...For a rules heavy game. That's a deal breaker for a lot of people and so is the storygame nature of the system. The game is not as complicated as GURPS, D&D3.5 or The Dark Eye, but its still more complicated overall than D&D 4e. But if you subtract out Duel of Wits, Range and Cover, and Fight! and keep Bloody Verses combat resolution, then what is left is simpler than games like Savage Worlds. While it's not fair to subtract out those systems for the point of comparison, its also not correct to equate those systems to things like the entirety of D&D 4e's combat engine. In 4e, you are expected to have combat every session and sometimes multiple times per session. In Burning Wheel, those big sequences happen only at climatic confrontations. Like if we were doing a dungeon crawl, you was use DoW, R&C, or Fight against the dungeons boss or in situations where the party was likely to die. Everything else is just normal skill rules and bloody verses checks. Meanwhile in 4e, you are using regular combat system every encounter.

That all being said, I am really impressed by the overall detail and intricate mechanics in the game. Those aren't needed for an RPG, but I've missed being inspired from the game itself rather than bending inspiration into a games mechanics.

My favorite campaigns were with BW.  Our group, however, liked to avoid DOW and Fight! in lieu of the more simple mechanics - even with the important stuff.  We kept the conflicts coming, BITs challenged, and the help-dice flowing.  To this day that random (and what I thought was inconsequential) boat chase scene between Ivianian islands (Harn) was the single best session I have ever GMd.  Coming off of 3.5, BW really helped me realized that you should only roll when it matters, and then, make the outcome have punch by clearly laying out the "stakes".

Granted, a lot of the mechanics grated me, and were overly fiddly.  But in the end I can not argue that the system, worts and all, made my players begging for back-to-back weekly sessions at a whole new level.  And before any points out that any GM worth of his salt came make this happen regardless of system, sure. Point conceded. But my point it that BW taught me skills (i.e., pacing and conflict resolution) that I would have otherwise been blind to - and for that I am grateful.

It's been a while since my group dipped its toes in that game but we've steered well clear of it ever since. Whereas before we were more open to experimenting with new systems we've since stuck rigidly to D&D. Mind you, the release of Tasha's Cauldron of Social Constructivist Twaddle might herald in a new era of experimentation.

I don't remember exactly what rubbed us the wrong way (it was several years ago) but the meme that persists when talking about that system in our group is that for some mundane task, say, picking up a stone, "you require 8 successes on 4 dice or everybody dies." Eventually we concluded, like the AI in War Games, that it was a strange game because the only way to win was not to play.

I know it is because I love the games that drinked from it's ideas, like PbtA, Blades in the Dark, Cortex, Fate, etc. and it's Say Yes or roll the Dice, Let it Roll, Announce the Stakes and ask, etc, etc. But oh boy that first edition was so bloated with complexity that it scared us badly. My group never tried it again due to that.

Of course it's good. I have the Burning Wheel Gold Revised, and it's my favourite system that I've never played.

I have actually played Mouse Guard, which is a BW game, and I can speak to that game's excellence at least. The only downside for me are that the Conflict rules can be unwieldy and awkward to make work.

I like the life path idea but otherwise the system, to me, seemed to be like an autistic lovechild between GURPS and Fate Core.

Quote from: Trinculoisdead on November 29, 2020, 04:50:09 PM
Of course it's good. I have the Burning Wheel Gold Revised, and it's my favourite system that I've never played.

I have actually played Mouse Guard, which is a BW game, and I can speak to that game's excellence at least. The only downside for me are that the Conflict rules can be unwieldy and awkward to make work.

Yeah even in the Burning Wheel the deeper conflict systems are meant to be used sparingly. Which I question how well this works out at the table. Do players invest a lot of energy into learning a system they won't use often? Normally an RPG either has really abstracted combat or the combat itself is a fun wargame. I like that BW suggests the players call for these systems when they want more mechanical depth to a situation, but as a lot of the descendent games have shown many players feel no need for such systems.

I always confused Burning Wheel with War of the Burning Sky which was a setting for 3.5e D&D. 

I was briefly obsessed with the idea of running BW and can recall having a dozen different things about it that I loved. But it didn't survive contact with the gaming table. I ran into three basic problems: 1) this is a game that absolutely demands everyone at the table does an unusual amount of preparation to learn the system - otherwise under prepared players will slow play to a crawl; 2) the interesting parts  of the  task-resolution sub-systems (e.g., detailed combat) are obscenely and unnecessarily complex; and 3) there is an intentional effort by the author to fill the game with obscurantist terminology and bizarre sub-systems (like the damage wheel). I just have no patience for this sort of crap; it is the 21'st century version of the insanely complex and idiosyncratic games FGU and various other companies put out in the late 70's and early 80's.

Quote from: Larsdangly on December 04, 2020, 07:01:01 PM
I was briefly obsessed with the idea of running BW and can recall having a dozen different things about it that I loved. But it didn't survive contact with the gaming table. I ran into three basic problems: 1) this is a game that absolutely demands everyone at the table does an unusual amount of preparation to learn the system - otherwise under prepared players will slow play to a crawl; 2) the interesting parts  of the  task-resolution sub-systems (e.g., detailed combat) are obscenely and unnecessarily complex; and 3) there is an intentional effort by the author to fill the game with obscurantist terminology and bizarre sub-systems (like the damage wheel). I just have no patience for this sort of crap; it is the 21'st century version of the insanely complex and idiosyncratic games FGU and various other companies put out in the late 70's and early 80's.

There was no damage wheel in the version I read, but the random magic wheel was pretty inspired.

They overhauled the Fight rules every edition though... Because even though it's the most complicated portion, it's not the centre of the system

The interesting part of the game for me is how Belief, Instincts, and Artha work by driving play to what is important to the player characters.

It's a strange mix of ideas but an interesting one.

I like the complicated social standing conversation and combat rules, although I would probably request a group to use the free Roll20 and Burning Wheel Extension to moderate it as otherwise it might be slow going.

Probably another one of those interesting systems that is interesting for its own merits, but obscure and too difficult to get a dedicated group onboard with:  a shelf perusal to refer to, rather than a game I would actually get to play.

Quote from: Trinculoisdead on November 29, 2020, 04:50:09 PM
And before any points out that any GM worth of his salt came make this happen regardless of system, sure. Point conceded. But my point it that BW taught me skills (i.e., pacing and conflict resolution) that I would have otherwise been blind to - and for that I am grateful.

Quote from: Itachi on November 29, 2020, 04:28:44 PM
I know it is because I love the games that drinked from it's ideas, like PbtA, Blades in the Dark, Cortex, Fate, etc. and it's Say Yes or roll the Dice, Let it Roll, Announce the Stakes and ask, etc, etc. But oh boy that first edition was so bloated with complexity that it scared us badly. My group never tried it again due to that.

These two parts in bold are one of the things the 'character driven' games like BW and TRos plus a few others did that were good for lots of people GM'ing for the first time..

They made explicit, and wrote down solid GM and game pacing advice.

Lots of older gamers liked to point out: "nothing new!" ""I've been doing that since x..." "This is normal at my table..." etc.

But none of you wrote that shit down in a form that got disseminated to other people!

Lots of us had big gaps in play coming in and out of the hobby over time. And a lot of the GM advice that was made part of the style of gameplay in the influx of those early 2000's 'player drives the action' rpg's translates to any traditional rpg, and was very helpful to a bunch of us at the time.

The reason why BW has never been more than a niche game is simple though: the rules just got too damn baroque!

Quote from: Tyndale on November 27, 2020, 06:15:09 PM
My favorite campaigns were with BW.  Our group, however, liked to avoid DOW and Fight! in lieu of the more simple mechanics - even with the important stuff.  We kept the conflicts coming, BITs challenged, and the help-dice flowing....

Quote from: Trinculoisdead on November 29, 2020, 04:50:09 PM
Of course it's good. I have the Burning Wheel Gold Revised, and it's my favourite system that I've never played.

I have actually played Mouse Guard, which is a BW game, and I can speak to that game's excellence at least. The only downside for me are that the Conflict rules can be unwieldy and awkward to make work.

The conflict rules in mousguard have problems - and it is simplified from BW core!

For me BW has some great ideas - but they are executed with a system that is both abstract and complex, at the same time!

BW is an overly ambitious game that just tries to do too much.

But I keep a copy because is does have some nifty ways of looking at things that can be extrapolated to other games.

My gaming group (The Sunday Skypers) ran an all Dwarf BW game that we called Burning Beards.  It was supposed to be a quick story arc, but we got so involved in the characters that the game ran for several years.  Good stuff, much more crunchier than I normally desire, but our GM was really good with the system.

I'm in the middle of listening to that game, and have been enjoying all the one-shots you guys put up. It's quite a good actual play!