal consistency and the final arbiter of what is “real,” as in a traditional roleplaying game. It’s simply that the players are given much wider latitude to make contributions than in traditional disfunctional RPGs where “losing control” of the game to the players is a terrifying thought, “the GM says no” is the default response to any player contribution, and players are trained to whimper, “Uh, do I know anybody in this town? My character’s from here – what are some of their customs? Does my character have the normal number of fingers and toes?” In practice, a good GM will allow his or her players tremendous input on making up the world, whether it’s ten typed pages of character backstory or an offhand comment that “it’d be really cool if…”; Burning Empires just gives the players and GM much clearer guidance on how to do it.

Think of intent like this: What would happen if the roll were successful? Think of task like this: What ability needs to be rolled to make that intent successful.

A task can only encompass something that an individual could reasonably accomplish himself if he set out to do it.

Therefore an intent like, “I want to win the war!” With a task like, “With a sweep of brilliant Strategy!” is too much for a single test. Something like that needs to be broken down into steps.

And, as Skywalker Luke said, those steps need to be broken down by you and your group. They need to feel right to YOU.

Let’s say the player’s intent is to get some kind of hard, incontrovertible evidence that the GM’s FoN is knee-deep in Naiven. That’s what the player wants. The player wants something he can hang his character’s action on because he’s given this blank slate and told “Okay! You’re a dude, what do you do?” and then he’s told “Okay! Look at your dude’s beliefs and base your choices on that” and then he’s told “Okay! There’s also this strategic game going on, so whatever you choose to do make sure it supports the overall strategy while you pursue your character’s belief(s). Oh, and do it with no direct impetus from the GM.”

Frustrating, no?

This bit worries me. There are two major (major) steps to game play that should completely prevent this feeling of being adrift and without purpose in the game: World Burning and Character Burning. In World Burning you create a central conflict for all of the characters to revolve around. In fact, World Burning serves three purposes: to create a nice atmosphere for the game, to tie into the strategic mechanic and, most importantly, to force all of the characters into play and into conflict.

Character Burning then puts a fine point on the World Burning. In character burning players describe exactly how they are going to tackle the problem at hand. They outline their angle of attack in their Beliefs and list their tools of the trade in their skills.

By the time you are done with these two stages of play, your game should be pregnant with strife and conflict. Kicking into action should be as easy as saying, “I want to topple my rival.”

Now, I may have misread your comments, but if you’re truly adrift and can’t find any traction for your characters’ actions, I recommend you stop play and discuss the problem with your players. You might even consider starting over.

First person to start pursuing their personal or large-scale goals is the first one to hand ammo to the other side.

This may seem pedantic, but the above statement is in fact a feature of the game. You can’t go forward without making yourself vulnerable. There will be action and consequence no matter what you do. In my opinion, this just makes good drama.

Advice like “don’t be a dick” and “collaborate to create a shared story space” or whatever is nice and all but not in a game where there’s a competitive element. It’s only a competition if everyone can agree to the ground rules. On both the intent and the task side, the slope is almost infinitely slippery.

This also worries me, Paul. You’ve received a lot of great advice in the various threads you’ve posted to. I’m at a loss at how to better explain it to you. I think the last piece of advice I can give you is to go and play the game in a way that makes sense to you. You will probably be playing the game correctly.

Lastly, if I might ask a favor, please don’t give speculative examples. Try to give us examples of problems that are directly from your game. Wild and extreme examples aren’t terribly helpful from an advice giving standpoint as the circumstances described rarely come up.

thanks,
-Luke

Some of our stuff is growing pains to adapt to a very, very different style of play than we’ve done in the past. Some of it is an uncertainty of how to use a system that’s a) competitive and b) highly interpretable.

The blank slate is hard to deal with as a player. Not knowing what’s possible with the rules is rough – hence my desire to nail down the idea that you can introduce things like actionable clues by rolling on your Wises. That’s a useful tactic if you can.

I didn’t believe my examples were even a little bit wild or extreme. I acknowledge they’re speculative, but only because they’re things I’d like to do, maybe, on the next maneuver. If I know how it works and what is possible I can explain it to my players when it comes up.

p.

The most consistent source of problems I’ve ever seen with people who’ve never roleplayed before, or with experienced roleplayers learning a very different system, is the hesitation that comes from wondering, “Can I say this?”

I think the technical RPG theory term is “authority” or something like that, but one of the big differences between various systems is how much players are allowed to say and have it be “real”: Can I say what my character is doing right now? Can I say something about what my character did ten years ago? About my character’s friends? About other players’ characters? About the world?"

A lot of traditional RPGs teach a nasty habit of “say what your guy is doing, right now, in response to the situation the GM presents you, and otherwise shut the hell up.” So a lot of experienced roleplayers are actually more reticent about speaking up and being creative than newbies. I think the best cure for this problem, as with most social disfunction, is honesty and encouragement:

“Hey, guys, if you have an idea about anything – your character, another player’s character, an NPC, something in the setting – say it! If somebody else doesn’t think it makes sense in terms of the setting, we’ll talk about it; if somebody else just thinks it’s lame, we’ll talk about that too, not in terms of setting-logic but in terms of what we like as real people, sitting around this table playing the game. I’m GM, so it’s my job to be the final arbiter of what’s real and what’s not. But I’m going to be working on the assumption that everything you say is cool enough to be part of the story.”

Hey Syd, actually played the game yet?

p.

Burning Wheel/Burning Empires? Nope, not yet, workin’ on it. These are all points I’d consider universally valid for all RPGs, based on playing a lot of traditional games in college (D&D, Amber Diceless, GURPS, Tales from the Floating Vagabond, various homebrews) with mixed results and then playing a bunch of “indie” games in the last two years (campaigns of Capes, Prime Time Adventures, and The Shadow of Yesterday, plus one-shots of Trollbabe, Inspectres, and Dogs in the Vineyard) and having a lot more fun a lot more consistently. This summer was the first time I had GM’d in ten years – no kidding – and the first time I could finally say, “hey, I did this right: We made a complete story together!” So if I’m preaching the Gospel According to Ron Edwards, it’s because it’s worked for me in a big way.

Groovy. I’m looking forward to hearing an honest assessment of your first turn, when/if that comes about.

p.

My successes and failures with With Great Power, Prime Time Adventures and Inspectres were instrumental to making my BE experience smoother than it could have been too. These games can take a while to get your mind around but the result is worth it IME

Me too. I’m sure I’ll run into problems of my own and be asking for advice on the forum.

Well, I don’t see the name “Ron Edwards” anywhere in the credits except in the bibliography for Sorcerer, nor do I see him posting input about the game in any of these forums. If a working model of BE is only possibly by first studying the works of someone else, that’s…well, that’s a deal-breaker for me.

p.

(And before anyone decides to be helpful and tell me all about the great prophet, yes, I’ve followed Forge discussion on-and-off for years. I note only that The Forge did not write Burning Empires.)

If a working model of BE is only possibly by first studying the works of someone else…

Oh, no, I don’t think that’s the case at all. But having had prior experiences of something similar always helps, whether it’s mountain-climbing or roleplaying (I personally find roleplaying more fun).

I think that’s a little overboard. D&D is instrumental in the fun I have had with BE, yet saying that D&D is required would not be accurate.

The fact that other RPGs of a similar nature assist in playing this RPG is something true of all RPGs. The only difference here is that these RPGs are burning through some new ground.

Okay, fair enough, uncle, mea culpa.

I’m still wondering what a roleplayer would develop into if BE (or BW or Sorcerer or PTA) was their introductory game. And I may have the opportunity!

p.

My own experiences with PTA suggest that it can be quite a natural approach to the hobby, so it should rock!