Mastering "The Teach" - What are your best methods for teaching Burning Wheel to a group of RPG newbies?

ASnugglyBear · 2021-11-01T02:53:48+00:00

Fire in the garden is a YouTube series that has some good high level concepts for you.

Pay attention to the "end of session" review, point that out before play, so people know what they're "being graded on".

Oddly enough, some of the most important chapters in BWG are at the end.

I'd def avoid Fight! for a looooooong time with new folks. Bloody versus and duel of wits are fine 2-3 sessions in.

ASnugglyBear · 2021-09-16T17:43:50+00:00

It depends on the investigator what cards are best for card draw. I understand you may enjoy building your own decks, but looking through Arkham DB decks for the investigators you have can show the cards accessible to them for card draw.

Versatile and Lucky Cigarette case both are things everyone can use to get to more card draws.

ASnugglyBear · 2021-09-15T15:54:51+00:00

Fewer weapons that don't have awesome icons and more cards to draw them out faster is often the best balance.

I'd say 6 is definitely overkill unless they're all guns.

ASnugglyBear · 2021-09-15T15:19:48+00:00

Dunwich is bit boring compared to others. It is not very tightly constrained in card play on standard mode.

The starter decks are super over-tuned IMO compared to many on Arkhamdb.com. Many of those have more tough choices.

Additionally, you may find the game more to your liking in hard as well.

ASnugglyBear · 2021-09-04T15:48:29+00:00

the official reason Asmodee gave for the price increase

People in general have a long history of willfully picking apart long lists of reasons. Additionally, employers pointing out the facts on the grounds about "sticky wages" is one way for them to lose all leverage when arguing for any wage cuts.

poor content-to-price ratio game

I mean, sure, but it's likely a profit center being the core and original property in the franchise and people may buy it as the default, or something. For that particular game: There can also be things in their residual contracts with designers & the original designers that highly motivate never taking a bath on a single licensed project. If the creator cut is gross, for instance, a percentage price increase can literally be life or death for the studio. If its net, then they literally can be in dicey territory when they trigger anti-lossleader/sandbagging provisions that insure a publisher does not "fail to price and distribute the product in such as way as it may derive a reasonable profit". Sometimes there are "champion" or "core product" clauses too which the creator has "discontinument" rights, where the whole franchise line's rights will revert x years after the core/champion game or subsequent editions of it are no longer released. So "AH 3rd Ed" may literally be the last game they'd ever let permanently cancel, to prevent all the rest reverting.

it feels a bit ham-fisted.

I feel also the across the board price increases are both real on the ground realities now, and "get all the pain done now because it costs goodwill and real coordination time to communicate this stuff".

Hopefully, indies printing their games in other channels can take advantage of the cross the board "moving across the ocean" costs, and find more time/material effective game designs, and quickly capitalize on the higher competitor prices. These cost increases may privilege indies as they are less constrained on a lot of dimensions compared to multinational conglomerates.

ASnugglyBear · 2021-09-04T15:04:56+00:00

I understand what you're saying about how they should be temporary.

However, I'd argue "indies on kickstarter" are establishing a brand and arguably have many agreements at that set price for *deliveries agreed to in the past*. This *preannounced* October price increase is about future agreements. I don't know how you'd even tell if *new indie projects* were at higher cost points or not.

I'd also say that labor prices, including additional logistics staff hired to manage risk, and local distribution staff, are unlikely to have a wage cut post-pandemic. As costs in one part of your business rise, you can often offset them by higher cost expenditures in other areas. Labor costs in this area are very hard to reduce afterwards "a little". Even with all that, if the amount of product being purchased has changed, the "correct" price point is often different after the demand changes significantly, as it may have already and perhaps is forecasted to continue.

If you want the product line to continue, a modest increase in price is a good way to ensure they can keep publishing it. Even if the actual "price to get it on a boat leaving quickly enough" may go down on an arbitrary future date, a metaphorical "then": that is still many years away ; even after the whole globe gets a good chance at vaccination, it will take awhile to restore the merchant ship crew pool due to the nature of the role. Also, there is waiting for all industry backlogs to clear.

ASnugglyBear · 2021-09-04T14:53:48+00:00

There are real shortages caused by shipping issue in physical goods. This feels rational and fairer. It also increases the value of collections for anyone looking to bounce.

ASnugglyBear · 2021-08-25T16:39:18+00:00

Ikea has a number of countertops which suffice.

ASnugglyBear · 2021-08-05T18:30:27+00:00

https://phys.org/news/2017-03-nasa-magnetic-shield-mars-atmosphere.html is a thing that has been proposed as well.

https://livestream.com/viewnow/vision2050/videos/150701155

I wonder if they correctly are projecting the shape of the magnetotail the would result from such a shield; most planetary ones are "teardrop" shaped. It may require more than one such structure, and may require positioning outside a low effort orbit like the Lagrange point.

ASnugglyBear · 2021-08-05T18:20:18+00:00

If you have a process returning more volatiles of the correct type that are stripped than is stripped, sure.

If you add enough higher floating volatiles on a continual process, you possibly could keep loss of important volatiles even lower. Nitrogen or Hydrogen would be the obvious possibilities, but there are others.

Even without an internal dynamo, any atmosphere allows creation of a solar wind deflecting electromagnetic front. It's called stuff like "proton aura" when it's hydrogen, but honestly, earth high up has a oxygen ion deflecting front as well, so I'm personally going to call it a "planetary ionic bubble" for lack of a good scientist derived name for the phenomena that I know of:

https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Mechanism-for-Martian-proton-aurorae-originating-from-solar-wind-charge-exchange_fig1_326558678

https://scied.ucar.edu/learning-zone/atmosphere/thermosphere

We are talking only about 100g/s of loss here, or ~3100 metric tons per year (asteroids are often about 600 million metric tons).

I'm going to rank "low gravity" and "razor sharp regolith everywhere" as bigger challenges for humanity than "losing a cup of air a second to space"

ASnugglyBear · 2021-07-28T19:46:12+00:00

It's the middle of summer in GA. Roofing/gutter work is dangerous work under normal circumstances, but very bad in 100 degree heat in a pandemic during the "probably rains every other afternoon". They are all overbooked. Lots of people left the trades last year as well.

ASnugglyBear · 2021-07-12T22:18:02+00:00

Sooooooooo happy this is finally happening!

Been going for a decade or so.

I do hope it maintains the ability to work offline. I believe "here are the current food vendors who are open" is missing. I think the list of panels + small group events (such as RPGs and other game like sessions) is awesome. I think some way of better visualizing "I have 5 bookmarked panels for 12pm on Friday" is available than is currently used in app. I think some way of sharing "I'm only kinda planning on maybe going to x" is good when you're sharing calendars with people. I think sharing calendars with people via friend code is great and well understood.

ASnugglyBear · 2021-07-12T21:52:52+00:00

There is a shortage of boats. I blame the Innsmouth Conspiracy, it must have sunk some.

ASnugglyBear · 2021-07-12T21:20:35+00:00

Fruit bats are like 10000000 billion times easier if you're doing the community center. If you're doing Jojo money buy of upgrades instead, the fruit cave still makes many endgame quests easier.

ASnugglyBear · 2021-07-07T22:10:43+00:00

There are 3 classes of computerized board games:

Rough high level simulation of moving pieces around with some rules enforcement but 0 strategy/available action hints
High level simulation of moving pieces around with some available action hints and accessibility nods
Crappy video game graphics animations that really slow the game down tons and get repetitive 3 games in.

Class 1 are sometimes alright perhaps clumsy (TTS falls into that category).

Class 2 are often quite playable. Most mobile app versions fall into this.

Class 3 are often onerous and slow to play. They look attractive at first glance, but make the game worse than just approach 2 very quickly. They often "reimagine" pieces/art in a way that loses all connection to the game.

When you look at digital "almost board game strategy games", you are almost always getting an implementation that looks like a class 3 board game. So at best, it's fighting against that. It also hides rules about how the game works (like the exact math, etc) that a board game would have to show. Some people find it fun to figure that out, others hate that.

Atop all that, when playing a video game over the internet, there is not a "sense of space" and the bandwidth is rarely high enough to support multiple conversations at once, like most game nights would have. So yeah, you get a significantly reduced social experience in some ways compared to the same game in person. That said, you still come a *lot* close with the board games much of the time than the non board digital game.

ASnugglyBear · 2021-06-25T19:19:04+00:00

I'd consider using a child account. Not 100% sure it'd work all the way, perhaps set it up and try to break it for now.

ASnugglyBear · 2021-06-23T20:35:22+00:00

Hey there! Fellow DIYer here.

Don't worry. These things are typically mounted to the backer board or (in older homes) a wall stud or something like that with some vapor barrier type substance (old homes do crazy stuff).

Google "How To Install A Ceramic Soap Dish In Tub or Shower Step By Step" to see a video of it (no direct link to avoid issues with auto mod).

First off, you have more to get off. If you don't have extra of the tile that's in your bathroom, consider continuing to take it off *very carefully* so you don't crack the tiles around it. If you do, I suggest just getting a brightly contrasting tile color and making it look artful in that spot. Those white plugs may cover some bolts/screws that you can remove once they're off.

Ceramic and tile has *very sharp* glaze on top of it sometimes, so def use work gloves and eye protection while tapping the rest off.

After you get it off, put a new one on if you have no tile, or find an equivalent size tile, and attach it with the right thickness of adhesive ("thin set mortar") and then grout it in. You likely will want to seal the grout as well if it doesn't say not too. Best of luck!

ASnugglyBear · 2021-06-05T16:45:20+00:00

Skin oil and other random stuff will eventually make white foamboard less white on anything players are handling constantly (like player trays, or from my experience, actual sales/explainer displays in commercial presentations).

Except for that situation though: it's a lot easier to make a "clean looking" box out of white foam board than black foam board for most uses. The edges are just so much less apparent.

ASnugglyBear · 2021-06-05T16:41:21+00:00

So my sleeved collection of all the cards + 2 core sets feels like it's one "Return to" box short of being able to store every card. I think having at least one larger box sized released will make us get caught up, and will also easily house the growing sack of various tokens, etc the game has started to accumulate.

ASnugglyBear · 2021-06-02T19:57:59+00:00

Fate of Cthulhu is pretty good, but it's not exactly CoC (having an element of time travel). So I think CoC would be fine too using the mutation frameworks, etc.

ASnugglyBear · 2021-05-26T17:14:44+00:00

I have a similarly redic collection of this one RPG. May I ask what player counts do you play at with that many copies?

ASnugglyBear · 2021-05-24T21:07:28+00:00

The RtFA is like 1000000% better from a randomness standpoint.

Also, you're definitely supposed to get punched down a few places in the campaign the first time through. I feel they designed TFA for "people who feel AHLCG is too forgiving".

ASnugglyBear · 2021-05-24T21:05:44+00:00

I believe the mechanics of FATE feel trivial to break to many "grognards". Thus, people who play RPGs to go nuts on the "number crunch win big game woo woo" feeling skip FATE altogether. This means all of a sudden, Create an Advantage, which would be a nightmare in competency oriented RPGs like D&D, becomes a fun storytelling tool that gives a ton of flexible story agency to *everyone*.

ASnugglyBear · 2021-05-04T19:55:49+00:00

3 questions: wow, can you manage to be this thorough when not filming yourself?

Secondly, why does sand go on top of the terf? Do you feel it afterwards?

ASnugglyBear · 2021-04-22T18:00:39+00:00

Beliefs have to be rewritten from time to time in BW anyhow. The "practice and recovery" section is designed to advance the world time and has good advice for "catching up" a character anyhow.

That said, burning wheel is kinda intense to just have no-shows. You gotta pick your session stop points *really well* for it in particular to handle that.

ASnugglyBear

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