@@euansmith3699 I know you are joking, but here is my response anyway: I'm sure you could homebrew a skill breakdown. The D6 System (made famous by Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game) is worth checking out. They had a system built for that called skill specialization, where you could break up a base skill into more refined skills. I'm also working on my own skill system to plug into RPGs that organizes skills into basic groups, those into umbrella groups, and those into specific skills. Longsword would be a specific skill in the Sword umbrella group in the Melee base group. Using your longsword, you get better at it, but you also get partially better at all swords, and again partially better at melee in general. This is to avoid the situation that you can get in in D&D, for example, where your character is a god at using one weapon, but when picking up a fundamentally similar weapon is entirely useless at it.
@@christopherrowley7506 I'm late to the game but Twilight2013 had a detailed list of skills. You had skills organized into CASCADES (groups of similar skills all grouped together) and QUALIFICATIONS, essentially a "skill within a skill."
I played this game once and LOVED the system, it's conversational rules helped with roleplay so much! It can be intimidating at first but once it clicks HOO BOY
*sigh* a game I could never convince anyone to play. I'm just thankful that I could convince them to do Numenera instead of 5e. Hope everyone here at least gets to play it once
BW has some fantastic ideas and is a detailed and well designed game. However, I no longer enjoy rules heavy/crunchy games and I feel BW falls into that group. For me the game gets in the way in a style other simple games dont. Its a cool book and this vid helps simplify explaining it
I know this is an older comment, but I've been looking into BW and was curious if you had some insights about what parts of it get in the way? I have a group of players that have only played games like D&D5E and PF2E and was looking for something that would actually mechanically encourage them towards things like beliefs, instincts, traits, and ultimately goals. BW seems like a good system to encourage a more narrative and political intrigue kind of game, so I'm wondering if it's something that can easily be fixed /hacked?
@@boblinhobgoblin hard to recall now but I will give answering a go. I don't like the writing style but that is very subjective, re the actual rules i feel it has a simple roll d6 engine but then bolts on loads of fiddly systems. Eg shades is a minor fiddly bit but is an example of using a letter when you could just write a number, tracking three ways of advancing, highly structured combat, adding crunch that is not actually needed
Nice review! I got this book before I was confident enough as a GM to say that I don't like certain mechanics and will remove parts of a game which I don't like. The Burning Wheel is a very compelling character creator, but I despise many of the 'Rim of the wheel' mechanics (FIght, Duel of Wits, Range and Cover) which feel like they bog down an otherwise intuitive system. My players have never shown interest in that level of detail in any mechanic. I regrettably will probably never play The Burning Wheel, but I feel like I have learned so much about RPGs and the philosophy of gaming from this book.
Excellent review. I love burning wheel books as artifacts and the ideas are exceptional. Not sure I even want to ruin the experience by trying to play.
Great intro, if you have not done so i suggest you make a follow up video going over social engagement system and the world burning process. Both are important and integral to a great and successful campaign using this system.
@@DaveThaumavore Yes, same here. It was just too 'daunting'. I've literally played dozens and dozens of RPGs since the 80s, so can cope with nearly any complexity, but something about BW just put me off. It reminded me of the AFTERMATH RPG from the late 80s, early 90s.
Thanks for explaining the game! I've been looking for a substitute system to continue my A Song of Ice and Fire game, since the current one proved to be quite unbalanced. BW sounds like a good alternative.
Its a great system to run games. It even has a mass combat system for actual war like combat. As well as mounted and ranged combat variations. There is also a beautifuly crafted social engagement system unlike any game I've ever played. Good choice and good luck.
This sounds like the kind of game where the best marketing strategy would be to donate copies to a bunch of libraries. Because that way lots of people could check out if they'd be interested enough to buy it, and it's so rules heavy that people couldn't actually run it from memory, so those would be guaranteed buys anyway. Seriously, what would people do? Snap pictures and sift through photos in their phones rather than buy an awesome looking book?
Very nice review! Succinctly describes most of the rules too, which is useful. I may end up sending this to new players. I have just two *very minor* corrections: First, Artha should be properly pronounced as 'ɑːrtə' or 'art-uh', it's a Sanskrit word and they don't have the 'thorn' sound like we do in English. And second, Emotion Attributes will kill your character or otherwise make them unplayable at Exponent 10 by definition, so raising Faith for humans to 10 will let them transcend their mortal form and either become a saint or god themselves (depending on the tenants of their faith perhaps). Also, somewhat unique to Faith is the fact that only successful tests will count towards advancing it.
Seraaron Thank you! Great notes on the correction. Now that I think about it, it’s obvious that all emotions would retire the character at exponent 10!
Have you read/played Torchbearer? Has the same basic system with one resolution mechanism but a lot let nuance in chargen. On the other side its focus is on OSR dungeon crawl like play. It's easier to grog but equally hard to find interested people
Help! I am looking for a system to be the foundation for my homebrew world. This game really speaks to me in many ways but there are some issues. Relationships, instincts, beliefs and such is something I dont want rules at all for. Not necessarily the lifepath either. I share the systems highlighting of the importance of these things but I still don't want hard rules for it. I would also do the vs. Fighting as he mentions in the video to make battles quicker. Could one simply remove these things with some altoring of the Artha rewards?
This looks like one of those games where grognards will talk about it endlessly as some sort of apex of gaming, spend hours creating characters, have one session where some npc has you rescue a goat (accompanied by endless, ongoing explanations of how the rules work and where you mark every little thing on your character sheet), and then the character sheets go into your character sheet collection folder to take up space for the next twenty years. The design flaw in these types of games comes from the fascination with itemizing "life" at the cost of a roleplaying game that immerses you and your friends for hours every weekend.
Completely, utterly disagree. Burning Wheel's abstractive mechanics let the imagination roam wild. 'Itemizing life' could not be any less accurate a remark.
May I ask, is there something specific about the setting? Does the setting connect to the deep mechanics? I'm not a fan of weighty mechanics but I'm open to anything is it offers something other games don't have.
You know, I've never wondered this before now, but why are bibles always that same size and shape? I mean not that it matters, but it just seems like all the different churches of Christianity collectively went "yep this is the best size for our holy text".
www.drivethrurpg.com/product/98542/Burning-Wheel-Gold-Hub-and-Spokes?manufacturers_id=2183 Here is an official limited free version that has all the good stuff in it.
I hate the inspiration mechanic from dnd, and this is basically a game based around it. The last thing you should tell a player is "you played better" or "you played worse"
It was actually pronounced "fort" originally. "Fortay" became such a common mispronounciation that both are now commonly accepted. A moment on Google can confirm.
