Let's have a Burning Wheel/Torchbearer/Mouse Guard thread.
Anyone playing/running/planning on playing/planning on running any of these games soon?
Anyone back the Burning Wheel Codex Kickstarter?
How do you feel about BWHQ publishing Dungeon World?
Who /worships Luke Crane/ here?
Anyone ever actually got a BWHQ game to the table?
>>44850398
>Who /worships Luke Crane/ here?
Reporting in. If you've got a head for rules and want the system to mean something for how the game's going to play out, Burning Wheel is the single best game ever written.
I'm not sure whether to pledge for the newest BW book because I have the old Burners handy on my shelf, but I'm seriously tempted.
>>44850398
>Anyone playing/running/planning on playing/planning on running any of these games soon?
I wish, sadly don't have anything in the works at the morning
>Anyone back the Burning Wheel Codex Kickstarter?
This guy, managed to snag a signed copy.
>How do you feel about BWHQ publishing Dungeon World?
Pretty indifferent, not a big fan of DW myself but I don't really care if they work together.
>Who /worships Luke Crane/ here?
Worship might be a little much, but I do like a lot of his games.
>Anyone ever actually got a BWHQ game to the table?
Couple of times, sadly none of them lasted very long, just for typically scheduling bullshit.
>>44850643
I pledged for it because I only had the pdfs. Plus, it's gonna look cool as fuck sitting next to Gold on my shelf.
>>44850830
I feel you on the scheduling, I bought the new Mouse Guard thinking I could finally get something BW related to the table (my group is 50% board game players so they'd never actually play/read BW). Sadly, I only got to play one session which I royally fucked up because I misunderstood how the GM's turn really works. Haven't had the people together for it since. As someone that loves to just read the rules though, BWHQ stuff is great.I still really wish I got to play it though.
>>44850398
Bought the gold edition but never ran it, although it was a pretty informative read.
>>44854344
Occupies the same spot for me. Burning Wheel is an intricate, beautiful game and the supplements (especially the Adventure Burner) are what I would honestly call tabletop required reading. The system is one that's informed the way I play at the table in any system, but I've resigned myself to the fact that my beer n' pretzels playgroup just isn't the right fit for it.
I still backed for the signed copies before they ran out, though. I may never get to play them but I'll be damned if I won't appreciate them.
I've been meaning to run a Mouse Guard game for years now. No friend of mine has read the comics even though I supplemented them with cbz files.
I guess they think playing as mice is weird.
>>44850398
>Anyone playing/running/planning on playing/planning on running any of these games soon?
I want to run Torchbearer, but I don't think my group wants to play.
>How do you feel about BWHQ publishing Dungeon World?
Huh, didn't know that. Don't really have an opinion.
>Who /worships Luke Crane/ here?
Games are cool, but have their flaws, and are kind of all the same. He's really full of himself sometimes, but so is John Wick, and I like his games too.
>Anyone ever actually got a BWHQ game to the table?
One of the best games I ever played was BW game. We were playing characters in low fantasy England during the reign of Uther Pendragon. We went to the capital to warn Uther that Tristain and another noble were raising armies to stage a coup. We didn't bring evidence, so he sends us with Arthur and some soldiers to confirm. So we basically end up teaching Arthur how to be a king.
never played burning wheel proper but, I've ran games of mouse guard periodically. Its our quick and simple one shot game generally speaking.
>>44850398
> Anyone playing/running/planning on playing/planning on running any of these games soon?
No. As much as I love it, I don't have the right group for it. The playstyle is there, but we tend to need something lighter in weight.
> Anyone back the Burning Wheel Codex Kickstarter?
I would love to, but I'm currently out of work. Hard to justify dropping the cash on it at the moment. This makes me sad, because it would look very nice next to my copy of BWG.
> How do you feel about BWHQ publishing Dungeon World?
Eh. Good for them? Im not a fan of Dungeon World, myself.
> Who /worships Luke Crane/ here?
I really enjoy his games and his designs. As a person though? Not so much. He is probably a nice guy, but so many things about him put me off. In a lot of ways, he really embodies the pompous bullshit that came out of The Forge and put a lot of people off on the very idea of "narrative" games. Between his elitest attitudes and hipster politics, I can't really take anything he says as a person seriously. The work stands on its own though, and I'm not one to let my feelings about the creator impact the creation.
> Anyone ever actually got a BWHQ game to the table?
I have gotten to run a few games of BW, all of them relatively short. What I always find is that the hub and spokes rules work perfectly and make for great games, but once we start encorporating rim stuff - Fight! Range and Cover, Duel of Wits - that it just slows way the fuck down. What was this intense and fast-paced scene loses all of its momentum when you have to stop and get out the worksheet for people to begin scripting.
>Anyone playing/running/planning on playing/planning on running any of these games soon?
Today I'm going to play the first session of a campaign set in the "Malaz book of the fallen" setting. I haven't read the books but the GM gave us a pretty well summary.
My PC is a fucked up sapper.
I can never wrap my head around how the system works. Which is really a shame, since Mouseguard looks really cool.
>>44857745
what in particular? the core of the system is pretty simple.
>>44850398
>Let's have a Burning Wheel/Torchbearer/Mouse Guard thread.
Yay! Sadly /tg/ doesn't seem to appreciate BW as much as it should.
>Anyone playing/running/planning on playing/planning on running any of these games soon?
Planning to run a game for friends soon. Setting has geostationary sun, not-medieval-france with damsel as pope and matrilinear aristocracy descended from divine first king.
>Anyone back the Burning Wheel Codex Kickstarter?
Of course! Even though I can barely afford it.
>How do you feel about BWHQ publishing Dungeon World?
Why not. Not my favorite system but it is fun for improvised drunk roleplay with friends.
>Who /worships Luke Crane/ here?
No. He has got some great ideas and is nice but he is also somewhat an ass hole sometimes.
>Anyone ever actually got a BWHQ game to the table?
Couple Burning Wheels, one Torchbearer. Gonna try to start Mouse Guard at some point.
If I want to learn the system, is it ok to start with mouse guard, or will I be gimping myself?
>>44860847
It has its own quirks, and is a different sort of animal than Burning Wheel, but it's more similar than it is different. Give it a shot.
>>44860936
>different sort of animal
oh you.
>>44861167
>>44850398
So a little while back, a friend died and left me a sizable chunk of his RPG collection. In it were these three books.
I have heard the name before, but I have no knowledge of the setting or system. Care to give cliffnotes?
>>44862181
the brown book was the core rules several editions ago. The red book is the character burner. The entire thing was about making your character. BW's heavy for that.
THe monster burner is their bestiary, with some detailed advice and stuff to make your own monsters.
The brown and red books are now both out of date, superceded by the Burning Wheel Gold edition, which is a single volume with all of the core rules and character creation stuff.
As of this very moment, the monster burner is still "up to date" though not 100% compatible with BWG. The current kickstarter is creating the companion book to BWG, which will have the monster burner, magic burner, and adventure burner material all in it.
>>44862249
I got that. I meant the setting's fluff and what makes it interesting.
Has anybody created stock for new character races for BWG? I want to move away from the Tolkien-style elves in the core book, but the Monster Burner and stock creation has always looked intimidatingly complicated.
>>44862181
It's DnD, but someone took the time to fix it.
It's a very crunchy game with excellent mechanics. Conversations can be resolved like combat with the duel of wits. Characters have dice relevant instincts and beliefs. The flavor is classic fantasy.
>>44862287
The setting has no fluff in and of itself, except what's implied by the stock races included in the corebooks. Those include Tolkien-style elves, orcs, and dwarves.
The Monster Burner includes playing stranger races like trolls, great wolves, and giant spiders, but even then the setting is mostly player-created.
It's the mechanics of the game that really engage most fans of the system.
>>44850398
>Anyone playing/running/planning on playing/planning on running any of these games soon?
I am planning out a campaign for it for my group. We are all new to it so I am going to run the Hochen module first so we can get a better grasp.
>Anyone back the Burning Wheel Codex Kickstarter?
Absolutely
>How do you feel about BWHQ publishing Dungeon World?
Adam and Luke seem like besties so this didn't really surprise me. I don't really think much about it though, I honestly don't think it will have any major effect for either Dungeon World or Burning Wheel.
>Who /worships Luke Crane/ here?
I think he's alright. He kind of comes off as Kevin Seimbeida'ish but with the ability to write actual thought-out rules.
>Anyone ever actually got a BWHQ game to the table?
Bought the Mouse Guard 2nd ed Boxed Set, Torchbearer and Burning Wheel Gold books all relatively recently. Played one session of Burning Wheel on roll20 so far. Someone on the burning wheel subreddit is running demo games every weekend.
>>44862287
> I meant the setting's fluff
The game is very heavily influenced by the Silmarillion, so elves, dwarves, and orcs all have very strong mechanical fluff and the world is very heavily implied to be late medieval, but there is no world-specific fluff established. The world is implied through the rules, with the specifics established by the GM and players as the game progresses. So on the one hand you've got a lot of free reign to fill in the blanks as necessary. On the other, dwarves, elves, and orcs will play very differently than their human counterparts.
> what makes it interesting.
It's a fundamentally different kind of game than D&D or similar fantasy RPGs. It's got a strong player focus and it's very character driven. The reward mechanisms in the game incentivise playing up your characters flaws and pursuing the goals that are important to your character through their "beliefs." For that reason, you can't really approach it in the same way you do something like D&D, where the DM writes a plot and the players pursue it. The players basically drive the story, and the DM reacts to where they take it. The mechanics themselves all reinforce this idea.
It's got something of a learning curve to it, but if you want a system where RP is mechanically supported and incentivized, then BW is one of the best out there.
>>44862320
>>44862354
>>44862392
Cool. Thanks chaps.
>tfw not in any BWHQ game
Shit sucks
No doubt, might have to resort to roll20 for a fix.
Ded thread
ded system
>>44862312
I tried doing it a while ago, but the campaign I was making never really caught on so I didn't finish the race. It was kind of disappointing how few life paths the example races were though, I was thinking it'd be another fully fleshed out thing like in the core book, but seeing that the official race creation guide had almost nothing on the races really discouraged me from continuing. It's a lot of work.
>>44862354
The life paths do imply a lot about the world, though. Like slaves are a thing, for instance. There's a lot of stuff implied about how people live, and the various classes.
But it's mostly classic fantasy with a strong layer of Tolkien, more than D&D ever had.
My favorite Luke Crane game is Freemarket. It's weird and innovative and most importantly really fun.
It's got a funky card-based mechanic based around trying to push your luck to beat the other guy's hand, and the setting is like if in Paranoia all the benevolent propaganda were true and the Computer actually was your friend.
>>44871372
I didn't know that was his.
Burning Bump
>>44850398
No chance of any kind anons having a scan of Gold/Character Burner. Been trying to get my online group into this system more but they're unwilling to buy in and I've not got the equipment to do a scan for them myself.
>>44875666
http://www.uploadmb.com/dw.php?id=1453226413
>>44877340
Thanks
>>44850398
>Anyone playing/running/planning on playing/planning on running any of these games soon?
Really want to play Burning Wheel or Jihad at some point, but that's not likely. More likely is that I'll buy Torchbearer soon and cajole my group into that.
>How do you feel about BWHQ publishing Dungeon World?
Very nice, if it means more Dungeon World books.
>Who /worships Luke Crane/ here?
I have... mixed feelings on Luke Crane. From everything I've seen of his games, he's a really talented developer with great ideas. On the other hand, being such a hipster about the format of Burning Wheel is absolutely one of the reasons it's not very well-known, and it does absolutely nothing except make it harder for people to get into the game.
That, and I distinctly recall him being adick to fans asking for PDFs. It's a pretty reasonable request in 2015.
>>44880251
I have PDFs of all his games (I think), even Freemarket, which is a box of tokens.
All he's doing is making sure nobody pays money for them ever.
But hey, he's been around forever, he sells his own games himself, he loves it when players are having fun, and that means he can be as shrewd about it as he fucking wants to.
I like the guy (never met him).
>>44880365
He totally has the right, no disagreement there. It's just how he acts toward the people who ask that puts me off. That, and things like getting angry at people for distributing PDFs of books that are out-of-print are go for hundreds of dollars now. Because they're "outdated," so no one should use them.
The Kickstarter to reprint /some/ material from those older books only came after pleading from the community.
>>44880518
Well I recall that he released BW as PDF at some point and it got widely pirated right away and it ticked him. So no more PDFs for anyone.
>>44880693
It's a fair thing to be upset about... but is it any different from what every single other game deals with all the time? Even other indie ones. Except the authors of those other ones don't get angry, pull all the PDFs off official sources, and then tell fans who want them to play something else.
That's a bad way to run a business and to deal with people who sincerely enjoy your work. It's completely, utterly his right, again. But I don't personally like it, and it's part of why half the people in this thread said similar things.
Still love the games, despite that.
>>44880792
>That's a bad way to run a business
Not necessarily. Burning Wheel is quite a niche game and losing sales because pirating might affect sales more than providing PDFs to those who want them. It could be rightly logical choice not to have PDFs for sale. Besides BWG is such a beautiful book it would lose some of meaning if it was turned into soulless digital file.
Anyone here familiar with Torchbearer able to answer a question? How does the conflict system usually play out, in terms of strategy and minutiae?
I have a group that would really love a retro-inspired and dark dungeon delve, but they're more used to games with really explicit combat systems, like GURPS.
>>44880792
>>44880967
Yeah and according to their beliefs and instincts page on their site, they aren't in this to make money. They do it because they love doing it and just want to make enough to fund making more.
It hard to be mad at Luke for tightening his reigns on what he loves doing, but its just hard to watch and not comment on as someone who wants to see them grow and succeed.
>>44880989
For first timers it might take some time to get use to the system. But for our group conflicts are quite short if we skip describing everything that is happening. Depending on conflict it might take a quarter of an hour to settle. Strategy is what you can expect from 3 prescribed actions out of 4 choices. It is not as complex as your typical retroclone, but it still has nice flavor. You have to decide what action who does with which weapon in what order.
>>44880967
That may be true, about the business portion. I really couldn't say how much money he would lose. On the other hand though, no one can say how much he would have made, since it wasn't given a chance.
I hear that a lot about the book, and find it hard to believe, no offense. Don't get me wrong, I love physical books. Whether they're RPG ones or otherwise, I read a lot. But saying, "Burning Wheel was meant to be experience as a book," (quoting Luke Crane there) just makes it sound too... magical. And like it's intentionally keeping the system in as few hands as possible, to cultivate some sort of nostalgic mystique.
>>44881118
>but its just hard to watch and not comment on as someone who wants to see them grow and succeed.
That's what gets to me. I'm not saying this because I think it's wrong to focus on doing what you love instead of making a profit... but those two things are connected. The more people play, the more money they make. The more they make, the more they can grow and write more books, publish more often, etc. I just want more people to be able to see and experience it as easily as possible.
In my mind, the formatting debates are a barrier to that, and as much as I understand, it makes me kind of sad.
>>44881132
>if we skip describing everything that is happening.
>Strategy is what you can expect from 3 prescribed actions out of 4 choices
I might've misunderstood, but that was what I worried about. Lots of options and explicit descriptions of specific actions are the norm for the systems that normally get used in our group. I like the sound of it, but it might unfortunately be a deal-breaker.
>>44881226
>it wasn't given a chance
It was. And it seems like he lost quite a lot considering the treatment he gives us now.
>I hear that a lot about the book, and find it hard to believe, no offense
None taken as I'm not Crane. But you should probably go to you local store and take a look of a copy if you haven't seen one. It is in my opinion the ultimate RPG corebook. It is cheap. It is robust. It has beautiful cover. Paper quality is really nice. The list goes on. This is of course only my opinion but as a physical product it is perfect. Contents have some minor flaws but it is the best RPG book I have read and I've read a few.
>>44881324
It is not for everyone I can say that. Some like more "exact" conflict system. If group doesn't like narrative games it might not be optimal choice. It has somewhat board game like feeling if you ask me to describe it briefly.
>>44880967
> pirating might affect sales more than providing PDFs to those who want them.
Given I have pdfs of every major book they've released (including the ones that are now only available for $100+ on ebay) this is a stupid, stupid argument.
Whether you produce official pdfs or not, pdfs will exist as soon as your game becomes popular enough for someone to scan them. The only difference is that you ensure that you won't get a dime for any of the digital copies out there.
>>44881226
>intentionally keeping the system in as few hands as possible, to cultivate some sort of nostalgic mystique
I like Luke Crane more now.
>>44881476
>It is not for everyone I can say that. Some like more "exact" conflict system. If group doesn't like narrative games it might not be optimal choice. It has somewhat board game like feeling if you ask me to describe it briefly.
Board game feeling is the impression I got, and it seems interesting for sure. I'll probably just have to convince them to give it a shot either way, but thanks. I'll have to be sure to explain it's not a typical RPG.
>>44881701
I'm only saying that's the feeling I get when people talk about how the game can't go into an electronic format for some reason. Treating it like some magical thing whose unique soul cannot be held by electronic formats.
...Instead of just treating it like a set of rules.
>>44881727
>I'll have to be sure to explain it's not a typical RPG.
You have the right idea. It is vital to point this out so people don't enter with false expectations and get disappointed. If you get to start with a clean slate the game opens nicely and you enjoy it a lot more.
>>44881791
>...Instead of just treating it like a set of rules.
Well to be fair Burning Wheel isn't only a set of rules but a mentality. It is part of the product. Sure many don't like it but it is also one of the things that separates it from the other bunch.
>>44881476
>It is in my opinion the ultimate RPG corebook. It is cheap. It is robust. It has beautiful cover. Paper quality is really nice. The list goes on. This is of course only my opinion but as a physical product it is perfect. Contents have some minor flaws but it is the best RPG book I have read and I've read a few.
It does at least sound like its worth the money, definitely. I do plan to buy it at some point.
>>44881876
We agree there, at least. I enjoy it, but it turns a lot of people off, not unfairly IMO.
So who's backing it, and for what?
>>44883909
I just backed it for the Codex, I already have the BWG book.
>>44883909
Backing for the signed Codex, I already have the BWG book as well.
Are there any good actual plays of one of the BWHQ systems, besides the Roll20 ones?
>>44886986
I listened to a fairly entertaining Mouse Guard one shot, found it on iTunes. Only problem was the players were talking about random tabletop bullshit for the first hour or so of each podcast. Can't remember the name right now though.
>>44886986
There used to be a long-ass (like, 40 episode) campaign podcast by "The Strand Gamers"
http://strandgamers.com/podcasts/inquisition/
It was my first exposure to the system.
>>44886986
Strand Gamers has a crazy long game here
http://strandgamers.com/podcasts/inquisition/
they also did The Sword
http://strandgamers.com/the-sword/
Someone should run a /tg/ BW game.
>>44891876
Or at least a series of Fight! threads like the SoS Fecht nights.
>>44891991
BW Duel of Wits Fecht: You are a fantasy lawyer! Get your client out of that murderhoboing charge!
>>44889030
>>44888995
Thanks!
>>44892050
Are there any other games with good social combat?
>>44897357
Fate
If anyone is interested in trying the game out, someone on /r/burningwheel will be running introductory one-shots on Saturday and Sunday.
I participated in one last week and it went really well.
