Quote from: Pierce InverarityOh, and please don't pull an Exalted on me and say: Well yes Pierce, but it can be ANYTHING YOU WANT.

Burning Empires is the opposite of Exalted; that is, Burning Empires is designed to be played in a concrete way.

Basicly, the players and the GM create a world, the world the campaign will be about. The players play important characters in that world. The Vaylen try to infiltrate and invade the world. Eventually the campaign will have one of these two ends: or the invasion is thwarted, or the Vaylen succeed and invade that world. And that's it.

Could you use Burning Empires to do ANYTHING YOU WANT? Well, maybe, if you try, but it wasn't designed with that objective. You could use D&D to run a sci-fi game if you try hard enough, but D&D is not designed to do so. I hope I made myself clear.

Huh.  I need to go look for some more detailed reviews, because that doesn't sound very appealing at all...

Quote from: Tom BHow similar is it to Burning Wheel?  I had some fairly severe issues with BW...specifically their implementation of lifepaths and scripted combat.

I understand the problem with scripted combat (I was a ruffian in my youth), but the lifepaths? Can you possibly explain that?

Quote from: TonyLBThere are some under-the-hood differences from BW which I (for one) appreciated.  For instance, the removal of dice-shades was welcome.  Not that black, grey and white dice weren't a cool and evocative idea, but simplifying is nice.

I removed shades from my BW game while I was running it. I didn't need more stuff to look out for.

Quote from: ClaudiusBurning Empires is the opposite of Exalted; that is, Burning Empires is designed to be played in a concrete way.

Basicly, the players and the GM create a world, the world the campaign will be about. The players play important characters in that world. The Vaylen try to infiltrate and invade the world. Eventually the campaign will have one of these two ends: or the invasion is thwarted, or the Vaylen succeed and invade that world. And that's it.

So, in other words, the setting, worms and all, is totally integral to the rules, and only a major rewrite could change that? Sigh.

It's not integral to the rules, but every instantiation of the rule is designed with that basic idea in mind. So, many of the lifepaths are setting specific frex. You could take the basic Infection mechanics and use them to deal with any conflict between two sides, though you'd have to change some parts of the world burner I think.

Quote from: Tom BHuh.  I need to go look for some more detailed reviews, because that doesn't sound very appealing at all...

Spike put up one in the reviews section here:
http://www.therpgsite.com/node/531?PHPSESSID=165906b24c3583557a18a9c8d5eae9f0

I considered writing one myself, but felt I had been beaten to the punch and had other things to do.

I still have other things to do, but I still might be able put one up if people are interested in seeing a different angle.

I think, despite the points I am skeptical about, there is a lot good to be said about the game, and aspects I intend to scavenge for other games (some of which you might already be familiar with if you are a BW fan.) For instance, I am a big fan of defining character aspects in a concrete manner that matters to the play of the game, and instincts are an excellent take on this.

Quote from: Tom BHow similar is it to Burning Wheel?  I had some fairly severe issues with BW...specifically their implementation of lifepaths and scripted combat.

Yeah, I hate scripted combat and it is in BE.

I have found that the book has some really great ideas, like a the world burner and such, but the overly complicated rules and focused play style really ended up sinking it for me. Not to mention that in order to get a proper feel for the setting (if you haven't read the Graphic Novels) you have to read 600 pages of mostly rules to pick little pieces of it.

Quote from: Jason CoplenI understand the problem with scripted combat (I was a ruffian in my youth), but the lifepaths? Can you possibly explain that?

I sat down with BW and tried to design several PCs from other systems that I had run in the past and really enjoyed.  Nothing outrageous.  I couldn't come close to the concepts in BW.  The terminology is escaping me...it's been a year or so...  But I had real problems with which Lifepaths you were allowed to change to.  Certain LP changes made perfect sense but were not allowed.

It's easy enough to modify, but it made a bad impression.  Personally, as GM, I would allow a change to any Lifepath if the player provided a good, in-game reason for the switch.  I was trying to see what I could accomplish strictly by the rules, though.

Maybe they've made it easier in Revised BW, I don't know.  I wasn't willing to shell out the bucks again just to see.  Especially since I knew the scripted combat was still there.  Finally, it was just a crunchier system than I was interested in.

I believe in Revised BW you can change to any other lifepath so long as you take a "year out". I could be imagining that, though.

Quote from: WarthurI believe in Revised BW you can change to any other lifepath so long as you take a "year out". I could be imagining that, though.

Still not a solution I'd be happy with, but as before, easy enough to ignore.

Quote from: Pierce InveraritySo, in other words, the setting, worms and all, is totally integral to the rules, and only a major rewrite could change that? Sigh.

Yes.

BE is more of a campaign game than a vanilla system you can cut and paste from.

Kinda like cutting elements from InSpecters to use in your Dnd game...just isn't going to be anything anyone recognizes.

Quote from: Erik BoielleI can't help but feel that it is going to require unrealistic levels of player buy in - everyone at the table is going to have to broadly grok 300 pages of rules, which I don't see happening very often.

The player buy-in is substantial. Having more than one copy of the book is essential, in my opinion. The .pdf is great for searching, but I needed a copy in my hand to really grok stuff. Being familiar w/ Chris M.'s work is nice, but not essential. And as someone said above, it's actually 600 pages of stuff.

Buy-in is one thing, commitment to the campaign is muy importante. It's really hard, when the entire campaign focuses on the six Figures of Note (3 PC, 3 NPCs) to have people drop in and out of the game. Not game-breaking...but it's pretty tough to have someone "fill in" (our entire group spend 30 minutes filling in a new guy on our backstory / previous events).

Kinda like coming into the middle of the 1st season of Battlestar....the premise is easy to get, but who what when where why how by that time in the game is a lot to learn.

Quote from: Z-DogBuy-in is one thing, commitment to the campaign is muy importante. It's really hard, when the entire campaign focuses on the six Figures of Note (3 PC, 3 NPCs) to have people drop in and out of the game.

Actually I think the playtest example given in the rule book makes it clear that not all of the figures of note need by PCs, or indeed any of them. I think you could easily do a game where the PC's are one very small part of the wider battle and are controlling the infection mechanics as players but not as characters. It would be a different game to one where all the FoN's were PC's but still fall well within the rules without any adjustment (other than 3 more NPCs)

I would agree it does seem to have a high commitment in terms of player effort but even then the set up around building vs conflict scenes means its handalable as the characters aren't necessarily meant to be hanging out together, so if you have an infrequent player they should make their character someone who is often out of touch, and just get them to roll as catch for building scenes as needed.

The game we came up with took the idea that our characters and their conflicts were the most important issues in the game. Stopping the infection was the big background picture. I suppose you could do non-FON features (kind of like one off shows in a TV series).

What I'm saying is our PCs and their issues were the focus of the action. Switching out players / having people do pick up characters kinda killed the action.

Not sayin' it's a game ending issue, just commenting that its a game that demands lots of player buy-in and commitment (not that ANY game isn't better w/ that!).