Is Burning Wheel dead? What systems do YOU think should be played more! [Archive]

profitofrage

2016-08-01, 11:16 PM

I wish there were a way to see the basics of these systems without investing in a bunch of them one might not every use.

Well, there are reviews of the game out there. Otherwise I could give you a brief rundown I gave another person asking about it?
at its core, its a D6 system with a degrees of success mechanic (i.e more you pass by the better you do)
Its principle mechanics is that you know the consequences to your rolls before you make them. That all skills / actions are based on your rank in that skill (which is also the amount of dice you roll on the test) including combat.
No charisma, no Int or Wis. Your characters are as smart, convincing, wise as you play them.

Combat is scripted ahead of time, with broad actions like "strike" "feint" "defend" "run away" and when scripts are revealed the scene is constructed based on how those actions interact. I.e you come up against a dragon....and because you dont want to die you script a bucketload of defend actions to not be eaten. Little did you know this dragon is an extreme coward and did the same. The result is a scene describing a bunch of PC's bringing up there shields and jumping to cover terrified, whilst the dragon notices them and begins to wail!

Another key part is that you "let it roll" i.e the dice you roll stay with you for that skill until the scene changes.

Burning Wheel does have its own forum (although you're a version behind, so it's of less use than some), and it's pretty big in the indie community. The indie community is just pretty small - you've got D&D, White Wolf/Onyx Path's games, and the rest is a tiny, tiny sliver. Some of the older ones in this tiny sliver still have some prominence (GURPS, Shadowrun), there's usually a game or two that rises up to being visible (Fate, Apocalypse World), and the rest is only known in the indie community.

Its reputation there is as a seriously cool game that manages to be a bit intimidating with the sheer quantity of crunch it brings; I'm pretty much on board with both of those statements.

Ive been on the Burning Wheel website, From my point of view its dead as a doornail. Either that or I was looking in the wrong places for PbP.

dysike

2016-08-02, 04:31 AM

No charisma, no Int or Wis. Your characters are as smart, convincing, wise as you play them.

Combat is scripted ahead of time, with broad actions like "strike" "feint" "defend" "run away" and when scripts are revealed the scene is constructed based on how those actions interact.

I hate to be nitpicky but for one thing you do still have skills you roll to persuade people of things and to know things about the setting so I'm not sure what you mean by the first part there.

Also the scripted combat is used relatvely rarely, the majority of fights are resolved in a single die roll, Fight! will generally be used once or twice in a campaign.

I'd also like to mention the scripted social combat system, it works the same way as the Fight! system but is for debates or negotiations instead.

profitofrage

2016-08-02, 04:37 AM

I hate to be nitpicky but for one thing you do still have skills you roll to persuade people of things and to know things about the setting so I'm not sure what you mean by the first part there.

Also the scripted combat is used relatvely rarely, the majority of fights are resolved in a single die roll, Fight! will generally be used once or twice in a campaign.

I'd also like to mention the scripted social combat system, it works the same way as the Fight! system but is for debates or negotiations instead.

Just like Fight is optional so too are the social combat systems. The only times you really roll to convince people of something is when its seriously about who has the greater willpower. Thats why there is no Charisma stat, or Int.
Its a very modular game, it can be as crunchy as you want it too be which is why I love it.

Xefas

2016-08-02, 05:32 AM

I wish there were a way to see the basics of these systems without investing in a bunch of them one might not every use.

Fate Core has their entire ruleset for free on an srd. (http://www.fate-srd.com/fate-core/basics) (Along with their rules-light version, Fate Accelerated, and the Fate System Toolkit, a guide on how to hack, mod, and homebrew everything about the rules.)

They also just released a bunch of their supplements onto their srd, also free of charge. And a good many of their setting books are on DrivethruRPG as "Pay What You Want". Which allows you to, for example, get the entire product for $0, and then come back later and pony up however many dollar monies you think the book is worth, having actually read it already.

dysike

2016-08-02, 06:51 AM

Just like Fight is optional so too are the social combat systems. The only times you really roll to convince people of something is when its seriously about who has the greater willpower. Thats why there is no Charisma stat, or Int.
Its a very modular game, it can be as crunchy as you want it too be which is why I love it.

I'm going to have to continue disagreeing with you, while Duel of Wits is also very optional there are still quite clearly mechanics for lying or trying to convince people of things, it's not all in how you play the character because someone with 10 dice in falsehood is going to be a much better liar than someone with no proficiency in it, if it's important then the dice are being rolled and when the dice are being rolled your stats matter. If whether or not the guard believes you is important roll for it, if your character getting the etiquette right in front of the queen is important roll for it. Also since almost all social skills work off of will, I'm going to say it essentially is your charisma equivalent, since all your character knowledge of the setting comes from your wises which work off of perception, it is your intelligence. Anything which matters should be being rolled for according to the rulebook which means that how persuasive or knowledgeable your character is isn't just up to how you roleplay, it's defined by your stats.

profitofrage

2016-08-02, 08:01 AM

I'm going to have to continue disagreeing with you, while Duel of Wits is also very optional there are still quite clearly mechanics for lying or trying to convince people of things, it's not all in how you play the character because someone with 10 dice in falsehood is going to be a much better liar than someone with no proficiency in it, if it's important then the dice are being rolled and when the dice are being rolled your stats matter. If whether or not the guard believes you is important roll for it, if your character getting the etiquette right in front of the queen is important roll for it. Also since almost all social skills work off of will, I'm going to say it essentially is your charisma equivalent, since all your character knowledge of the setting comes from your wises which work off of perception, it is your intelligence. Anything which matters should be being rolled for according to the rulebook which means that how persuasive or knowledgeable your character is isn't just up to how you roleplay, it's defined by your stats.

Ok, I feel like I didn't get my point across properly. But whatever I'll concede the point.

Yes, you roll for things like...being able to convince someone of a lie, or remember what an ancient rune might mean.
But you dont have int and you dont have Charisma. Likewise, you dont roll per or Will when making those tests. You roll your SKILL, if you dont have the skill it defaults to half of your base attribute (will & per)...which unless your particularly gifted..you will likely fail.

My entire point is that you can have the stupid barbarian...who knows all about ancient runes. Because its success or failure isn't decided by an attribute its decided by your skill in that area.

dysike

2016-08-02, 08:10 AM

Ok, I feel like I didn't get my point across properly. But whatever I'll concede the point.

Yes, you roll for things like...being able to convince someone of a lie, or remember what an ancient rune might mean.
But you dont have int and you dont have Charisma. Likewise, you dont roll per or Will when making those tests. You roll your SKILL, if you dont have the skill it defaults to half of your base attribute (will & per)...which unless your particularly gifted..you will likely fail.

My entire point is that you can have the stupid barbarian...who knows all about ancient runes. Because its success or failure isn't decided by an attribute its decided by your skill in that area.

Fair enough, although what you say is in no way restricted to social or knowledge skills, like your stupid character who knows loads about runes I could also have a weedy and unco-ordinated character who's a great swordsman.

profitofrage

2016-08-02, 08:30 AM

Fair enough, although what you say is in no way restricted to social or knowledge skills, like your stupid character who knows loads about runes I could also have a weedy and unco-ordinated character who's a great swordsman.

I know! its awesome. You can actually play savants. Or a magician who doesn't by default know everything else due to having a high int as a base.

Max_Killjoy

2016-08-02, 08:31 AM

Not going to knock it for those who like it, but I can tell right now that Burning Wheel is very much not for me.

profitofrage

2016-08-02, 08:32 AM

Not going to knock it for those who like it, but I can tell right now that Burning Wheel is very much not for me.

No game is for everyone, but why didn't you like it? people reading could use the different perspective.

Max_Killjoy

2016-08-02, 09:07 AM

No game is for everyone, but why didn't you like it? people reading could use the different perspective.

It sounds like many things end up being determined by one roll (we have a fight, here, roll to resolve, done).

More complex scenes or events are handled by scripted actions, rather than emerging from the ongoing interaction of player intent/actions and dice rolls.

Really, "smart" people should have an easier time learning things, and a naturally coordinated person should have an easier time learning athletic abilities. Some systems take that too far, and some systems ignore it entirely. Most systems with skills allows for the "savant", by buying more "ranks" in that skill, and some have "talents" or "feats" that give a bonus to a related group of skills

profitofrage

2016-08-02, 09:12 AM

Max_Killjoy

2016-08-02, 09:41 AM

At character gen you start with half your perception in any skill then you improve from there. So yes, someone with high starting will, is going to need less investment to be good at convincing people of a lie e.t.c

Likewise the game is full of traits, you get them with every life path you take. Many of these have no expressed mechanical benefit and instead sit there until you call on them for a situation.

Perception affects all skills? :confused:

Life paths? No thank you.

And those traits sound like Yggdrasill's Gifts and Weaknesses... also not up my alley.

CharonsHelper

2016-08-02, 10:09 AM

I'm with Killjoy.

I don't think that such games are inherently bad, they're just not my cup of tea.

A lot of what I enjoy about RPGs are the tactical decision making both of gameplay and creating an effective/interesting character.

kyoryu

2016-08-02, 10:13 AM

Burning Wheel is the game I most *want* to like, but don't actually like.

I really enjoy reading it. I love the concepts. A lot of the GM advice is top notch (Let It Ride, as mentioned above, is now standard in my games).

I've never been able to get it to come together *as a game*.

Keeping track of advancement is so fiddly that none of my players ever bothered. The minigames (Fight, Duel of Wits, Chase and Whatever) obviously have a lot of depth to them, but that depth is not immediately apparent. The post-game awards were so removed from the actual events of play that I couldn't get anyone to be invested in them.

I'm sure it's a great game when it comes together. I've just never been able to get that to happen, and I know I'm not the only one with that experience.

At the very least, it's a fantastic game to read and soak up advice from.

Max_Killjoy

2016-08-02, 10:30 AM

I'm with Killjoy.

I don't think that such games are inherently bad, they're just not my cup of tea.

Yeah. I don't want it to come across as if I'm bashing the game, this is all my personal opinion, not meant to be a universal condemnation -- which is why I originally didn't go into details as to why it's not up my alley.

dysike

2016-08-02, 10:35 AM

Perception affects all skills? :confused:

Life paths? No thank you.

Perception doesn't affect all skills I think they mistyped. Stats affect how easily a character learns new skills, you gain proficiency in a skill after making [10- base stat] skill checks untrained and you gain it at a rating of half the root stat.

A character with 6 will learning falsehood needs to make 4 untrained skill checks in order to become proficient at it and then gains the skill at rank 3.
A character with 2 will learning falsehood needs to make 8 untrained skill checks and gains the skill at rank 1.

I don't think that such games are inherently bad, they're just not my cup of tea.

A lot of what I enjoy about RPGs are the tactical decision making both of gameplay and creating an effective/interesting character.

I'd say the system does a good job making interesting characters due to how the beliefs, instincts and traits work.

I'm not sure if you'd consider combat tactical or not so here's an example of the Fight! mechanics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zXX42WGZqYU

Knaight

2016-08-02, 01:48 PM

It sounds like many things end up being determined by one roll (we have a fight, here, roll to resolve, done).

More complex scenes or events are handled by scripted actions, rather than emerging from the ongoing interaction of player intent/actions and dice rolls.

Take a look at the system - this isn't how it works. Most notably, scripted actions are an ongoing interaction of player intent/actions and dice rolls. It's just double blind, and you ready multiple actions simultaneously, which are effectively complex actions that work as combinations of simple actions. Is your plan to rush up in their face to get their weapon pinned so you can smack them? Script Charge, Lock, Strike. If your plan to exploit an expected defense with a feint, then deal with incoming attacks? Feint, Counter, Counter. Is your plan to just stay the heck out of the way until an ally shows up? Avoid, Avoid, Avoid. Are you just planning to tackle someone? Charge, Push, Throw. Do you want to rush an armed guy unarmed and draw their weapon? Charge, Lock, Draw.

There's multiple rounds of this, and while character skill counts for a lot, so does tactics. Trying to feint against a charge tends not to work super well, and synchronized defenses just have both sides waiting. The BW forums actually do have a section just for PbP fights, and those are worth looking into. It's rules heavy as all heck, but it absolutely emerges from an ongoing interaction. The one roll situation is usually for things like trying to quickly push your way through a bunch of guards to run off or similar.

CarpeGuitarrem

2016-08-02, 01:59 PM

BTW, here's a link to that Roll20 series I mentioned before (https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLTj75n3v9eTle4ja3M_9nHDn2ji08Jaw4). I haven't watched it yet, but I can vouch for Adam Koebel; he's a great guy, a keen RPG-er, and he loves BW.

Koo Rehtorb

2016-08-02, 03:15 PM

Just like Fight is optional so too are the social combat systems.

Eh. They're "optional" in the sense that the game doesn't break immediately if you don't use them. Luke has said before that if you're not using Fight/Duel of Wits/Range and Cover then you're playing the game wrong, though.

Among other problems, people can stockpile too much artha if they're not under pressure to use it during the extended conflict systems.

dysike

2016-08-02, 03:22 PM

people can stockpile too much artha if they're not under pressure to use it during the extended conflict systems.

Since you need to spend artha on rolls in order to greyshade stats or skills I find that's usually reason enough for players to spend them on any roll where it helps

Koo Rehtorb

2016-08-02, 03:56 PM

Since you need to spend artha on rolls in order to greyshade stats or skills I find that's usually reason enough for players to spend them on any roll where it helps

You need three deeds points to grey shade something. That's always going to be the bottleneck. Fate/persona honestly aren't a factor at all, in my opinion.

There's also the fact that you probably can't spend fate faster than you earn it if you aren't getting in extended conflicts.

BayardSPSR

2016-08-02, 08:44 PM

Eh. They're "optional" in the sense that the game doesn't break immediately if you don't use them. Luke has said before that if you're not using Fight/Duel of Wits/Range and Cover then you're playing the game wrong, though.

This attitude alone makes me suspect of Burning Wheel. If a designer's frustrated that a time-consuming mechanic can be avoided and doesn't get used, that doesn't sound like the best design...

(That said, no experience of it beyond reading the rules, so others have better basis for their opinions than I).

bulbaquil

2016-08-02, 09:29 PM

I think people should play more HackMaster, personally.

goto124

2016-08-02, 09:50 PM

This attitude alone makes me suspect of Burning Wheel. If a designer's frustrated that a time-consuming mechanic can be avoided and doesn't get used, that doesn't sound like the best design...

(That said, no experience of it beyond reading the rules, so others have better basis for their opinions than I).

I figured it was akin to avoiding combat rules in DnD.

profitofrage

2016-08-02, 11:03 PM

I figured it was akin to avoiding combat rules in DnD.

Think of it this way.
You have a PC who wants to butcher his way through a horde of zombies to get to the lich at the other end of a corridor.

In DnD this would be a nightmare of rounds upon rounds as you cut and cleave through zombies 2-3 at a time round after round until finally you fight the actual boss battle you wanted from the beginning.

In Burning wheel you use bloody fight for the zombies. The zombie horde is represented as either an obstacle you try to roll over or its a vs test based on there skill / attributes. The result of the die roll is akin to a skill test. Fail and your injured / dead. pass and there killed / perhaps you sustain minor wounds.

Then you get to the lich and you use the scripted fight rules. So rather then the combat being 10+ rounds. its 1 die roll + the boss encounter.

Koo Rehtorb

2016-08-02, 11:09 PM

profitofrage

2016-08-02, 11:28 PM

Not using Duel of Wits is also unfair to non-social characters. If you don't use the extended system there then they're just going to get destroyed socially at every turn with impossible persuade/falsehood/whatever obstacles.

They'll still lose in Duel of Wits, but the odds are much better that they'll at least score a compromise out of it.

Except you would only roll for social situations that actually matter to the plot. Likewise its very easily to "FoRK" yourself into very high stats with roleplaying and help from other PC's. If it is truly a serious social encounter, then yes Dual of Wits gives every PC something to do (even if it is just a "YEA WHAT HE SAID!")

dysike

2016-08-03, 03:39 AM

Not using Duel of Wits is also unfair to non-social characters. If you don't use the extended system there then they're just going to get destroyed socially at every turn with impossible persuade/falsehood/whatever obstacles.

They'll still lose in Duel of Wits, but the odds are much better that they'll at least score a compromise out of it.

If as a GM you wouldn't put a party of level 1 adventurers up against a fully grown dragon why would you put a non-social character in a position to have to pass an impossible test with no other solutions?

Gamgee

2016-08-03, 05:18 AM

Numenera is super popular... everywhere I'm not or don't frequent. I never see games on the play by post sites I go to which is a lot. Yet I always see books coming out for it and people talking about games. Also I couldn't even get a group of two people to try it in my community since unless they don't have a 24h a day dripfeed of grimdark my community will die or something. If it's not a game about killing, 40k, or dnd my communities aren't interested. Period.

Thankfully I found a game of numenera to play online.

gkathellar

2016-08-03, 07:59 AM

13th Age needs to get more play. It's well put-together, and well thought out, and the books are extremely conversational and straightforward.

Numenera is super popular... everywhere I'm not or don't frequent. I never see games on the play by post sites I go to which is a lot. Yet I always see books coming out for it and people talking about games.

How is Numenera, btw? The premise sounds decent, but I've avoided it because Monte Cook. Is the setting actually any good? Are the mechanics?

Also I couldn't even get a group of two people to try it in my community since unless they don't have a 24h a day dripfeed of grimdark my community will die or something.

I sympathize.

Koo Rehtorb

2016-08-03, 11:09 AM

If as a GM you wouldn't put a party of level 1 adventurers up against a fully grown dragon why would you put a non-social character in a position to have to pass an impossible test with no other solutions?

Huh? You're going to fail important scenes in Burning Wheel. It's sort of the design of the game. You're going to fail lots of things over and over until you finally learn something from it and grow as a character. As a non-social character I struggle to persuade a child of anything, and anyone else is out of the question.

But using Duel of Wits is the difference between "Beginner's Luck Persuader - ob 10." and "losing a Duel of Wits, but still shaving a couple points off the other guy's body of argument and getting a minor compromise out of them." It feels slightly less oppressively crushing if you at least can manage to get a few small things you want every now and then.

dysike

2016-08-03, 12:42 PM

But using Duel of Wits is the difference between "Beginner's Luck Persuader - ob 10." and "losing a Duel of Wits, but still shaving a couple points off the other guy's body of argument and getting a minor compromise out of them." It feels slightly less oppressively crushing if you at least can manage to get a few small things you want every now and then.

Surely you could simply make your goal one of the minor concessions and only have to roll a much lower difficulty. Also the point about needing to fail some rolls wasn't what I was saying what I was talking about was that there shouldn't be a situation where the character's only option in an impossible test, if they want to take the impossible test then fine, but there should be other ways, even if those other ways give you less in return.

Koo Rehtorb

2016-08-03, 03:32 PM

Surely you could simply make your goal one of the minor concessions and only have to roll a much lower difficulty. Also the point about needing to fail some rolls wasn't what I was saying what I was talking about was that there shouldn't be a situation where the character's only option in an impossible test, if they want to take the impossible test then fine, but there should be other ways, even if those other ways give you less in return.

Ob for most social skills is ALWAYS the target's will, outside of a few niche ones like Ugly Truth. Making small reasonable demands might get you an advantage die or two, but that's unlikely to change much.

And I'm still not entirely sure what you're saying. Obviously the GM shouldn't go out of his way to make convoluted situations where there's only one thing you could possibly do ever. Sometimes, though, you're going to find yourself in a place where bad things are going to happen if you can't pass a social roll. More often, though, it's the case where the social PCs have much greater license to dictate events than the non-social ones, and being able to score a compromise off them is a nice consolation prize for them usually getting their way.

BayardSPSR

2016-08-03, 06:05 PM

I figured it was akin to avoiding combat rules in DnD.

That also sounds like a worthwhile thing to do.

Except you would only roll for social situations that actually matter to the plot. Likewise its very easily to "FoRK" yourself into very high stats with roleplaying and help from other PC's. If it is truly a serious social encounter, then yes Dual of Wits gives every PC something to do (even if it is just a "YEA WHAT HE SAID!")

On the other hand, the whole Duel of Wits thing also puts hard mechanical limits on the input third players can have on the debate, turning what might otherwise have been a fast-moving group conversation into a binary conflict.

It also replaces stuff that could have been roleplay (that is, a 1:1 model of conversation where the map is identical to the territory) with a resolution mechanic that doesn't resemble any conversation I've ever seen real people have.

"If two characters have a serious disagreement, argue for a minute or two, and if no one is willing to concede forge a compromise" is really simple, produces about the same result, and doesn't try to make the whole thing work like a fight for no good reason.

That said, I do like the fact that the Duel of Wits tends to make the people at the table come to a compromise with each other AND stick by it, and I will make specific efforts to guide people to such results in my own games.

goto124

2016-08-03, 06:43 PM

That also sounds like a worthwhile thing to do.

Sounds like you're suggesting it's a worthwhile thing to stay away from DnD altogether.

Xefas

2016-08-03, 06:49 PM

How is Numenera, btw? The premise sounds decent, but I've avoided it because Monte Cook. Is the setting actually any good? Are the mechanics?

I only played for two sessions, but it wasn't really my group's cup of tea. There's two main things that really stuck out.

1) Hit points and the resource you use for everything, including putting a bonus on rolls and activating special abilities, is the same. My players had a really hard time evaluating whether or not to put a bonus on an attack roll if it meant putting them significantly closer to death. In the end, the mechanics encouraged them to be extremely conservative, which lead to very boring exchanges.

2) One of the biggest subsystems in Numenera is - well, the Numenera. These are little consumable objects you find littered around the world. They're like potions or one-use wands, but contextualized as ancient alien car batteries and mystical circular saws. The idea is that each character can only carry a certain number, and you're constantly, constantly finding them, so if you're not using them, you're wasting them. This is supposed to alleviate the "I ended Final Fantasy 7 with 99 Elixers because I was always terrified of using consumable resources" problem.

The issue for my group was one of narrative context. There's not really a good reason listed for why you can't carry around a bunch of these consumables. IIRC, there's a flimsy explanation about the objects giving off radiation, and if you carry too many you get some kind of radiation poisoning and die. My players kind of took this as a challenge and wanted to come up with ways to circumvent or weaponize this limitation. For example - if, say, one person with 6 consumables on them gets sick and dies, but a party of four adventurers standing close to each other with 3 consumable each has no problem, then the effect must be very short range. So why not use a wagon? And, hey, if the radiation sickness happens so quickly, why not try to dump a bunch of Numenera on the bad guys? And if it's a slow effect - hey, my character already has a brain tumor, she doesn't care if the radiation's going to get her 20 years from now.

It could've been handled better. In the end, I just said "The game wants us to do X, and it says that if we do X, amazing things will happen, so lets do X and see what it has to offer."

And then we did that. And it was like playing a kind of weird, more counterintuitive version of AD&D in a moderately interesting setting. And it was just sort of okay. And then we stopped. Nothing special.

flond

2016-08-03, 06:54 PM

In fairness, I actually like the Duel of Wits, with the caveat that it should be used in one of two situations.

i. When you want drama/mechanical rigor added to a conversation (usually a pivotal thing)

or

ii. When playing it out would be unpleasant.

Because in my experience, the duel of wits DOES represent a certain sort of conflict. It doesn't perfectly model it, but I'm actually fairly glad for that. The duel of wits models conversation by attrition. The sort of talk where no one's going to be convinced, but you're both stuck with each other until SOMETHING gets done. And, given how some planning phases around the table can go, a half hearted compromise by system and dice feels better than a half hearted compromise by wheedling.

Koo Rehtorb

2016-08-03, 07:09 PM

"If two characters have a serious disagreement, argue for a minute or two, and if no one is willing to concede forge a compromise" is really simple, produces about the same result, and doesn't try to make the whole thing work like a fight for no good reason

Burning Wheel came out of Luke's long experience with tabletop games. The story goes that Duel of Wits works the way it does because his group would constantly have two hour long arguments about everything they wanted to do. Duel of Wits says roll dice over it and then move on and stop wasting everyone's time.

Edit - also that there was a particularly charming player who'd always end up getting his way in the end if it was left strictly to roleplay.

Max_Killjoy

2016-08-03, 07:24 PM

I only played for two sessions, but it wasn't really my group's cup of tea. There's two main things that really stuck out.

1) Hit points and the resource you use for everything, including putting a bonus on rolls and activating special abilities, is the same. My players had a really hard time evaluating whether or not to put a bonus on an attack roll if it meant putting them significantly closer to death. In the end, the mechanics encouraged them to be extremely conservative, which lead to very boring exchanges.

2) One of the biggest subsystems in Numenera is - well, the Numenera. These are little consumable objects you find littered around the world. They're like potions or one-use wands, but contextualized as ancient alien car batteries and mystical circular saws. The idea is that each character can only carry a certain number, and you're constantly, constantly finding them, so if you're not using them, you're wasting them. This is supposed to alleviate the "I ended Final Fantasy 7 with 99 Elixers because I was always terrified of using consumable resources" problem.

The issue for my group was one of narrative context. There's not really a good reason listed for why you can't carry around a bunch of these consumables. IIRC, there's a flimsy explanation about the objects giving off radiation, and if you carry too many you get some kind of radiation poisoning and die. My players kind of took this as a challenge and wanted to come up with ways to circumvent or weaponize this limitation. For example - if, say, one person with 6 consumables on them gets sick and dies, but a party of four adventurers standing close to each other with 3 consumable each has no problem, then the effect must be very short range. So why not use a wagon? And, hey, if the radiation sickness happens so quickly, why not try to dump a bunch of Numenera on the bad guys? And if it's a slow effect - hey, my character already has a brain tumor, she doesn't care if the radiation's going to get her 20 years from now.

It could've been handled better. In the end, I just said "The game wants us to do X, and it says that if we do X, amazing things will happen, so lets do X and see what it has to offer."

And then we did that. And it was like playing a kind of weird, more counterintuitive version of AD&D in a moderately interesting setting. And it was just sort of okay. And then we stopped. Nothing special.

Like certain flavors of D&D and other games, it has a very "the rules exist for game reasons, and in-setting reasons were tacked on" feel.

And then there's the hokey "I'm a _____ _____ who blanks!" thing in character creation.

profitofrage

2016-08-03, 07:47 PM

Ob for most social skills is ALWAYS the target's will, outside of a few niche ones like Ugly Truth. Making small reasonable demands might get you an advantage die or two, but that's unlikely to change much.

And I'm still not entirely sure what you're saying. Obviously the GM shouldn't go out of his way to make convoluted situations where there's only one thing you could possibly do ever. Sometimes, though, you're going to find yourself in a place where bad things are going to happen if you can't pass a social roll. More often, though, it's the case where the social PCs have much greater license to dictate events than the non-social ones, and being able to score a compromise off them is a nice consolation prize for them usually getting their way.

Due to the nature of Ob's and degrees of success you can perfectly replicate the "concessions" outside of dual of wits.

1 degree of failure? - you get a mild concession
2 degrees? - well you dont really get what you want at all. e.t.c e.t.c

Likewise I believe "non social characters" is kind of a misnomer, because unlike DnD there is nothing stopping you investing in skills that your character by all means SHOULD have. No more veteran warrior who cant command troops because of a terrible charisma score (or having to refluff the skill so that it bases off some totally nonsensical attribute).
Nearly every life path has some version of social skill.

If your character doesn't have some kind of social stat you've built an autistic character. Or you've put him in a wildly unfamiliar situation.

Koo Rehtorb

2016-08-03, 09:21 PM

Due to the nature of Ob's and degrees of success you can perfectly replicate the "concessions" outside of dual of wits.

You could. But that would be hacking the game at that point.

Likewise I believe "non social characters" is kind of a misnomer, because unlike DnD there is nothing stopping you investing in skills that your character by all means SHOULD have. No more veteran warrior who cant command troops because of a terrible charisma score (or having to refluff the skill so that it bases off some totally nonsensical attribute).
Nearly every life path has some version of social skill.

If your character doesn't have some kind of social stat you've built an autistic character. Or you've put him in a wildly unfamiliar situation.

A social character is one who has a variety of social skills that are applicable to many different situations, and with a number of different FoRKs to use. They're not all interchangeable and the number of lifepaths with one of the broader social skills is much smaller. Intimidation, Ugly Truth or Soothing Platitudes can only take you so far. And to be clear, that's not a criticism of the system.

The point is, there are many good reasons to use Fight, Duel of Wits and Range and Cover and I think you're messing up if you're not using them at all. They shouldn't come out for every fight or argument, or even most of them, but they're in the game for a reason.

profitofrage

2016-08-03, 09:27 PM

You could. But that would be hacking the game at that point.

A social character is one who has a variety of social skills that are applicable to many different situations, and with a number of different FoRKs to use. They're not all interchangeable and the number of lifepaths with one of the broader social skills is much smaller. Intimidation, Ugly Truth or Soothing Platitudes can only take you so far. And to be clear, that's not a criticism of the system.

The point is, there are many good reasons to use Fight, Duel of Wits and Range and Cover and I think you're messing up if you're not using them at all. They shouldn't come out for every fight or argument, or even most of them, but they're in the game for a reason.

It's not hacking the game, its specifically in there for a reason. Its a lower Ob to convince the guy to believe a small lie....a bigger ob to convince him of a larger one. its just all in the one test as "1 success is small lie 2 successes large e.t.c"

I agree there are great reasons to use fight and dual of wits. it just seems to me to only be in "duel" like situations. Your up against the court advisor trying to convince the king to do X,Y and Z...yea use duel of wits. Trying to get a discount on boots? or convince a local guard to let you past the gates? better as a roll.

I think ultimately we agree more then we disagree, the beauty of Burning wheel I think is the fact its modular...it gives you that choice. some people are going to want to use fight for every encounter, but others are never going to touch it. It means more that they put in the option because now it DOESNT feel like your cheating people. Your not "handwaving" this sessions combat...its the DM wanting to get to the good parts / wants things fast paced.

CharonsHelper

2016-08-03, 10:01 PM

Like certain flavors of D&D and other games, it has a very "the rules exist for game reasons, and in-setting reasons were tacked on" feel.

And then there's the hokey "I'm a _____ _____ who blanks!" thing in character creation.

I haven't played the game, but magic radiation sounds like a pretty bad in-game explanation for the reasons stated above.

Off the top of my head, he could have had the Numeria form a link with a specific person in order to function, the link it permanent until the item is destroyed/used, but each person can only have a maximum of 6 linked to them at any one time. This prevents all of the rather obvious ways to try to game it listed above.

BayardSPSR

2016-08-03, 10:37 PM

Sounds like you're suggesting it's a worthwhile thing to stay away from DnD altogether.

That is my preference, but you're right - it does sounds as though I'm suggesting D&D avoidance is a good thing for everyone. I will qualify that, and say specifically I have had good experiences avoiding D&D, and that other people may or may have similar experiences based on their own preferences.

While I enjoying snarking about things, I'm actively trying to avoid coming close to the line that separates good clean snark from trolling, so do let me know if you think my tone has been tending that way.

2) One of the biggest subsystems in Numenera is - well, the Numenera.

...

It could've been handled better. In the end, I just said "The game wants us to do X, and it says that if we do X, amazing things will happen, so lets do X and see what it has to offer."

Making them explicitly degrade over time sounds like it might have solved that - if not for the fact that you said that they're supposed to be ancient.

Burning Wheel came out of Luke's long experience with tabletop games. The story goes that Duel of Wits works the way it does because his group would constantly have two hour long arguments about everything they wanted to do. Duel of Wits says roll dice over it and then move on and stop wasting everyone's time.

Edit - also that there was a particularly charming player who'd always end up getting his way in the end if it was left strictly to roleplay.

Huh. Yeah, that actually sounds like a good solution to both of those problems. Makes sense now.

EDIT: Also, I'm glad not to have been forced to deal with either of those problems.

Xefas

2016-08-03, 11:46 PM

I haven't played the game, but magic radiation sounds like a pretty bad in-game explanation for the reasons stated above.

Off the top of my head, he could have had the Numeria form a link with a specific person in order to function, the link it permanent until the item is destroyed/used, but each person can only have a maximum of 6 linked to them at any one time. This prevents all of the rather obvious ways to try to game it listed above.

I think the worst part is that I genuinely think my players at the time were not trying to game the system. I've had people, for example, want to use D&D magic to set up orbital railguns and stuff - that is, abusing the mechanical -> narrative abstraction to create unintended interactions. But I do think, in this case, they simply thought that this was a limitation meant to be overcome by clever thinking in-setting. And how could they not? It could be solved with a wagon.

Could you imagine playing a game of D&D, and the players slay the dragon, and they're like "We loot the dragon's hoard." and you're like "Well, there's a lot. You're not going to be able to get it back very quickly." and they're like "We send one person back to buy a wagon while we guard the hoard from scavengers." and you're like "...The rules say you can't. Wagons are too gamey. Proto-bronze-age wheel technology destroys the setting."

It would be ludicrous. Someone would throw their mountain dew at you.

So, yeah, I think some kind of psionic linkup, or nanomachine handwavium would've been much better. There's asking for suspension of disbelief, and then there's laziness.

And then there's the hokey "I'm a _____ _____ who blanks!" thing in character creation.

Just to explain to other folks in the thread:

In Numenera, your character has three mechanical facets: Descriptor, Class, and Focus. Descriptor is sort of like your Race would be in D&D - it gives you stat and skill bonuses, and they're things like Graceful (+speed, +acrobatic skills, etc), Strong (+might, +athletic skills, etc), or Intelligent (+int, +knowledge skills, etc). And if you implement races into Numenera, they take up the character's Descriptor slot anyway. So, you can be a freakishly Strong human, or you can be an Orc; very similar mechanically. The Descriptors also have a kind of built in story hook mechanic for providing the DM with a way to start the first session, but they tend to amount to socially focused PCs have an adventuring job and hire the other PCs to come along, physically focused PCs need money or are gullible, and magic/intelligence focused PCs have a prophetic dream or want to study something that happens to be where the job takes place.

Class is one of Numenera's three classes Warrior, Rogue, Mage Glaive, Jack, and Nano. The Nano, while very effective, is thematically pretty dumb. They're a bit like playing a D&D Psion, except that the power list is very small, you cast from your hit points, you only get one power of each level, and the list of powers was chosen via throwing darts at a dart board, and therefore has no logical consistency from level to level. You can't really have a coherent theme as a Nano, you're just a hodgepodge of unrelated spell effects. The other classes, Glaive and Jack, are sort of what you would expect from a Fighter or Rogue. They get special attack moves (that still spend your hit points) and the Jack can learn some basic magic stuff to be an all-rounder.

Focus is sort of like having a secondary half-class that only grants you extra class features. In D&D, imagine if the Ranger and Druid didn't exist, and there was instead a set of secondary half-classes, and one of them was "Animal Companion Guy", which granted a scaling animal companion and some minimal nature spells. Then you could be a Fighter/Animal Companion Guy to make a Ranger, or a Cleric/Animal Companion Guy to be a Druid, or a Rogue/Animal Companion Guy to be Aladdin (with his monkey), or a Monk/Animal Companion Guy to have your very own Flying Sky Bison. And there's another that's "Crafting Guy", and so you can have a Fighter/Crafting Guy who's a badass blacksmith forging magical swords in the hearts of volcanoes, and a Cleric/Crafting Guy who crafts icons of faith and religious relics, or a Barbarian/Crafting Guy who whittles magic totems and bone necklaces and such. And so on.

All in all, you introduce yourself as "I'm a [Descriptor] [Class] who [Focus]!", such as "I'm a Charming Jack who crafts magical items!" or "I'm a Clever Glaive who controls fire!".

Making them explicitly degrade over time sounds like it might have solved that - if not for the fact that you said that they're supposed to be ancient.

The premise of Numenera's setting is that the world has seen millions of years of intelligent civilization, and during that time civilizations have risen and fallen and some have grown to the point of inventing crazy future stuff like sapient AI, ubiquitous augmented reality internet, nanomachine swarms, and orbiting doomsday weapons. Whenever one of these great civs falls, it leaves behind this highly durable supertech, and so the next great civ is built on top of the last one's corpse, treating it as an ancient mystical precursor race to be learned from and worshiped.

In the present day, you are in the Ninth World, on top of the corpses of eight great civilizations. And the world is just overflowing with malfunctioning technology. Like, you can't find a bush to piss behind that doesn't have a one-use disintegration ray jammed between the foliage. Your people are still in the medieval(ish) age, and you all think that this ancient tech is magic.

There are... plot holes.

Lorsa

2016-08-04, 04:34 AM

I really would've liked to love Burning Wheel as well, and I tried to play it, but certain issues bothered me to no end, so I had to drop it.

One minor issue was the combat system. If you have players that enjoy a good fight now and then, the "easy/fast" combat will be very unsatisfying, as it resolves everything with one roll. On the other hand, if you use the complex combat mechanics, your job as a GM becomes frustratingly hard. If you have a group of 3 people, fighting say 4 enemies, the amount of things you have to keep track of is insane. The complex system only really works smooth for duels, and running 3 duels + one extra combatant is.... hard. One round of combat takes probably around fifteen minutes that way (once you've learnt to speed things along). Unfortunately, most rounds end up with "armor soaks all damage", so you might need A LOT of rounds for combat to end. Or not, if you're unlucky.

While combat might have aimed to be "realistic", it isn't very fun, as the only roll that really matters is the armor roll (which, given good enough armor, almost always succeeds). Points for trying to be tactical and interesting, but in actual play I've never made it work well.

The above could all have been overlooked if it wasn't for the character advancement system. It's a nightmare to keep track of (and will detract from the flow of the game), but worst of all is that it makes advancement so random.

If you're lucky, and the GM sets the exact right difficulties for the rolls you're making, you will progress quickly and steadily. If you're unlucky, and get all the wrong difficulties, you will NEVER get better. Tell me how that will not frustrate anyone?

The way to get around it, of course, is to meta-game. If you know what dots you need, you can choose to use the kind of skills to resolve a situation that helps you advance. That is, players are encouraged to actions not because it makes sense for the character, but because it will help them advance their skills. This kind of meta-game around character advancement is something I dislike to no end, and it was not apparent when simply reading the rules.

--------

To answer your second question; one game I think you be played more is Ars Magica. Awesome magic system if I ever saw one.

CharonsHelper

2016-08-04, 07:55 AM

I think the worst part is that I genuinely think my players at the time were not trying to game the system. I've had people, for example, want to use D&D magic to set up orbital railguns and stuff - that is, abusing the mechanical -> narrative abstraction to create unintended interactions. But I do think, in this case, they simply thought that this was a limitation meant to be overcome by clever thinking in-setting. And how could they not? It could be solved with a wagon.

Oh - I agree. I was thinking from a designer perspective since it was obviously something which he (foolishly) didn't plan for and sort of breaks the intent of the rules. When 'gaming' the system is that obvious, you're right, it probably doesn't actually count as 'gaming' at all.

dysike

2016-08-04, 08:32 AM

The above could all have been overlooked if it wasn't for the character advancement system. It's a nightmare to keep track of (and will detract from the flow of the game), but worst of all is that it makes advancement so random.

If you're lucky, and the GM sets the exact right difficulties for the rolls you're making, you will progress quickly and steadily. If you're unlucky, and get all the wrong difficulties, you will NEVER get better. Tell me how that will not frustrate anyone?

The way to get around it, of course, is to meta-game. If you know what dots you need, you can choose to use the kind of skills to resolve a situation that helps you advance. That is, players are encouraged to actions not because it makes sense for the character, but because it will help them advance their skills. This kind of meta-game around character advancement is something I dislike to no end, and it was not apparent when simply reading the rules.

I think that you're completely right about the way around it being to meta-game, I would also say that the point of was to encourage players to meta-game. The beliefs, instinct, and trait mechanics in Burning Wheel are all encouragement for meta-gaming, they encourage you to make decisions which are probably bad ideas from the character's perspective but will be rewarded by the system, that is the point of all those mechanics, Burning Wheel characters will do things which are against their own best interest due to the meta-game because that makes a better story than people who always take the best option. The advancement mechanics serve the same purpose, if you want to advance past a certain point you need to take rolls which you are probably/definitely going to fail, because seeing the character's occasionally bite off more than they can chew is part of the game narrative. In my experience Burning Wheel works best with a cast of slightly messed up individuals with very strong motives who consistently make their own lives harder than they have to be, that seems to be the kind of people the game is designed to be about.

And if you're really struggling to get those last couple tests for advancement there's always the training rules.

I recognize that if you don't find the game fun then this isn't going to make you enjoy it, but for anyone trying to decide whether to try Burning Wheel or not I felt like I should try and explain why some of the mechanics are the way they are.

kyoryu

2016-08-04, 10:23 AM

While combat might have aimed to be "realistic", it isn't very fun, as the only roll that really matters is the armor roll (which, given good enough armor, almost always succeeds). Points for trying to be tactical and interesting, but in actual play I've never made it work well.

If you look at the Burning Wheel forums, there are some combat examples (people doing combat by post) that seem very fun and very interesting. The turnoff for me is that getting to that point clearly takes a level of investment to get the necessary system mastery that I'm just personally uninterested in. Like, I can *see* how it would be a fun and intricate mini-game, but it's not very approachable, and I don't really want to devote the necessary time to understand the system well enough that I *can* master it sufficiently.

I think that you're completely right about the way around it being to meta-game

Yeah, I get that feeling as well. I think there are even examples in the book of doing exactly that.

Knaight

2016-08-04, 12:43 PM

If you look at the Burning Wheel forums, there are some combat examples (people doing combat by post) that seem very fun and very interesting. The turnoff for me is that getting to that point clearly takes a level of investment to get the necessary system mastery that I'm just personally uninterested in. Like, I can *see* how it would be a fun and intricate mini-game, but it's not very approachable, and I don't really want to devote the necessary time to understand the system well enough that I *can* master it sufficiently.

That's also pretty much where I stand. I would love to play Burning Wheel, but I'm a near permanent GM - and there's no way I'm going to even try to run a system that heavy. It's 600 pages of dense rules text, it's all sorts of convoluted, there's just no way that's happening.

Koo Rehtorb

2016-08-04, 01:57 PM

It's actually not that hard. The sub-systems are complicated but you don't need to bring them in until you're comfortable with the core rules. A good chunk of the rulebook is detailing those sub-systems and lists of things like life paths. The actual core rules are much more managable.

Xefas

2016-08-04, 03:33 PM

That's also pretty much where I stand. I would love to play Burning Wheel, but I'm a near permanent GM - and there's no way I'm going to even try to run a system that heavy. It's 600 pages of dense rules text, it's all sorts of convoluted, there's just no way that's happening.

I don't recall seeing you ever mention playing Mouse Guard before, Knaight. Have you?

It definitely deserves its moniker as 'Burning Wheel lite'. Its systems are all simplified and easy to pick up (I ran it for some folks who were new to RPGs, and I didn't really have to pull my punches explaining the rules), and it has some clever structure inherent to it that makes GMing a great session quite easy. I prefer it wholeheartedly over Burning Wheel, for exactly the reason that I dislike heavy systems (and Mouse Guard is kinda medium; it's not anywhere near FAE or Primetime Adventures or something).

Knaight

2016-08-04, 04:12 PM

I don't recall seeing you ever mention playing Mouse Guard before, Knaight. Have you?

It definitely deserves its moniker as 'Burning Wheel lite'. Its systems are all simplified and easy to pick up (I ran it for some folks who were new to RPGs, and I didn't really have to pull my punches explaining the rules), and it has some clever structure inherent to it that makes GMing a great session quite easy. I prefer it wholeheartedly over Burning Wheel, for exactly the reason that I dislike heavy systems (and Mouse Guard is kinda medium; it's not anywhere near FAE or Primetime Adventures or something).

I haven't. I really should - it looks cool, and I'd love to GM it - but I never manage to get around to it. I might make a point of it soon though; I have a group of people who would be totally down with playing anthropomorphic mice.

kyoryu

2016-08-04, 04:32 PM

I don't recall seeing you ever mention playing Mouse Guard before, Knaight. Have you?

I have. I find it *much* more playable than BW.

BayardSPSR

2016-08-04, 04:56 PM

Mouse Guard: is there any way of seeing a minimal version of the rules before spending money on it? Financial investment is something of a barrier to entry for me.

profitofrage

2016-08-04, 07:37 PM

I have. I find it *much* more playable than BW.

Considering how much I enjoy BW I would absolutely love to try mouseguard.
Is the system and the setting particularly tied together? or is it fairly easy to refluff like BW.

Max_Killjoy

2016-08-04, 07:53 PM

I think that you're completely right about the way around it being to meta-game, I would also say that the point of was to encourage players to meta-game. The beliefs, instinct, and trait mechanics in Burning Wheel are all encouragement for meta-gaming, they encourage you to make decisions which are probably bad ideas from the character's perspective but will be rewarded by the system, that is the point of all those mechanics, Burning Wheel characters will do things which are against their own best interest due to the meta-game because that makes a better story than people who always take the best option. The advancement mechanics serve the same purpose, if you want to advance past a certain point you need to take rolls which you are probably/definitely going to fail, because seeing the character's occasionally bite off more than they can chew is part of the game narrative. In my experience Burning Wheel works best with a cast of slightly messed up individuals with very strong motives who consistently make their own lives harder than they have to be, that seems to be the kind of people the game is designed to be about.

And if you're really struggling to get those last couple tests for advancement there's always the training rules.

I recognize that if you don't find the game fun then this isn't going to make you enjoy it, but for anyone trying to decide whether to try Burning Wheel or not I felt like I should try and explain why some of the mechanics are the way they are.

Well, as I've said elsewhere when this comes up... IMO, the story should be emergent from the actions and interactions of the PCs, NPCs, and the setting. "The Story" should never be the point of the rules or the focus of character decisions.

Even in fictional works, it's sometimes transparent that the writer(s) made a character decision based on what would make "the best story", rather than consistent and coherent characterization -- and those moments make me want to throw the book against the wall, turn off the TV, whatever. Same with when the characters are obviously written, as you say, to pass around the idiot ball for the sake of ""better story". Characters and setting that are plainly subordinate to the needs of "THE STORY" are no better than cardboard caricatures.

The last thing I want is to do play a character who's a slave to "THE STORY".

profitofrage

2016-08-04, 08:03 PM

Well, as I've said elsewhere when this comes up... IMO, the story should be emergent from the actions and interactions of the PCs, NPCs, and the setting. "The Story" should never be the point of the rules or the focus of character decisions.

Even in fictional works, it's sometimes transparent that the writer(s) made a character decision based on what would make "the best story", rather than consistent and coherent characterization -- and those moments make me want to throw the book against the wall, turn off the TV, whatever. Same with when the characters are obviously written, as you say, to pass around the idiot ball for the sake of ""better story". Characters and setting that are plainly subordinate to the needs of "THE STORY" are no better than cardboard caricatures.

The last thing I want is to do play a character who's a slave to "THE STORY".

Your not a slave to the story though, your just creating a character with beliefs, motivations e.t.c knowing that they will MATTER in the game.
The STORY isnt prewritten because the beliefs/instincts e.t.c are not FORCED upon you, you pick them.

The difference is that in BW you dont get to have your dumb barbarian suddenly be super smart when it benefits him. Or more accurately...you can but it gives you an incentive to play him straight. If anything what you are advocating for isnt "freedom from the story" but freedom from your character.

Max_Killjoy

2016-08-04, 08:22 PM

Your not a slave to the story though, your just creating a character with beliefs, motivations e.t.c knowing that they will MATTER in the game.
The STORY isnt prewritten because the beliefs/instincts e.t.c are not FORCED upon you, you pick them.

The difference is that in BW you dont get to have your dumb barbarian suddenly be super smart when it benefits him. Or more accurately...you can but it gives you an incentive to play him straight. If anything what you are advocating for isnt "freedom from the story" but freedom from your character.

Look at my post in the context of the post it was in response to.

The beliefs, instinct, and trait mechanics in Burning Wheel are all encouragement for meta-gaming, they encourage you to make decisions which are probably bad ideas from the character's perspective but will be rewarded by the system, that is the point of all those mechanics, Burning Wheel characters will do things which are against their own best interest due to the meta-game because that makes a better story than people who always take the best option. The advancement mechanics serve the same purpose, if you want to advance past a certain point you need to take rolls which you are probably/definitely going to fail, because seeing the character's occasionally bite off more than they can chew is part of the game narrative. In my experience Burning Wheel works best with a cast of slightly messed up individuals with very strong motives who consistently make their own lives harder than they have to be, that seems to be the kind of people the game is designed to be about.

What is being described there is, as I read it, a game in which the characters are there to serve "the story".

I'm advocating that there should be no end-goal of "the story", and that the story of the characters and their world going forward does not exist until the events happen -- as I said, that the story is emergent, driven by the characters (PCs and NPCs) and the setting they inhabit, and their interactions, NOT by intentional design.

.

BayardSPSR

2016-08-04, 08:36 PM

I think that you're completely right about the way around it being to meta-game, I would also say that the point of was to encourage players to meta-game. The beliefs, instinct, and trait mechanics in Burning Wheel are all encouragement for meta-gaming, they encourage you to make decisions which are probably bad ideas from the character's perspective but will be rewarded by the system, that is the point of all those mechanics, Burning Wheel characters will do things which are against their own best interest due to the meta-game because that makes a better story than people who always take the best option. The advancement mechanics serve the same purpose, if you want to advance past a certain point you need to take rolls which you are probably/definitely going to fail, because seeing the character's occasionally bite off more than they can chew is part of the game narrative. In my experience Burning Wheel works best with a cast of slightly messed up individuals with very strong motives who consistently make their own lives harder than they have to be, that seems to be the kind of people the game is designed to be about.

Yeah, this does sound like it amounts to metagaming in pursuit of character progression rewards (something I've noticed Dungeon World to encourage as well), with "story" as a fig leaf on top.

In my experience Burning Wheel works best with a cast of slightly messed up individuals with very strong motives who consistently make their own lives harder than they have to be, that seems to be the kind of people the game is designed to be about.

Except this is the problem: such a system (rewarding players with character progression the character is unaware of) divorces the motives of the player from the motives of the player. So what you'd get from the metagaming isn't people acting against their own interests, but against their motives in favor of their (metagame) interests.

This is inherent to any character progression system that ties that progression to specific things, except things that the character is assumed to be motivated to pursue (for example, gold = xp).

A bunch of characters doing things with no clear motive, because their players know they get stronger if they do those things, isn't a story at all. It's a series of things happening that have no relationship to any character's fears or desires, and possibly no narrative impact at all.

CharonsHelper

2016-08-04, 09:04 PM

Except this is the problem: such a system (rewarding players with character progression the character is unaware of) divorces the motives of the player from the motives of the player. So what you'd get from the metagaming isn't people acting against their own interests, but against their motives in favor of their (metagame) interests.

This is inherent to any character progression system that ties that progression to specific things, except things that the character is assumed to be motivated to pursue (for example, gold = xp).

A bunch of characters doing things with no clear motive, because their players know they get stronger if they do those things, isn't a story at all. It's a series of things happening that have no relationship to any character's fears or desires, and possibly no narrative impact at all.

Yes, you have to look at how the game's incentives are changing play. Gold = xp was intentional in making avoiding monsters the safer and more rewarding option to smashing through encounters (which would likely end up killing you back then anyway).

Since BW incentivizes doing stupid things for 'character' reasons, then people are going to do those stupid character things whether or not they want to move the character in that direction, with the motivation of exp.

profitofrage

2016-08-04, 09:45 PM

Yes, you have to look at how the game's incentives are changing play. Gold = xp was intentional in making avoiding monsters the safer and more rewarding option to smashing through encounters (which would likely end up killing you back then anyway).

Since BW incentivizes doing stupid things for 'character' reasons, then people are going to do those stupid character things whether or not they want to move the character in that direction, with the motivation of exp.

I just don't see this happening in the games I play.
I think its a case of over-analysing whats going on.

You get better at a skill by doing that skill often and testing it against harder and harder skills. This isnt "doing stupid things" Since the skills you WANT to improve are often your characters focus its simply just "Attempt trickier things your already doing"

Likewise, your beliefs, instincts e.t.c ARE where you want to take the character. Why would someone create a set of beliefs / instincts they do not want to play?
Likewise going AGAINST those beliefs in a meaningful way is also character advancement and are rewarded similarly.

I think your premise from the get go is just flawed.
Its not "do stupid things for character reasons" its "dont do boring things for gamey reasons."

Remember that you specifically do not have to roll for things that are pointless or gamey, you roll for significant events / actions that matter. Otherwise its considered training and is limited for that very reason.

"A bunch of characters doing things with no clear motive, because their players know they get stronger if they do those things, isn't a story at all. It's a series of things happening that have no relationship to any character's fears or desires, and possibly no narrative impact at all."

Except there IS a clear motive...playing the character....you know roleplaying..the whole point.
You get a better/stronger character...the more you play to that character. You literally get better for playing to there fears, desires / motivations.

Its specifically the opposite of what your describing, unless something has gotten turned around somewhere.

Max_Killjoy

2016-08-04, 10:01 PM

profitofrage

2016-08-04, 10:32 PM

And the last thing I want to do in a game is play a character who would do those sorts of stupid things in the first place.

While my PCs will have quirks, and difficulties, and issues, they won't ever be based on worn out tropes, story-contrived nonsense, or the requirement to act like a damn fool "for story".

What I DO NOT need is some sort of "driver" or "control" built into the system to "make" me play the character. If I created the PC and brought him/her into the game, then I wanted to play that character, and I will play that character.

You keep saying "doing stupid things" what things are you talking about? were not talking about attempting impossible tasks, just difficult ones...were not talking about making a thief try to fight a bear here...just have him pick the really tricky lock instead of climbing through the window (if its important to you to get better at lock picking mind you)

Likewise your not "made too" your "Rewarded for doing what your already doing."
your essentially complaining about free XP at this point if you already concede you'd do it anyway.

ImNotTrevor

2016-08-05, 02:17 AM

BayardSPSR

2016-08-05, 02:21 AM

Because they follow their instincts, flaws, and goals around and sometimes they wind up in trouble. So long as your GM subscribes to the school of "Killing PCs is the LEAST interesting thing I can do to them," then you shouldn't have to worry about taking risks and losing a character, though you'll still end up in a big heaping mess of trouble. Which is fun.

Jumping straight to this point, I want to observe that killing PCs can in fact be an extremely interesting thing to have happen, when handled well - and that when I'm on the player side, risking death with the certainty that the GM won't let my character die isn't all that fun, and can diminish the tension of doing dangerous things.

goto124

2016-08-05, 03:34 AM

Real people tend to make poor, suboptimal decisions and from such decisions come interesting twists in the story.

When everyone else makes poor suboptimal decisions, their stories get interesting twists.

When I make poor suboptimal decisions, my party's story goes down the drain and I regret ever starting the RP.

Why

If you want to argue about people making stupid decisions, go read The Hunger Games very carefully. Katniss makes a LOT of very stupid, but very in-character, decisions through the series. Seriously.
So does Harry Potter.
And Frodo.
And Bilbo
And (insert protagonist here.)

That explains a lot - when I read Harry Potter, I didn't see him as a character, but a plot device to guide the readers through the complexity of the story and the world. No wonder I feel so different when I'm actually invested in and playing out my own character...

biggest BAMF on the map

I'm tempted to make Overwatch references here :smalltongue:

Lorsa

2016-08-05, 03:36 AM

Yeah, this does sound like it amounts to metagaming in pursuit of character progression rewards (something I've noticed Dungeon World to encourage as well), with "story" as a fig leaf on top.

Except this is the problem: such a system (rewarding players with character progression the character is unaware of) divorces the motives of the player from the motives of the player. So what you'd get from the metagaming isn't people acting against their own interests, but against their motives in favor of their (metagame) interests.

Yes, this is one of the biggest problems BW has according to me. This meta-game creates a separation between myself, the player, and the character. Rather than roleplaying, I become more of a script-writer for a character in a show. If I want my character to remain relevant to the show, I better make decisions that are illogical when looked at from the character's perspective.

You keep saying "doing stupid things" what things are you talking about? were not talking about attempting impossible tasks, just difficult ones...were not talking about making a thief try to fight a bear here...just have him pick the really tricky lock instead of climbing through the window (if its important to you to get better at lock picking mind you

Well, technically, at some skill levels you have to do things that are rated "impossible" to advance. But it's not even like that. Sometimes you have filled all your difficult or impossible circles and all you need is an "easy".

Which means you can have a situation like this:

Goal is to get into a room and steal an item before a man living there gets home. His wife is sleeping in the house.

Thief: "What is the Ob for picking the lock?"
GM: "It is difficult."
Thief: "Ah, damnit, what is the Ob for convincing the wife to let me in if I pretend to be a guard and claims her man has just been arrested?"
GM: "Uhm, it is impossible."
Thief: "Great! I don't have any Persuasion skill at all, so that'll do!"

Now tell me how that decision makes any sort of sense other than from a character advancement, meta-game standpoint? Clearly, by playing to the personality and skill set of the Thief, attempting to pick the lock would be the logical choice.

From the character's point of view, completing the mission should be the highest priority. However, from the player's point of view, it is not, especially since failure just leads to more complications (and thus more chances for character advancement). Thus, you are constantly incentivized to steer your character towards actions that would make her fail, even though it is not what the character would do (given the stated personality). Unless, of course, you need those Easy obstacle skill checks, which tend to be the most problematic to get most of the time.

The point of roleplay-centric games is for the persons therein to feel REAL. Real people tend to make poor, suboptimal decisions and from such decisions come interesting twists in the story. There is a reason why people tend to like fallible characters over Mary Sues. Arguing that systems shouldn't reward you for building someone fallable rather than perfect when the goal is to make realistic, fallable characters strikes me as weird.

Real people tend to make poor, suboptimal decisions that are in line with their personality. BW has your character make poor, suboptimal decisions for meta-game reasons, leading to rather strange characterizations.

Realistic people will tend to try their best to succeed at really important tasks, not think "hmmm, which course of action will lead me increase my skills".

ImNotTrevor

2016-08-05, 04:00 AM

Jumping straight to this point, I want to observe that killing PCs can in fact be an extremely interesting thing to have happen, when handled well - and that when I'm on the player side, risking death with the certainty that the GM won't let my character die isn't all that fun, and can diminish the tension of doing dangerous things.

I would disagree, with the sole exception of making a quest about retrieving said character from the afterlife/otherwise reviving them. Outside of that one instance, it's really boring/anticlimactic.

Why?

Well now we'll never find out the ends of his/her story threads. (Unless, obviously, you're playing a game of murderhobo simulator 2016, in which case toss this out the window entirely because this isn't the kind of fun you're looking for.)
There's no reason to figure out who murdered Kaldred's estranged father once Kaldred is in the ground. Who's going to care outside of Kaldred? Especially if his/her dad was just some nobody.
So that potential arc of story dies. All of the potential action, drama, interaction, poof. Vanished

When everyone else makes poor suboptimal decisions, their stories get interesting twists.

When I make poor suboptimal decisions, my party's story goes down the drain and I regret ever starting the RP.

Why

Wrong group or wrong game.

Some groups/GMs approach the game like a turn based strategy game with roleplaying elements rather than a roleplaying game with turn based strategy elements.

That explains a lot - when I read Harry Potter, I didn't see him as a character, but a plot device to guide the readers through the complexity of the story and the world. No wonder I feel so different when I'm actually invested in and playing out my own character...

Harry is meant to be the lens through which we discover the wizarding world. After all, he's discovering it at the same pace we are. So to a certain degree he needs to act as a witness to that world. But Harry definitely has a personality, goals, and feelings as well. Which happen to involve a desire to learn more about this amazing world he has found himself in (which aligns with the same desire that the readers should have.) I'm gonna stop there before I begin doing literary analysis.

I'm tempted to make Overwatch references here :smalltongue:

The Current Time Is 12:00 PM.

Real people tend to make poor, suboptimal decisions that are in line with their personality. BW has your character make poor, suboptimal decisions for meta-game reasons, leading to rather strange characterizations.

Realistic people will tend to try their best to succeed at really important tasks, not think "hmmm, which course of action will lead me increase my skills".

If your players are faced with a situation where they would rather hunt XP than succeed, then they clearly don't think much is at stake and/or you've done a poor job informing them of what is at stake and/or there really isn't all that much at stake.

When faced with certain death, a player who chooses to go for XP is an idiot, and that's probably not the system's fault. (Especially since there are many ways to get xp, as far as I'm aware.)

I will admit my experience with Burning Wheel is limited, but I never observed players purposefully making the worst possible decision for the sake of stats while in situations where a lot was at stake. Bear in mind that most people who are attracted to Burning Wheel in the first place tend not to be huge fans of optimization, and thus aren't going to try to optimize their stats.

You have to make some assumptions about the goals of the player to get to this conclusion, namely that the player's goal is to have as many skills as high as possible at the cost of all other things. Which I'm sure can and does happen, but is far from most common practice.

Planes occasionally crash, but you don't see much by way of movements saying that flying is bad because some of the planes come down wrong. Every system can be pushed to extremes for truly bizaare outcomes, and otherwise all systems have flaws. But to make them out as commonplace is inaccurate.

Lorsa

2016-08-05, 04:53 AM

If your players are faced with a situation where they would rather hunt XP than succeed, then they clearly don't think much is at stake and/or you've done a poor job informing them of what is at stake and/or there really isn't all that much at stake.

When faced with certain death, a player who chooses to go for XP is an idiot, and that's probably not the system's fault. (Especially since there are many ways to get xp, as far as I'm aware.)

I will admit my experience with Burning Wheel is limited, but I never observed players purposefully making the worst possible decision for the sake of stats while in situations where a lot was at stake. Bear in mind that most people who are attracted to Burning Wheel in the first place tend not to be huge fans of optimization, and thus aren't going to try to optimize their stats.

You have to make some assumptions about the goals of the player to get to this conclusion, namely that the player's goal is to have as many skills as high as possible at the cost of all other things. Which I'm sure can and does happen, but is far from most common practice.

Planes occasionally crash, but you don't see much by way of movements saying that flying is bad because some of the planes come down wrong. Every system can be pushed to extremes for truly bizaare outcomes, and otherwise all systems have flaws. But to make them out as commonplace is inaccurate.

Well, technically, in BW there has to be *something* at stake for there to be a roll at all. However, what is at stake should never be certain death, just an added complication.

The problem is that you need to engage in this weird skill-advancement meta-game in order to have any advancement at all (unless you're lucky). If you really don't care, it's all fine and dandy, but I've yet to encounter a player who doesn't get at least a little grumpy when another player has increased in 10 skills while they have increased in none.

BW is built so you can have characters at very different power levels, that's what the life path thingy does. However, if you purposefully choose a certain power level difference in order to achieve a certain group/character dynamic in order to tell a certain story, and then the character advancement system rips that dynamic into shreds, it can get a little frustrating.

To expand on your plane analogy; not all models are made equal. Some crash more easily than others, meaning you have to do a lot of steering to prevent it from happening. Steering a plane is equivalent to meta-gaming in this case.

When I look for roleplaying games, I prefer those that limit the amount of meta-game necessary in order to make it function smoothly. I like to be able to engage the auto-pilot of my plane so I can relax, sit back and enjoy the ride.

Max_Killjoy

2016-08-05, 06:38 AM

I'm guessing that the home of the problem lies in our friends having a lot of experience with D&D, a system which is:
A) A combat-simulator first and roleplaying game second. (If you don't believe me, compare the size of the Combat section to any other section of the PHB, and consider its heritage being the descendant of wargames.)
B) Entirely devoid character-driven-goal mechanics.
C) One of the best examples of "how NOT to do flaws."

GURPS and other d20 systems have inherited a lot of these flaws.

So for some examples:

Acting out your flaws in Burning Wheel does not give you free skill upgrades. It gives you Artha, which is not (as far as I'm aware) used to level up skills but is a metacurrency. Basically, you do something disadvantageous now to buy yourself advantages later. For this reason, Flaws in Burning Wheel COST points, rather than giving you more. Because flaws are an advantage.

(Hold your applause)

Best of all, not using your flaws makes them disappear over time. So if you buy the Alcoholic flaw, you better be drinking all the time or else you'll lose the flaw. By taking the flaw, you make a declaration about your character's future behavior. If they don't behave accordingly, you lose the advantage the flaw gives you.

The point of roleplay-centric games is for the persons therein to feel REAL. Real people tend to make poor, suboptimal decisions and from such decisions come interesting twists in the story. There is a reason why people tend to like fallible characters over Mary Sues. Arguing that systems shouldn't reward you for building someone fallable rather than perfect when the goal is to make realistic, fallable characters strikes me as weird.

Now, it might not be your cup of tea if what you want from a game is the be the biggest BAMF on the map and make all the most optimal, butt-kicking decisions and destroy your opponents like they were made from paper mache and scotch tape. Which is a very fun way to play sometimes.

If you want to argue about people making stupid decisions, go read The Hunger Games very carefully. Katniss makes a LOT of very stupid, but very in-character, decisions through the series. Seriously.
So does Harry Potter.
And Frodo.
And Bilbo
And (insert protagonist here.)

Because they follow their instincts, flaws, and goals around and sometimes they wind up in trouble. So long as your GM subscribes to the school of "Killing PCs is the LEAST interesting thing I can do to them," then you shouldn't have to worry about taking risks and losing a character, though you'll still end up in a big heaping mess of trouble. Which is fun.

Actually, I left D&D over two decades ago, and I won't be going back.

-10 points for committing the mary sue fallacy, never mind the false dichotomies you're piling on here. Whether a character is believable or not, is not determined by the number of cliched Fiction 101 flaws piled on the character, and "character quality" is an entire multi-dimensional space, not two buckets of "flawed good characters" and "perfect bad characters".

Harry, Frodo, etc, make my pull my hair out with some of their decisions -- Harry especially. There are clearly moments when the only reason they survive, let alone succeed, is in spite of their decisions and because of authorial fiat. And then you have the problem of the idiot plot (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/IdiotPlot) that comes up too often in fiction.

The rules of an RPG are largely tangential to whether the characters played feel real. In systems as different as HERO, WEG SW d6, WW "storyteller", a giant homebrew project, and others, we always had an array of "character believability". If someone wants to get in depth with their character and portray a multi-dimensional person, there's no need for the system to hold their hand. If someone is interested in using their character as an empty avatar within the game world to act out "cool stuff", then no system is going to force them out of that.

CharonsHelper

2016-08-05, 07:23 AM

Harry, Frodo, etc, make my pull my hair out with some of their decisions -- Harry especially. There are clearly moments when the only reason they survive, let alone succeed, is in spite of their decisions and because of authorial fiat. And then you have the problem of the idiot plot (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/IdiotPlot) that comes up too often in fiction.

Indeed. Rowling is a great author in a lot of ways (I consider her the absolute master of pacing & fluid backstory) but believable characters and consistent world-building are not skills in her wheelhouse. (For an obvious world-building issue: if truth serum exists, then the bulk of their world's issues with falsely incarcerated wizards and letting bad guys off etc. shouldn't have ever happened.)

Lorsa

2016-08-05, 07:50 AM

Indeed. Rowling is a great author in a lot of ways (I consider her the absolute master of pacing & fluid backstory) but believable characters and consistent world-building are not skills in her wheelhouse. (For an obvious world-building issue: if truth serum exists, then the bulk of their world's issues with falsely incarcerated wizards and letting bad guys off etc. shouldn't have ever happened.)

Believable characters are consistent world-building are often forgotten by too many authors. Unfortunately.

The thing with characters making bad/poor/strange decisions leads to one of the largest benefits with RPGs as opposed to books or movies. You, the player, can actually make decisions that matter. Unless you have a railroading GM of course.

This is something BW does rather well to emphasize, that it's the players who should guide the story, not the GM. Unfortunately I don't think any game system can solve that problem for you. If a game system is an airplane, the GM is the planet. If a GM is of the railroading type, you won't be able to escape him regardless of what plane you jump into. You need a spaceship.

ImNotTrevor

2016-08-05, 08:40 AM

Well, technically, in BW there has to be *something* at stake for there to be a roll at all. However, what is at stake should never be certain death, just an added complication.
I wasn't suggesting certain death as a good idea for a thing being at stake. I was overspeaking to make my point. :P

The problem is that you need to engage in this weird skill-advancement meta-game in order to have any advancement at all (unless you're lucky). If you really don't care, it's all fine and dandy, but I've yet to encounter a player who doesn't get at least a little grumpy when another player has increased in 10 skills while they have increased in none.

BW is built so you can have characters at very different power levels, that's what the life path thingy does. However, if you purposefully choose a certain power level difference in order to achieve a certain group/character dynamic in order to tell a certain story, and then the character advancement system rips that dynamic into shreds, it can get a little frustrating.

To expand on your plane analogy; not all models are made equal. Some crash more easily than others, meaning you have to do a lot of steering to prevent it from happening. Steering a plane is equivalent to meta-gaming in this case.

When I look for roleplaying games, I prefer those that limit the amount of meta-game necessary in order to make it function smoothly. I like to be able to engage the auto-pilot of my plane so I can relax, sit back and enjoy the ride.

I'll focus primarily on this last paragraph. It ends up being a preference thing. Some people want 0 metagame, other people don't really care.
I'm in the latter camp. I'm playing a game, after all, so elements of gameplay that feel like a game don't bother me. Because it's all a game.

But hey, if it doesn't float your boat, don't play it. Some people don't mind that kind of thing and find it interesting.

Of course, calling it bad design hinges on metagaming being some kind of gaming sin. Which it isn't. There's nothing wrong with metagaming so long as everyone is having fun. *shrug*

Then again I think Immersion is a silly concept because you're never going to be unaware of the fact you're playing a game with dice, you will always be trying to secure a good position for yourself/your character even with flaws and characterization in play, and there's really no reason to make that a top priority in my eyes. But others obviously disagree.

Max_Killjoy

2016-08-05, 09:03 AM

Indeed. Rowling is a great author in a lot of ways (I consider her the absolute master of pacing & fluid backstory) but believable characters and consistent world-building are not skills in her wheelhouse. (For an obvious world-building issue: if truth serum exists, then the bulk of their world's issues with falsely incarcerated wizards and letting bad guys off etc. shouldn't have ever happened.)

I'm able to forgive some degree of that in the Potter series because Harry is a kid (with a terribly abusive background), and because Rowling is in a way telling a faerie tale, in which things are "just so".

It's not a setting I could write stories in, the issues with the unconsidered implications of certain magical "tools" (the time-turners, for gob's sake) not changing the setting or being used when they're obvious solutions, would drive me out of my gourd. BUT, they made for decent reading, and I felt as a would-be writer that I needed to read them.

Max_Killjoy

2016-08-05, 09:08 AM

Believable characters are consistent world-building are often forgotten by too many authors. Unfortunately.

The thing with characters making bad/poor/strange decisions leads to one of the largest benefits with RPGs as opposed to books or movies. You, the player, can actually make decisions that matter. Unless you have a railroading GM of course.

This is something BW does rather well to emphasize, that it's the players who should guide the story, not the GM. Unfortunately I don't think any game system can solve that problem for you. If a game system is an airplane, the GM is the planet. If a GM is of the railroading type, you won't be able to escape him regardless of what plane you jump into. You need a spaceship.

The player characters' actions and intentions should drive the events forward, and the story should emerge from that. I'm VERY uncomfortable with the idea of story being the point, rather than something that emerges from the game as played.

When a story or THE story is the goal, rather than emergent, then we get issues like your first line -- the author makes the consistency, continuity, and internal coherence of setting and characters subservient to what they perceive as the present needs of their desired narrative.

Lorsa

2016-08-05, 09:39 AM

I wasn't suggesting certain death as a good idea for a thing being at stake. I was overspeaking to make my point. :P

It's not like I haven't been guilty of that myself on occassion.

I'll focus primarily on this last paragraph. It ends up being a preference thing. Some people want 0 metagame, other people don't really care.
I'm in the latter camp. I'm playing a game, after all, so elements of gameplay that feel like a game don't bother me. Because it's all a game.

But hey, if it doesn't float your boat, don't play it. Some people don't mind that kind of thing and find it interesting.

Of course, calling it bad design hinges on metagaming being some kind of gaming sin. Which it isn't. There's nothing wrong with metagaming so long as everyone is having fun. *shrug*

Then again I think Immersion is a silly concept because you're never going to be unaware of the fact you're playing a game with dice, you will always be trying to secure a good position for yourself/your character even with flaws and characterization in play, and there's really no reason to make that a top priority in my eyes. But others obviously disagree.

I'm not sure I did say that metgaming is a sin. Obviously if people enjoy that aspect of the game, they should engage in it! It's one of the big issues *I* had with BW (since people had already engaged in discussion of things they liked / dislike about BW in this thread, I thought it was okay to join in).

I did try BW, some of the design ideas seemed interesting to me, but in the end it turned out not to be my thing. Could still be others' thing of course, I've always argued for that people should be allowed to have their own preferences.

I don't think immersion is a silly concept though. Obviously you will always be aware of the fact that you are playing a game, but it's not Boolean variable, it's a scale like most other things. BW's game mechanics brings me farther down on the immersion scale than I'd like (with up being higher immersion factor). Then again, I've always had an easy time to forget about the world and live in my headspace. One of the reasons why books used to be like crack for me, and why people had to come and shake me to get my attention while reading, as calling my name wasn't nearly enough.

The player characters' actions and intentions should drive the events forward, and the story should emerge from that. I'm VERY uncomfortable with the idea of story being the point, rather than something that emerges from the game as played.

When a story or THE story is the goal, rather than emergent, then we get issues like your first line -- the author makes the consistency, continuity, and internal coherence of setting and characters subservient to what they perceive as the present needs of their desired narrative.

I agree. I much prefer when the story is emergent from play rather than pre-determined in some way or another. Both as a player and a GM (arguable even more as a GM).

If I phrased myself poorly (that is, to contradict what you said), I apologize. Then again, maybe we're better off disagreeing anyway; not having a discussion is such a killjoy.

kyoryu

2016-08-05, 09:54 AM

Real people tend to make poor, suboptimal decisions that are in line with their personality. BW has your character make poor, suboptimal decisions for meta-game reasons, leading to rather strange characterizations.

Realistic people will tend to try their best to succeed at really important tasks, not think "hmmm, which course of action will lead me increase my skills".

Well, ideally in BW you're failing because you're trying hard things, not because you're making them hard on yourself. But that's a real possibility.

Jumping straight to this point, I want to observe that killing PCs can in fact be an extremely interesting thing to have happen, when handled well - and that when I'm on the player side, risking death with the certainty that the GM won't let my character die isn't all that fun, and can diminish the tension of doing dangerous things.

Death is a useful consequence. It's just not the *only* consequence.

What is being described there is, as I read it, a game in which the characters are there to serve "the story".

I'm advocating that there should be no end-goal of "the story", and that the story of the characters and their world going forward does not exist until the events happen -- as I said, that the story is emergent, driven by the characters (PCs and NPCs) and the setting they inhabit, and their interactions, NOT by intentional design.

Agreed. But usually, in the case of games like BW, "the story" is understood to be "the stuff that happens". The difference being that games like BW are more predicated on character-focused stories rather than a series of combats.

Considering how much I enjoy BW I would absolutely love to try mouseguard.
Is the system and the setting particularly tied together? or is it fairly easy to refluff like BW.

I'd say it's slightly harder to refluff. There's a few things (Nature, especially) that are really tied into the idea of the characters being mice. Should be doable, though.

ImNotTrevor

2016-08-05, 10:32 AM

Actually, I left D&D over two decades ago, and I won't be going back.

Awesome! I can support this decision.

-10 points for committing the mary sue fallacy, never mind the false dichotomies you're piling on here. Whether a character is believable or not, is not determined by the number of cliched Fiction 101 flaws piled on the character, and "character quality" is an entire multi-dimensional space, not two buckets of "flawed good characters" and "perfect bad characters".

Really? The scoreboard thing? We're dragging points into a friendly discussion...why?

I'm not sure what the fallacy states, but I sense it's not actually the point I made.

I never said more flaws=better character. Because that isn't true. However, 0 flaws does equal boring characters, because nothing interesting happens to flawless, perfect people with perfect lives. Or at the very least, we never feel like they're confronting any actual threat.

Granted, you can't technically have a Mary Sue in 99% of TRPGs. (I can think of exactly one where you can.) But systems mechanically rewarding you for not trying to make one isn't a bad thing and it simply strikes me as weird to say it is.

Calling any suboptimal choice made by a character "idiot plot" is a vast overapplication of the concept. And if you're analyzing all of your media for potential places where people are doing things that maybe suggest imperfect planning, I hear CinemaSins is hiring. :P

[QUOTE]
The rules of an RPG are largely tangential to whether the characters played feel real. In systems as different as HERO, WEG SW d6, WW "storyteller", a giant homebrew project, and others, we always had an array of "character believability". If someone wants to get in depth with their character and portray a multi-dimensional person, there's no need for the system to hold their hand. If someone is interested in using their character as an empty avatar within the game world to act out "cool stuff", then no system is going to force them out of that.

And if I want to be mechanically rewarded for roleplaying a multifaceted character?

Just as no system can force me to optimize and I can do my darndest to optimize in virtually every system, there's no reason to say rewarding optimization is bad.

For an example of some of what I mean:
Errant is a character of mine in Apocalypse World. He's a Faceless, a class built on barfing out violence and, occassionally, disappointing everyone close to them.

So when faced with a situation where Errant can be subtle, which is the smart choice, or run in screaming and go full-on murdermachine, even if it's the dumber decision, I will pick the latter.

Why?

Because that's what Errant does when the chips are down. He follows his own bloody hands everywhere he goes, because violence is what he's good at, what he knows, and what he wants. Doing something else would not be accurate to his character. Even if Errant has the capacity for kindness, when the chips are down and a hard choice needs to be made, he will choose the bloodiest path. Maybe not always, but very nearly.

This is not optimal behavior, but it is behavior that makes sense within its context. *shrug*

Koo Rehtorb

2016-08-05, 11:48 AM

Which means you can have a situation like this:

Goal is to get into a room and steal an item before a man living there gets home. His wife is sleeping in the house.

Thief: "What is the Ob for picking the lock?"
GM: "It is difficult."
Thief: "Ah, damnit, what is the Ob for convincing the wife to let me in if I pretend to be a guard and claims her man has just been arrested?"
GM: "Uhm, it is impossible."
Thief: "Great! I don't have any Persuasion skill at all, so that'll do!"

You don't get told the Ob until you've already committed to a course of action. :smallannoyed:

profitofrage

2016-08-05, 11:48 AM

People keep saying things...and its getting more and more clear that they either haven't played it or read the advancement rules wrong.

You do not get caught up in a metagame....because you ONLY advance in the skills you use...
Let me explain that further. You do not have the situation of "ok I want to pick the lock is it difficult" "no its easy" dang, ok ill convince the guards of blahblahblah" because that would be a different skill...and hence achieve nothing towards the lockpicking you were aiming to improve.

Likewise...you can use difficult tests in place of easy ones...so again...it just encourages you to push your character.
This does NOT MEAN STUPID DECISIONS. Just challenging ones. Lets not forget that you GAIN EXPERIENCE even if you FAIL the tests. That doesnt mean "fail so bad you lose a leg" were talking a system of degrees of failure. Fail by one? eh...not all that bad in the grand scheme of things.

Again it seems people didnt know this but Artha IS USED FOR ADVANCEMENT. It is in fact the MOST USEFUL advancement as you use it to grey scale or white scale your skills. Something easily worth 3x extra dice in those skills. So again you are literally rewarded for JUST ROLEPLAYING.

I had a character in the game do nothing BUT advance his character this way by playing to his interesting character traits. Not to mention picking new ones up with Artha and FoRKing his way to great skill tests.

Cluedrew

2016-08-05, 04:18 PM

I have never played Burning Wheel myself, but the system I think should be played more is Roll for Shoes (http://story-games.com/forums/discussion/comment/438050/). Feel free to check it out, it is free and rules light. It doesn't need a rule book, a rules pamphlet will do and it would still be mostly pictures.

Anyways the thing is it is also a system that rewards failure. It is the only way to get XP in the system. And you know what, I have never seen anyone go out of there way to fail at something. It really works out to taking the edge off of a failure, it is rarely (almost never) better to fail and get the XP, you still want to succeed. And this is a game that doesn't have many (any) ways of punishing failure, people still want to do well.

It does encourage some risks because you can add "... and if it doesn't work I get XP" to the decision making process.

BayardSPSR

2016-08-05, 04:44 PM

I would disagree, with the sole exception of making a quest about retrieving said character from the afterlife/otherwise reviving them. Outside of that one instance, it's really boring/anticlimactic.

Why?

Well now we'll never find out the ends of his/her story threads. (Unless, obviously, you're playing a game of murderhobo simulator 2016, in which case toss this out the window entirely because this isn't the kind of fun you're looking for.)
There's no reason to figure out who murdered Kaldred's estranged father once Kaldred is in the ground. Who's going to care outside of Kaldred? Especially if his/her dad was just some nobody.
So that potential arc of story dies. All of the potential action, drama, interaction, poof. Vanished

No. Not at all.

If Kaldred dies, the plot isn't (or is no longer) "who murdered Kaldred's estranged father." The plot is "Kaldred died :smalleek: :smallfurious: ." That becomes the most important thing to have happened in that session, and possibly in the game up to that point. At least, if handled well, the drama doesn't vanish: it explodes!

Likewise, the timing of the death matters: dying in the first session of a campaign intended to last a year is far less fun than dying at the climactic moment of the final session.

Death is a useful consequence. It's just not the *only* consequence.

True, far from it. It does need to be a possible consequence when a character is deliberately staking their life on something, though. "I would die to protect you" doesn't mean much if you literally can't die.

Also, the way I approach death as a player is different from the way I approach it as a GM.

Max_Killjoy

2016-08-05, 04:45 PM

Really? The scoreboard thing? We're dragging points into a friendly discussion...why?

I'm not sure what the fallacy states, but I sense it's not actually the point I made.

Any use of the term "Mary Sue" outside of referring to a specific sort of fanfic self-insert character is pretty much the "mary sue fallacy" at this point.

https://www.fictionpress.com/s/2412533/1/The-Fallacy-of-the-Mary-Sue
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MarySue
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Sue#Criticism
http://corabuhlert.com/2011/08/08/the-mary-sue-conundrum/
http://thezoe-trope.blogspot.com/2011/08/you-can-stuff-your-mary-sue-where-sun.html

Etc.

I never said more flaws=better character. Because that isn't true. However, 0 flaws does equal boring characters, because nothing interesting happens to flawless, perfect people with perfect lives. Or at the very least, we never feel like they're confronting any actual threat.

Part of this might come down to what each person means by "this character has flaws". If by "has flaws", you mean "isn't simply perfect and the best at everything", then I agree. If by "has flaws" you mean "has to have some issues that constantly cause them to suffer and/or make really bad decisions, and in general is nothing special really", then that's where we part ways.

And that later one, is the one I keep running into, that's given me this kneejerk reaction to the notion that only "flawed" characters can be interesting.

Harry, Frodo, etc, make my pull my hair out with some of their decisions -- Harry especially. There are clearly moments when the only reason they survive, let alone succeed, is in spite of their decisions and because of authorial fiat. And then you have the problem of the idiot plot (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/IdiotPlot) that comes up too often in fiction.

Calling any suboptimal choice made by a character "idiot plot" is a vast overapplication of the concept. And if you're analyzing all of your media for potential places where people are doing things that maybe suggest imperfect planning, I hear CinemaSins is hiring. :P

Actually those were two different related comments, not a claim that every suboptimal choice is an idiot plot. "And then you have..." makes them clearly two different complaints.

I'm not talking about "suboptimal" choices in the first part, I'm talking about actively terrible and blatantly foolish choices that immediately stand out as "what the HELL are you doing?" and shove me as the reader/viewer completely out of the story, yank back the curtain, and show the author pulling strings.

And if I want to be mechanically rewarded for roleplaying a multifaceted character?

Just as no system can force me to optimize and I can do my darndest to optimize in virtually every system, there's no reason to say rewarding optimization is bad.

For an example of some of what I mean:
Errant is a character of mine in Apocalypse World. He's a Faceless, a class built on barfing out violence and, occasionally, disappointing everyone close to them.

So when faced with a situation where Errant can be subtle, which is the smart choice, or run in screaming and go full-on murdermachine, even if it's the dumber decision, I will pick the latter.

Why?

Because that's what Errant does when the chips are down. He follows his own bloody hands everywhere he goes, because violence is what he's good at, what he knows, and what he wants. Doing something else would not be accurate to his character. Even if Errant has the capacity for kindness, when the chips are down and a hard choice needs to be made, he will choose the bloodiest path. Maybe not always, but very nearly.

This is not optimal behavior, but it is behavior that makes sense within its context. *shrug*

Does he ever change? Does he ever learn anything else? Does he ever find a way to temper the violence, at least when it's the worst path? Or even to start to learn that it's not always working?

.

Cluedrew

2016-08-05, 05:36 PM

I'm not talking about "suboptimal" choices in the first part, I'm talking about actively terrible and blatantly foolish choices that immediately stand out as "what the HELL are you doing?" and shove me as the reader/viewer completely out of the story, yank back the curtain, and show the author pulling strings.So really you are talking about "nonsensical" decisions, that is ones that make no sense.

I think ultimately the decisions that should be made are the "interesting" ones. Here I don't actually mean the decision is interesting, but rather I am using it as a short hand for it is a decision that helps the story it takes place in be interesting. We also want to avoid nonsensical decisions because those break immersion and so in a round about way make the story less interesting.

But where does that put how optimal the decision is? On its own how optimal or suboptimal the decision is represents very little about how interesting it is, so in some sense it is independent. On the other hand as you zoom out and consider different types of stories there is a need to create suboptimal decisions at some point.

However, as a game you never want to make suboptimal decisions. Because a goal of a game is to win* and so you want to take the most optimal path to victory.

So what this all comes down to is trying to make the mechanics you use and the story you tell actually fit together. Haven't played it so I couldn't tell you if it works, but that seems to be the goal.

*Or close enough.

.OK, random question. What is with this dot? I see it at the bottom of so many of your posts, more than enough to suggest it is on purpose but I can't figure out what it is for.

kyoryu

2016-08-05, 06:02 PM

True, far from it. It does need to be a possible consequence when a character is deliberately staking their life on something, though. "I would die to protect you" doesn't mean much if you literally can't die.

Also, the way I approach death as a player is different from the way I approach it as a GM.

Sometimes you're putting your life on the line. But in most cases, even physical conflicts will end with injuries and either capture or running away.

The trick is in making the fight be about something else, something that you don't want to give up, so that losing *hurts*.

Max_Killjoy

2016-08-05, 06:50 PM

So really you are talking about "nonsensical" decisions, that is ones that make no sense.

I think ultimately the decisions that should be made are the "interesting" ones. Here I don't actually mean the decision is interesting, but rather I am using it as a short hand for it is a decision that helps the story it takes place in be interesting. We also want to avoid nonsensical decisions because those break immersion and so in a round about way make the story less interesting.

But where does that put how optimal the decision is? On its own how optimal or suboptimal the decision is represents very little about how interesting it is, so in some sense it is independent. On the other hand as you zoom out and consider different types of stories there is a need to create suboptimal decisions at some point.

However, as a game you never want to make suboptimal decisions. Because a goal of a game is to win* and so you want to take the most optimal path to victory.

So what this all comes down to is trying to make the mechanics you use and the story you tell actually fit together. Haven't played it so I couldn't tell you if it works, but that seems to be the goal.

*Or close enough.

OK, random question. What is with this dot? I see it at the bottom of so many of your posts, more than enough to suggest it is on purpose but I can't figure out what it is for.

There's no space between the bottom line of a post, and the signature, and no way to force it with line breaks / returns -- the forum software always strips every blank line off the bottom of a post. So that last line just disappears into the signature visually. I miss people's last comments on their posts sometimes if they're just a standalone sentence, until I realize that I've missed something and go back to pick it out.

Sometimes it bothers me enough to put that . in there to force the extra space.

BayardSPSR

2016-08-05, 06:53 PM

Sometimes it bothers me enough to put that . in there to force the extra space.

White-colored character on an independent line in the signature?

Lorsa

2016-08-06, 03:41 AM

Well, ideally in BW you're failing because you're trying hard things, not because you're making them hard on yourself. But that's a real possibility.

There is often a difference between the ideal and reality. Unfortunately, while BW seemed good in idea, in reality it didn't work out for me.

People keep saying things...and its getting more and more clear that they either haven't played it or read the advancement rules wrong.

It's possible I have read the advancement rules wrong. I do not own a copy unfortunately, back when I tried to play it, I borrowed the copy of BW Gold that a friend had.

You do not get caught up in a metagame....because you ONLY advance in the skills you use...

I would argue that is exactly the reason you get caught up in the meta-game. The practice rules wasn't really a realistic option unless you have years of time between the sessions.

Let me explain that further. You do not have the situation of "ok I want to pick the lock is it difficult" "no its easy" dang, ok ill convince the guards of blahblahblah" because that would be a different skill...and hence achieve nothing towards the lockpicking you were aiming to improve.

Yes, but picking the lock achieves nothing towards increasing your lockpicking skill EITHER, so better choose one which generates a difficulty of a level you need to advance it. Since you do not only have to USE the skill (which is already hard enough given there has to be some big trouble if you fail), you also have to use it at the exact right difficulty.

Likewise...you can use difficult tests in place of easy ones...so again...it just encourages you to push your character.

You can? I must remember it wrong then, because I remember BW specifically saying you need tests of all different kinds of difficulties to advance, and that you couldn't just "swap them out at a whim". The only thing I recall is that for combats, you only got one dot per combat even if you rolled 100 rolls for a skill, but you could choose which of the difficulties you marked down (out of all the ones you rolled for).

This does NOT MEAN STUPID DECISIONS. Just challenging ones. Lets not forget that you GAIN EXPERIENCE even if you FAIL the tests. That doesnt mean "fail so bad you lose a leg" were talking a system of degrees of failure. Fail by one? eh...not all that bad in the grand scheme of things.

I never said they were stupid decisions. Just out-of-character ones. Or rather, they can be stupid from the character's point of view, while smart from a meta-game perspective.

Again it seems people didnt know this but Artha IS USED FOR ADVANCEMENT. It is in fact the MOST USEFUL advancement as you use it to grey scale or white scale your skills. Something easily worth 3x extra dice in those skills. So again you are literally rewarded for JUST ROLEPLAYING.

I had a character in the game do nothing BUT advance his character this way by playing to his interesting character traits. Not to mention picking new ones up with Artha and FoRKing his way to great skill tests.

Yes indeed. And you need what? Two or three deed artha to change the color (or was it one)? Let alone something like 8 persona artha or what was it? This means you really HAVE to focus all your artha on one skill to ever have any hope to improve one at all. Throwing in artha on a roll isn't something I think should be done "willy-nilly" or because you are specifically aiming to improve it. It should be done because THIS roll is REALLY important. Following that reasoning, most likely your artha rolls will be spread out over a multitude of skills, especially the deed artha. Gathering deed artha is hard enough, getting it spent on a skill with the right amount of other artha spent on it is nigh impossible.

Also, I was under the impression that when you look at the difficulty you actually get dotted next to your skill, you count the total of dice rolled, not your skill number. So if you have 4 in a skill, roll for Ob4, but FoRK your way up to 6 dice, then it's an easy check, not a difficult one. So FoRKing might actually work against your advancement (even though it increases your likelihood of success).

You don't get told the Ob until you've already committed to a course of action. :smallannoyed:

Ah, that may be so. It creates an even worse problem though, as it implies a character is completely unable to judge the difficulty of a situation before they engage in it. If you're jumping over a cleft you probably know approximately how long it is before you attempt the action.

It also makes character advancement even more difficult, as it leaves increase of skills entirely in the hands of the GM and/or luck.

ImNotTrevor

2016-08-06, 07:16 AM

Any use of the term "Mary Sue" outside of referring to a specific sort of fanfic self-insert character is pretty much the "mary sue fallacy" at this point.

https://www.fictionpress.com/s/2412533/1/The-Fallacy-of-the-Mary-Sue
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MarySue
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Sue#Criticism
http://corabuhlert.com/2011/08/08/the-mary-sue-conundrum/
http://thezoe-trope.blogspot.com/2011/08/you-can-stuff-your-mary-sue-where-sun.html

Etc.

That first article strikes me as trying to undermine the term by saying since it can't be cleanly defined it can't exist, but that's also true of Pornography. (We've been trying to define the line between sexual content, artful nudity, and pornography for decades. And the currently used definition is still not all that great.)
Yet we don't say the Pronz don't exist. They do. We know the difference between the three pretty well by looking, but what exactly causes the difference is hard to nail down, because it's a qualitative rather than quantitative change.

As they listed, no one of those things in the Mary Sue Test will assuredly make for a Sue. But, they are indeed traits that Mary Sues seem to have frequently. Hence the difficulty in nailing it down. I'd say that the biggest key is being a Wish-fulfillng Self-insert obviously meant to make the creator feel really good about themselves rather than be a compelling character. (In fiction, anyways.) This is easier to spot in fanfiction, and among novice writers, but there is hope:
As I said (or at least it was in my first drafts of my last post), Mary Sues are insanely hard to create in TRPGs as I define them: Being utterly perfect, literally flawless beings who only ever make the correct decisions and solve all the problems and everyone loves them.
But you can try.

Part of this might come down to what each person means by "this character has flaws". If by "has flaws", you mean "isn't simply perfect and the best at everything", then I agree. If by "has flaws" you mean "has to have some issues that constantly cause them to suffer and/or make really bad decisions, and in general is nothing special really", then that's where we part ways.

And that later one, is the one I keep running into, that's given me this kneejerk reaction to the notion that only "flawed" characters can be interesting.

I basically operate on the following principal:
We like a character more for their struggles than for their successes.

This doesn't mean they can't succeed, be happy, or be special. (Harry Potter does all three while still struggling. Good balance, there.)

But it does mean they need to struggle. What they struggle with, where, and how will be determined by what's fun for the player.

People make bad decisions based on their wants, needs, goals, and beliefs all the time. Were that not true, we would live in a much better world. So making only good decisions outside of a game where roleplaying isn't really the goal and just having some goblin-bashing is, doesn't strike me as fun. As far as I'm concerned, the fun starts when things go wrong. But that's a matter of taste at this point.

On the point again, I use the former definition rather than the latter, though the latter is basically the sam thing but on the opposite side of the spectrum. Characters who are forever stupid, miserable, amd suffering are also boring for many of the same reasons, just backwards.

Actually those were two different related comments, not a claim that every suboptimal choice is an idiot plot. "And then you have..." makes them clearly two different complaints.

I'm not talking about "suboptimal" choices in the first part, I'm talking about actively terrible and blatantly foolish choices that immediately stand out as "what the HELL are you doing?" and shove me as the reader/viewer completely out of the story, yank back the curtain, and show the author pulling strings.

Real people make decisions that stupid all the time. So, to take a really extreme example: Bojack Horseman, titular character of the Netflix series.

Bojack does incredibly stupid, mean, vindictive, and self-destructive things all the time, but it is always consistent with his desire to be beloved and try to relive the good ol days of the 90s when his show was famous, because he hasn't been happy since then. (Fair warning, while I enjoy the show and it is funny, it is also a HUGE bummer and will make you feel sad while you laugh. Great show, though.) And, actually, he tends to move in a positive direction, though he is fighting an entire lifetime of really terrible habits and decisions.

Basically, if the poor decisions are based on in-character and consistent reasons, then they're fine by me. When they aren't, that's when they're jarring.

Does he ever change? Does he ever learn anything else? Does he ever find a way to temper the violence, at least when it's the worst path? Or even to start to learn that it's not always working?
.

Errant's story didn't really turn out all that great for a number of reasons:
1. His class is built for tragedy. It says so in the class description. In exactly those terms.

2. It was a game of Apocalypse World, and while overall things ended great for everyone, Apocalypse World can have satisfying tragic endings, too. Probably the only system where I've enjoyed having the tragic, bad option happen because it didn't feel like a punishment. It actually felt like I'd done it right.

3. Errant was too far gone to turn back by the time he entered the story. His dedication to violence wasn't entirely based on a conscious decision. A sufficient amount of medication and therapy may have helped him turn it around, but the apocalypse is tragically low on both. So his was a downward spiral no one really knew how to stop. Which was okay within that context.

Now, that's just Errant. Other characters with similar dispositions have changed, yes.

For instance, Three. Three was an NPC, but I played him nonetheless. Through a rather remarkable series of events he ended up going from a strung-out drug-addicted dealer to becoming an apothecary in a relationship with one of the PCs. (This was mostly driven by the desires of the player in question, but I had the greater influence on how it turned out.)

Anyways, yeah. Characters and stuff. It's a big broad fuzzy mess without anything particularly easy to nail down except the most basic things. So as with anything ever said about characters, YMMV.

Max_Killjoy

2016-08-06, 07:18 AM

You don't get told the Ob until you've already committed to a course of action. :smallannoyed:

Which is bad game design. As pointed out, it means that people in that setting are unable to judge the difficult of tasks before attempting them -- which is a definite break from reality, and a strange one.

ImNotTrevor

2016-08-06, 07:22 AM

Which is bad game design. As pointed out, it means that people in that setting are unable to judge the difficult of tasks before attempting them -- which is a definite break from reality, and a strange one.

I think he means the mechanical part.

In D&D I can tell you a task will be hard without telling you the DC. I imagine it's a similar thing.

profitofrage

2016-08-06, 08:25 AM

Which is bad game design. As pointed out, it means that people in that setting are unable to judge the difficult of tasks before attempting them -- which is a definite break from reality, and a strange one.

I honestly dont know what he was talking about. One of the key design points is that you DO know the difficulty and more then that know the consequences to failing / passing the action ahead of time.

profitofrage

2016-08-06, 08:37 AM

There is often a difference between the ideal and reality. Unfortunately, while BW seemed good in idea, in reality it didn't work out for me.
It's possible I have read the advancement rules wrong. I do not own a copy unfortunately, back when I tried to play it, I borrowed the copy of BW Gold that a friend had.
I would argue that is exactly the reason you get caught up in the meta-game. The practice rules wasn't really a realistic option unless you have years of time between the sessions.
Yes, but picking the lock achieves nothing towards increasing your lockpicking skill EITHER, so better choose one which generates a difficulty of a level you need to advance it. Since you do not only have to USE the skill (which is already hard enough given there has to be some big trouble if you fail), you also have to use it at the exact right difficulty.
You can? I must remember it wrong then, because I remember BW specifically saying you need tests of all different kinds of difficulties to advance, and that you couldn't just "swap them out at a whim". The only thing I recall is that for combats, you only got one dot per combat even if you rolled 100 rolls for a skill, but you could choose which of the difficulties you marked down (out of all the ones you rolled for).
I never said they were stupid decisions. Just out-of-character ones. Or rather, they can be stupid from the character's point of view, while smart from a meta-game perspective.
Yes indeed. And you need what? Two or three deed artha to change the color (or was it one)? Let alone something like 8 persona artha or what was it? This means you really HAVE to focus all your artha on one skill to ever have any hope to improve one at all. Throwing in artha on a roll isn't something I think should be done "willy-nilly" or because you are specifically aiming to improve it. It should be done because THIS roll is REALLY important. Following that reasoning, most likely your artha rolls will be spread out over a multitude of skills, especially the deed artha. Gathering deed artha is hard enough, getting it spent on a skill with the right amount of other artha spent on it is nigh impossible.
Also, I was under the impression that when you look at the difficulty you actually get dotted next to your skill, you count the total of dice rolled, not your skill number. So if you have 4 in a skill, roll for Ob4, but FoRK your way up to 6 dice, then it's an easy check, not a difficult one. So FoRKing might actually work against your advancement (even though it increases your likelihood of success).
Ah, that may be so. It creates an even worse problem though, as it implies a character is completely unable to judge the difficulty of a situation before they engage in it. If you're jumping over a cleft you probably know approximately how long it is before you attempt the action.
It also makes character advancement even more difficult, as it leaves increase of skills entirely in the hands of the GM and/or luck.

Oh god there is so much here.... :P Ok...
As a bit of a short hand way of trying to address you. To be totally honest I have never played Gold edition, only original and revised. So there may be differences here.

Picking the lock ONLY doesnt achieve anything if its not particularly difficult to unpick ( assuming you are not after easy tests). But if all the locks your coming across are not hard to pick...then you dont really need to improve that skill do you? Again...its people getting caught up in mechanics for essentially no reason. the complaint that its "getting stuck in the meta game" just doesnt make sense...because your deliberately putting yourself there. The character is either feeling challenged (and hence improving) or there not...and you get to succeed which is WHY you want to improve anyway.

You cant swap out easy tests for difficult ones no matter how many you have, but they do mention it being a good idea to allow challenging, difficult e.t.c to scale DOWN.

As for out of character decisions.... what are you talking about... A Master theif comes by a door thats hard to pick. How is it out of character for him to TRY PICKING THE LOCK.

Yes your right, you need a lot of artha to improve in that fashion. But the whole point is that this is a specific reward for roleplaying... you cant complain this is somehow a fault. Its not "forcing you" to play your character... its rewarding you. The scale of that reward is not important... its certainly not a negative. Likewise how this creates a "meta game" narrative I have no idea... since you PICK these traits / beliefs e.t.c so your being rewarded for playing the character the way you wanted too anyway. If anything... its specifically PREVENTING meta gaming. No more paladins walking away during the interrogation because he could get Artha stopping it happening (likewise his friends dont feel cheated by lawful stupidity, because now they have a stronger party. more so if they roleplay it out using THERE beliefs e.t.c)

Koo Rehtorb

2016-08-06, 03:55 PM

Ah, that may be so. It creates an even worse problem though, as it implies a character is completely unable to judge the difficulty of a situation before they engage in it. If you're jumping over a cleft you probably know approximately how long it is before you attempt the action.

It doesn't mean anything of the sort. There's nothing stopping you from trying to judge the difficulty of a test yourself by asking for descriptions and making common sense judgements. A visual inspection and basic logic should tell you that trying to break down a rickety wooden door is probably going to be easier than trying to break down the reinforced steel portcullis or that trying to persuade the king of something is probably going to be harder than trying to persuade a child.

What it does mean is that if that child happens to be Harry Potter you don't get to know the fact that it's going to be abnormally hard to persuade him of something until you've tried.

Koo Rehtorb

2016-08-06, 04:31 PM

Max_Killjoy

2016-08-06, 09:54 PM

Also something just occurred to me. I don't know if this has been said before but in BW the player ALWAYS knows the consequences of failing a test in advance before deciding if he wants to make the test or not. They always know what they'll get if they succeed in the test too, for that matter.

1) The player states intent, specifically saying what they want to get out of this test if they succeed.
2) GM declares a failure stake for the test. GM and players can bargain with each other over this. GM has the final say in stakes, but the players can walk away at this point if they're not happy with the stakes.
3) Once the player has committed then they're told the difficulty of the test.

If people are just constantly doing stupid things to try to advance skills then maybe the GM isn't setting hard enough stakes for their tests.

I prefer to have a bit more "if this were a a real situation, would you know what the true consequences of failure are before trying" in how much the character, and thus the player, knows about the possible outcomes.

If you're trying to jump over a 1000' deep chasm, you know what the failure state is -- a 1000' drop, with a sudden stop at the end.

If you're trying to open the mysterious panel next to a door, you don't know if it's trapped, or alarmed, or whatever, until you at least get it open without setting anything off.

BayardSPSR

2016-08-06, 10:31 PM

If you're trying to jump over a 1000' deep chasm, you know what the failure state is -- a 1000' drop, with a sudden stop at the end.

Unless the failure state is "you catch a branch and your friends have to help you up," which is a preference common to many GMs, and a hugely different result.

Lorsa

2016-08-07, 02:56 AM

Oh god there is so much here.... :P Ok...
As a bit of a short hand way of trying to address you. To be totally honest I have never played Gold edition, only original and revised. So there may be differences here.

Picking the lock ONLY doesnt achieve anything if its not particularly difficult to unpick ( assuming you are not after easy tests). But if all the locks your coming across are not hard to pick...then you dont really need to improve that skill do you? Again...its people getting caught up in mechanics for essentially no reason. the complaint that its "getting stuck in the meta game" just doesnt make sense...because your deliberately putting yourself there. The character is either feeling challenged (and hence improving) or there not...and you get to succeed which is WHY you want to improve anyway.

You are right, I am putting myself there. Because well, while I am not a powergamer, I do like to occasionally increase my skills. I found this meta-game the only way to reliably make that happen.

You cant swap out easy tests for difficult ones no matter how many you have, but they do mention it being a good idea to allow challenging, difficult e.t.c to scale DOWN.

They do? Is that some add-on special rule? It's not how the game ran when I played it, but it would make things a little better for sure.

As for out of character decisions.... what are you talking about... A Master theif comes by a door thats hard to pick. How is it out of character for him to TRY PICKING THE LOCK.

It isn't. That's what I was saying all along. It IS however, out of character to NOT pick the lock in order for the player to have any chance at all of advancing skills. Which is what I found you have to do in order to... well... advance skills.

Yes your right, you need a lot of artha to improve in that fashion. But the whole point is that this is a specific reward for roleplaying... you cant complain this is somehow a fault. Its not "forcing you" to play your character... its rewarding you. The scale of that reward is not important... its certainly not a negative. Likewise how this creates a "meta game" narrative I have no idea... since you PICK these traits / beliefs e.t.c so your being rewarded for playing the character the way you wanted too anyway. If anything... its specifically PREVENTING meta gaming. No more paladins walking away during the interrogation because he could get Artha stopping it happening (likewise his friends dont feel cheated by lawful stupidity, because now they have a stronger party. more so if they roleplay it out using THERE beliefs e.t.c)

I think you misunderstood me. I don't have a problem with the way artha is earned, but how much needs to be spent in order to grey or white skills. The way the game is written, I just don't see it happening, unless the campaign is looooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong (and your character manages to avoid fighting).

goto124

2016-08-07, 03:07 AM

Whenever I have to choose between "do a thing that's stupid but in line with my character's views" and "don't do the stupid thing", I go with the option that doesn't leave me having to 'justify' to my groupmates that "that's what my character would do!"

I've never 'justified' to my groupmates that "that's what my character would do", when I get called out for a stupid thing I just break down and cry.

Yay, me.

Lorsa

2016-08-07, 03:15 AM

goto124

2016-08-07, 03:22 AM

Lorsa

2016-08-07, 04:15 AM

Probably not, I catch myself doing stupid things and the effect's the same.

In video games I just run around trying everything and not caring how other NPCs feel* or the number of times I failed. In a TRPG, it's the exact opposite.

* I've so far avoided games where 'how other NPCs feel' actually matters, by sticking to those where there's a prescripted plot and any reaction at all means I'm going in the right direction.

What if you had some sort of "warp reality" power that would reset the world to the state it was in before you attempted the action?

Or some form of precognition that would allow you to figure out if something was stupid before doing it?

Koo Rehtorb

2016-08-07, 10:37 AM

The way the game is written, I just don't see it happening, unless the campaign is looooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong (and your character manages to avoid fighting).

This is what the game is made for. If you're not planning on playing 20+ sessions at an absolute minimum then BW is probably the wrong game for you.

Max_Killjoy

2016-08-07, 10:47 AM

Unless the failure state is "you catch a branch and your friends have to help you up," which is a preference common to many GMs, and a hugely different result.

Not the point.

Cluedrew

2016-08-07, 01:28 PM

To Max_Killjoy: OK... now I just have to ask: What is the point?

Max_Killjoy

2016-08-07, 02:02 PM

To Max_Killjoy: OK... now I just have to ask: What is the point?

The point was to show examples of two different situations, and thereby illustrate that "the player or their PC *akways* know the explicit stakes of failure", and "the player or their PC *never* know the explicit stakes of failure" are both poor models of the full breadth of situations a PC might end up in.

I've seen both promoted in these sorts of discussions, and I don't care for either extreme.

profitofrage

2016-08-07, 08:19 PM

Points addressing various people:

1) you do not always know exactly what the consequences are, for e.g in perception style tests. Its simply encouraged as a conversation. Fail to pick the lock "Youll alert a guard no doubt" You dont have to tell them the guard is a 10 foot golem for e.g Yes there can still be surprises in the game.
Funnily enough this adds to the realism. Because as players who are not experiencing the senses of our characters we often do not have all the required information in a game that the characters would. Common sense things like "if you are too loud trying to pick this lock there is probably a guard nearby who would hear" is not something a player may be immediately aware of. By having this conversation with each test (remember the tests are all significant) everyone involved gets a better view of the situation. Unrealistic knowledge does not have to be involved.

2)You will inevitably increase your skills, doing so is as easy as USING THE SKILLS you want to improve. If you DONT PLAN ON USING THE SKILL, then clearly your desire to increase it is kind of silly..and hence you are creating the problem FOR YOURSELF. Likewise the only time increasing your skill is difficult is when its already very high...which would assume youve been playing a while...which would hence give you the alternative option of training or using Artha. Remember, you can pick up traits e.t.c that effectively give you dice at skills by roleplaying better / differently / investing Artha (depending on your DM there). So again....playing the game and character gets you a better character.

3) If for some reason you find yourself looking for alternative ways to accomplish a set of problems because your character is rusty and really wants to increase his climbing skill rather then lock picking. This is hardly meta- gaming. Clearly your character considers those skills worth more then his current ones. If the chracter doesn't well then....why are you doing it? you clearly dont need the skill? you obviously havn't prioritised it until now because then you WOULD have increased it. Its just a problem I dont understand people having unless there entire goal for the game is to get more dice for things they don't use.

4) I really think that the problems concerning burning wheel is more due to people playing significant amounts of DnD like systems. Where you character is specifically linked to what they can do and what they can potentially do mechanically rather then who the character actually is and how they behave. In Burning wheel your not a barbarian because you have a rage mechanic and cleave. In burning wheel you are not "a better barbarian" because you spent your XP on greater cleave and greater rage. In burning wheel, you are a barbarian because your character angers easily and reacts to the world with a simple minded yet passionate outlook. In burning wheel you are a better barbarian because you have slain many foes with your greataxe and beat everyone in the bar senseless last night.
you talk to any person playing a barbarian in DnD and ask them "if you got XP for doing all those fun barbarian things you like to do would you be thrilled" and I dare to say all of them would praise you for it.
Burning wheel just does that for everyone and there characters.

Lorsa

2016-08-08, 02:20 AM

2)You will inevitably increase your skills, doing so is as easy as USING THE SKILLS you want to improve. If you DONT PLAN ON USING THE SKILL, then clearly your desire to increase it is kind of silly..and hence you are creating the problem FOR YOURSELF. Likewise the only time increasing your skill is difficult is when its already very high...which would assume youve been playing a while...which would hence give you the alternative option of training or using Artha. Remember, you can pick up traits e.t.c that effectively give you dice at skills by roleplaying better / differently / investing Artha (depending on your DM there). So again....playing the game and character gets you a better character.

I think we need some statistics here, because I don't find increasing the skills to be so "easy" as you mention it.

For example, what is your average amount of rolls per session? Obviously that is a factor. I found an average BW session do not have many rolls at all, as many of the things you attempt have no failure consequence.

As an example; I want to break into a house by lockpicking a door. Is there a time limit? Not really. If I fail I can simply go home. I even let the other PC stand watch and warn me if anyone is close enough to see our attempted break-in. So all in all, there's nothing at stake -> therefore not a roll -> therefore no chance of increasing the skills.

It's not "easy to use the skills". You have to find situations to use them in which warrants a roll. This is far from easy, and is highly GM dependent. Some skills are easier than others of course.

More than that, you have to use the skills at the right difficulty level. Unless your GM allows you this weird scaling of difficulties you mentioned, you need both Easy, Difficult and Impossible rolls, in some combination. For certain skills, it's extremely hard to get Easy obstacle rolls (again with there being something at stake). So you have to fiddle and wiggle your way around the system (meta-game) in order to get it. If this somehow came naturally to you, have you considered that you may simply be lucky?

3) If for some reason you find yourself looking for alternative ways to accomplish a set of problems because your character is rusty and really wants to increase his climbing skill rather then lock picking. This is hardly meta- gaming. Clearly your character considers those skills worth more then his current ones. If the chracter doesn't well then....why are you doing it? you clearly dont need the skill? you obviously havn't prioritised it until now because then you WOULD have increased it. Its just a problem I dont understand people having unless there entire goal for the game is to get more dice for things they don't use.

Except... you don't accomplish an important problem by using skills you are rusty in. That's not really logical. You do it by using the skills that are most likely to make you succeed. The rusty skills you train. But the practice rules are... slow, and require a lot of in-game time where nothing happens.

Also, whose to say you don't need a skill? Can you predict all future situations a character might end up in? Of course not. Just because you haven't used something in the past, doesn't mean you might not need it in the future. And since it's so difficult to get rolls in the first place, perhaps the character did want to prioritize that skill, but haven't found themselves in any situation which could be solved by invoking a roll of that skill with a clear failure stake.

profitofrage

2016-08-08, 02:40 AM

I think we need some statistics here, because I don't find increasing the skills to be so "easy" as you mention it.

For example, what is your average amount of rolls per session? Obviously that is a factor. I found an average BW session do not have many rolls at all, as many of the things you attempt have no failure consequence.

As an example; I want to break into a house by lockpicking a door. Is there a time limit? Not really. If I fail I can simply go home. I even let the other PC stand watch and warn me if anyone is close enough to see our attempted break-in. So all in all, there's nothing at stake -> therefore not a roll -> therefore no chance of increasing the skills.

It's not "easy to use the skills". You have to find situations to use them in which warrants a roll. This is far from easy, and is highly GM dependent. Some skills are easier than others of course.

More than that, you have to use the skills at the right difficulty level. Unless your GM allows you this weird scaling of difficulties you mentioned, you need both Easy, Difficult and Impossible rolls, in some combination. For certain skills, it's extremely hard to get Easy obstacle rolls (again with there being something at stake). So you have to fiddle and wiggle your way around the system (meta-game) in order to get it. If this somehow came naturally to you, have you considered that you may simply be lucky?

Except... you don't accomplish an important problem by using skills you are rusty in. That's not really logical. You do it by using the skills that are most likely to make you succeed. The rusty skills you train. But the practice rules are... slow, and require a lot of in-game time where nothing happens.

Also, whose to say you don't need a skill? Can you predict all future situations a character might end up in? Of course not. Just because you haven't used something in the past, doesn't mean you might not need it in the future. And since it's so difficult to get rolls in the first place, perhaps the character did want to prioritize that skill, but haven't found themselves in any situation which could be solved by invoking a roll of that skill with a clear failure stake.

your first argument basically boils down to "The system doesnt work unless the DM does what he is meant to be doing"
There is no need to wiggle... If things dont require rolls or are very easy...then your succeeding and progressing the story. You are apparently as good or better then you need to be.

Your second argument doesnt make any sense if you think it through. Your right... you DONT accomplish important thinks with skills your no good at... so whats the issue?
Yes you do whats most likely to succeed... which means either your training a skill because it was a hard test (yay improvement) OR your already really good at what your doing so its easy for you (Yay your effective at playing your character mechanically) OR your attempting something you are not built for... in which case (YAY your on your way to learning a new skill). These are your options... where is the problem? where is the fault in the system here? its literally YAY's all round.

Your third argument essentially boils down to "but I want to be good at everything to keep myself covered without putting in any effort to be good at that thing or devoting time to it...or roleplaying that my character is trying to be good at it". If this is the case then yes... burning wheel isnt for you :P because it presumes roleplaying the character, warts and all. Sadly not being instantly good at something is one of your characters warts.

Koo Rehtorb

2016-08-08, 02:51 AM

As an example; I want to break into a house by lockpicking a door. Is there a time limit? Not really. If I fail I can simply go home. I even let the other PC stand watch and warn me if anyone is close enough to see our attempted break-in. So all in all, there's nothing at stake -> therefore not a roll -> therefore no chance of increasing the skills.

Without commenting on the rest of it... no failure consequence for trying to break into a house??? Your GM isn't pushing anywhere near hard enough.

How about someone is watching you from a window across the street that your friends missed? Or sure you pick the lock and pop the door open, only to find out that whoops the house is full of ferocious guard dogs.

BayardSPSR

2016-08-08, 03:56 AM

How about someone is watching you from a window across the street that your friends missed? Or sure you pick the lock and pop the door open, only to find out that whoops the house is full of ferocious guard dogs.

Those sound like consequences for success, rather than consequences for failure. I don't disapprove, but it's relevant to distinguish between the two.

profitofrage

2016-08-08, 04:15 AM

Those sound like consequences for success, rather than consequences for failure. I don't disapprove, but it's relevant to distinguish between the two.

I assume the dogs scenario IS if you fail.
Failing the test doesnt mean failing to pick the lock. It means "things you dont want happen"

Lorsa

2016-08-08, 04:17 AM

your first argument basically boils down to "The system doesnt work unless the DM does what he is meant to be doing"
There is no need to wiggle... If things dont require rolls or are very easy...then your succeeding and progressing the story. You are apparently as good or better then you need to be.

Without commenting on the rest of it... no failure consequence for trying to break into a house??? Your GM isn't pushing anywhere near hard enough.

How about someone is watching you from a window across the street that your friends missed? Or sure you pick the lock and pop the door open, only to find out that whoops the house is full of ferocious guard dogs.

It's possible some of my problems may have arisen due to the GM. I don't deny that, and it is part of my argument. Unless you are lucky to get the right kind of GM, advancing skills requires some meta-gaming effort from the player.

Your second argument doesnt make any sense if you think it through. Your right... you DONT accomplish important thinks with skills your no good at... so whats the issue?
Yes you do whats most likely to succeed... which means either your training a skill because it was a hard test (yay improvement) OR your already really good at what your doing so its easy for you (Yay your effective at playing your character mechanically) OR your attempting something you are not built for... in which case (YAY your on your way to learning a new skill). These are your options... where is the problem? where is the fault in the system here? its literally YAY's all round.

Even if I succeed at most things, there's a psychological issue that if your friend raises his character's skills 10 times, and you none, you feel some form of jealousy. Perhaps you are immune to envy, but I am not. I am, as it is, a flawed character (thus more interesting?). So while I may say YAY to all above, I'll still be upset that even if I rolled an equal number of skill rolls as my friend,, his character happened to increase many of his skills in the process, whereas I didn't (most of them were of the exact same difficulty for example). It can happen quite easily in BW, and it feels unfair.

Your third argument essentially boils down to "but I want to be good at everything to keep myself covered without putting in any effort to be good at that thing or devoting time to it...or roleplaying that my character is trying to be good at it". If this is the case then yes... burning wheel isnt for you :P because it presumes roleplaying the character, warts and all. Sadly not being instantly good at something is one of your characters warts.

I disagree that it boils down to this. In fact, I do want to put in the effort. But the only way that can happen is a) by the GM giving me the right kind of situations, b) by me meta-gaming myself into the right kind of situations or c) using the training rules during some off-story time. Unfortunately, c) is also GM dependent, as such time may not be given.

My problem is that in the BW system, character progression is either left in the hands of 1) sheer luck, 2) the GM or 3) me, the player. Since I can't trust either 1 or 2, I need to do something myself. However, I DON'T particularly want to do it myself, as it involves playing to a sort of meta-game I don't want to play! I would much prefer if the system worked something like "if you've rolled a number of times for a skill equal to your skill rank, it increases by one". Then, I would at least be a little bit easier, and it would lead to more reliable character progression.

Max_Killjoy

2016-08-08, 07:08 AM

4) I really think that the problems concerning burning wheel is more due to people playing significant amounts of DnD like systems. Where you character is specifically linked to what they can do and what they can potentially do mechanically rather then who the character actually is and how they behave. In Burning wheel your not a barbarian because you have a rage mechanic and cleave. In burning wheel you are not "a better barbarian" because you spent your XP on greater cleave and greater rage. In burning wheel, you are a barbarian because your character angers easily and reacts to the world with a simple minded yet passionate outlook. In burning wheel you are a better barbarian because you have slain many foes with your greataxe and beat everyone in the bar senseless last night.

you talk to any person playing a barbarian in DnD and ask them "if you got XP for doing all those fun barbarian things you like to do would you be thrilled" and I dare to say all of them would praise you for it.
Burning wheel just does that for everyone and there characters.

I find it amazing how often the response to criticism of a non-D&D game will be to accuse the critics of being too invested in D&Disms.

I don't like D&D. I do think that characters should start from who they are and be bult from that, more than be built from the game system to who they are (although that's a holistic process in which what you can put into a starting character in the campaign in question does have some effect on the believable identity and backstory for that character).

And yet as with so many rules systems that are mechanically built to encourage roleplaying or story, Burning Wheel just falls utterly flat with me.

Max_Killjoy

2016-08-08, 07:13 AM

I assume the dogs scenario IS if you fail.
Failing the test doesnt mean failing to pick the lock. It means "things you dont want happen"

Which is, IMO, silly.

If you fail to pick the lock, then you fail to pick the lock. Unless you're going to assume that failure always causes the character to drop something loud or scream in frustration, the neighbors noticing or dogs being alerted is not a direct consequence of failing to pick a lock. The only reliably consistent consequence of failure to pick the lock, is that the lock stays unpicked.

This is why I dislike these sorts of systems, and why I dislike a lot of fiction at this point -- logical cause and effect is replaced by "what would be most interesting?"

If you want to see if the neighbors notice, that's stealth or something like it, not lockpicking. It's entirely wonky to tie the character's ability to go unnoticed into their LOCKPICKING skill, for cripe's sake.

SirBellias

2016-08-08, 10:04 AM

This is why I dislike these sorts of systems, and why I dislike a lot of fiction at this point -- logical cause and effect is replaced by "what would be most interesting?"

Each to their own. I like systems that add interesting twists and unexpected consequences in the face of bad luck. It helps when the things you're rolling for aren't tied to specific skills, as well. I agree that there's a disparity between a success of "you pick the lock" and a failure of "you pick the lock, but bad things ensue" if you're thinking of the skill as how good you are at picking locks. Logical cause and effect makes more sense to me if you have more concrete skills with obvious repercussions, such as the "ability to pick locks in a timely and skillful manner."

Having more abstract abilities helps justify the "more interesting consequence" train of thought, I've found.

If in Apocalypse World, for example, you don't have a number for picking locks. You have a stat for if you can keep your Cool enough to pick the lock before something bad happens. If you fail, you lose your cool, or just aren't cool enough. Off the wall consequences demand more abstract stats, methinks.

Max_Killjoy

2016-08-08, 10:41 AM

Each to their own. I like systems that add interesting twists and unexpected consequences in the face of bad luck. It helps when the things you're rolling for aren't tied to specific skills, as well. I agree that there's a disparity between a success of "you pick the lock" and a failure of "you pick the lock, but bad things ensue" if you're thinking of the skill as how good you are at picking locks. Logical cause and effect makes more sense to me if you have more concrete skills with obvious repercussions, such as the "ability to pick locks in a timely and skillful manner."

Having more abstract abilities helps justify the "more interesting consequence" train of thought, I've found.

If in Apocalypse World, for example, you don't have a number for picking locks. You have a stat for if you can keep your Cool enough to pick the lock before something bad happens. If you fail, you lose your cool, or just aren't cool enough. Off the wall consequences demand more abstract stats, methinks.

The problem there is that the skill (knowledge, muscle memory, feel, etc) of picking locks, and one's ability to "remain cool", are largely tangential.

One could be a master of the skill, but not have the temperament to "keep cool" while picking a lock under threat of discovery by hostile forces.

One could be ice cold under threat, and have absolutely no idea how to pick a lock.

kyoryu

2016-08-08, 11:01 AM

Koo Rehtorb

2016-08-08, 11:15 AM

Those sound like consequences for success, rather than consequences for failure. I don't disapprove, but it's relevant to distinguish between the two.

Nah this is the concept of failing forward. The idea is that the consequences for failure should never be "and then nothing happens". Where failure would lead to nothing happening give them success with complications instead.

Koo Rehtorb

2016-08-08, 11:20 AM

I disagree that it boils down to this. In fact, I do want to put in the effort. But the only way that can happen is a) by the GM giving me the right kind of situations, b) by me meta-gaming myself into the right kind of situations or c) using the training rules during some off-story time. Unfortunately, c) is also GM dependent, as such time may not be given.

My problem is that in the BW system, character progression is either left in the hands of 1) sheer luck, 2) the GM or 3) me, the player. Since I can't trust either 1 or 2, I need to do something myself. However, I DON'T particularly want to do it myself, as it involves playing to a sort of meta-game I don't want to play! I would much prefer if the system worked something like "if you've rolled a number of times for a skill equal to your skill rank, it increases by one". Then, I would at least be a little bit easier, and it would lead to more reliable character progression.

Well I won't deny that it is right and proper in BW for players to play with an eye on their own advancement and try to force situations where they're getting the kinds of tests they need.

That being said, if you're constantly just rolling things that are going to fail for advancement then the GM isn't doing his job either. If he's not giving you situations where you desperately want to succeed at something then he's not doing his job right, or you're not writing good enough beliefs for yourself. The counter to "I roll beginner's luck Persuasion instead of my B6 Locksmith" is making failure extremely painful. If you're not doing things you really care about succeeding at then you're probably playing BW wrong because that is the entire focus of the system.

SirBellias

2016-08-08, 12:29 PM

The problem there is that the skill (knowledge, muscle memory, feel, etc) of picking locks, and one's ability to "remain cool", are largely tangential.

One could be a master of the skill, but not have the temperament to "keep cool" while picking a lock under threat of discovery by hostile forces.

One could be ice cold under threat, and have absolutely no idea how to pick a lock.

Fair enough, I see your point.

If I was playing a character that I thought wouldn't know how to pick a lock, I wouldn't try. But if I decided they did know how, and I still had a bad Cool rating, then apparently they're nervous under pressure. Given enough time, a lenient MC could rule that they get the door open, but then you wouldn't roll at all. It is assumed in this game that your character is already a bad*** that, given enough time, resources, or bullets, can accomplish anything. Most of the time, their actions are constrained on one of these fronts, and the MC is supposed to push where they're vulnerable. You are assumed to have whatever specific skills you want, but how well you complete them under pressure is dealt with by one move and one move only.

Bear in mind that I'm not arguing anything here, just explaining my understanding of the system so you know where I'm coming from.

goto124

2016-08-08, 07:02 PM

If you're not doing things you really care about succeeding at then you're probably playing BW wrong because that is the entire focus of the system.

So what should my attitude towards failing be? Expecting it without wanting it? I've been in games where failure is such an expected yet very painful thing that the games are... well... painful. I couldn't keeping playing in a game that hurt me so much I might as well return to RL.

Koo Rehtorb

2016-08-08, 07:15 PM

So what should my attitude towards failing be? Expecting it without wanting it? I've been in games where failure is such an expected yet very painful thing that the games are... well... painful. I couldn't keeping playing in a game that hurt me so much I might as well return to RL.

If losing painfully hurts you as a player then BW is definitely not the game for you. You will lose, a lot, at very important things. But sometimes you won't lose, and those times feel real good.

goto124

2016-08-08, 07:35 PM

If losing painfully hurts you as a player then BW is definitely not the game for you. You will lose, a lot, at very important things. But sometimes you won't lose, and those times feel real good.

My experience says any kind of RPG is not the game for me, since any sort of RPG will have losing in it. It's just that in video games (or CRPGs), any mistake I make only means I get to try again. In a TRPG, failures stick (and yes, I avoid more punishing CRPGs where failures stick).

Even in RPGs where I do occasionally succeed, the success doesn't feel good. I don't think "aw yea I made it through the really difficult problem!", I think "sigh, I made it through this time, but it's short-lived and I'm not going to have anything good for a long time yet, why did I make myself trudge through mud and fecal matter for a single dirty crumb of bread I can barely taste for more than a split second..."

I keep hearing about how failure and difficulty makes success more special, but I have yet to experience it. They say "journey makes the destination more worthwhile", but I instead get "journey makes the destination less worthwhile". When the journey is so painful, the destination ceases to matter.

CarpeGuitarrem

2016-08-08, 07:44 PM

Which is, IMO, silly.

If you fail to pick the lock, then you fail to pick the lock. Unless you're going to assume that failure always causes the character to drop something loud or scream in frustration, the neighbors noticing or dogs being alerted is not a direct consequence of failing to pick a lock. The only reliably consistent consequence of failure to pick the lock, is that the lock stays unpicked.

This is why I dislike these sorts of systems, and why I dislike a lot of fiction at this point -- logical cause and effect is replaced by "what would be most interesting?"

If you want to see if the neighbors notice, that's stealth or something like it, not lockpicking. It's entirely wonky to tie the character's ability to go unnoticed into their LOCKPICKING skill, for cripe's sake.
It's a rather interesting spin on skills, but as I've sussed out, it's justifiable as such...

Because the system isn't Phoenix Command, it's not interested in assigning numbers to every single variable and specifically modeling them with rolls. So one roll stands for the whole action. When you go to lockpick, you don't generally also make a stealth roll, a perception roll, a concentration roll, et al. You just lump it all into one roll. When you make the roll to pick the lock, you're saying "If I succeed at this roll, I've managed to, under pressure, pick this lock with nobody noticing and without causing any complications."

The corollary is, your "Lockpicking" skill isn't just how adept you are at picking locks, it's how adept you are at picking locks in a dramatic, tricky situation. Why dramatic and tricky? Because you're playing a character in a story, probably a drama or adventure, which means that your lockpicking skill isn't being used in a mundane way. You're picking locks when your adrenaline is up, when big things are on the line, when you don't want anything to be going wrong.

Effectively, any skill in an RPG can be boiled down to "my ability to do X without anything going wrong". If you fail the roll, maybe you were careless with where you put your tools, or maybe you didn't account for certain factors in the scene, or maybe you've only actually done this thing in the comfort of your own home.

profitofrage

2016-08-08, 07:50 PM

It's a rather interesting spin on skills, but as I've sussed out, it's justifiable as such...

Because the system isn't Phoenix Command, it's not interested in assigning numbers to every single variable and specifically modeling them with rolls. So one roll stands for the whole action. When you go to lockpick, you don't generally also make a stealth roll, a perception roll, a concentration roll, et al. You just lump it all into one roll. When you make the roll to pick the lock, you're saying "If I succeed at this roll, I've managed to, under pressure, pick this lock with nobody noticing and without causing any complications."

The corollary is, your "Lockpicking" skill isn't just how adept you are at picking locks, it's how adept you are at picking locks in a dramatic, tricky situation. Why dramatic and tricky? Because you're playing a character in a story, probably a drama or adventure, which means that your lockpicking skill isn't being used in a mundane way. You're picking locks when your adrenaline is up, when big things are on the line, when you don't want anything to be going wrong.

Effectively, any skill in an RPG can be boiled down to "my ability to do X without anything going wrong". If you fail the roll, maybe you were careless with where you put your tools, or maybe you didn't account for certain factors in the scene, or maybe you've only actually done this thing in the comfort of your own home.

What I do not understand about some of the complaints in the thread is that they specifically state they enjoy roleplaying, that they enjoy situations arising from character interactions e.t.c and yet they essentially DONT because they dislike the idea that there might be roleplay consequences behind there actions. If you spent your time and rolls making sure you put everything into the right place, no guards were around e.t.c then the problem disappears because you wouldnt need to roll, or the roll is vastly easier.

How is this not as simple as "your rewarded for roleplaying and hence awesome" in there eyes confuses me.

AMFV

2016-08-08, 09:42 PM

What I do not understand about some of the complaints in the thread is that they specifically state they enjoy roleplaying, that they enjoy situations arising from character interactions e.t.c and yet they essentially DONT because they dislike the idea that there might be roleplay consequences behind there actions. If you spent your time and rolls making sure you put everything into the right place, no guards were around e.t.c then the problem disappears because you wouldnt need to roll, or the roll is vastly easier.

How is this not as simple as "your rewarded for roleplaying and hence awesome" in there eyes confuses me.

I think the problem is when the failure doesn't actually stem from something that the player was aware of or believed logically would follow. If my GM tells me to roll a lockpick check, for example, I would not assume that a stealth roll would be involved (depending on system). It's infinitely more frustrating that way, for example, say a character was very stealthy but only moderately good at picking locks. If he fails a lockpicking check, it's assumed that his better attribute is worse. Of course that's only in systems where skills are modeled with that kind of distinction.

As far as Burning Wheel goes... I really love a lot of the ideas behind. I love the root ideas behind the beliefs, and using skills to increase those skills and the idea of a life-path. But I hate the execution. Not in any way I think I could pin down, it always just winds up being something in pretty much every instance, from the preachy ranting by the author to many other things. It's like a throwback to some past systems where they've now grown out of that stage. But there's a lot of good ideas there, I just wish the execution was more to my liking.

profitofrage

2016-08-08, 09:57 PM

I think the problem is when the failure doesn't actually stem from something that the player was aware of or believed logically would follow. If my GM tells me to roll a lockpick check, for example, I would not assume that a stealth roll would be involved (depending on system). It's infinitely more frustrating that way, for example, say a character was very stealthy but only moderately good at picking locks. If he fails a lockpicking check, it's assumed that his better attribute is worse. Of course that's only in systems where skills are modeled with that kind of distinction.

As far as Burning Wheel goes... I really love a lot of the ideas behind. I love the root ideas behind the beliefs, and using skills to increase those skills and the idea of a life-path. But I hate the execution. Not in any way I think I could pin down, it always just winds up being something in pretty much every instance, from the preachy ranting by the author to many other things. It's like a throwback to some past systems where they've now grown out of that stage. But there's a lot of good ideas there, I just wish the execution was more to my liking.

Except that exact problem is already solved by the system. you KNOW the consequences of your action before you roll. you know EXACTLY why the consequence is resulting in your behaviour and logically follows because you have discussed it with the GM before rolling. A very stealthy character as you would describe wouldnt have that as a consequence because they have likely already ROLEPLAYED those steps they took and so when discussing the consequence with the GM obviously you dont suggest that as the consequence.

Its literally just MORE roleplaying... again... yay... why no yay?

AMFV

2016-08-08, 10:07 PM

Except that exact problem is already solved by the system. you KNOW the consequences of your action before you roll. you know EXACTLY why the consequence is resulting in your behaviour and logically follows because you have discussed it with the GM before rolling. A very stealthy character as you would describe wouldnt have that as a consequence because they have likely already ROLEPLAYED those steps they took and so when discussing the consequence with the GM obviously you dont suggest that as the consequence.

Its literally just MORE roleplaying... again... yay... why no yay?

I think the issue is when the roleplaying beforehand doesn't really happen. The player assumes that he or she is just stealthy enough not to need to make a big deal out of it, or when the DM and player have different conceptions of the same character. A player may think of their character as a stealthy cat-burgler, but a DM might think of them as a thug or what-not. It's important to remember that roleplaying is only a very brief window into the mindset and depiction of a fairly complex character. It's possible for people to have completely different ideas about the same character even when this is shown.

Also normally you don't necessarily discuss all possible failure clauses before rolling. Even in the most metagame oriented systems, that's pretty a-typical, although I don't think it's completely impossible, just really unusual. This is compounded in systems with critical or more severe degrees of failure. Or in systems where success can have complications. Of course there are many games that are very narratively focused, and could have narrative set-backs for failing a roll. But if that's not something you like, it's going to be something you are liable to dislike very much.

profitofrage

2016-08-08, 10:25 PM

I think the issue is when the roleplaying beforehand doesn't really happen. The player assumes that he or she is just stealthy enough not to need to make a big deal out of it, or when the DM and player have different conceptions of the same character. A player may think of their character as a stealthy cat-burgler, but a DM might think of them as a thug or what-not. It's important to remember that roleplaying is only a very brief window into the mindset and depiction of a fairly complex character. It's possible for people to have completely different ideas about the same character even when this is shown.

Also normally you don't necessarily discuss all possible failure clauses before rolling. Even in the most metagame oriented systems, that's pretty a-typical, although I don't think it's completely impossible, just really unusual. This is compounded in systems with critical or more severe degrees of failure. Or in systems where success can have complications. Of course there are many games that are very narratively focused, and could have narrative set-backs for failing a roll. But if that's not something you like, it's going to be something you are liable to dislike very much.

roleplaying before hand doesnt really happen..... in Burning Wheel... they have built a system that MAKES you roleplay... hence the discussion and my confusion as to why this is a problem. If your NOT following there rules then yea... it doesnt work well...

ANd yes... you DO discuss failures before hand because that is the point, if its not a big deal of a situation and doesnt need to be discussed either you dont roll at all or coming up with a "on the fly" failure state isnt really that big of a deal because apparently the situation is not important. I question what your even DOING at this point :P because apparently your character is doing something for no reason.

Like.... I think everyone in the thread is just totally dissociated from how an actual session runs.

situation:
Im a stealthy rogue, and im trying to break into this house. (the house is important to break into and failure matters, because otherwise what am I even doing at this point?)
I roleplay a whole bunch of steps about me distracting guard dogs with steak, knocking out a few guards e.t.c some of which took rolls others not. (picking up BW exp along the way for side skills)
I get to a door that I want to pick..and get started. I then have a conversation with the DM who explains to me that this place is guarded and that I obviously dont know who is behind the door best be quiet lest the tinkering of metal alerts someone. Im told the lock is fairly hard to crack, this is good because it pushes my character and I get exp(the equivalent) for this. I have roleplayed all the way up until now so I know through the discussion with the DM that if I DO fail someone has spotted me, but from the other side of the door. As obviously they cant come from behind (i knocked them out).

I then decide wether or not to do the test.... my mindset being specifically linked to the characters due to MORE roleplaying and discussions with the DM. My burgler decides "you know what, nah this just isnt a good idea... ill go through the window cause its easier" no meta knowledge needed... the burgler knows he doesnt know whos inside.
At the window he sees that in fact... all the bad guys are in the living room... meaning noone could possibly hear him pick the lock! back to the lock he goes ans the DM explains that the OB is reduced, or perhaps its the same ob but the failure ob is simply that it doesnt get picked? or whatever.

Boom... fun encounter with literally everything everyone in the thread seems to say they want out of a game :P

Max_Killjoy

2016-08-08, 10:35 PM

What I do not understand about some of the complaints in the thread is that they specifically state they enjoy roleplaying, that they enjoy situations arising from character interactions e.t.c and yet they essentially DONT because they dislike the idea that there might be roleplay consequences behind there actions. If you spent your time and rolls making sure you put everything into the right place, no guards were around e.t.c then the problem disappears because you wouldnt need to roll, or the roll is vastly easier.

How is this not as simple as "your rewarded for roleplaying and hence awesome" in there eyes confuses me.

Because I don't like my roleplaying, or emergent story, tangled up in the mechanics; and I don't want the mechanics focused on anything other than "mapping the territory" with verisimilitude and as smoothly as practical.

in Burning Wheel... they have built a system that MAKES you roleplay... hence the discussion and my confusion as to why this is a problem. If your NOT following there rules then yea... it doesnt work well...

I neither need, nor want, the system to "make" me roleplay. I RP because I enjoy it and because I enjoy exploring the characters from various angles, etc.

Nor can any system actually "make" a particular player roleplay.

Somehow, countless players who were interested in and desired to roleplay, and focus on their character as a person first and a collection of stats second, managed to do so before anyone put even a hint of "roleplaying encouragement" into the mechanics of a game. And even as those mechanics in various sorts became more prevalent, those players who were nearly purely "gamist" continued to be exactly that.

profitofrage

2016-08-08, 10:53 PM

Because I don't like my roleplaying.

You could have just stopped there.

I honestly do not know a single RPG that exists where your actions in the game are not represented mechanically in some form and hence "tangled up in your emergent story". The way BW has it does nothing but prevent you from just rolling dice and leaning back in the couch until someone asks you to roll dice again. It doesnt STOP you ROLLplaying it just discourages it.. and rewards people who ROLEplay i.e people who create emergent story by giving you mechanics to do so. Yes, if you do not like Roleplaying do not play BW. Its character focused, narrative focused and story focused. If you like those three things there in it in spades and they give you nothing but mechanics to facilitate that :P

EDIT:

You are literally complaining about being made to do something You ADMIT TO ALREADY DOING AND ENJOY DOING. Either you WANT TO DO IT AND HENCE CAN AND ARE REWARDED FOR IT... or you DONT and thats the real issue. that you DONT want to roleplay.

Max_Killjoy

2016-08-08, 10:54 PM

You could have just stopped there.

And that is why I find your "defense" of Burning Wheel a touch preachy and arrogant.

I honestly do not know a single RPG that exists where your actions in the game are not represented mechanically in some form and hence "tangled up in your emergent story". The way BW has it does nothing but prevent you from just rolling dice and leaning back in the couch until someone asks you to roll dice again. It doesnt STOP you ROLLplaying it just discourages it.. and rewards people who ROLEplay i.e people who create emergent story by giving you mechanics to do so. Yes, if you do not like Roleplaying do not play BW. Its character focused, narrative focused and story focused. If you like those three things there in it in spades and they give you nothing but mechanics to facilitate that :P

There is a vast gulf, a yawning chasm, between the way that most game systems are an abstracted mechanical model of the reality in which the game takes place, a map of the territory so to speak... and the way that some specific game systems attempt to "encourage" certain sorts of play or certain sorts of story arc or whatever. Having your character's actions represented within those mechanics is NOT in any way, shape, or form the same as having RP directly entangled into the mechanics as you describe (and other sources also describe) going on in the system for Burning Wheel.

Again -- I do not want or need the system to "encourage" me to play a certain way. The system exists to provide neutral determination of success and failure of discreet actions, inside an mechanical abstraction of the "other reality" at hand, and that's it.

profitofrage

2016-08-08, 10:57 PM

And that is why I find your "defense" of Burning Wheel a touch preachy and arrogant.

Im getting preachy and arrogant because you have spent the whole thread saying you like X, seeing a game that promotes X and rewards X then complaining that the system makes you do X

Max_Killjoy

2016-08-08, 11:07 PM

Im getting preachy and arrogant because you have spent the whole thread saying you like X, seeing a game that promotes X and rewards X then complaining that the system makes you do X

I enjoy watching TV sometimes -- that doesn't mean I want to be MADE to watch TV.

I enjoy going for a walk sometimes -- that doesn't mean I want to be MADE to go for a walk.

Etc.

I enjoy roleplaying when playing an RPG. I do not want the system to encourage, promote or "make" me roleplay. I do not NEED it to -- for the mechanics of the game to do so wastes time, effort, rules, word count, etc, on absolutely utterly unnecessary and unwanted mechanics, that entangle themselves in my roleplaying instead of letting me get on with it myself. I DO NOT NEED A REWARD OR ENCOURAGEMENT.

In other words, the rules need to BUTT THE HELL OUT and never involve themselves in how I characterize and present my PC.

As I tried to put in above, there is a vast gulf, a yawning chasm, between the way that most game systems are an abstracted mechanical model of the reality in which the game takes place, a map of the territory so to speak... and the way that some specific game systems attempt to "encourage" certain sorts of play or certain sorts of story arc or whatever. Having your character's actions represented within those mechanics is NOT in any way, shape, or form the same as having RP directly entangled into the mechanics as you describe (and other sources also describe) going on in the system for Burning Wheel.

Again -- I do not want or need the system to "encourage" me to play a certain way. The system exists to provide neutral determination of success and failure of discreet actions, inside an mechanical abstraction of the "other reality" at hand, and that's it -- nothing more.

I do not want the system to "help". I do not want the system to try to hold my hand.

I might enjoy watching some TV sometimes, but if someone tried to force me to watch TV, even my favorite program, I'd throw the damn thing out the window and tell them to DIAF.

profitofrage

2016-08-08, 11:13 PM

I enjoy watching TV sometimes -- that doesn't mean I want to be MADE to watch TV.

I enjoy going for a walk sometimes -- that doesn't mean I want to be MADE to go for a walk.

Etc.

I enjoy roleplaying when playing an RPG. I do not want the system to encourage, promote or "make" me roleplay. I do not NEED it to -- for the mechanics of the game to do so wastes time, effort, rules, word count, etc, on absolutely utterly unnecessary and unwanted mechanics, that entangle themselves in my roleplaying instead of letting me get on with it myself. I DO NOT NEED A REWARD OR ENCOURAGEMENT.

In other words, the rules need to BUTT THE HELL OUT and never involve themselves in how I characterize and present my PC.

As I tried to put in above, there is a vast gulf, a yawning chasm, between the way that most game systems are an abstracted mechanical model of the reality in which the game takes place, a map of the territory so to speak... and the way that some specific game systems attempt to "encourage" certain sorts of play or certain sorts of story arc or whatever. Having your character's actions represented within those mechanics is NOT in any way, shape, or form the same as having RP directly entangled into the mechanics as you describe (and other sources also describe) going on in the system for Burning Wheel.

Again -- I do not want or need the system to "encourage" me to play a certain way. The system exists to provide neutral determination of success and failure of discreet actions, inside an mechanical abstraction of the "other reality" at hand, and that's it -- nothing more.

I do not want the system to "help". I do not want the system to try to hold my hand.

I might enjoy watching some TV sometimes, but if someone tried to force me to watch TV, even my favorite program, I'd throw the damn thing out the window and tell them to DIAF.

Nothing but hyperbole.

"Man I could really go for watching some TV, time to turn the TV on" "Hello human, you are now watching TV, please tell me what you want to watch" "HOW DARE THE TV MAKE ME WATCH TV! AND HOW DARE IT ASK ME WHAT TO WATCH! I HAVE BUTTONS! i can decide what I want to watch MYSELF I am turning this off!" - this is you right now... this is what you sound like.
You could have just as easily pressed the buttons like you wanted, it was just going to help you / make it easier.
Just like how in BW you can roleplay just fine it just from the outset makes sure you are. The skills e.t.c all are rolled like any other dice system, it just gives you MORE opportunities to know/ discuss what is going on in the world your pretending to be in.

EDIT: you obviously, and its clear from your post. DO NOT actually WANT to ROLEPLAY. Just admit that you just want to role dice and ignore people... you will feel better :P I promise.

Max_Killjoy

2016-08-08, 11:25 PM

Nothing but hyperbole.

Really?

in Burning Wheel... they have built a system that MAKES you roleplay...

Huh.

EDIT: you obviously, and its clear from your post. DO NOT actually WANT to ROLEPLAY. Just admit that you just want to role dice and ignore people... you will feel better :P I promise.

Because I find a system that replaces discreet "task" resolution with a muddled mush that conflates "keeping your cool", "stealthiness", and "how well can I pick locks" into a single roll to be utterly unpleasant, and because I don't need or want a system that -- by your own statement -- "MAKES you roleplay" -- then that means I don't want to roleplay?

Wow.

Congratulations -- if that attitude is indicative of what I can expect from Burning Wheel, then you've succeeded in wiping out whatever curiosity I might have had left regarding the game. Thank you for preventing me from wasting my time.

...it always just winds up being something in pretty much every instance, from the preachy ranting by the author to many other things...

So that attitude pretty much is representative of the product? Good to know.

I'm old enough to remember being talked down to by the writers at WW, I don't need it again now.

profitofrage

2016-08-09, 12:55 AM

Really?
Huh.
Because I find a system that replaces discreet "task" resolution with a muddled mush that conflates "keeping your cool", "stealthiness", and "how well can I pick locks" into a single roll to be utterly unpleasant, and because I don't need or want a system that -- by your own statement -- "MAKES you roleplay" -- then that means I don't want to roleplay?

Wow.

Congratulations -- if that attitude is indicative of what I can expect from Burning Wheel, then you've succeeded in wiping out whatever curiosity I might have had left regarding the game. Thank you for preventing me from wasting my time.

So that attitude pretty much is representative of the product? Good to know.

I'm old enough to remember being talked down to by the writers at WW, I don't need it again now.

Yes, because you keep over or under representing everything :P
I can understand if all you want out of a roll is just that roll... I can even understand a lockpicking test to be nothing else BUT lockpicking. Its only the first time in the thread you have actually made sense in terms of what your actually complaining about.

In DnD for a prime example you would make a dozen rolls e.t.c up until the point you actually get to the lock. Each representing how quiet you were, how agile, did you bring the right tools, what bonus they give you, did you kill the guards, did you sneak past the dogs e.t.c
Each of these rolls would have been considered important in Burning Wheel because it changes the situation... none of that stuff changes.. fail the "sneak test" near the dogs? they find you... pretty easy to figure out the consequences of those actions. Most of the time the consequences are already fairly obvious but BW simply requires you discuss it so there are no unfair surprises, not worried about it? then move on... whats the deal? literally no downside to doing that.

Like... you understand that even in DnD people argue about "what failing a test" really means right? like how its represented in the story / game? even passing falls into the same boat. The whole "you succeed at hitting the peasent with the spear, but he is still alive" could be anything from "you stabbed him in the neck" to "you scraped his arm but hes probably about to faint" the mechanics could easily represent both. ALL BW DOES IS ASKS PEOPLE TO DECIDE THAT STUFF PRIOR/ AT LEAST BE AWARE OF THIS. Its literally doing NOTHING but trying to get you to be MORE involved with whats actually going on. The only time I can imagine you NOT wanting to do this is when you DONT ACTUALLY CARE ABOUT WHAT IS GOING ON. In which case BW has your back there too because you can just bypass all the crap that doesn't matter.

Lorsa

2016-08-09, 02:47 AM

Like... you understand that even in DnD people argue about "what failing a test" really means right? like how its represented in the story / game? even passing falls into the same boat. The whole "you succeed at hitting the peasent with the spear, but he is still alive" could be anything from "you stabbed him in the neck" to "you scraped his arm but hes probably about to faint" the mechanics could easily represent both. ALL BW DOES IS ASKS PEOPLE TO DECIDE THAT STUFF PRIOR/ AT LEAST BE AWARE OF THIS. Its literally doing NOTHING but trying to get you to be MORE involved with whats actually going on. The only time I can imagine you NOT wanting to do this is when you DONT ACTUALLY CARE ABOUT WHAT IS GOING ON. In which case BW has your back there too because you can just bypass all the crap that doesn't matter.

Even if it is trying to get you more involved, the way it does this can have the opposite consequence. Or rather, bring you out of the game world into the meta-game (which usually makes ME less involved, as I stop feeling like the world I was interacting with is real).

For example, if you're going to sneak towards a house, you do this as a precaution. You don't know if there are any dogs around, or if anyone is watching or whatever. You sneak anyway. In a game like D&D, the DM would have you make a roll, make some opposed check (which may or may not be real) and then tell you if you managed to get to the house unseen. If you do, both you and your character doesn't know if this was because of awesome stealth or simply for lack of witnesses.

In BW, the GM would either tell you "you get the house unseen" without a roll (because there were no witnesses) or "you have to make a roll, and if you fail you will be spotted by two guards in the alley". This gives information to you, the player, that the character is unaware of. I see no reason why this meta-game knowledge would enhance roleplaying in any way. All it does is to make you more aware of the fact that you are playing a game, as opposed to feeling like a real thief interacting with a real world. I find the latter to be more helpful for roleplay enhancement to me.

When you read the Burning Wheel rules, it is quite evident that the author is very unsatisfied with some prior experiences of GMs of his, like for example what they ask you to roll for and the consequences of those rolls. Thus he attempts to "correct" those issues by putting rules into place that would make it impossible to do this. However, if you never had this problem, you don't really need the fix.

It feels to me that BW is a game which focuses on creating character-focused narrative in a somewhat dark and gritty world. One player is in "control" of the world, whereas the others "control" the main protagonists of the narrative. It's sort of akin to corroborative story-telling, where the players take on a sort of "third person / author" perspective on their characters, and involves a fair bit of meta-game.

This may be what you want, but it's not what *I* want.

I want emotion, excitement, feeling. I want to feel the rush of sneaking through alleys, not knowing what is there or who might be watching, feel my hands shaking when I pick up the lockpicks, fumbling to get the door open, heart racing when I hear the click and terror when I hear the barks of two guard dogs that were sleeping inside but are now rushing towards me, and I am just moments away from getting bitten... WHAT DO I DO? QUICK! QUICK! ACT! PANIC!

At that moment, I don't want to sit around discussing whether or not fighting the dogs would cause physical injury, if climbing the roof would make me seen by guards in the alley, or what consequence it would be if I fail to outrun the dogs or whatever.

I want to be there, in the world, as much as possible. Burning Wheel unfortunately makes me be "not there".

Max_Killjoy

2016-08-09, 07:26 AM

Even if it is trying to get you more involved, the way it does this can have the opposite consequence. Or rather, bring you out of the game world into the meta-game (which usually makes ME less involved, as I stop feeling like the world I was interacting with is real).

For example, if you're going to sneak towards a house, you do this as a precaution. You don't know if there are any dogs around, or if anyone is watching or whatever. You sneak anyway. In a game like D&D, the DM would have you make a roll, make some opposed check (which may or may not be real) and then tell you if you managed to get to the house unseen. If you do, both you and your character doesn't know if this was because of awesome stealth or simply for lack of witnesses.

In BW, the GM would either tell you "you get the house unseen" without a roll (because there were no witnesses) or "you have to make a roll, and if you fail you will be spotted by two guards in the alley". This gives information to you, the player, that the character is unaware of. I see no reason why this meta-game knowledge would enhance roleplaying in any way. All it does is to make you more aware of the fact that you are playing a game, as opposed to feeling like a real thief interacting with a real world. I find the latter to be more helpful for roleplay enhancement to me.

When you read the Burning Wheel rules, it is quite evident that the author is very unsatisfied with some prior experiences of GMs of his, like for example what they ask you to roll for and the consequences of those rolls. Thus he attempts to "correct" those issues by putting rules into place that would make it impossible to do this. However, if you never had this problem, you don't really need the fix.

It feels to me that BW is a game which focuses on creating character-focused narrative in a somewhat dark and gritty world. One player is in "control" of the world, whereas the others "control" the main protagonists of the narrative. It's sort of akin to corroborative story-telling, where the players take on a sort of "third person / author" perspective on their characters, and involves a fair bit of meta-game.

This may be what you want, but it's not what *I* want.

I want emotion, excitement, feeling. I want to feel the rush of sneaking through alleys, not knowing what is there or who might be watching, feel my hands shaking when I pick up the lockpicks, fumbling to get the door open, heart racing when I hear the click and terror when I hear the barks of two guard dogs that were sleeping inside but are now rushing towards me, and I am just moments away from getting bitten... WHAT DO I DO? QUICK! QUICK! ACT! PANIC!

At that moment, I don't want to sit around discussing whether or not fighting the dogs would cause physical injury, if climbing the roof would make me seen by guards in the alley, or what consequence it would be if I fail to outrun the dogs or whatever.

I want to be there, in the world, as much as possible. Burning Wheel unfortunately makes me be "not there".

Exactly.

Always knowing and debating the stakes of every roll, and only rolling when there are actual stakes, telegraphs a lot of information to the player that their character doesn't have.

For me, that would take me out of trying to explore and depict my character. I'm not interested in "shared fiction" or "shared authorship".

E: also, the stakes should usually be obvious from the situation at hand, and not need discussion.

Amphetryon

2016-08-09, 07:50 AM

en.

My problem is that in the BW system, character progression is either left in the hands of 1) sheer luck, 2) the GM or 3) me, the player.
Can you name a system in which Character progression is a thing, where the above is not true? In such a system, how does it avoid 4) Player has to make [arbitrarily high] number of rolls to advance a Skill, regardless of success of those rolls?

Lorsa

2016-08-09, 08:59 AM

Can you name a system in which Character progression is a thing, where the above is not true? In such a system, how does it avoid 4) Player has to make [arbitrarily high] number of rolls to advance a Skill, regardless of success of those rolls?

Easiest example would be D&D. Through simply playing the game your character earns experience which increases the character's level and progresses the skills. Many games function in a similar way.

There's a swedish game called Eon, where character progression is more or less ONLY based on luck. Which makes it even worse than BW.

Max_Killjoy

2016-08-09, 09:19 AM

Can you name a system in which Character progression is a thing, where the above is not true? In such a system, how does it avoid 4) Player has to make [arbitrarily high] number of rolls to advance a Skill, regardless of success of those rolls?

HERO and oWoD -- both rely purely on player-spent experience points. The only question is how many the GM gives out, and that is still subject to player-GM discussion.

AMFV

2016-08-09, 09:21 AM

Can you name a system in which Character progression is a thing, where the above is not true? In such a system, how does it avoid 4) Player has to make [arbitrarily high] number of rolls to advance a Skill, regardless of success of those rolls?

World of Darkness. XP is not generally awarded for success or failure but rather for good roleplay, and there being some awarded just for showing up. A modded version of D&D I ran where I had characters advance levels at specific story points regardless of their actual success or failure. There are others as well.

Max_Killjoy

2016-08-09, 09:42 AM

Yes, because you keep over or under representing everything :P
I can understand if all you want out of a roll is just that roll... I can even understand a lockpicking test to be nothing else BUT lockpicking. Its only the first time in the thread you have actually made sense in terms of what your actually complaining about.

Huh. Could have sworn I'd commented to that effect multiple times, such as here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?496310-Is-Burning-Wheel-dead-What-systems-do-YOU-think-should-be-played-more!/page5&p=21081803#post21081803).

Amphetryon

2016-08-09, 09:56 AM

HERO and oWoD -- both rely purely on player-spent experience points. The only question is how many the GM gives out, and that is still subject to player-GM discussion.

World of Darkness. XP is not generally awarded for success or failure but rather for good roleplay, and there being some awarded just for showing up. A modded version of D&D I ran where I had characters advance levels at specific story points regardless of their actual success or failure. There are others as well.

From here, both of those answers appear to fail the 'GM-dependent' test.

Max_Killjoy

2016-08-09, 09:58 AM

From here, both of those answers appear to fail the 'GM-dependent' test.

The GM dependence of pure XP systems is tangential to the sort of GM dependence that people have objected to regarding Burning Wheel.

AMFV

2016-08-09, 10:12 AM

From here, both of those answers appear to fail the 'GM-dependent' test.

I second what Max says in the preceding post, and also they don't. Specific story points aren't dependent on the GM, they're dependent on the players' rate of advancement through the story, which is as GM dependent as anything is, but it isn't really that much. WoD has XP given simply for showing up, and in most games that's a good chunk of your XP (about a third if I recall correctly, it's been like a hundred years since I played WoD), and that's not GM dependent. Some of the rest comes from player voting and input (also not GM dependent), some of it comes from being negatively affected by flaws (slightly GM dependent, but not nearly so much so as the ability to test a certain skill at a certain level). So there's a spectrum certainly, but those examples are well below the threshold that Burning Wheel sits at.

I would say that Burning Wheel is just far enough down the spectrum that it will really irritate people who are bothered by that sort of advancement (as I am). I would much rather instead of having check boxes, have levels for each skill, where a check of a certain difficulty gives a certain amount of points, with diminishing returns. So somebody could theoretically advance by picking only simple locks, it would just take longer, instead of an example where people have to pick X number of simple locks and Y number of complex locks and Z number of impossible locks, that just doesn't make as much sense to me, personally, from a verisimilitude standpoint.

ImNotTrevor

2016-08-09, 05:33 PM

The GM dependence of pure XP systems is tangential to the sort of GM dependence that people have objected to regarding Burning Wheel.

I explain further down why "The GM needs to present appropriate challenges that provide meaningful XP" is functionally identical to "The GM needs to present appropriate challenges that provide required skill checks," but that should already look pretty samey. So the GM dependence is basically the same. The criteria for being "GM-Dependent" would be "Is the final arbitrator of your getting xp or not the GM? If yes, it's GM-Dependent."

That's not really a defense of BW, I like it but I think it has definite flaws. But so long as we're making a temporary shift here to this topic, we might as well debate it honestly instead of trying to feel like none of our favorite systems are tainted in the same way BW is. (Which is what this... kiiinda feels like.)

Easiest example would be D&D. Through simply playing the game your character earns experience which increases the character's level and progresses the skills. Many games function in a similar way.

...that's a very strange way of saying "you get xp for killing stuff" which relies on the GM to present you with challenges that grant a meaningful amount of xp (one goblin per room is not a meaningful amount of xp to an epic level character)

Which sounds eerily similar to relying on the GM to present challenges that allow for your character to make certain skill checks. Just replace "make certain skill checks" with "Kill sufficiently strong critters" and you have the same kind of GM dependence BW has. So... >.>

D&D by RAW only gives you xp for killing stuff. If you're getting xp for other things, that's technically homebrew (and probably entirely arbitrary). Even if the system says "Hey, you could try something like this," if it doesn't provide rules, it's just telling you to fix its problems for it.

I second what Max says in the preceding post, and also they don't. Specific story points aren't dependent on the GM, they're dependent on the players' rate of advancement through the story, which is as GM dependent as anything is, but it isn't really that much.

Something something, How much xp you get for completing Act 2 is not on any xp table, something something.

And remember, Player-dependent was on that list, too. So it's still sitting pretty in that all-encompassing list. (The point of its being pointed out was that it was a poor argument because all systems could be defined in such broad terms unless they were very, very strange.)

WoD has XP given simply for showing up, and in most games that's a good chunk of your XP (about a third if I recall correctly, it's been like a hundred years since I played WoD),

This might be the only one that actually stands the chance of not meeting this criteria, but with all the metagaming complaints this would not exactly a great example of systems that don't involve the metagame to raise level. I'm not implying that you're attempting to do so here, but these sorts of XP freebies are indeed very metagamey since you could, in theory, have a character level up by hiding in his room organizing his belly button lint by size and color, and eventually he would get better at punching.

Some of the rest comes from player voting and input (also not GM dependent), But it is Player Dependent so it stays within the umbrella of the way-too-broad list

some of it comes from being negatively affected by flaws (slightly GM dependent, but not nearly so much so as the ability to test a certain skill at a certain level).
Exactly this thing is in Burning Wheel. Just thought I'd point that out. Also, still Player Dependent and still on the list.

So there's a spectrum certainly, but those examples are well below the threshold that Burning Wheel sits at.
With the exception of that last thing, which exists nearly 1 for 1 in Burning Wheel, you're describing entirely different mechanics that are Player-centric rather than GM centric and saying they occupy a different place on the GM centric spectrum.... wut?

I mean, like what you like and have fun however you want, but that's not arguing honestly.

I would say that Burning Wheel is just far enough down the spectrum that it will really irritate people who are bothered by that sort of advancement (as I am). I would much rather instead of having check boxes, have levels for each skill, where a check of a certain difficulty gives a certain amount of points, with diminishing returns. So somebody could theoretically advance by picking only simple locks, it would just take longer, instead of an example where people have to pick X number of simple locks and Y number of complex locks and Z number of impossible locks, that just doesn't make as much sense to me, personally, from a verisimilitude standpoint.

This last point assumes verisimilitude is the goal, which it may not be. The system you recommend is good, though might be book-keeping heavy in the long run, depending on how the diminishing returns are modeled. Does it stay at a fixed XP amount given but the amount of needed XP grows so much that it becomes a smaller percentage, or does the amount of XP given literally decrease? The former would be a bit more user friendly, but the second would be pretty annoying unless you were working with XP amounts that never went above double digits.

But again, you're assuming a system goal that may not be the system goal. Walking up to a game that doesn't value versimilitude and rather wants to make a playground for cool stories to happen without worrying about how much lantern oil wieghs or precisely, mathematically how great you are at opening a locked doors, and complaining that its rules don't make sense in versimilitude terms... is a little bit like walking into an italian restaurant and complaining about the lack of sweet and sour chicken.

The proper response is not "the italian restaurant is giving you what you want, it has chicken, sour things, and sweet things, so shut up and eat!" Like profit has been arguing (more or less), it's "Oh, you will want to eat at the chinese place down the street, instead."

No system is perfect.

Allow me to repeat that for effect.

NO SYSTEM IS PERFECT.

No system is all things to everyone, and if people don't want to get mechanical rewards for narrative actions then they don't need to and aren't wrong for not enjoying that. To the degree you try to tell people they're wrong for liking/not liking a certain way a system does something, step off. That goes for everyone, everywhere.

And, if you're going to debate something, debate honestly. Try to get to the truth, not your correctness being held aloft for all to see. (To sorta quote Captain Picard... I hope I spelled that right lest the trekkies be angered.) The former has the chance to make for good, positive discussion. The second is annoying to read through and looks like a bunch of people being pompous nerds.

AMFV

2016-08-09, 06:22 PM

...that's a very strange way of saying "you get xp for killing stuff" which relies on the GM to present you with challenges that grant a meaningful amount of xp (one goblin per room is not a meaningful amount of xp to an epic level character)

Which sounds eerily similar to relying on the GM to present challenges that allow for your character to make certain skill checks. Just replace "make certain skill checks" with "Kill sufficiently strong critters" and you have the same kind of GM dependence BW has. So... >.>

D&D by RAW only gives you xp for killing stuff. If you're getting xp for other things, that's technically homebrew (and probably entirely arbitrary). Even if the system says "Hey, you could try something like this," if it doesn't provide rules, it's just telling you to fix its problems for it.

Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. D&D gives experience for solving challenges, in pretty much all editiions. In NO edition does it give XP only for killing things, not by RAW anyways. Although it's a commonly stated point by people who are not very familiar with the system and intend to deride it.

Something something, How much xp you get for completing Act 2 is not on any xp table, something something.

It absolutely was. I created that table myself and then houseruled it into existence. Just because it's not in the formal written rules doesn't mean that it wasn't a valid counter-example to present.

And remember, Player-dependent was on that list, too. So it's still sitting pretty in that all-encompassing list. (The point of its being pointed out was that it was a poor argument because all systems could be defined in such broad terms unless they were very, very strange.)

The issue is that the other systems don't typically have this as an area of complaint Burning Wheel does (as we've seen in this very thread). So while it may be a minor area of problem for the other systems, for people that find it an issue Burning Wheel is going to be where they draw the line.

This might be the only one that actually stands the chance of not meeting this criteria, but with all the metagaming complaints this would not exactly a great example of systems that don't involve the metagame to raise level. I'm not implying that you're attempting to do so here, but these sorts of XP freebies are indeed very metagamey since you could, in theory, have a character level up by hiding in his room organizing his belly button lint by size and color, and eventually he would get better at punching.

True, but it's a different kind of metagamy issue, and one that doesn't bother as many people (although probably some very small percentage). So the same people that are bothered by the BW issue would probably not be bothered by this issue. It's worth discussing because it helps us evaluate the sort of things that people may dislike about a system.

Exactly this thing is in Burning Wheel. Just thought I'd point that out. Also, still Player Dependent and still on the list.

Indeed, and it was the source of many complaints, but it's not technically DM dependent, it's also not always player-dependent.

With the exception of that last thing, which exists nearly 1 for 1 in Burning Wheel, you're describing entirely different mechanics that are Player-centric rather than GM centric and saying they occupy a different place on the GM centric spectrum.... wut?

I mean, like what you like and have fun however you want, but that's not arguing honestly.

It is arguing quite honestly I think you'll find, as long as you're not altering what I'm saying or deriding it without points that have merit. Which I'll not there's been a bit of in your post. In D&D and WoD this is rarely brought up as a problem, not by almost anybody. Which means that as far as preference goes those systems have this factor within most people's limits. In Burning Wheel several people have complained about this, meaning that this is past many (or at least some measurable percentage of people's comfort levels). I'll note this is not an indictment of the system. It's a statement about something that may cause people to dislike it.

That's why these kind of spectrum are important, because they give us information we can use to evaluate the system. After all I love many of the conceptual ideas in Burning Wheel, I just don't like the game. And of course that's my taste, but I think it's quite edifying and useful to look at why I dislike a system where I like and love many of the core concepts.

This last point assumes verisimilitude is the goal, which it may not be. The system you recommend is good, though might be book-keeping heavy in the long run, depending on how the diminishing returns are modeled. Does it stay at a fixed XP amount given but the amount of needed XP grows so much that it becomes a smaller percentage, or does the amount of XP given literally decrease? The former would be a bit more user friendly, but the second would be pretty annoying unless you were working with XP amounts that never went above double digits.

What I'm assuming is what I said. That it is something that will bother some people. Different people have different tastes (as I implied, which I thought was sufficient, but apparently not). People that have issues with certain kind of metagame aspects causing XP gain, appear to have greater issues than they do in other systems, in Burning Wheel. So if that's something that bothers you, or exacerbates your sense of verisimilitude breaking. Then Burning Whe

But again, you're assuming a system goal that may not be the system goal. Walking up to a game that doesn't value versimilitude and rather wants to make a playground for cool stories to happen without worrying about how much lantern oil wieghs or precisely, mathematically how great you are at opening a locked doors, and complaining that its rules don't make sense in versimilitude terms... is a little bit like walking into an italian restaurant and complaining about the lack of sweet and sour chicken.

But that isn't what's happening here, what's happening is that in a discussion that prominently features Italian food, somebody said "Well I don't really like greasy food, so I don't like Italian." At which point, half the people in the thread shrugged and said, "Fair enough, that's your taste." But the other half of the people started to argue about how it's not really that greasy, or the grease isn't really the point. The issue is that if tastes as you say vary from person to person, then you need to be able to accept that people are going to dislike things that you like. In fact, examining why they dislike it, can be quite interesting, and give some useful perspective.

Especially in the case of somebody like me, who has no real issue with the concepts, but has a lot of issues with execution, particularly of the XP system, which seems overly clunky to me, and somewhat frustrating. Since I am not at all alone in this complaint, you have to assume that some percentage of people will be irritated by this. So it's something to discuss and examine as an evidence as to why the system might not be played more universally.

NO SYSTEM IS PERFECT.

No system is all things to everyone, and if people don't want to get mechanical rewards for narrative actions then they don't need to and aren't wrong for not enjoying that. To the degree you try to tell people they're wrong for liking/not liking a certain way a system does something, step off. That goes for everyone, everywhere.

Exactly, but my disliking a system is as much a valid opinion as you liking it. The point of this thread was to discuss why it wasn't played that much. So why somebody doesn't like it is a really valid discussion topic. Silencing people with whom you disagree is not a way to learn about roleplaying games or what people dislike, it's the way that people wind up making systems that are patently horrible because they refuse to heed any kind of negative feedback (Not that Burning Wheel is horrible, many people like it).

And I want to like it, I've tried it, and some of it's derivatives (Burning THAC0, Torchbearer) but I just don't, and I find that to be very frustrating, particularly since I like a lot of the core concepts, so it's useful to discuss, as long as you don't claim that my opinions are wrong. (Which is what you and others have claimed here). Since I'm not alone in voicing them, I doubt that they're completely off-base. Now you may have a different experience, or your threshold of irritation at that particular thing may be different. But it's certainly worth discussing in a general discussion of a system.

Now if it was just "This system sucks..." then that wouldn't be useful, but most of what is here has been: "I like this and this about it, but not this" which is useful critique of anything.

And, if you're going to debate something, debate honestly. Try to get to the truth, not your correctness being held aloft for all to see. (To sorta quote Captain Picard... I hope I spelled that right lest the trekkies be angered.) The former has the chance to make for good, positive discussion. The second is annoying to read through and looks like a bunch of people being pompous nerds.

I wasn't trying to debate anything (until you accused me of dishonesty), I was stating specific problems that I had with the system, then people attempted to argue with things that I phrased as specific issues that bothered me. At which point people started to make hyperbolic assertions that certain things were simply a part of all games (they really aren't, or at least aren't to the point of bothering people in most systems).

Cluedrew

2016-08-09, 06:34 PM

Well, I'm pretty sure we have crossed the threshold on this conversation.

BayardSPSR

2016-08-09, 08:12 PM

Nah this is the concept of failing forward. The idea is that the consequences for failure should never be "and then nothing happens". Where failure would lead to nothing happening give them success with complications instead.

That still seems to obviate the need to distinguish between success and failure at all - unless your measure of success then becomes "and nothing happens," which ruins the point of making failure not that.

More broadly, I don't see why a player's roll to do something should have consequences unrelated to what they were doing. Whether a house has dogs shouldn't depend on someone's attempt to pick the lock on the front door. It doesn't follow that "skill at picking locks under pressure" should mean "houses I break into have a lower p(canine)."

Nothing but hyperbole.

...

ImNotTrevor

2016-08-09, 08:15 PM

Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. D&D gives experience for solving challenges, in pretty much all editiions. In NO edition does it give XP only for killing things, not by RAW anyways. Although it's a commonly stated point by people who are not very familiar with the system and intend to deride it.

Unless I've been reading the wrong 3.5 manuals (granted, that is the edition I am most familiar with) there aren't any tables that show how much XP successfully negotiating a hostage exchange with the Duke of Thatway is worth.(or even suggestions given to that effect) What there ARE tables for is how much XP certain CR things are worth. With CR being a measure of Durability/Lethality. So I guess you can throw traps in there, so that indeed it isn't just killing stuff and I was too narrow. But a suggestion of doing a certain thing without rules to support that thing isn't RAW, that's a suggestion. D&D has a bad habit of making suggestions without providing the tools needed. Taking a suggestion as RAW doesn't figure, to me.

I mean, I am open to the possibility that there exists a paragraph somewhere which says how much CR different social, combat-free encounters are worth, at which point I'll retract my point. But until then D&D doesn't have any rules for it so "Rules as Written" can't apply because no rules were written. Just suggested. *shrug*

Though this is entirely tangential to where I'm hoping to go, which is towards defusing and calming the discussion.

It absolutely was. I created that table myself and then houseruled it into existence. Just because it's not in the formal written rules doesn't mean that it wasn't a valid counter-example to present.

If we're talking about published systems, then it is. Once you allow homebrew as counterpoints than just about anything goes because it can then be stated that Burning Wheel is about intelligent AI trapped within an MMO RPG, because someone has probably homebrewed that at some point.

However, good on ya for making that table. It's a really good idea, and don't think that I'm knocking it. I may ask to borrow it at some point in the future when playing a system it's compatible with.

The issue is that the other systems don't typically have this as an area of complaint Burning Wheel does (as we've seen in this very thread). So while it may be a minor area of problem for the other systems, for people that find it an issue Burning Wheel is going to be where they draw the line.

I didn't say anything intended to be contrary to this point. So yeah, I agree.

True, but it's a different kind of metagamy issue, and one that doesn't bother as many people (although probably some very small percentage). So the same people that are bothered by the BW issue would probably not be bothered by this issue. It's worth discussing because it helps us evaluate the sort of things that people may dislike about a system.

I dunno how many people it bothers, and I don't really want to say either way. That's not the point I was making. But again, I have no disagreement here.

Indeed, and it was the source of many complaints, but it's not technically DM dependent, it's also not always player-dependent.

Well? Once you have both GM and Player dependent on the list, every sentient lifeform that could possibly make a decision within the gamr is now covered in the umbrella. So if a sentient being is making a decision that causes xp, then it's covered in the list. (Like I said, taken at face value it applies to nearly everything.) Again, this isn't a problem with the complaints. Just that the list is, technically, pretty all-encompassing and thus of little to no value. :P

It is arguing quite honestly I think you'll find, as long as you're not altering what I'm saying or deriding it without points that have merit. Which I'll not there's been a bit of in your post. In D&D and WoD this is rarely brought up as a problem, not by almost anybody. Which means that as far as preference goes those systems have this factor within most people's limits. In Burning Wheel several people have complained about this, meaning that this is past many (or at least some measurable percentage of people's comfort levels). I'll note this is not an indictment of the system. It's a statement about something that may cause people to dislike it.

That's why these kind of spectrum are important, because they give us information we can use to evaluate the system. After all I love many of the conceptual ideas in Burning Wheel, I just don't like the game. And of course that's my taste, but I think it's quite edifying and useful to look at why I dislike a system where I like and love many of the core concepts.

I think I may have communicated unclearly. I was not accusing any specific person of outright lying. Debating dishonestly is a bit of a touchy term because it's easy to be taken the wrong way. I basically meant it as "make sure we're getting to the truth, and not just distancing every system from Burning Wheel. It is okay to be similar but better." That's it.

What I'm assuming is what I said. That it is something that will bother some people. Different people have different tastes (as I implied, which I thought was sufficient, but apparently not). People that have issues with certain kind of metagame aspects causing XP gain, appear to have greater issues than they do in other systems, in Burning Wheel. So if that's something that bothers you, or exacerbates your sense of verisimilitude breaking. Then Burning Whe

I think a bit got left out, but I didn't intend anything to disagree with this notion. I agree with you, here.

But that isn't what's happening here, what's happening is that in a discussion that prominently features Italian food, somebody said "Well I don't really like greasy food, so I don't like Italian." At which point, half the people in the thread shrugged and said, "Fair enough, that's your taste." But the other half of the people started to argue about how it's not really that greasy, or the grease isn't really the point. The issue is that if tastes as you say vary from person to person, then you need to be able to accept that people are going to dislike things that you like. In fact, examining why they dislike it, can be quite interesting, and give some useful perspective.
The bit of feedback you're quoting wasn't for you, but again I agree with this notion. Our metaphors are different, but they're implying the same general idea: it's ok to not like stuff, don't piss in people's wheaties for not liking fruit loops. Or something. These metaphors are spiraling out of control.

Especially in the case of somebody like me, who has no real issue with the concepts, but has a lot of issues with execution, particularly of the XP system, which seems overly clunky to me, and somewhat frustrating. Since I am not at all alone in this complaint, you have to assume that some percentage of people will be irritated by this. So it's something to discuss and examine as an evidence as to why the system might not be played more universally.

Yup. Agreed.

Exactly, but my disliking a system is as much a valid opinion as you liking it. The point of this thread was to discuss why it wasn't played that much. So why somebody doesn't like it is a really valid discussion topic. Silencing people with whom you disagree is not a way to learn about roleplaying games or what people dislike, it's the way that people wind up making systems that are patently horrible because they refuse to heed any kind of negative feedback (Not that Burning Wheel is horrible, many people like it).
I agree with this, too. Again, that feedback wasn't for you, man.

And I want to like it, I've tried it, and some of it's derivatives (Burning THAC0, Torchbearer) but I just don't, and I find that to be very frustrating, particularly since I like a lot of the core concepts, so it's useful to discuss, as long as you don't claim that my opinions are wrong. (Which is what you and others have claimed here).

If I ever gave the impression that your opinions were invalid, I apologize. That's the furthest thing from my intentions. I did try to clarify some points of potential confusion that I saw, but otherwise I didn't really intend to make anyone feel bad about not liking Burning Wheel. I like it, but I'm not enamored with it, either. It's neat, and I think lots of systems have benefitted from its existence to become something better. But it's far from perfect.

Since I'm not alone in voicing them, I doubt that they're completely off-base. Now you may have a different experience, or your threshold of irritation at that particular thing may be different. But it's certainly worth discussing in a general discussion of a system.

Now if it was just "This system sucks..." then that wouldn't be useful, but most of what is here has been: "I like this and this about it, but not this" which is useful critique of anything.

I'm repeating myself a bit, here, but I agree with all of this. That feeback wasn't for you, it just came after your section. Sorry for any confusion.

I wasn't trying to debate anything (until you accused me of dishonesty), I was stating specific problems that I had with the system, then people attempted to argue with things that I phrased as specific issues that bothered me. At which point people started to make hyperbolic assertions that certain things were simply a part of all games (they really aren't, or at least aren't to the point of bothering people in most systems).
I wasn't attempting to accuse anyone of outright dishonesty. I guess I bungled my delivery. And most of that wasn't for anyone specifically.

I don't think the assertion that the description of how to get xp applying to basically any system was intended as supporting Burning Wheel but rather as a "You just described everything, so that doesn't distinguish anything or help your case."

If you say that all the fruit you eat was either 1) purchased, 2) removed from the plant yourself, or 3) Given to you/found somewhere
Then you've covered 99% of the ways fruit comes into your possession. Using that as a way to praise a certain fruit delivery method isn't useful.

Metaphors, etc.

I think any fan of a system will try to mitigate its downsides and maximize its strengths, but in the end it is what it is. Again, I wasn't intending to do that, but I did attempt to clarify some potential areas of confusion. On a couple of those it was I who was confused, and so I didn't bother correcting those because, well, my bad etc.

So take a breath, smile, because I'm more or less on your side on most of this stuff. A lot of my feedback wasn't for you. It's all good, bruddah.

Koo Rehtorb

2016-08-09, 08:24 PM

That still seems to obviate the need to distinguish between success and failure at all - unless your measure of success then becomes "and nothing happens," which ruins the point of making failure not that.

Well presumably you're doing a thing because there's a point to it and the story moves forward from there. Presumably people aren't going up to a house, picking the lock, and then shrugging and saying "Well that was fun. Let's do this again some time." and wandering off.

More broadly, I don't see why a player's roll to do something should have consequences unrelated to what they were doing. Whether a house has dogs shouldn't depend on someone's attempt to pick the lock on the front door. It doesn't follow that "skill at picking locks under pressure" should mean "houses I break into have a lower p(canine)."

Well, that's because the ruleset is designed to produce an experience, not simulate a physics engine. I, for one, am bugged by the amount of wasted time where nothing happens when you fail certain rolls in D&Dlikes. I'm playing a game to get to the exciting parts and skip over the boring parts. I don't want the failure result of a lock picking roll to be us standing stupidly around a locked door for half an hour. I especially don't want it to be us rolling lock picking ten more times until it finally works. But, y'know, I'm usually not going to criticize the way other people enjoy playing, unless they're doing something egregious.

profitofrage

2016-08-09, 08:24 PM

The story of this thread as told via restaurant metaphor.

me "Hey everyone, check out this Italian restaurant. Not many people eat here but the food is great! its uses a lot of tomatoes and pasta!"
other people in the thread "Well I like italian but I think they just make the pasta terribly"
"Oh ok well why do you think the pasta is bad? knowing the problem is always handy. is it the tomatoes? because there are creamy pastas as well."

"Well I hate the pasta actually. its stringy and i hate it."
me "Ok well pasta is pretty much meant to be stringy, are you sure you like pasta? why are you in the Italian restaurant if you dont like pasta?"
"How dare you, I love pasta, your restaurant just makes it terribly."
me "How does it make it terribly? what do YOU think pasta should be like"
"Proceeds to rant about how they love fried noodles, eventually settling on the idea that the perfect form of pasta is actually fried noodles."
me "what the hell are you talking about? just admit you want chinese food."
"I dont want chinese food I want Pasta, I just dont want YOUR pasta, I want the pasta they make down the road at the Chinese restaurant."
me "well that was a waste of my time...."

Max_Killjoy

2016-08-09, 08:32 PM

profitofrage

2016-08-09, 08:37 PM

Or rather...

You - "Hey, why doesn't anyone eat pasta at this restaurant?"

Others - "What's great about it?"

You - "They make you get the right sauce with the pasta you order."

Others - "Oh, that's kinda obnoxious... I'd rather chose my own sauce."

You - "Well obviously you don't like pasta, then, just admit it; go enjoy your baby food, you'll be happier."

Or more accurately,

me - "When you ask for a spag bog they give you spag bog."
you - "WHAT! how dare they do that... I just want the pasta, ill put MY OWN Sauce on it thank you very much!"
me - "If your just going to put the same sauce on.... why not just use theres?"
you -"because there sauce doesnt taste like sweet sour noodles!"

Max_Killjoy

2016-08-09, 08:53 PM

Well, that's because the ruleset is designed to produce an experience, not simulate a physics engine. I, for one, am bugged by the amount of wasted time where nothing happens when you fail certain rolls in D&Dlikes. I'm playing a game to get to the exciting parts and skip over the boring parts. I don't want the failure result of a lock picking roll to be us standing stupidly around a locked door for half an hour. I especially don't want it to be us rolling lock picking ten more times until it finally works. But, y'know, I'm usually not going to criticize the way other people enjoy playing, unless they're doing something egregious.

Instead of bifurcating the roll from what it's nominally modeling, one could instead have the roll to pick the lock determine how long it takes, with only the most egregious of rolls resulting in actual failure.

Perhaps if the effort takes too long, other complications might arise, depending on the existing circumstances.

Which is, mind you, absolutely not the same as "you failed your lockpicking roll, therefore the guards notice you".

kyoryu

2016-08-09, 09:01 PM

CharonsHelper

2016-08-09, 09:03 PM

Unless I've been reading the wrong 3.5 manuals (granted, that is the edition I am most familiar with) there aren't any tables that show how much XP successfully negotiating a hostage exchange with the Duke of Thatway is worth.(or even suggestions given to that effect) What there ARE tables for is how much XP certain CR things are worth. With CR being a measure of Durability/Lethality. So I guess you can throw traps in there, so that indeed it isn't just killing stuff and I was too narrow. But a suggestion of doing a certain thing without rules to support that thing isn't RAW, that's a suggestion. D&D has a bad habit of making suggestions without providing the tools needed. Taking a suggestion as RAW doesn't figure, to me.

I mean, I am open to the possibility that there exists a paragraph somewhere which says how much CR different social, combat-free encounters are worth, at which point I'll retract my point. But until then D&D doesn't have any rules for it so "Rules as Written" can't apply because no rules were written. Just suggested. *shrug*

From the 3.0 DM guide -

You could award experience points for solving a puzzle, learning a secret, convincing an NPC to help, or escaping a powerful foe. Mysteries, puzzles, and roleplaying encounters (such as negotiations) can be assigned Challenge Ratings, but these sorts of awards require more ad hoc ruling on the DM's part.

Challenge Ratings for noncombat encounters are even more of a variable than traps. A roleplaying encounter should only be considered a challenge at all if there's some risk involved and success or failure really matters. For example, the PCs encounter an NPC who knows the secret password to get into a magical prison that holds their companion. The PCs must get the information out of her - if they don't, their friend remains trapped forever. In another instance, the characters must cross a raging river by wading, swimming, or climbing across a rope. If they fail, they can't get to where the magic gem lies, and if they fail spectacularly they are washed away down the river.

You might see such situations as having a Challenge Rating equal to the level of the party. Simple puzlles and minor encounters should have a CR lower than the party's level if they are worth an award at all. They should never have a CR higher than the party's level. As a rule, you probably don't want to hand out a lot of experience for these types of encounters unless you intentionally want to run a low-combat game.

In the end, this type of story award feels pretty much like a standard award. Don't ever feel obligated to give out XP for an encounter that you don't feel was much of a challenge. Remember that the key word in "experience award" is award. The PCs should have to do something impressive to get an award.

(Sorry about any typos. I couldn't find it online and used my touch-typing skills to copy from my book.)

There is then another section about giving XP for mission goals, and another for roleplaying XP awards (mostly to keep RP exp low but enough so that the PCs want them).

I don't have the 3.5 DM book, but the Pathfinder book has something similar.

Now - the bulk of EXP in D&D is obviously intended to be from defined CRs (monsters, traps, and a few environmental dangers) and such non-combat encounters are (somewhat inherently) more subjective, but they're still there.

profitofrage

2016-08-09, 09:09 PM

Instead of bifurcating the roll from what it's nominally modeling, one could instead have the roll to pick the lock determine how long it takes, with only the most egregious of rolls resulting in actual failure.

Perhaps if the effort takes too long, other complications might arise, depending on the existing circumstances.

Which is, mind you, absolutely not the same as "you failed your lockpicking roll, therefore the guards notice you".

ok assuming there were even guards to notice you and you didn't already handle them through previous roleplaying/rolls lets work this one out.

If picking the lock takes 1 minute or 20 hours... whats the difference? the difference is obviously that you will take "too long" Too long for what? well it could be that guards notice you before you finishing picking it? that would be the consequence were talking about.

Prior to making the roll in BW thats a discussion that is had. If for example, you state "Oh no, my super thief is way to antsy about this lock.. Id be concentrating more on avoiding the guards then unlocking it, Id rather bail then finish" At which point the DM goes "Oh ok well then Ill increase the OB a tad since your character isnt really focusing on the task. In exchange the fail state is just that your forced to bail on the lock and hide around the corner to avoid the patrol.

This went from a "I wanna pick the lock" - roll D20 "Lol I didnt get it....can I roll again yet?" to a situation were we now have an anxious thief desperately trying to get through a door before the guards get by, but is smart enough to know that he can always pick the lock another time...but not if he is caught.

If you already planned on roleplaying that way, you have lost nothing it all goes exactly the same.

Max_Killjoy

2016-08-09, 09:10 PM

Or more accurately,

me - "When you ask for a spag bog they give you spag bog."
you - "WHAT! how dare they do that... I just want the pasta, ill put MY OWN Sauce on it thank you very much!"
me - "If your just going to put the same sauce on.... why not just use theres?"
you -"because there sauce doesnt taste like sweet sour noodles!"

Except, of course, that Burning Wheel was never offering the pasta or sauce that I wanted, regardless of how much you think otherwise. It's the height of arrogance to presume that you know someone else's mind more accurately than they do.

The fact that you can only imagine someone not liking Burning Wheel if they don't like roleplaying and just want to fling dice, pretty much tells the entire tale of this thread, start to finish.

/plonk (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plonk_(Usenet))

Max_Killjoy

2016-08-09, 09:14 PM

This went from a "I wanna pick the lock" - roll D20 "Lol I didnt get it....can I roll again yet?"

So even after I just offered an example of how to structure task-focused, procedural resolution such that it doesn't work out like that, you have to go right back to the well and yet again offer up that caricatured boogie-man of non-Burning Wheel play.

AND you go back to referencing d20/D&D, even after I noted that it's not a system I care for.

*plonk* even more justified.

Congratulations -- you've reduced the odds I ever even look at Burning Wheel to a math error, zero/infinity.

Meh

profitofrage

2016-08-09, 09:18 PM

More like:

You: "Hey, there's this great new italian restaurant!"
Me: "Eh. I really liked the idea of what they were doing, but I found they did some things with their sauce that really turned me off. It was just too <insert something>. I'm sure some people will love it, though. I prefer the Italian food at other places, personally."

If that was the issue I wouldnt mind at all. Id wave fairwell and move on to the people who do prefer the sauce.
Some people in the thread HAVE espoused exactly that and I have more or less left them alone to there opinions, but what started as a "I think you have just misunderstood how it works because it works out if you think about it." has turned into "Now I know your just trying to be difficult / your not making sense"

not wanting rolls to mix for e.g I get that.... but they DONT really mix the way Max keeps implying they do. The consequences are just streamlined. You dont NEED to roll for things that DONT MATTER. im not going to make you roll perception while picking a lock to spot guards your obviously looking out for. I might make you roll perception to spot the hidden ninja assasin while your picking the lock of a chest in a hidden dungeon though (though I wont make you roll to lock-pick either since you can take your time and failing that would just mean trying again until you succeed.)

profitofrage

2016-08-09, 09:38 PM

So even after I just offered an example of how to structure task-focused, procedural resolution such that it doesn't work out like that, you have to go right back to the well and yet again offer up that caricatured boogie-man of non-Burning Wheel play.

AND you go back to referencing d20/D&D, even after I noted that it's not a system I care for.

*plonk* even more justified.

Congratulations -- you've reduced the odds I ever even look at Burning Wheel to a math error, zero/infinity.

Meh

I like how you use the term plonk and then immediately respond to further comments.

I also like that you think that somehow its you I need to convince.... remember in this restaurant you are the guy inside shouting about how you want fried noodles and that the pasta is crap for not being that way. We don't care you dont like it... we just want you to stop scaring other people away by shouting "there pasta is bad!" when in reality you wanted Chinese food and everyone just wishes you would go there already.

Ive tried narrowing down what you don't like about it all. I have since realised its a waste of time :P because your just going to keep repeating yourself, and im sick of repeatedly showing you that your complaints dont make sense in context.

AMFV

2016-08-09, 09:40 PM

If that was the issue I wouldnt mind at all. Id wave fairwell and move on to the people who do prefer the sauce.
Some people in the thread HAVE espoused exactly that and I have more or less left them alone to there opinions, but what started as a "I think you have just misunderstood how it works because it works out if you think about it." has turned into "Now I know your just trying to be difficult / your not making sense"

not wanting rolls to mix for e.g I get that.... but they DONT really mix the way Max keeps implying they do. The consequences are just streamlined. You dont NEED to roll for things that DONT MATTER. im not going to make you roll perception while picking a lock to spot guards your obviously looking out for. I might make you roll perception to spot the hidden ninja assasin while your picking the lock of a chest in a hidden dungeon though (though I wont make you roll to lock-pick either since you can take your time and failing that would just mean trying again until you succeed.)

Well certainly all task-resolution systems are naturally streamlined to some degree. The issue here is that this particular brand of streamlining removes a good deal of player agency in the interest of the narrative. Now some folks are going to be alright with that, I can even get a handle on it if it's something that's discussed beforehand (although I'll have issues if it isn't brought up beforehand). But saying "failing a lockpicking roll means that you take your time and try again until you succeed..." is in essence taking that decision away from the player. You (and the narrative in this case) are removing the choice of "What do I do if the lockpicking fails" from the player of said character.

Now I think that's actually part of Burning Wheel system design (and correct me if I'm wrong it's been a while since I read through those rulebooks), but they're supposed to provide less of a focused stimulative experience and more of a collaborative storytelling one. So the character's part in a larger narrative is more important than retaining absolute agency. But it is certainly something that many people (even many people who are pretty focused on the narrative) are going to be somewhat cheesed off about. This is why I like systems that allow the player to choose how failure affects them, giving them multiple options in how they fail, which can create interesting narratives in the way that Burning Wheel's failure system is intended to, without a removal of player agency. Now, I don't think any systems with the features I describe pre-date Burning Wheel, so that's possibly the reason why that wasn't included. But I think that's the better way to go about that.

If we're talking about published systems, then it is. Once you allow homebrew as counterpoints than just about anything goes because it can then be stated that Burning Wheel is about intelligent AI trapped within an MMO RPG, because someone has probably homebrewed that at some point.

However, good on ya for making that table. It's a really good idea, and don't think that I'm knocking it. I may ask to borrow it at some point in the future when playing a system it's compatible with.

Well homebrew is really really important in this discussion because we AREN'T discussing a vacuum AI version of Burning Wheel, we're discussing ways that more people might be interested in Burning Wheel, and certain homebrew type "fixes" might certainly help in that regard.

Well? Once you have both GM and Player dependent on the list, every sentient lifeform that could possibly make a decision within the gamr is now covered in the umbrella. So if a sentient being is making a decision that causes xp, then it's covered in the list. (Like I said, taken at face value it applies to nearly everything.) Again, this isn't a problem with the complaints. Just that the list is, technically, pretty all-encompassing and thus of little to no value. :P

Well the list would exclude games where XP was random (certainly a possibility, although I'm not aware of any system that uses that, but it could be interesting). Systems where you get a set amount of advancement per session or per unit of time. Those are certainly useful in their own regard, and would produce very different and disparate advancement metagame from many systems.

If I ever gave the impression that your opinions were invalid, I apologize. That's the furthest thing from my intentions. I did try to clarify some points of potential confusion that I saw, but otherwise I didn't really intend to make anyone feel bad about not liking Burning Wheel. I like it, but I'm not enamored with it, either. It's neat, and I think lots of systems have benefitted from its existence to become something better. But it's far from perfect.

Well their certainly is a lot of vehement argument against the system in the thread, I won't deny that. I think that there's a lot of good critique that could potentially get fixed getting lost in people's angry responses to the more harsh criticisms of the system (certainly the system design goals won't allow every fix, but there are some that could be looked at).

I think any fan of a system will try to mitigate its downsides and maximize its strengths, but in the end it is what it is. Again, I wasn't intending to do that, but I did attempt to clarify some potential areas of confusion. On a couple of those it was I who was confused, and so I didn't bother correcting those because, well, my bad etc.

So take a breath, smile, because I'm more or less on your side on most of this stuff. A lot of my feedback wasn't for you. It's all good, bruddah.

Fair enough, it is possible some of that might have gotten mixed in there, but it's all good anyways.

RedWarlock

2016-08-09, 09:43 PM

Okay, guys, please cut it out on the metaphor/argument, it's not cute anymore.

I really enjoy the mechanical discussion of Burning Wheel's advancement system. It's tapping into a different kind of character progression, where you advance only when you *need* to advance (because your abilities aren't up to snuff), not because you continually need to progress your numbers.

It's really given me some food for thought on my own heavily-homebrewed system. I was already doing something like that with the secondary (noncombat) skills, but it triggered a thought on how to implement this in a combat system, to reward more risky/damaging fights over cheap tricks, easy ambushes, and alpha strikes. They work to overcome a challenge, but they're not as rewarding because there's not as much risk. Maybe also something that keeps in-combat healing more worthwhile?

Koo Rehtorb

2016-08-09, 09:43 PM

Koo Rehtorb

2016-08-09, 09:48 PM

Well certainly all task-resolution systems are naturally streamlined to some degree. The issue here is that this particular brand of streamlining removes a good deal of player agency in the interest of the narrative.

This isn't a task-resolution system. It's a conflict-resolution system.

This is why I like systems that allow the player to choose how failure affects them, giving them multiple options in how they fail, which can create interesting narratives in the way that Burning Wheel's failure system is intended to, without a removal of player agency.

Your chance to do this is before the roll when the GM offers the stakes for failure. You are welcome to debate the stakes with the GM and propose ones that you like better instead. If you can't agree on stakes then the player is free to walk away from the test instead. If the GM and player routinely can't agree on stakes, though, then there's probably a gap in expectations there that needs to be discussed OOC.

BayardSPSR

2016-08-09, 09:51 PM

Well presumably you're doing a thing because there's a point to it and the story moves forward from there. Presumably people aren't going up to a house, picking the lock, and then shrugging and saying "Well that was fun. Let's do this again some time." and wandering off.

I don't see what that has to do with anything. My assumption in this example would be that the person would go through a window, so I'm not sure why you chose this example. Stopping one method of entry doesn't stop the story, it just redirects it.

Well, that's because the ruleset is designed to produce an experience, not simulate a physics engine. I, for one, am bugged by the amount of wasted time where nothing happens when you fail certain rolls in D&Dlikes. I'm playing a game to get to the exciting parts and skip over the boring parts. I don't want the failure result of a lock picking roll to be us standing stupidly around a locked door for half an hour. I especially don't want it to be us rolling lock picking ten more times until it finally works. But, y'know, I'm usually not going to criticize the way other people enjoy playing, unless they're doing something egregious.

I dislike the same things. In a case like this, where it's guaranteed that the person will unlock the door, why roll? We're in agreement on what isn't good - I'm just struggling to get my head around why the BW system is the thing to avert it with. In this case, I'll grant that BW isn't trying to simulate anything, but I'm still not satisfied that what it does is the best way to arrive at what it seeks to do.

EDIT: To clarify, if the roll is to determine the complications that occur when the player enters the house, why is this something that should be associated with the player's picking the lock at all? And if we're to see "complications" as something preferable to "no complications," why aren't complications automatic, rather than something we need to roll to determine the occurrence of?

(Also, the negotiation process sounds awfully time-consuming, but that's a different nit to pick.)

On other topics, I'm going to quote this line again in hopes that people will move along:

Nothing but hyperbole.

profitofrage

2016-08-09, 09:51 PM

The issue here is that this particular brand of streamlining removes a good deal of player agency in the interest of the narrative.

How, you can't just state that :P because I've already explained numerous times that it doesn't.

player agency is what choices you make and how they impact the world. take the lockpick, guards example again.
You have a door....you have guards...and you have a theif. The player wants to get through the door...and so sneaks in... that takes a roll...fialure means being spotted (IN ANY system).
How you deal with the guards is still up to you... Lets say you knock them out because you hate sneaking past guards. in BW this just means you dont NEED to roll for picking the lock...because there is no consequence to failing. You still chose to pick the lock. its not removing your agency.... In my opinion if anything its giving you more because now your choices have significant impact.

Maybe the lock being super hard to pick is of particular note? then you'd roll it anyway and then decide if you want to climb through the window e.t.c
I dont see what "choices" were removed from the player here.

AMFV

2016-08-09, 09:54 PM

You could. That sounds like a tedious waste of time to me, though. BW's system of advancement absolutely doesn't work if there isn't something important riding on every roll as well, because if every failure doesn't hurt then there's nothing stopping you from making unimportant rolls so you can advance.

And it goes without saying that consequences should follow from the situation at hand. If something bad happening isn't plausible then don't roll for it. Say yes and move on.

Well potentially you could have a system of advancement that was more granular without losing any of what Burning Wheel has. D&D has a similar system, you only gain XP for encounters that are challenging. This doesn't mean that you gloss over non-challenging encounters, but those are the only ones that increase your skills. I think the main crux of the complaint about Burning Wheel's advancement is that it encourages people (of a certain mindset) to ignore areas in which they are skilled, because they won't advance.

For many people psychologically advancement is important. This has been demonstrated in many games (certainly many freemium ones), so even if your character is competent feeling like you're not advancing while others are is going to be frustrating for many many people. Which would in turn inspire the sort of behavior that Lorsa was describing. I know that I would be prone to that myself in a system.

I think that there's certainly ways to keep advancement tied to skill usage without including a system that needs X number of succeeded and X number of failed rolls at a given difficulty. In fact, I can't think of why that system would be better. Certainly it loses out on verisimilitude, which was one of the discussions about why they would use that instead of a class/level system (if I recall correctly.), since people who are good at things aren't really good at them because they try and fail a bunch (that's a Hollywood myth), they're good because they do things that they can do, over and over again until it becomes so instinctive that they can do it without thinking, and then they move on to more complicated exercises. If that weren't the case most Pianists would start off with Flight of the Bumblee and screw up until they could play it.

Okay, guys, please cut it out on the metaphor/argument, it's not cute anymore.

I really enjoy the mechanical discussion of Burning Wheel's advancement system. It's tapping into a different kind of character progression, where you advance only when you *need* to advance (because your abilities aren't up to snuff), not because you continually need to progress your numbers.

It's really given me some food for thought on my own heavily-homebrewed system. I was already doing something like that with the secondary (noncombat) skills, but it triggered a thought on how to implement this in a combat system, to reward more risky/damaging fights over cheap tricks, easy ambushes, and alpha strikes. They work to overcome a challenge, but they're not as rewarding because there's not as much risk. Maybe also something that keeps in-combat healing more worthwhile?

That could work, my narrative system was similar to that. I managed advancement based on the CR of encounters that were planned. The only thing is that people DO NOT enjoy failing (and also see my Hollywood comment above), so the more you require people to fail the worse many people will feel.

I would have a system where you can choose how you fail a given roll. Maybe the failure is taking too much time, or breaking tools, or not being quiet enough. Or maybe they give up and try to break the lock. I would have options that give the player some small sort of success even when they fail, particularly if you're creating a system where people fail a lot. For example, letting a player who fails a morale roll charge instead of running or something like that, something where failure isn't just a binary, but the how of it is up to the player, to give them some additional agency and allow them to squeeze some satisfaction out of failure.

How, you can't just state that :P because I've already explained numerous times that it doesn't.

player agency is what choices you make and how they impact the world. take the lockpick, guards example again.
You have a door....you have guards...and you have a theif. The player wants to get through the door...and so sneaks in... that takes a roll...fialure means being spotted (IN ANY system).
How you deal with the guards is still up to you... Lets say you knock them out because you hate sneaking past guards. in BW this just means you dont NEED to roll for picking the lock...because there is no consequence to failing. You still chose to pick the lock. its not removing your agency.... In my opinion if anything its giving you more because now your choices have significant impact.

Maybe the lock being super hard to pick is of particular note? then you'd roll it anyway and then decide if you want to climb through the window e.t.c
I dont see what "choices" were removed from the player here.

Player agency is how their character responds to the world. That they choose how their character acts. That's what it is, and choosing their character's actions, on a roll that doesn't have anything to do with stealth being spotted as a failure condition, isn't really doing a lot to contribute to the world making sense, or to their agency. I would suggest giving players different failure conditions.

Ergo:

If you fail this roll you could be spotted, you could break your expensive lockpicking tools, you could accidentally injure yourself (even though you succeed in the actual lock picking), you could get a conflict of conscience and decide not to go through with it. That's several very interesting narrative options, and letting the player pick the sort of failure they want gives them control when normally failure is a removal of control, especially the sort of failure that Burning Wheel suggests.

ImNotTrevor

2016-08-09, 09:57 PM

From the 3.0 DM guide -

(Sorry about any typos. I couldn't find it online and used my touch-typing skills to copy from my book.)

There is then another section about giving XP for mission goals, and another for roleplaying XP awards (mostly to keep RP exp low but enough so that the PCs want them).

I don't have the 3.5 DM book, but the Pathfinder book has something similar.

Now - the bulk of EXP in D&D is obviously intended to be from defined CRs (monsters, traps, and a few environmental dangers) and such non-combat encounters are (somewhat inherently) more subjective, but they're still there.

This is probably a difference of opinion at this point, but that strikes me as less of a Rule and more of a guided suggestion. There's nothing there to guide except some "maybe try this approach" at the end. Which is basically "We didn't want to make any rules for this, so just reward it semi-arbitrarily based on how you feel about it." Which doesn't personally strike me as a rule.

So yeah, it's a bit like if Fallout 4 had a bit tacked on that said "oh, hey, you should also mod in mining system, here's how you might program one," then people said Fallout 4 had a mining system. It doesn't, but it recommends one and even provides suggestions....
But it still doesn't have one.

Then again, that's just my take. Do with it as you will, because it's entirely tangential.

Koo Rehtorb

2016-08-09, 10:10 PM

I dislike the same things. In a case like this, where it's guaranteed that the person will unlock the door, why roll? We're in agreement on what isn't good - I'm just struggling to get my head around why the BW system is the thing to avert it with. In this case, I'll grant that BW isn't trying to simulate anything, but I'm still not satisfied that what it does is the best way to arrive at what it seeks to do.

Oh, absolutely. If something isn't important then just don't roll for it. You are entirely able and encouraged to skip scenes that don't matter. From the lock picking example I was assuming that they were playing a gritty ground level game with a bunch of petty thieves, or something. If they aren't then their focus shouldn't be on worrying about that sort of thing at all.

EDIT: To clarify, if the roll is to determine the complications that occur when the player enters the house, why is this something that should be associated with the player's picking the lock at all? And if we're to see "complications" as something preferable to "no complications," why aren't complications automatic, rather than something we need to roll to determine the occurrence of?

Well again, I was assuming that we were zoomed way in on the act of breaking and entering because it's very important to the story in this example. If no one is invested in that then sure, skip past it, get to the person you're holding at knife point in their bedroom.

Max_Killjoy

2016-08-09, 10:12 PM

This isn't a task-resolution system. It's a conflict-resolution system.

And that's the problem -- it's not a task-resolution system.

Your chance to do this is before the roll when the GM offers the stakes for failure. You are welcome to debate the stakes with the GM and propose ones that you like better instead. If you can't agree on stakes then the player is free to walk away from the test instead. If the GM and player routinely can't agree on stakes, though, then there's probably a gap in expectations there that needs to be discussed OOC.

Debating "stakes" before the roll or debating the "narrative outcomes" afterwards is also the problem. It's one roll. Make it or don't, and move on from there with the new circumstances that arise (in part) from that result. No lengthy back-and-forth necessary.

If there's no roll when there are no "stakes" -- if rolls only occur when something can go wrong, and the results of failure are always known -- then the GM is constantly telegraphing OOC information to the player, which pushes the player away from roleplaying mode, and toward a metagaming and/or "narrative building" mode.

For example, if the GM says "no need to roll for stealth" because there are no guards, then the player knows that there's no risk of being caught, and his character can just waltz in. Whereas in a realistic situation, if the character doesn't know if there are guards nearby, he's going to be careful just in case -- and if he accidentally steps on something, he then as to wonder if someone heard or not.

The stealth roll doesn't exist to resolve a conflict, it exists to model the character's attempt to move as quietly and carefully as he can. The roll is made because of the attempt, not because of what might go wrong.

As for the guards are either there, or they aren't -- I've seen advocates of "no myth" and "fail forward" argue that the guards exist as a direct result of a failed roll, rather than being individuals/characters who were already present within the quasi-reality in which the game is taking place and were alerted by the character's failure to remain out of sight and not make noise.

Oh, absolutely. If something isn't important then just don't roll for it. You are entirely able and encouraged to skip scenes that don't matter. From the lock picking example I was assuming that they were playing a gritty ground level game with a bunch of petty thieves, or something. If they aren't then their focus shouldn't be on worrying about that sort of thing at all.

Well again, I was assuming that we were zoomed way in on the act of breaking and entering because it's very important to the story in this example. If no one is invested in that then sure, skip past it, get to the person you're holding at knife point in their bedroom.

See, that's what I don't like about viewing the game as a literal work of fiction, as "the story". Things don't happen to people because they're "important to the story". They happen as a result of the characters' actions and interactions, flowing naturally from cause and effect. I want the game to have the feeling of being real -- verisimilitude -- not the feel of fictional contrivance and artifice.

meh

profitofrage

2016-08-09, 10:13 PM

Player agency is how their character responds to the world. That they choose how their character acts. That's what it is, and choosing their character's actions, on a roll that doesn't have anything to do with stealth being spotted as a failure condition, isn't really doing a lot to contribute to the world making sense, or to their agency. I would suggest giving players different failure conditions.
Ergo:

If you fail this roll you could be spotted, you could break your expensive lockpicking tools, you could accidentally injure yourself (even though you succeed in the actual lock picking), you could get a conflict of conscience and decide not to go through with it. That's several very interesting narrative options, and letting the player pick the sort of failure they want gives them control when normally failure is a removal of control, especially the sort of failure that Burning Wheel suggests.

This just doesn't follow though. The DM isnt "controlling the players actions" He is giving them a clear and most of the time obvious consequence to his actions... he is just letting them KNOW about it before hand. Likewise the idea that "picking the lock" has nothing to do with being spotted is not entirely true. If in DnD (or indeed any other system) you were picking the lock and the DM informed you guards were coming... what happens? how is it any different to what BW discribed? or the situation I described happening? Youd still either try to pick the lock and get through in time. or youd bail on it and leave. Both of which doesnt involve "the lock pick roll making you unstealthy". That ONLY happens if through it all you didnt show yourself caring much about stealth to begin with... in which case.... yes...your lock-picking and ability to get through the door in time IS EXACTLY the ONLY THING keeping you from being SPOTTED. Its just more narrative.

Likewise the fail conditions are heavily dependant on the GM and what roleplaying has been done up until this point. Say the character has a special trait... something like "ultra awareness" well then you wouldnt throw the whole "surprise guards!" thing at him if he fails the roll, because hed see them coming. I.e its just MORE player agency... more Character interactions... more roleplaying... more narrative.

As for the skill progression... yes I can absolutely understand that. BW is not about skinner box style rewards. Its more about story.
Aragon in LoTR never got any better at swordfighting, nor Gimli at Axe throwing, but The Hobbits sure did. Likewise Aragon did "ascend" of sorts when he got his ancestral sword and all of this works well in BW.

Upon reflection... I dont know how this changes in any other system. A low level character is always going to improve significantly quicker then a high level one. in BW assuming everyone has the same skill levels then everyone would be finding it equally hard to advance... so even then not sure if your point holds.

AMFV

2016-08-09, 10:16 PM

Debating "stakes" before the roll or debating the "narrative outcomes" afterwards is also the problem. It's one roll. Make it or don't, and move on from there with the new circumstances that arise (in part) from that result. No lengthy back-and-forth necessary.

If there's no roll when there are no "stakes" -- if rolls only occur when something can go wrong, and the results of failure are always known -- then the GM is constantly telegraphing OOC information to the player, which pushes the player away from roleplaying mode, and toward a metagaming and/or "narrative building" mode.

For example, if the GM says "no need to roll for stealth" because there are no guards, then the player knows that there's no risk of being caught, and his character can just waltz in. Whereas in a realistic situation, if the character doesn't know if there are guards nearby, he's going to be careful just in case -- and if he accidentally steps on something, he then as to wonder if someone heard or not.

The stealth roll doesn't exist to resolve a conflict, it exists to model the character's attempt to move as quietly and carefully as he can.

One thing to note is that stress in the character's mind doesn't necessarily need to be stress in the player's mind. For example in D&D if I roll a bad stealth check and am not immediately told "Roll Initiative!" As a player I know that there's probably nothing around that intends to harm me, so there isn't really any kind of extended stress on me as a player, although if the DM indicates it, I may act as though there is on the character. But the stresses aren't the same, how could they be? You're sitting with your friends eating nachos, not trying to sneak through a dark corridor.

Of course, I disagree with a lot of the Burning Wheel split up of task-resolution. But I don't think that knowing or not knowing the stakes is inherently going to universally create the same sort of problem. You could certainly discuss the stakes afterwards though, if you give the player options as to which failure condition happens. Which I think (because it's my idea) is a really neat way to tie up a lot of the problems we're discussing.

This just doesn't follow though. The DM isnt "controlling the players actions" He is giving them a clear and most of the time obvious consequence to his actions... he is just letting them KNOW about it before hand. Likewise the idea that "picking the lock" has nothing to do with being spotted is not entirely true. If in DnD (or indeed any other system) you were picking the lock and the DM informed you guards were coming... what happens? how is it any different to what BW discribed? or the situation I described happening? Youd still either try to pick the lock and get through in time. or youd bail on it and leave. Both of which doesnt involve "the lock pick roll making you unstealthy". That ONLY happens if through it all you didnt show yourself caring much about stealth to begin with... in which case.... yes...your lock-picking and ability to get through the door in time IS EXACTLY the ONLY THING keeping you from being SPOTTED. Its just more narrative.

The player is being told "If you fail this roll, your character will respond in such-and-such way" that's pretty textbook controlling the character's actions. I mean knowing about it beforehand doesn't really help the fact that I'm being told that the way my character will respond to a mechanical failure (being unable to pick the lock quickly) is to sit around until the guards come, instead of having options as to how I respond (Panicking, breaking tools, heading for the hills)... all of those can create interesting narrative situations, but those are things that result from the failure and my choice.

Likewise the fail conditions are heavily dependant on the GM and what roleplaying has been done up until this point. Say the character has a special trait... something like "ultra awareness" well then you wouldnt throw the whole "surprise guards!" thing at him if he fails the roll, because hed see them coming. I.e its just MORE player agency... more Character interactions... more roleplaying... more narrative.

It's still less character agency, you're deciding how I'm going to respond to a situation. Now if you talk it through beforehand, then you might come to an agreement, but again, I want you to talk to me about my character's actions, not tell me. "If you fail this roll, your character behaves like this, causing this...." that's removal of my agency, even if you base it on your idea of how my character is acting, because how my character is seen by you, isn't always how my character is seen by me.

As for the skill progression... yes I can absolutely understand that. BW is not about skinner box style rewards. Its more about story.
Aragon in LoTR never got any better at swordfighting, nor Gimli at Axe throwing, but The Hobbits sure did. Likewise Aragon did "ascend" of sorts when he got his ancestral sword and all of this works well in BW.

I wasn't playing Aragorn, nor Gimli. The difference is that what works in a novel, is not what works in a game. There are a lot of issues that have been caused at many tables by trying to simulate the experiences of a novel at a gaming table. They don't work together well. If others are advancing and I'm not, I'm going to feel bad comparatively, no matter if I'm Aragorn, and they're Samwise Gamgee. It's just how people are wired, that's why most games don't let one player be Aragorn, whilst the others are Hobbitses. Because it works in a novel narrative doesn't men it works in a game.

Upon reflection... I dont know how this changes in any other system. A low level character is always going to improve significantly quicker then a high level one. in BW assuming everyone has the same skill levels then everyone would be finding it equally hard to advance... so even then not sure if your point holds.

That depends entirely on what you're doing. If I've made a diplomatic type character and I'm in a dungeon crawl, I'm going to be doing a lot more failure, and a lot more advancement than a character that is purpose-designed to be a dungeon crawling monster. Heck, that character probably wouldn't even be rolling half the time. So now I'm getting more attention and time and advancing more. Which again, works in a novel or a movie, but not so much in a table where people are invested not only in how successful their characters are, but in how much they feel them advancing, and in how much focus and time they get.

Koo Rehtorb

2016-08-09, 10:16 PM

And that's the problem -- it's not a task-resolution system.

If there's no roll when there are no "stakes" -- if rolls only occur when something can go wrong, and the results of failure are always known -- then the GM is constantly telegraphing OOC information to the player, which pushes the player away from roleplaying mode, and toward a metagaming and/or "narrative building" mode.

The stealth roll doesn't exist to resolve a conflict, it exists to model the character's attempt to move as quietly and carefully as he can.

Okay? I think we have pinpointed the cause of "Why Max_Killjoy should not play The Burning Wheel." And that's perfectly fine. <3

Personally I think the whole concept of "immersion" is bull****. But I'm certainly not going to tell people that they're having fun wrong. Whatever works for you.

BayardSPSR

2016-08-09, 10:18 PM

Well again, I was assuming that we were zoomed way in on the act of breaking and entering because it's very important to the story in this example. If no one is invested in that then sure, skip past it, get to the person you're holding at knife point in their bedroom.

Okay, I see. But in this case, wouldn't the chance of not picking the lock itself the kind of complication that this style of game is looking for? I mean, if the kind of fun we're having is in imaginatively crafting ways to burgle a house, isn't finding the first method we attempt ineffective one of the most interesting things that can happen?

profitofrage

2016-08-09, 10:21 PM

Koo Rehtorb

2016-08-09, 10:22 PM

Okay, I see. But in this case, wouldn't the chance of not picking the lock itself the kind of complication that this style of game is looking for? I mean, if the kind of fun we're having is in imaginatively crafting ways to burgle a house, isn't finding the first method we attempt ineffective one of the most interesting things that can happen?

I find "You don't pick the lock, try something else." to be kind of a toothless result of a failed roll, personally. But sure the consequences can be anything you want, so long as the GM and player agrees on it beforehand. Personally I'd recommend some sort of immediate pressure as a result of failing to pick the lock. It might work if the group needed to get into that house because it was a life or death situation and the alternative ways to get in were much more threatening.

Max_Killjoy

2016-08-09, 10:24 PM

Okay? I think we have pinpointed the cause of "Why Max_Killjoy should not play The Burning Wheel." And that's perfectly fine. <3

Personally I think the whole concept of "immersion" is bull****. But I'm certainly not going to tell people that they're having fun wrong. Whatever works for you.

And whatever works for you is great.

Mainly I'm perturbed by being told that if I like roleplaying, then BW is for me, and if I won't like BW, then I must not like roleplaying. :smallyuk:

I find "You don't pick the lock, try something else." to be kind of a toothless result of a failed roll, personally. But sure the consequences can be anything you want, so long as the GM and player agrees on it beforehand. Personally I'd recommend some sort of immediate pressure as a result of failing to pick the lock. It might work if the group needed to get into that house because it was a life or death situation and the alternative ways to get in were much more threatening.

It's not just about "immersion", it's also about what the mechanical system is meant to do. For me, it's a model, or a map. That roll to pick the lock is, literally the attempt to pick the lock. The immediate result of failing to pick a lock... is that you didn't pick the lock. The roll itself is never about whether the consequences are "interesting" or "toothless" or whatever.

Now, something else may come about because of that new circumstances with the character standing there unable to open the door, but that's not the outcome of the failed roll, that's the outcome of the new circumstances.

AMFV

2016-08-09, 10:29 PM

The singular line of "me rolling stealth is how I know my character is moving quietly" pretty much summed it up for me pages ago. You could just as easily SAY you are... and THEN find out you got through because there were not any guards (because the DM described this and then told you no roll is required). But apparently that is too "jarring to his immersion"

He wants a physics engine and to roll dice. Personally Id recommend he try DnD.

It's worth noting that while he's been the loudest, there are other quieter voices with some of the same complaints, and many of those people are discussing technicalities and potential solutions.

I find "You don't pick the lock, try something else." to be kind of a toothless result of a failed roll, personally. But sure the consequences can be anything you want, so long as the GM and player agrees on it beforehand. Personally I'd recommend some sort of immediate pressure as a result of failing to pick the lock. It might work if the group needed to get into that house because it was a life or death situation and the alternative ways to get in were much more threatening.

I agree that "You don't pick the lock, try something else" can be problematic, but not because it's toothless, because at that point, the player may not have a secondary plan, and so now they're stuck. I think that immediate pressure can be good, but it's not always the best kind of failure. Not all failures need to have immediate consequences. Say for example, the character has a moral rather than a technical failing, they can't convince themselves to break into somebody's house again, maybe something reminds them of something. Now this has no immediate consequences but it's a huge narrative thing and it has a lot of later consequences.

It's also worth noting that time-sensitivity can make even small failures noteworthy. But that doesn't need to be life-or-death, you could say something more descriptive like this: "You fruitlessly try to pick the lock for several minutes, you know that the guards will make their rounds any time soon, do you want to continue to attempt it?" Now you've turned what was a pretty typical failure case into something more complicated, but nothing has really changed it's still "you don't pick the lock, try something else," but now you've added some extra wrinkles. Or "You start to pick the lock, but stop as you her somebody stirring in the house." Again not a removal of agency, or even a direct failure, just something more interesting.

profitofrage

2016-08-09, 10:30 PM

And whatever works for you is great.

Mainly I'm perturbed by being told that if I like roleplaying, then BW is for me, and if I won't like BW, then I must not like roleplaying. :smallyuk:

Your literally complaining about the notion that someone might describe whats going on in the scene rather than or in addition too rolling dice...

EDIT:

"It's worth noting that while he's been the loudest, there are other quieter voices with some of the same complaints, and many of those people are discussing technicalities and potential solutions."
Your right, and I have been mostly leaving them be with the occasional "have you thought about this?" thrown in. I like the discussion and people finding there own solutions are always going to be more valuable then butting in and declaring something bad-wrong-fun.

I personally don't see many of the problems actually panning out though.

XP issue - people find it very difficult to increase the skills there good at and easy to increase skills they are not good at...... I dont see this as a problem unless everyone in the party suddenly stops wanting to play what there characters are designed for. Yes if the rogue decides to up and be a fighter... there fighting skills will improve quicker to accommodate that. Yes I suppose the fighter will get miffed that were as the rogue has increased twice he hasnt yet.... but the fighter can still trounce the rogue.

failure conditions - literally all games have these... its just that BW recommends a discussion about them first so that there is absolutely a MEANING to the roll.

not rolling for meaningless things - again I can see why people used to simulation-ist games would not like this... I don't really see a resolution here since the game's core is narrativistic.

ImNotTrevor

2016-08-09, 10:31 PM

And whatever works for you is great.

Mainly I'm perturbed by being told that if I like roleplaying, then BW is for me, and if I won't like BW, then I must not like roleplaying...

I can back this up, and I agree.

While Burning Wheel does have mechanics that support and reward Roleplaying, that does not mean they must therefore be universally loved by people who enjoy roleplaying.

I have my own issues with how the system operates, and I prefer to be rewarded in other ways by the systems I choose to play. (There is more than one way to reward Roleplaying)

Disliking Burning Wheel is not the same as disliking roleplaying. These are not intrisically tied together, and to suggest they are is some seriously fallacious reasoning. Not to mention really uncool and essentially being a variation of Badwrongfun.

Max_Killjoy

2016-08-09, 10:31 PM

It's worth noting that while he's been the loudest, there are other quieter voices with some of the same complaints, and many of those people are discussing technicalities and potential solutions.

In stuck him in ignore because he literally believes that he knows more about what I want out of a game than I do, and that no one who likes roleplaying can dislike the game he likes.

AMFV

2016-08-09, 10:32 PM

Your literally complaining about the notion that someone might describe whats going on in the scene rather than or in addition too rolling dice...

I don't believe so... I believe his complaint was that he might be told that one the results of failure might be being too loud and getting caught. Which isn't exactly a logical result of failing a lockpicking attempt (unless one where to slip or drop tools against something metal or something). It's not describing what's going on in the scene that's the problem. It's again, the loss of agency (at least that was my impression). He's upset that failing a lockpick might lead to him screwing up in other ways without him getting a roll or a say-so, and I can see the validity of that complaint.

RedWarlock

2016-08-09, 10:34 PM

That could work, my narrative system was similar to that. I managed advancement based on the CR of encounters that were planned. The only thing is that people DO NOT enjoy failing (and also see my Hollywood comment above), so the more you require people to fail the worse many people will feel.

I would have a system where you can choose how you fail a given roll. Maybe the failure is taking too much time, or breaking tools, or not being quiet enough. Or maybe they give up and try to break the lock. I would have options that give the player some small sort of success even when they fail, particularly if you're creating a system where people fail a lot. For example, letting a player who fails a morale roll charge instead of running or something like that, something where failure isn't just a binary, but the how of it is up to the player, to give them some additional agency and allow them to squeeze some satisfaction out of failure.

My idea mainly circled around lesser failures within the overall success of a combat.

For instance, let's say the base XP value of an orc warrior is 200 XP.

If you kill an enemy orc without taking a single hit yourself? No XP. It was too easy.

Kill an enemy orc after suffering damage greater than 25% of your HP total? 100 XP. A minor challenge. Barely a scratch, be a bit quicker next time.

Kill an enemy orc after suffering damage greater than half of your HP total? 200 XP. An average challenge, you took some significant hits. Learned a fair bit.

Kill an enemy orc after suffering damage greater than 75% of your HP total? 400 XP. You were pretty close to death, there. You've learned you have to fight harder, next time.

Get killed by an enemy orc? No XP, this time. You don't learn when you're dead.

One of my players (when I was discussing the idea with him) brought up the wrinkle of a player getting deliberately blasted by an ally's AoEs to get more XP, like a fighter staying in the range of the wizard's fireball, or just playing stupid versus a weak enemy to milk it for more XP.

Dunno, but it's a thought. Might be better-served in a flatter progression, rather than a D&D-style scale-up.

AMFV

2016-08-09, 10:40 PM

My idea mainly circled around lesser failures within the overall success of a combat.

For instance, let's say the base XP value of an orc warrior is 200 XP.

If you kill an enemy orc without taking a single hit yourself? No XP. It was too easy.

Kill an enemy orc after suffering damage greater than 25% of your HP total? 100 XP. A minor challenge. Barely a scratch, be a bit quicker next time.

Kill an enemy orc after suffering damage greater than half of your HP total? 200 XP. An average challenge, you took some significant hits. Learned a fair bit.

Kill an enemy orc after suffering damage greater than 75% of your HP total? 400 XP. You were pretty close to death, there. You've learned you have to fight harder, next time.

Get killed by an enemy orc? No XP, this time. You don't learn when you're dead.

One of my players (when I was discussing the idea with him) brought up the wrinkle of a player getting deliberately blasted by an ally's AoEs to get more XP, like a fighter staying in the range of the wizard's fireball, or just playing stupid versus a weak enemy to milk it for more XP.

Dunno, but it's a thought. Might be better-served in a flatter progression, rather than a D&D-style scale-up.

No offense, but that sounds absolutely awful. You're creating a system where I'm rewarded for not optimizing. And again, people tend to advance most when they practice doing something correctly, not when they do something badly. Certainly that can inspire certain kinds of inspiration. But not all. Now if you're having problems with people steamrolling encounters and then continuing to advance, there are other ways to fix this.

You could however have something based around lesser failures that aren't necessarily small scale. For example rewarding players with XP the more difficult things they manage in a given combat. Or the more character based objectives they attempt. But what you're describing sounds pretty terrible.

I mean if you were going to look at this in terms of verisimilitude... If I were to fight a hundred fights with Tyson in his prime, I absolutely would not get better at boxing. I might get better at avoiding getting hit, or running away, or dodging, but I would never become a great fighter. Now if I were fighting somebody my own skill level and losing and winning a bunch, while I critically examined what I did afterwards, I would get better at boxing. A daunting challenge doesn't make you learn more, or when it does, you learn all the wrong lessons.

Now, you might try a more complex system. If a character takes damage a lot in combat, maybe they focus more training time on learning how to avoid that kind of damage, and that affects their progression, in one way or another. That would be a more realistic simulation than what you're suggesting.

profitofrage

2016-08-09, 10:41 PM

I don't believe so... I believe his complaint was that he might be told that one the results of failure might be being too loud and getting caught. Which isn't exactly a logical result of failing a lockpicking attempt (unless one where to slip or drop tools against something metal or something). It's not describing what's going on in the scene that's the problem. It's again, the loss of agency (at least that was my impression). He's upset that failing a lockpick might lead to him screwing up in other ways without him getting a roll or a say-so, and I can see the validity of that complaint.

He specifically DOES have a say so... that is the whole point...
I also like that you start by saying its not a logical result and then describe a specific situation where it IS a logical result...

:P I never said that Burning Wheel = roleplaying. Im saying that what he has consistently said in the thread has been "I like roleplaying, but not the kind where you describe whats happening, Or have to describe whats happening. Or describe how your character might be acting. All that should be rolls and numbers only." Too me.... this would describe someone who Does NOT like roleplaying and indeed would probably find themselves having much more fun playing cards or DnD where you dont really have to.

Max_Killjoy

2016-08-09, 10:43 PM

I don't believe so... I believe his complaint was that he might be told that one the results of failure might be being too loud and getting caught. Which isn't exactly a logical result of failing a lockpicking attempt (unless one where to slip or drop tools against something metal or something). It's not describing what's going on in the scene that's the problem. It's again, the loss of agency (at least that was my impression). He's upset that failing a lockpick might lead to him screwing up in other ways without him getting a roll or a say-so, and I can see the validity of that complaint.

Partially that, yes, -- and also partially that I prefer discrete task resolution rules that represent specific actions, and in such a system, the natural result of failing a lockpicking roll is not "there are guards" (people don't appear out of thin air because of failure to pick a lock) or "you make noise" (unless as you note, one presumes that failing to pick the lock automatically causes uncontrollable tool-dropping).

This isn't about roleplaying vs not roleplaying, it's about how one prefers the rules of their RPG to be set up, and what they're based on -- and I prefer one that models discrete actions, not "narrative moments".

AMFV

2016-08-09, 10:45 PM

He specifically DOES have a say so... that is the whole point...
I also like that you start by saying its not a logical result and then describe a specific situation where it IS a logical result...

But I added those details, they weren't included by anybody prior to that, and you can bet that Max would be much more alright with that kind of thing. Or at least I would bet that. Because that does logically follow. The scenario that you folks were describing, him waiting for the guards, may or may not logically follow.

:P I never said that Burning Wheel = roleplaying. Im saying that what he has consistently said in the thread has been "I like roleplaying, but not the kind where you describe whats happening, Or have to describe whats happening. Or describe how your character might be acting. All that should be rolls and numbers only." Too me.... this would describe someone who Does NOT like roleplaying and indeed would probably find themselves having much more fun playing cards or DnD where you dont really have to.

Or it's somebody who likes a certain kind of roleplaying. Maybe they like mostly freeform with only a physics engine to simulate disputes. Or they dislike metagame oriented rules. There are folks like that. Of course Burning Wheel might not be for them. But that doesn't mean that they're bad roleplayers, just that they prefer different kinds of roleplay aids.

profitofrage

2016-08-09, 10:46 PM

not "narrative moments".

And we are back to the restaurant metaphor... Why are you still in the Italian place when you should be in the Chinese place?

But I added those details, they weren't included by anybody prior to that, and you can bet that Max would be much more alright with that kind of thing. Or at least I would bet that. Because that does logically follow. The scenario that you folks were describing, him waiting for the guards, may or may not logically follow.
Or it's somebody who likes a certain kind of roleplaying. Maybe they like mostly freeform with only a physics engine to simulate disputes. Or they dislike metagame oriented rules. There are folks like that. Of course Burning Wheel might not be for them. But that doesn't mean that they're bad roleplayers, just that they prefer different kinds of roleplay aids.

He only keeps going back to this ridiculous idea that "guards appear from nowhere" because its hyperbole. They obviously dont appear from nowhere they came from around the corner... just like they would in any other game. He lost track of them because he wasnt looking for them because he was too busy working on the lockpick as just ONE e.g
Burning wheel doesnt force SPECIFIC consequences on you just consequences... they could be described however YOU and the GM agree on. you know... the whole narrative roleplaying thing :P
Ive explained this over and over again :P this is why I find him and his opinions to be entirely useless in the thread. He is literally just a guy standing in a restaurant saying its bad, telling you that your bad for liking it. then complaining when someone suggests that he doesnt like the type of food they serve and should leave.

CharonsHelper

2016-08-09, 10:49 PM

No offense, but that sounds absolutely awful.

I agree entirely. Its incentives are for intentionally getting badly wounded in easy fights, which is all kinds of wrong.

Now, you might try a more complex system. If a character takes damage a lot in combat, maybe they focus more training time on learning how to avoid that kind of damage, and that affects their progression, in one way or another. That would be a more realistic simulation than what you're suggesting.

I've seen that done in video games, but there are two issues with that, the second video games doesn't have at all, and the first isn't so bad in video games.

1. Not as bad as the previous method, but it still encourages you to get goblins to beat on you all day to get tougher, which is silly.

2. The bookkeeping would be horrendous.

RedWarlock

2016-08-09, 10:51 PM

No offense, but that sounds absolutely awful. You're creating a system where I'm rewarded for not optimizing. And again, people tend to advance most when they practice doing something correctly, not when they do something badly. Certainly that can inspire certain kinds of inspiration. But not all. Now if you're having problems with people steamrolling encounters and then continuing to advance, there are other ways to fix this.

You could however have something based around lesser failures that aren't necessarily small scale. For example rewarding players with XP the more difficult things they manage in a given combat. Or the more character based objectives they attempt. But what you're describing sounds pretty terrible.

I mean if you were going to look at this in terms of verisimilitude... If I were to fight a hundred fights with Tyson in his prime, I absolutely would not get better at boxing. I might get better at avoiding getting hit, or running away, or dodging, but I would never become a great fighter. Now if I were fighting somebody my own skill level and losing and winning a bunch, while I critically examined what I did afterwards, I would get better at boxing. A daunting challenge doesn't make you learn more, or when it does, you learn all the wrong lessons.

Now, you might try a more complex system. If a character takes damage a lot in combat, maybe they focus more training time on learning how to avoid that kind of damage, and that affects their progression, in one way or another. That would be a more realistic simulation than what you're suggesting.

Too easy to game the system, I can see that.

I disagree on the learning, though, I generally find you learn more from failures than successes. The failures teach you how to fix your course to get to the successes. If you hit it right on the first try, what have you actually achieved? Your talents have carried you across to the 'goal' without you needing to work to achieve anything. You're coasting, basically.

The idea here is it's a forked path.

You could win, and achieve your story-based goal, which, yay! Gold, magic items, etc, yay!

Or you could lose, walk away with a bloodied nose, but get XP, gain more combat skill, then come to a fight stronger the next time.

Maybe it's too much of a dilemma, dividing story goal from advancement.

CharonsHelper

2016-08-09, 10:55 PM

profitofrage

2016-08-09, 11:00 PM

Too easy to game the system, I can see that.

I disagree on the learning, though, I generally find you learn more from failures than successes. The failures teach you how to fix your course to get to the successes. If you hit it right on the first try, what have you actually achieved? Your talents have carried you across to the 'goal' without you needing to work to achieve anything. You're coasting, basically.

The idea here is it's a forked path.

You could win, and achieve your story-based goal, which, yay! Gold, magic items, etc, yay!

Or you could lose, walk away with a bloodied nose, but get XP, gain more combat skill, then come to a fight stronger the next time.

Maybe it's too much of a dilemma, dividing story goal from advancement.

If the goal is to create a new "XP" system for BW because you want Skinner box style rewards (i.e frequent and for any challenge rating) and to be able to improve any skill just use modified Artha which is already in the system.

Award Artha for roleplaying, award Artha for encounters won e.t.c Then allow players to spend X (cost is the skills lvl at the time) amount of artha to increase a skill. Buying new skills is your apptitude. Boom donezo.

AMFV

2016-08-09, 11:03 PM

I agree entirely. Its incentives are for intentionally getting badly wounded in easy fights, which is all kinds of wrong.

I've seen that done in video games, but there are two issues with that, the second video games doesn't have at all, and the first isn't so bad in video games.

1. Not as bad as the previous method, but it still encourages you to get goblins to beat on you all day to get tougher, which is silly.

Well what I was aiming at was something like this: A character who gets hit a lot would train to be harder to hit, or tougher, or something. So if you get hit a lot that's what your training time would go towards. A character who has trouble landing blows would spend time practicing that, so they'd improve most in that area. Basically in real life people in combat arts tend to focus on correcting deficiencies, particularly when those can get you killed.

This wouldn't be tied to XP totals (if he were using my system), but rather to how your character advances. If we're using D&D (which this really doesn't fit). When you leveled up, if you got hit a bunch in the past few levels you'd either get a bonus to health, or to AC. Because you'd train to improve on those things to help your survival. But that would be how it would affect you. If you're not getting hit a lot to begin with, there might not be a reason that you'd train that, so it might improve to a lesser degree. Of course, I'd have to see how this plays out in practice.

2. The bookkeeping would be horrendous.

I agree, although there might be ways to streamline it, but yes, it sounds like it would be the factor that would make this least likely for me to use in a game. Although it does fit somewhat with an idea that's been knocking around in my head about having characters improve from training rather than from adventures (something like a 80-20 split, in reality), where they decide how they're training in their downtime, which causes them to improve certain things. Since that has more of a factor than anything else. Although again, nightmarish bookkeeping.

Too easy to game the system, I can see that.

I disagree on the learning, though, I generally find you learn more from failures than successes. The failures teach you how to fix your course to get to the successes. If you hit it right on the first try, what have you actually achieved? Your talents have carried you across to the 'goal' without you needing to work to achieve anything. You're coasting, basically.

Well you learn some stuff from failures, and some from successes, but ninety or so percent you learn from boring repetitive practice. In pretty much every skill I have ever trained. That's what I was getting at, working on improving specific issues while repeatedly sparring with a boxer around my level, would cause me to improve. Failing to beat Mike Tyson over and over again, would never cause that. It's not the failure that causes the improvement it's the introspection.

If I hit it right on the first try, then I keep doing it till I can do it every time, and then I move onto harder things. Just because a character didn't take damage in one fight doesn't mean that it was too easy, maybe they just got lucky. Since they survived, they can learn some things and move on.

The idea here is it's a forked path.

You could win, and achieve your story-based goal, which, yay! Gold, magic items, etc, yay!

Or you could lose, walk away with a bloodied nose, but get XP, gain more combat skill, then come to a fight stronger the next time.

Maybe it's too much of a dilemma, dividing story goal from advancement.

Well you could add that as a discrete dilemma, like making characters take a penalty for extra XP. Which is pretty metagame oriented, and would make combats more challenging although it wouldn't feel terribly realistic, at least not to me.

While you don't learn much from an easy victory, you also don't learn much when you're just stomped into the ground.

You learn the most from tough-fought challenges. (Ones which are inherently difficult. That's pretty much all reflects in standard EXP tables though, where you have to keep increasing the toughness of your foes/difficulty of your challenges to gain significant experience points.)

I disagree completely, in real life, you learn the absolute most (technically) from boring repetitive practice. Certainly tough challenges can give you epiphanies or improve you, but it's the boring practice that you do later as a result of those epiphanies that really does.

RedWarlock

2016-08-09, 11:03 PM

While you don't learn much from an easy victory, you also don't learn much when you're just stomped into the ground.

You learn the most from tough-fought challenges. (Ones which are inherently difficult. That's pretty much all reflects in standard EXP tables though, where you have to keep increasing the toughness of your foes/difficulty of your challenges to gain significant experience points.)

I never said anything about getting stomped into the ground. I'm just trying to figure out how to quantify a tough-fought challenge into general system terms. HP is one concept, but I'm open to others. These would be small things, tracked by the DM, not the players, though I'm keeping the terms transparent, no secrecy.

Also, notice that I said that when you get dropped in a fight, you *don't* get XP.

Max_Killjoy

2016-08-09, 11:04 PM

But I added those details, they weren't included by anybody prior to that, and you can bet that Max would be much more alright with that kind of thing. Or at least I would bet that. Because that does logically follow. The scenario that you folks were describing, him waiting for the guards, may or may not logically follow.

Or it's somebody who likes a certain kind of roleplaying. Maybe they like mostly freeform with only a physics engine to simulate disputes. Or they dislike metagame oriented rules. There are folks like that. Of course Burning Wheel might not be for them. But that doesn't mean that they're bad roleplayers, just that they prefer different kinds of roleplay aids.

There's one specific type of kinda-metagame mechanic that I like, and that's one that represents the character's inner reserve and the ability that even real-world people sometimes demonstrate to do remarkable, unpredictable, even unbelievable things... like the old man lifting a car off someone, or the mother who makes it out of a sinking car to save her kids, or the running back who somehow pushes 10 other large angry men backwards to get into the endzone. Willpower points in oWoD, or the like.

The metagame mechanics based on "narrative elements" are like nails on a chalkboard.

But again, you see him presuming that because I don't like how Burning Wheel or similar games in particular handle description of action/events, and I don't like mechanics based on negotiated stakes or on conflict resolution, and I don't like disassociated mechanics (http://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/17231/roleplaying-games/dissociated-mechanics-a-brief-primer) -- that means that supposedly "I like roleplaying, but not the kind where you describe whats happening, Or have to describe whats happening. Or describe how your character might be acting. All that should be rolls and numbers only."

Because evidently, not liking how a particular style of games has tried to make roleplaying part of the mechanics, means you don't like roleplaying or character-driven RPG campaigns at all, and you're just a dirty die-roller. Evidently, before games like Burning Wheel came along, no one ever concentrated on character over build efficiency, or role-playing over pure stereotypical gamism. :smallyuk:

RedWarlock

2016-08-09, 11:12 PM

Well you learn some stuff from failures, and some from successes, but ninety or so percent you learn from boring repetitive practice. In pretty much every skill I have ever trained. That's what I was getting at, working on improving specific issues while repeatedly sparring with a boxer around my level, would cause me to improve. Failing to beat Mike Tyson over and over again, would never cause that. It's not the failure that causes the improvement it's the introspection.
Just curious, where are you getting the tyson-level-curbstomp vs same-level fight contrast?

If I hit it right on the first try, then I keep doing it till I can do it every time, and then I move onto harder things.
Yeah, but that's my whole point. It's those other times that were the failed attempts on the road to 'every time' that I'm talking about. THOSE are your failures I'm trying to model.

You hit it once. Great, now, why did you hit? Can't say? You got lucky. Try again. You missed, why? Because you didn't do X, or Y, or account for Z, you see that now. Fix that, try again. Better.

Just because a character didn't take damage in one fight doesn't mean that it was too easy, maybe they just got lucky. Since they survived, they can learn some things and move on.
And how does one quantify that? I'm writing mechanics here, give me something chunky to work with.

I disagree completely, in real life, you learn the absolute most (technically) from boring repetitive practice. Certainly tough challenges can give you epiphanies or improve you, but it's the boring practice that you do later as a result of those epiphanies that really does.
Boring repetitive practice is, well, boring, and something that we're aiming to skim over. That's what the character is doing between adventures, but it's the initial loss in the fight that's giving them the impetus to improve themselves.

AMFV

2016-08-09, 11:22 PM

Just curious, where are you getting the tyson-level-curbstomp vs same-level fight contrast?

Difference in a fight where I'd be 75% beat to one where I'm not beat at all, taken to it's logical extreme.

Yeah, but that's my whole point. It's those other times that were the failed attempts on the road to 'every time' that I'm talking about. THOSE are your failures I'm trying to model.

But it's not the failures that really cause improvement. It's learning to do it over and over again, which isn't failures. It's repetition. Failures actually slow you down. If I can't do something right, I slow it down and try again till I can. Repetition without lots of failures teaches a lot more than repetition with failures. If you're failing a bunch it usually means that you're trying to perform an aspect of the skill that's too difficult.

For example, let's say I'm training speed loading an M16... If I just keep spazzing out and not doing it correctly, I'm not going to ever be able to do it as quickly or correctly as I would like to. And in a stressful situation I'll screw up even worse. The way you train something like that is by slowing it down and practicing till you can do it perfectly slowly. Then you speed it up a little. Eventually you'll be able to do it quickly, even under stress.

It's not the failures you learn from, it's the repetition. Certainly you can learn from failures, but you don't actually improve, you learn something like "Man I got hit a lot, I need to work on that," so that affects your practice. You say, I'm too slow at dodging, now I work on that.

You hit it once. Great, now, why did you hit? Can't say? You got lucky. Try again. You missed, why? Because you didn't do X, or Y, or account for Z, you see that now. Fix that, try again. Better.

Or you're like "Holy assballs, that guy is freaking fast like a freak, I can't possibly hit him." Sometimes the reason you suck isn't that you didn't do X, or, or account for Z, but that you just aren't good enough. How you become good at pretty much anything is almost always boring practice. If you're aiming for that I'd do something like

And how does one quantify that? I'm writing mechanics here, give me something chunky to work with.

I don't think you could, at least not in a way that would be mechanically satisfying. Either direction honestly. Because how hurt you are after a fight isn't a good indicator of how difficult that fight might be. It could be, but it isn't in every case.

Boring repetitive practice is, well, boring, and something that we're aiming to skim over. That's what the character is doing between adventures, but it's the initial loss in the fight that's giving them the impetus to improve themselves.

Do you know what sucks worse than boring repetitive practice?

Failure. That's why people do the practice instead of just screwing up at something. Because failure is way worse than boring practice. And in RPGs you don't even have to describe the practice. You can be like: "What did you train in your downtime?" Or "You got hit a bunch, now you've trained so that won't happen.

profitofrage

2016-08-09, 11:23 PM

There's one specific type of kinda-metagame mechanic that I like, and that's one that represents the character's inner reserve and the ability that even real-world people sometimes demonstrate to do remarkable, unpredictable, even unbelievable things... like the old man lifting a car off someone, or the mother who makes it out of a sinking car to save her kids, or the running back who somehow pushes 10 other large angry men backwards to get into the endzone. Willpower points in oWoD, or the like.

The metagame mechanics based on "narrative elements" are like nails on a chalkboard.

But again, you see him presuming that because I don't like how Burning Wheel or similar games in particular handle description of action/events, and I don't like mechanics based on negotiated stakes or on conflict resolution, and I don't like disassociated mechanics (http://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/17231/roleplaying-games/dissociated-mechanics-a-brief-primer) -- that means that supposedly "I like roleplaying, but not the kind where you describe whats happening, Or have to describe whats happening. Or describe how your character might be acting. All that should be rolls and numbers only."

Because evidently, not liking how a particular style of games has tried to make roleplaying part of the mechanics, means you don't like roleplaying or character-driven RPG campaigns at all, and you're just a dirty die-roller. Evidently, before games like Burning Wheel came along, no one ever concentrated on character over build efficiency, or role-playing over pure stereotypical gamism. :smallyuk:

No, your misrepresenting what has been said entirely.
The mechanics are not dissociated from your character decisions anymore then your examples were. Thats why that thief door guard thing KEPT going around and is STILL going around.

I didnt say what I said because im upset you dont like a particular style of game. Im saying that because at every turn I explained to you how it functions, how you have either been misrepresenting it e.t.c and ALL that is left is that you dont like that actions and consequences are described first THEN rolled.

you can keep misrepresenting what im saying but at the end of the day you are just a random complainer in the thread offering little to nothing of value.

The first part of this paragraph is the closest you have come all day... and low and behold its a mechanic that is in BW in the form of Artha almost word for word.

RedWarlock

2016-08-09, 11:30 PM

AMFV

2016-08-09, 11:37 PM

Okay, I think part of the issue is that you're over-interpreting my usage of the term 'failure'. I'm talking about any non-successful action, not just "losing" a combat by being beaten to within an inch of one's life (keep in mind, healing isn't being counted against this total). I'm trying to represent...

Well part of it was that I was on-board until you explained your in-combat interpretation, which I wasn't at all on-board with. I think that you can learn from failures. I've been trying to suggest things that could be done to handle it differently. For example, you could have the failures guide how the characters develop later, not just the amount they've been hit, but everything. Of course, the bookkeeping would be a pain.

The thing I was getting at, is this: "It isn't the failure that causes the learning, it's the practice." So in those terms actually getting hit and almost getting hit are similar. A person who gets hit in fights a lot is either going to get tougher (by necessity) or faster to avoid getting hit. But they aren't necessarily going to get better at punching if that's not a problem for them. Somebody who sucks at punching and gets into fights is likely to work on that.

The issue I had was that your combat example is only taking one metric, and then applying it to everything. When it might not be the most fitting metric for advancement. If you're going for a system where failure teaches people, you can't have half-measures, then you wind up with something that's awful. Since again, people will want to game the system, and that will suck, particularly since they'll always be almost dying, and then death is going to be frustrating.

My suggestion is to separate out skills (which would be onerous bookkeeping, but it would work for your aim), so if a character gets hit a lot, then they learn not to. If they miss a lot then they learn to hit better. That way it's not just one thing (combat) and not just one difficulty. So you'd track misses and times you got hit in combat, and that would influence the end result.

profitofrage

2016-08-09, 11:43 PM

My suggestion is to separate out skills (which would be onerous bookkeeping, but it would work for your aim), so if a character gets hit a lot, then they learn not to. If they miss a lot then they learn to hit better. That way it's not just one thing (combat) and not just one difficulty. So you'd track misses and times you got hit in combat, and that would influence the end result.

Are you not just essentially suggesting BW's advancement system then?

AMFV

2016-08-09, 11:48 PM

Are you not just essentially suggesting BW's advancement system then?

I'm suggesting something very similar to it. I did say I liked the concept, and didn't like the execution though, so you can't really fault me for that. I personally don't think that's the best way to do things. But for what Warlock is suggesting I think that having a more discrete skillset to improve would be better than one large XP bank. The things that I disliked most about Burning Wheel's version (the need to get specific difficulty rolls and what-not), and the the non-discrete failure set (where you could somehow learn to be a better lockpick by being surprised by the guards), are still issues I would have with the system, but conceptually, the root of it doesn't bother me, it's the execution in Burning Wheel, combined with the several dozen paragraph rant about why anybody who does it differently is a fool, which has far too many hints of Gygax for me to be entirely comfortable with.

profitofrage

2016-08-09, 11:55 PM

I'm suggesting something very similar to it. I did say I liked the concept, and didn't like the execution though, so you can't really fault me for that. I personally don't think that's the best way to do things. But for what Warlock is suggesting I think that having a more discrete skillset to improve would be better than one large XP bank. The things that I disliked most about Burning Wheel's version (the need to get specific difficulty rolls and what-not), and the the non-discrete failure set (where you could somehow learn to be a better lockpick by being surprised by the guards), are still issues I would have with the system, but conceptually, the root of it doesn't bother me, it's the execution in Burning Wheel, combined with the several dozen paragraph rant about why anybody who does it differently is a fool, which has far too many hints of Gygax for me to be entirely comfortable with.

you dont need specific difficulties to improve. Its Weighted towards challenging. I.e do nothing but difficult tests and youll lvl up that specific skill.
Do you mean that you dont like that you cant lvl up with only preforming easy tests? (i.e if you had in theory an infinite amount of easy tests you should be able to become a grandmaster in the game e.t.c)

Likewise with the non-discrete failure set, is the problem that your improving through failure? because if its just that example your talking about you could come up with a dozen reasons why in character. Generally the failing of the test doesn't preclude the notion you did something spectacular in that skill its just likely the go to for GM descriptions.

as for the way the book is written, I cant say I noticed it. There might be more of it in the recent editions but surely that is just a case of ignoring the guy :P and using his rules should they work for what your trying to do.

Koo Rehtorb

2016-08-09, 11:56 PM

I'm suggesting something very similar to it. I did say I liked the concept, and didn't like the execution though, so you can't really fault me for that. I personally don't think that's the best way to do things. But for what Warlock is suggesting I think that having a more discrete skillset to improve would be better than one large XP bank. The things that I disliked most about Burning Wheel's version (the need to get specific difficulty rolls and what-not), and the the non-discrete failure set (where you could somehow learn to be a better lockpick by being surprised by the guards), are still issues I would have with the system, but conceptually, the root of it doesn't bother me, it's the execution in Burning Wheel, combined with the several dozen paragraph rant about why anybody who does it differently is a fool, which has far too many hints of Gygax for me to be entirely comfortable with.

Torchbearer/Mouseguard's simplified version where you need a certain number of successes and failures to level up a skill might suit you better.

You need the successes to prove that you have a clue what you're doing and aren't just bashing your head into a door and calling it lock picking. You need the failures to prove that you're pushing yourself to improve and aren't just cruising along with no effort.

profitofrage

2016-08-10, 12:02 AM

Torchbearer/Mouseguard's simplified version where you need a certain number of successes and failures to level up a skill might suit you better.

You need the successes to prove that you have a clue what you're doing and aren't just bashing your head into a door and calling it lock picking. You need the failures to prove that you're pushing yourself to improve and aren't just cruising along with no effort.

That sounds extremely palatable. as a fan of BW I really should get a hold of Mouseguard, I hear its fantastic.

Koo Rehtorb

2016-08-10, 12:07 AM

you dont need specific difficulties to improve. Its Weighted towards challenging. I.e do nothing but difficult tests and youll lvl up that specific skill.

I don't know if this was the case in Revised. It certainly isn't in Gold, though. You can't substitute difficulties for any reason. 1-4 needs routines + difficults or challengings. 5+ needs difficults and challengings.

Koo Rehtorb

2016-08-10, 12:09 AM

That sounds extremely palatable. as a fan of BW I really should get a hold of Mouseguard, I hear its fantastic.

Personally I prefer Torchbearer, but it comes with a whole lot of "this is a brutal misery simulator" baggage.

AMFV

2016-08-10, 12:10 AM

you dont need specific difficulties to improve. Its Weighted towards challenging. I.e do nothing but difficult tests and youll lvl up that specific skill.
Do you mean that you dont like that you cant lvl up with only preforming easy tests? (i.e if you had in theory an infinite amount of easy tests you should be able to become a grandmaster in the game e.t.c)

I do, because easy tests and perfect repetitions are as useful to real improvement as challenging things. If I do nothing but shuffle cards all day long, I'm going to get good at it, even if I very rarely drop the cards all over the floor. If I sit and play Czerny exercises on a Piano with a metronome, I'm going to improve, those are easy (many of them are), but that doesn't matter, what matters is that you're using the skill.

Also as many people have noted, requiring difficult checks can mean that a skill gets ignored when it's the easy option. Or the most sensible one, depending on how the players are feeling about advancement. The example of somebody trying to talk their way in, when they really should be picking a lock came up I believe. That's going to be a very natural result of the way that people treat the system, and it's an unintended consequence, which is mostly bad. Now there are probably people that don't think that way, and they aren't going to be affected or bothered by that.

Likewise with the non-discrete failure set, is the problem that your improving through failure? because if its just that example your talking about you could come up with a dozen reasons why in character. Generally the failing of the test doesn't preclude the notion you did something spectacular in that skill its just likely the go to for GM descriptions.

Which isn't something I really like, as I mentioned. I like to have things be more tightly focused. But that's just me again.

as for the way the book is written, I cant say I noticed it. There might be more of it in the recent editions but surely that is just a case of ignoring the guy :P and using his rules should they work for what your trying to do.

I'm not entirely sure which version, it was the one with the angry faces used to denote "rants" by the author, and various other faces used for different tones and suggestions and what-not.

Torchbearer/Mouseguard's simplified version where you need a certain number of successes and failures to level up a skill might suit you better.

You need the successes to prove that you have a clue what you're doing and aren't just bashing your head into a door and calling it lock picking. You need the failures to prove that you're pushing yourself to improve and aren't just cruising along with no effort.

As I said, I like the concept of individually improving skills. If I were designing it, I wouldn't tie it to specific failures or successes but to practice. Although that isn't what RedWarlock was asking about, for his system I would tie things to specific skills. But generally it's not really successes or failures that cause improvement, but practice overall. I would perfect practice is even better than practice with a lot of muddling. But that isn't here nor there. It isn't when we're challenged that we actually improve, but it's that we're challenged that let's us know we have to.

I did like the Mousegaurd/Torchbearer system somewhat better. But I think that experience comes from usage, rather than success or failure, so as far as the whole system it doesn't really feel that real to me, and since it's designed to better simulate certain aspects of reality, that makes it fall flat, at least in my case.

profitofrage

2016-08-10, 12:20 AM

I don't know if this was the case in Revised. It certainly isn't in Gold, though. You can't substitute difficulties for any reason. 1-4 needs routines + difficults or challengings. 5+ needs difficults and challengings.

Its mentioned right alongside it. He says that you cant trade in easy tests for difficults e.t.c but goes on to say that trading down is an acceptable idea.

Likewise, even if for some reason I am wrong, this incredibly easy to implement change fix's the issue entirely.

I do, because easy tests and perfect repetitions are as useful to real improvement as challenging things. If I do nothing but shuffle cards all day long, I'm going to get good at it, even if I very rarely drop the cards all over the floor. If I sit and play Czerny exercises on a Piano with a metronome, I'm going to improve, those are easy (many of them are), but that doesn't matter, what matters is that you're using the skill.
Also as many people have noted, requiring difficult checks can mean that a skill gets ignored when it's the easy option. Or the most sensible one, depending on how the players are feeling about advancement. The example of somebody trying to talk their way in, when they really should be picking a lock came up I believe. That's going to be a very natural result of the way that people treat the system, and it's an unintended consequence, which is mostly bad. Now there are probably people that don't think that way, and they aren't going to be affected or bothered by that.
Which isn't something I really like, as I mentioned. I like to have things be more tightly focused. But that's just me again.
I'm not entirely sure which version, it was the one with the angry faces used to denote "rants" by the author, and various other faces used for different tones and suggestions and what-not.
As I said, I like the concept of individually improving skills. If I were designing it, I wouldn't tie it to specific failures or successes but to practice. Although that isn't what RedWarlock was asking about, for his system I would tie things to specific skills. But generally it's not really successes or failures that cause improvement, but practice overall. I would perfect practice is even better than practice with a lot of muddling. But that isn't here nor there. It isn't when we're challenged that we actually improve, but it's that we're challenged that let's us know we have to.
I did like the Mousegaurd/Torchbearer system somewhat better. But I think that experience comes from usage, rather than success or failure, so as far as the whole system it doesn't really feel that real to me, and since it's designed to better simulate certain aspects of reality, that makes it fall flat, at least in my case.

if you want easy tests e.t.c to eventually make you a grandmaster then a really easy to implement change would be to convert difficult tests to 3 challenging to 4 and easy as 1 "MARK"s to the test. get the required marks either in successes or fails (or just successes if you want?) and it improves.

that said, the idea that your avoiding a skill because the tests involved are difficult doesn't sound like an issue for just BW. If you came to a door that was really hard to unpick in DnD your character is just as likely to avoid it as in BW. the difference is that in BW it makes you take the challenge if you want to get better at that skill. TO be the thief that can unlock any door you have to have unlocked (or at least tried) to unlock thought to be unbreakable locks.

Yea revised had those faces as well. but I didnt see anything particularly wrong with them. This could just as likely be because I agreed with him so I skimmed over them.

Koo Rehtorb

2016-08-10, 12:50 AM

Its mentioned right alongside it. He says that you cant trade in easy tests for difficults e.t.c but goes on to say that trading down is an acceptable idea.

It's on page 45.

What if my character is one routine test from advancing his skill, but has tons of difficult tests? I can just convert a test, right? No. Hard and fast rule; Players cannot convert or substitute tests, ever.

profitofrage

2016-08-10, 12:58 AM

It's on page 45.

then its well and truly moronic and should be totally ignored or flat out changed. My concern is more that I swear I read what I did, so either I saw what he wrote and presumed he was not crazy and made up my own mind on it :P or im just going crazy.

That said, I think it would be incredibly ill advised to follow that particular rule as it has little to no benefit and creates all the problems mentioned prior in the thread.

Koo Rehtorb

2016-08-10, 01:02 AM

If you like. It means that skills will advance to exponent 5 very quickly, though.

profitofrage

2016-08-10, 01:11 AM

If you like. It means that skills will advance to exponent 5 very quickly, though.

You only exchange "down" so you would still need to get in a fair number of tests in plus a few difficult tests e.t.c
Plus if its a skill they have not purchased they still need a few extra tests just to be able to start trying to improve it.

Overall in all the games I have played (and ive always played it this way) I have not seen advancement happen overly quickly (more or less on par with any other system)

ImNotTrevor

2016-08-10, 01:21 AM

Just as an idea along the Individual Skill Levelling, you could probably modify some of the XP gain stuff from Apocalypse World to suit this need.

In AW you only roll Stats, not skills.
Two of your Stats (out of 5) are Highlighted.
If you roll a Highlighted stat, you get xp. Success/failure are irrelevant to the equation.

You could have a system where skills are highlighted as ones the character is specifically trying to improve, and this may have a limited/long duration according to needs. If that skill is used, it gains points towards improving, probably at a flat rate or very slowly increasing rate. (Use the skill a number of times equal to [current lvl]x2 or something.)
If only highlighted stats go up, then the practice is implied without needing to roleplay it. Those stats are the ones being practiced, and eligible to go up. The rest would just be used. (One only has a finite amount of time to practice, and it is often better to practice a few things in a dedicated way than many things all at once.)

The specifics and how/when to highlight would need to be tweaked, but it might be a good pathway towards something more palatable.

BayardSPSR

2016-08-10, 02:18 AM

I find "You don't pick the lock, try something else." to be kind of a toothless result of a failed roll, personally.

Fair enough - I find that "you succeed" is pretty toothless as a result of failure too, though, even if you add other events.

Koo Rehtorb

2016-08-10, 02:24 AM

It doesn't have to be that. Maybe you fail at picking the lock and get the complication instead. It really comes down to group preference. The system doesn't demand anything in this case. For reference the actual paragraph in the book:

When a test is failed, the GM introduces a complication.

"You can try to pick the lock, but you don't have much time. It is highly likely that the guards will return before you finish."

Try not to present flat negative results- "You don't pick the lock." Strive to introduce complications through failure as much as possible.

Lorsa

2016-08-10, 02:30 AM

I explain further down why "The GM needs to present appropriate challenges that provide meaningful XP" is functionally identical to "The GM needs to present appropriate challenges that provide required skill checks," but that should already look pretty samey. So the GM dependence is basically the same. The criteria for being "GM-Dependent" would be "Is the final arbitrator of your getting xp or not the GM? If yes, it's GM-Dependent."

That's not really a defense of BW, I like it but I think it has definite flaws. But so long as we're making a temporary shift here to this topic, we might as well debate it honestly instead of trying to feel like none of our favorite systems are tainted in the same way BW is. (Which is what this... kiiinda feels like.)

...that's a very strange way of saying "you get xp for killing stuff" which relies on the GM to present you with challenges that grant a meaningful amount of xp (one goblin per room is not a meaningful amount of xp to an epic level character)

Which sounds eerily similar to relying on the GM to present challenges that allow for your character to make certain skill checks. Just replace "make certain skill checks" with "Kill sufficiently strong critters" and you have the same kind of GM dependence BW has. So... >.>

D&D by RAW only gives you xp for killing stuff. If you're getting xp for other things, that's technically homebrew (and probably entirely arbitrary). Even if the system says "Hey, you could try something like this," if it doesn't provide rules, it's just telling you to fix its problems for it.

Something something, How much xp you get for completing Act 2 is not on any xp table, something something.

And remember, Player-dependent was on that list, too. So it's still sitting pretty in that all-encompassing list. (The point of its being pointed out was that it was a poor argument because all systems could be defined in such broad terms unless they were very, very strange.)

This might be the only one that actually stands the chance of not meeting this criteria, but with all the metagaming complaints this would not exactly a great example of systems that don't involve the metagame to raise level. I'm not implying that you're attempting to do so here, but these sorts of XP freebies are indeed very metagamey since you could, in theory, have a character level up by hiding in his room organizing his belly button lint by size and color, and eventually he would get better at punching.

But it is Player Dependent so it stays within the umbrella of the way-too-broad list

Exactly this thing is in Burning Wheel. Just thought I'd point that out. Also, still Player Dependent and still on the list.

With the exception of that last thing, which exists nearly 1 for 1 in Burning Wheel, you're describing entirely different mechanics that are Player-centric rather than GM centric and saying they occupy a different place on the GM centric spectrum.... wut?

I mean, like what you like and have fun however you want, but that's not arguing honestly.

This last point assumes verisimilitude is the goal, which it may not be. The system you recommend is good, though might be book-keeping heavy in the long run, depending on how the diminishing returns are modeled. Does it stay at a fixed XP amount given but the amount of needed XP grows so much that it becomes a smaller percentage, or does the amount of XP given literally decrease? The former would be a bit more user friendly, but the second would be pretty annoying unless you were working with XP amounts that never went above double digits.

But again, you're assuming a system goal that may not be the system goal. Walking up to a game that doesn't value versimilitude and rather wants to make a playground for cool stories to happen without worrying about how much lantern oil wieghs or precisely, mathematically how great you are at opening a locked doors, and complaining that its rules don't make sense in versimilitude terms... is a little bit like walking into an italian restaurant and complaining about the lack of sweet and sour chicken.

The proper response is not "the italian restaurant is giving you what you want, it has chicken, sour things, and sweet things, so shut up and eat!" Like profit has been arguing (more or less), it's "Oh, you will want to eat at the chinese place down the street, instead."

No system is perfect.

Allow me to repeat that for effect.

NO SYSTEM IS PERFECT.

No system is all things to everyone, and if people don't want to get mechanical rewards for narrative actions then they don't need to and aren't wrong for not enjoying that. To the degree you try to tell people they're wrong for liking/not liking a certain way a system does something, step off. That goes for everyone, everywhere.

And, if you're going to debate something, debate honestly. Try to get to the truth, not your correctness being held aloft for all to see. (To sorta quote Captain Picard... I hope I spelled that right lest the trekkies be angered.) The former has the chance to make for good, positive discussion. The second is annoying to read through and looks like a bunch of people being pompous nerds.

Did you read and understand what I was saying before? It seems like you didn't, or you didn't take your own advice to debate honestly.

In many systems, all the GM has to do is to provide interesting adventures, situations or problems that the players have to solve. If they do this (i.e. playing the game the way it's meant to be played), the player characters will progress naturally through the system suggested method of advancement. The GM doesn't have to think about advancement in specific, the players don't have to think about it, it will happen anyway through just engaging with the intended game.

The same, however, is NOT true for BW. It's not enough for the GM to provide adventures, situations or problems that are in line with the character's explicitly stated beliefs. The GM ALSO has to provide adventures, situations or problems that can be solved by skills of the exact right difficulty that the player needs in order to get advancement. Alternatively, the player has to do this himself. Or you can be lucky. The point it that character progression doesn't happen naturally through simply playing the game as intended like in just about all other games. Events and problems in the game have to be tailored specifically for progression.

I mean, obviously ALL games are hinged on both GM and players to have character progression. If you don't have a GM, you don't have a game therefore no character progression. Similarly, if you don't have players, you don't have a game etc...

That's not what this discussion is about, and taking an argument out of context, or misrepresenting the viewpoint, isn't doing anyone any good.

Point being is that character progression happens naturally in basically all other game I've played (except for the swedish game Eon), whereas in BW it requires an added meta-game in order to exist (or being lucky). Do you have issues with understanding the qualitative difference between these two types of progression or what's the issue? If so, can't you think of it as a quantitative difference instead and move on? Whichever way, they're really NOT functionally identical. The don't play the same way.

Obviously no system is perfect. This thread got into discussion about the ways in which BW was flawed, which is sort of relevant to the "is BW dead?" question.

BayardSPSR

2016-08-10, 02:36 AM

Lorsa

2016-08-10, 02:49 AM

then its well and truly moronic and should be totally ignored or flat out changed. My concern is more that I swear I read what I did, so either I saw what he wrote and presumed he was not crazy and made up my own mind on it :P or im just going crazy.

That said, I think it would be incredibly ill advised to follow that particular rule as it has little to no benefit and creates all the problems mentioned prior in the thread.

Are you finally starting to see what I was talking about? If I had a BW copy I could've quoted that rule long ago. But I didn't, so I was only working from memory (which turned out to be correct).

If you like. It means that skills will advance to exponent 5 very quickly, though.

You only exchange "down" so you would still need to get in a fair number of tests in plus a few difficult tests e.t.c
Plus if its a skill they have not purchased they still need a few extra tests just to be able to start trying to improve it.

Overall in all the games I have played (and ive always played it this way) I have not seen advancement happen overly quickly (more or less on par with any other system)

Usually at exponent 1-4, the issue isn't to get difficult or challenging tests. It's pretty easy in fact. The problem is to get routine test, as the Ob requirement is so low that it... well... almost never happens (unless with tailored situations).

Then once you get to exponent 5 or higher, it actually becomes a bit troublesome to get those challenging tests, so now you need to tailor situations for that.

I remember this well when the GM asked me how I could've made the almost the exact same amount of total rolls (he actually kept track of those) as the other player but only advanced one skill, whereas the other player had advanced in six. I showed him my character sheet with all the tests scribbled down, to show him what I was lacking. He glanced at it, looked over the obstacle suggestions for those skills and reached the conclusion that he couldn't really be bothered to tailor problems exactly for the tests I needed (nor should he need to). Thus, I realized I had to do this myself, which is the exact moment that BW became dead to me (even though I still played it a little longer).

BayardSPSR

2016-08-10, 02:52 AM

I remember this well when the GM asked me how I could've made the almost the exact same amount of total rolls (he actually kept track of those) as the other player but only advanced one skill, whereas the other player had advanced in six. I showed him my character sheet with all the tests scribbled down, to show him what I was lacking. He glanced at it, looked over the obstacle suggestions for those skills and reached the conclusion that he couldn't really be bothered to tailor problems exactly for the tests I needed (nor should he need to). Thus, I realized I had to do this myself, which is the exact moment that BW became dead to me (even though I still played it a little longer).

Yeah, that suggests a counterproductively intricate system.

profitofrage

2016-08-10, 03:12 AM

Are you finally starting to see what I was talking about? If I had a BW copy I could've quoted that rule long ago. But I didn't, so I was only working from memory (which turned out to be correct).

Usually at exponent 1-4, the issue isn't to get difficult or challenging tests. It's pretty easy in fact. The problem is to get routine test, as the Ob requirement is so low that it... well... almost never happens (unless with tailored situations).

Then once you get to exponent 5 or higher, it actually becomes a bit troublesome to get those challenging tests, so now you need to tailor situations for that.

I remember this well when the GM asked me how I could've made the almost the exact same amount of total rolls (he actually kept track of those) as the other player but only advanced one skill, whereas the other player had advanced in six. I showed him my character sheet with all the tests scribbled down, to show him what I was lacking. He glanced at it, looked over the obstacle suggestions for those skills and reached the conclusion that he couldn't really be bothered to tailor problems exactly for the tests I needed (nor should he need to). Thus, I realized I had to do this myself, which is the exact moment that BW became dead to me (even though I still played it a little longer).

Yes I totally see what you mean, if you are not allowing more difficult tests to count for lower test then you absolutely run into your issue. Frankly, the idea this is the actual design makes me think the publisher was on drugs.

However, that said... with such an easy fix most of your problems and the meta goes out the window. Suddenly all the DM has to do is put in challenging situations... which is rather easy to do and satisfies everyone.

Likewise, the idea that your GM essentially looked at your character and decided its not worth his time is absolutely his fault... BW is literally about the characters and THEIR story... thats why they have beliefs e.t.c in the first place.

Lorsa

2016-08-10, 04:45 AM

Yes I totally see what you mean, if you are not allowing more difficult tests to count for lower test then you absolutely run into your issue. Frankly, the idea this is the actual design makes me think the publisher was on drugs.

However, that said... with such an easy fix most of your problems and the meta goes out the window. Suddenly all the DM has to do is put in challenging situations... which is rather easy to do and satisfies everyone.

Likewise, the idea that your GM essentially looked at your character and decided its not worth his time is absolutely his fault... BW is literally about the characters and THEIR story... thats why they have beliefs e.t.c in the first place.

Reading through the rulebook, I didn't get the impression that the publisher was on drugs, more that he was very upset with certain specific things and was creating rules to make those things impossible.

It may be an easy fix, but I am not sure how it would upset the rest of the system. I don't know what sort of skill progression the author had envisioned for example, so I don't know if that fix will end up ruining something else. It's a very complicated system after all. If he had mentioned something like "I expect an average of 1 skill increase per two beliefs fulfilled", it would've been easier.

Perhaps I will try it again with your suggestion. We'll see. I don't have much time to play roleplaying games these days, and all the people I used to play with lives in cities 6 hours away from me.

ImNotTrevor

2016-08-10, 04:48 AM

Did you read and understand what I was saying before? It seems like you didn't, or you didn't take your own advice to debate honestly.

In many systems, all the GM has to do is to provide interesting adventures, situations or problems that the players have to solve. If they do this (i.e. playing the game the way it's meant to be played), the player characters will progress naturally through the system suggested method of advancement. The GM doesn't have to think about advancement in specific, the players don't have to think about it, it will happen anyway through just engaging with the intended game.

The same, however, is NOT true for BW. It's not enough for the GM to provide adventures, situations or problems that are in line with the character's explicitly stated beliefs. The GM ALSO has to provide adventures, situations or problems that can be solved by skills of the exact right difficulty that the player needs in order to get advancement. Alternatively, the player has to do this himself. Or you can be lucky. The point it that character progression doesn't happen naturally through simply playing the game as intended like in just about all other games. Events and problems in the game have to be tailored specifically for progression.

The difference here is that perhaps what you get in BW is exactly how the game is meant to be played. *shrug*

I don't think it is, but that's a pretty decent hurdle to overcome in this line of reasoning. The other problem arises in that games like D&D also require the DM to tailor things to the specific classes, party level, etc. If there is no rogue, then they probably ought not include an onslaught of traps. If there's no wizard, a trial of magic will also be inappropriate, etc. Not to mention CR calculating for encounters (legitimate math) and etc. That's not a unique feature of BW. (Perhaps that's not your argument but it appears to be, kinda?)

Though as I've said before, a lot of my post didn't come across as intended. I agree with a lot of the criticisms.

I mean, obviously ALL games are hinged on both GM and players to have character progression. If you don't have a GM, you don't have a game therefore no character progression. Similarly, if you don't have players, you don't have a game etc...

That's not what this discussion is about, and taking an argument out of context, or misrepresenting the viewpoint, isn't doing anyone any good.

Not my intention, though I don't think this part of my post was feedback for you.

Point being is that character progression happens naturally in basically all other game I've played (except for the swedish game Eon), whereas in BW it requires an added meta-game in order to exist (or being lucky). Do you have issues with understanding the qualitative difference between these two types of progression or what's the issue? If so, can't you think of it as a quantitative difference instead and move on? Whichever way, they're really NOT functionally identical. The don't play the same way.

The tone reads a little hostile here.
Metagaming exists in all games to various degrees. And I don't personally find it bad.

You obviously disagree, but I made no statements stating that they were functionally the same and a good deal of the feedback in my post was not for you, friend.

Obviously no system is perfect. This thread got into discussion about the ways in which BW was flawed, which is sort of relevant to the "is BW dead?" question.
Indeed. And I agree that it is littered with its fair share of flaws.

Lorsa

2016-08-10, 05:20 AM

The difference here is that perhaps what you get in BW is exactly how the game is meant to be played. *shrug*

I don't think it is, but that's a pretty decent hurdle to overcome in this line of reasoning. The other problem arises in that games like D&D also require the DM to tailor things to the specific classes, party level, etc. If there is no rogue, then they probably ought not include an onslaught of traps. If there's no wizard, a trial of magic will also be inappropriate, etc. Not to mention CR calculating for encounters (legitimate math) and etc. That's not a unique feature of BW. (Perhaps that's not your argument but it appears to be, kinda?)

I agree that there's tailoring of problems and situations for the specific characters in all systems. In D&D, as you say, the game is made for there to be CR-appropriate encounters, and you should be aware of what abilities the different classes have etc. If you do this, play the game the way it's meant to be played, the characters will progress naturally without you having to pay any specific mind to the progression as such.

In BW, the game tells you to tailor problems and situations based on the characters' beliefs. If you do this, you may end up with lots of character progression or none at all. It doesn't flow naturally from the game. Therefore, if you DO want character progression, you need to specifically take that into account in a way no other game I've played asks you to. Some people may not mind this, but I do. Some were arguing that the problem doesn't exist at all, which seemed weird to me. At this point however, I think (or hope) that the existence of the problem has been well established.

Though as I've said before, a lot of my post didn't come across as intended. I agree with a lot of the criticisms.

Alright, I had almost 3 pages to read that occurred while I was sleeping, so I did not respond to the latest issue.

Not my intention, though I don't think this part of my post was feedback for you.

Well, since I was the one that brought up the point that progression was very different in BW compared to most other systems, your post saying there were functionally the same made me read it as relevant to me, even if they were not.

The tone reads a little hostile here.

I apologize. I felt hostile, so if it only read a little hostile that's a mark of my restraint. Not that it's any excuse.

Metagaming exists in all games to various degrees. And I don't personally find it bad.

Yes it does. I find some degrees bad but not others.

As I mentioned above, it was rather weird that when I brought up the BW meta-game and said that this was something I didn't like the general response was "you're wrong, it doesn't exist!" rather than "ok, I don't mind it but I can understand why someone would be bothered by it".

You obviously disagree, but I made no statements stating that they were functionally the same and a good deal of the feedback in my post was not for you, friend.

Oh? Well, if we both agree that BW has a character progression that is functionally different from most other systems, then that's all good and well.

People can like if they want, I have no problems with that.

Indeed. And I agree that it is littered with its fair share of flaws.

That's the way with all systems, they have flaws. Some you find acceptable, some you don't. Some you can house-rule away without messing up something else, some you can't.

Some systems however, have such glaring deficiencies you can't really take them seriously.

ImNotTrevor

2016-08-10, 05:59 AM

I agree that there's tailoring of problems and situations for the specific characters in all systems. In D&D, as you say, the game is made for there to be CR-appropriate encounters, and you should be aware of what abilities the different classes have etc. If you do this, play the game the way it's meant to be played, the characters will progress naturally without you having to pay any specific mind to the progression as such.

In BW, the game tells you to tailor problems and situations based on the characters' beliefs. If you do this, you may end up with lots of character progression or none at all. It doesn't flow naturally from the game. Therefore, if you DO want character progression, you need to specifically take that into account in a way no other game I've played asks you to. Some people may not mind this, but I do. Some were arguing that the problem doesn't exist at all, which seemed weird to me. At this point however, I think (or hope) that the existence of the problem has been well established.

I'll say this much: from everything I know about Burning Wheel, progression seems to take a far back seat compared to everything else. Progression seems to be intended to take a very, very long time.

So at this point I guess it being a problem is up in the air. If it's intentional, then I guess it technically works as desired. If not, then it's a problem.

I don't think BW's progression system is entirely foreign to all other progression systems, though it is certainly an odd duck. Dungeon World has a similar, though incredibly simplified version of this progression system. (One of the two creators is a big fan of BW, so that's not exactly a surprise.)

I think Dungeon World does a much better job, though.

*shrug*

That's about all I feel on that particular issue.

kyoryu

2016-08-10, 02:52 PM

The requires successes and failures thing isn't too terribly uncommon.

What's annoying about BW advancement is that you have to track how many attempts (and failures/successes?) vs. *relative* difficulty, which is figured *after* you add in whatever traits, Artha expenditures, etc. you have. Which means you basically have to do this math on the fly, which is annoying as hell. Or, you can do the raw numbers and do your homework afterwards, which is also annoying.

Max_Killjoy

2016-08-10, 03:11 PM

profitofrage

2016-08-10, 08:15 PM

I found that all the progression "math" fits easily on a character sheet. typically less then the gear section of most others.
likewise I also didnt find the math all too confusing, less then 2 dice below how many you've rolled? easy. 1 below or the same , difficult. more than challenging.

Going by what everyone has said in the thread, I still cant shake the feeling that the majority of the complaints stem from a lack of skinners box immediate progression style rewards.
Burning wheel's progression is meant to reflect events in the story, making it MORE story focused. Aragon didnt need to train his swordsman skills during LoTR because he started as a legendary swordsman. This is likewise possible in BW, your starting skills can sometimes be VERY VERY high. Your meant to already be playing the sort of character you want to be.

Likewise if immediate improvement or gratification is what your after, Artha is present. Every point of Artha you get is a boost you take with you along the ride. If your coming from a game of DnD where your expected to fight "Cr appropriate encounters" , roleplaying and story can and often take a back seat and character progression is just numbers in your XP field BW is going to be a serious shock. That said, I have not had a single player who has not fallen in love with the system when they were looking for a change.

sick of your teammates not Roleplaying there characters? Play BW, they will have to keep up.
Sick of munchkins? Play Burning wheel, you cant minmax without creating a glass cannon.
Sick of class based systems? Play Burning Wheel, character creation is limitless with lifepaths and custom lifepaths.
sick of combat that is dry, long, complicated and yet still boils down to "I hit it with my sword" Play burning wheel it has dynamic combat, simple combat and several other "Versions" of combat you can pick and choose from.
Sick of character progression being just killing monsters? Play Burning Wheel, you advance as you use skills (assuming you make the minor change to rules because having to specifically get easy tests is retarded.)

Sick of ROLLplaying? Play Burning wheel, every roll has consequences or its not bothered with. Your playing the exciting parts, not listening to the rogue mugging a random guy for 45 minutes of your play session.

Koo Rehtorb

2016-08-10, 08:54 PM

It's really not very hard to keep track of advancement. You already need to count out the number of dice you're gathering for a test. It takes like three additional seconds to consult the chart and calculate the difficulty along with that. And that's before you've memorized the most common numbers.

BayardSPSR

2016-08-10, 09:15 PM

Burning wheel's progression is meant to reflect events in the story, making it MORE story focused.

Where does this come from? I thought people have been saying the progression comes out of taking tests of specific difficulties, which doesn't sound story-related at all.

sick of your teammates not Roleplaying there characters? Play BW, they will have to keep up.
Sick of munchkins? Play Burning wheel, you cant minmax without creating a glass cannon.
Sick of class based systems? Play Burning Wheel, character creation is limitless with lifepaths and custom lifepaths.
sick of combat that is dry, long, complicated and yet still boils down to "I hit it with my sword" Play burning wheel it has dynamic combat, simple combat and several other "Versions" of combat you can pick and choose from.
Sick of character progression being just killing monsters? Play Burning Wheel, you advance as you use skills (assuming you make the minor change to rules because having to specifically get easy tests is retarded.)

Sick of ROLLplaying? Play Burning wheel, every roll has consequences or its not bothered with. Your playing the exciting parts, not listening to the rogue mugging a random guy for 45 minutes of your play session.

To be honest, it sounds like you're trying to sell everyone on BW as the solution to every problem anyone could possibly have, and insisting that any criticism of it is either in error or in bad faith.

kyoryu

2016-08-10, 09:19 PM

I found that all the progression "math" fits easily on a character sheet. typically less then the gear section of most others.
likewise I also didnt find the math all too confusing, less then 2 dice below how many you've rolled? easy. 1 below or the same , difficult. more than challenging.

Going by what everyone has said in the thread, I still cant shake the feeling that the majority of the complaints stem from a lack of skinners box immediate progression style rewards.

Congratulations. You have an opinion. It is not the opinion of everyone in this thread. That does not mean that you get to say that everyone else is addicted to Skinner box progression. Doing so says more about YOU than anyone else.

You know what my group went to, from Burning Wheel? Fate. A game with even LESS focus on mechanical progression.

And I never said progression was HARD math, just more than my players wanted to fiddle with at the table. So much so that they didn't bother. And if they were truly wanting advancement mechanics, wouldn't that be the FIRST thing they'd do?

So, no. You are wrong. There are reasons, VALID ones, to dislike Burning Wheel (and I WANTED to like it, I TRIED to like it) that have nothing to do with being locked into a D&D style mentality or an addiciton to Skinner box style progression.

Once you can come to grips with that, then *perhaps* a discussion is viable.

sick of your teammates not Roleplaying there characters? Play BW, they will have to keep up.
Sick of munchkins? Play Burning wheel, you cant minmax without creating a glass cannon.
Sick of class based systems? Play Burning Wheel, character creation is limitless with lifepaths and custom lifepaths.
sick of combat that is dry, long, complicated and yet still boils down to "I hit it with my sword" Play burning wheel it has dynamic combat, simple combat and several other "Versions" of combat you can pick and choose from.
Sick of character progression being just killing monsters? Play Burning Wheel, you advance as you use skills (assuming you make the minor change to rules because having to specifically get easy tests is retarded.)

Is BW your first non-D&D game? You do realize that there are a GREAT many games out there that hit these points that aren't BW. MANY. And many more that hit the majority of them.

Koo Rehtorb

2016-08-10, 09:41 PM

Where does this come from? I thought people have been saying the progression comes out of taking tests of specific difficulties, which doesn't sound story-related at all.

It's designed that way to produce a sort of story beat. It works to force people into pushing past their limits, making them fail important scenes, crushing their hopes and dreams, but making them stronger as a result of it.

profitofrage

2016-08-10, 09:58 PM

Congratulations. You have an opinion. It is not the opinion of everyone in this thread. That does not mean that you get to say that everyone else is addicted to Skinner box progression. Doing so says more about YOU than anyone else.

You know what my group went to, from Burning Wheel? Fate. A game with even LESS focus on mechanical progression.

And I never said progression was HARD math, just more than my players wanted to fiddle with at the table. So much so that they didn't bother. And if they were truly wanting advancement mechanics, wouldn't that be the FIRST thing they'd do?

So, no. You are wrong. There are reasons, VALID ones, to dislike Burning Wheel (and I WANTED to like it, I TRIED to like it) that have nothing to do with being locked into a D&D style mentality or an addiciton to Skinner box style progression.

Once you can come to grips with that, then *perhaps* a discussion is viable.

Is BW your first non-D&D game? You do realize that there are a GREAT many games out there that hit these points that aren't BW. MANY. And many more that hit the majority of them.

Congratulations on also having an opinion? Apparently me talking about a feeling I have has somehow invalidated your opinion enough that you typed this little rant.

You may not have said its hard math, but its less math then is required then most other systems people have played. Why complain about the math if its not hard? dont try and back peddle a comment because you realise it doesn't make sense in context.
Most people playing RPG's will find BW no more math heavy then any other. Rather then bothering with class levels, xp, traits e.t.c you just keep track of what tests you have done. You get one or two a session max. If anything its LESS math then the majority of systems out there.

You can screech and moan, but I say you doth protest too much. My entire point was simply that if your used to constant "here is 300 xp for your trouble" every session then YES it MIGHT be a shock going to BW. You DONT get these little rewards all the time (that do nothing anyway until you hit a certain limit where you can finally improve).

I also dont see how you can suddenly declare me "wrong" by saying there are valid reasons for not liking BW... I never said there wasn't.
Your just projecting. Frankly you seem far more insecure about my skinner box comment then you are about talking about any of the points I actually stated. Which says a lot about you more then anyone else to steal a phrase :P

To be honest, it sounds like you're trying to sell everyone on BW as the solution to every problem anyone could possibly have, and insisting that any criticism of it is either in error or in bad faith.

Not really, and its not a solution to every problem ever.... just the ones I stated. if your problem is "I like combat really crunchy and I like simulationist games" then no, do not touch BW.
If however you want lots of Roleplaying, BW has it in spades, its practically enforced and rewards it when you do it well.