Two Newbie Questions About Burning Wheel

Hello All! I’ve spent the last two weeks literally pouring over reviews for 70+ fantasy systems. Burning Wheel was the second to last system I reviewed and I fell in love. It has everything I have been after, especially in regards to Character creation and development, emphasis on roleplaying, and interesting combat (physical and social). I have two questions;

1) I plan to play with just my wife and we want to play a long term campaign (70 to 100, 2 to 4 hour sessions). Is the Burning Wheel a good system for this? One of the problems I’ve been finding with most systems is they aren’t particularly suited for long term campaigns.

2) I plan to pick up Gold Edition plus the three Burner books if I can find them. I notice there are a lot of extra downloads available in the wiki. Most of these look like they are previews though. Is there any original, non-preview content in the wiki? How about fan created material that is worth picking up? In particular, any blogs or fan sites worth visiting?

If I go with Burning Wheel I want to obsess over it for the next year or two. I’ll need everything I can get my hands on! Any help or feedback would be greatly appreciated!

Burning Wheel is especially suited to long term campaigns. The advancement system and the Artha cycle only really begin to strut their stuff after many sessions.

Also, 1x1 capmaigns work marvillously.

The best.

Just get BWG for now and don’t worry about the supplements. There’s enough in the main book to obsess over for a couple years.

Luke wrote up a 1:1 mini campaign awhile back that you may find interesting reading: http://www.burningwheel.org/forum/showthread.php?3246-BW-One-on-One-Part-1-Master-Si-Juk

BWG was written after the supplements. There are some minor changes to the rules needed if you want to incorporate them, but not much. Overall I’d say just stick with BWG until you settle in.

If you were going to get a supplement, Monster Burner is the first one I’d go for, as it gets you a few more stocks to play, Roden, Great Wolves, Great Spiders & Trolls & their relevant magics, and a run down on how to create your own critters. Lots of fun.

No matter what I’m picking up BWG and the three burner books. I don’t plan on delving into the burner books until I’ve settled into the BGW rules and experience. I know a lot of games have a lot of fan created material/support and the wiki looks like it may have some additions. Without having BWG in my hands yet it’s hard to separate previews from actual additional material. Like the Mount Burner for instance. I can’t tell if that is a preview or a stand alone free supplement.

Is there a list or article somewhere that covers the changes between BWR and BWG? When I do tackle the burner supplements I want to make sure I get the most out of em. Maybe I should consider just getting BWR instead of BWG?

For the most part, the changes are pretty simple, Stick with BWG for mechanics all the way Fight!, DOW, BV. In lifepath burning some skill trainings are traits instead, some leads change. Some of the supplementary magic in MaBu suffers slightly.

I reckon if you’re an experienced gamer the changes won’t even break your stride.