How vested should every player be in the Burning Wheel's rule system?

Question

I am currently pitching a Burning Wheel game for two of my buddies. Most of our group has succumbed to a busy schedule, so its pretty much down to the 3 of us. It's going to be a kind of fantasy Roman-empire meets zombie apocalypse game. This is an idea that everybody thought sounded cool.

One of the players owns the rules and likes BW a lot. The other likes a lot of the ideas behind the game, but is one of the mind set that rules should be somewhat transparent when playing a game.

For a game with the granularity of Burning Wheel, will one player not being extremely vested in the mechanics kill the game? Is there something I can do that will alleviate possible complications, like using Bloody Versus for most of the actions?

Any suggestions are appreciated.

edit:

I should note that I have played and ran Burning Wheel a handful of times before, and love it. I also not only have copies of all of the supplements, but I also have duplicates of the main rule book to let the player borrow. I should also mention that the player in question has played both about 5 sessions before as well as The Sword.

Answer 1

Two possible approaches: use the game as it recommends you use it. Start with only the information in "The Spokes" section: learn just enough to use 'versus tests', the Beliefs/Instincts mechanics, and the rewards system. Then, add bits as you need them, and as the existing players absorb things.

"Not being vested in the mechanics" is one way to look at it, but you can also look at it this way: the player may be OK with learning the game slowly, in play, over time, through "osmosis" and this approach is actually the one that BWHQ (the game designers) recommend. This approach gets people to internalize the mechanics as they play, and then move on to employ new bits to internalize. However, this approach comes with two huge costs: (a) it demands that the referee, at least, have an excellent command over the game as the referee now has the added burden of teaching the game, and facilitating the learning of the game, (b) and it demands that you play over a long period of time. BW is not a simple game: it's emergent properties are subtle and demand that you spend a long time thinking about how the game works to affect the progress of characters.

If you're not going to be playing for a long time, or don't have a great grip on the game itself, you may be best to avoid the game (or let the player who does own the rules and is keen on the game, act as the referee for a while).

You could start with Mouse Guard instead: it uses a lot of the Burning Wheel concepts, but in a generally simpler fashion. (ed: As Adam points out, MG is not "BW Lite", nor is it really intended to be, nor is it really intended to be a stepping stone to BW; however, I still think it's a generally simpler set of mechanics, and shares a lot of the basic mechanical fundamentals of BW, so I suggest it because it might give one player a lighter ramp to climb, and the other player a game that's similar to the one s/he professes to like a lot.)

If you do decide to proceed with Burning Wheel, then I highly recommend that you get copies of the Monster Burner and the Adventure Burner. MB shows you how to build opposition characters for your play, and the way that it goes about this gives you a lot of insight into how the game designers feels that the game should work. AB gives you a model for learning the game, and provides commentary upon that model, again, giving you insight into how the designers feel the game should work.

In particular, AB includes several adventures that are specifically chosen and illuminated, in a way that you can use to get a group off the ground with BW. The first adventure is at its core a one scene con scenario that could use just the spokes of the rules, but also give you concrete ways to add bits and pieces onto the basic fundamentals of the game.

Answer 2

Your setting sounds cool!

I have a sort of counter-example - we approached Burning Wheel full-bore, using the complete system in a six-player game, with varying levels of commitment, and it was a disaster. Obviously the game strongly suggests you not do that, and I'm just confirming that it is a good suggestion. Take it incrementally, start with bloody versus (even if you are a BW expert), and gradually ramp up session to session. A little investment goes a long way, but if that's not possible 100% across the board, if you take it one sub-system at a time you can learn as you go.

Answer 3

The player needs to be willing to cope with beliefs, instincts, and goals, intent-vs-task, spending and earning Artha, FoRK's, and character generation. They need to understand the relative value of skills: 2 is not much better than unskilled with average atts... and 4 is pretty decent when one uses a FoRK or two.

Anything past that is pretty much gravy.

And Mouse Guard is a very different game despite the same core resolution system. While it will help with learning the value of stats, skills, and Artha, and with writing beliefs, it plays very differently.

Answer 4

I have some experience playing Burning Wheel with players who are not invested in engaging the rules, or who are actively opposed to engaging the rules directly. Frankly, it doesn't work.

Burning Wheel only really works when the players are actively using the player-facing mechanics to inject stuff into the fiction, using Wises, Circles, and loaded BITRs. The reward cycle similarly breaks down when players aren't interested in directly engaging the Artha system. Players who aren't interested in yanking on those parts of the system for game advantage aren't channeled into using them by the game, and can't be forced to by the GM.

Without those mechanics in play, Burning Wheel is just an unusually-heavy, traditional-feeling system.

Answer 5

"You could start with Mouse Guard instead: it uses a lot of the Burning Wheel concepts, but in a generally simpler fashion."

I would avoid this. They seem similar on the surface but Mouse Guard is definitely not a rules-light version of BW. They are very different machine, in the long run.

Answer 6

There are examples of whole campaigns on the Burning Wheel forum that never used the Fight or Duel of Wits subsystems and that handled conflict with Versus and Bloody Versus. So if the two of you into the mechanics won't feel the loss of those subsystems, I don't see why the three of you would have any problems playing without them.

Answer 7

If you only have three people aroung the table, and one of them isn't interested in engaging the system, the other two of you will need to do that much more work to keep the game going. You'll probably all be happier with a system that all three of you can engage with.

(I tried a Burning Wheel game set in the Jihad setting -- Dune with the serial numbers filed off. Of six people at the table, one refused to engage the system, so she was feeble in combat and ineffective at things her character should have been competent or highly skilled at. That discrepancy pretty much torpedoed the game.)

Answer 8

As long as the player is willing to burn up a character and write up kick-ass beliefs, I'd be willing to give it a go and see how it went. System mastery really will make a difference, though, and they will see the other player having more success through use and understanding of the system.

Answer 9

Why this guy is playing games at all if he don't want to be engaged in rules? If you play Monopoly, Risk, poker, etc - you need to learn. That's just plain lazy. Is he from the past?

Just use rules as written. When this guy will see how much fun other two have he'll probably understand that today "rules matter".