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megane
Jun 20, 2008



Night10194 posted:

Guess who just found his copy of For A Few Subtitles More? It's this guy. In an effort to avoid writing up the magic system a little longer, I'm going to dive back into it and write up the new Races/Exaltations first so I can stave off yelling about how bad an idea mixing 40k's miscast tables with this game was.

Also this might mean when we get to guns they won't suck!

The thri-kreen in this are pretty great if I remember correctly

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Rand Brittain
Mar 24, 2013

"Go on until you're stopped."

EthanSteele posted:

You explicitly use it after the attack roll is made so you never waste it. If you had to use it before then it would absolutely be weird and bad, but it's not. It's used when you thought you were going to dodge but then they rolled some 10s and got way more successes than they "should" have. it's generally held by the playerbase at large as one of the most powerful and useful defensive charms in the game that comes up a lot more often than you'd think.

Yeah, Drifting Leaf Elusion is a really good Charm because it basically lets the defender win a tie instead of losing it, which comes up quite often.

Night10194
Feb 13, 2012

We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

I'm actually curious to see if it's better than the core book, since 'I went on to make an expansion' will be the author reacting to the game actually having people play it some.

And I can tell he's not a truly terrible designer, there are enough things that are reasonably well considered (like the Class and Feat advancement rules) it's just that deciding on the Roll and Keep system completely kneecapped this game.

Leraika
Jun 14, 2015

Luckily, I *did* save your old avatar. Fucked around and found out indeed.

Night10194 posted:

Guess who just found his copy of For A Few Subtitles More? It's this guy. In an effort to avoid writing up the magic system a little longer, I'm going to dive back into it and write up the new Races/Exaltations first so I can stave off yelling about how bad an idea mixing 40k's miscast tables with this game was.

Also this might mean when we get to guns they won't suck!

Oh, this means I don't have to offer to inflict it on you; lovely!

Night10194
Feb 13, 2012

We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

Man, they introduce a full White Wolf Morality System to make Alignment way more insufferable.

The only good God is Vectron.

Alien Rope Burn
Dec 4, 2004

I wanna be a saikyo HERO!
HKT was demanded by Exalted fans because... Exalted fans.

Granted, I remember hearing the scuttlebutt that the original S&S piece was a much more submissive-looking underwear elf that they had to have changed, despite the above. But it's my dim memories of getting to hear the art director talk at a con. Apparently getting UDON to follow art guidelines was a bear as well, though that's only a one-sided story. I also remember speaking to Omar Dogan (of UDON) at a con, who talked about how he just loathed the caste symbols.

Alien Rope Burn fucked around with this message at 23:27 on Mar 29, 2019

Tibalt
May 14, 2017

What, drawn, and talk of peace! I hate the word, As I hate hell, all Montagues, and thee

To be clear, the cover were talking about is White Lingerie Shot From Optimum Panty Shot Angle and not something else... right?

Alien Rope Burn
Dec 4, 2004

I wanna be a saikyo HERO!
Yeah, the cover of Savant & Sorcerer with camel toe front and center.

Barudak
May 7, 2007

I looked up HTKs work, saw one and realized he was the Magna Carta dude. His thirst is so deep I remember his art before without knowing his name because it distorts the proportions of everything he draws in the same way, even the theoretically non-thirsty things which makes them more offputting ti me. I cant imagine hiring him without wanting that because thats the dudes unchanging style and schtick.

Xiahou Dun
Jul 16, 2009

We shall dive down through black abysses... and in that lair of the Deep Ones we shall dwell amidst wonder and glory forever.



gently caress it sure let’s keep posting.

Anatomy of an Adventurer

This is the basic intro to character generation and it starts off with a good summary of the tone it wants you to keep in mind for that : you are a murder hobo. No not like people joke about with D&D. Your profession is literally just sleeping on rocks and shanking dudes for money. You’re hosed up and normal people (rightly) think you’re super weird.

Now let’s make one of these daring adventurers!

Name :

You uh. Pick a name. The game notes that while your parents might have named you “Greg” or whatever, you’ve probably changed it. Cause, well. Greg.

Stock :

Dwarf, elf, halfling or human. That’s an exhaustive list. Yes they are all exactly as you picture them. No tweaks on the genre.

I do like that they didn’t use “race” as the word, jesus christ why did it take so long to stop doing that hell.

Age :

How old are you? Elves and poo poo live longer so make up a higher number. Exciting.

Home :

Pick a hometown. Either talk to your GM, make some poo poo up, or go with a generic list. This will add crunchy bits in a minute.

Raiment :

Pick your outfit. No crunch, just fluff. The five dollar word is free though.

Parents :

You probably have them. Unless you don’t and you’re an orphan. Yes that has mechanical effect. We’ll get there when we talk about the cutesy little pseudo-life path system.

Mentor :

You have someone who taught you swords or baking whatever. They exist.

(Sorry I’m being so blithe with these things. I really think they’re cool details to make you flesh out in character creation, but I have nothing to add to them while also being compelled to mention that that sure is a step of character creation.)

Friend :

If you need me to explain the concept of a friend to you, you have bigger problems than not knowing how to play Torchbearer.

Enemy :

No like lock your door. Todd could be anywhere.

Level :

You default to level one. It’s a level. You know what this is.

Alignment :

Similar, but at least alignment is basically just total background fluff that never comes up. (I actually forgot it was even in the game until I started this.)

Okay, woof. Sorry. Those are all cool but I just had nothing to add to them. Now we get to stuff that’s interesting. I promise I’m not just listing things and making sarcastic comments.

Belief :

This is something inherent to your character that drives you and makes you succeed. Something like “always protect the weak” or whatever. This is your capes-comic motto, your “with great power yadda yadda”. If you act in accordance with it, you get a bennie at the end of session (assuming it was significant, no points for just not murdering a toddler or whatever). However if you go against your belief in an interesting way, you get a different bennie. Welcome to having a super abstract system funneling you to act in specific ways! Come on in, the Skinner Box is fine!

Goal :

During the prologue phase, after the GM describes the premise of the adventure, you decide on your goal. This shouldn’t be something grand, but should be something to be completed during the session (cause you get bennies for doing it). Think “find out what happened to the innkeeper” and less “Become king of all of the dragons”.

Instinct :

I might have a broken brain, but instincts took me a second to get. Basically, it’s a simple if ==>then statement, or a prohibition or something you always do. Always, reliably. So that in the fiction it’s kind of assumed you did it.

Doing a roll usually takes a turn (in game time ; we’ll get there, I promise), but if it’s in line with your instinct it’s assumed you did it in the background so you already did it and it’s free. Like, if your instinct is “Always light a fire when we make camp” you just get to do that for freesies. Or if it was “Never go unarmed” you could roll to have a knife on you or something.

Allies and Additional Enemies :

I won’t just post a link from lmgtfy.com. I’ll be strong.

Traits :

Traits! Traits are amazing. Think of them a little like Aspects in Fate. They’re crunchier (drink!), obviously, and come in multiple levels and kinds that we’ll get in to. But they’re basically some trait (e.g. “Fiery”) that you can either use to add to your rolls, or you can invoke to hurt yourself but you get bennies. They’re literally Fate Compels but totally player facing.

I like traits a lot. Thankfully Torchbearer doesn’t have Burning Wheel’s literal hundreds of them, but the ones there are good and you can make up more trivially.

There is now a tiny mention of how there are two kinds of bennies. Fate points and persona points. The game doesn’t explain them so neither will I. (They do good things for you. You want them.)

Abilities! We finally can talk about stats! Sorry!

So you have raw abilities. Your basic competence and things. These are Will, Health, Circles and Resources. They’re this vaguely named because they’re super basic. You only roll them if you don’t have a relevant skill.

You can probably figure out what they do, or at least most of them. Health is anything physical, pretty much. Will is everything mental. Circles (as in “circle of friends”) is what you roll back in town to know a guy who knows a guy (note : not convince them or do other social stuff, this is just being plugged in to the society). And Resources is your super abstract (drink!) money stat. It’s 0. You can eventually raise it, but it’s 0 now, basta. You can add to it by spending fungible materials. Like if you spend money you get +1D or even more if you have the dosh.

I once had a player hock a painting that wound up being +3D. I know that’s niche, but it really sold me on this game. He’d spent forever getting this loving portrait out of a dungeon, and this is what it meant. It was like some art poo poo.

Might is technically another stat but everyone’s might is the same : 3 for being a humanoid. It’s where you sit on The Scale of Might, an abstract (drink!) way of showing how you can interact with things in Contests (abstract (recursive inside brackets drink!) form of combat/debate/riddling etc.), that lets you know what kinds of contests are allowed, i.e. you can debate a dragon as much as you want but no you can’t fight it bare handed. Just no.

Wises are a way to get bonus dice to a roll because you know about bees or whatever. It has its own full on chapter, we’ll get to it. You can get bonuses in various ways for knowing about bees.

Finally skills. You have them. They work how you’d expect : your skill rating is how many dice you roll to do things. The cool part is that if you don’t have a skill you can still roll for it with Beginner’s Luck, where you roll either Health or Will at half, but then you get to start leveling up the skill itself.

Yes you literally level up each individual skill. All of them. Wait until we get to how advancement works!

(I loving unironically love this game. It was basically written for me.)

Young Freud
Nov 25, 2006

Barudak posted:

I looked up HTKs work, saw one and realized he was the Magna Carta dude. His thirst is so deep I remember his art before without knowing his name because it distorts the proportions of everything he draws in the same way, even the theoretically non-thirsty things which makes them more offputting ti me. I cant imagine hiring him without wanting that because thats the dudes unchanging style and schtick.

Oh man, you haven't seen Blade And Soul.

Barudak
May 7, 2007

Young Freud posted:

Oh man, you haven't seen Blade And Soul.

I might have. The only work i know specifically the name of is Magna Carta but Ive definitely seen his stuff in other places cause his style has, uh, some distinctive features

Deptfordx
Dec 23, 2013

Night10194 posted:

Man, they introduce a full White Wolf Morality System to make Alignment way more insufferable.

The only good God is Vectron.

Agreed! By Vectrons kindly claws.

Battle Mad Ronin
Aug 26, 2017

Xiahou Dun posted:

gently caress it sure let’s keep posting.

Please do, this is fun and interesting.

Xiahou Dun posted:

Instinct :

I might have a broken brain, but instincts took me a second to get. Basically, it’s a simple if ==>then statement, or a prohibition or something you always do. Always, reliably. So that in the fiction it’s kind of assumed you did it.

Doing a roll usually takes a turn (in game time ; we’ll get there, I promise), but if it’s in line with your instinct it’s assumed you did it in the background so you already did it and it’s free. Like, if your instinct is “Always light a fire when we make camp” you just get to do that for freesies. Or if it was “Never go unarmed” you could roll to have a knife on you or something.

"Always carry a knife" is a ridiculously useful thing to have on your character sheet.

Xiahou Dun posted:

Traits :

Traits! Traits are amazing. Think of them a little like Aspects in Fate. They’re crunchier (drink!), obviously, and come in multiple levels and kinds that we’ll get in to. But they’re basically some trait (e.g. “Fiery”) that you can either use to add to your rolls, or you can invoke to hurt yourself but you get bennies. They’re literally Fate Compels but totally player facing.

I like traits a lot. Thankfully Torchbearer doesn’t have Burning Wheel’s literal hundreds of them, but the ones there are good and you can make up more trivially.

There is now a tiny mention of how there are two kinds of bennies. Fate points and persona points. The game doesn’t explain them so neither will I. (They do good things for you. You want them.)

Looking forward to getting into traits. What's your take on the different kinds of bennies? Do they create a kind of resource dynamic for the system,?

Xiahou Dun
Jul 16, 2009

We shall dive down through black abysses... and in that lair of the Deep Ones we shall dwell amidst wonder and glory forever.



The various bennies have a really good way of leading you to act how the game wants you to. It really is a lot like a Skinner box.

My biggest criticism of it is actually that I wanted it to do even more of that.

Next up is straight up character generation, and it's too dense to just summarize, so shoot me character ideas. Think really, really old school here like "human fighter".

Night10194
Feb 13, 2012

We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

Just the elfiest loving fighter possible. Full Elf.

The Lone Badger
Sep 24, 2007

Literally Bilbo Baggins.

CaptainRat
Apr 18, 2003

It seems the secret to your success is a combination of boundless energy and enthusiastic insolence...
Dwarf wizard

Xiahou Dun
Jul 16, 2009

We shall dive down through black abysses... and in that lair of the Deep Ones we shall dwell amidst wonder and glory forever.



I had secretly hoped to hide this to reveal it in the review, but dwarf wizard is impossible.

Torchbearer has super passive aggressive Race as Class.

If you're a human you can be a Cleric, a Magician or a Warrior.

If you're any other stock you only get one choice. If you're an Elf your class is Ranger, it's the only option. Same for Dwarf (Adventurer) or Halfling (Burglar). I actually had to look 2 of those up because to me I just say your class is "Elf" or whatever. Technically it's not Race as Class, you just only get one option 3/4ths of the time.

Night10194
Feb 13, 2012

We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

I mean Ranger is the Elfest class so my concept is valid.

Xiahou Dun
Jul 16, 2009

We shall dive down through black abysses... and in that lair of the Deep Ones we shall dwell amidst wonder and glory forever.



One Elfiest Elf to ever Elf and also let's have a hobbit it is.

This is gonna take a bit.

Xiahou Dun
Jul 16, 2009

We shall dive down through black abysses... and in that lair of the Deep Ones we shall dwell amidst wonder and glory forever.



I need to start timing these better so I'm not double posting.

You All Meet at an Inn…

If it wasn’t obvious these are no poo poo the actual chapter names.

So, character creation!

We’re gonna be making Reginelf E Elfington III (the E stands for “elf”) and totally Not Bilbo Baggins. Bil-no Baggins.

Our classes and stocks are entirely locked in for the sin on not being human so Reginelf gets :

Class : Ranger
Raw Abilities : Will 4, Health 4
Skills : Fighter 3, Arcanist 2, Lore Master 3, Scholar 2, Scout 2, Survivalist 2 (I’ll go over skills in depth later, but they basically do what you’d expect for now)
Trait : First Born (i.e. we’re elves and we’re old and sad about it)
Weapons : Bow, sword and dagger (This is weapons they know how to use, not that they own)
Armor : Leather or chainmail (same as weapons)

Bil-no gets :

Class : Burglar
Raw Abilities : Will 5, Health 3
Skills : Cook 3 (this is actually amazing), Criminal 3, Fighter 3, Hunter 2, Scout 2, Scavenger 2
Trait : Hidden Depths (i.e. I really can be a hero! I swearsies!)
Weapons : Any except crossbow, two-handed sword, halberd, polearm and lance
Armor : Leather, chainmail helmet and shield (so yes hobbits wear more armor than elves, which uh sure is a take from the source material)

Then we pick a hometown for our plucky adventurers. I’m gonna just use the generic stuff the book provides for now. This gives us another skill at 2 (if you don’t have it already, then it gets a plus) and a trait.

Reginelf is from the Elflands cause he’s original like that and gets Pathfinder 2 and the Quiet trait.

Bil-no will be from a Remote Village cause I’m going for the feel of The Shire, so he gets Peasant 2 (sounds dumb but is loving amazing ; it’s one of the basic Do Anything Physical skills) and the trait Rough Hands.

Then we chose how they interact socially : Are they a Haggler, a Manipulator, an Orator or a Persuader? (This gives them the appropriate skills). I’m gonna say Reginelf is an Orator because lol elves and he has Orator 2 and Bil-no will get Haggler 2.
Next everyone gets a specialty, something they are uniquely good at that no one else can take ; this is a another skill bump. Reginelf takes Scout to bump him to 3 and Bil-no takes Cook cause gently caress yeah hobbits gonna hobbit meaning he’s at an impressive Cook 4. I’m dead serious the Cook skill can be life or death. We’ll see it as we go on.

Wises! I talked about these before. They’re basically just called something like X-wise and when you knowing all about apiary science they give you good stuff. Still not gonna talk about them too much cause that’s a literal full chapter that’s soon. Possibly next but I forget and we still got a lot of this chapter. I’m very lazy. Either way, both characters choose one wise from a very small list and then any others they feel like, including making them up. Reginelf takes Elven Lore-wise to know elf poo poo and Nature-wise cause knowing about plants is cool. Bil-no takes Little Salt-wise (as in he knows to salt food the right amount ; no I’m not loving with you) and Rural Tuber-wise (I just made that up but I’m staying on brand #dealwithit).

You can have all sorts of wises and just make them up as you go, but the the book notes to not be a dick and pick Adventure-wise or Plot-wise or GM-wise or poo poo that’s just annoying, Todd. Todd you were so much more fun when you drank.

Next is a secret stat I haven’t mentioned : Nature! This is literally the stat for how much you are like your stock. So if you’re an Elf it’s literally +Elf. It’s kind of like a super specific skill that let’s you get bonuses to things only your stock is, but also you can spend it like a metacurrency where you get less dwarfy to get bennie points on rolls and possibly have a loving epic dice-pool in a clinch situation. I’m gonna admit it’s straight up weird and takes some brain-wrinkling to fully get, but it works great after you drink at it hard enough.

Each stock starts at 3 Nature and then there’s a little babby’s first life path list of question that monkeys with it. I’ll get there in a mo. Right now let’s note what specific descriptors the various stocks get to see how it shows off the stocks :

Elves can use their nature to aid in Singing, Remembering and Hiding. Because well. Elves yo. Just loving Elves.

Dwarves get Delving, Crafting and Avenging a Grudge (I thought you’d like the last one, Night).

Halflings get Sneaking, Riddling and Merrymaking. They are adorable and of course we needed another The Hobbit reference.

Finally humans get Boasting, Demanding and Running. I really, really like that humans are not the default store-brand in the setting and it’s little things like this that portray humans not as the generic stock, but actually the youngest sibling little poo poo. A loving bonus to Boasting, really??? Jerks.

O dear god there’s still so much to go.

I’m not gonna do both life paths because that means typing up the whole thing basically, so I’m just gonna give the elf one so you get the idea. It’s a series of questions the player answers about the character that raises or lowers Nature and gives skills and traits. This will also be one of the very few times I just use verbatim text because I want to get across the tone. Sorry, Thor, please don’t sue me.

Elves :

Do you walk among the ancient trees on moonless nights and listen to their songs? Or has your heart hardened in the long ages since the Dawn?

-If you listen to the ancient songs, increase your Nature by one.
-If your heart has hardened, you may replace or increase [a trait] with Bitter or Jaded.

When evil stalks the world, do you confront it or do you retreat to the hidden places of the elves and allow time to defeat your enemies?

-If you retreat and hide, increase your Nature by one and decrease your starting Fighter skill by one. (XD note : loving ow!)
-If you confront evil, your Nature and Fighter remain the same.

Do you yearn to follow the cries of the gulls to the sea and journey west beyond all knowledge or are you prepared to live a life of struggle and grief?

-If you yearn to journey west, increase your Nature by one.
-If you do not yearn for the west, you replace or increase [a trait] with Fiery, Curious or Restless.

No I’m not doing this out for Reginelf and Bil-no because they are toy examples and you can imagine what answers would look like.

Now remember Circles, you basic social stat? It’s also determined by a little list of questions. Your Circles start at one and then you answer these :

Do you have friends who enjoy your occasional visits, or are you loner, tough and cool?

If you have friends, you get +1 Circles. If you are a Loner you get the Loner trait and that’s it for you for the questions for deciding to be cool and edgy. Go and get everyone else snacks while they answer the other questions. (Yes the book says this.)

Do you have parents that you can stomach talking to or are you an orphan?

If you have parents, +1 Circles and they exist and will take care of you if you visit your hometown. The GM is encouraged to have them fuss over if you’ve been eating enough and why didn’t things work out with Sharon. If you’re an orphan you get a trinket worth +1D Resources.

Did you have a mentor or did you make your own way in this rough life?

In a shocking twist, if you have a mentor you get +1 Circles and you have a mentor. Note them down on your character sheet. If you don’t, you get 2D worth of treasure. Yay stuff!

Lastly, have you made an enemy in your life or have your dubious deeds managed to escape notice?

If you have an enemy, get +1 Circles and note down who your enemy is. The GM will make sure they come up, trust me. If you don’t have an enemy : your bonus is you don’t have an enemy.

So yes the munchkin option is to have lots of friends and family and be part of the community. This is on purpose.

There is a whole section on starting gear that I’m just gonna not get into cause there’s a gear chapter and I’d need to talk about how inventory management is literally writing your gear onto a paper doll on your character sheet marking where it is on your belt or whatever. Also they summarize beliefs and instincts and stuff again, but they also have their own thing and I’ve been typing for a while and really want to finish this and have a cigarette so this is the world we live in.

Finally, everyone starts off the game with the Fresh Condition, the only condition that isn’t poo poo and terrible and just gives you extra dice for free. You will lose this in a hot second into gameplay and probably never see it again, but those 2 minutes of real time gameplay are really nice.

Next time : Wises!

Cease to Hope
Dec 12, 2011

Xiahou Dun posted:

If you have friends, you get +1 Circles. If you are a Loner you get the Loner trait and that’s it for you for the questions for deciding to be cool and edgy. Go and get everyone else snacks while they answer the other questions. (Yes the book says this.)

So yes the munchkin option is to have lots of friends and family and be part of the community. This is on purpose.

it's also taken directly from Burning Wheel/Mouseguard, its predecessors

Xiahou Dun
Jul 16, 2009

We shall dive down through black abysses... and in that lair of the Deep Ones we shall dwell amidst wonder and glory forever.



Yeah I knew that but had a brain fart, sorry.

I think it's something in everything that's based off of the Burning Wheel engine. I just still think it's funny as someone who kept making That Guy back in high school.

Cease to Hope
Dec 12, 2011
no need to apologize, this rules

Night10194
Feb 13, 2012

We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

Is lots of people playing orphan loners still a thing, even?

Xiahou Dun
Jul 16, 2009

We shall dive down through black abysses... and in that lair of the Deep Ones we shall dwell amidst wonder and glory forever.



I haven't been teen douchebag for a long time and my groups are all actual adults so I have no idea. But I like just getting it out of the way. (And also the Loner trait ain't nothing so it's not like it's gimping that player. I just like the joke about the snacks.)

ZeroCount
Aug 12, 2013


Being a Loner lets you start with a third Trait which, as someone who has GM'd a fair bit of Torchbearer myself, is a drat good bonus.

Battle Mad Ronin
Aug 26, 2017
Does the book generally do a good job of explaining Wises, Traits and Circles?

Burning Wheel had an annoying, pretentious and entirely too on-the-nose tendency to purposefully underexplain a lot of things. I remember the Traits list having things like "He's a Jonah that one" and "Joan of Arc" as unexplained Traits that the player/GM (that wasn't really clear) were supposed to either know what meant or figure out for themselves.

Wrestlepig
Feb 25, 2011

my mum says im cool

Toilet Rascal

Battle Mad Ronin posted:

Does the book generally do a good job of explaining Wises, Traits and Circles?

Burning Wheel had an annoying, pretentious and entirely too on-the-nose tendency to purposefully underexplain a lot of things. I remember the Traits list having things like "He's a Jonah that one" and "Joan of Arc" as unexplained Traits that the player/GM (that wasn't really clear) were supposed to either know what meant or figure out for themselves.

Torchbearer's a lot more restrained on that front. I wouldn't call it clear because they're fairly complex mechanics, but there's less of them and they're less important than in Burning Wheel.

Cythereal
Nov 8, 2009

I love the potoo,
and the potoo loves you.

Night10194 posted:

Is lots of people playing orphan loners still a thing, even?

In my experience, no. In the last several years, the groups I've run and played in have tended strongly towards "My parents are alive and well, they just don't agree with me becoming an adventurer."

Bieeanshee
Aug 21, 2000

Not keen on keening.


Grimey Drawer
Torchbearer doesn't sound much like my cuppa, but it certainly feels elegant so far.

Ghost Leviathan
Mar 2, 2017

Exploration is ill-advised.

Cythereal posted:

In my experience, no. In the last several years, the groups I've run and played in have tended strongly towards "My parents are alive and well, they just don't agree with me becoming an adventurer."

If we're going old school, would be fitting to downright go 'My folks are broke nobles desperately hoping I can bring back a haul of gold'.

Midjack
Dec 24, 2007



Night10194 posted:

Is lots of people playing orphan loners still a thing, even?

Yes but they’re the same people who have been doing it for the last quarter century.

EthanSteele
Nov 18, 2007

I can hear you

Battle Mad Ronin posted:

Does the book generally do a good job of explaining Wises, Traits and Circles?

Burning Wheel had an annoying, pretentious and entirely too on-the-nose tendency to purposefully underexplain a lot of things. I remember the Traits list having things like "He's a Jonah that one" and "Joan of Arc" as unexplained Traits that the player/GM (that wasn't really clear) were supposed to either know what meant or figure out for themselves.

It's not that the player/GM figure out what it means its that the group as a whole decide/agree what it means.

Traits without any description are defined as "character traits" that don't do anything except what you say they do. Like being Tall, Hirsute or Slighty Chubby. There are no unique mechanical benefits beyond what character traits as a whole get, which is if you play it up and suffer for it/do something interesting with it then you get rewarded. Like "Uncanny Resemblance to the King" doesn't do anything except say your character has an uncanny resemblance to the king which you then do stuff with narratively or lobby for advantage with if you're pretending to be the king or his son or something.

You don't need a mechanical explanation of why the Baker lifepath gets "Floury Hands" or the Ditch Digger gets "Always Damp" those are just things they are and you decide how those traits affect the game. Some of them are jokes like the weird one about getting the extra option to laugh when you hesitate, but that one's actual mechanical thing is explained, just not why its called what it is.

I definitely disagree that it purposefully underexplains things as a matter of pretention, so much as it's a game made by a group for their group and has a bunch of assumptions about how people play which is a problem that's plagued games since original Dungeons and Dragons. I'm basing the assumption thing on the fact they published a companion book, the Codex, which is like 30% rules clarification and explanation with examples and 70% design philosophy and table etiquette. I mentioned it before but you can read Burning Wheel and see that its very easy to get into situations where you can't possibly succeed and then the Codex explains that scenario as not only being good, but desired because that's how you're going to advance in skills and stop being absolutely terrible at them and also that at their table when that happens you roll the die and without even looking at them you look the GM square in the eye and say "I failed, do your worst" and that all players have different coloured dice so when you give someone a helping die you literally give them one of your die so you can see if your help was good or not even though it has no mechanical bearing at all. Burning Wheel is a game where getting so drunk you get -3 to your sword skill and then getting into a fight with someone is a thing you seek out because that's the only way to get the test needed to level up your sword skill. Or you break your arm and now conditions are perfect for you to go get lost on a mountain to level up your orienteering skill. I think it's more a case of it's a game written by a particular group, for that group aimed at getting a particular play experience with the idea that if you're buying the book in the first place you're already on board for a bunch of stuff that started out as a Shadowrun hack and they just didn't know how much they'd need to explain, because to them the reasons are obvious and when you're in that situation it's tough to figure out what bits need explaining and what don't rather than they're doing on purpose to be pretentious. Like, Apocalypse World is a game that explains absolutely everything and its definitely the exception rather than the rule. But then again they did name their companion book the loving Codex so maybe there is more than a little pretentiousness there.

The closest it comes to pretentious for me is the archaic words it uses for some character traits, but that's also the point, the Scribe gets "Sore Hands" the Sagely Scholar gets a bunch of ten dollar words because that's the sort of character they are. Oikofugic is to have wanderlust, but it isn't on a villager that wants to wander about, it's on the lifepath where you spend ten years of your life roaming around in the woods because oikofugic 4 lyfe.

drat that's a lot of words I wrote. Burning Wheel is real fuckin' rad and it's one of my favourite games, but it definitely took a while to get hooked.

Cease to Hope
Dec 12, 2011
burning wheel is that munchkin card where he's pouring boiling water on an anthill to level up except instead you pour the boiling water on your own face

Cease to Hope fucked around with this message at 16:05 on Mar 31, 2019

EthanSteele
Nov 18, 2007

I can hear you
Exactly.

Bieeanshee
Aug 21, 2000

Not keen on keening.


Grimey Drawer
I'm reminded of a developer anecdote for... I want to say Dogs in the Vineyard, but that's not it. It was something Renaissance flavoured where one PC challenged another to a duel, OOC negotiations were conducted (as it was a fairly early storygame), and the aggressor's player was thrilled to come away with two broken arms.

I get the mechanical and narrative principles behind this sort of thing, but it's never not going to make me think of stupid CRPG tricks.

Mors Rattus
Oct 25, 2007

FATAL & Friends
Walls of Text
#1 Builder
2014-2018

I just want to note, given Luke Crane's methods of communication with, say, his Kickstarter backers, uh

dude is pretensious as gently caress, it can be both things at once

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Cythereal
Nov 8, 2009

I love the potoo,
and the potoo loves you.

Ghost Leviathan posted:

If we're going old school, would be fitting to downright go 'My folks are broke nobles desperately hoping I can bring back a haul of gold'.

Another common one I see is "I am the fifth or sixth child of a noble family, I'm looking to get enough fame and wealth to own my own land since nothing is left for me in the family inheritance."

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