Is Burning Wheel dead? What systems do YOU think should be played more!

[Max_Killjoy]

Really? The scoreboard thing? We're dragging points into a friendly discussion...why?

I'm not sure what the fallacy states, but I sense it's not actually the point I made.

Any use of the term "Mary Sue" outside of referring to a specific sort of fanfic self-insert character is pretty much the "mary sue fallacy" at this point.

https://www.fictionpress.com/s/24125...f-the-Mary-Sue
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MarySue
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Sue#Criticism
http://corabuhlert.com/2011/08/08/th...sue-conundrum/
http://thezoe-trope.blogspot.com/201...where-sun.html

Etc.

I never said more flaws=better character. Because that isn't true. However, 0 flaws does equal boring characters, because nothing interesting happens to flawless, perfect people with perfect lives. Or at the very least, we never feel like they're confronting any actual threat.

Part of this might come down to what each person means by "this character has flaws". If by "has flaws", you mean "isn't simply perfect and the best at everything", then I agree. If by "has flaws" you mean "has to have some issues that constantly cause them to suffer and/or make really bad decisions, and in general is nothing special really", then that's where we part ways.

And that later one, is the one I keep running into, that's given me this kneejerk reaction to the notion that only "flawed" characters can be interesting.

Harry, Frodo, etc, make my pull my hair out with some of their decisions -- Harry especially. There are clearly moments when the only reason they survive, let alone succeed, is in spite of their decisions and because of authorial fiat. And then you have the problem of the idiot plot that comes up too often in fiction.

Calling any suboptimal choice made by a character "idiot plot" is a vast overapplication of the concept. And if you're analyzing all of your media for potential places where people are doing things that maybe suggest imperfect planning, I hear CinemaSins is hiring. :P

Actually those were two different related comments, not a claim that every suboptimal choice is an idiot plot. "And then you have..." makes them clearly two different complaints.

I'm not talking about "suboptimal" choices in the first part, I'm talking about actively terrible and blatantly foolish choices that immediately stand out as "what the HELL are you doing?" and shove me as the reader/viewer completely out of the story, yank back the curtain, and show the author pulling strings.

And if I want to be mechanically rewarded for roleplaying a multifaceted character?

Just as no system can force me to optimize and I can do my darndest to optimize in virtually every system, there's no reason to say rewarding optimization is bad.


For an example of some of what I mean:
Errant is a character of mine in Apocalypse World. He's a Faceless, a class built on barfing out violence and, occasionally, disappointing everyone close to them.

So when faced with a situation where Errant can be subtle, which is the smart choice, or run in screaming and go full-on murdermachine, even if it's the dumber decision, I will pick the latter.

Why?

Because that's what Errant does when the chips are down. He follows his own bloody hands everywhere he goes, because violence is what he's good at, what he knows, and what he wants. Doing something else would not be accurate to his character. Even if Errant has the capacity for kindness, when the chips are down and a hard choice needs to be made, he will choose the bloodiest path. Maybe not always, but very nearly.

This is not optimal behavior, but it is behavior that makes sense within its context. *shrug*

Does he ever change? Does he ever learn anything else? Does he ever find a way to temper the violence, at least when it's the worst path? Or even to start to learn that it's not always working?

.

[Cluedrew]

I'm not talking about "suboptimal" choices in the first part, I'm talking about actively terrible and blatantly foolish choices that immediately stand out as "what the HELL are you doing?" and shove me as the reader/viewer completely out of the story, yank back the curtain, and show the author pulling strings.

So really you are talking about "nonsensical" decisions, that is ones that make no sense.

I think ultimately the decisions that should be made are the "interesting" ones. Here I don't actually mean the decision is interesting, but rather I am using it as a short hand for it is a decision that helps the story it takes place in be interesting. We also want to avoid nonsensical decisions because those break immersion and so in a round about way make the story less interesting.

But where does that put how optimal the decision is? On its own how optimal or suboptimal the decision is represents very little about how interesting it is, so in some sense it is independent. On the other hand as you zoom out and consider different types of stories there is a need to create suboptimal decisions at some point.

However, as a game you never want to make suboptimal decisions. Because a goal of a game is to win* and so you want to take the most optimal path to victory.

So what this all comes down to is trying to make the mechanics you use and the story you tell actually fit together. Haven't played it so I couldn't tell you if it works, but that seems to be the goal.

*Or close enough.

.

OK, random question. What is with this dot? I see it at the bottom of so many of your posts, more than enough to suggest it is on purpose but I can't figure out what it is for.

[kyoryu]

True, far from it. It does need to be a possible consequence when a character is deliberately staking their life on something, though. "I would die to protect you" doesn't mean much if you literally can't die.

Also, the way I approach death as a player is different from the way I approach it as a GM.

Sometimes you're putting your life on the line. But in most cases, even physical conflicts will end with injuries and either capture or running away.

The trick is in making the fight be about something else, something that you don't want to give up, so that losing *hurts*.

[Max_Killjoy]

So really you are talking about "nonsensical" decisions, that is ones that make no sense.

I think ultimately the decisions that should be made are the "interesting" ones. Here I don't actually mean the decision is interesting, but rather I am using it as a short hand for it is a decision that helps the story it takes place in be interesting. We also want to avoid nonsensical decisions because those break immersion and so in a round about way make the story less interesting.

But where does that put how optimal the decision is? On its own how optimal or suboptimal the decision is represents very little about how interesting it is, so in some sense it is independent. On the other hand as you zoom out and consider different types of stories there is a need to create suboptimal decisions at some point.

However, as a game you never want to make suboptimal decisions. Because a goal of a game is to win* and so you want to take the most optimal path to victory.

So what this all comes down to is trying to make the mechanics you use and the story you tell actually fit together. Haven't played it so I couldn't tell you if it works, but that seems to be the goal.

*Or close enough.

OK, random question. What is with this dot? I see it at the bottom of so many of your posts, more than enough to suggest it is on purpose but I can't figure out what it is for.

There's no space between the bottom line of a post, and the signature, and no way to force it with line breaks / returns -- the forum software always strips every blank line off the bottom of a post. So that last line just disappears into the signature visually. I miss people's last comments on their posts sometimes if they're just a standalone sentence, until I realize that I've missed something and go back to pick it out.

Sometimes it bothers me enough to put that . in there to force the extra space.

[BayardSPSR]

Sometimes it bothers me enough to put that . in there to force the extra space.

White-colored character on an independent line in the signature?

[Lorsa]

Well, ideally in BW you're failing because you're trying hard things, not because you're making them hard on yourself. But that's a real possibility.

There is often a difference between the ideal and reality. Unfortunately, while BW seemed good in idea, in reality it didn't work out for me.

People keep saying things...and its getting more and more clear that they either haven't played it or read the advancement rules wrong.

It's possible I have read the advancement rules wrong. I do not own a copy unfortunately, back when I tried to play it, I borrowed the copy of BW Gold that a friend had.

You do not get caught up in a metagame....because you ONLY advance in the skills you use...

I would argue that is exactly the reason you get caught up in the meta-game. The practice rules wasn't really a realistic option unless you have years of time between the sessions.

Let me explain that further. You do not have the situation of "ok I want to pick the lock is it difficult" "no its easy" dang, ok ill convince the guards of blahblahblah" because that would be a different skill...and hence achieve nothing towards the lockpicking you were aiming to improve.

Yes, but picking the lock achieves nothing towards increasing your lockpicking skill EITHER, so better choose one which generates a difficulty of a level you need to advance it. Since you do not only have to USE the skill (which is already hard enough given there has to be some big trouble if you fail), you also have to use it at the exact right difficulty.

Likewise...you can use difficult tests in place of easy ones...so again...it just encourages you to push your character.

You can? I must remember it wrong then, because I remember BW specifically saying you need tests of all different kinds of difficulties to advance, and that you couldn't just "swap them out at a whim". The only thing I recall is that for combats, you only got one dot per combat even if you rolled 100 rolls for a skill, but you could choose which of the difficulties you marked down (out of all the ones you rolled for).

This does NOT MEAN STUPID DECISIONS. Just challenging ones. Lets not forget that you GAIN EXPERIENCE even if you FAIL the tests. That doesnt mean "fail so bad you lose a leg" were talking a system of degrees of failure. Fail by one? eh...not all that bad in the grand scheme of things.

I never said they were stupid decisions. Just out-of-character ones. Or rather, they can be stupid from the character's point of view, while smart from a meta-game perspective.

Again it seems people didnt know this but Artha IS USED FOR ADVANCEMENT. It is in fact the MOST USEFUL advancement as you use it to grey scale or white scale your skills. Something easily worth 3x extra dice in those skills. So again you are literally rewarded for JUST ROLEPLAYING.

I had a character in the game do nothing BUT advance his character this way by playing to his interesting character traits. Not to mention picking new ones up with Artha and FoRKing his way to great skill tests.

Yes indeed. And you need what? Two or three deed artha to change the color (or was it one)? Let alone something like 8 persona artha or what was it? This means you really HAVE to focus all your artha on one skill to ever have any hope to improve one at all. Throwing in artha on a roll isn't something I think should be done "willy-nilly" or because you are specifically aiming to improve it. It should be done because THIS roll is REALLY important. Following that reasoning, most likely your artha rolls will be spread out over a multitude of skills, especially the deed artha. Gathering deed artha is hard enough, getting it spent on a skill with the right amount of other artha spent on it is nigh impossible.

Also, I was under the impression that when you look at the difficulty you actually get dotted next to your skill, you count the total of dice rolled, not your skill number. So if you have 4 in a skill, roll for Ob4, but FoRK your way up to 6 dice, then it's an easy check, not a difficult one. So FoRKing might actually work against your advancement (even though it increases your likelihood of success).

You don't get told the Ob until you've already committed to a course of action.

Ah, that may be so. It creates an even worse problem though, as it implies a character is completely unable to judge the difficulty of a situation before they engage in it. If you're jumping over a cleft you probably know approximately how long it is before you attempt the action.

It also makes character advancement even more difficult, as it leaves increase of skills entirely in the hands of the GM and/or luck.

[ImNotTrevor]

Any use of the term "Mary Sue" outside of referring to a specific sort of fanfic self-insert character is pretty much the "mary sue fallacy" at this point.

https://www.fictionpress.com/s/24125...f-the-Mary-Sue
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MarySue
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Sue#Criticism
http://corabuhlert.com/2011/08/08/th...sue-conundrum/
http://thezoe-trope.blogspot.com/201...where-sun.html

Etc.

That first article strikes me as trying to undermine the term by saying since it can't be cleanly defined it can't exist, but that's also true of Pornography. (We've been trying to define the line between sexual content, artful nudity, and pornography for decades. And the currently used definition is still not all that great.)
Yet we don't say the Pronz don't exist. They do. We know the difference between the three pretty well by looking, but what exactly causes the difference is hard to nail down, because it's a qualitative rather than quantitative change.

As they listed, no one of those things in the Mary Sue Test will assuredly make for a Sue. But, they are indeed traits that Mary Sues seem to have frequently. Hence the difficulty in nailing it down. I'd say that the biggest key is being a Wish-fulfillng Self-insert obviously meant to make the creator feel really good about themselves rather than be a compelling character. (In fiction, anyways.) This is easier to spot in fanfiction, and among novice writers, but there is hope:
As I said (or at least it was in my first drafts of my last post), Mary Sues are insanely hard to create in TRPGs as I define them: Being utterly perfect, literally flawless beings who only ever make the correct decisions and solve all the problems and everyone loves them.
But you can try.

Part of this might come down to what each person means by "this character has flaws". If by "has flaws", you mean "isn't simply perfect and the best at everything", then I agree. If by "has flaws" you mean "has to have some issues that constantly cause them to suffer and/or make really bad decisions, and in general is nothing special really", then that's where we part ways.

And that later one, is the one I keep running into, that's given me this kneejerk reaction to the notion that only "flawed" characters can be interesting.

I basically operate on the following principal:
We like a character more for their struggles than for their successes.

This doesn't mean they can't succeed, be happy, or be special. (Harry Potter does all three while still struggling. Good balance, there.)

But it does mean they need to struggle. What they struggle with, where, and how will be determined by what's fun for the player.

People make bad decisions based on their wants, needs, goals, and beliefs all the time. Were that not true, we would live in a much better world. So making only good decisions outside of a game where roleplaying isn't really the goal and just having some goblin-bashing is, doesn't strike me as fun. As far as I'm concerned, the fun starts when things go wrong. But that's a matter of taste at this point.

On the point again, I use the former definition rather than the latter, though the latter is basically the sam thing but on the opposite side of the spectrum. Characters who are forever stupid, miserable, amd suffering are also boring for many of the same reasons, just backwards.

Actually those were two different related comments, not a claim that every suboptimal choice is an idiot plot. "And then you have..." makes them clearly two different complaints.

I'm not talking about "suboptimal" choices in the first part, I'm talking about actively terrible and blatantly foolish choices that immediately stand out as "what the HELL are you doing?" and shove me as the reader/viewer completely out of the story, yank back the curtain, and show the author pulling strings.

Real people make decisions that stupid all the time. So, to take a really extreme example: Bojack Horseman, titular character of the Netflix series.

Bojack does incredibly stupid, mean, vindictive, and self-destructive things all the time, but it is always consistent with his desire to be beloved and try to relive the good ol days of the 90s when his show was famous, because he hasn't been happy since then. (Fair warning, while I enjoy the show and it is funny, it is also a HUGE bummer and will make you feel sad while you laugh. Great show, though.) And, actually, he tends to move in a positive direction, though he is fighting an entire lifetime of really terrible habits and decisions.

Basically, if the poor decisions are based on in-character and consistent reasons, then they're fine by me. When they aren't, that's when they're jarring.

Does he ever change? Does he ever learn anything else? Does he ever find a way to temper the violence, at least when it's the worst path? Or even to start to learn that it's not always working?
.

Errant's story didn't really turn out all that great for a number of reasons:
1. His class is built for tragedy. It says so in the class description. In exactly those terms.

2. It was a game of Apocalypse World, and while overall things ended great for everyone, Apocalypse World can have satisfying tragic endings, too. Probably the only system where I've enjoyed having the tragic, bad option happen because it didn't feel like a punishment. It actually felt like I'd done it right.

3. Errant was too far gone to turn back by the time he entered the story. His dedication to violence wasn't entirely based on a conscious decision. A sufficient amount of medication and therapy may have helped him turn it around, but the apocalypse is tragically low on both. So his was a downward spiral no one really knew how to stop. Which was okay within that context.

Now, that's just Errant. Other characters with similar dispositions have changed, yes.

For instance, Three. Three was an NPC, but I played him nonetheless. Through a rather remarkable series of events he ended up going from a strung-out drug-addicted dealer to becoming an apothecary in a relationship with one of the PCs. (This was mostly driven by the desires of the player in question, but I had the greater influence on how it turned out.)

Anyways, yeah. Characters and stuff. It's a big broad fuzzy mess without anything particularly easy to nail down except the most basic things. So as with anything ever said about characters, YMMV.

[Max_Killjoy]

You don't get told the Ob until you've already committed to a course of action.

Which is bad game design. As pointed out, it means that people in that setting are unable to judge the difficult of tasks before attempting them -- which is a definite break from reality, and a strange one.

[ImNotTrevor]

Which is bad game design. As pointed out, it means that people in that setting are unable to judge the difficult of tasks before attempting them -- which is a definite break from reality, and a strange one.

I think he means the mechanical part.

In D&D I can tell you a task will be hard without telling you the DC. I imagine it's a similar thing.

[profitofrage]

Which is bad game design. As pointed out, it means that people in that setting are unable to judge the difficult of tasks before attempting them -- which is a definite break from reality, and a strange one.

I honestly dont know what he was talking about. One of the key design points is that you DO know the difficulty and more then that know the consequences to failing / passing the action ahead of time.

[profitofrage]

There is often a difference between the ideal and reality. Unfortunately, while BW seemed good in idea, in reality it didn't work out for me.
It's possible I have read the advancement rules wrong. I do not own a copy unfortunately, back when I tried to play it, I borrowed the copy of BW Gold that a friend had.
I would argue that is exactly the reason you get caught up in the meta-game. The practice rules wasn't really a realistic option unless you have years of time between the sessions.
Yes, but picking the lock achieves nothing towards increasing your lockpicking skill EITHER, so better choose one which generates a difficulty of a level you need to advance it. Since you do not only have to USE the skill (which is already hard enough given there has to be some big trouble if you fail), you also have to use it at the exact right difficulty.
You can? I must remember it wrong then, because I remember BW specifically saying you need tests of all different kinds of difficulties to advance, and that you couldn't just "swap them out at a whim". The only thing I recall is that for combats, you only got one dot per combat even if you rolled 100 rolls for a skill, but you could choose which of the difficulties you marked down (out of all the ones you rolled for).
I never said they were stupid decisions. Just out-of-character ones. Or rather, they can be stupid from the character's point of view, while smart from a meta-game perspective.
Yes indeed. And you need what? Two or three deed artha to change the color (or was it one)? Let alone something like 8 persona artha or what was it? This means you really HAVE to focus all your artha on one skill to ever have any hope to improve one at all. Throwing in artha on a roll isn't something I think should be done "willy-nilly" or because you are specifically aiming to improve it. It should be done because THIS roll is REALLY important. Following that reasoning, most likely your artha rolls will be spread out over a multitude of skills, especially the deed artha. Gathering deed artha is hard enough, getting it spent on a skill with the right amount of other artha spent on it is nigh impossible.
Also, I was under the impression that when you look at the difficulty you actually get dotted next to your skill, you count the total of dice rolled, not your skill number. So if you have 4 in a skill, roll for Ob4, but FoRK your way up to 6 dice, then it's an easy check, not a difficult one. So FoRKing might actually work against your advancement (even though it increases your likelihood of success).
Ah, that may be so. It creates an even worse problem though, as it implies a character is completely unable to judge the difficulty of a situation before they engage in it. If you're jumping over a cleft you probably know approximately how long it is before you attempt the action.
It also makes character advancement even more difficult, as it leaves increase of skills entirely in the hands of the GM and/or luck.

Oh god there is so much here.... :P Ok...
As a bit of a short hand way of trying to address you. To be totally honest I have never played Gold edition, only original and revised. So there may be differences here.

Picking the lock ONLY doesnt achieve anything if its not particularly difficult to unpick ( assuming you are not after easy tests). But if all the locks your coming across are not hard to pick...then you dont really need to improve that skill do you? Again...its people getting caught up in mechanics for essentially no reason. the complaint that its "getting stuck in the meta game" just doesnt make sense...because your deliberately putting yourself there. The character is either feeling challenged (and hence improving) or there not...and you get to succeed which is WHY you want to improve anyway.

You cant swap out easy tests for difficult ones no matter how many you have, but they do mention it being a good idea to allow challenging, difficult e.t.c to scale DOWN.

As for out of character decisions.... what are you talking about... A Master theif comes by a door thats hard to pick. How is it out of character for him to TRY PICKING THE LOCK.

Yes your right, you need a lot of artha to improve in that fashion. But the whole point is that this is a specific reward for roleplaying... you cant complain this is somehow a fault. Its not "forcing you" to play your character... its rewarding you. The scale of that reward is not important... its certainly not a negative. Likewise how this creates a "meta game" narrative I have no idea... since you PICK these traits / beliefs e.t.c so your being rewarded for playing the character the way you wanted too anyway. If anything... its specifically PREVENTING meta gaming. No more paladins walking away during the interrogation because he could get Artha stopping it happening (likewise his friends dont feel cheated by lawful stupidity, because now they have a stronger party. more so if they roleplay it out using THERE beliefs e.t.c)

[Koo Rehtorb]

Ah, that may be so. It creates an even worse problem though, as it implies a character is completely unable to judge the difficulty of a situation before they engage in it. If you're jumping over a cleft you probably know approximately how long it is before you attempt the action.

It doesn't mean anything of the sort. There's nothing stopping you from trying to judge the difficulty of a test yourself by asking for descriptions and making common sense judgements. A visual inspection and basic logic should tell you that trying to break down a rickety wooden door is probably going to be easier than trying to break down the reinforced steel portcullis or that trying to persuade the king of something is probably going to be harder than trying to persuade a child.

What it does mean is that if that child happens to be Harry Potter you don't get to know the fact that it's going to be abnormally hard to persuade him of something until you've tried.

[Koo Rehtorb]

Also something just occurred to me. I don't know if this has been said before but in BW the player ALWAYS knows the consequences of failing a test in advance before deciding if he wants to make the test or not. They always know what they'll get if they succeed in the test too, for that matter.

1) The player states intent, specifically saying what they want to get out of this test if they succeed.
2) GM declares a failure stake for the test. GM and players can bargain with each other over this. GM has the final say in stakes, but the players can walk away at this point if they're not happy with the stakes.
3) Once the player has committed then they're told the difficulty of the test.

If people are just constantly doing stupid things to try to advance skills then maybe the GM isn't setting hard enough stakes for their tests.

[Max_Killjoy]

Also something just occurred to me. I don't know if this has been said before but in BW the player ALWAYS knows the consequences of failing a test in advance before deciding if he wants to make the test or not. They always know what they'll get if they succeed in the test too, for that matter.

1) The player states intent, specifically saying what they want to get out of this test if they succeed.
2) GM declares a failure stake for the test. GM and players can bargain with each other over this. GM has the final say in stakes, but the players can walk away at this point if they're not happy with the stakes.
3) Once the player has committed then they're told the difficulty of the test.

If people are just constantly doing stupid things to try to advance skills then maybe the GM isn't setting hard enough stakes for their tests.

I prefer to have a bit more "if this were a a real situation, would you know what the true consequences of failure are before trying" in how much the character, and thus the player, knows about the possible outcomes.

If you're trying to jump over a 1000' deep chasm, you know what the failure state is -- a 1000' drop, with a sudden stop at the end.

If you're trying to open the mysterious panel next to a door, you don't know if it's trapped, or alarmed, or whatever, until you at least get it open without setting anything off.

[BayardSPSR]

If you're trying to jump over a 1000' deep chasm, you know what the failure state is -- a 1000' drop, with a sudden stop at the end.

Unless the failure state is "you catch a branch and your friends have to help you up," which is a preference common to many GMs, and a hugely different result.

[Lorsa]

Oh god there is so much here.... :P Ok...
As a bit of a short hand way of trying to address you. To be totally honest I have never played Gold edition, only original and revised. So there may be differences here.

Picking the lock ONLY doesnt achieve anything if its not particularly difficult to unpick ( assuming you are not after easy tests). But if all the locks your coming across are not hard to pick...then you dont really need to improve that skill do you? Again...its people getting caught up in mechanics for essentially no reason. the complaint that its "getting stuck in the meta game" just doesnt make sense...because your deliberately putting yourself there. The character is either feeling challenged (and hence improving) or there not...and you get to succeed which is WHY you want to improve anyway.

You are right, I am putting myself there. Because well, while I am not a powergamer, I do like to occasionally increase my skills. I found this meta-game the only way to reliably make that happen.

You cant swap out easy tests for difficult ones no matter how many you have, but they do mention it being a good idea to allow challenging, difficult e.t.c to scale DOWN.

They do? Is that some add-on special rule? It's not how the game ran when I played it, but it would make things a little better for sure.

As for out of character decisions.... what are you talking about... A Master theif comes by a door thats hard to pick. How is it out of character for him to TRY PICKING THE LOCK.

It isn't. That's what I was saying all along. It IS however, out of character to NOT pick the lock in order for the player to have any chance at all of advancing skills. Which is what I found you have to do in order to... well... advance skills.

Yes your right, you need a lot of artha to improve in that fashion. But the whole point is that this is a specific reward for roleplaying... you cant complain this is somehow a fault. Its not "forcing you" to play your character... its rewarding you. The scale of that reward is not important... its certainly not a negative. Likewise how this creates a "meta game" narrative I have no idea... since you PICK these traits / beliefs e.t.c so your being rewarded for playing the character the way you wanted too anyway. If anything... its specifically PREVENTING meta gaming. No more paladins walking away during the interrogation because he could get Artha stopping it happening (likewise his friends dont feel cheated by lawful stupidity, because now they have a stronger party. more so if they roleplay it out using THERE beliefs e.t.c)

I think you misunderstood me. I don't have a problem with the way artha is earned, but how much needs to be spent in order to grey or white skills. The way the game is written, I just don't see it happening, unless the campaign is looooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong (and your character manages to avoid fighting).

[goto124]

Whenever I have to choose between "do a thing that's stupid but in line with my character's views" and "don't do the stupid thing", I go with the option that doesn't leave me having to 'justify' to my groupmates that "that's what my character would do!"

I've never 'justified' to my groupmates that "that's what my character would do", when I get called out for a stupid thing I just break down and cry.

Yay, me.

[Lorsa]

Whenever I have to choose between "do a thing that's stupid but in line with my character's views" and "don't do the stupid thing", I go with the option that doesn't leave me having to 'justify' to my groupmates that "that's what my character would do!"

I've never 'justified' to my groupmates that "that's what my character would do", when I get called out for a stupid thing I just break down and cry.

Yay, me.

If you ever play with me I promise not to accuse you of doing stupid things. Would that make you feel better?

[goto124]

Probably not, I catch myself doing stupid things and the effect's the same.

In video games I just run around trying everything and not caring how other NPCs feel* or the number of times I failed. In a TRPG, it's the exact opposite.

* I've so far avoided games where 'how other NPCs feel' actually matters, by sticking to those where there's a prescripted plot and any reaction at all means I'm going in the right direction.

[Lorsa]

Probably not, I catch myself doing stupid things and the effect's the same.

In video games I just run around trying everything and not caring how other NPCs feel* or the number of times I failed. In a TRPG, it's the exact opposite.

* I've so far avoided games where 'how other NPCs feel' actually matters, by sticking to those where there's a prescripted plot and any reaction at all means I'm going in the right direction.

What if you had some sort of "warp reality" power that would reset the world to the state it was in before you attempted the action?

Or some form of precognition that would allow you to figure out if something was stupid before doing it?

[Koo Rehtorb]

The way the game is written, I just don't see it happening, unless the campaign is looooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong (and your character manages to avoid fighting).

This is what the game is made for. If you're not planning on playing 20+ sessions at an absolute minimum then BW is probably the wrong game for you.

[Max_Killjoy]

Unless the failure state is "you catch a branch and your friends have to help you up," which is a preference common to many GMs, and a hugely different result.

Not the point.

[Cluedrew]

To Max_Killjoy: OK... now I just have to ask: What is the point?

[Max_Killjoy]

To Max_Killjoy: OK... now I just have to ask: What is the point?

The point was to show examples of two different situations, and thereby illustrate that "the player or their PC *akways* know the explicit stakes of failure", and "the player or their PC *never* know the explicit stakes of failure" are both poor models of the full breadth of situations a PC might end up in.

I've seen both promoted in these sorts of discussions, and I don't care for either extreme.

[profitofrage]

Points addressing various people:

1) you do not always know exactly what the consequences are, for e.g in perception style tests. Its simply encouraged as a conversation. Fail to pick the lock "Youll alert a guard no doubt" You dont have to tell them the guard is a 10 foot golem for e.g Yes there can still be surprises in the game.
Funnily enough this adds to the realism. Because as players who are not experiencing the senses of our characters we often do not have all the required information in a game that the characters would. Common sense things like "if you are too loud trying to pick this lock there is probably a guard nearby who would hear" is not something a player may be immediately aware of. By having this conversation with each test (remember the tests are all significant) everyone involved gets a better view of the situation. Unrealistic knowledge does not have to be involved.

2)You will inevitably increase your skills, doing so is as easy as USING THE SKILLS you want to improve. If you DONT PLAN ON USING THE SKILL, then clearly your desire to increase it is kind of silly..and hence you are creating the problem FOR YOURSELF. Likewise the only time increasing your skill is difficult is when its already very high...which would assume youve been playing a while...which would hence give you the alternative option of training or using Artha. Remember, you can pick up traits e.t.c that effectively give you dice at skills by roleplaying better / differently / investing Artha (depending on your DM there). So again....playing the game and character gets you a better character.

3) If for some reason you find yourself looking for alternative ways to accomplish a set of problems because your character is rusty and really wants to increase his climbing skill rather then lock picking. This is hardly meta- gaming. Clearly your character considers those skills worth more then his current ones. If the chracter doesn't well then....why are you doing it? you clearly dont need the skill? you obviously havn't prioritised it until now because then you WOULD have increased it. Its just a problem I dont understand people having unless there entire goal for the game is to get more dice for things they don't use.

4) I really think that the problems concerning burning wheel is more due to people playing significant amounts of DnD like systems. Where you character is specifically linked to what they can do and what they can potentially do mechanically rather then who the character actually is and how they behave. In Burning wheel your not a barbarian because you have a rage mechanic and cleave. In burning wheel you are not "a better barbarian" because you spent your XP on greater cleave and greater rage. In burning wheel, you are a barbarian because your character angers easily and reacts to the world with a simple minded yet passionate outlook. In burning wheel you are a better barbarian because you have slain many foes with your greataxe and beat everyone in the bar senseless last night.
you talk to any person playing a barbarian in DnD and ask them "if you got XP for doing all those fun barbarian things you like to do would you be thrilled" and I dare to say all of them would praise you for it.
Burning wheel just does that for everyone and there characters.

[Lorsa]

2)You will inevitably increase your skills, doing so is as easy as USING THE SKILLS you want to improve. If you DONT PLAN ON USING THE SKILL, then clearly your desire to increase it is kind of silly..and hence you are creating the problem FOR YOURSELF. Likewise the only time increasing your skill is difficult is when its already very high...which would assume youve been playing a while...which would hence give you the alternative option of training or using Artha. Remember, you can pick up traits e.t.c that effectively give you dice at skills by roleplaying better / differently / investing Artha (depending on your DM there). So again....playing the game and character gets you a better character.

I think we need some statistics here, because I don't find increasing the skills to be so "easy" as you mention it.

For example, what is your average amount of rolls per session? Obviously that is a factor. I found an average BW session do not have many rolls at all, as many of the things you attempt have no failure consequence.

As an example; I want to break into a house by lockpicking a door. Is there a time limit? Not really. If I fail I can simply go home. I even let the other PC stand watch and warn me if anyone is close enough to see our attempted break-in. So all in all, there's nothing at stake -> therefore not a roll -> therefore no chance of increasing the skills.

It's not "easy to use the skills". You have to find situations to use them in which warrants a roll. This is far from easy, and is highly GM dependent. Some skills are easier than others of course.

More than that, you have to use the skills at the right difficulty level. Unless your GM allows you this weird scaling of difficulties you mentioned, you need both Easy, Difficult and Impossible rolls, in some combination. For certain skills, it's extremely hard to get Easy obstacle rolls (again with there being something at stake). So you have to fiddle and wiggle your way around the system (meta-game) in order to get it. If this somehow came naturally to you, have you considered that you may simply be lucky?

3) If for some reason you find yourself looking for alternative ways to accomplish a set of problems because your character is rusty and really wants to increase his climbing skill rather then lock picking. This is hardly meta- gaming. Clearly your character considers those skills worth more then his current ones. If the chracter doesn't well then....why are you doing it? you clearly dont need the skill? you obviously havn't prioritised it until now because then you WOULD have increased it. Its just a problem I dont understand people having unless there entire goal for the game is to get more dice for things they don't use.

Except... you don't accomplish an important problem by using skills you are rusty in. That's not really logical. You do it by using the skills that are most likely to make you succeed. The rusty skills you train. But the practice rules are... slow, and require a lot of in-game time where nothing happens.

Also, whose to say you don't need a skill? Can you predict all future situations a character might end up in? Of course not. Just because you haven't used something in the past, doesn't mean you might not need it in the future. And since it's so difficult to get rolls in the first place, perhaps the character did want to prioritize that skill, but haven't found themselves in any situation which could be solved by invoking a roll of that skill with a clear failure stake.

[profitofrage]

I think we need some statistics here, because I don't find increasing the skills to be so "easy" as you mention it.

For example, what is your average amount of rolls per session? Obviously that is a factor. I found an average BW session do not have many rolls at all, as many of the things you attempt have no failure consequence.

As an example; I want to break into a house by lockpicking a door. Is there a time limit? Not really. If I fail I can simply go home. I even let the other PC stand watch and warn me if anyone is close enough to see our attempted break-in. So all in all, there's nothing at stake -> therefore not a roll -> therefore no chance of increasing the skills.

It's not "easy to use the skills". You have to find situations to use them in which warrants a roll. This is far from easy, and is highly GM dependent. Some skills are easier than others of course.

More than that, you have to use the skills at the right difficulty level. Unless your GM allows you this weird scaling of difficulties you mentioned, you need both Easy, Difficult and Impossible rolls, in some combination. For certain skills, it's extremely hard to get Easy obstacle rolls (again with there being something at stake). So you have to fiddle and wiggle your way around the system (meta-game) in order to get it. If this somehow came naturally to you, have you considered that you may simply be lucky?




Except... you don't accomplish an important problem by using skills you are rusty in. That's not really logical. You do it by using the skills that are most likely to make you succeed. The rusty skills you train. But the practice rules are... slow, and require a lot of in-game time where nothing happens.

Also, whose to say you don't need a skill? Can you predict all future situations a character might end up in? Of course not. Just because you haven't used something in the past, doesn't mean you might not need it in the future. And since it's so difficult to get rolls in the first place, perhaps the character did want to prioritize that skill, but haven't found themselves in any situation which could be solved by invoking a roll of that skill with a clear failure stake.

your first argument basically boils down to "The system doesnt work unless the DM does what he is meant to be doing"
There is no need to wiggle... If things dont require rolls or are very easy...then your succeeding and progressing the story. You are apparently as good or better then you need to be.

Your second argument doesnt make any sense if you think it through. Your right... you DONT accomplish important thinks with skills your no good at... so whats the issue?
Yes you do whats most likely to succeed... which means either your training a skill because it was a hard test (yay improvement) OR your already really good at what your doing so its easy for you (Yay your effective at playing your character mechanically) OR your attempting something you are not built for... in which case (YAY your on your way to learning a new skill). These are your options... where is the problem? where is the fault in the system here? its literally YAY's all round.

Your third argument essentially boils down to "but I want to be good at everything to keep myself covered without putting in any effort to be good at that thing or devoting time to it...or roleplaying that my character is trying to be good at it". If this is the case then yes... burning wheel isnt for you :P because it presumes roleplaying the character, warts and all. Sadly not being instantly good at something is one of your characters warts.

[Koo Rehtorb]

As an example; I want to break into a house by lockpicking a door. Is there a time limit? Not really. If I fail I can simply go home. I even let the other PC stand watch and warn me if anyone is close enough to see our attempted break-in. So all in all, there's nothing at stake -> therefore not a roll -> therefore no chance of increasing the skills.

Without commenting on the rest of it... no failure consequence for trying to break into a house??? Your GM isn't pushing anywhere near hard enough.

How about someone is watching you from a window across the street that your friends missed? Or sure you pick the lock and pop the door open, only to find out that whoops the house is full of ferocious guard dogs.

[BayardSPSR]

How about someone is watching you from a window across the street that your friends missed? Or sure you pick the lock and pop the door open, only to find out that whoops the house is full of ferocious guard dogs.

Those sound like consequences for success, rather than consequences for failure. I don't disapprove, but it's relevant to distinguish between the two.

[profitofrage]

Those sound like consequences for success, rather than consequences for failure. I don't disapprove, but it's relevant to distinguish between the two.

I assume the dogs scenario IS if you fail.
Failing the test doesnt mean failing to pick the lock. It means "things you dont want happen"