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View Full Version : How Difficult is the Burning Wheel to Learn?



Comet
2015-12-08, 03:43 AM
A lot of what I've heard about the Burning Wheel seems really interesting. The lifepath character creation, skills increasing with use and characters being built around beliefs and conflict.

There's also a lot I've heard that indicates that it's a pretty rules-heavy game. Granted, a lot of that seems to be optional bits and pieces you can bolt onto a relatively simple core system but I'm not really sure about the specifics.

So, people who have played it: is the Burning Wheel a difficult game to learn and to teach to new players? My players wouldn't have their own copies of the rules, since we prefer learning as we go and letting the GM handle the up-front learning. Is that possible with the Burning Wheel or is player proficiency and familiarity with the system mandatory to get the most out of it?

Knaight
2015-12-08, 04:14 AM
Familiarity with the system is pretty mandatory to get the most of it. With that said, if you favor long games and come from a D&D background, it's not that hard to learn. It's no crunchier than D&D 3.5 gets once the splat books start multiplying, and the design is generally a lot stronger. A fair amount of the crunch is buried in subsystems too, so it can be introduced gradually.

Broken Twin
2015-12-08, 04:42 AM
Burning Wheel is definitely easier to learn in pieces. It's a very crunchy system in some aspects, but the individual chunks aren't that difficult to parse. i would recommend finding and printing cheat sheets for everyone at the table to reference off of, especially if there's only going to be one actual copy of the rulebook there.

Cybren
2015-12-08, 04:43 AM
Familiarity with the system is pretty mandatory to get the most of it. With that said, if you favor long games and come from a D&D background, it's not that hard to learn. It's no crunchier than D&D 3.5 gets once the splat books start multiplying, and the design is generally a lot stronger. A fair amount of the crunch is buried in subsystems too, so it can be introduced gradually.

I disagree with this- Burning Wheel is much more complicated than 3.5: character creation is incredibly cumbersome and requires about 5x more book flipping than D&D, the game explicitly has 3 methods of resolving combat, and the most detailed one (the most satisfying one and the one that is least punishing to players) is cumbersome to use for anything other than a group of one on one duels. On top of that, you have to roll on a special table whenever you fail casting a spell, and have to track XP for each action and each skill you perform, aaaaaaaaaand there's three different kinds of XP. (well, sort of, but that's functionally how things work out).

Burning Wheel is a very interesting game, but I think it's disingenuous to say it's no crunchier than 3.5.

goto124
2015-12-08, 06:37 AM
'Crunchier than 3.5e' sounds like an absolute nightmare, to be honest. Considering all the complaints, it seems I'm only going to break my teeth trying to eat this thing :smallbiggrin:

What could be worst though? Shadowrun? Rollmaster (spelling intentional)?

Broken Twin
2015-12-08, 07:24 AM
I wouldn't say it's crunchier, just that it's a completely different kind of crunch. Objectively, the levels of crunch are similar, it's just that most players have had a lot of exposure to d20 systems, so they seem simpler than they actually are.

Having said that, the book can be frustrating to read through. One thing that D20 systems have gotten good at over the years is making their bulk of information easy to digest, and Wheel of Time can be a bit obtuse at times. Having said that, it is a very well written and tight system, and if you're looking for the kind of game it's built to run, it works amazingly.

*Disclaimer: I've yet to properly play a game with the system. My group tends to shy away from the style of gameplay it promotes, so I've mostly just been stuck reading the book and other people's PBPs.

Knaight
2015-12-08, 02:26 PM
I disagree with this- Burning Wheel is much more complicated than 3.5: character creation is incredibly cumbersome and requires about 5x more book flipping than D&D, the game explicitly has 3 methods of resolving combat, and the most detailed one (the most satisfying one and the one that is least punishing to players) is cumbersome to use for anything other than a group of one on one duels. On top of that, you have to roll on a special table whenever you fail casting a spell, and have to track XP for each action and each skill you perform, aaaaaaaaaand there's three different kinds of XP. (well, sort of, but that's functionally how things work out).

Burning Wheel is a very interesting game, but I think it's disingenuous to say it's no crunchier than 3.5.

On the other hand, 3.x has accumulated thousands of pages of feats, thousands of pages of spells (all of which have tables up top for nit-picky details), has incredibly long stat blocks, and is generally designed with odd rules interactions.

The forum here is pretty much a 3.x forum, and we're all pretty used to it. Just how crunchy it is tends to get underestimated. Take your example, XP. In Burning Wheel, you have some check boxes next to a skill, check them in use, and move on. In D&D, you consult multiple tables, total up the experience once per distinct level in the party, then divide the separate totals by the group size. You're also dealing with vastly larger numbers, and end up doing mental arithmetic on 5 digit numbers routinely, with that going up a bit if you don't round to the nearest 1. I'd call D&D the crunchy one here.

Cybren
2015-12-08, 03:13 PM
Except all that division is pre-done during encounter design or just hand waved by the DM (you all get n experience points).

In burning wheel you have to track every skill use, reference it to a table, and record the bennies you have applied.in 3.5 you can just take the simplest choice you have and make a really simple character. There's not really a such thing as a simple burning wheel character

Zombimode
2015-12-08, 05:09 PM
In D&D, you consult multiple tables, total up the experience once per distinct level in the party, then divide the separate totals by the group size. You're also dealing with vastly larger numbers, and end up doing mental arithmetic on 5 digit numbers routinely, with that going up a bit if you don't round to the nearest 1. I'd call D&D the crunchy one here.

Luckily, there is an algorithmic solution (http://www.d20srd.org/extras/d20encountercalculator/). Calculation the XP for the evening takes me 10 minutes top (skimming through my notes included). And I do it between sessions.

Knaight
2015-12-08, 05:29 PM
Luckily, there is an algorithmic solution (http://www.d20srd.org/extras/d20encountercalculator/). Calculation the XP for the evening takes me 10 minutes top (skimming through my notes included). And I do it between sessions.


Except all that division is pre-done during encounter design or just hand waved by the DM (you all get n experience points).

In burning wheel you have to track every skill use, reference it to a table, and record the bennies you have applied.in 3.5 you can just take the simplest choice you have and make a really simple character. There's not really a such thing as a simple burning wheel character

That the crunch is loaded into prep-work and has had computer tools built specifically for it is not a point in favor of it being minimal. As for Burning Wheel, you don't have to reference a table every time, you just quickly jot down the applicable tally next to the skill, referencing the table only when the skill improves. That these are done quickly is indicative of high system mastery with D&D; take the high system mastery with Burning Wheel instead and that's all probably memorized and done practically subconsciously, while trying to use the 3.5 material is just a mess.