Quote from: CRKrueger;395654The whole "conflicts that matter" concept is one that truly defines a Narrative viewpoint.

I'm sure commandos who are going to blow a bridge just want to cut to the chase and get straight to the goal, but there's a small inconvenient matter of crossing through 50 miles of enemy occupied warzone first.  Compared to what they have to do to get there, actually blowing the bridge may be boring.

I think the problem here is that many RPGs have gone down the path of complexity in combat; occasionally in other situations as well (e.g. duel of wits). Once you do that,  you can either slog through, or you can reserve the full-on system for selected moments. In BW, in order to manage a wide scope and "keep the story moving", the latter approach was chosen. In simpler games, you can sacrifice overall detail for the ability to not prejudice the importance of any given event, because situations are much easier to prep on the fly, and much faster to play out. (Compare running into band of orcs in Basic D&D--where, mechanically, each monster is basically just a number of hitpoints and the weapon they carry--to the same in BW.)

QuoteFantasyCraft was mentioned earlier, it's a bad example of a Traditional RPG, as it incorporates many Narrative mechanics, some foundational.  It's pretty close to that line, even being a d20-based game.

Incidentally, where are the dramatic conflict rules for FC? I thought they were cut out, and I sure don't see them in my copy.

Quote from: CRKrueger;395654It just comes down to..
Do you want to play a character in a heroic fashion, like a novel, comic book, or movie?

or Do you want to play a character in a world consistent with the reality of the setting, where every battle could be your last, not just the Boss-Mob?

Totally, absolutely and unquestionably like a novel, comic book or movie. I don't even understand why someone would want it any different. The games I like to play are all genre games based directly or indirectly on novels, comics and movies. The only knowledge or experience I have about adventure, fighting let alone turely exotic things like magic and space travel is through novels, comics and movies.

Quote from: CRKrueger;395731The thing that sold me off of BW was the scripted combat and the abstract ranges.  

Scripting gets lots of hate on RPG.net (Is it kosher to mention that here? If not, my apologies). The first time I *read* about it, I was all "Bwuh?". But in practice, it's fun, and it creates the fast-paced chaos of combat well ... but it does so retroactively. (Like, when you look back on the round of combat you just finished).

The other aspects of BW's full combat rules (position and stances and what-not) are complex enough that I dislike the system. But when you use scripting in the simpler, more elegant combat rules of Mouse Guard, it's fun.

(Plus the Mouse Guard combat rules map to ALL forms of conflict - chases, duels, arguments, etc., which I really like a lot).

Quote from: CRKrueger;395731The whole "how I pick and use my character's personality traits tell the GM my goals for the character" stuff I can do without as well.

Really? I don't understand that. Do you not like the CONCEPT, or just BW's implementation or explanation?

The most traditional GM in the world should still have some way of figuring out what the players want to do in the game. If a player always says "I don't care, I just want to play", but always always plays a dwarf assassin, well, that dude wants to play a game with some dwarves and some assassinating. And since that dude is your friend, and you're gaming together, throw some dwarves and assassinating in! Everyone wins.

That idea - in whatever form - is one of the things that has most improved my gaming over the years.

Quote from: BWA;395773The most traditional GM in the world should still have some way of figuring out what the players want to do in the game. If a player always says "I don't care, I just want to play", but always always plays a dwarf assassin, well, that dude wants to play a game with some dwarves and some assassinating. And since that dude is your friend, and you're gaming together, throw some dwarves and assassinating in! Everyone wins.

That idea - in whatever form - is one of the things that has most improved my gaming over the years.

Exactly, and a good GM does it because...he's a good GM, not because there's a certain three lines on the character that specifically say "Hey Jim, I want my character's current story arc to be about these three things."   Why don't I like that?
1.) Narrative structure.  Player focused not character focused.  Mechanical instead of organic.
2.) Ties in to the whole Forge philosophy of forcing good gaming through mechanics.

Quote from: Soylent Green;395762Totally, absolutely and unquestionably like a novel, comic book or movie. I don't even understand why someone would want it any different. The games I like to play are all genre games based directly or indirectly on novels, comics and movies. The only knowledge or experience I have about adventure, fighting let alone turely exotic things like magic and space travel is through novels, comics and movies.

Right, but there's Saving Private Ryan and then there's Die Hard.

Quote from: Elliot Wilen;395756Incidentally, where are the dramatic conflict rules for FC? I thought they were cut out, and I sure don't see them in my copy.

No dramatic conflict rules, but...

Mook rules.
Narrative Control Perks where players can control the story through metagaming.
Breakdown of time into Scenes, etc...
The way the book itself reads.

As I said, it is a Traditional RPG, but one with a very strong Narrative slant, and thus a bad example of a strongly traditional RPG.

Quote from: CRKrueger;395845Exactly, and a good GM does it because...he's a good GM, not because there's a certain three lines on the character that specifically say "Hey Jim, I want my character's current story arc to be about these three things."   Why don't I like that?
1.) Narrative structure.  Player focused not character focused.  Mechanical instead of organic.
2.) Ties in to the whole Forge philosophy of forcing good gaming through mechanics.

i would definitely disagree with some of the stuff you're saying here. In a nutshell, I agree that a good GM runs a game the players want to play, but a) not everyone is good at explicitly and verbally communicating what their preferences are, and b) rules and mechanics that help you run that game are always welcome.

But! I shall refrain from going on and on, lest I derail this Burning Wheel thread.

To tie it back in, though, BW is a game that really helps a GM understand what the players are interested in, through lots of specific mechanics (Beliefs, Traits, Instincts, Relationships and Lifepaths). If you like that sort of thing.

Quote from: CRKrueger;395845Exactly, and a good GM does it because...he's a good GM, not because there's a certain three lines on the character that specifically say "Hey Jim, I want my character's current story arc to be about these three things."   Why don't I like that?
1.) Narrative structure.  Player focused not character focused.  Mechanical instead of organic.
2.) Ties in to the whole Forge philosophy of forcing good gaming through mechanics.

It is about making it easier for the gamemaster and more fun for everyone.
And your distinction of player focus vs. character focus in regards to Beliefs is a strawman. My character wants what I want him to want. Nobody creates a character with goals the player finds boring and doesn't want to achieve.

Quote from: Saphim;395875your distinction of player focus vs. character focus in regards to Beliefs is a strawman. My character wants what I want him to want.

Really?  Your character willed his sister into being and had her killed so he could develop a strong belief for the God in the Sky to test him on?  C'mon, seriously, you know BW uses Beliefs as a means of narrative control, which has nothing to do with your character, even though the Belief itself is believed by your character.

Quote from: Saphim;395875Nobody creates a character with goals the player finds boring and doesn't want to achieve.

True, the difference is, with Beliefs as they are presented in BW, they follow the Narrative Control concept.

If a player and GM just sit down either before the game starts or soon after, and come up with some background of the character without mechanics involved, you get the exact same thing built organically, no mechanics, no Narrative Control agenda, just a fleshed-out character with some in-depth history that can be used to increase in-character immersion.

Beliefs are just good GMing turned mechanics.  Far better to just teach people how to GM with a section giving tips and tricks about how to get your players to think more in depth about their character.

"Better GMing and Role-playing through Mechanics" is one of the worst ideas to come out of the Forge (although I think they may have lifted that from Robin Laws).

Right, but an in-depth character background is much less useful in practical application when it comes to the reward system of BW (artha, etc.).  Distilling things down to 3 or 4 core beliefs creates a much more usable framework for the artha cycle.  The existence of beliefs doesn't preclude a detailed character background, it just brings the most important points about your character to the forefront for usability.  Less mud in the waters, less chance for misinterpretation or abuse by the GM or the player.

Also, certain things like Instincts have a tangible effect on play.  "I always have my sword ready" means that you'll never have to convince the GM you have to spend time drawing your weapon -- it's something your character will always do automatically.

Quote from: CRKrueger;395912Really?  Your character willed his sister into being and had her killed so he could develop a strong belief for the God in the Sky to test him on?  C'mon, seriously, you know BW uses Beliefs as a means of narrative control, which has nothing to do with your character, even though the Belief itself is believed by your character.

No, I willed his sister into being. As does every player whenever he writes a character background. What you want and what your character wants correlate with each other. And no, Burning Wheel doesn't really share narrative control (at least not in regard to beliefs) and if you played it you would know that. How Beliefs are tested is up to the gamemaster, no player can at any point in time demand how his belief is going to be tested.

I am not going to engage the second part of your post. You might think that way, I don't. I am going to assume your play experience is rewarding the way you play, so is mine, so about that we just have to agree to disagree.

Quote from: Saphim;395922What you want and what your character wants correlate with each other.

Not always. If I was playing a character and wanted a movie-Conan type of beginning, I'd have my backstory read that my people were wiped out by Vanir raiders led by a mysterious priest carrying an unusual banner.   Fleshed out, this backstory has tons of hooks that the GM could use later.  Pretty sure though, my character didn't want to have his people wiped out.  It's completely player-driven.  Now my character has the desire for vengeance I want him to have and it's completely character-driven, a natural result from having his people wiped out.

There is a difference, which can be seen easier if you normally play from a deep in-character perspective.

Quote from: Saphim;395922How Beliefs are tested is up to the gamemaster, no player can at any point in time demand how his belief is going to be tested.

True, the GM could just not test Beliefs at all, but then why play Burning Wheel?  If you're not testing Beliefs, you're not getting Artha, etc.  Beliefs are more then a character description, they are a game mechanic.

Quote from: Saphim;395922I am not going to engage the second part of your post. You might think that way, I don't. I am going to assume your play experience is rewarding the way you play, so is mine, so about that we just have to agree to disagree.

Cheers :hatsoff:

P.S. Instincts are pretty cool, I'll give Luke that, although it's clear from the boards it's just to stop all the infighting his crazy players do at the table.

Quote from: CRKrueger;395933;)Not always. If I was playing a character and wanted a movie-Conan type of beginning, I'd have my backstory read that my people were wiped out by Vanir raiders led by a mysterious priest carrying an unusual banner.   Fleshed out, this backstory has tons of hooks that the GM could use later.  Pretty sure though, my character didn't want to have his people wiped out.  It's completely player-driven.  Now my character has the desire for vengeance I want him to have and it's completely character-driven, a natural result from having his people wiped out.

For me there is no difference. Let's assume I want to play the same kind of character. I will write the following beliefs.

B1: The honour of my tribe has been tarnished when we were defeated. I will wash our shame away by killing every last Vanir.
B2: The mysterious priest was behind the attack on my tribe, I need to find out who he is.
B3: free for one that ties in with the group.

How much fun these are will depend on the group and they will need some changing depending on the group and the situation the GM presents, but thsoe beliefs do the same as your backstory. They are about what I want from the game, what I want is what forms the goals of my character. For good or for bad ^^

I don't get the idea of a divide between what the player wants and what the character wants. The character doesn't want anything. He's not real. Anything you say he wants is just something you think is interesting as a player.

I mean, I understand the concept of making life hard and/or interesting for a character in ways that , were he a real dude, he would never choose for himself (assassin lizard priests! in your house!).

But how can any RPG be "character-driven" in a way that is NOT really, actually player-driven? The character didn't really make any choices. The player did, based on what he/she wanted to see.

Similarly, I don't get the idea that turning good GMing practices into mechanics is somehow a bad thing. (I can accept that it might be, but I don't see how.)

I've read the core and the Monster Burner a couple of times and played a session of it, and I'm gearing up for a possible BE campaign sometime soon (I've also tried to run BE a couple of times online, once with you, WK, IIRC).

What I like about BW:

Encourages strong characterisation with mechanical incentives to act in-character
Simple core mechanic (d6 dice pools)
Lifepath system is interesting and it's fun to generate characters
Good social combat mechanics that allow PCs to be socially effective w/o having to pander to the intellectual prejudices of the DM

What I don't like:

Most of the subsystems are fiddly and overcomplicated (Circles and Damage/Health in particular)
Rules are badly organised & hard to look up in play

My main complaint though, is one that applies to many games that currently exist, which is that to play it as written makes it much harder to surprise DMs or PCs. There's a lot of declaring one's goals and desires, and writing them down for others to keep track of. The DM's job is to cater to or activate challenges only on the fronts that the PCs have indicated they're interested in pursuing. IME, sitting down to play a BW game involves a lot of talking about what one wants to happen in the story with the expectation that it will eventually happen.

One extension of this is that also IME, most games of BW follow narrative patterns and steal liberally from other media. While not an intrinsically bad activity, I do find that geek pop culture supplies most of the models for the BW players I've played with. As someone who does not like most geek pop culture, I have actually left a BW campaign I was invited to join (thus the one session) rather than put up with some crappy pastiche of Hindu fantasy comics (The DM said "It's based on the Ramayana", and then drew out a bunch of pseudo-manga where Rama had some sort of cyber-arm or some shit to show me what he meant). Pastiche and imitation are the techniques one uses in building the setting for a BW campaign.

One thing I find very important in games, and that I strive to create a sense of when I DM, is surprise. I want my PCs to be surprised in the process of exploring and discovering the world around them, and for the information they attain to be meaningful and useful and interesting, both to them and to their characters. Because of that, I do try to avoid pastiche, and in my games, I avoid trying to imitate comics, movies and novels (though I do occasionally use language or ideas drawn from them, especially if I want to subvert PC expectations later on). I would find that almost impossible to do in a BW game and therefore have little interest in playing it.