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TLDR: It's good, very gamist, but if that's what you're looking for you'll be pretty happy with it.
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First off, in Burning Wheel/Empire, only d6’s are used. You roll the number of ranks in a skill against a DC. 4-6 is a success, 1-3 is a failure. Add up your successes. If it matches or beats the DC, you succeed.
Second off, Burning Wheel/Empire is a conflict resolution system, as opposed to D&D, which is a task resolution system. That means instead of rolling out each individual aspect of a conflict, you roll to resolve the conflict as a whole. This changes the tone of the game because it makes it more “macro”. The scale’s bigger. It’s kinda hard to describe.
The important part of a combat resolution system is that you only roll ONCE for a conflict. Period. In BW/BE, there is a rule called “Let it ride”. That means before the dice are rolled the player(s) and GM decide the stakes of the conflict. When the conflict has been resolved, it’s done. You have to “let it ride” and can’t just try again. This is true for the players AND the GM.
In BW/BE the conflict mechanic is basically the same for ALL conflicts, but the individual maneuvers and techniques used differ if it’s a firefight or argument or whatever. The example I’m going to use is a Duel of Wits my character just had last session. I use it because it was a pretty cool argument and is freshest in my memory.
Ok, so we’re playing an epic sci-fi game where we are Humanity’s Last, Best Hope™ to find technology to save us from an alien invader known only as The Hostiles. They can kick our ass, and we’re the only guys who can find the tech out in the big wide galaxy for humans to stand a chance. We started last session coming out of a jumpgate to find ourselves trapped inside a Dyson Sphere. Jumpgates require calculations based on the stars, and since the sphere was covering up all the stars, we had no way back home. On top of that, one of The Hostiles ship was in orbit around the sun. We didn’t think they’d seen us yet…
So, my character is the captain of the ship. He’s a military man, very much an Adama type. My friend Kory is playing the official ambassador from Earth.
“Cut loose with the Liberator Missles!” say I.
“No! We must negotiate!”
Now, the real tricky thing about a Duel of Wits is when two players start arguing about what to do, you have to STOP. Is it something your character is willing to fight for? If so, start Duel of Wits. If not, back down, you can’t get your way. Put your dice behind it or shut up, as they say. The reason you have to STOP is because players will debate for a minute or two, and they’ll go through all their good points they should be using in the Duel! Not that they can’t still use them, but you’re basically repeating yourself and it’s not as much fun. It’s a hard habit to break, but if you wanna fight for something, do it. Play it out in the game. The mechanics are there, use them!
So, Duel of Wits time!
My stakes: “If I win, we open fire and catch them by surprise”
Kory’s stakes: “If I win, we hail them and attempt to negotiate”
Each person in a duel has a Body of Argument. That’s basically your hit points for the discussion. We each roll our opening argument “We must attack!” vs “We must negotiate!” and add successes it to our Will stat. The total = Body of Argument.
Ambassador Kutari is, well, a Diplomat and also a member of the Circle of Ten, they’re psychics, so she’s got a high Will and rolled really well, her BoA is 14.
I’m a commander-type so my Will’s good too, but not as good, my BoA is 11.
Each player maps out three “volleys” per “exchange” a “volley” is a Duel of Wits maneuver. They are:
Incite, Avoid the Topic, Obfuscate, Point, Rebuttal, Dismiss, and Feint. Each maneuver can be executed by rolling a variety of skills, depending on the maneuver. They all do different things, but to give you an idea, Point is where you “make a point” about your side. This is why it’s important to shut up once you start arguing. You need what you were going to say for Point! It’s *very* important that every volley is roleplayed out. Don’t just go “Volley 1, Point. Volley 2, Rebuttal, Volley 3, Dismiss.” You have to roleplay out each step.
Ok, so both sides pick 3 Volleys and write them down. They do *not* announce what they’ve written down! After both sides have picked secretly, the Duel begins. Each side announces Volley 1, and then rolls out the results.
Volley 1:
Captain Artemis: Incite (Using Intimidate as the base skill) I say “You remember what these bastards did to Mercury? You’re a coward for even thinking of negotiation!”
Ambassador Kutani Point (Using Persuasion) “Mecury could have been a misunderstanding for all we know! We’ve never actually CONTACTED any of these creatures!”
A successful Incite roll forces the other player to make a Steel test. If you fail a Steel test, you Hesitate. Take no action next volley. Basically, you try to piss them off so they just sputter in disbelief. It’s a strong skill for me, cuz I have a lot of Intimidate. Unfortunately, Steel is based on Will, of which the ambassador has plenty, and she easily makes her check.
Point is just a straightforward point. Each success on the roll removes one point from my Body of Argument. If/When I reach 0, I’ve lost the argument and must accept the ambassador’s stakes. I might get some concessions, though, depending on how much I managed to damage her BoA. If 1 remove 1/3 of her BoA, I get a minor compromise. ½, compromise, 2/3rd, Major compromise. More on this later.
Volley 2:
Ambassador Kutani Rebuttal (split up your dice pools, ½ for offense to hit their BoA, ½ for defense to take away successes that would have hurt your own BoA)
Captain Artemis Feint (The rebuttal killer. I had a feeling Kutani’s player would try a rebuttal, so I selected Feint. If a feint goes against a Rebuttal, the rebuttal fails. That player takes no action, and I get a free Point. Awesome!)
The actual exchange went like this (this was decided between Kory and I, once we knew how this volley was going to play out)
Captain Artemis “There was no misunderstanding, They opened fire!”
Ambassador Kutani “We can’t even know their language, how can we know?”
Captain Artemis “The Anastasian Colonists have tried to communicate with their captive hostile for over a 100 years, if they wanted to talk by now they would have!” (my free Point)
And so on and so forth until one side’s Body of Argument has been depleted. That argument ended up being a close one, I lost by only 1, and that was because my dice totally betrayed me. In the end, we tried to hail them, but I got a major concession: our weapons are armed and primed as we do so.
The coolest thing about Duel of Wits is whenever there’s debate at the table, STOP and duel of wits it out. That way you get to play the game and use the cool tactical debate system, AND you progress the plot at the same time. Plus, you always shoot redicuolously high for your goal, knowing you’re probably going to have to make a concession. So it encourages you to think BIG.
For example, after that duel of wits, Ambassador Kutani stormed off the bridge to go prepare. Where she was actually heading was to the secret lab where a captive Hostile was being kept (that she wasn’t supposed to know about). She engages in a psychic duel of wits with the head engineer (another player). Her Stakes: Let me see the hostile and forget you ever did so. His Stakes: GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY HEAD.
She wins that one, goes and meets the Hostile and immediately tries to psychic duel of wits it. Her stakes: Tell me what your people want with earth. His stakes: pull a gun, put it to your head, pull the trigger.
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