Burning Wheel Gold is Up for Purchase

Yeah, you can buy it now if you weren't at GenCon.  From what I heard, they burned through the copies they had.  Even with the baby coming, I'm going to buy this.  It'll give me something to read to take my mind off of baby-related stress at least.

I'm very curious to see what changes they made.  I personally think of Mouse Guard as Burning Wheel with a lot of the problems fixed.  I wonder if the changes they made were to simplify or to add complexity to a game that already has a vast learning curve, or whether they made the idea that you can layer on levels of complexity as you go more explicit (in the BWR text it is there as a suggestion of doing so, but it is possible to pass over it, as I've noticed other people who read the game sometimes do).

That being said, BW changed both how I play and how I run games.  BW Gold might do it again - we'll see.

Mouse Guard, AKA Burning Wheel Fourth Edition

I had a whole post planned out to talk about Burning Wheel - how I think it is a wonderful, well-designed game, but why I think it is not an elegant game. But then I picked up a copy of Mouse Guard - which I'm thinking of as Burning Wheel Fourth Edition. (First Edition would be Burning Wheel "Classic", Second Edition is Burning Wheel Revised, Third Edition is Burning Empires, and Fourth Edition is Mouse Guard)

Mouse Guard is an elegant game. It is the direct descendent of both Burning Wheel and Burning Empires, and it is better than either one. It is better written, better presented, better designed. It is clear that Luke Crane continues to learn as he goes, with each game better than the next. (This fact makes me more excited about Free Market)

I've seen other gamers pick up Burning Wheel, and then sort of get bogged down and paralyzed because it is such a complicated game. The problem is that Burning Wheel Revised is about a dozen systems under one roof. They work together, but they're like an internal-combustion engine in that way - you raise the hood and its a bewhildering amalgam of movement and noise, and it takes some training to become familiar with all that is going on. I read the base books twice each, and ran the game twice for different groups, and each time, I realize something I ran a bit wrong, or missed entirely, or misinterpreted.

Burning Empires builds complexity onto Burning Wheel rather than removing it, but introduces defined turns and more information on how and when to frame scenes. Those two things are brought into Mouse Guard, but they are slimmed down and simplified.

Reading Mouse Guard, I felt a sense of elation. Its like I got to sit down with Luke Crane and tell him what I thought he should change about Burning Wheel. Most of what I would have told him made it in. All conflicts now look like the Duel of Wits. Conflict Scripting is more versatile and standardized, with only four maneuver types to choose from. The test-tracking system for advancement is much simpler and more logical by far (hint: no huge chart necessary to figure out what's going on). The attributes are simplified, and learning new skills is as well. There are no massive lists of interconnected lifepaths to navigate in character creation. There's no confusing wheel to track wounds, no special weapon system to make the brain hurt. I could go on, but you get the picture.

I say all of these things as a person who loves Burning Wheel, who has a lot of fun running and playing it. But Mouse Guard is better in every way. It is clear, concise, well-written...elegant. It is one of the best games I have ever read, and I look forward to playing it.

Neil Gaiman Makes My New Year Bright

One of the things that I got from my wife for Christmas was The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman in audiobook form, read by the author himself. It is kind of like Gaiman's take on a Harry Potter-type coming-of-age story, but it is, as one would expect, better than Harry Potter in every way.

I'm sure that some of its impact is due to hearing the author read it himself. I didn't know this, but Gaiman is a superb dramatic reader - downright mesmerizing. I wonder if he also excels in kendo, or racecar driving, or perhaps landscape painting? My looming green jealousy aside, I think that the impact of the story is increased by Gaiman's rendering. It is coming alive, and I must admit, sometimes makes it difficult to concentrate on my commute. I'm not done with the book yet, but I already recommend it to everyone without any reservations.

I am also deep into reading Monsters and Other Childish Things as well as the long-awaited Magic Burner for Burning Wheel. I also picked up a copy of Artesia: Adventures in the Known World and a copy of Mutants and Masterminds, which I'll talk about more later.

Reading Monsters has been a real pleasure. It is laugh-out-loud funny, and well written, and an elegant system. It is an interesting contrast with the Magic Burner - Burning Wheel in general is a very complex system, and while others describe it as elegant, I don't agree. It is an excellent system, and it is fun to play, but it is not elegant in the way that Monsters is elegant. It does not solve problems with the simplicity and grace that I look for in anything I would call elegant.

I'll have more to say on what elegance in game design means to me once I finish Parsec at long last. Which should be soon. Or I will explode.

A Dearth of Middle-Earth

I remember playing ICE's old game, Middle-Earth Roleplaying, or MERP, and trying to make it fit into the style and feel of the books. Rolemaster wasn't a system that lent itself to "Tolkienian" adventure, really, but it did a slightly better job than D&D, and the book was well-researched. The supplements and modues were also well done for the time. It was a good example of when setting fits even though rules don't.

I remember my deep disappointment with Decipher's Lord of the Rings Roleplaying Game. It also was an example of well-done setting material combined with a blatant D&D/D20 ripoff as far as the system was concerned. So, again, you have a mediocre/unsuited system dressed in Tolkienian drag.

For a while I was following Song of Arda, an attempt at a free Middle-Earth RPG that was available online for a few years. It has since disappeared before being completed, because it was an attempt at representing the feel of the books through system, rather than just setting description.

Burning Wheel is clearly based on Middle-Earth...in some ways. But it still leans toward the generalized medieval fantasy RPG - which is fine, because it isn't liscenced or anything, and it does a hell of a better job than ICE or Decipher did system-wise. The problem with BW is that if you want a rules-lite system, this ain't it. Also, you still have to adapt it for Middle-Earth, and making new lifepaths for your characters is a time-consuming process. (Much of the work has been done by others on their boards, but still...)

This is probably a problem I'll just have to solve myself. Now that I've thought about it, its going to be in there, along with all of these other designs floating around. Hopefully it won't distract me. If I do come up with anything, I'll probably just distribute it for free online. We'll see.

What would you want to see in a game system designed for Middle-Earth?

RPG Reward Systems

In our current game, Heroes of Karia Vitalus, we're playing with at least three kinds of rewards: immediate, periodic and cumulative. I want to briefly talk about each, and why I think it is cool to combine then whenever you can.

Immediate Rewards

These are obvious - you get them the moment you earn them, in-game. In Heroes of Karia Vitalus, we use gems as immediate rewards. Either the GM or another player gives you a gem when they think you did something cool, something exciting, dramatic, something that moves the story along, and so on. Everyone rewards differently, so you get a good mix most of the time. These rewards work as straight behavior modification. Little treats for doing what we want to see at the table.

As time goes on, you can see behavior change as a result. What's rewarded gets done more often, and people go into the game thinking "how can I earn some more gems tonight?" Which is the same as thinking "how can I be as cool as possible in this game session to impress my friends?" And that's pretty much exactly what you're looking for in a gamer.

MMOs like World of Warcraft or Everquest use immediate rewards extremely well. Every time you kill something, you get XP. Then you loot the thing and almost always get something for it. Its subtle reinforcement, but it works.


Periodic Rewards

These are probably the most common type. In this category I include leveling in the sense of D&D characters - surpassing some kind of major threshold that changes your character suddenly and significantly. In White Wolf, as in most other systems built for extended play over multiple sessions, you get experience points or character points as a periodic reward at the end of the session.

In the case of D&D 3.x, you are sometimes awareded XP at the end of an encounter rather than at the end of the session, but the system is still the same. You know when the time comes to get rewarded, and you salivate like Pavlov's dogs.

In HoKV, we use periodic rewards at the end of a session, handing out gems we haven't distributed yet via nominations and also getting character points that we can spend on the spot or save for later.


Cumulative

Cumulative rewards are rewards that you work you way up to earning incrementally. In WoW, a good example is raid or endgame gear, which you must work you way towards by questing and doing instances and raising your reputation with various factions. Ideally, earning a cumulative reward will be a series of immediate or periodic rewards - that's the triple threat.

In HoKV, the triple threat is the Kata Kariana, which are essentially super-powers that each character earns by spending saved gems and character points. These in turn build on each other in levels, with lower level Kata opening up higher-level Kata. In the game, these are the biggest payoff, and the most expensive thing that you save up for.

Unlike WoW's endgame gear, however, if you don't save up for the Kata, you can still have fun, because the gems you've been earning can be spent to add to your dice-rolls, making you a lot more effective in the game. So though there's a huge payoff to saving up for Kata, you can also have fun not doing so - and players in our game vary in how much they've spent on Kata compared to other things.


Conclusion

I think its good to have all three kinds of reward in any game. I think that Burning Wheel does this pretty well, actually, with Fate and Persona Artha (immediate), Deeds Artha and Trait votes (periodic) and the way you advance your skills and abilities (cumulative). If you combine all three kinds of rewards, which, granted, is difficult in a game aimed at one-shot play, I really think that it makes the game a lot more interesting and enjoyable.

Origins 2007: Luke Crane

One cool thing that I got to do at Origins this year is to meet Luke Crane twice. The first time was at a seminar he and a few other writers (the authors of Inspectres, The Riddle of Steel and With Great Power) held, the purpose of which was to help aspiring writers and game designers learn the nitty-gritty details of self-publication. Basically, we got to benefit from some of their mistakes and what they had learned in their own self-publishing.

Luke talked for about 95% of the seminar, occasionally prompting one of the other authors to contribute. You get the impression that his mouth is always trying to catch up with his mind, and he's an active speaker, walking around the room in his socks, cracking jokes, swearing, but also providing a wealth of information and specifics.

The second time I met Luke was when he won an Origins Award for Role-Playing Game of the Year with his game, Burning Empires (AKA "The Brick"). He was running a Burning Wheel game in the same room where I was in a Burning Wheel/Artesia crossover game. It was fun to congratulate him and to watch him flip out. Burning Empires was definitely my vote for the award in that category. I also got to meet some other people who came to congratulate him - others from the Forge, a podcaster or two, and whatnot. Some I have to admit I didn't know at all, or didn't recognize (since I know these people primarily through their voice or their writing).

I think its cool that Luke was running a game when the awards ceremony was going on, and I think its cool that shortly after getting the statue, he was back to running his game, and the statue was put to the side to make room for the dice. I think that's a guy with his priorities straight.

Resolution Systems

Last night Doug ran a great one-shot introduction to the Burning Wheel system. Aside from his good work as a GM we had a wonderful, mature bunch of players that really got into playing their roles, using accents, gestures, and movements to embody their characters. Fun was had all around.

Through a very simple storyline with archetypal Middle-Earth characters Doug introduced us to the major mechanics of the game - Artha, Combat Scripting and a Duel of Wits. All in all, I'm pretty impressed with Burning Wheel. It plays more exciting than it seems and it lends itself very well to storytelling. There are some glitches I would want to patch with house rules and it does lean toward the gritty side rather than the heroic side (which is normally my preference), but it's a very clever and fun little game.

What my interactions with Burning Wheel and a few other Indie RPG's out there have led me to reflect on is the nature of what I'm calling "Resolution Systems" in an RPG. Resolution Systems are what make a roleplaying game a game. They are the mechanics which everyone goes through in order to determine whether the actions being taken resolve themselves favorably or unfavorably (and for whom). It is popular for Resolution Systems to involve dice in some manner, though there are also diceless games and games which use cards, or coins or other methods. The main requirement for a Resolution System is that it follow some basic rules known to all the players which in some fashion restrict the possible outcomes of a situation.

Resolution Systems are good. Even live-action games use basic Resolution Systems. I stress, without a Resolution System a game is simply not a game - it is something else, possibly something fun, but not really a game. One reason gamers like myself play is we like the intellectual/puzzle-solving aspect of attempting to operate within the parameters of the Resolution System provided in order to come out with the best possible result. For this to be effective and fun the Resolution System needs to do a few things:

1. It needs to be limiting in the right degree. Systems that are too restrictive railroad players into predetermined results removing all suspense. Systems that are too loose do not permit sufficient predictability for the players to have confidence that their actions matter.
2. It needs to be relatively unobtrusive. Different players like different levels of complexity in the rules, but ultimately the Resolution System is a means to an end, not an end in itself, so it should be simple enough to keep the game moving.
3. It needs to be fair. The players need to have confidence that the system isn't rigged against them, and that they can actually achieve success by playing within the rules.

Those are sort of the bare minimum things the Resolution System needs to do, however, what the Indie RPG designers are demonstrating is that a Resolution System can do more than this. Indeed, it could be argued that a Resolution System isn't fully developed unless it takes into account these other factors:

1. Theme. If possible a Resolution System should fit within or even help establish the theme of the game. Using a poker bidding system in a game about Riverboat Gamblers is an example.
2. Simulation. What types of situations do you envision this system resolving? The Resolution System should be flexible enough to effectively simulate the situations you intend with the degree of accuracy you desire.
3. Rewards. Since your players will be rewarded with success when they play the system correctly you should think about what types of behaviors you want to reward and plan the system accordingly. If you reward players for killing monsters the game will be mostly about hunting and fighting monsters.

The Duel of Wits from Burning Wheel is a great example of a Resolution System that takes these latter 3 things into account. The theme of Burning Wheel is very Tolkeinian and one feature of this style of fantasy is the confrontation with an opponent in a public arena where credibility is on the line. The Duel of Wits helps establish the overall theme of Burning Wheel by providing a means for players to simulate scenes like the confrontation with Wormtongue. This answers the question of what it is intended to simulate, which is does effectively through the simple mechanic of having each side begin with a "body of argument" that is the target of their opponent. The side which has their body of argument demolished first loses. Victory means that you may demand the losers meet certain conditions you established at the beginning of the duel. Because achieving victory requires the players to take actions like "incite", "accuse", "discredit", "rebut", "obfuscate", and "avoid" the players are rewarded for clever argumentative roleplaying. This Resolution System accomplishes exactly what it sets out to in a very neat way.

In a few days I will talk about how I think the Duel of Wits mechanics could be used as an interesting model for various Resolution Systems.

Burning Wheel Review

To take a detour from game-design posts for a moment - I've been reading through Burning Wheel lately and have some reflections on it. Burning Wheel is one of the games to come out of the Indie game "revolution" that took place in recent years, when many new independent games came out to popular acclaim, including Dogs in the Vineyard, Mortal Coil, Artesia and Spirit of the Century, among many many others.

Basically, what happened is that years of theorizing about roleplaying games with things like GNS Theory intersected with the falling cost of self-publishing due to new and improving technologies. The result was an incredible profusion of indie games. One of these games was Luke Crane's Burning Wheel, and I caught the bug and picked it up recently.

I like the way that BW is written, first of all. It is in a very approachable style, and "flavor text" is only used to exemplify how a rules element might look in-game. Luke utilizes various voices, represented by little imp icons, to mark side-notes in reference to the rules, including reminders, admonitions and explanations.

BW is a very complex system, by far the most "crunchy" of the indie titles I'm familliar with. The system is a simple d6 system where d6's are rolled and 4-6 is a success, where 1-3 is a "traitor". Obstacles, or Obs, are set as the number of successes necessary. Rolls are written so that they are more rare than other systems - there is the Let It Ride rule, which I like, which says that a roll stands for a situation until something drastic changes. This is to prevent GMs from demanding multiple rolls for one task, and to prevent players from demanding new rolls every time they fail.

You have the usual Attributes (Power, Agility, Forte, Speed, Will, Perception) and Skills (a huge number of them for any imaginable situation) that are in almost every RPG. You also have some derived Attributes, such as Health and Steel (a character's ability to recover from fear or pain) and Reflexes.

Along with these, however, you have Emotional Attributes, one for each of the four main races that he discusses. Dwarves have Greed, Elves have Grief, Humans have Faith and Orcs have Hatred. These emotional attributes directly impact the game and also play into the race-specific kids of magic available to each of these races. I have to say, I really like this. It adds color and interest, and also reflects, in the case of Dwarves, Elves and Orcs, a Middle-Earth feel.

In BW you also have Instincts, Traits and Beliefs. Instincts are things that your character does without thinking - the are expressed as if-then statements, and are a way of taking out insurance for a character, as well as a good way to get into trouble. The common example is "draw my sword at the first sign of trouble" - problems arising from this are obvious, but it also protects your character from being taken unprepared most of the time.

Traits are interesting - the are descriptive, and some affect the rules. You have Character Traits, which just describe, Dice Traits, which add or take away dice in certain situations, and Call-on Traits, which allow rerolls in certain situations. Most interesting is the fact that 'negative' traits cost points, in stark contrast to systems like GURPS where you take Disadvantages to earn more character points. The reasoning behind this, I learned on the BW Forums, is that Trait cost reflects the attention that that trait will demand in the game, among other things. Negative traits are also great ways to get into trouble, and getting into trouble earns you Artha (see below).

Finally, Beliefs are what really drive your character. You start with at least three, and Luke recommends that the first one be about your past, the second one be about your future goals, and the third one tie you into the situation that the game is built around. Beliefs should be driving forces that are specific enough to be interesting, and they should have consequences built in whenever possible. They can be anything from "Never trust an Elf farther than you can toss him" to "I must prove I am the rightful king".

Artha is a point currency used in the game. In short, you spend Artha to modify your rolls, making extraordinary success more likely. There are three kinds of Artha - Fate, Persona and Deeds, in order of how powerful they are.

Fate Artha are earned by roleplaying Beliefs and Instincts in a way that entertains and drives the story forward. This is where those negative Traits come in. Negative Traits are more likely to be entertaining and to drive the story forward than positive onces. Failure is almost always more interesting than success. With Traits, Fate Artha is earned only when use of the Trait moves the game in an unexpected direction. Fate Artha is also awarded for Humor - just making the group laugh. Finally and most rarely, Fate Artha is awarded for having the right skill at the right time to move the story forward.

Persona Artha are to reward general roleplaying. It is earned for Embodiment, when a player captures the mood at the table perfectly - great speeches, dire decisions and gruesome revenge to name a few examples. Moldbreaking is another way to earn Persona Artha - when a player roleplays her inner turmoil in-game when faced with a decision that violates her Beliefs, Instincts and Traits in some way. Players can nominate each other for this award. When a PC accomplishes Personal Goals, Persona Artha can also be rewarded. Finally a group's Workhorse and MVP can earn Personal points for being the ones who make it happen behind the scenes or for the one that really shines in a given session. These last two are generally voted on at the end of a storyline, and in BW the GM and players get one vote each in these instances.

Deeds Artha are awarded for accomplishing things far beyond the character's immediate goals. They are the most rare, powerful, and loosely defined. They seem appropriate at the end of a major story arc that was successfully concluded and that had wide impact beyond the PCs. Deeds Artha always comes with a cost or a sacrifice of some kind.

One final note - on character creation. BW uses a Lifepath system, where you create a character by going through their life as a series of experiences over time. For example, a PC might be Village Born, then a Troublemaking Kid, then an Apprentice, a Journeyman, then she gets Conscripted, and finally joins the standing army as a Military Sergeant. I like this system because it forces you to have a story for your character and because it covers failures and misfortune as well as success. Rather than have a particular point-amount for starting PCs, you have a number of Lifepaths, so that all of the PCs have similar amounts of life experience, though this experience will be very diverse.

In brief:

What I like about Burning Wheel:

1. It is driven by beliefs and characters are rewarded for both success and failure
2. Lifepaths force players to make concrete choices that result in the backbone of a story for a character's background
3. There is a vast diversity of skills, traits and other bits and pieces to make the game infinitely interesting
4. The rules reward player interaction, roleplaying, and getting into trouble
5. It has a very strong Tolkienian feel, though its limited because Luke couldn't afford to license the actual Middle-Earth property
6. Emotional Attributes are awesome

What I don't like about Burning Wheel:

1. I like more interesting dice mechanics. The d6's become essentially 50/50 coins that you toss in most cases, which leads to a less-interesting progression of probability
2. It will be very hard to get someone into this game if they aren't interested in a) lots of crunchy rules and b) lots of roleplaying and c) deadly, brutal combat
3. The Human magic system of Sorcery lacks flavor and interest. I'm still waiting for the Magic Burner supplement to come out to see if this is fixed
4. Specifically, the Fight! system is very complicated. Granted, its much more interesting than the D&D combat system for example, but its at least as complex
5. The Resources system is overall very intuitive, but I don't like that you still use points to purchase specific equipment. Why not let what you own come naturally from what lifepaths you chose?
6. Finally, as for the dice system, it seems that sometimes the game assumes that dice are equivalent to raised Obstacles, which just isn't the case statistically. It leads to a few absurd situations, opposed rolls that are impossible to win, etc.

Overall

I'm going to need to test-drive this baby and see how it handles. Lots of interesting things and a few things I like less. I imagine, with high player buy-in, it could be amazing. But then again, so can most games out there.

I give Burning Wheel 4 out of 5 stars - great concept, well-written, I like anything Tolkienian, but I could do with some rules changes.