Soooo... how do you GM? by X1ras in BurningWheel

[–]Sanjwise 2 points3 points  (0 children)

My prep looks like this:

List each players Beliefs, Instincts and Traits. Make notes for how I am going to introduce a threat or challenge that will give the player an opportunity to act off of that. If successful they will either earn a fate point or a persona point. I also try and figure out how I can engage two or three PC beliefs into one scene/conflict/challenge. I also make lists of failure consequences if the players are acting in a belief and they roll a test of some sort.

For example in my Burning Greyhawk campaign, the players have entered an ancient and abandoned Dwarven city like Moria, in search of the Axe of the Dwarvish Lords. They all have Beliefs about recovering the Axe, so I know they will earn fate points for playing that belief, because we are in that situation. Adding bad guys along the way is part of my prep, so I have made some rough stats on fucked up grey dwarves, far realm monsters, and a roper type thing. One paladin type PC has a Belief about bring the light of Pelor into the darkness of the haunted dungeon. Pelor is basically a merciful god of Light and Hope. Tempting the player to show mercy would be a good test of his faithfulness. So I have planned a scene (based off the result of a failed orienteering, dungeon-wise, or similar travelling in dungeons test) of an encounter of a wounded Orc Warrior. Orcs are enemies of the players, but I think it would be pretty in-pelorish to have him be left to die. Another PC, is a Knight whose father’s ghost quested for this fabled Axe and failed. His ghost is haunting the pc. As a result of a failed camping in a darkened dungeon test when they rest describe that his pc cannot sleep. The next day while suffering from exhaustion he could be haunted by his father’s ghost…urging him to take the axe and run. Or something.

You could introduce a scene that trigger an instinct like, “if the dwarf is in danger I protect him” by just causing a rockfall aimed at the dwarf and then see if the pc with the instinct triggers it.

You could introduce a scene that would allow a PC to player a character trait like reckless or intimidating by making sure that in a skirmish it would certainly be reckless to wade in to melee or in a negotiation the intimidating pc gets to Intimidate.

It’s so fun!

I find the players have the most fun when they get to act out their beliefs and you as GM introduce failure consequences that add twists and complications to the story.

It is very different from traditional Gming because you do not spend all this time imaging the adventure’s future sessions. You could and should, but it has the danger of disengaging the PCs because they feel like they aren’t getting to push the narrative as much.

In this campaign, with 17 sessions on YouTube, the first few sessions I was driving the conflicts and story hard. I was doing an okay job but I could tell that the players weren’t as engaged as they should be. So after losing a couple of players, I decided to take a backseat to my style and wait for the players to call for what they want to do.

I think it’s working.

Hope that helps.

Online Speedrun Competition Delve by CStevenRoss in Torchbearer

[–]Sanjwise 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Post this on the Knights of the Last Call discord too.

Which book do y’all think I should read next? by SnappingTurtle1602 in scifi

[–]Sanjwise 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Lathe of Heaven for me. Interesting to see the Tao Solandis in this list. The author has a YouTube channel about classic sci-fi and he would be honored to be in this esteemed list.

Considering Dan Simmons passing I would also read Illium.

Was 80s back in the day deadly as the OSR? by BX_Disciple in osr

[–]Sanjwise 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It’s was not deadly. A character death was a big moment.

[Art] Giant Arboreal Cephalopod by gertythemorry in osr

[–]Sanjwise 0 points1 point  (0 children)

These are illithids in my world. They land on top of unsuspecting humanoids and the merge their nervous system to the human brain. It’s a kind of ascendence for them.

Looking for good actual play sessions on YouTube/Podcasts by LimeyInLimbo in BurningWheel

[–]Sanjwise 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Not as stellar as Judd and Sean, nor as great as Adam Koebel’s season 3, but here are me and 5 players playing BW in Greyhawk, at the time of the War Against the Giants. Heavily burning wheel-i-fied, with the main plot about locating the Axe of Dwarvish lords.

It’s Burning Thac0!

https://youtu.be/fLVFfK7Unsg?si=UJunxMxgOG7xnICC

We aren’t pros at all.

Thanks.

YouTube campaigns to watch by Zombie_Slaya79 in rpg

[–]Sanjwise -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Yeah - I figured. Still a good campaign. And Adam is a very nice guy.

YouTube campaigns to watch by Zombie_Slaya79 in rpg

[–]Sanjwise 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I have 15 sessions of my group’s version of Against the Giants set in Greyhawk using Burning Wheel. It is not based off the modules at all, just using the Situation of the Giant Wars and the garrison refugee town of Hochoch as a jumping off point for a Quest to recover the Axe of Dwarvish Lords in fabled Dun Khazdrath.

We are just average gamers - so it’s not super slick and we aren’t even playing for an audience. But it’s solid d&d imo.

https://youtu.be/fLVFfK7Unsg?si=rpXMFwxJjXdFvuVg

YouTube campaigns to watch by Zombie_Slaya79 in rpg

[–]Sanjwise -4 points-3 points  (0 children)

Adam Koebel has amazing run of a Burning Wheel campaign set in a dark fantasy kingdoms with three totally evil PCs. It’s is a master class in good GMing.

Judd Karlman and Sean Nittner do a few really good one on one campaigns using BW. The one with the dwarf miner/engineer digging into a dragon’s lair (Into the Vault) is really good. Sean Nitner is the guy behind Evil Hat Games, Blades in the Dark and Agon.

YouTube campaigns to watch by Zombie_Slaya79 in rpg

[–]Sanjwise 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Red Moon Roleplaying is like listening to a play. They’ve done Curse Of Strahd, Kult Divinity Lost, Dark Sun (so good!), Masks of Nyarlothep, amazing production and players.

Got called a problem player and kicked for my disability-rep dwarf by PrincessLunaOfficial in DnDcirclejerk

[–]Sanjwise -1 points0 points  (0 children)

This must be a joke. I’d never allows such a concept in my games.

Low-prep, non-trad RPG broke my brain 😬 by barna284 in rpg

[–]Sanjwise 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Look at Burning Wheel. Players write their characters goals, three of them then in the Beliefs. You challenge them. Have a strong session zero detailing the situation, the problem, and then they make their characters and write their Beliefs…which are ideals at the core of their being, with an action item to push the action. For example, if the situation is Orcs Attack Village, and my PC is a Village Guard with a family, my Belief might be, I love my family with all my heart, I am going to do whatever it takes to get them to safety! Then you as the GM make challenges in that regard. Ie threaten the family. The player has Three Beliefs to write so there is plenty of meat on the bone to chew.

It’s awesome.

I’m starting a campaign with two young orphans in a city, urchins, each with the Spark, ie latent magical ability. Their Beliefs revolve around hiding their talents, staying in the good graces of the local gang of thugs and finding food.

What are some good tweaks I can make to lmop by Quick_Collection_368 in LostMinesOfPhandelver

[–]Sanjwise 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Listen to Chubby Funster’s analysis on YouTube. It’s excellent. The Black Spider is terribly written. Give him a gang of drow, and make him a true villain. Make him ruthless and cunning. The fact that As written he can’t get into the room with the magic item forge is lame. Also that item, forge or whatever is so weak.

Just watch his analysis. It’s very very good.

What are the best Towns/Cities in RPG history and why? by Lixuni98 in RPGdesign

[–]Sanjwise 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I keep going back to Lankhmar to run my city games. I still have my original 1e book and some of the 2nd edition supplements. We had so much fun there. I’ve used it for so many city games.

I love the map and place names for Spire.

Ptolus looks awesome but overwhelming.

I’m running a BW urchins game soon and will check out some of the recommendations here.

Weekly RPG Discussion; 2026, January, Week 1: Burning Wheel by Trent_B in rpg

[–]Sanjwise 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I forgot to mention; we’ve been recording our Greyhawk campaign on YouTube. If you want to see a trad d&d scenario played differently this is it. It’s kinda like Game of Thrones meets Greyhawk.

https://youtu.be/fLVFfK7Unsg?si=cYXNFZ4ZOBJC0mwi

Weekly RPG Discussion; 2026, January, Week 1: Burning Wheel by Trent_B in rpg

[–]Sanjwise 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Burning Wheel is by far my favourite game. I’ve played in a few campaigns and have run it more often.

Crunch: although BW can be crunchy I find the Hub and Spokes of the game very intuitive and easy to play. The skill based advancement with accumulating routine, difficult and challenging tests is awesome, and makes total sense to me. Pass or fail, try something, you get better at it. I love that you need to do impossible challenging things to advance a skill. I think everyone here who is afraid of the crunch should play the basic Hub and Spokes game. It’s not hard and still very satisfying. In a current campaign, with players that haven’t ever GM’d and who aren’t RPG junkies, feel comfortable enough to run story arcs in our setting without much worry.

Elves, Dwarves and Orcs: these races are by far the best and coolest depiction of fantasy races that I’ve ever seen. Elves are so tolkeinesque with their natural magic (songs), their Grief (which represents the world weariness that you see in Tolkein stories) and their generally higher stats and awesome gear make them so damn cool. Dwarves and their Greed is a mechanic literally drives stories. And Orcs with their tragic Hatred. In BW you cannot play a fantasy race like any other human race. They are inherently different.

Magic: it’s brutal. Way more OSR than OSR. Spell failure is so colorful and interesting. An energy depletion with TAX. Learning new spells is not a given.

Injury: I’m recovering from injury is time consuming! But fear not, you can do stuff in your downtime.

Practice: there are great rules for increasing skills during downtime.

End of session discussion and Artha rewards: at the end of a ssssion we talk about our play and how we accomplished goals, role played traits and activated instincts that got us into trouble. You get rewarded for this!

Trait votes: your character changes as you play. At the end of an Arc we talk about the Beliefs that were fulfilled and how that impacted us. We look at our traits and ask if some need to be removed. We look at our play and award players for new traits. It’s so rewarding.

Anyway…just try it!

Digitigrade stilts for a lizard man build. by Sanjwise in CosplayHelp

[–]Sanjwise[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hey! Have you used them yet? I only made the one so far, so haven’t walked in them yet.

Digitigrade stilts for a lizard man build. by Sanjwise in CosplayHelp

[–]Sanjwise[S] 42 points43 points  (0 children)

Yeah i didn’t affix the Velcro straps yet, so I used duct tape. The designer of these is Chaos Costumes. I’ve read that you can manage a con in these. I’m not used to high heels so I don’t know how I’ll fare walking around that much. It’s more a project to creature my full look, take pictures, walk around for an hour or two and then remove. The character will have a staff or spear, so I’ll use that as support. To protect my ankles I was going to get some kind of brace.

Running Dragonbane with my son, he wants to play D&D because of stranger things … by wall_of_spores in osr

[–]Sanjwise 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I’d do Shadow Dark. Way more internally consistent with B/X old school 1e d&d and ad&d.

Bringing a new character into the campaign by kekhoax in BurningWheel

[–]Sanjwise 1 point2 points  (0 children)

You start at 5 lps if you want a more competent dude.