I read a little more, and I think I grasped the main concepts.

But one thing buggers me all the time:
Why should I care about the characters and their beliefs?

Right now, I have the understanding that to win the Infiltration, I have to spend time on charcaters beliefs, so I get Artha, so I can boon or divine my Maneuvre roll.

But the actuall stuff happening to the characters is irrelevant. As are the characters. Not only irrelevant to the Infiltration, but irrelevant on an emotional level.

What mindset do I need to care for the beliefs of the characters?
What makes it worhtwhile?

Why does the game force me to connect the conflict and the beliefs (and thereby destroying any possibility of immersion)?
What is the point?

Hiya Settem,
The first conceit of the game is that it is a roleplaying game. A large degree of the game's focus is on the individual character. A player sitting down to the game has to figure out who his character is, how he's lived and what his goals are. The process alone encourages investment. The character is your playing piece in the game. If you don't care enough about him to see him survive and prosper, then something's wrong.

But there's a step above that, too. Infection is played out in void space. It's played out on a world of your design. You build the world, set up the balance of power and then place your characters in that framework -- right as it's all going to hell. World Burning builds investment. Most players care about the world after they've had a hand in creating it -- some want to save it, some want to see it fall. But the final part of World Burning is the most crucial -- the Figures of Note. They are opposition. They are there to threaten and even kill the player characters. I find explicitly starting with rivalries like that helps build investement, focus the game and build intense play.

Have you checked out this complete phase?
http://www.burningempires.com/wiki/index.php?title=A_Throne_of_Glass_and_Ashes

-L

Quote from: SettembriniWhat mindset do I need to care for the beliefs of the characters?

When you create your character choose Beliefs that you care about and put them in a world that you find interesting. Don't settle for playing with a PC that you don't care about in a world situation you don't find interesting. I'm not being trite, that really is it in a nutshell.


P.S. This can make getting into the groove with a pre-fab con demo difficult if you don't happen to identify in any way with any of the available characters or find the infection senario given intreging.

Sure, but the maneuvres are way more intrigueing than somebodies relationships.
But I think I have a way of making the beliefs suit my needs.

EDIT:Thanks for the pointer, Luke. Right now, I get benefits for playing the beliefs. So if I want to win, I am forced t play those. Instead of having great tactical military scheming. But there´s great stuff in the book, so I´ll throw the beliefs out and will dole out Artha depending on battle success. That will be great!

BTW, I assume there is no information on troop sizes, fleets or extent of the respective empires?
Planetary population totals?

I´d think they might be handy, but the game doesn´t seem to be concerned with this, correct?

No, that will be retarded. Why not just write Beliefs based on winning battles, defeating generals or taking ground? The whole system will come together to support that type of play and the game will run smoother. The game is, in fact, designed for that type of play. There's a whole phase/campaign dedicated to players saying, "I will capture Oświęcim no matter the casualties." Then you get to make all sorts of cool tactical decisions to capture the town and sacrifice your men!

-L

EDIT: That stuff's all determined by you in World Burning. There's plenty of discussions on the forums about that stuff right now. With the author of the comics no less! http://burningwheel.org/forum/showthread.php?t=3845

QuoteWhy not just write Beliefs based on winning battles, defeating generals or taking ground?

That´s what I´m talking about. But that´s not like the beliefs I´ve read so far.
Cool beans, I´ll read into that discussion.

That's the great thing about Beliefs, they are a very open and malleable mechanic. They are also perhaps the most proven concept in the game (even more than the resolution system).

I´m thinking about randomizing all that stuff, so it´s even more to my tastes. I always loathed point buy systems for several reasons. Now rolling up the character, that is fun!
Maybe some mission cards, for the players to draw instead  of beliefs.

Mission is also not so misleading a term as beliefs is, at least for what I´ll be aiming at.

First things first, before I´m tampering with the system, I´ll be running it RAW and Luke-Intent honoured.

And then the modding can begin!

I think I might really like that thing.

Especially after reading Moeller´s thoughts.

Quote from: SettembriniI´m thinking about randomizing all that stuff, so it´s even more to my tastes. I always loathed point buy systems for several reasons. Now rolling up the character, that is fun!
Maybe some mission cards, for the players to draw instead  of beliefs.

That sounds to me like the opposite of making sure you care about your character and their Beliefs. *shrug*

QuoteMission is also not so misleading a term as beliefs is, at least for what I´ll be aiming at.

It is a mistake, like it is with most single word labels, to read a lot into the word 'Beliefs'. They cover a lot of range. In my mind they often reads more like a 'goal'. But a lot of the time Belief works as well as anything. I'm trying to remember what it was originally labeled prior to BWR (or maybe prior BW when it was just a homebrew). A 'Priority' or something?

Of course if you plan on greatly narrowing down their usage of them to just one type of military goal I suppose. Even those sound great worded as a belief, such as "Holding the Krug-Samper Pass is the key to saving our world, we shall not waver nor fail in our sworn duty". Because this is a belief held by the character, not necessarily a certainty.

QuoteThat sounds to me like the opposite of making sure you care about your character and their Beliefs. *shrug*

That´s a matter of taste, really.
To me at least it´s the other way around.

Making point buy characters is "superhero" gaming, in that it makes the gameworld evolve around the players, and making their little dreams and preferences more important than other people´s.
That´s not what I like my SciFi gaming to be. I like my SF gaming to be set in make-believe complex societies, in which societies and organizations compete. Also, I value the role assumption of randomized characters as the grandest and most fruitfull, most thought provoking kind of said role assumption.

I fully realize that the author´s intent might be totally different, that´s why I´m talking about it here. On the BE site it might be disruptive.

Quote from: SettembriniMaking point buy characters is "superhero" gaming, in that it makes the gameworld evolve around the players, and making their little dreams and preferences more important than other people´s.

Uh ... do you mean that the gameworld revolves around the characters?  Or is your word choice deliberate ... and if so, can you explain what you mean by it?

Sorry, of course I meant revolve.

Character centered gaming is great. Character centered (SF) Fantastoverses aren´t.

To your mind, is there a difference between The Whole Fictional Universe being centered around the characters and "the bits of the universe that are important to this story" being centered around the characters?

What story?

When I game, I have conflicts, not story. In SF games, I want to have conflicts of organizations and societies. It´s already a powerfantasy to play some important decision maker in one of those organizations. Making the conflict revolve around those characters let´s it jump the shark for me.

That´s just really my personal taste.

And I think with a little tinkering, BE can really suit my needs in that regard.  Before tinkering, I´ll DM the game as written though, so I can get bearings on what to change how.