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Post by robertsconley on Sept 16, 2016 7:37:51 GMT -5
On the topic of referee authority and how Burning Wheel handles it consider this, you run a campaign where you pretend to be a character* within a setting. Doing things as that character that are of interest to you. How interesting would it be if you knew everything about the setting and its inhabitants. Would you even feel like you are the character you are playing. Or do you feel like you are pushing a game piece around?
What this leads to idea of incomplete information. You know only what your character would know. Now obviously this a compromise especially if you played a referee's setting in multiple campaigns or the campaign is based on a popular film/tv/novel setting. For D&D it started with making the miniature wargames of the late 60s and early 70s more challenging. Gamers noted what the military did with their wargame to simulate "fog of war". One of the roles of a referee/umpire in military wargame is to handle the fog of war. He was the only person in the exercise to have complete and perfect information on what was going on in the game as a whole. And the gamers found this a fun and interesting challenge.
Then the wargamers expanded their reach, instead of fighting individual battles, they would fight a whole campaign, and soon a whole war. Once you start getting into the strategic level, not only you have fog of war, but the possibilities open up. Aside from the fact there are little in the way of published rules, the number of possibilities were so numerous that the participants in the campaign had to come up with a way to resolve disagreement. Hence once again they borrowed from the military and the referee became a neutral arbiter. The campaigns were huge sprawling affairs with dozens of players. So the referee became a manager of the campaign as well. Keeping track of turns, informing people of results, etc.
This got merged in with other ideas to form the nucleus of Arneson' Blackmoor. The reason why he is a genius and the father of tabletop roleplaying because his campaign was the first where all this stuff came together in a form we would recognize as tabletop roleplaying. Now I ask folks, how interesting Blackmoor would have been if everybody could see everything? My opinion is that it would have been way less interesting and been treated as just another wargame. One of the things that made Blackmoor compelling as opposed as just another interesting wargame, was that it was played from the viewpoint of the individual. You could only do and you only knew what a character would now. Each player had to decide from that starting point how to be a commander of armies or a king of the land. How to build up an army man by man rather than showing up with a boxful of miniatures and some notes. As the campaign developed the goals diversified until players were doing trying everything in Blackmoor as we do today in fantasy campaigns.
One of the foundation that makes all interested is incomplete information. The only way to manage incomplete information is a neutral referee who has the final say. Which way the referee of a traditional rpg campaign has the final say. Because he is the only one who has all the notes about what is going on.
When you open up the setting to collaborative worldbuilding you start to lose that. If you share the creation of the setting then you get to the level of using a well known film/tv/novel setting. If you start adding things in mid-session then you start to play it as a wargame as individual characters.
Finally none of this should be taken as an absolute. You need to be flexible. If a players comes to you with a really good writeup of the City Guards, it may be worth including it as it save you time and energy or it is superior to what you have written. Human referees are capable of only adding so much details, and if the player are examining a locale and it is obvious that a thing should be there and they point that out. Then it probably a good ruling to say "You are right it there."
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Post by ffilz on Sept 16, 2016 10:45:48 GMT -5
I just want to toss in a few quick things...
One, RPGs have ALWAYS had collaborative world building. What changes across the scope of various games is how much... But if you have ANY agency over your PC, you have some ability to contribute to world building (even if your dwarf that is unlike any others in the world just serves to help define dwarves in the world...). The Burning Wheel text actually doesn't even instruct the players and GM to co-create the world... There are forum postings and such that offer ideas, and the new Burning Wheel Codex talks about how the GM should be prepared to listen to the players ideas (since they may come up with a more interesting idea and listening to their ideas will target the game more towards their interests). But in fact, I don't think any of that is not something that was done for D&D...
Two, to try and address Let it Ride... It's not take 10 or take 20. All it says is when you resolve something within the system (whether by die roll or by GM saying "yes" (or GM saying "no, the world doesn't work that way" - something people forget Burning Wheel still allows - so yes, the GM actually is still all powerfull)) then the result stands unless the situation has actually changed. So compared to Take 20 that guarantees success, Let it Ride encourages setting things up so a single roll resolves the situation.
Let it Ride and Intent and Task are mechanics that can easily be applied to D&D (and in fact, often actually are...).
In one sense, I think the biggest difference between Burning Wheel and D&D is really just that some aspects of RPGs that were implicit in D&D have been stated in the Burning Wheel text and explained how they work. There are also certainly other differences, and they are important also.
And you know, that's why Burning Wheel is one of the 4 games on my "list". Because unlike some of the games of the 90s and the later AD&D 1e (and 2e) and newer editions of D&D, it doesn't instruct the GM to fudge things or force things to keep the story going...
Frank
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Post by Deleted on Sept 16, 2016 11:01:30 GMT -5
I apologize to people in this thread, I've been really grumpy the last two weeks or so.
I do, however, feel that my points of "if you don't trust me, don't play with me" and "it is my world, no one else's" stand. That does not, however, mean that questions cannot be asked.
As ffliz has described "Let it Ride" - "Let it Ride encourages setting things up so a single roll resolves the situation" - it sounds to me like it's a reaction to 3+ edition's slicing everything into a zillion actions. It ALSO sounds like how must of us run OD&D.
I recently got a young friend who grew up on 3etc edition to purchase the OD&D pdfs after he played in my campaign for a while. I asked him why and he said "I like that I can say 'I want to sneak up behind him and knock him out' or whatever, and you roll the dice, and it either happens or it doesn't, and we get on with the darn game."
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Post by robkuntz on Sept 16, 2016 11:21:31 GMT -5
I apologize to people in this thread, I've been really grumpy the last two weeks or so. I do, however, feel that my points of "if you don't trust me, don't play with me" and "it is my world, no one else's" stand. That does not, however, mean that questions cannot be asked. As ffliz has described "Let it Ride" - "Let it Ride encourages setting things up so a single roll resolves the situation" - it sounds to me like it's a reaction to 3+ edition's slicing everything into a zillion actions. It ALSO sounds like how must of us run OD&D. I recently got a young friend who grew up on 3etc edition to purchase the OD&D pdfs after he played in my campaign for a while. I asked him why and he said "I like that I can say 'I want to sneak up behind him and knock him out' or whatever, and you roll the dice, and it either happens or it doesn't, and we get on with the darn game." The idea that the actions are implicit in D&D and systematized in BW offer little difference in outcomes between the two but promotes an explicit form up front for BW. Shrug. It's merely bringing it to the front as an explicit explanation of an already understood process. Not many pros or cons there. The rest of what is unsaid about BW would perhaps offer some differences that are more defining between the two. @michael: Grognards do what they have to do...
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Post by robkuntz on Sept 16, 2016 11:50:00 GMT -5
Looking at the wiki page on BW, PHILOSOPHY:
Game Mechanics and Philosophy Burning Wheel play revolves around the players generating a detailed background history for their characters, along with core motivations and ethics (Instincts and Beliefs) that connect them to the storyline and to the other PCs. Story is intended to develop organically rather than being pre-scripted, as a number of the game mechanics (e.g., pre-negotiated roll or scene outcomes, the 'Let it Ride' rule, absence of hidden information) exist to prevent GM railroading and help promote co-operation and trust between the players. (This is quite distinct from agreement among the PCs, who may argue and even fight within the context of the rules.)
The GM is encouraged to create problems and challenges that specifically probe and test the Beliefs and Instincts of the PCs, and as a consequence characters frequently undergo significant change in their goals and attitudes over time.
This: "pre-negotiated roll or scene outcomes, the 'Let it Ride' rule, absence of hidden information) exist to prevent GM railroading and help promote co-operation and trust between the players. (This is quite distinct from agreement among the PCs, who may argue and even fight within the context of the rules.)"... appears very railroad or prescripted-- pre-negotiated roll or scene outcomes? no hidden information?, idea that the GM railroads? which speaks to the lack of trust that Gronan was referring to. Just the inherent scriptedness, no matter how one couches the words to describe this--is obvious within such a system. Kudos for his Origins award (I too have garnered one and it's an honor), but it appears less open and more truncated so as to achieve a specific outcome as obviously and originally intended. I could back track with OD&D (i.e., tighten it up) to achieve the same effects, though I doubt that this type of thrust, usually more widespread and coalescing over the entire time of interactive play, would be worth it as a substitute due to its specificity. Just by this alone, and correct me if I ere in my estimation, this game is less open due to specific constraints which are inherent to the system and the GM's duties are really specified to a set of possibility ranges due to that. One could say that the railroading is built into the system itself due to the view/intent, that's at least the feeling I'm getting.
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Post by amjeerih on Sept 16, 2016 12:16:50 GMT -5
"task resolution systems..." this sounds somewhat like the t.s. "take 10, 20" or whatever it was in 3.0+, could you define it within those terms or is it something left or right of it? Sure. I was trying to be as general as possible, and maybe there is a better way of describing what I'm trying to get at. By ”task resolution systems” I just meant ways of figuring out whether a character or monster or trap, etc., is able to accomplish something or work when there is a reasonable chance of failure. 3e ”take 10, take 20” is a good example, but I would also include saving throws, attack rolls against armor class (whether using matrices or THAC0, ascending or descending), the Chainmail man vs. man tables, the Chainmail fantasy combat tables, rolling under ability scores, dice pools with number of “successes” counted, single die rolls against a difficulty rating, thief skill percentile rolls, bend bars/lift gates, etc. OD&D has several ”task resolution systems,” even alternative ones for combat that are not statistically equivalent. Burning Wheel has a dice pool system that is “streamlined;” most (all?) tasks are resolved in the same general manner. In my opinion, the Burning Wheel system would be far more difficult for new gamers to grok, and players need to understand it reasonably well for it to work, but it does have some neat ideas and I think the books have value even if you never play the game. OD&D is far more modular and perhaps better encourages/supports the “Free Kriegsspiel” approach Gronan mentions right out of the box. Which is one reason that it still attracts new gamers, even those who were not born when it was published.
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Post by robertsconley on Sept 16, 2016 12:30:48 GMT -5
One, RPGs have ALWAYS had collaborative world building. What changes across the scope of various games is how much... But if you have ANY agency over your PC, you have some ability to contribute to world building (even if your dwarf that is unlike any others in the world just serves to help define dwarves in the world...). The Burning Wheel text actually doesn't even instruct the players and GM to co-create the world... There are forum postings and such that offer ideas, and the new Burning Wheel Codex talks about how the GM should be prepared to listen to the players ideas (since they may come up with a more interesting idea and listening to their ideas will target the game more towards their interests). But in fact, I don't think any of that is not something that was done for D&D... But is not the same kind of world building. You are correct in that the consequences of the PC action build the worlds. That how my Majestic Wilderlands got started and was substained. I was the referee who let PCs trash the setting by becoming kings and emperors. The catch was and the part that attracted further play, that I used this as the backdrop for the next campaign I ran. However that not the same as the stuff I do at home when I work on the Majestic Wilderlands. Especially in areas that the PCs never interacted with. There it is 100% fiat on my part acting as the author of the setting. What authority I share, mainly with my two best friends of 30 years, is in the context of co-authors. They are both exercises in worldbuilding but of a different kind. Burning Wheel in contrast seeks to fold both into the campaign. Have everybody act as an author of the setting and change through the consequences of play. My contention is that the #1 problem of that is exposes too much and lessen the sense of accomplishment of overcoming challenge, lessen the sense of being in that world as that character. Now if your goal is to have a group collaborate on telling a story then Burning Wheel would act as an aid. But tabletop rpg campaign are not a set of author tool for collaborative storytelling. RPG have more in common with taking a trip, or playing a sport than it does with storytelling. Where it intersects with stories is that RPG are great for allowing you to visit the setting of a beloved or interesting story. A travel trip is a mean to go to a real world destination, a sport about playing a physical game. RPGs are about visting fictional settings and doing things that interest you as a character. This part is what makes the issue confusing to many. A story can be told afterwards in a way I can tell you the story of my last football game, or the trip I took to Pittsburgh recently. I could tell you the story of Boog, the half-orc fighter I played in a campaign. But the point of all three activities was different than me trying to deliberately create a story. Another example of what I am talking about is the recent release of Adventures in Middle Earth. I posted a review here. I feel it is by far one of the best supplements I read for roleplaying a Middle Earth campaign. Why? Because 90% of the book focus on helping pretend to be a character in Tolkien's Middle Earth setting. Why only 90% because the other 10% is from The One Ring RPG, a custom RPG that the company made for Middle Earth roleplaying. Now The One Ring RPG reads like a means for a group to collaborate on creating a Middle Earth story. It about 50/50 between advice on roleplaying a character, and advice on how making your campaign feel like a Middle Earth story. I am not sure why Adventures in Middle Earth turned out differently. Maybe because it a player guide, maybe not a complete RPG but rather a supplement, or that the use of D&D forced the author to recast many of the concepts of the The One Ring into a more traditional form. I don't know but the Adventures in Middle Earth is definitely something I would use and the The One Ring is not and difference is AiME focus on roleplaying characters and not trying to create Middle Earth stories. Even the parts that I thought would really come off like storytelling didn't, they have one of the better set of rules for setting long journeys, they have a fellowship phase which is just the downtime actitives of the 5e DMG expanded and rewritten to fit Middle Earth. And it dovetails nicely with the expectation that character adventures once in a great while. None of this means that using a game to collaborate on creating a story is wrong. Only that is very different thing then what tabletop roleplaying is geared towards. Let it Ride encourages setting things up so a single roll resolves the situation. There were times reading Burning Wheel, I was thinking "Will you just get to the point dammit". Even Adventures in Middle Earth which I like a lot is afflicted with this. When I write, I will write as tersely as possible to get the point across and no more. [/quote]
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Post by ffilz on Sept 16, 2016 12:40:02 GMT -5
Looking at the wiki page on BW, PHILOSOPHY: Game Mechanics and Philosophy Burning Wheel play revolves around the players generating a detailed background history for their characters, along with core motivations and ethics (Instincts and Beliefs) that connect them to the storyline and to the other PCs. Story is intended to develop organically rather than being pre-scripted, as a number of the game mechanics (e.g., pre-negotiated roll or scene outcomes, the 'Let it Ride' rule, absence of hidden information) exist to prevent GM railroading and help promote co-operation and trust between the players. (This is quite distinct from agreement among the PCs, who may argue and even fight within the context of the rules.)The GM is encouraged to create problems and challenges that specifically probe and test the Beliefs and Instincts of the PCs, and as a consequence characters frequently undergo significant change in their goals and attitudes over time.This: "pre-negotiated roll or scene outcomes, the 'Let it Ride' rule, absence of hidden information) exist to prevent GM railroading and help promote co-operation and trust between the players. (This is quite distinct from agreement among the PCs, who may argue and even fight within the context of the rules.)"... appears very railroad or prescripted-- pre-negotiated roll or scene outcomes? no hidden information?, idea that the GM railroads? which speaks to the lack of trust that Gronan was referring to. Just the inherent scriptedness, no matter how one couches the words to describe this--is obvious within such a system. Kudos for his Origins award (I too have garnered one and it's an honor), but it appears less open and more truncated so as to achieve a specific outcome as obviously and originally intended. I could back track with OD&D (i.e., tighten it up) to achieve the same effects, though I doubt that this type of thrust, usually more widespread and coalescing over the entire time of interactive play, would be worth it as a substitute due to its specificity. Just by this alone, and correct me if I ere in my estimation, this game is less open due to specific constraints which are inherent to the system and the GM's duties are really specified to a set of possibility ranges due to that. One could say that the railroading is built into the system itself due to the view/intent, that's at least the feeling I'm getting. I don't feel like that wiki description is an accurate view of the game. In one sense, yes, it is a less open game, but I don't think that it actually places that many constraints. It certainly systematizes procedures that actually existed in early D&D play, but in one sense, that just means it's giving more codification to the procedures actually used for play. Players can still try anything, and in fact, the game encourages the player to describe what they want to do, and then the GM discerns that into an intent and task. So the player doesn't get to say "I want to make a Lock Pick test to open the door." Well, he could, but the GM might decide, well, the character can easily open the lock, but what's really the issue here is can he do it quietly enough that the guard doesn't notice and calls for a Stealth test. The verbal exchange between the player and GM to get to that Stealth check is probably not that much different than what happens in a good D&D game. I think the above over stresses the pre-negotiation, making it seem like the player and GM go back and forth negotiating just what will happen before the dice hit the table. That is an attitude that came out of a lot of the Forge discussion, but I don't think was ever what the most serious game designers ever intended. I think that came from abused players who felt like the only way a game could possibly work is if we negotiated everything like we were divorce lawyers. It's a shame that view overshadows some good games that came out of the reaction. It's worth noting that the pages of back history that players started to come up with was in part in reaction to abusive GMs. Players would write their character story and then they could be happy their character actually was this great hero or whatever even when the GM crushed their character under the weight of HIS STORY. Burning Wheel asks us NOT to play before we play. It offers a sketchy background, suggests we fill in a couple details, and then PLAY to find out who the character really is. Where I think the real differences come in is how the advancement system works in conjunction with the Beliefs and Instincts and the Artha system ("hero points"). These bits all combine to encourage the player to really risk failure (tempered by Artha). You can't advance to high level of skills without attempting skill tests where the target "Obstacle" is higher than the skill level (the mechanics are a dice pool with each die either contributing 0 or 1 successes, the die pool initially being the skill level). Help from other characters and "Forking" related skills can boost the die pool (but the "Challenging" tests required to advance the skill require an Ob higher than the number of dice including help and forks). Artha allows gaining additional dice that DON'T change the fact that it's a Challenging test. To me, this creates an interesting interplay that is very different from D&D. When I read about the campaigns the Luke Crane and his friends have been playing in for 10+ years, they sound just as exciting to me as what we hear about Greyhawk, Blackmoor, or Tsolyanu from Gary, Rob, Dave, and the professor and their players. As to the lack of trust, while in one sense the Burning Wheel mechanics are a reaction to the games of the 90s, I think Burning Wheel requires just as much trust in the GM. Perhaps the good of Burning Wheel is to remind folks that trustful play IS possible and that yea, those bare minimal OD&D rules, when administered by a good referee can provide the same play experience, and even allow a bit more wild freedom. I think there's room for both kinds of games. I've had loads of fun running both. Frank
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Post by amjeerih on Sept 16, 2016 12:42:48 GMT -5
Let me say up front that I understand what @gronanofsimmerya is getting at and some of the disconnect is just generational. Some of us are in our late 50' and early 60's and we have been playing and reffing for over 40 years. Some of you are in your 20's and are new to OD&D and the like. We, in many ways, are products of completely different cultures and societal mores. Things that we old guys can say to each other without offense, will offend you younger guys. Some things you younger guys say, will automatically get us older guys hackles up. I would like for us all to try to move past that. And those of somewhere in between in terms of age may also be somewhere in between in terms of perspective. I probably wouldn’t express myself in the same way as the grognards sometimes do, but it doesn't particularly bother me either (reminds me of Dad and my uncles), so maybe my generation can bridge the gap. Content over tone. Millennial gamers, just call me the “grognard whisperer.” How successful I am in how I phrase things and present them, to be non-generational, I don't know, but I do try. You're doing fine. Thanks for your virtual hospitality.
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Post by ffilz on Sept 16, 2016 12:55:16 GMT -5
One, RPGs have ALWAYS had collaborative world building. What changes across the scope of various games is how much... But if you have ANY agency over your PC, you have some ability to contribute to world building (even if your dwarf that is unlike any others in the world just serves to help define dwarves in the world...). The Burning Wheel text actually doesn't even instruct the players and GM to co-create the world... There are forum postings and such that offer ideas, and the new Burning Wheel Codex talks about how the GM should be prepared to listen to the players ideas (since they may come up with a more interesting idea and listening to their ideas will target the game more towards their interests). But in fact, I don't think any of that is not something that was done for D&D... But is not the same kind of world building. You are correct in that the consequences of the PC action build the worlds. That how my Majestic Wilderlands got started and was substained. I was the referee who let PCs trash the setting by becoming kings and emperors. The catch was and the part that attracted further play, that I used this as the backdrop for the next campaign I ran. However that not the same as the stuff I do at home when I work on the Majestic Wilderlands. Especially in areas that the PCs never interacted with. There it is 100% fiat on my part acting as the author of the setting. What authority I share, mainly with my two best friends of 30 years, is in the context of co-authors. They are both exercises in worldbuilding but of a different kind. Burning Wheel in contrast seeks to fold both into the campaign. Have everybody act as an author of the setting and change through the consequences of play. My contention is that the #1 problem of that is exposes too much and lessen the sense of accomplishment of overcoming challenge, lessen the sense of being in that world as that character. And in Burning Wheel the GM can also go off and do as much detail of the world as he wants. People have even played Burning Wheel in published settings (the BWHQ group has a very long running campaign set in Mystara). I think this idea that Burning Wheel grants players an equal part in creating the setting is off base for what the designer intended. Sure, some folks go for a very collaborative setting creation (but you could do that in D&D too...), but the game doesn't require that. Heck, the whole discussion about using Wises (knowledge skills) for players to assert facts about the setting is even an optional thing, just an emergent property some folks noticed and others took to the nth degree. If you have a fact in your head or your notebook and a PC wants to establish something contrary by making a skill check, the Burning Wheel GM is entirely in his rights to say "No." Or he can allow you to roll and say the PC believes this to be true, and even is able to convince his audience that it's true. But eventually the truth will come out... Sounds like how I would run/play Burning Wheel... Yep... The story in Burning Wheel is the story that arises from the events that transpire in play. And the players get to contribute to that story just as much in Burning Wheel as in D&D. [/quote] Terse writing works when the reader is already primed to understand the material. A lot of why D&D worked so well in the early days was the amount of mentoring. I have met very few players from the early days that did not learn from someone else. So Burning Wheel is wordy to make sure folks understand the intent of the game, either because they haven't played an RPG before, or because the players have come from a different gaming background. It may seem belabored to an old school player because a lot of the advice is not all that different from the way they played in the past. Frank
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Post by amjeerih on Sept 16, 2016 13:40:28 GMT -5
And in Burning Wheel the GM can also go off and do as much detail of the world as he wants. People have even played Burning Wheel in published settings (the BWHQ group has a very long running campaign set in Mystara). I think this idea that Burning Wheel grants players an equal part in creating the setting is off base for what the designer intended. Sure, some folks go for a very collaborative setting creation (but you could do that in D&D too...), but the game doesn't require that. Heck, the whole discussion about using Wises (knowledge skills) for players to assert facts about the setting is even an optional thing, just an emergent property some folks noticed and others took to the nth degree. Good points. I think these are more issues of individual DMing/playing style than system, even if certain tools might be better for certain jobs. I rather like the idea of players using features of their character to assert facts, as long as the referee has final say and everyone at the table understands that from the get go. But I would no problem whatsoever playing in a campaign where this is not a part of the game.
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Post by robkuntz on Sept 16, 2016 14:51:17 GMT -5
Well, as this is a comparison of the two, and since I have never played BW I am not inclined to pass final judgment regarding it. The proof is always in the pudding. From what I see of its systemization and thrust as worded and as you have described, however, does not provide me with enough incentive, so far, to make an investment in that RPG experience. It's too focused, too specific as it stands in the character building aspect, just as CoC was too specific to the skills part of the game, seemingly with some overlap of intense and persistent character portrayal as well but without the built in trajectory of BW. I look forward to playing a game someday in order to validate or invalidate my current assessment. Thanks for all of the informed posts--RJK
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