The REAL Burning Empires Review (Second Attempt)

Everyone knows one of those GMs: the bastards. The ones who seem to get off on the suffering they inflict, who try as  hard as they can to loophole your characters into oblivion and, when they do, crow about it? Yeah, him. Picture his face. Then picture the look on his face when you tell him there's a game that's designed specially for him. Then imagine the look on his face when he reads the rules and realizes that you can punch him back in game, and that the playing field has been mostly leveled. 

Isn't that satisfying?

Welcome to Burning Empires.

Burning Empires is based off of Burning Wheel, the famous indie fantasy RPG (which, if you've been reading this blog, you really don't need another intro to). And by based I mean it looks really similar until you start to play it. Because of this, it's really not helpful to look at Burning Empires in terms of how it relates to Burning Wheel, but on it's own merits. So I'll do that. 

Burning Empires is based off of the comic book series Iron Empires, which are about the body-snatching Vaylen trying to take over what's left of the human race in the far future. I haven't read the comics and so I can't vouch for them, but I hear they're very good. Anyway, Burning Empires was made to replicate that series. The central theme of the game is based around what you're willing to sacrifice in order to win the war, and the mechanics do this pretty darned well.  How? Well, first you have to build your world, then your characters, and then you play out the characters fighting for what they believe in even if it means sacrificing a whole lot along the way.

Building the Wheel

The first thing you do is burn your world. You pick from a series of lists and ideas that are in the book, and get your overall disposition (another word for "hit-points"). You decide where the planet is in the interstellar empire that is the Iron Empires, it's geography, it's main government and industry, and all sorts of things like that. There are three disposition numbers per side (human and vaylen) and they're usually in the GM's favor. You decide upon what the general problems of the planet are that the Vaylen can take advantage of, which then informs your character burning. THE MOST IMPORTANT THING TO REMEMBER IS TO USE THE REFERENCE LIST OF IMPORTANT SKILLS FOR EACH PHASE THAT'S IN THIS SECTION. DO NOT MISS THIS, BECAUSE IT WILL WIND YOU UP WITH VERY UNHAPPY PLAYERS. I put that in all caps for a reason (I might have missed it, and my players and I suffered as a result...)

Last thing to do before character burning? Decide who the Figures of Note are. Figures of Note are characters the big dogs of the planet. They're the ones who actually make everything work. You're only allowed to have up to three per side. Each phase features one.

Character burning is the arduous process of making a character. You make this character by deciding upon his history: where was he born? What did he do as a child? As a teen? An adult? and so on. These questions are answered by the concept of lifepaths, which give you the stat, skill, and trait points that you need to build up your character. I'm not going to lie, it can get pretty hairy for a beginner, especially if you're used to something more like DnD where you can just pick whatever you want. Here you will face consequences for each of your decisions, and you will be closed off from some things for good. Trust me, it's worth it! 

Before the mechanical stuff you decide the most important stuff about your character: Beliefs and Instincts. Beliefs are the top three priorities you the player have for the character, written from the character's point of view. They can include goals ("I will save my brother the duke or lose my honor!") to ideologies ("The Burning Wheel is the source of all truth") to a mix of the two ("The Burning Wheel is the source of all truth, and it commands me to protect my brother the duke. I will do so or lose my honor!"). This is not a case of you getting into your character's head and figuring out what he wants: it's naked metagaming of "what would I like this character to be about?" You get rewarded for acting on these Beliefs in such a way as to drive the story forward.

Instincts are the top three gut reactions you find interesting about your character. They can include things you'd figure he'd learn from one his lifepaths ("Never turn down tail")  to gear-related ("Always have a gun at my side") to skill oriented ("Whenever there's nothing to do practice my sharpshooting"). There are very specifics reactions to specific events. You get rewarded for intentionally ignoring your Instinct when doing so would get your character into trouble.

Traits are small bits of mechanical stuff that you attach to your character.They either help with characterization, muck with the game rules in your favor, or muck with the dice.All three are extremely good to have around. You get rewarded for using traits if it pushes the story in an unexpected route or if it hurts your character to use the trait. 

The GM also makes characters for the opposing side. They follow almost the same rules as your characters, with some leeway given to the GM since he'll always be outnumbered in this game. These characters also get  BITs (Beliefs, Instincts, and Traits) who get rewarded for all the same things we just talked about. 

Turning the Wheel

Now that you know some of the basics of making characters and what they get rewarded for doing, let's turn to actually playing the game. Yeah, I know, that was a lot already. Well, it's all worth it. The campaign is divided into three phases: Infiltration, Usurpation, and Invasion. The first phase centers around the Vaylen using the planet's existing conflicts to get a foothold on the world, with the humans unconsciously stopping that from happening (for the most part). Usurpation is focused on the Vaylen trying to get as many of the Figures of Note and other officials under their wing as soon as possible. And Invasion is exactly as it sounds. 

So the first thing you do is decide which phase you'll be starting in. If you want a full campaign start in Infiltration, and work your way up. You then start figuring out your maneuvers. Maneuvers are the big moves of the game. The GM picks his move in private, and then sits back and allows the players to pick theirs. They then start to role-play the characters doing their thing. There are a number of scenes the players and GM gets to use to accomplish their goal. Each player gets one of these scenes. No, you may not do "whatever you want", you should go by the scene structure. Why? It's a competition. You're not just role-playing, you're trying to win! Anyway, at the end of the series of scenes you played out the players and GM reveal exactly which maneuver they picked, and then one character from each side rolls to see what happens in the big picture, which determines how successful you actually are. Usually you're trying to target the other side's disposition with your roll. Once a side is knocked down to 0 disposition the phase is over. It's a really tense roll, I can promise you that. After the maneuver roll everyone gets rewarded as mentioned above, with Fate, Persona, and possibly Deeds!

Fate points allow you to re-roll 6s on a single test. They're a nice last-minute stopgap against failure. Persona allow you to add one die per point spent, to a maximum of three. And the almighty Deeds point lets you double your base stat or skill. You also get rewarded for roleplay, being the most useful, making that big roll that would have made things go badly in your failure had it been anyone but you doing it, and so on. After you're done with rewards, you play another maneuver, and then give out rewards again. 

The Physics, Large and Small

Oh goodness, there's MORE?? Well, I could lie and say no, but then you leave out some of the best parts of Burning Empires! S'yeah, there's more. Suck it up and keep reading.

Burning Empires is a d6 dice pool game: your characters have numbers next to their stats and skills, and that's how many six-siders you roll. 4-6 is a success. You're trying to beat the target number, or Ob, with a certain number of successes. Failure means the GM (y'know, the opposition?) gets to muck with your intent somehow. You may help each other and use FORKs (Fields of Related Knowledge) to get your skills higher, but that'll mess with your advancement. Skills and stats increase as you use them, there's no leveling system to save anything you don't use all the time. You may also train skills in game, but I don't recommend that, since you'll just be handing another win to the GM, who is already cackling with glee as he imagines hulling your character and getting to use him on his side. Finally, there's the Let it Ride rule, which means you can't roll multiple times for the same test. If you succeed, you're successful as long as the situation doesn't change in a meaningful way. If you fail, the same applies. You have to then try to change the situation itself. But considering that, thanks to the scene economy you'll probably only get one die roll a maneuver (more if you pick the extended conflict, but we'll get to that) it's a pretty big deal whether you succeed or not.

And then there's the extended conflict mechanics, which are The Duel of Wits and Firefight! All these work the same basic way. It's essentially the maneuver roll put into a smaller context. Choose three moves in secret, and then play them against the other side, one at a time. If no one's disposition was knocked out by that volley, pick another three! And don't worry, you roll a smaller disposition then the one you did for the phases. This doesn't directly influence your larger disposition. Do not let your DnD-instincts (if you have any) get in the way of these extended conflict mechanics. Once I got used to it, I found that I couldn't really go back to standard initiative. Why? Well, this is really dynamic and intense. You literally have no idea what is going to happen next. Firefights! in particular get unpredictable, with characters in mortal danger from the very start. There are no smaller fight mechanics beyond a simple versus test, so if you want to get anything done, this is it! If you have preconceptions of what fights and arguments should look like, throw them all out and give this a try.

There's a lot more going on, but frankly you don't need to know about it to get the game or not. And by this time? You should probably have a good idea of whether you want it or not. If you're a die-hard rules-lite dude, do NOT get this game. Just, save yourself the 45 bucks (hardcopy, there's a pdf for 20) and find something else. For anyone else who wants to take a shot a war-game RPG, this here is a good bit. There are a lot of crunchy bits that move around and look confusing, but if you get past the learning curve and give this game an honest shot I promise you'll be very happy you did. In the (so far) one time I ran this game, the players had a blast. We were playing on a prison planet of liquid oxygen, and as a last-ditch effort they blew up the whole planet rather than let the Vaylen get it! The role-playing was incredibly intense, and the plot was moving like a roller coaster. The mechanics make for a very intense and fast game, one that will leave you a bit breathless and surprised. 

Give it a shot. You won't be disappointed. 

Please Help This Priest!

This priest has faithfully served his parishes in Africa for years, and now he needs a truck to consider serving. All you need to do is donate a little bit, even if it's just a buck. Please help this guy out!

GM, Know Thyself

Whenever you sit down to GM a game, you think about a few things, but do you ask the most obvious question: "What do I, as a player, want out of this game?" Because you're a player, Mr. GM! You're supposed to have fun. You are not beholden to the group for the type of fun you want to have. If anything, they're at your mercy, since you're the one who's directing the game. This isn't to say that you abuse this: it's a game, everyone needs to have agreement of some sort. But GM's sometimes forget they're players too. They just play a different role. 

What role is that? Well, your chief role is that of arbiter. You are the the representation of the other side of the imagined dream-space, the laws of physics, you represent adversity. All other roles are secondary to this one, because without this one the vast majority of games fall apart. Yes, there are GM-less games. If you're reading this article you're obviously not playing one of those games, so arbiter is your chief role. Everything else is secondary in running the game, but no less important. 

You'll notice that nowhere in the previous paragraph did I say that the GM made up the stories, that he put forward his own vision for a game, or even that he had anything to do with the story at all! But he does, doesn't he? Since the beginning of time the GM has something to do with guiding the game. We could go into why, but that's a bit beyond the scope and intent of the article. We're here to discuss how you want to be a part of the story your group will make. There are three basic extremes, each based upon the three things I'd talked about earlier. They're that of passive, active, and aggressive. 

Passive: The Passive Extreme is fun because it allows the GM to sit back and just let the players do their thing. They don't really want to effect the shared dream-space more than they absolutely have to. Think of a drop of water: it falls into another body of water. What happens? The drop of water falls, and the laws of physics take over. This type of GM usually just makes sure that that drop of water's effects take place, but nothing more. You might stick your head in and take care of things every once in a while, but for the most part the GM has fun enforcing the natural consequences of actions. Dungeon World is an RPG that sets this up the best. The GM just prepares the fronts, throws them at players, and watches what they do. He then applies consequences based upon the player's actions more than any agenda he's got. The weakness of a Passive Extreme is that they often don't come up with an overarching plot, making the game meander.

Active: You don't sit back,you stick your nose in. Fail that Climbing check? The bishop whom you hate more than anyone else is at the top, and he helps you up. Now you have to deal with him. The Active GM has an idea, he wants to get his point across, he has a vision. While he does make sure that the natural gaming world gets enforced, he's far more interested in throwing his own two cents in. Usually these people come up with incredible plots and characters and want their players to experience what they came up with. Burning Wheel is the quintessential Active Extreme game.  The weakness of the Active Extreme is that they are prone to rail-roading on the drop of a hat because they forget this isn't just their story, it's the everyone's. 

Aggressive: We all know those GMs, don't we? The dicks. The ones who love to beat up their players. The  GMs who, on failed checks, make the world go to hell in a hand-basket because they think it's fun. Yeah, that's not the type of GM I'm talking about. He's just a jerk, the perversion of this type. I'm talking about the GMs who openly tell you that they're out to get your characters. That your character is a piece in a wargame, and he is intent on winning. Notice that? He wants to win. He'll play by the rules (hopefully), and he's not a jerk, but you know he's out to get you. And that's fine, actually. As long as he's open about it, and the players are fine with the fact that this GM is so damn competitive that he wants to turn the story into an epic struggle in and of itself. Old-school Dungeons and Dragons is usually what we think of, but a more clear example is Burning Empires. The GM is out to win, and he is bound by the rules of the game, same as the players. Granted, the rules grant him different abilities, but that doesn't change the fact that the GM's open and stated goal is to kick the crap out of the players. 

Now, the important thing to remember is that these are extremes. One is not likely to always want the same thing out of a different game. I know GMs who were playing it passive for a while all of a sudden become very aggressive. But can you "fit" into one of these extremes? Of course you do, otherwise everyone would be the same and it would be boring. So think about what you want out of the game, and how you get enjoyment out of it. It'll help you not only pick a game that'll help out your style, but it'll signal to the other players what you're in the mood for. And clear communication is always helpful.

In Which I, Your Intrepid Blogger, Die of Happiness...

WOOTSAUCE!!!! BURNING WHEEL HQ'S ANNOUNCED THEIR NEW GAME!!!!

I have no idea who she is. I don't care.

Dan Slott's a Genius: The Superior Spider-Man vs. Urich's Hobgoblin

In this corner is Otto Octavius, aka Peter Parker, aka The Superior Spider-Man. He started off not all that great, as Dr. Octopus, and went through a variety of evil ambitions, from trying to fry the planet to taking over New York City. His last scheme was to rob Peter Parker of his identity, born of his dumb luck and Peter's better nature. His intention? Do whatever he wants in Peter's body. Peter, of course, stepped in, and gave Otto a sense of responsibility for his actions. Since then Otto has gone on to rid the city of more crime than Peter ever did, and kill a mad-man who was believed to be beyond all redemption, as well as cutting Mary-Jane loose for good so that way she'll no longer be in any danger. OK, so he went and became a bit big-brother-esque and brutalized a bunch of bullies, but no one's perfect, right? Right!

AND IN THIS CORNER!

A normal guy who accidentally stumbled onto the Green Goblin's lair, Phil Urich became a hero until his equipment broke. Unable to fix it, he wandered from place to place, and became a part of The Front Line. Disillusioned, he found one of Osborn's hideouts and went there to impress Norah. He accidentally bumped into Dan Kingsley in The Hobgoblin's uniform and killed him in a moment of crisis. Fueled by his refound power, Urich has gone on to become the Kingpin's right-hand man, and finally got the girl of his dreams. He completely hates his responsibilities, but fulfills them because of his power!

...do I smell a dark mirror, akin to the Amazing Spider-Man and the Green Goblin? Does the Hobgoblin show up in... Superior Spider-Man 14? According to Dan Slott, he will. The seeds for this confrontation were sown at the very beginning of the Big Time run. By the time we get to Superior 14 we'll have two very well-developed characters on a collision course. I just... wow. I'm amazed. This is truly a superior pair-up.

3 Things I Learned from Revenge of the Countess of Fire

So I was just thinking about GMing, and how each game teaches you a little something. Here's three things I picked up from Countess of Fire:

1. NPCs need Beliefs, Instincts, and Traits too. For awhile I had difficulty figuring out what the Countess of Fire wanted, until I started writing mini goals for each session and reading them out to the players. These Beliefs should be explosive enough to make the player want to write Beliefs that contradict what you've written.Make the conflict boil right there in the Beliefs-writing stage, and then make your NPCs go after them with all the fiery passion of Hell. If you did your job right you've made a bunch of Beliefs that you think would be interesting for a bad guy to chase after, and your players made Beliefs they want the heroes to chase after, and these two sides will combine in a roaring conflagration.

When in doubt, make it personal, offensive, and downright evil to the player. You can't go wrong there.

2. When in doubt kick the players. Hard. At every last second you, the GM, are the opposition. It's your job to make the players sweat and bleed for their Beliefs. Is there smoke? Make everyone get +1 Ob for it. Is the your target next to a tree and you're swinging a sword at him? Give him a +1 ob so that way he doesn't hit the tree. Make it difficult, make it hard, because if you don't they, the players, won't get everything they can outta the system.

3. Make their failures trigger Beliefs and Instincts. "Oh, did you fail that Orienteering roll? *Evil chuckle* Your evil twin brother that you hate so much, but totally outmatches you, is now here. And he wants to 'talk'". Does your character have an Instinct about never accepting an insult? Make sure you insult him, and then sit back and see what happens. Even the cautionary Instincts, like daggers in boots and such, can get mileage, cause you can take away their gear and have them not notice it as consequences of the failure. Oh, and just cause one player failed doesn't mean you can't jump on another character's Beliefs and Instincts instead. In fact, it might be better that way, because then the other guy will wanna help out!

Some Thoughts (Rants, Really) on the Gun Control Debate

Obama's got some thoughts on what the Republicans are doing to stop his gun control stuff, and I've got some thoughts on Obama's thoughts. Now, I realize that this is a bit of a hot-button issue. I don't care, it's my blog, and until I'm labelled as an extremist nut (Oh wait, technically I am) and get my blog taken from me, I'm gonna speak my mind.

Now, here's some of the facts I've learned over the years. The numbers are pretty easy to find, they're not hidden. Chicago, the city with some of the most restrictive gun control laws of any city, also happens to have the one of the highest murder counts in the country.States where there aren't conceal-carry licenses have much higher murder rates. However, States with conceal-carry licenses have drastically lower murder rates except around their airports, where guns are banned. The fact that so many killings happen around schools, where guns are outlawed, sorta seems to confirm the theory conservatives have been pushing this whole time: guns help save lives more than they take. I know it's a bit simplified down, but honestly it's a pretty simple problem. I'm quoting numbers that are not difficult to find, especially since the advent of the Facebook meme.

Now, as the first link says, Obama's saying that the Republicans keep throwing out political stunts to stop his bills on limiting guns. Even if you ignore any of the stuff that I just said, the hypocrisy of the situation is something awful. Obama signed his executive orders with the children from these shootings surrounding him. He doesn't quote any facts, he just references these children over and over again. He says that he's willing to go around Congress to get what he wants, and the list of his political maneuverings goes on and on. Who's actually pulling the political stunts that are designed to tug at our heartstrings, even if not necessarily our brains? Yeah, that would be Obama. I'm not understanding where he gets off saying this sorta thing, to be honest. Pointing fingers when there's three coming back at you is just a stupid move.