T&T hacks - Burning Wheel

As the first post in this new series, I'm going to take a cue from Luke Crane's game Burning Wheel.

In BW you have these psychological traits called Beliefs. They are things your character are all about. It's things that define your character, and things that you can not miss or ignore when interacting with that character. In short, it's a great way to tell your GM what kind of game you want to play.

The second thing is Instincts. These are stylish markers for how your PC behaves. They are things that will work great for colour, but also short cut some of the "grind" actions you'll want to do. 

Let's show some examples. There's a great one in the BW rules about Beliefs, let's look at that. "People feel better when lied to". How about that? It makes it clear that your PC is somewhat of a cynic, and that you want to lie a lot. Excellent role playing tag, and a hint to the GM that you want to interact with people and lie to them.

To incorporate this into your T&T game, do just like in BW. Pick at least one, and up to three, and write them on your character sheet.

Next, let's look at Instincts.

An Instinct is a if < this > then < that > kind of routine. They will help your character stand out, and also help you not forget to do that thing, which might be a life saver. Again, let's look at an example. "I always use a glove when opening a door". There you go, it makes you look cool and it might save your hide when you encounter a contact poison. The GM could even allow you to make a SR after the fact to notice the odd powder or smell on your glove, telling you what you just evaded. Maximum game fun.

To incorporate this into your T&T game, list one or up to three Instincts on your sheet.

I guess I managed to convey the value of the Instincts, but what about the Beliefs? Well, in Burning Wheel they have many different flavours of what we call Adventure Points in T&T. I think the simplest way is to just say that every time your character in game acts upon one of her Beliefs, you gain 100 AP. It pays to practice what you preach, if you see what I mean?

If you feel a Belief has run it's course, save up 1000 AP and buy it off, exchanging it for something new. Don't make Beliefs something cheap. It will cost you to turn your back on something that defined your character!

I hope you think these hacks sounds interesting and inspire you to try them, or your own variant thereof, in your next T&T game.

Fight on!

Reading T&T 7.5 - Saving Rolls p.99-126

So, now we have come to that mechanic which makes us T&T fans rave so much about the game. Usually I don't talk that directly about rules here. I think you should buy the rules to find out. Today I think I will, though.

What's the fuss all about then? Nothing much, but it has implications. Starting the section on Saving Rolls, we read that sometimes only luck can save a delver. That's when you roll a SR. Rolling a SR is done with two dice, and then you add a relevant stat, like LK och STR. If you meet a target number, depending on difficulty, you succeed. Easy ones, level 1, is TN 20 and then it increase by five per level.

Nothing special, eh? Well. One nice feature is that when you roll doubles, you add and roll again! I love exploding dice, and ever since I encountered it in MERP during the 1980-ies I have loved that mechanic. The feeling when you really need to succeed and you get those two 5 staring back at you, roll again and get two 4 and roll again and get more, is priceless! That's why I couldn't play diceless. Random chance is just to much fun.

Now imagine doing this for anything, at any time, to resolve any crazy idea you get. Why would you? Because of AP.

Just after the section on Saving Rolls, with two very good examples of different SRs, we start to read on Adventure Points. These are used to raise your stats, and you gain them from, among other activities, rolling SRs. Note, you get it for rolling, not for suceeding! There's no reason not to try to do something cool, because you will get a reward in the form of AP, just for trying. This is a game where being active counts. The rules in this section is very well written with many examples sprinkled throughout, this is also true for the section on Adventure Points.

I remember when I first heard of Feng Shui, by Robin Laws. Chinese action movies are something I enjoy a lot, and that game seemed very fun. But, when I read it I didn't feel the love like I expected. I didn't feel the game mechanic inspired me to do over the top action stunts. Removing obstacles is one thing, but providing wires for the wire-fu and bullets for my gun was something else. Then I encountered Wushu - the ancient art of action role-playing. This was a game that gave me what I wanted! For every weird stunt you try, the easier it is to succeed. That, is a stroke of design genius. That is how I feel about the interplay of Saving Rolls and Adventure Points.

Adventure points you can get for slaying monsters, outwitting them, casting spells and any thing the GM feel is worth rewarding. How they are used, and how fast a progression the game will have is discussed in the rules, and more than one way presented for quicker and slower games. In my games my played by the book, and I let my players raise their stats as soon as they could. In the middle of a fight someone would take a look at their stats, ask for a SR and I would gladly allow it and then see them raise the stat and continue the fight. Entertainment was guaranteed when they scrambled for that SR and a few more points.

I will close with one thing our game designer feel is worthy of Adventure Points is Daring. Daring is described as the difficulty and danger of the tunnels and encounters for a session. Exposing your character to danger is worthy of reward if you survive. Think about this quote: "A general guideline is to reward 100 AP for each level of dungeon or difficulty that is overcome".

How do you handle that? If the delvers go down to level 3, do you give them 300 as they set foot on level 2? Going down a chute and at once going up again using an elevator from level 9, is that worth 900? You get no strict advice from the rules. I found this to be a very charming and very old school so I rewarded 100 times the deepest level visited and encountered something, when my players was back in town alive. Combine this with the stable rule, and there are interesting strategic options of resource management available to the game.

Next week it's time for Magic

Reading T&T 7.5 - Adventure Points p.29-30

Welcome back to T&T Friday! Today I'll talk mostly about Adventure Points, and also a bit about the small interspersed pieces of game mastering advice the author have sprinkled his text with.

Our read through today start at page 29. Here we finish up the character generation by mentioning some things apart from abilities and kin which would have to go unto the character sheet.

Adventure Points is the first. What is interesting with those, apart from how fun it is to see your character get better, is how they are presented here in which is really the player's part of the rules. Ken writes:

They are the most mysterious aspect of life on Trollworld -- it is as though the gods themselves were keeping track of the players' actions and scoring them, handing out rewards and occationally punishments for all actions undertaken during the course of one's adventures.

This is a very fun attitude, I think. There's no pretense here about any simulation of a secondary world. Adventure points are given by the gods, and they are an interesting mix up of the reality of the game and the reality of the players. A quote like this succinctly encapsulates the feel of the rules text.Note that it also gives you a hint of how to play the game! Just like the gods award their followers, sometimes giving and taking, you as a GM and player can anticipate the AP to come and go. Play loose and reward actions, good and bad. I like the implication here that your actions have consequences, in a lighthearted way. You play a game and try to score points. Simple enough.

Then there are mentions of Weapons, Armor, Languages, Magic and Equipment. All of this is self explanatory stuff, really. What is interesting, though, is that under Armor there is a hint of something from a former edition. Back in the days, armor was ablative. It meant that when you took damage the armor absorbed it for you, but got hurt in the process. While the idea of damaged armor is mentioned here in an off-hand remark, I think an opportunity is missed by not mentioning that armor effect as a boxed note, or something, for the GM to use an an interesting optional rule. I'm beginning to think that the game would have benefitted from a section for players and another for Game Masters. The fact that e.g. AP is explained and expanded upon on p.102 almost gives this impression, but in a more confused manner. I'd have liked to see it done more purposefully.

Lastly before the big section on Talents, we have a short but interesting section on encumbrance and how it affects the life on Trollworld. The idea of tracking weight is "for the purists in the audience", and I must confess I ditched that rule myself in my campaign. What is interesting here is first that Ken mention the old Weight Units (1/10 of a pound) which have been in the game for many editions, but we get no real reason not to just use kilos or pounds. Secondly, we have a paragraph about how this affects people in Trollworld:

the delvers of Trollworld have developed wonderful packs for stowing stuff, and their clothing is full of all sorts of pockets, pouches, belts with hooks, and so forth. It's funny to visualize, but the heavily laden dungeon delver probably looks more like a boy scout leader buried under packs and gear than he does a medieval warrior.

I can't emphasize enough how that picture evokes the wonder of delving for me! No "dungeon punk" attitude with spikes and impossible poses. For a game that is so unashamedly a game, with its wacky logic, this for me gives a stamp of "realism" to it. Don't sweat the details, but imagine how fun this looks, eh? I like that.


Next up: Talents!