[Burning Wheel] Working with Beliefs

[Oracle_Hunter]

I am currently playtesting a system of my own design (Four-Color Heroes!) which has borrowed the Belief system from Burning Wheel ("BW"). The system is mostly intact, with the sole difference that Beliefs don't earn you XP (or "Artha" in BW) but instead points that can be spent for rerolls.

The main issue I've run into is that my Players don't write very good Beliefs. Or, more accurately, it is really hard to adjudicate whether or not they are using their Beliefs to advance the story in an interesting manner or not. My suspicion is that they did not find my advice in choosing Beliefs particularly helpful, but that is largely because the Belief section in the BW rulebook is not very well written IMHO.

Having never actually played a game of BW (and neither have any of my Players) I want to know how actual BW Veterans use the Belief System and whether or not there are any better resources out there for using Beliefs in play than the BW Rulebook.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

Voila! Behold a link from the incredibly rare and hard-to-find Adventure Burner! (http://www.burningwheel.org/wiki/images/6/69/Ab_Beliefs.pdf) It's an official download from the wiki (http://www.burningwheel.org/wiki/index.php?title=Downloads#Beliefs_Commentary_Chapt er), and it's the entire chapter of the book focused on Beliefs. For free.

That should go a long way.

My biggest rule is "a Belief prompts action". You should be able to look at a Belief, and to see how players will engage it in play.

[Totally Guy]

Are you familiar with keys from the Shadow of Yesterday/Lady Blackbird?

I've just finished playing a game that used a list of those and while I wouldn't rate them as highly as Burning Wheel's beliefs they are more directly intuitive to players seeing that kind of stuff for the first time.

Burning Wheel's beliefs make you do stuff that's important to you and keep you focussed on why you are playing. Keys take the players to the water but doesn't make them drink.

But not everyone gets that level of introspection about their gaming that BW asks so check them out!

[obliged_salmon]

Beliefs are really quite difficult. My basic advice is, think of it like computer programming, rather than simply a credo or some such. What are you telling your character to do with your belief? Retrieve an heirloom? Avenge a dead relative? Each belief should set the character out on a specific path, with specific challenges to overcome.

Your beliefs should, ultimately, lay out the story you want to tell with your character.