Quote from: Seanchai;393988That's an interesting idea. What makes it tactical? How do you mean "tactical"?

Seanchai

Well basically speaking it is the interaction between weapon speed, Striking Distance, Positioning Tests, VA and Maneuvers.
Let me make an example. Let's take two combatants. One is the sergeant of the city guard. He has a spear in his hand, a sword at his side and a knife in his belt. He corners a thief in a completely barren dead end. The thief draws a knive himself.
In most RPGs this is a very boring fight, there is no escape (because I fiated that), no spellslinging, just I attack, you attack, whether with feats or without.

Let's take a look at this in Burning Wheel.
So, first of all, this is going to be a lot about positioning, because if the thief can come close, the sergeant has to drop his weapon and draw the knife because fighting against a knife fighter with a spear at close range is going to get you killed.
But the thief, who earns his living running away, is a lot faster and doesn't wear chain mail, so eventually he is going to win positioning.
So what do you do as the sergeant? Do you draw your sword and hope for the best? Try the risky disarm maneuver or aim for the legs? Do you hope an early blow will cause a steeltest and take care of the kid that way (but the thief spent alls his life in the streets,  he might have the steel to pass)?

These are only some of the tactical choices/challenges burning wheel combat presents to only one combant in a bare room just based on different weapons.
You don't need a map to enjoy any of it. You don't need miniatures and after a couple of scripted combats these things come very easy to one.

Quote from: Peregrin;393992The same way Exalted combat is tactical without minis -- lots of meaningful choices (maneuvers) during combat as well as depending heavily on anticipating your opponent's moves while trying to work the situation to your advantage.

If figured that, but I don't remember Burning Wheel as being especially tactical. I only have an early edition and never played it, so I was curious what I missed. I wondered if it was scripting that made it tactical or something else...

Seanchai

I bought it and eventually sold it on ebay.

I liked the writing style.  I thought the lifepaths were great.  The complexity and crunch killed me though.

Also, it said to read the first 77 pages and then run it a little, using "Bloody Versus" tests instead of the combat rules while you got the basics down pat.

Bloody Versus rules weren't in the first 77 pages.  That irked me.

But that wasn't the real issue, just an annoyance.  The issue was the crunch.  It just plain defeated me.  Way too rules heavy for my personal needs.

I hope whoever it was who bought it from me plays the hell out of it.

Did you just sell it in the last couple of days?

Quote from: Werekoala;394111Did you just sell it in the last couple of days?

A while back :-)

I may sell my copy of PTA shortly though.

Actually, I have a bunch of stuff coming up soon.  Some are good games I also have in pdf, some are ones I think I won't run, some I like but won't run again.

I'm getting increasingly brutal.  So, the Mars book for SW goes (good as it is) because I've run a sword and planet game recently using S&W and it went fine.  Aces & Angels goes because if I run an air combat game (and I may) it will be WWI, not II (Aces in Spades stays therefore) and anyway I have it in pdf too, and so on.  I don't have any games left I don't actually like, but I have plenty that aren't really necessary.

Quote from: Seanchai;394069If figured that, but I don't remember Burning Wheel as being especially tactical. I only have an early edition and never played it, so I was curious what I missed. I wondered if it was scripting that made it tactical or something else...

I find the full combat rules too unwieldy for me too. People who don't seem to like BW combat usually seem to be cranky about the scripting, which I don't mind at all. It's the positioning rules and the Mortal Wound/damage rules that get me confused.

The combat system in Mouse Guard is definitely a simpler, more elegant version of the BW combat system. Comparing stuff in that game is actually kind of a fun "game-ish" thing, instead of work.

I thought it got elves and orcs better than any other game I've seen.  It definitely had some seriously cool ideas.

I'd play it, I wouldn't run it.

Ok, so I’ve been reading the core book for the Burning Wheel, up to page 77, and have some impressions.

Started out with the basics; dice mechanics, stats, etc. I’m pretty cool with it so far – fairly standard “roll handful of dice, count successes, some dice can explode for re-rolls” etc. Then we get to the area of using what are essentially “action points” to affect die rolls and outcomes. Cool, so far no problem.

But then the deeper I get into the rules, I start to notice something. I think the system itself is wonky-for-wonkiness sake. Some things I like, such as tracking successes to determine advances in skills or abilities, and I like the "shades" (black, grey, white) for skills and attributes, to grade the levels of expertise or effectiveness rather than relying purely on numbers. Other thngs strike me as decidedly story-gamish, like spending Artha to change outcomes you don’t like mid-game (and as usual, the GM isn’t supposed to say no…).

Speaking of “Artha”, that’s where the wheels come flying off, if you’ll pardon the expression. My comprehension took a bit of a hit, but I still managed to read through to the end of the section. I think I have a handle on the mechanics, but it crystalized what I was having the hardest time with:

What the FUCK is up with all of the re-naming of traditional gaming mechanics in this game?

You don’t make a character, or build a character, you “burn” them. Failed dice in your dice pool are not failures, they’re “traitors”. Artha is a SANSKRIT word, for god’s sake, that based on the definition provided in the book has nothing to do with how it is used in the game itself.

And something that didn’t even hit me until I was almost done reading the chapter – why is the game called “The Burning Wheel” to start with? Why the whole conceit of calling the sections the “hub” (core rules), the “spokes” (basic mechanics) and the “rim” (advanced rules, I’m assuming). Why is it on fire? What the hell?! Does this come into play as part of the setting for the game, or is it just for “flair”?

That’s really my biggest problem so far – it’s like Crane decided to design a game using fairly standard mechanics in many areas, and make it all edgy and such by renaming everything. All it has done so far is cause my brain to lock up and try to mentally translate the “cool” names for things into standard gamer language. This is why (I already know) it’ll never be used for my gaming group, because they’ll have the same problem. “So, Artha is LIKE action points, but it has up to 8 or 9 uses and levels and can only be used in certain situations and… fuck it, let’s play 3e.”

So, I’m not usually much for the Swine-Wars, but in this case I think the game was made intentionally Byzantine and hard to translate into “normal” game terms simply so that it’d make people who actually grasp the game as-written feel superior to “regular” gamers. I think if someone were to take the book and translate it into plain English, it would probably be pretty playable. That’s my impression, but as usual, YMMV.

I also like the digest-sized layout and font of the books. It makes it look like an old-timey notebook or something.

I think anyone who is on the fence (or even curious) about Burning Wheel should give this a listen.

Its the beginning of a campaign recap (not an actual play, I loathe actual plays) of a high-intrigue, noble house game that the hosts of the Podgecast ran. I think it gives a pretty good sense of the strengths and weaknesses of the system.

Personally, I ran and enjoyed a very fun Burning Wheel campaign (not to say the game doesn't have its problems). I think the game runs intrigue very well and, in our game, the Duel of Wits scripting mechanic was used far more often than Fight! was.

The key to relaxing and enjoying running BW in my experience was keeping it simple whenever possible and only busting out the complex systems when things get heavy.

Bloody Versus is great for less important, fast paced combat. Fight! is amazing for a highly dramatic duel that is going to end with someone dead or wishing they were so...

Quote from: Peregrin;393940You only really want to get into the really detailed stuff for conflicts that matter...

How do you know which ones actually matter?  For instance, that five hit points your character is down may be the five hit points that would have saved them in the next combat.

Just to focus on that one issue of Bloody vs. instead of using the full-on combat mechanics--not only isn't Bloody Vs. found in the first 77 pages of the rules (according to D-503), it isn't really explained anywhere exactly how to run a combat with it. Not that I could find. Closest I think was a probably a forum post that (IIRC) basically said the loser dies, or suffers whatever fate the winner wanted to impose. What's important is: weapons, armor, etc. become pointless if you use Bloody Vs.

As for the full-on combat mechanics, they're not only fiddly as all get-out, and rather poorly explained/edited (I remember the section on weapon length was very ambiguous, and a good answer was very hard to come by even when I asked directly on the forums)--in addition to all that, they just don't make any sense at all when you have more than two combatants. You have to resort to a kludge found somewhere on the forums and/or wiki. Otherwise you might have a situation where A is next B, B is next to C, but A is miles away from C, or something like that.

This is a pity, because really I don't have a great deal of interest in detailed dueling rules (mostly because I don't think I can get players to pay attention to them), and the game as a whole holds some interest for me, but neither the simple nor the complex combat systems really seem to work for group play, unless a lot of handwaving or errata are thrown into the mix.

Quote from: Werekoala;395504That's really my biggest problem so far – it's like Crane decided to design a game using fairly standard mechanics in many areas, and make it all edgy and such by renaming everything. All it has done so far is cause my brain to lock up and try to mentally translate the "cool" names for things into standard gamer language. This is why (I already know) it'll never be used for my gaming group, because they'll have the same problem. "So, Artha is LIKE action points, but it has up to 8 or 9 uses and levels and can only be used in certain situations and... fuck it, let's play 3e."

I finished reading the book, cause it does have some interesting ideas, but yeah, you hit my thoughts exactly with that. It could be a great game, but I'll be fucked to find anyone willing to play it in my normal gaming circles.

Quote from: StormBringer;395554How do you know which ones actually matter?  For instance, that five hit points your character is down may be the five hit points that would have saved them in the next combat.

Bloody Vs. are discouraged from having outright deaths unless certain criteria are met or the group really wants to risk it.

In otherwords, most simple one-roll conflicts result in one side gaining an advantage, not slaughtering them.  Even in detailed martial conflict, it's much more about disabling your opponent from being able to fight than it is outright cutting their head off.  That doesn't stop people from drying from serious wounds or infection afterward, though.

What you do with them after the fight and how that plays out...well...that's up to the party.

Quote from: Peregrin;395563Bloody Vs. are discouraged from having outright deaths unless certain criteria are met or the group really wants to risk it.

In otherwords, most simple one-roll conflicts result in one side gaining an advantage, not slaughtering them.  Even in detailed martial conflict, it's much more about disabling your opponent from being able to fight than it is outright cutting their head off.  That doesn't stop people from drying from serious wounds or infection afterward, though.

What you do with them after the fight and how that plays out...well...that's up to the party.

Nonetheless, how do you know which conflicts really matter?

That was me saying that, not the game.

The short answer is that you use detailed martial conflict whenever the group feels like it.  Whenever it would seem most fun or dramatic.

As to my comment of battles "mattering" it's not a concept isolated to BW or story-games, though, as Fantasy Craft also has "Dramatic Encounters" which tangibly affect how things play out.

*edit*

Just got back from work, and managed to skim through my copy.  Bloody Versus is mentioned in the Spokes, detailed in a few paragraphs in the Rim.  It's based on weapon skill.

For a simple test, it's weapon skill vs weapon skill, success dealing damage to the other side.  The book suggests that if a player wants to kill a character, they should use the detailed rules (so in "mattering", I guess this would mean knocking a PC or NPC out of the game forever).  

However, it offers a simplified version for handling duels where the players want to kill someone, but want to resolve the conflict quickly.  You split your weapon skill into a defense and offense pool (as you see fit), the GM may add one or two bonus dice for helping and/or armor on each side, and then you roll those, successes in defense negate the opposition's offensive successes, and vice versa, with successes translating to damage.

Those are the "Versus" combat systems as I understand them.