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 In 2002, Luke Crane released a fantasy RPG called The Burning Wheel and it was good. Revisions followed in 2005 and 2011, as did a spinoff game called Mouse Guard, set in the world of the comic of the same name. Then, in 2013, Luke Crane and Thor Olavsrud launched a Kickstarter for Torchbearer, which they described as "Basic D&D on Hard mode". It uses the same basic mechanics as BW and MG, but adds a few things. Torchbearer is not a game about gallant heroes fighting for their beliefs. It's about adventurers struggling to scratch a living from a world of indifferent nature and hostile dungeons. (Not for nothing, a reskin for Aliens appeared early this year.) Like Basic D&D, each non-human stock is represented by a single playable class. Humans may be Clerics, Magicians, or Warriors, while Dwarves are Adventurers, Elves are Rangers, and Halflings are Burglars. (And yes, Halfling Burglars are good at riddle-making.) The most important new mechanic in Torchbearer is called The Grind. Each roll of the dice (with a few exceptions) uses a "turn", though all dice rolls within a conflict (either martial or social) take only a single turn. Characters start out "Fresh" when they leave town. Every four turns, they must slide one step down the conditions chart, from "Fresh" to "Hungry and Thirsty" to "Exhausted" to "Angry" to "Sick" to "Injured" to "Afraid". Characters who are already Afraid drop dead on the fourth turn. You can clear these conditions in ways that make sense; drink from your waterskin, rest, obtain healing, etc, but these things may not always be safe to do and will use up your resources. The various conditions also offer penalties to your actions, so it is important to keep careful track of the turn clock. (The clock is also reset by camping in the wilds, but you cannot regain "Fresh" without visiting town, which has its own ways to ruin your life.) Resources
What else deserves to be mentioned? Let me know! inklesspen fucked around with this message at 03:21 on Nov 8, 2015 |
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Aug 6, 2015 05:39
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Reserved.
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Aug 6, 2015 05:39
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If the general advice is that you shouldn't throw in all the mechanics until you're comfortable with the game, which rules should one use to start with? (or does the book already cover that?)
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Aug 6, 2015 06:34
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The only thing that comes to mind is that a conflict is technically a very in-depth resolution of a single test, so don't introduce conflicts until players are comfortable with tests. Likewise, I'd artificially limit the kind of tests they can do the first few times to avoid tax and Beginner's Luck until they have the basics down.
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Aug 6, 2015 10:30
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inklesspen posted:The only thing that comes to mind is that a conflict is technically a very in-depth resolution of a single test, so don't introduce conflicts until players are comfortable with tests. Yep, this is what I was going to say. You can handle fights and other conflicts as versus tests in the first session and start doing full conflicts from the second session onwards.
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Aug 6, 2015 10:34
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Is any of the 3rd party stuff worth getting?
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Aug 6, 2015 17:25
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I bought Wanderers, Outcasts, and Exiles. I haven't had a chance to run a game with it, but I like the look of it. Some of the classes are very traditional stuff, like the Assassin, who is a member of a shadow-cult. The Barbarian has a choice of being an outlander, with strange customs and gear, or a penniless escaped slave with no gear. The Barbarian also gets to interact with the conditions on the Grind track, like raging (and thus becoming angry) to drive off fear. The Bard basically gets to multiclass between Human Warrior and Elf Ranger and also gets a free lute. And the Strider basically gets to be Aragorn. Most of the other classes seem equally cool. I'd say it's a pro buy. Edit: Added a "cheat sheet" explaining some dice rolls to the OP. inklesspen fucked around with this message at 21:08 on Aug 6, 2015 |
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Aug 6, 2015 20:57
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I really want to push Torchbearer for my group who really wants to get back into some D&D style role-playing. The thing is: I'm struggling with a good way to describe/sell the game. Any suggestions?
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Aug 8, 2015 08:43
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Zurui posted:I really want to push Torchbearer for my group who really wants to get back into some D&D style role-playing. The thing is: I'm struggling with a good way to describe/sell the game. Any suggestions? "It's Darkest Dungeon: The Tabletop RPG." "It's D&D on hard mode." "You know the term Fantasy loving Vietnam? Well, Torchbearer is that, but with extra PTSD." e: "Hey, don't you just love tracking your rations and encumberance? Well, have I got the game for you!" That might come across as cheeky, but I absolutely love Torchbearer. I've used the first and the third to actually pitch Torchbearer to my friends, with some success.
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Aug 8, 2015 13:16
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Ratpick posted:e: "Hey, don't you just love tracking your rations and encumberance? Well, have I got the game for you!" No kidding, Torchbearer is the one game I would point to as an example of "makes tracking your rations, encumbrance and torches actually fun instead of awful character sheet accounting"
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Aug 8, 2015 14:04
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I've not played the game myself (want to, slowly working through the book), the way I'd describe would be "(old-school) D&D if the desperation, scarcity and resource management was directly explained and unavoidably built into the game, rather than something you just come across almost by accident" Of course, this depends on whether or not the person I was explaining it to was already familiar with the theme of old-school D&D as a game about desperation, scarcity and resource management, because that's not quite what most laypersons would perceive the game as.
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Aug 8, 2015 17:23
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I played two games of Torchbearer at Gen Con and loved them. I was intimidated by the system having no experience with BW, but it was very easy to pick up.
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Aug 8, 2015 19:34
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OK, first noob question. If a spell isn't an action, can a caster cast in a combat without using one of the PC's actions?
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Aug 10, 2015 01:30
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Splicer posted:OK, first noob question. If a spell isn't an action, can a caster cast in a combat without using one of the PC's actions? Spells like Eldritch Darts and Wizard's Aegis are just "magic equipment" in this regard - you cast them at the beginning of combat without wasting actions and they're available for use until combat is finished. But what spell are you thinking of?
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Aug 10, 2015 17:29
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Glazius posted:Spells like Eldritch Darts and Wizard's Aegis are just "magic equipment" in this regard - you cast them at the beginning of combat without wasting actions and they're available for use until combat is finished. Also, you can cast another such spell at the beginning of a new round (before the first action is rolled) during the same phase when other characters would be telling the GM what weapons they are using, but this ends the previous spell and also erases it from your mental inventory.
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Aug 10, 2015 17:38
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OK, two questions: When can you and can't you use Nature for a test? For some reason that's not twigging for me. I'm running the dread crypt of skogenby, if they decide to head back to skegnoby for the night after getting beat up a bit does that count as an especially comfy camp stage or does town kick in? Can you go to town in the middle of an adventure?
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Aug 12, 2015 17:41
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Glazius posted:But what spell are you thinking of?
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Aug 12, 2015 17:46
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Splicer posted:OK, two questions: You can roll it instead of a skill you don't have or that has been taxed to 0. You can also spend a persona point to add it to your dice pool. That's it. The descriptors determine whether your nature is taxed if these tests fail - if you're within the descriptors you're ok, if you're outside them nature is taxed by the margin of failure. As for returning to Skogenby, it can be either depending on what your players want, but there are benefits and downsides to each. For one thing a town visit takes a lot longer than a single night, so the situation in the crypt is likely to change for the worse.
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Aug 12, 2015 19:01
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Skogenby is quite fun but I personally found it a bit annoying to run using Torchbearer's conceits - the small map size and the 'save the girl' plot felt like they mess with the exploration and camping mechanic. I think you need a large enough map to allow exploration and getting lost and camping in the dungeon - the adventure in the corebook worked better for that.
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Aug 16, 2015 21:31
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Right, so I've been running the adventure in the corebook, seems to be going OK. Some problems, all mainly caused by me forgetting rules  I'll type it all up when we finish the module. Loving the system so far, though for the session I had 5 players the out of conflict action economy kind of broke down (probably going to allow two actions per turn if we hit those numbers again).I'm running into an issue with conflicts. Since Defend risks being screwed over by Feint, and Feint risks being screwed over by Attack, everyone just Attacks or occasionally Maneuvers. Also I'd expect something called Feint to be most useful against superior foes/numbers, when the opposite seems to be the case. I'm planning on houseruling the hell out of it but I'm wondering if I'm missing something?
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Sep 14, 2015 19:38
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Well, tactically speaking, your players aren't doing anything wrong, as such. The objective of a conflict is to reduce the other guy's disposition, and the most straightforward way to do that is attack-attack-attack forever. So let's assume both sides are a homogenous group where everyone is equally good or bad at things for abstraction's sake and see what happens: If both parties have similar disposition, the one that can consistently attack better will win most of the time. Conversely, if the parties roll roughly as well, odds are the side with the better disposition will win. The longer the conflict goes on, the more predictable the outcome will be. The counterplay to both is to beat their attacks by maneuvering, so you can simultaneously avoid losing disposition and set up successful attacks. If you can't consistently outmaneuver the opposition, you're kind of hosed. If you're getting outmaneuvered as above, you should see if you can out-outmaneuver them to get back to your game of attacking successfully. If that doesn't work, you remain kind of hosed. Only when you're simultaneously kind of hosed and also down on your disposition should you try defending to regroup and negate the opponents' advantage. Note that even if this works, you remain kind of hosed because you're not working towards a win. If you can't rely on even your defense, you're proper hosed. And finally, the counterplay to the opponent defending is to stop letting them regroup and instead switch over to feinting. And, as you noted, attacking screws over feinting, so... This is a rough abstraction so it doesn't take into account different characters' skills and so on, but I think it's sound enough. Tl;dr: Don't just stand there and let them get away with attack-attack-attacking mindlessly, make them attack-attack-attack with a plan!
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Sep 14, 2015 20:54
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Also note that attack vs attack is an independent test - both sides roll their full pool and apply that many points of damage to the other side, so it's really brutal. Maneuver is safer. Also since you need to move the active player around, if you have higher Will than Fighter, defending for your turn might be wise.
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Sep 14, 2015 22:26
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xiw posted:Also since you need to move the active player around, if you have higher Will than Fighter, defending for your turn might be wise.  I think my main problems with feint are: a) it puts the focus of the fight on rock-paper-scissoring the GM (me) as opposed to roleplaying kobold murder. b) it further disincentivises what is, as Siivola says, already the most situational combat option. c) it doesn't seem to cover much roleplaying scope that's not already covered by maneuver or attack. c) it really seems to be a GM-only option, as there's little-to-no reason for NPCs to regroup, and if the players think the GM is going to feint then attack is the better option, so the only real use case is if the players think the GM is going to maneuver and they really, really want to do full damage this turn. Apart from removing the mechanical disincentive for ending each fight with "We have a bit a sit down and a sandwich before finishing off the last kobold", what would I actually be losing out on by just pretending it doesn't exist? Splicer fucked around with this message at 01:04 on Sep 15, 2015 |
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Sep 15, 2015 00:52
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Why would there be little to no reason for NPCs to regroup/defend? Yes, the use case is wanting to do full damage when they think the enemy is defending/maneuvering. That's not nothing.
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Sep 15, 2015 01:58
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Oops, I missed how good feint is against maneuver. That shakes my tactic a bit. You should expect they'll follow maneuvers up with an attack eventually, but feinting's good enough that it's a risk worth taking.Splicer posted:a) it puts the focus of the fight on rock-paper-scissoring the GM (me) as opposed to roleplaying kobold murder. In-fiction, a feint is just a feint. You first make a false attack somewhere, and then immediately stab the guy somewhere else. It works best against someone who is twitchy and defensive, because they end up overreacting with their defense and leave themselves open. Aggressive people see you about to feint and just stab you when you're doing the false attack. Aggressive attack-attack-attack people you defeat by playing conservative and staying out of reach until they overcommit and leave themselves open. Also: An anonymous 15th century fencing author posted:Know that all combatants who watch amd wait for another's strokes, doing nothing but parry, should not much rejoice in their skill—for it is worthless, and they will be struck because of it.
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Sep 15, 2015 08:02
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Yeah, you can just out-maneuver enemies that throw out A,A,A or M,A,A every single exchange. Once you've set up the expectation that you'll be doing a maneuver-attack combo, you can vary it up by throwing in a Maneuver-Feint, which is really devastating if you've baited them into reflexively defending or maneuvering themselves when they think you'll go for the usual M,A.
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Sep 15, 2015 09:22
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Siivola posted:I don't understand what this means. Tulpa posted:Yeah, you can just out-maneuver enemies that throw out A,A,A or M,A,A every single exchange. Once you've set up the expectation that you'll be doing a maneuver-attack combo, you can vary it up by throwing in a Maneuver-Feint, which is really devastating if you've baited them into reflexively defending or maneuvering themselves when they think you'll go for the usual M,A. I think the severity of the penalty for guessing wrong might be our issue. I may just reduce it to a penalty rather than a full "no turn for you". Anyway, slightly less opinion-based question. Is the test to notice a trap a turn in as of itself? In the book adventure there's a pit trap with a Scout test to notice, a Labourer, Dungeoneer, or Health test to fill it in, go around it, avoid falling in if you didn't notice it, and a Dungeoneer test to climb out if you fall in. That's three full turns for one trap, two if nobody falls in. It seems excessive. Or is the Scout test to notice the trap a special case I've missed the rules for somewhere?
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Sep 16, 2015 17:16
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Splicer posted:Or is the Scout test to notice the trap a special case I've missed the rules for somewhere? I don't have the book in front of me but my suspicion is that it's less a Scout test for that specific trap and more that if you aren't scouting the area you won't notice the trap. Turns should always be something that takes up effort and time.
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Sep 16, 2015 17:23
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I forgot to mention it but Jared Sorenson produced a spooky Halloween expansion, Denizens of the Dark. For 6.66 of your earth dollars, you can play as a Death Knight, Servitor golem, Shaman, Beorn, Doppelganger, Alucard, or Witch. Also includes monster rules for draculas.
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Nov 8, 2015 03:18
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Am I wrong to think the implied setting for Torchbearer is one where there is like on oasis of civilization in a sea of discordance and chaos? Like, maybe, there is a small village that has lucked out for now and exists outside the city walls, but villages like that last for 20 years, at best, before being destroyed by the tooth and claw. Also, anyone know if the published adventure deal that Burning Wheel HQ put out pay well?
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Nov 17, 2015 22:56
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It does seem very much like a "4E Points of Light" style. A village probably exists as long as there's armed force to protect it. As far as that "we'll publish your adventure" thing, last news was they hadn't picked the submission they want to publish yet, so only Luke and Thor know the details.
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Nov 18, 2015 00:12
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Oh, so it's too late then? Didn't realize it was a competition. Well, I guess I could just make the thing myself, if the interest takes me. I probably wasn't going to win, anyway. My idea was that, long ago, some ancient civilization built a city in hell* to protect themselves from nature's fury. By knowing the right path, they built a city where the natural beasts of hell would ignore and kill those who did not know the proper path. The city, of course, fell to the beasts one day and now lies vacant: another monument to man's arrogance. Only one cave runs deep enough to enter hell's deadly grasp. It is said that those who could make it in would find riches beyond belief, but none have ever returned. The cave itself is lost deep within the untamed forests. As you can see, kind of generic. The benefit of the proper path stuff is it basically gives the dungeon a video-game-style checkpoint so the adventurers can back easier next time they go to pillage. It was to be node based instead of absolute space. It would be full of weird things like fish that swim in the air and between rocks and xenomorph-rip offs. I don't know. Only even bringing it up just to put the idea down, really.
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Nov 18, 2015 00:22
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My game stalled a bit due to scheduling but should be back up to speed next week. We finished the example adventure with a ludicrous amount of shields and helmets and a very angry rock spider who is totally dead you guys for real. At one point the dwarf and aforementioned spoiler text managed to disarm each other in the same action, which we decided was her axe getting stuck in the spoiler text's mandibles
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Nov 18, 2015 00:40
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I stand corrected, and yeah, it was kind of like WotC's campaign setting contest.Covok posted:My idea was that, long ago, some ancient civilization built a city in hell* to protect themselves from nature's fury. By knowing the right path, they built a city where the natural beasts of hell would ignore and kill those who did not know the proper path. The city, of course, fell to the beasts one day and now lies vacant: another monument to man's arrogance. Only one cave runs deep enough to enter hell's deadly grasp. It is said that those who could make it in would find riches beyond belief, but none have ever returned. The cave itself is lost deep within the untamed forests. I think this is super rad and you should write it. I'm working on my own Torchbearer adventure based on the "reclaim an ancient dwarven stronghold from a dragon" plot that worked so well for Mssr Tolkien.
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Nov 18, 2015 01:16
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I'll consider it once I finish work on Yokai Blade and get that draft out for FEV. It might be a cool to do an adventure. Though, I don't know if I know the mechanics well enough to do it. Edit: That came off a little rude and pretentious. I apologize. Covok fucked around with this message at 04:48 on Nov 18, 2015 |
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Nov 18, 2015 03:12
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Just jumping into to say and ask something: 1) Stone Dragon Mountain is not in open playtesting. 2) Can we talk about Burning Wheel here, not just Torchbearer? 3) You might want to add this to the OP: http://www.torchbearerrpg.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/skogenby_r6.pdf It's a free, official adventure for it. Covok fucked around with this message at 19:15 on Nov 18, 2015 |
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Nov 18, 2015 19:07
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1) This is not a question. 2) I don't see why not; a previous Burning Wheel thread fell into archives (which are currently unavailable). Personally I don't have much to say about Burning Wheel, but if someone wants to provide me an op, I'll be happy to edit it into post 2. 3) That's the "another sample adventure" under "Official Downloads", bullet point 2.
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Nov 18, 2015 19:19
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Well, the first one was the thing I wanted to say, not ask. Also, it came off a lot more rude than intended. Just felt like I should. Also, I didn't see it before so I get ya. All I really wanted to say about Burning Wheel was how to legally get anything other than just the gold core book. Like, the gold edition, unless I'm misreading, doesn't really have rules for monsters. Also, for Torchbearer chat, how is the game doing, popularity-wise?
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Nov 18, 2015 19:25
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Luke Crane is a total loving hipster when it comes to the "burning wheel experience." If you didn't get the supplemental books when he was selling them, then gently caress you gamer-come-lately. I really can't stand the way he writes or his business practices.
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Nov 18, 2015 19:43
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You can't. Burning Wheel is more of an art project than anything else, IMHO. Monster Burner is out of print and Luke has no stated plans to reprint it or offer it for sale as PDF. (Likewise Blossoms are Falling, Magic Burner, etc). So you have to find it in a store, which is difficult. (I happen to own a copy, but I'm not interested in selling.) I have no idea how to get popularity numbers on Torchbearer. There's frequent enough chatter on the g+ group, but the "Torchbearer in NYC" g+ group is dead as nail in door.
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Nov 18, 2015 19:44
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