Is Mouse Guard (Burning Wheel System) Good?

[Zinegata]

I've been leafing through it recently and it seems fun and cute... but mechanically it seems a little confusing and very different from D20.

Has anyone tried it?

[Wesley Street]

I'm planning to in the near future. But, no, haven't played it yet.

[souran]

I asked about burning wheel in general (and a question about mouseguard as well) a while ago, hoping to hear about people who have played it and if its worth the investment.

I got very little response. It seems like there are just not a lot of people with experience with it.

Frank made a few comments, and amazingly none of them were negative. Which is a certain kind of praise in itself. However mostly I heard a lot of nothing about that system.

[ETortoise]

I can't comment on the Mouse Guard game because I haven't played it (but the comics are great).

I've played a little Burning Wheel however and found it fun though I had to change the way I was used to playing. My RPG group generally played D&D and we were used to the paradigm where the DM makes a plot and the players go through it. I had tried to get BW going with that group and it failed.

Later I got together with some people who had played BW before and things made a lot more sense. We spent the first session on prep. We decided on the setting and talked about our character concepts. Then we burned our characters which gave them their back stories and relationships (and stats). All the major NPCs were characters we had bought as relationships.

Unfortunately the GM had to go and get a job but it had been shaping up to be a lot of fun.

[Lago PARANOIA]

I only skimmed the rules and that was almost a year ago.

I do own a copy of Mouse Guard and I can go through it more thoroughly for a Lago Patented(tm) review if you'd like.

[souran]

Please do. I really would like to know if burning wheel is worth the investment.

[Username17]

I haven't done Burning Wheel proper. Mouse Guard is basically a dicepool system with fixed target number 4, and is apparently a "simplified" version of Burning Wheel. It's very story centric, with die rolls made on the level of goals rather than actions. So it's very fast, if fairly abstract. So you make a roll to fight the snake, not to swing your sword at the snake.

It is very structured (extremely fixed numbers of tests made during the entire evening), and very abstract (a single die roll represents the entire team getting through the rainstorm that fills their hole with water and washes out their food supplies). But the structure supports the abstractness and vice versa, so you don't get bogged down in a lot of "what do I do next?" questions as often happens with both highly structured and highly abstract games.

My impression is that the simplifications made to Burning Wheel on the whole improve the game.

-Username17

[RiotGearEpsilon]

Burning Wheel is not kind. It's essentially engineered so that no matter what level you are, it's brutally difficult to accomplish anything. Victory is rare and precious. The ultimate effect is that playing the game is so frustrating I eventually had to quit a game with people I really liked because it was making me neurotic and I was dreading the game.

[K]

I've been poking around their wiki for free bits of mechanics to pore over, and I have to say that it looks fascinating.

First impression is that it has too many stats and too much synergy between various traits, and the dice-roll mechanics are unnecessarily complex (three tiers of difficulty, and some exploding 6s rolls), but that can be said for 3e DnD and that's pretty playable.

The renaming of terms is also a little annoying (why call a "not success" a "fail" or "not a success" instead of "a traitor"?)

I'll keep poking around. Several pieces seem like real innovations like "Instincts," which are just pre-actions you write on your character sheet. You could seriously save time during a session if you just say "I check for trap on doors and chests before I open them."

[Count Arioch the 28th]

Only thing I know about Burning Wheel is Josh of Brilliantgameologist at one point WOULD NOT SHUT UP about it.

I found it a bit annoying, but he seems to really want people to push the system. I would go there for questions about the system.

[K]

Only thing I know about Burning Wheel is Josh of Brilliantgameologist at one point WOULD NOT SHUT UP about it.

I found it a bit annoying, but he seems to really want people to push the system. I would go there for questions about the system.

I don't think I'll get too deep into it. The combat system has these really complicated sheets and I can't figure out how the listed abilities fit into those sheets.... sure, I don't have the books, but if the DM screen, character sheets, listed abilities, and adventures don't give me some idea of how combat works, it's probably too complicated to be any fun (I mean, there is a whole table for Weapon Lengths being compared for opposing enemies... wtf?).

The randomizing factors in character generation are also pretty pointless. I don't know if all races are like this, but Orcs have this weird thing where the more Paths you take the more chances of getting an unusable character and it's a random chance. It basically means you want to roll up more and more characters until you get a nice run going and have this uber-character.

[TavishArtair]

I'll keep poking around. Several pieces seem like real innovations like "Instincts," which are just pre-actions you write on your character sheet. You could seriously save time during a session if you just say "I check for trap on doors and chests before I open them."

Beliefs and Instincts are 100% hack-portable to other game systems since they are purely descriptive efforts, as long as the referee is willing to both acknowledge and incorporate them into his work.

Combat occurs in three phases, wherein you script your actions for those three phases in private and then reveal what your actions are. So basically you pre-decide your actions for three rounds and then start rolling with them, and there's a few ways to "abort" if I recall correctly but they don't really let you do something else, just stop what you were doing.

[ETortoise]

Combat in BW is interesting and can be very frustrating. You write down your actions for an 'exchange' choosing from things such as 'strike', 'block', 'feint' and several others. Then you make a positioning test, gaining advantage dice for your character's speed and weapon length. If you win the test you either maintain, withdraw or close your distance. Once positioning is determined actions happen simultaneously. So if I script a strike for my first action and you script a block then we roll an opposed test but If we both script strike we have a very good chance of mutually fucking each other up.

I've run a bunch of practice combats outside of a campaign and they can get very fun once you've figured out how your opposing player tends to script. In a way Fight! (the name for the combat system) is very much a game in and of itself.

Burning Wheel is not kind. It's essentially engineered so that no matter what level you are, it's brutally difficult to accomplish anything. Victory is rare and precious.

Yeah in the campaign I was in we mostly fucked up and had to deal with the repercussions. Although the story did progress in fun and interesting directions from our failures. We didn't really get the chance to advance our characters and learn the game as players before the campaign fell through though.

[Zinegata]

Yes Lago please post your review.

[K]

Combat in BW is interesting and can be very frustrating. You write down your actions for an 'exchange' choosing from things such as 'strike', 'block', 'feint' and several others. Then you make a positioning test, gaining advantage dice for your character's speed and weapon length. If you win the test you either maintain, withdraw or close your distance. Once positioning is determined actions happen simultaneously. So if I script a strike for my first action and you script a block then we roll an opposed test but If we both script strike we have a very good chance of mutually fucking each other up.

I've run a bunch of practice combats outside of a campaign and they can get very fun once you've figured out how your opposing player tends to script. In a way Fight! (the name for the combat system) is very much a game in and of itself.

Again, it sounds really interesting, but I think this is one of those games that really needs a new edition to smooth out the rough spots.

[Gelare]

I've played Mouse Guard several times. The incentives line up in such a way that encourage a lot of arguing with the GM to say this trait or that skill should apply, or begging to do a skill check because the way you get better at skills is by doing them, but you can only do a certain number of skill checks under your own volition and have to beg the DM for the rest. Also there's a lot of things that just...aren't covered. When my group brought this up on the Mouse Guard forums, we were told by the maker of the game, yup, the rules don't cover that and I don't want them to, sounds like you should go play Burning Wheel.

[TheWorid]

As a reader of the comic book, I was happy to hear of an RPG adaptation. The Mouse Guard combat system is interesting, and the simplification of the system seems like an overall improvement from Burning Wheel.

However, the GM Turn/Player turn system is extremely artificial and restrictive, and many of the mechanics are vague are sure to provoke argument.

[ETortoise]

Again, it sounds really interesting, but I think this is one of those games that really needs a new edition to smooth out the rough spots.

I won't disagree with you there. The official forums have a lot of people who come in (me included) and basically ask "how do I play this game?"

Edit: I just checked the website and it seems their new book is the Adventure Burner which "provides a system for setting up and running sessions, adventures and campaigns". A much needed system I would say.

[souran]

Combat in BW is interesting and can be very frustrating. You write down your actions for an 'exchange' choosing from things such as 'strike', 'block', 'feint' and several others. Then you make a positioning test, gaining advantage dice for your character's speed and weapon length. If you win the test you either maintain, withdraw or close your distance. Once positioning is determined actions happen simultaneously. So if I script a strike for my first action and you script a block then we roll an opposed test but If we both script strike we have a very good chance of mutually fucking each other up.

I've run a bunch of practice combats outside of a campaign and they can get very fun once you've figured out how your opposing player tends to script. In a way Fight! (the name for the combat system) is very much a game in and of itself.

This sounds like a less complicated version of "The riddle of Steel" (I wonder has anybody ever review Riddle here? ) I think that that combat sounds interesting and its nice that it manages to have tactical interest without needing minatures or a battle mat. those are major plusses in a lot of ways.

The problem is that the system you described to me seems like it would be damn near impossible for the game master ro run more than a single bad guy effectively! So your party can fight an ogre or a dragon but fighting a half dozen goblins makes the game masters head explode.

[souran]

Ok, so I went to the burning wheel forums and looked for some sample fights.

They do have them, and they even have the writers discussing what people are doing wrong.

However, it seems to me to be TERRIBLY cluttered and yes handeling more than 1 person would be a massive pain in the ass.

Sigh, maybe we should have a den project to build the best fantasy combat engine/minigame we can and then around that build up the rest of the dens ultimate fantasy heartbreaker.

[mean_liar]

On it. If only I could stop writing up Ars Magica characters for RPOL...

[Username17]

Sigh, maybe we should have a den project to build the best fantasy combat engine/minigame we can and then around that build up the rest of the dens ultimate fantasy heartbreaker.

The thing is that there is no single perfect combat minigame, because what you fit in the scope of your battles will determine what's necessary, extraneous, fiddly, or awesome.

If you just want to do dueling, you probably want a system something like Queen's Blade, with declarations of intent and direct maneuver comparison to produce a result. Expanding that to a third player turns things into a ghastly 3 body problem and you don't want to go there.

If you want to do squad battles, you probably want something like Chronopia, with a very abstracted individual and units moving together to control physical table space. But of course, if the players are trying to play just a single model, such a system is unsatisfying.

If you want to do Avatar style magic kung fu battles, you probably want something like Magic or Lunchmoney. Where people play cards to do outlandish and wholly arbitrary effects.

And so on. Depending upon what you want your combat to accomplish, and how much time you want people to spend doing it, your ideal combat system will be unrecognizably different.

-Username17

[Hieronymous Rex]

Several pieces seem like real innovations like "Instincts," which are just pre-actions you write on your character sheet. You could seriously save time during a session if you just say "I check for trap on doors and chests before I open them."

I disagree on the "innovation" bit. Players using Standard Operating Procedures is an old as dirt practice.

[Archmage]

It's not common for it to be mentioned in game mechanics, though, or for it to be outright suggested by the game's sourcebooks as a time-saver.

[K]

Several pieces seem like real innovations like "Instincts," which are just pre-actions you write on your character sheet. You could seriously save time during a session if you just say "I check for trap on doors and chests before I open them."

I disagree on the "innovation" bit. Players using Standard Operating Procedures is an old as dirt practice.

Well, I've found that SOPs have always been a thing people argue about. At best, a PC dedicated to a kind of action might have one or sometimes two things they pre-agree with the DM about.

Creating a whole action sub-system around the idea is pretty innovative, especially considering that actions in BW seem to be simultaneously declared.