Torchbearer, by Luke Crane

[Ozfer]

Torchbearer has recently become available on pfd, a few weeks after it's successful kickstarter, and having read through the pdf, I was curious if anyone else had read the rules and what they thought of them.

I don't want to bias anyone, so I'll wait to share my opinion.

[Totally Guy]

I too backed and read through the PDF. I ran it on friday night.

I found it to be be a difficult read as the rules came in thick and fast within the text. My experience of Mouse Guard (which is built on the same engine) I think also hindered as I didn't want to assume something from Mouse Guard applied when it wasn't in Torchbearer.

In play it was quite a slow game because we had to pay attention to lots of small decisions. The game does a great job of making each one of those little parts into something monumentous by being so harsh on the players.

I had some issues interpreting the conflict goals being both asymetric and implict on the GM's side and I'm still not entirely comfortable with how it works. My comfort zone is the Burning Wheel model where goals are comparable in weight and explicit.

Character generation and setting generation I like. Decisions in character creation are both prescriptive in that they decide what your character can do and descriptive as in saying who they are. I think that's a good approach.

The phase structure I like although we didn't do a town phase in our session. The camp phase is not like the player's turn from Mouse Guard in that you tend to use all checks to mitigate your suffering or prepare something that will mitigate it later like a potion. Some of the things I've seen happen in the MG player's turn is still appropriate for Torchbearer's adventure phase.

Inventory space was interesting to see the players struggling with but I found that I didn't need to interract with it at all as the GM.

It's a difficult game in which the players have their characters suffer a lot and the world is out to grind them down. And it does that really well.

Give Thor some love in thread title, this game is his baby.:smallwink:

[Ozfer]

It is? Woops, sorry about that :smallredface:. I have yet to run the game, but my biggest concern are the conflict rules. There are a lot of inconsistencies that are kind of bothering me:

1.Aside from being able to initiate the conflict, what advantage does a sneak attack give you?

2.When attempting to drive something off, I feel like the injured condition could be applied to the enemy, but as I understand the rules, you can't. It just seems odd to me that if you are driving off an orc, you can be injured by a compromise, but he will simply be driven away.

3.The Order of Might is kind of screwy. I really like the concept, but the way it's done, adventurers can't capture horses, kobolds can't kill adventurers unless they are in a group of 5 or more... etc.. No matter how weak a creature is, if it knocks you out or whatever, it most certainly would have the opportunity to kill you.

Otherwise, the game looks really fun, I just have concerns.

[Totally Guy]

Surprising your foes? Hmmm... I would ask how you surprise them and maybe use the conflict system to trick them instead of using it for fighting.

I started a thread about Asymetric Conflicts (http://www.burningwheel.org/forum/showthread.php?13590-Lets-talk-about-asymetric-conflicts) on their forums. The resulting conversation talks about the Order of Might in a useful way. There's some tricky details in those Order of Might rules.

[obryn]

I liked the idea when I first heard it, and backed it. I read the preview PDF, and cancelled my pledge. Frankly, it's not the right game for me and my group, though I hope others find it better. (My players are mostly quite casual, and the depth of rules knowledge required from Torchbearer players is beyond that threshold. In the same family of games, I have Burning Empires, and I just can't make heads or tails of it.)

-O

[obliged_salmon]

Haven't played it yet, but I love what I've read. Everything is a challenge, and nothing can be taken for granted. I'm really looking forward to playing.

Ozfer, my thoughts on your points.

1. I'd rule an ambush as a single versus test, hunter vs. scout/enemy's nature, rather than a conflict. A kill/capture/flee conflict might result on a failure, though.

2. Driving the enemy off is all about gaining and keeping ground. You don't drive something off unless you want to be where the enemy is, otherwise you'd flee. If you are successful at driving the enemy off, they lose their ground, and you get it/keep it. You might be injured in the process, but you get what you wanted. Now, the inverse is also true. If you lose a capture conflict, then you're driven off, and can try to compromise so the enemy is injured or some such.

3. Per Thor, horses are might 3. When they're listed might 4, it's a typo. There's also a bit about creatures being able to kill you if they capture you somehow, with no test needed, though I don't remember where exactly. It's not that you can't kill something might 5 or higher, it's that you can't initiate a kill conflict. They're too big.

It's the same as in other games. You can try to kill a dragon at level 1 in DnD, but barring supernaturally unlikely dice rolls, you're going to lose every time. Likewise, in real life, if a housecat came after you looking for blood, it would lose every time (or a kobold with a spear going after an armed military personnel). Remember that the rules are all pretty abstract, and that you'll be filling in the details with fiction that makes sense in context.

[Seerow]

I backed it, but I hate reading rules via pdf, especially for a first time reading. So I'm waiting on delivery of the hardcopy.

[Ozfer]

Haven't played it yet, but I love what I've read. Everything is a challenge, and nothing can be taken for granted. I'm really looking forward to playing.

Ozfer, my thoughts on your points.

1. I'd rule an ambush as a single versus test, hunter vs. scout/enemy's nature, rather than a conflict. A kill/capture/flee conflict might result on a failure, though.

2. Driving the enemy off is all about gaining and keeping ground. You don't drive something off unless you want to be where the enemy is, otherwise you'd flee. If you are successful at driving the enemy off, they lose their ground, and you get it/keep it. You might be injured in the process, but you get what you wanted. Now, the inverse is also true. If you lose a capture conflict, then you're driven off, and can try to compromise so the enemy is injured or some such.

3. Per Thor, horses are might 3. When they're listed might 4, it's a typo. There's also a bit about creatures being able to kill you if they capture you somehow, with no test needed, though I don't remember where exactly. It's not that you can't kill something might 5 or higher, it's that you can't initiate a kill conflict. They're too big.

It's the same as in other games. You can try to kill a dragon at level 1 in DnD, but barring supernaturally unlikely dice rolls, you're going to lose every time. Likewise, in real life, if a housecat came after you looking for blood, it would lose every time (or a kobold with a spear going after an armed military personnel). Remember that the rules are all pretty abstract, and that you'll be filling in the details with fiction that makes sense in context.


Thank you, this really helps (As did Totally Guy's thread). The one I am still stuck on is #2. I should have clarified better: What I mean is that the lose of a drive off conflict is not punished in any substantial way (As far as I can tell).

[Totally Guy]

I should have clarified better: What I mean is that the lose of a drive off conflict is not punished in any substantial way (As far as I can tell).

The big win/loss table says that you are driven off or captured. So if the creature is mightier than you they could capture you, if not they drive you off. That could be back to an earlier point in the dungeon or it could also be further in the dungeon.

It seems very challenging as a GM to describe scenes in which the players have been captured yet still have decisions to make. But such scenes would be supported by the GM's ability to inflict conditions upon characters rather than twists. Getting a condition from picking the lock beginner luck style is totally legit, even if against overwhelming odds.


The session I ran on friday had the players flee the dungeon injured and sick, poor and depleted. Their nature batteries taxed. The only thing they recovered was a disabled dwarven prisoner. They didn't even have any checks when they escaped. The only thing they gained of any value was a pair of fate points and a persona each.

I love that the game is so cruel so that I don't have to be.

[Ozfer]

Yes, I do love 'hardcore' games. But now I have to clarify one more time, because I am really bad at explaining:

-The players attempt to drive off an orc

-The orc is driven off

Can I inflict a condition on the orc for this loss, while still being within the rules (Not that staying within the rules are my biggest concern as GM, but still)?

[Kaun]

Everything is a challenge, and nothing can be taken for granted.

While i loved the idea of Torchbearer, it was the above concept that drove me away from it.

As much as i love the idea of hardcore games, my players hate them. There is just no point for me, apart from pillaging ideas. (which i may still buy the game to do.)

[obliged_salmon]

While i loved the idea of Torchbearer, it was the above concept that drove me away from it.

As much as i love the idea of hardcore games, my players hate them. There is just no point for me, apart from pillaging ideas. (which i may still buy the game to do.)

Truly, it's not going to be everyone's cup of tea. One of my groups balks at the game because it puts such an emphasis on things like resource management, that they tend to ditch in other games (of course, that's because resource management isn't fun in other games. It looks to be very fun in this one).


Yes, I do love 'hardcore' games. But now I have to clarify one more time, because I am really bad at explaining:

-The players attempt to drive off an orc

-The orc is driven off

Can I inflict a condition on the orc for this loss, while still being within the rules (Not that staying within the rules are my biggest concern as GM, but still)?

I don't think so. Ultimately, the players get what they wanted if they win a conflict. If they wanted to drive off the orc, then that happens. If they wanted to specifically injure the orc, you might ask why. If they want to whittle him down so as to kill him, then it's not a drive off conflict but a kill conflict, where they describe trying to injure him. If they want to wound him so he'll be intimidated and spill the beans, then it's a convince or trick conflict where they describe wounding him. That's my read, anyway. I may be wrong.

Now, driving an enemy off is very useful. It essentially lets the players relax while they're in that room. The threat that was driven off can't return unless circumstances change (i.e. a twist). It's a pretty good deal when you're trying to get all the goblins out of the room with the treasure pile.

Edit: I don't think NPC's actually get conditions at all, anyway. On page 74, it talks about dying and "injuring" a monster on a major compromise, but instead of giving it the injured condition, you reduce the nature by 1 and remove a trait. Which is pretty nasty (not as nasty as dying, but you know).

[Totally Guy]

Edit: I don't think NPC's actually get conditions at all, anyway.

You can inflict conditions on opponents. There's the Monstrous Condtions rule that says so.

But conditions are inherently more serious for PCs than anything else as part of their drawback is their persistence. That struggle is just not the focus.

I had similar experiences with the Blindness/Deafness spell in D&D. Way bad for PCs, meh for NPCs.

[obliged_salmon]

You can inflict conditions on opponents. There's the Monstrous Condtions rule that says so.



Ah yes. Never mind then. I can't find anything that says conditions may be applied to the losers of a conflict, though, even to the PC's (except for kill conflicts, in which LOTS of conditions can be applied to the loser, up to and including dead).

[CarpeGuitarrem]

Read the rules, gonna be starting a game of it this weekend, I think. Loved how they pull the Mouse Guard rules together with the old-school dungeon crawl into something concise, vicious, and challenging. Just the right amount of abstraction to work.

We're gonna suffer, and suffer aplenty. It's gonna be great.

(And yeah, when you ambush an enemy, that gives you greater latitude to plan and gain advantages against them...or you could figure out a way to bypass the encounter altogether. Remember, Good Ideas are very beneficial.)

[faustin]

Luke said one of the main aspects of Torchbearer was to bring back the old "dark and mystic" flavor of magic from the stories of Conan or Fafhrd and Gray Mouse. How is the magic system, and how do the the abilites of Ritualism and Theology works?

[obliged_salmon]

spells are evocative and nuanced. They tend to operate like certain DnD spells, such as dancing lights, Tenser's floating disc and magic missile, but within the rules set, things like "create a light source for several turns" or "carry extra stuff" are very powerful.

Cleric prayers are typically used to remove conditions, turn undead, or impose conditions on enemies (if you're chaotic).

Spells key off of arcana skill and prayers key off of ritualist.

[Totally Guy]

It's vancian magic. The spells are pretty limited as the game currently just does low level play.

Using magic is different from mundane means because it is fast. Usually the GM marks that a turn has passed whenever you roll the dice but magic is free from this rule. You can still fail to cast spells, there are some exceptions such as the magic missile equivilent or the shield spell which don't fail but can still be ineffective if your opponent chooses certain moves or rolls well.

[kyoryu]

So, is there any way to get this if you're an oblivious idiot that somehow missed the Kickstarter?

[Ozfer]

Yea, you can buy the odd for 15 flats on the burning wheel site. I don't know when the books will become available.

[kyoryu]

Got a link? The only thing I can find to buy is the T-Shirt. Which, while incredibly handsome, isn't very useful as a game manual.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

I don't think the store link has actually gone out publicly yet. BWHQ gave backers an early link, and didn't do a good job of clarifying that it was for backers only, so some people gave it out not realizing it was an early-release link. (backers got a coupon to apply to the purchase, effectively getting it for free)

[Totally Guy]

Lets not be sticks in the mud.


We tried to keep the PDF for backers only, but the technology at our disposal meant that it had to be a live link on the store. We buried the link so you couldn't search for it and sent it out to backers.

Our mistake was that we failed to ask backers not to share the link.

If someone reading this shared the link, don't feel bad. It was our mistake, not yours. We wanted our backers to have a chance at the spoils before the general public. Apparently, you guys were so excited that you wanted everybody else to be able to get it right away too. There are far worse problems for a publisher to have!

I haven't seen any complaints from backers about the PDF being available for sale. If our backers are happy, we're happy.

So the long and short of it is that it's still there if you have the link. The link is out there in several places. I'm not going to post it because we haven't "officially" released it yet. But if someone out there has the link and wants to take pity, go ahead and share it.

It's right here. (http://www.burningwheel.com/store/index.php/torchbearer-pdf.html)

[erikun]

This does sound interesting! Although I'm far more interested in buying the physical book than the PDF. Sorry, I'm one of those people who doesn't enjoy reading large volumes of text on the computer.

I think I need to read a bit about the game before I make a final decision anyways. I definitely enjoy the look and feel of Burning Wheel and Mouse Guard, but haven't really played either one much and am not familiar with the old-school D&D. (I started with AD&D2e.) It definitely sounds fun the way everyone describes it, so I am very curious about the system.

[Chambers]

I backed it, but I hate reading rules via pdf, especially for a first time reading. So I'm waiting on delivery of the hardcopy.

Same here. I glanced briefly through the pdf because I like looking at the art in their game books but I'll wait for my book in the mail before I sit down and read it.

[Nepenthe]

Same here. I glanced briefly through the pdf because I like looking at the art in their game books but I'll wait for my book in the mail before I sit down and read it. Yeah, this is pretty much how I feel about it as well. I certainly won't try to run without a physical copy in my hand.

I did a quick sketch based on the setting creation rules back when they were first made available to backers. Thought you guys might be interested.
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7315/9345252576_8a1593e294_o.png (http://www.flickr.com/photos/thiskindnepenthe/9345252576/)

[erikun]

(Not entirely sure if the forum where I uploaded that supports hotlinking. Let me know if it doesn't work.)
Regardless of if it does or not, it will need to be an image file format (ending in .png, .gif, or something similar) in order to show up with the IMG tags. Something ending in ".php" or "=view" is most definitely not going to appear, regardless of what your forum supports.

[Nepenthe]

Regardless of if it does or not, it will need to be an image file format (ending in .png, .gif, or something similar) in order to show up with the IMG tags. Something ending in ".php" or "=view" is most definitely not going to appear, regardless of what your forum supports.Yeah, I figured. I was just hoping by some miracle this board would be able to parse it (and I couldn't check 'cause it worked for me). Anyway, re-uploaded elsewhere. It should work now.

[elliott20]

Given that it's by Luke Crane, I imagine the end product to be something that has an incredibly awesome premise, pregnant with fun ideas and really spurs the imagination, but ends up going to crap because poor execution. Luke Crane has a really bad habit of not editing his stuff enough to make it actually usable.

[Seerow]

Given that it's by Luke Crane, I imagine the end product to be something that has an incredibly awesome premise, pregnant with fun ideas and really spurs the imagination, but ends up going to crap because poor execution. Luke Crane has a really bad habit of not editing his stuff enough to make it actually usable.

Which puts him up there with...

Every other tabletop game designer in the industry?

[Totally Guy]

Luke Crane has a really bad habit of not editing his stuff enough to make it actually usable.

Luke and Thor switched places for this one. Thor wrote it and Luke edited.

[Knaight]

Which puts him up there with...

Every other tabletop game designer in the industry?

There are some games simple enough to be playable, even with the inevitable bloat.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

I'll post an AP up here (or somewhere, and link to it here), because we played our first session on Thursday. A tutorial session, and we failed miserably and amazingly. We have a lot to learn. It was great.

[obliged_salmon]

Given that it's by Luke Crane, I imagine the end product to be something that has an incredibly awesome premise, pregnant with fun ideas and really spurs the imagination, but ends up going to crap because poor execution. Luke Crane has a really bad habit of not editing his stuff enough to make it actually usable.

See, I think of it like a little meta-game within the game. You have to figure out what he meant by this or that rule, practice around with it in play, before it becomes fully functional. It's fun!