Have yet to see or hear a firsthand account about of the this bad boy in action.  Please fill tomes telling me what you have found playing it. What kind of games it does well. What you think it might not do so well. Learning curve. Pitfalls. Your favorite meatloaf recipe.

Thankyou in advance.

I'm curious about this as well, as I've heard about it a couple time online, but I have yet to hear anyone IRL talk about or even seen it for sale.

http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?t=244292

The above thread has in it a bunch of actual play posts concerning the fantasy game my weekly group was playing before we started playtesting stuff this past month.

If any of the threads bring up a question or two, let me know here and I'd be happy to answer.

Sorry, blakkie, I didn't even notice that there were questions in your original post.

Here we go:

Quote from: blakkiePlease fill tomes telling me what you have found playing it. What kind of games it does well.

I have found it does intense fantasy well.  The fantasy races included in the book, Orc, Dwarf and Elf are very influenced by Tolkien while the humans have more of a George R.R. Martin vibe to 'em.

Quote from: blakkieWhat you think it might not do so well. Learning curve. Pitfalls.

It is a crunchy game, no doubt and for some people the learning curve is just too intense and they drop it.  But it felt like a breath of fresh air to me and the group I play with.

I'd take some time and go through combat with the group, maybe a Duel of Wits and then jump on a campaign with both feet.

Quote from: blakkieYour favorite meatloaf recipe.

Thankyou in advance.

The secret ingredient in the loaf...is love.

You are welcome.  Hope that helped.

Looking through those threads it sounds very cool. Thanks Paka. It seems to do really well handling a full, balanced campaign environment (as in with a solid mix of combat, but not combat dominated).

Any idea if you could use firearms in the system, and how much work it would take someone to whip burn that up?  That probably sounds like a wierd question. I know it is built fantasy orientated, and combat systems not designed for firearms tend to have problems making the jump. But any thoughts you have, and the background you have with firearms in games, would be appreciated.

http://www.burningwheel.org/wiki/index.php?title=Downloads#Under_a_Serpent_Sun

The Under a Serpent Sun setting, downloadable for free above, is a post apocalyptic setting that has guns and gun rules in it.

There is no trouble making the jump, it works really well.  I have played Under a Serpent Sun too and the guns work just fine.

Quote from: blakkieHave yet to see or hear a firsthand account about of the this bad boy in action. Please fill tomes telling me what you have found playing it. What kind of games it does well. What you think it might not do so well. Learning curve. Pitfalls. Your favorite meatloaf recipe.
 
Thankyou in advance.

I genuinely like BW. It has a fantastic lifepath system--the folks I've played with ended up "burning" (creating) a ton of different characters simply because the lifepath choices were so varied and entertaining, and character creation works very hard to help you have a well-defined character.
 
I agree that it handles Tolkien quite well, and could easily do Martin as well. I tend to stick with the Tolkienesque, however--it's not really my system of choice for really High Fantasy or Pulp Fantasy. There are few systems to compete with it for dealing with human-centric settings, IMO. It may be a bit more work than you want to deal with if you want 16 different races for players to pick from. Not impossible, mind, just not made-to-order.
 
New players might find pitfalls with the Duel of Wits and the scripted combat. Some folks swear it's intuitive, but it wasn't for me. With combat, I would start with the basic resolution, and as you get more comfortable, add in things like positioning. I find myself not using the Duel of Wits system much at all (and not just because I'm unarmed, har). Aside from these two items, both of which can be simplified, the game isn't too tough to pick up. Gameplay is speeded up and benefits from the philosophy of "let it ride", which cuts down on multiple dice rolls by rolling once for, say a skill like Tracking, and sticking with that roll through the entire scene, rather than re-roll at every point that skill comes up. I might also add the two books are two of the most attractive RPG books I've ever picked up, if you like that sort of thing.
 
Meatloaf...er...I don't want to give you a bogus recommendation on that one. Not quite my area of expertise. :imsorry:

I've got a question for y'all: what the FUCK are y'all talkin' about?  I've never heard of this game at all, ever, before I clicked on this thread.

It is a fantasy RPG.

Here's the URL:

//www.burningwheel.org

Interesting.  Doesn't look much like any game I've played before.

Do you know of any good reviews of it?

http://www.burningwheel.org/wiki/index.php?title=Category:Awards_and_Reviews

Ah, thanks.  Didn't see that on the site.  

I just picked up a copy of Burning Wheel, and as a coincidence found a potential GM for it as well. We're a little bit intimidated by it all though - in some ways (Fight! and the Duel of Wits) it might be the most "crunchy" system I've seen, even if it doesn't have the tons of options in the form of charms or spells like Exalted or D&D. It looks hard to play...and at the same time so very very enticing...

I hope I'll get a chance to try it out soon. We're also arguing some other possible games - Artesia, Unknown Armies or Tri-stat Tekumel.

We gave it a few tries, but the combat engine starts to shake itself apart when fights become something other than pairing off one on one, and the three-phase-scripting tends to slow the flow of things to a stop.  Even when we started using an oven timer to keep the slowdown to a minimum it felt like we were playing more of a rock-paper-scissors game, where what hand a player chooses to throw is all that really counts in the end, that character details were secondary to whether paper 1 threw rock, and the GM threw paper or scissors.  It's a game lovingly written, that works for some, but it is not for everyone.

It has some excellent stuff, especially in terms of making the best use of a dice pool system. It is also poorly organized and full of malapropisms. It's worth getting if only to hack ideas to another system.

I found the lifepaths kind of meh, because I have three different games that already have them.