[Burning Wheel] Suggestions to get your Players to try BW

[Josh]

So you have Burning Wheel (BW).  You realize that it is covered in warm, chocolaty layers of awesome.  Your group is not sold, what do you do?

1.  Trick them - Show up ready to play BW.  Your boldness will catch them off guard, once they play they will be hooked.

2.  Bribe them - Figure out their price and pay it.

3.  Reason with them - Just talk to your players, maybe they will give it a try.

[AfterCrescent]

I will have to try bribing them. I tried tricking them, but they absolutely refused to play and insisted on D&D 3.5...

[Meg]

Josh introduced us to Spirit of the Century through method #1.  Soon as we stopped bitching and complaining and insulting him, we actually had a lot of fun.

1) I'm still a big fan of "This is just for 2 weeks"-- it's just a side game, nothing long term, we'll be back to our regularly scheduled program soon.

Oo, what if in your D&D game, a period of time passes?  And to give it some hippy-dippy realism factor you say you don't want to play that for a couple of weeks so your players' memories fade a little bit too so your characters will react more appropriately?  Then play Burning Wheel for 2 weeks?  Then, go back to your game and each time something comes up that could've been handled better in BW, mumble that under your breath, or hope the players do it themselves. 

2) Have your D&D characters go through some radical portal type thing- just in fun, but they went down the rabbit hole and are playing their characters in BW.  Obviously everything will be different, but it's like someone jumping into a cartoon.  Mechanics are different, but their core personality is the same.

[AfterCrescent]

Ah, so it's a natural reaction for the bitching and complaining to occur when you trick them.

I may combine the "This just for 2 weeks" with bribing them, because some of my members are incredibly stubborn.

The cartoon portal idea would be great for a normal game, but currently I am running a gestalt campaign I have a were-rhino druid with a rhino animal companion, a dark Varag ranger/dervish thing, a changeling fighter//rogue (probably the easiest to port), and a draconic half-fey catfolk (What kind of abomination is that?)... Yeah, those are a bit harder to port

[Meg]

Oh, we were furious at Josh when he tricked us.  But we got over it as soon as we started looking at the book and making characters. 

Let us know what you do to bribe them! 

[TheWordSlinger]

I pulled number 1 by "leaving my campaign notes at college." I really did it, it just wasn't an accident.

[AfterCrescent]

So one of my players said he didn't want to try BW because he didn't want to learn a new system. Then yesterday, he spotted a copy of Werewolf that another player owns and asks if we can play that sometime. :rolleyes I had to tell him the first system besides D&D that he's learning will be Burning Wheel.

[Peaboo]

So you have Burning Wheel (BW).  You realize that it is covered in warm, chocolaty layers of awesome.  Your group is not sold, what do you do?

1.  Trick them - Show up ready to play BW.  Your boldness will catch them off guard, once they play they will be hooked.

2.  Bribe them - Figure out their price and pay it.

3.  Reason with them - Just talk to your players, maybe they will give it a try.

It may be warm, it may be the right color, but that ain't chocolate son.

Tricking players into playing a new game is a very bad idea. Because if the game really sucks, players will be far less inclined to try something new ever again, even if you try method 3.

If a game is that good, why would the players need to be "tricked" into playing it?

Right, it's not that good.

My heart was warmed when Zeke said the game sucks the first 50 times you play it, but once the game "clicks" for you, it's pretty good. I don't give a game 50 tries to click. Maybe it's just me, but it seems BW doesn't want me to like it. It's over complex, and doesn't give me a moment to "click" to it. At Gen Con, I was invited to come on over to play BW. Yes, I did roll my eyes, but at that point I hadn't played ANY games. Went to see the BG's and they had a group of people playing BW already. It was the start of a combat scene. It lasted a long time. So long the group decided it was time to quit playing BW. If it really is that awesome, it should have lasted longer without feeling like it.

Yes, I'm biased. I like D&D's AC/HP system's simplicity. I don't want to wrap my mind around a more complex system.

Roll for positioning, roll to see if you have advantage, roll to attack, roll to defend, roll to re-roll, roll for damage effect, rick roll... pardon while I roll my eyes.

[Josh]

Yes, I'm biased. I like D&D's AC/HP system's simplicity. I don't want to wrap my mind around a more complex system.

OK, but DnD is more complex than that.  In 3.5 it is HP/Fort/Ref/Will/death saves/Dc calculation by level/Spellcasting/dozens of other things.  And those rules were expanded by dozens of supplements.

Burning Wheel is actually a simpler system overall and the way it is constructed further supplements do not expand the ruleset.

So if you like simplicity BW is clearly simpler.   

[Peaboo]

Oh, sure it's more complex than that but when I look at a character sheet, I shouldn't have to ask "How do I know when I'm dead?"

 

[Peaboo]

The other obstacle you have to overcome is people need to want to make characters and/or create the world as part of the game play. Some people like doing that. Some don't really play D&D, but just build characters. Or they create dungeon after dungeon. Some like character building games like Spirit of the Century.

I don't like character creation. My wife is completely burned out on making characters. (To a point I am too.) A game where building the character is part of game play really isn't appealing to us.

[Josh]

Oh, sure it's more complex than that but when I look at a character sheet, I shouldn't have to ask "How do I know when I'm dead?"

 

The funny thing is, you think you just made a point.

The only reason you know in DnD is because you already know.  (When do I die?  At negative 10 hp, of course that's perfectly obvious.)

As for characters, making characters is part of the fun.  You get to do something new and exciting.

[Elennsar]

Not necessarily, on character creation.

As for D&D vs. BW: BW is new. New is always unclear by definition.

[Peaboo]

Oh, sure it's more complex than that but when I look at a character sheet, I shouldn't have to ask "How do I know when I'm dead?"

 

The funny thing is, you think you just made a point.

The only reason you know in DnD is because you already know.  (When do I die?  At negative 10 hp, of course that's perfectly obvious.)

As for characters, making characters is part of the fun.  You get to do something new and exciting.

True, but where's the indication you're dead or half dead in BW? I still have no clue what that wheel thing is, or what the diffference between the B side is from the W side. And why three circles?

And building characters aren't always part of what some see as fun. Some of us are happy with just a D&D 3e fighter level 1-20 with no prestige class or multiclassing. It's like deck building for Magic: the Gathering. Some people love to build decks while others are happy just playing the game.

So again, it's best to check with the players to see if it's the type of game they want to play.

[Shaun]

Yes, I'm biased. I like D&D's AC/HP system's simplicity. I don't want to wrap my mind around a more complex system.

OK, but DnD is more complex than that.  In 3.5 it is HP/Fort/Ref/Will/death saves/Dc calculation by level/Spellcasting/dozens of other things.  And those rules were expanded by dozens of supplements.

Burning Wheel is actually a simpler system overall and the way it is constructed further supplements do not expand the ruleset.

So if you like simplicity BW is clearly simpler.   

I wouldn't say simpler. I'd say, more elegant.