Burning Wheel - The Sword

Last Friday I run The Sword for some people. Most were quite familiar with Burning Wheel one was not. I didnt feel it went that great, I didnt mention anything on the spot because I wanted to give it some thought first. Hopefully everyone who was involved will read this and not be offended by my take on it all.

First up I gave out the Characters. I also gave the person who was not familiar with BW an overview of Intent and Stakes. Unfortunatley I didnt read out the blurb on each character from the booklet which meant people were probably not clear on the best way for their character to participate.

Started well with a dual of wits between the Roden and the Dwarf - Roden wanted to be paid double, Dwarf wanted to pay when they got out of the dungeon. It was a tie with both hitting zero in the same action. The compromise was that the Roden would be paid his agreed to amount once the sword was found. Everyone seemed to really like the Dual of Wits.

The sword was found and the dwarf paid (with no help from the elf or human) needless to say he was taxed into the ground. Probably should have made him do a Greed test to make him get some helping dice from the others.

Meanwhile the Criminal tried to steal the sword and was noticed by the elf who stood and did nothing. He then tried to conceal the sword about his person and make a run for it. He used Tomb-Wise to find a secret exit but failed - there was a secret door but the dwarf was standing on it. No one was going to stand for the criminal stealing the sword so out broke the fight! It not the most intelligent move on behalf of the criminal (I put this down to not giving a good briefing on how to play each character, of course when someone spots the word "criminal" they assume a typical D&D "take anything thats not bolted down" thief)

The fight started well but I think I failed a bit in not asking for clear intents for positioning and actions, it made the system a bit mechanical and not as interesting. For example once the elf established he would use ManWise for a FoRK on his sword skill he would just automatically take the dice everytime. I should have made sure he stated an intent that explicitely brought Man Wise into play each time he tried to use it. Another thing was that even after the Criminal became wounded he just kept going as if nothing had happened, i think at that point he should really have given up and made up a dodgy excuse instead he just kept on going until he was knocked unconscious.

Also there was a bit of distracted talking while others were resolving actions during the Fight! which meant many people were talking at the same time, something i really dislike! One good point though is that I was able to pull off a multiparticipant fight quite easily, I think I have grokked positioning to about 80%.

Considering everything The sword is an excellent introduction to the burning wheel rules. I would happily run it again especially after learning so much from this session!