Expectations

I've been thinking about my expectations for the game these past few weeks.  I have to say, I don't personally know the GM yet, Brandon or Irminsul on the Burning Wheel Forums, but we've been chatting via e-mail quite a bit.  We've discussed the rules of the game and we've worked together to put the campaign background together.  Most of that is yet to be determined during character burning, but we have a good foundation down, as evidenced in the Player's Guide I linked to earlier.  I'm excited.  I love Brandon's ideas and so far we've worked together well.  I am fully confident that he will be an excellent GM and my group will love the game.

They will love the game, sure, but will they love the game system?  Burning Wheel is a dense collection of rules that fit nicely together, but have a lot of pieces.  This same group of players hated D&D 4th ed, tolerated Pathfinder, but loved Dungeon World.  Of course, I can hear their responses now, "I don't care what we play as long as we are playing something!"  That's generally how I feel as well, but I think (hope) that they may find the character depth in BW something that they really love.  When you "burn" a character in BW, you create a character with a deep background, contacts, and a fleshed out belief system.  The characters are ready to go on session one, ripe for the GM to exploit and use to further the campaign.  The motto of Burning Wheel is "Fight for what you Believe."  This is more than an empty saying, it's really what drives the game and gives it the depth and resonance that players love.

You know I'm excited for the game, I can't shut up about it!