Its been about 4 years since my last Burning Wheel Gold campaign, and the group and I are getting ready -and excited for a new game. I hope that Im posting this in the correct channel. If not please move it, and forgive me.
After a spring playing Miseries & Misfortunes and taking the summer off, we’re beginning anew with Burning Wheel. We’ve discussed a bit of the situation to get buy in from the players and we’ve come up with this:
King Cnut is dead -isn’t this the best way to start a game? The fate of the throne, and that of England is at stake. Cnut had two sons by two different wives. One son, Harold (there’s a lot of those) born of his Danish wife Aelgifu, is backed by his mother as well as the Earls of Mercia and Northumbria. His half-brother, Harthacnut, born of Queenn Emma is backed by the Queen and Godwin, Earl of Wessex.
The witan has been called and all the eldamen and earls are to convene in Oxford to determine the next king.
The secrets, plots, and machinations of the political struggle that occurs at the witan will be what the first 6 sessions will focus on. To determine the next king.
After that preamble, I guess I should get to my topic. We plan on playing 1035 and 1066 England during the last Saxon Kings. We should be able to use standard life paths with little fudging I believe right?
The second question I had was about time skipping. We want to play up to the first trait vote (the first adventure) with young characters after the death of Cnut, but then we’re interested in jumping in time to just before the Norman invasion of 1066. Would it be better to re-burn the characters after this 25 year or so gab, instead of doing 25 years worth of practice advancement? Have any of you done such things in your games?
I, a mad man, advocate for practice! 25 years of practice, 25 years of maintenance tests, baby! Woo!
I think even better would be to spend a session in real loose play. Pass a year with a brief conversation and a test or three (per player). You all can use the time tying up loose ends and/or gathering your strength for the invasion. Might even do a trait vote at the end.
A less-mad option might be to compress the narrative time down to 5 years of mechanical time; everyone loses practice time to real life stuff – especially if you feel a desire to shy away from maintenance tests (those characters gotta work!). I might demand color for any practice the characters engaged in – whom did they spend those months Persuading, and of what? Setting a limit on advancements is probably real sane, too, like the book example under Using Practice in the Game Pages 48 & 49).
I wouldn’t reburn characters. I wouldn’t add new LPs to existing ones. Just doesn’t feel right. I have not passed 25 years like this before.
I would have posted it in Subsystems, Advice, and Guidance.
It’s good to have you! Please let us know how your game goes once it’s off the ground!
I’d take a page from Pendragon—play the initial campaign and then on the time skip, play the children of the original characters and use the OGs as relationships.