Some RPGs are demanding. While you can’t homebrew D&D into anything, it is still flexible and doesn’t demand that you play it a specific way. Some games do. There is no end of teeth-gnashing about this; for some reason people take more issue with RPGs having set procedures than, say, board games. But, as the entire indie RPG community knows very well, making a game for a specific purpose and experience often nets you a better version of that experience than trying to simulate it with a ruleset designed with breadth in mind. I’ve been having some revelatory experiences with such a targeted game recently; I will say though that when I say “targeted game” and “specific experience”, most are imagining a zine, something small, not a 600 page hardback with red and gold filigree. Yeah, I’m talking about Burning Wheel.

The first time I tried to run Burning Wheel I made the mistake of assuming it behaved like other fantasy RPGs. I also, tellingly, made the mistake of assuming that the skill and testing mechanics were the most important rules in the game. It’s a classic traditional RPG view, and in the case of Burning Wheel it’s wrong. It also means that some of the criticisms of the game and its design are similarly ill-founded, though that’s not to say that the game escapes criticism. After having both failed to play Burning Wheel and, more recently, successfully played Burning Wheel, I’ve come to three separate conclusions. First, I really like this game. Second, Burning Wheel has way more in common with indies like Apocalypse World than it does with traditional RPGs, and its packaging and rules density often prevents people from seeing that. Third, Burning Wheel is in a way a first real shot at designing a narrative game for crunch-heads, for people who love the interlocking rules and density of games like GURPS, Ars Magica, or Heavy Gear but are more interested in pointing those rules towards story and character than combat and physics. While many games have dabbled in that space since Burning Wheel’s first release in 2002, few if any have leaned in this hard.

Burning Wheel is a game of medieval/Tolkienesque fantasy. Looking at it from a traditional perspective, you see a dice pool driven system, a detailed lifepath character generation mechanic, the infamous skill-by-skill progression rules, and three completely separate conflict resolution mechanics (four if you count the shorthand “Bloody Versus” rolls). You also see the Belief and other Artha mechanics, where players earn three different types of points (Fate, Persona, and Deeds) based on how they engage with their characters’ Beliefs, Instincts, and Traits. From a trad perspective you think “ok, a meta-currency” and don’t focus on it. This is a huge mistake. This is not only a huge mistake, it’s the exact mistake I made, and it’s what sank my first attempt at playing Burning Wheel into a quagmire.

The Belief mechanics drive the game because they establish the way that the GM actually produces plot. In my current Burning Wheel game, Beliefs are reviewed at the beginning and end of every session, and usually every player changes at least one belief each session. None of this contradicts what’s in the book; reading back through the Beliefs section in Hub and Spokes I can see that procedurally we’re doing pretty much exactly as the rules describe. That said, getting there and understanding a) why Beliefs are the most important mechanic in the game, b) how to write good Beliefs, and c) how to use Beliefs as a GM all required both reading the book and a degree of play experience as well. Parsing the book’s advice about Beliefs is, to put it mildly, difficult.

At the beginning of the Beliefs chapter in Hub and Spokes, Beliefs are described as “explicitly stated drives that tie directly into the world and setting.” This is a good description, but the book then goes on to use as examples what are at best difficult or at worst objectively bad beliefs to write for a character. Both “One man can make a difference” and “It’s better to smooth wrinkles than ruffle feathers” are examples from Hub and Spokes, and neither of those are easily playable Beliefs. The other main issue is that there isn’t enough emphasis placed on how dynamic Beliefs can and should be.

Now, it says right in the chapter that Beliefs should change often as the character grows, but given how differently Beliefs act from other RPG mechanics that look like them, this should be up front. Ultimately these criticisms of the Belief mechanics are technical writing criticisms…through bumbling around until a more experienced GM showed me, I got to learn exactly where clarity was missing from the rulebook. I’d say there wasn’t an issue with my understanding what to do in abstract, but with all of the mechanics that touch the Artha Wheel (not just Beliefs but also Instincts and Traits), how best to do it is often not well illustrated.

When looking at the skill mechanics, it’s much clearer that the issues with these mechanics are borne more out of perception and expectations than any flaws with the writing. While the per-skill advancement is an intense amount of bookkeeping, the importance of the roll mechanics on a micro level make sure that it’s difficult to lose sight of when a character gains a test so long as you’re mentally present during a session. The issue really comes down to the fact that the skill system is built as a character development mechanic, and as such is confusing if you’re thinking about characters from just a rules perspective. When I look at a more traditional RPG, the skill list is intended to be a fairly comprehensive list of what characters in the setting should consider being good at. As such, adventures written in those systems typically make use of all of those skills, and it’s expected that at least one character in a gaming group has a degree of proficiency in each one. Burning Wheel has over 200 skills and, to put it bluntly, most are never used in any single campaign.

The reason the skill list is so long is that these skills have flavor and tell you about how the character works, rather than tell you which part of the game your character is effective at. This ends up working out fine because of the synergy of three mechanics: FoRKs, Failing Forward, and the Beginner’s Luck rules. FoRKs, or ‘Fields of Related Knowledge’, help keep a wide range of skills relevant, even if they’re directly tested infrequently. Even when a character doesn’t have the obvious skill for a task, there’s usually flexibility in which one can be tested, and this is also represented by FoRKs. This does go back to the mechanical/narrative misconceptions which are so easy to stumble over in Burning Wheel; skills are as much details about the character as they are an indication of ability, which is the primary reason that skills aren’t meant to be a mutually exclusive and completely exhaustive list. FoRKs also mean that Burning Wheel gives more mechanical competency to broadly skilled characters, lessening the disadvantage of having more, lower valued skills.

Failing forward is important in many ways in Burning Wheel and how the game works, but when it comes to skills it ties into the Beginner’s Luck rules in a key way. Namely, building the game around failing forward lessens the consequences of gathering tests for Beginner’s Luck. In Burning Wheel, you learn new skills mostly just by trying to do them, though there are rules for being taught. You use the value of the skill’s “root” attribute, but base difficulties are doubled. Make a certain number of tests, and you “open” the skill. While the doubling of base difficulties is punishing, the attribute value will be higher than the value of a new skill, so there’s an offsetting bonus that makes easy tests only slightly harder but difficult tests significantly harder. The way these rules all work in concert ends up making it feel like your character can do anything if they set their mind to it, which is broadly true and also feels way more empowering than gaining experience points ever did.

The overarching theme of the game is that the players drive the story by showing the GM what’s most important to them, and the GM in turn pushes on those things. This is true when it comes to the setting and situation (through Beliefs), mechanical proficiency (through the skill mechanics), and relationships (through the Circles and Relationship rules). It’s also true whenever there’s conflict, and that’s exactly why there are multiple tiers of conflict resolution. The basic rules of the more involved conflict mechanics, Fight, Range and Cover, and Duel of Wits, are all similar and are in turn similar to the conflict mechanics used in Torchbearer. In any protracted conflict, you and your opponent choose maneuvers in secret, reveal at the same time, and then roll according to how your maneuvers match up.

The difference between Burning Wheel and Torchbearer is that Torchbearer uses a genericized system with four maneuvers, while Burning Wheel builds up separate systems with distinct (and more) maneuvers for ranged combat, hand-to-hand combat, and social conflict. While my current Burning Wheel game has not gone on long enough to see many extended conflicts, my character was involved in a Duel of Wits which, to me, provided significantly more richness than the Torchbearer equivalent without gaining too much in complexity. Having conflicts be at least a little complicated is part of the system though, because they aren’t supposed to occur unless there’s narrative weight behind them. The heft of the conflict rules seems in part to discourage you from using them, because Burning Wheel is not supposed to feature the amount of combat that, say, D&D does. But when you do pull the conflict rules out, it’s an event, and thanks to the fact that the pivot points are when actions are revealed, stumbling about with the rules is much less detrimental to pacing than it is in a more traditional wargaming combat system. One of the reasons that I personally find the conflict systems, arguably one of the more complex part of the rules, easiest to deal with is that it’s one of the few places where the translation between Burning Wheel and Torchbearer is fairly direct. While the games use similar rules, the way rules are used is such that most mechanics, Beliefs and Skills at the very least, end up operating completely differently and serving very different purposes. Burning Wheel really is its own animal, even using the same mechanics doesn’t really end up making the same game.

Burning Wheel as a game is pretty amazing. It ticks a lot of boxes for me, featuring interesting crunch, drama-driven mechanics, and lots of weighty decision points. Burning Wheel as a document is harder to pin down. The game broadcasts its intent well, and frankly it’s a cracking read; few games inspired me like Burning Wheel did when I first read it. But, much like Eclipse Phase, my attempts to use Burning Wheel to actually run a game were more frustrating. It wasn’t the same set of issues; Burning Wheel as a mid-game reference is well done, especially when you consider the play aids and the separable Hub and Spokes rules document. Instead, I think the issue was a paucity of detail around how to engage with the game, especially in the open-ended mechanics like those attached to the Artha Wheel.

Luke Crane has written in multiple places that he sees a good role-playing game as something that requires skill, much like a good board game or sport. I do see that Burning Wheel requires skill, and spending more time with the game has deepened my appreciation for it. That said, from an accessibility point of view, it could benefit from some examples of play, and some more guidance on what good play looks like. The Burning Wheel Codex does this to some degree, but with more of the essay-adjacent writing that, frankly, saddled us with these issues in the first place. Ultimately, these are traits of a passion project: the rules are all there, and if you understand how to engage with them, there is a phenomenal game in that book. If you don’t understand, the designer doesn’t really care. And for those of us who want our friends to play Burning Wheel with us, that’s just about as bad as the fact that there is no PDF version. The biggest compliment I can give, then, is that I’m still going to try to convince my friends to buy Burning Wheel and let me teach them.

Burning Wheel is available online from The Burning Wheel Store.

Note: this review was written based on the author’s experiences with Burning Wheel Gold. The currently available edition, Burning Wheel Gold Revised, has had errata-level corrections and clarifications made.

Like what Cannibal Halfling Gaming is doing and want to help us bring games and gamers together? First, you can follow me @LevelOneWonk on Twitter for RPG commentary, relevant retweets, and maybe some rambling. You can also find our Discord channel and drop in to chat with our authors and get every new post as it comes out. You can travel to DriveThruRPG through one of our fine and elegantly-crafted links, which generates credit that lets us get more games to work with! Finally, you can support us directly on Patreon, which lets us cover costs, pay our contributors, and save up for projects. Thanks for reading!

Cannibal Halfling Gaming

2020-01-29 14:00:20

“You can Homebrew D&D into Anything!”

The strong increase in popularity of Dungeons and Dragons brought about both by the increased accessibility of D&D’s Fifth Edition as well as the growth of the nascent streaming and actual play communities has meant that there are a whole lot of people getting introduced to D&D. Now that this growth has been going on for a few years, there is burgeoning realization that role-playing games as a medium are capable of a lot more than dungeon crawls and Tolkien derivatives. This is great news for everyone, right? We all know there’s a whole world of RPGs out there, from the big glossy traditional games to indie zines and everything in between. Well, something’s getting lost in translation for some, and in the #dnd world on Twitter you’ve likely seen questions like this:

“How can I make John Wick in D&D?”

“What can you do to run Star Trek in D&D?”

“It would be really cool if I could run Harry Potter in D&D!”

Fortunately, these all have easy answers: Don’t, please don’t, and I don’t think it would.

There is a logical fallacy whereby people believe that if Dungeons and Dragons is the most popular role-playing game, it must have some amount of breadth to explain its popularity. This is fundamentally untrue. While the Fifth Edition of Dungeons and Dragons features some conscious design choices to make it appealing to a broader range of players, the game is ultimately about entering dungeons, killing monsters, reaping the rewards of killing said monsters, and then using your new powers to return to the dungeon and kill more monsters. Sure, there has been expansion of the rules over the years; going outside was an optional set of mechanics in the original edition (where it actually required you to purchase a game made by a different company), and at some point skill rolls were added to classes other than the thief. Joking aside, while D&D has broadened out over the years it is still only good at a few things and not good at most others.

Before going into specifics about design elements, let me address the elephant in the article: I am aware that it is possible to homebrew D&D into anything, given enough work. I’m not saying you can’t, I’m saying you shouldn’t. This is an argument that rests on two basic pillars: First, it is a fact that there are hundreds of RPGs out there which do different things than D&D. I am of the strong belief that for virtually every fictional property out there you’d want to homebrew into D&D somehow, I can name at least one if not two or three other games that all work better than D&D, will play better than D&D for your given property, and require less work (sometimes no work at all) to adapt. I’d also bet, thanks to the funny way computer RPGs developed, that most exceptions to this were themselves based on D&D at some point in their design history, or at least came from the same genre on which D&D was based (i.e. Swords and Sorcery). Second, there are deliberate design choices in D&D which are genre-reinforcing, and homebrew that ventures outside the conventions of the swords and sorcery genre requires the removal or alteration of these choices to work well. Once you begin removing the elements of D&D that make it D&D, it begs the question of why you didn’t pick another game in the first place.

Let’s talk some D&D design choices. How about levels? The ascent from level 1 to level 20 in D&D represents a broad, sweeping power curve, so much so that many derivatives of D&D like 13th Age and Dungeon World cut it in half. Leaving the number of levels the game covers to the side, level-by-level advancement produces fairly large step changes in character power as the primary mode of advancement. Significant changes in personal power brought about by personal accomplishments and experiences makes perfect sense in the fantasy genre writ large, but doesn’t really work anywhere else. Of course, stacking abilities gained level by level is nearly the only expansion of character power written into D&D, so rewriting the advancement system would require disassembling the game. A character like John Wick, whose abilities are cemented at the beginning of his story and change little over the course of three movies, would be poorly served by this mechanic. Something like Fate, where Aspects could change to reflect the relationship John has with both his abilities and his peers, might be a better starting point.

When looking at characters gaining levels in D&D, they also gain hit points, which is a curious decision. While the debate about “are hit points meat” has raged on in some circles forever, the basic mathematical truth is that having more hit points makes a character harder to kill. In Fifth Edition especially, monster difficulty is strongly driven by quantity of hit points, and both player characters and monsters gain hit points as the levels increase. This makes D&D utterly unsuitable for most modern games, or any game where there is supposed to be a sense of danger. A pistol as statted in the Fifth Edition Dungeon Master’s Guide does 1d10 damage. By even third level, most characters would have enough hit points to survive a direct hit from a pistol with no ill effects. Changing this would, realistically, require completely rewriting the hit point logic; D&D characters spend most of their adventuring careers with enough hit points that a gunshot will never be a significant fraction of them. You could write shock rules, but you’d be writing them whole-cloth and they’d be incongruous if you left the hit point system in place. A setting like Star Trek, where Romulan disruptors and Federation phasers can canonically vaporize people, isn’t going to really work with expanding hit point totals. Of course, Star Trek Adventures is a highly suitable game for Star Trek and would require no tweaking at all.

Let’s take a moment to talk about skills in D&D. I don’t want to talk about skill lists at length, they’re easy to expand and D&D is hardly the only game where the skill list is tuned directly to the game it’s supposed to be. Instead, let’s talk about the proficiency bonus. In Fifth Edition D&D, you improve in every skill at exactly the same rate. While this wasn’t always the case, the skill ranks system in Third Edition was both convoluted and poorly balanced, providing no reason to do anything other than max out as many skills as you could (and indeed, this is one of the reasons Fifth Edition switched to the proficiency model). The other issue with the skill system is that there’s little integration between skills and the abilities which are modeled within the class progression trees. This tends to make character classes narrow; Third Edition D&D solved this by opening the game to extensive multiclassing, while Fifth Edition simply gave each class options with a smattering of abilities from the other class types (you can have your magic-ish Fighter and your fight-ish Warlock and…etc.). Ultimately, D&D is still at its core a class-based game, though the class builds are made less unique by trying to make them feel less pigeonholed (compare this to Apocalypse World, where each class is unapologetically unique and non-overlapping). It’s possible to build a game where more options are possible, but this would require moving away from classes entirely, another core element of the game. If you were to run a game set in the world of Harry Potter, every character would be a wizard. You’d have no use for classes (making classes based on, say, Houses would be contrived as all the students took the same coursework), so instead you’d want a system where the range of magical and nonmagical skills are all put on a level playing field. Here, the Genesys system has a few advantages. First, the verb-based magic system allows for a lot of flexibility and will do well in a setting where spells were introduced as they became necessary for the plot rather than according to any structured system. Second, the social encounter system in Genesys is underrated, and provides the sort of support necessary to run a campaign that mixes fighting monsters with boarding school drama. And finally, the advantage/threat system can make every spell attempt interesting, which is perfect for a game where the characters are teenaged pre-wizards.

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There are a lot of stories in D&D’s wheelhouse; warrior kings like Conan and strange sorcerers like Elric of Melnibone are perfect inspirations for D&D characters. The core systems of D&D have translated incredibly well across the fantasy landscape and into post-apocalyptic and pulp science fiction realms, stories that highlight the exploits of powerful characters venturing into harsh, unknown worlds. Outside this core, though, the translation becomes much less direct. Gamers realized the need for other games very early on; the first space opera game and the first superhero game both came out in 1977, only three years after D&D itself. Now, we live in a world where the number of RPGs available to us means that every genre has more games than anyone could play or even read in a lifetime. Every game has a limited list of things they’re good at, even so-called universal games tend to excel in a limited swathe of game types. D&D serves as a point of entry for many, many people into the hobby, and it does that well in many ways. But once these new players want to branch out, the way to do so is to go out and see what else exists and what other neat things have been done, not jam square pegs into round holes.

Like what Cannibal Halfling Gaming is doing and want to help us bring games and gamers together? First, you can follow me @LevelOneWonk on Twitter for RPG commentary, relevant retweets, and maybe some rambling. You can also find our Discord channel and drop in to chat with our authors and get every new post as it comes out. Finally, you can support us directly on Patreon, which lets us cover costs, pay our contributors, and save up for projects. Thanks for reading!

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Welcome to System Split! Today, our very own Level One Wonk will examine two very similar systems to see what sets them apart. When the genre, complexity, and even rules system are exactly the same, what makes a game unique? Today we look at two fantasy RPGs from the twisted and brilliant mind of Luke Crane: Burning Wheel and Torchbearer! Despite one being based on the other, they offer very different experiences. How different? Read on!

Fantasy, sword and sorcery specifically, is a fundamental part of the foundation of role-playing games. And while Dungeons and Dragons has become the de facto native language of fantasy role-playing, there are many ways to model the genre without using the game conventions that Gygax and company created. By 2002, there had been over 25 years of evolution in fantasy role-playing; even D&D itself was on the third edition of its second iteration. If you were to write a completely new fantasy role-playing game at that time, though, it would likely look quite a bit different than Third Edition D&D. Luke Crane did just that, and the game he came up with is called Burning Wheel. Burning Wheel is a game driven by characters, where they come from, and their beliefs about where they’re going. The design plays very differently from D&D, a fact which was not lost on Crane and the Burning Wheel design team. In 2012, Crane and his fellow designer Thor Olavsrud took their affection for Basic D&D and spun it into Torchbearer, an old school dungeon-crawl game based on the Burning Wheel mechanics. While Burning Wheel and Torchbearer are not the only games based on these mechanics (in between the two the game Mouse Guard was released), they are the two in the family which aim for similar setting feel and tropes, even though the play experiences will be very different.

The basic mechanics of both games are the same, and consist of a skill resolution mechanic and a conflict resolution mechanic. The skill resolution mechanic is based on a dice pool: roll a number of d6s for every rank you have in a skill. 1,2, and 3 are failures, while 4,5 and 6 are successes. The difficulty is represented by the number of successes you must roll. The conflict resolution mechanic is one of simultaneous resolution: both sides of a conflict choose an action from about half a dozen choices. Once these are revealed, both sides are told what to roll on a small chart. As an example, if one side chooses attack and the other chooses defend, the defender would roll a skill to stop the attack. If both sides chose attack, though, then they would both roll to hit and not get a chance to defend. There are three sets of actions that use this basic system: hand-to-hand physical conflicts, physical conflicts at range, and social conflicts.

The games are made much more interesting through the advancement mechanics. In both games, you count every skill test made, and mark them off on a per-skill basis. Once you have enough tests rolled for a skill that meet the given criteria (difficulty level in Burning Wheel, success or failure in Torchbearer), you can advance the skill. If this sounds fiddly and specific, it’s likely because it is. However, using such a system means that characters only improve with skills they use, and only improve by pushing themselves…it’s impossible to advance without attempting difficult tasks. The second advancement mechanic is even more interesting. In both games, your characters have a set of Beliefs. Beliefs are narrative elements that should motivate characters, and they will evolve and change through the game as they are tested. In both games players earn Fate points for playing to their beliefs and working towards character goals. For accomplishing these goals, grappling with beliefs (by playing against them) and well-received role-playing, players can earn Persona points. In Burning Wheel, there are also Deeds points awarded after significant in-game plot events. In many games, RP rewards like this would be fairly minor, and the primary use of these points are similar: points can be spent for specific in-game effects, or to add dice or successes to rolls. However, the cumulative total of these points are critical for advancement: In both games there are abilities you can only gain through earning Fate, Persona, and/or Deeds points.

Burning Wheel is a game of long character arcs and epic journeys. You create your character by choosing a number of lifepaths which represent where your character was born and where they came from. These lifepaths determine the bulk of your starting skills and your stat pool, as well as NPCs you know and your starting wealth. Once you have a starting character you may gain improvements in ability through testing skills but to become truly heroic you must earn Fate, Persona and Deeds points by playing into your Beliefs and having a character who is truly fighting for what they believe in. Once you accumulate enough of these points (collectively called ‘artha’ in Burning Wheel), you can change the shade of an ability. The shade of an ability represents its odds of success on a die…while a standard skill (a black shaded skill) requires a roll of 4,5, or 6, a heroic skill (a grey shaded skill) requires a 3,4,5, or 6, and a superhuman skill succeeds on every roll but a 1. As you spend more time developing your character and understanding their beliefs, they begin to take on more significant power and have more capacity to fight for their beliefs.

Torchbearer is a game of adventurers searching for treasure in dark dungeons. Dungeon crawling is not a glamorous profession, though, and Torchbearer characters are as fragile as their Basic D&D equivalents. Instead of the more far-reaching and flexible lifepath system, Torchbearer uses a class-and-level system somewhat similar to D&D. While you do still write Beliefs, your character also has a Nature which helps to explain the type of person they are. And while skills are still advanced by accumulating skill tests, you can only advance to the next level in your class by gathering enough Fate and Persona points (collectively called “Rewards” in Torchbearer). The mechanics of Torchbearer are focused on the dungeon delve. All game time is divided into turns, not just combat. This use of turns allows you to track important resources, namely food, water, and light. The longer you go without rest, the more likely you are to accumulate ‘conditions’ like hungry, angry, or tired. Conditions generally replace something like a hit point track, which may seem weird but typically makes it easier to role-play a character who’s been out in the cold woods for a couple nights too many.

Another significant mechanical addition to Torchbearer is the encumbrance system. Instead of having a weight limit or other abstract encumbrance value, a Torchbearer character has specific slots. You can wear a pack on your back which can carry a certain number of objects. You can have a certain number of pouches on your belt. You can wear something on your head, and carry something in each hand. If you want to pick something up but both hands are full, you need to put something else down. Similar to the conditions rules, this is an element which seems incredibly specific, but ends up being much easier to use than a mathematical abstraction designed to do the same thing. It also helps tell you what’s important in the game, and what you should be paying attention to.

To me, both games are incredibly evocative, using very deliberate rules choices to create the thematic environment that is desired. In Burning Wheel that’s a character-driven heroic epic, while in Torchbearer it’s a gritty low-fantasy dungeon crawl. The main issue with the rules in both games (though more acutely in Burning Wheel) is that there are quite a lot of them. These are games that require engagement with the rules systems to really appreciate them…if you’ve ever used the phrase “I want the rules to get out of my way at the table”, then there’s a good chance you won’t like these games. That said, these games aren’t designed like GURPS where there are rules for every eventuality, rather there’s a rich set of mechanics for engaging with what the designers saw as most important. This is also why Burning Wheel and Torchbearer are so different. Even though the basic mechanics of both games are nearly the same, the rules superstructure around those mechanics are designed to reflect different priorities. So while both games are about characters fighting for what they believe in, Burning Wheel emphasizes the hero’s journey (lifepath for origin stories, more expanded heroic ability growth) while Torchbearer emphasizes the excitement and danger of the dungeon (resource management and encumbrance rules).

Burning Wheel shows that you can indeed have a “crunchy” narrative game. Like Powered by the Apocalypse, the rules are designed to maintain conflict and momentum: In both games the GM is supposed to use the information given to them by the players to press on their personal goals and beliefs and use that to create conflict. While PbtA pares the mechanics back to a set of genre-relevant moves, Burning Wheel games provide a much wider palette of mechanics to keep the game involved and exciting. These are not universal systems, though: the differences between Burning Wheel and Torchbearer serve as perfect examples of how the ruleset has been adjusted to provide different play experiences, much like the differences between games like The Sprawl and The Veil. Using a ruleset as complex as Burning Wheel does require a fair amount of work; GMs and players alike may balk at the notion of tracking every skill test individually, for instance. If you’re willing to put the work in, though, what you’ll get out the other end is your own fantasy epic, more personal and more varied than any jaunt from level one to level twenty.

Torchbearer and the Burning Wheel intro section, Hub and Spokes, are available at DriveThruRPG. Burning Wheel Gold and its supplement collection the Burning Wheel Codex are not available in PDF form, but can be ordered in print from the Burning Wheel Store.

Cannibal Halfling Gaming

2017-03-29 12:30:50

Level One Wonk: Universal Gaming with GURPS

Are you a Butt-Kicker, a Specialist, or a Story-Teller? There is a huge world of games out there to satisfy every player’s and group’s style. And while there are academic discussions in every corner of the internet, sometimes it’s best to start at level one. Join the Level One Wonk in exploring the possibilities that RPGs have to offer, from Aberrant to Zorcerer of Zo. Today we talk about the potent flexibility of universal systems, using the oddly named but otherwise excellent GURPS as our prime example!

Whether you’re a GM or a player, learning new games takes time. And if you’re a GM, it’s rare to find a game that does exactly what you want. Beyond that, if your group tends towards games with heavy simulation or tactical elements, there’s even more work in learning systems and doing prep. Now imagine you want to play in a genre that isn’t well-supported, or even switch genres mid-game with a time travel or dimension hopping plot line. How are you going to do this? The answer is with a universal system.

Game publishers have been using the “house system” strategy since the late 1970s. A “house system” is a core set of mechanics which can be adapted for multiple settings and genres with minimal rework, and having a set of rules like this allowed a lot of publishers to release more and more complete products back when the industry was saturated and intensely competitive. Chaosium was arguably the first company to market a universal system to players directly, selling a setting-free version of their house system as Basic Roleplaying. In 1986, though, Steve Jackson Games took a slightly different tack. Though GURPS was a modification of an earlier game called The Fantasy Trip, the GURPS publication strategy was to provide tools for players to write their own settings that all worked around one set of rules. GURPS Space, GURPS Fantasy, and others all provided a building block approach at a time when games and their supplements were tied to their settings, be it Glorantha (Runequest), Greyhawk (Dungeons and Dragons) or the Imperium (Traveller).

GURPS is one of the most well-known universal systems today, along with the Hero System which was first released in 1990. Though there are many newer systems with broad genre applicability, the sort of mechanically intensive play supported by GURPs is mostly only supported by the most recent editions of these older games. GURPS 4th edition is a well-designed and tight game, but it’s going to require a bit more work to get set up compared to a narrower crunchy game like D&D. Still, if you go in with the right approach, you’ll find games like GURPS help enable some of your wildest campaign ideas that you never thought you’d have detailed rules for.

GMs

When you typically run a game, a lot of the constraints are embedded in the system. In D&D, spells have levels which are gated based on the level of the character, and different classes have different spells they can access. GURPS has a robust magic system, but if you want to differentiate between a wizard and a warlock you’re going to have to write it yourself. Similarly, the default GURPS magic system provides dozens of spells and a full set of prerequisites for all of them, but it’s all optional. This can make setting up something like magic in GURPS more daunting, but it also means you can easily tweak even the smallest details if you’d like.

The bigger issues arise when looking at the rules as a whole. In the Equipment chapter of the GURPS Basic Set, there are statistics for bolas and javelins maybe one page away from similar entries for heavy machine guns, force swords, and mono-wire. The vast majority of games won’t allow all of those weapons, and those which do need to be designed around some form of balancing mechanic. At a high level, the GM needs to draw a boundary around what his campaign world includes to make these rules work. Fortunately, many games including GURPS have gating mechanics. The two basic ones from GURPS are Tech Level and ability categorization. Tech Level breaks the world into 13 eras, ranging from paleolithic (TL0) to far-future (TL12). Every item and many skills are gated by Tech Level. For skills, tech level doesn’t only tell you when a skill first becomes available, but also how broadly applicable it is. This helps simulate the challenge a modern car mechanic may face if he had to work on a 19th century steam engine. Ability categorizations apply to the main part of characterization that TL does not: the long list of advantages and disadvantages. Advantages and disadvantages which don’t belong in a realistic campaign are tagged as supernatural, while advantages and disadvantages which don’t belong with conventional humans in any genre are tagged as exotic.

Even with the systems that GURPS has for helping to specify a game, GMs need to make judgment calls. Like many mechanics-intensive games, GURPS is susceptible to significant disparities in power, both because of system mastery as well as plain old character focus. While it is equally possible to make a rough-and-tumble mercenary and a wily merchant (and a professional clown, talking dogs and computer hacking seagulls, and possibly a sentient blueberry muffin), only the GM knows for certain which characters are going to have enough to do in their intended game. If a player is making a character focused on science and technology, social interactions, or anything else outside of your vision of a campaign’s primary activities, it is incumbent on you the GM to make an honest appraisal of whether that character is going to be fun or merely in the background. Communicate with your players about what concepts fit: your supernatural horror game needs a tank commander like a dungeon crawl needs a party clown.

The easiest gating mechanic that many GMs forget is simply to restrict what books you’ll allow. Your game of Ancient Greek heroes may not be imbalanced by including the rules for Pankration in GURPS: Martial Arts, but that particular supplement introduces a lot of complexity for what’s likely to be little payoff (unless you want martial arts to be a focus). Similarly, if the magic system in the core book works fine for you, including GURPS: Magic or GURPS: Thaumatology in your list of allowed books may create more headaches than the new rules are worth. Most of the GURPS supplements are fantastic, but there’s more than enough material for a game in the Basic Set and reducing the reading list makes things easier for players.

Players

GURPS can be tough for players not only because of the relative complexity, but also because there’s so much flexibility in how to execute a character concept with the mechanics. I’ve found that GURPS character creation works best if you try to write the character prior to engaging with the rules. If the GM agrees that the character fits with the campaign idea and the power level, then set out to translate what you’ve already written into the rules. One of GURPS biggest strengths and weaknesses is the staggering number of options available, so narrowing it down before cracking a rulebook helps.

The other benefit to writing a character concept prior to actually creating the character is that it gives you a chance to talk with your GM about the range of concepts they’re looking for and their vision for the campaign. This is a two-way street, also! As a GM my players have often brought things to me that I had never considered, but in a lot of cases those ideas made great additions to a game. If the idea is too far afield your GM will tell you, but having that conversation will help the GM understand what you want to do with your character regardless of whether you go with your original idea or revise it.

In the same vein, have conversations with the other players, whether your group does character creation in a group or not. These conversations have two effects: first, they help you establish what everyone is playing, if there are overlaps, and how your group is likely to work together. Second, if there are players with more GURPS experience, they can point out ways to improve your character build or possible gaps in your skills or equipment.

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Universal systems like GURPS give your group a lot of power to play exactly the game you want without having to invent or adapt things from other systems or from thin air. Unfortunately, when a system tries to have rules for everything, it ends up with a lot of rules. While there’s no doubt that learning GURPS takes some work, once you know what you’re doing you’re rewarded with a system which is rich with detail and can adapt to virtually any imaginable setting. It’s not going to replace every game in your library, but it will serve as an easy toolkit for writing new worlds and campaigns as well as a go-to system for the settings and concepts a bit too niche or weird to have their own published system.

GURPS products are available on the Steve Jackson Games web store, Warehouse 23. Additionally, Steve Jackson Games has begun reprinting GURPS hardcopy sourcebooks using Amazon Createspace.

Warehouse 23

Warehouse 23 is your online source for games and geek toys. Fronted by Steve Jackson Games on behalf of the Illuminati, it offers a wide variety of roleplaying games, card games, and board games from many different companies. Fnord.

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