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 Burning Wheel is a fantasy roleplaying game by Luke Crane with the tagline "Fight for what you believe in." This is basically the point of Burning Wheel: to play a character with extremely volatile beliefs that drive the action with their beliefs. This is explicitly built into the game's mechanics: when you act according to your character's beliefs in a way that makes for interesting drama, you get rewarded. When you play out the drama that emerges from your character's conflicting beliefs, you get rewarded. I've wanted to run Burning Wheel as a PbP for the longest time, but given how heavy the game is I feel it is not all that well suited to the traditional PbP format. This is why this thread will be about running the game in a sort of a Choose Your Own Adventure format. We'll be making (or burning in Burning Wheel parlance) a single character and then following them through a series of events, hopefully in such a way as to drive the drama according to their beliefs. The first part of our adventure is choosing who our character is, and the first choice relating to that is our character's stock! Is our character a Dwarf, Elf, Human or Orc? The non-human stocks of Burning Wheel are very much inspired by their counterparts in Tolkien: Dwarves are greedy fuckers who like to dig too deep and swear oaths, Elves are long-lived and ethereal but with their long lifespans comes a degree of sadness and longing for the glory of their lost past, and Orcs are twisted creatures who hate everything, even themselves. Each of the non-human stocks get a special psychological trait to represent this: Greed for Dwarves, Grief for Elves, and Hatred for Orcs. Humans have no inherent psychological trait of their own and are pretty much the baseline in the game. However, whereas the non-human stocks have lifepaths inspired by Tolkienistic fantasy, the human lifepaths are inspired by real-world medieval culture and society (insofar as real-world history probably didn't have sorcerers running around). In addition to this, while humans start with no psychological trait of their own, through certain choices in character burning they can pick up the Faith trait, allowing for performing miracles through the sheer power of faith. So, first choice time: Is our character a Dwarf, Elf, Human or Orc?
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Sep 19, 2015 10:00
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She is a human. I've got a very neglected copy of Burning Wheel gathering dust on my shelf. Let's see if I can understand it better after this.
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Sep 19, 2015 10:36
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Normally I am not big on standard Tolkenian races, but I hear good things about Burning Wheel so let's give it a shot. I vote for a dwarf.
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Sep 19, 2015 11:06
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Ah man, I've got a copy around the house. Let's be Human! Make it a priority to pick up Bee-Speech. Maybe magic too, so we can be a full fledged bee wizard.
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Sep 19, 2015 12:48
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This should be fun, Burning Wheel has always seemed intriguing. Voting Human for a relatively blank slate.
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Sep 19, 2015 13:17
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A proud and angry Orc!
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Sep 19, 2015 14:57
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Voting Orc so we can possibly subvert all the ugly stereotypes.
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Sep 19, 2015 14:59
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Orc! Let's be an Orc and stuff.
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Sep 19, 2015 15:05
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Be a Human
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Sep 19, 2015 15:31
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Orc. Let's hate everything. Especially boring old humans.
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Sep 19, 2015 16:33
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Lets be a dwarf and dig deep and greedly and be punished for it.
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Sep 19, 2015 16:44
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human
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Sep 19, 2015 16:45
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Orc! Confirm stereotypes!
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Sep 19, 2015 18:27
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I'm going to let votes run for a couple of more hours. Currently it's Human and Orc at five votes, and Dwarf at two. Let's see what we get!
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Sep 19, 2015 18:36
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Human! Or Dwarf. Music Theory fucked around with this message at 19:41 on Sep 19, 2015 |
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Sep 19, 2015 18:44
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Orc! The world is unfair, and we're probably only going to make it worse, but hey at least raging against the heavens feels drat good.
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Sep 19, 2015 19:18
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[b]Dwarf[b] It's time to dig deep into our family tree.
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Sep 19, 2015 19:29
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Alright, with both Human and Orc at six votes, we've got ourselves a tie! Thankfully the Burning Wheel has a mechanic for dealing with this sort of a situation: the Die of Fate! Basically, whenever there's any uncertainty as to what might happen next, the GM might roll a single die to determine what happens. Usually it's a simple roll of "On a 1, poo poo happens," but it's also used in other ways. So, Die of Fate, on a 1-3 our character is a Human, on a 4-6 our character is an Orc. Are we Human or Orc?: 1d6 6 And with a six, our character is an Orc! Burning Wheel uses a lifepath system for character creation. Basically, you plot your character's course through their life, getting stat boosts and learning skills as well as acquiring traits from your lifepaths. Lifepaths are divided into Settings. For the Orcs the settings are: Chattel - This is your slaves and workers of Orcish culture. Great and Black - Think Uruk-Hai, these are the Orcs that are born to rule. Black Legion - The Orcish army, if you will. Servant of the Dark Blood - The religious caste of Orcs, they also have access to special Orcish magic. But that's not important right now: our first lifepath needs to be a Born lifepath. The ones we can choose from are Born Chattel (meaning we start in the chattel setting) or Born Great (meaning we start in the great and black setting). So, which is it? Are we Born Chattel or Born Great?
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Sep 19, 2015 20:04
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I assume the other two become available later in the character creation, as we chart our character's life? I vote to start off Great and Black. The concept of Orcish nobility intrigues me.
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Sep 19, 2015 20:10
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paradoxGentleman posted:I assume the other two become available later in the character creation, as we chart our character's life? That is correct, yes.
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Sep 19, 2015 20:17
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Born Chattel I want to be free!
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Sep 19, 2015 20:31
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Chattel. Let us rise up and strike a blow for the orcish proletariat. No gods, no masters.
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Sep 19, 2015 20:38
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Born Great. We will be the one to bring the orc people the honor they deserve. Never mind all the other times that's failed.
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Sep 19, 2015 20:38
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Born Great We will never be slaves!
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Sep 19, 2015 20:44
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Chattel THE PEOPLE'S CHAMPION
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Sep 19, 2015 21:04
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Born Great 'ow can wez WAAAGH if wez just ah grot?
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Sep 19, 2015 21:18
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Born Chattel, can't have an adventure where the heroine doesn't start a peasant!
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Sep 19, 2015 21:26
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MMM Whatchya Say posted:Chattel We're gonna be Orc Sparticus.
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Sep 19, 2015 21:59
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Born Chattel, let's stack the deck.
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Sep 19, 2015 22:04
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I take it that's seven votes for Born Chattel (I'm reading Music Theory's post as another vote for Chattel) versus four for Born Great? Okay, we're Chattel. This is what we get for our first lifepath: Born Chattel Time: 10 years Resources: 5 Stat: +1 P Skills: 2 pts: General Traits: Orc Common traits plus 1 pt: - Leads: Black Legion, Servant What this means is that it takes us 10 years to complete the Lifepath (this is important, because at the end of character burning we use our age to determine our base stat pools); we get 5 resource points for it; the +1 P for Stats means that we get one extra point for our Physical stat pool; we get 2 General skill points (which I'll explain once we get to doing Skills); we get all the Orc Common traits plus 1 trait point we can use to purchase further traits; and the Lifepath allows for us to move on to the Black Legion or Servant of the Dark Blood Subsettings. Our next choice is, do we stay in the Chattel Setting, or do we move on to either the Black Legion or Servant of the Dark Blood Subsetting? If we decide to stay Chattel our choices for next Lifepath are:
If we go into the Black Legion Subsetting our choices are:
And if we go into the Servant of Darkness and Blood Subsetting we only have one choice: Slave to the Dark, which opens up further Lifepaths in the Subsetting. I think everyone should vote for three Lifepaths in order of preference! Your first choice counts as three votes, your second choice as two, and your third choice as one. EDIT: I forgot to mention what the Orc Common traits are! Cannibal (this is pretty much self-explanatory), Cold Black Blood (suffer penalties for acting in sunlight, but the night deadens the orcs' nerves to pain), Breeder (basically, Orcs are compelled by their cursed nature to procreate often and quickly), Fanged and Clawed (this gives us a toothy maw and sharp claws to bite and claw with), Loathsome and Twisted (this gives Orcs their Hatred emotional attribute, as well as capping their stats at 8), Lynx-Eyed, Like Burning Coals (the ability to see in the dark and never suffering any penalties for darkness), and Vile Language (Orcs share their language with corrupt vermin, shades, Great Wolves, Trolls and certain Great Spiders). Ratpick fucked around with this message at 22:40 on Sep 19, 2015 |
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Sep 19, 2015 22:35
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I vote for Cattle Slave, Ravager and finally Scavenger, in that order. Pig farming's a classic start for heroics!
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Sep 19, 2015 22:42
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Being Chattel sucks. Let's move into Black Legion as a Goblin. Start at the bottom, work our way up! E: I missed the 'pick three' bit. Second choice is Black Legion, Sun Blotter. Third choice is Chattel, Hauler. Gets big and stronk! DivineCoffeeBinge fucked around with this message at 23:12 on Sep 19, 2015 |
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Sep 19, 2015 23:07
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This is not the sort of game where you can play orcs as misunderstood, is it.  Is capping your stats at 8 as bad as it sounds? Because it sounds pretty bad to me. I vote like this: Slave of the Dark because I like evil religions. Scavenger because it easily leads to an adventurous life. Sun Blotter because that is a great name for an archer.
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Sep 19, 2015 23:08
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paradoxGentleman posted:This is not the sort of game where you can play orcs as misunderstood, is it. Having said that, an important part of Burning Wheel is fighting for what you believe in, and an Orc with Beliefs geared towards going against the mold is still an effective and interesting character. They still have the Hatred trait though, which makes things difficult. paradoxGentleman posted:Is capping your stats at 8 as bad as it sounds? Because it sounds pretty bad to me. Actually, 8 is the baseline for stat maximums in the game. Only Dwarves and Elves can have stats in excess of 8. So, Orcs are no worse than Humans in terms of stat maximums.
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Sep 19, 2015 23:17
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Cutter slave, surely worker orcs get lost to the wilds sometimes, let's use that as an excuse to run off the grid, rule a pack of wolves, marry a dryad, be a bandit, all that woodsmen jazz. Plus by the very merit of being a tree puller we should start out strong. Tunneler, all the good loot is buried anyway, let us hopefully uncover and covet some magic treasure, kill for it, and make labyrinths to protect it. Ultimately let's be masters of a dungeon. Slave of the Dark, I wanna see the gods this world has to offer, should be some good world building on this side of things. E: Does orc 'Cattle' include all the races of men? Be a neat way to learn languages. There could be some good intrigue if they dump some noble or wizard in the cattle pit, and we made it our mission to save them for untold riches. If only to gut them at the end of our journey and stay true to our orc nature. GloriousDemon fucked around with this message at 23:49 on Sep 19, 2015 |
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Sep 19, 2015 23:33
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GloriousDemon posted:E: Does orc 'Cattle' include all the races of men? Be a neat way to learn languages. There could be some good intrigue if they dump some noble or wizard in the cattle pit, and we made it our mission to save them for untold riches. If only to gut them at the end of our journey and stay true to our orc nature. Cattle in this case, oddly enough, simply refers to animals. The reason I said that they're charged with keeping the cattle is check is because the Orc approach to animal husbandry is an unorthodox one. They do have a trait called Kicking the Beast.
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Sep 20, 2015 00:04
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Goblin: We can't be orc Spartacus without being a military orc. Slave of the Dark: Spooky religious mumbo-jumbo sounds like fun. Cutter Slave: Tell me Tree Pulling is as literal as it sounds for taking down trees. I am a little sad this life path system doesn't seem to have anything for 'significant events' during your phases. That was always something I liked about those sort of character generation methods, where you get a few experiences you can spin into what your character's actually like. RandallODim fucked around with this message at 00:48 on Sep 20, 2015 |
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Sep 20, 2015 00:45
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Goblin Let's go be Genghis Khan! Slave to the Dark Ravager I forget, what's a Ravager? Any plans to do other runs? Or other settings? I've always liked Burning Jihad.
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Sep 20, 2015 00:50
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1. Sun Blotter 2. Forge Slave 3. Slave of the Dark
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Sep 20, 2015 01:44
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Forge Slave: Seize the means of production! Sunblotter Goblin
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Sep 20, 2015 02:27
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