[RPG]: Burning Empires, reviewed by PBeakley (4/4)

http://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/12/12453.phtml

Paul Beakley's Summary:

An innovative, non-traditional science fiction RPG that's the love child of Fading Suns, Warhammer 40,000 and Traveller.

Go to the full review for more information.

[Kyle]

I guess you made a typo on the price.

The cost of the book is, I think, a little more than 5$.

[buzz]

Vey nice review, Paul. A couple of nitpicks:

First off, giving this book less than a 5 for Style is just nuts. It's on par with anything WotC or WW can put out. I'd have given it a 5 for substance, too. This game is very well-written and complete. AFAIC, it's the new model against which I measure other RPGs.

Originally Posted by Your review

Finding particular sections in this thick book can sometimes take a little work.

There's a *very* thorough index, and each major section has an icon on the left side, and each chapter has an iconic picture on the right side.

Originally Posted by Your review

Unfortunately, hints are all you really get.

Info about the setting is infused in the mechanics and sprinkled throughout the book. There is no big info-dump chapter, and I find this a plus. The feel of Moeller's setting is made very apparent, yet there is ample room for each group to make the game their own. You get the big picture, and then get to, as a group, decide what the almost-as-Big-Picture is on your planet.

Originally Posted by Your review

You start by setting the narrative rules for the game’s setting, the single world currently being invaded by those sneaky Vaylen.

I'm not sure I udnerstood what you meant by "setting the narrative rules." World Burning is simply the group defining the planet the campaign will focus upon and its Figures of Note. It sets the tone, basically, and sets up potential conflicts.

Originally Posted by Your review

For example, I wanted to build a rabble-rousing slave leader that would lift the world’s population to freedom based solely on the strength of his ideas, but to get there I had to give him several crime-flavored life paths (and even a stint as a student of the church!) before he had the right skills.

Did you start by picking the last lifepath you wanted (the end result) and then working backwards? That's the key to "I know what I want" chargen in BE.

And again, having to work through the lifepaths is one of the ways the setting comes to the forefront.

Originally Posted by Your review

There are precious few ways either side simply gets what they want via the conflict mechanics; unless you’ve escaped the conflict unscathed, each side wins something every time the dice get rolled.

It depends. Most of the die-rolling you do is going to be simple versus tests, where the winner gets what they want, period. The big conflicts are where concessions are likely, depending on the severity of the loss.

However, you can always walk away from a conflict, or escalate. There is no requirement that you engage in a conflict and make concessions.

Personally, I think this makes the game more interesting, as it's very rare the loser will be totally shut out from having input on the game. I think this is simply part-and-parcel of using conflict resolution, as opposed to task resolution.

Originally Posted by Your review

Next up is working out a highly formalized series of “maneuvers” that represent what’s going on in the setting’s big picture.

This isn't entirely accurate.

Infection (i.e., the campaign) has three phases: Infiltration (not "Incursion"), Usurpation, and Invasion. When you start a phase, each side (the players and the GM) pick an overall goal for that phase (the GM picks his in secret before the players do). A phase will then be comprised of all the sessions of play it takes to work towards that goal. Each session, you play through 1-2 Manuevers, i.e., goals for that particular session, ideally in service to your overall goal. You don't pick a Manuever until the start of that session. There is no planning out of Manuevers in advance. You have to play through one Manuever before you can move on to another.

Originally Posted by Your review

The group decides if you’re going to play just one segment of the fight, or go through all three.

Again, this is not decided in advance. You simply start a phase, play through, and then, at the end, decide if you want to move on or start a new world.

Originally Posted by Your review

There’s no direct relationship between what’s going on in the Big Picture and what happens in individual scenes (other than strongly encouraging the focal character on each side to choose a relevant skill to resolve the maneuver). I think the game would be very easy to modify to take into account individual scene successes playing into the big Maneuver roll, but that’s not the designer’s intent.

What happens in individual scenes has everything to do with the Big Picture. The scenes are your currency for accomplishing your Manuever, which is how you impact the flow of the campaign. Everything builds up towards affecting the other side's Disposition. To quote from the rules:

"Within the scenes, the players use their characters’ abilities to initiate and resolve conflicts. These conflicts are tests for the character. Tests earn experience and reward, and they grant a small degree of narrative control with which the player can push his agenda forward. In order to enact the strategy decided upon for the phase, session and maneuver, a player must engage his character in a series of conflicts."

Originally Posted by Your review

So you’ve got these scenes sketched out and agreed to by the player’s “side” of the equation.

Again, you do not sketch out or agree to scenes in advance. You let the game flow like any other RPG, with the knowledge that you've got one big conflict per side per Manuever, so you have to start pushing your agenda ASAP and mustering your resources. The game simply codfiies the different types of scenes, and adds some wrinkles for when a given type is being played.

Originally Posted by Your review

Rather than getting deeply invested in your character’s goals and in making him more badass, Burning Empires holds the players and their characters at arms’ length.

As I said above, I don't necessarily agree with this. Your characters goals are the most important thing in BE. That's the whole point of Beliefs, which are pivotal to BW and BE. Pursuing and achieveing your goals, i.e., Beliefs, is one of the primary ways you earn Artha. The game actively encourages you to not hold your character at arm's length.

Not to mention, PCs in BE start out pretty badass. They are the movers and shakers. Over the course of a campaign, earning Artha and tests to improve their skills/stats can make them even more badass. That badassitude will then give them more power over the outcome of Manuevers and Phases.

Originally Posted by Your review

Given the World Burning process and the Infection mechanics, this sci-fi game appears to have very, very little relevant space travel.

FYI, this is very much in keeping with the Iron Empires comics, at least the ones published so far. The focus is always is on the fate of a given world.

That said, there's nothing preventing groups from running epic spaceship combats and zipping from planet to planet in the course of deciding their world's fate.

[Thor Olavsrud]

Originally Posted by Kyle

The cost of the book is, I think, a little more than 5$.

For clarification, the book costs $45.

Thanks for the review Paul!

[rgalex]

Originally Posted by buzz

First off, giving this book less than a 5 for Style is just nuts. It's on par with anything WotC or WW can put out. I'd have given it a 5 for substance, too. This game is very well-written and complete. AFAIC, it's the new model against which I measure other RPGs.

I too would give it a 4 out of 5 for Style. I would have much prefered a more traditional sized (like any D&D or other common RPG) or even a slightly smaller size (like most of the Eden Studios books) over the thick digest size. The book is gorgeous, but I find the small, thick form awkward.

Also, a 4 (maybe 4.5) for Substance. I love everything in there except where we get little bits of commentary. I had this problem with Burning Wheel too. I don't care how the writter thinks games should be played, or how GMs/players should act, or what their personal philosophy on gaming is. The few times it came up (sorry, don't have the book with me to give examples) it really turned me off.

The other half of that is the little "voices" characters. It's easy enough to skip over them, but when the book is printed in the size it is, there are several times where a whole page or two were devoted to these other voices. They tended to pull me out of the setting more than help me with anything.

All in all though, these are minor complains and very much a matter of IMO. Burning Empires seems to be a great game and I'm looking forward to playing it soon.

[buzz]

Originally Posted by rgalex

Also, a 4 (maybe 4.5) for Substance. I love everything in there except where we get little bits of commentary. I had this problem with Burning Wheel too. I don't care how the writter thinks games should be played, or how GMs/players should act, or what their personal philosophy on gaming is. The few times it came up (sorry, don't have the book with me to give examples) it really turned me off.

Interesting. I never got the impression in BE that any of the commentary characters were telling me how to act or conveying Luke's personal philosophy. They just seemed like a combination of designer notes and further explanation of the rule you just read. I found them very unlike the imps from BW.

As for the form factor, I found it much more manageable for reading than a typical RPG book. Flipping through for reference is a bit more effort, true.

The art, writing, and layout, though... top-notch.

[rgalex]

Originally Posted by buzz

Interesting. I never got the impression in BE that any of the commentary characters were telling me how to act or conveying Luke's personal philosophy. They just seemed like a combination of designer notes and further explanation of the rule you just read. I found them very unlike the imps from BW.

As for the form factor, I found it much more manageable for reading than a typical RPG book. Flipping through for reference is a bit more effort, true.

The art, writing, and layout, though... top-notch.

Yes, they were less intrusive than in BW and I was happy about that. Maybe I'm carrying some baggage over from those imps to BE's voices. However, I guess it's just my preference that designer notes not be spread throughout the book like that. A sidebar here and there is ok, but IMO the voices were just a little too overused. In the case where it was a futher explanation of a rule, well, it could have just been explained further or had an example without the "voice".

Like I said above though, these are minor (and personal) nitpicks. The overall book is top notch and I'm very happy with my purchase of it at GenCon last month.

[yorrick]

Originally Posted by rgalex

I too would give it a 4 out of 5 for Style. I would have much prefered a more traditional sized (like any D&D or other common RPG) or even a slightly smaller size (like most of the Eden Studios books) over the thick digest size. The book is gorgeous, but I find the small, thick form awkward.

That's interesting. I found I liked the digest size much more than I anticipated--it's more convenient for me to carry around. The binding is also superior to a lot of rpg hardcovers I've had.

But then, I'm used to looking through reference books and historical texts of similar size for information on a regular basis. So perhaps BE just has a familiar feel to me. Anyway, I was curious as to how people would react to the different format.

[yorrick]

I'd have to agree that character beliefs and goals seem to be the engine that drives BW and BE.

Your lifepaths and basic beliefs provide the substance of your character and a general direction. It seems to me that the premise of BE (I’ve ordered BW but not yet receieved/read it) is that the most important aspect of your character is the dynamic process that follows creation—doing things that matter. The philosophy seems to be that the most important actions are those that challenge the comfort zone of your character. If you aren’t actively risking something—be it a belief that defines your character or a more tangible setback on the path to your goals—then the mechanics of gameplay are actually different. Color scenes can be fun and flavorful and they just happen the way people want them to happen—as with color technology, which is very flexible. But if a scene involves something that characters can lose or win, then it is a conflict that has to be resolved and you have to play that conflict. I think the reward/advancement system reflects this as well.

It seems to me that the negotiated aspects of conflict resolution are in place to make this process of constantly testing your characters less of an all-or-nothing proposition. That is, you can recover from failure because there is room to negotiate something useful. Your reward for success AND failure is getting the chance to adapt to the new terrain and test yourself again.

But at the heart of all the abstracted conflict mechanics and negotiations seems to be questions centered on you and your character: What matters to you? What do you want to achieve? What will you risk to accomplish it? Who will you be when you reach the end of that path? The mechanics are there to lay this process bare. It seems kind of intense, but it is all about active rather than passive characters.

Just my impressions.

[Burning Luke]

Paul, thanks for the nice review!

And Yorrick, yeah, you get it!

-L

PS: Thanks Buzz for the clarifications!