Narrative Control

Hi and welcome to Narrative Control. This week's episode is an actual play report from a Burning Wheel game that I played in with the guys from This Modern Death. The game setting is heavily inspired by the HBO show Deadwood and it rocked hard. Warning, as per fitting with the genre, this show has an explicit tag, though truthfully I don't think we were nearly as bad as we could have been.

Length: 22:47

Hosts: Sean Nittner, Shaun Hayworth, Kristin Sullivan, and Randy Davenport

Liner Notes

[0:30] Thanks for the feedback from last episode
[0:53] Burning Las Vegas got me thinking about Burning Wheel
[1:21] Experimenting with actual play reports
[1:45] RPGpodcats.com Bumper
[1:52] Introduction to the hosts
[2:34] What is Burning Deadwood?
[2:58] Discussion of the show Deadwood
[3:40] Deadwood isn't setting, its situation
[4:40] Orks be here!
[4:50] Game defined by the character's motivations
[5:26] A group of players looking to be screwed with
[5:50] Brief background on the game.
[6:11] Levi, the fire and brimstone priest of Zoltek
[6:50] Player vs. Player conflicts built into beliefs: "The wizard must burn!"
[7:02] Role of religion in westerns
[7:48] Woops, the wizard botched his spell and turns a forest to crystal
[8:27] Gunning for a Dual of Wits with a torch in hand.
[8:55] The story is driven by the players but we all got suprised a few times.
[10:00] Seans's strategy: Rally the congregation against the Wizard!
[11:04] Converting the mother of the son to turn against her child. Evil priest!
[12:00] Oddly anti-climatic ending that was very satisfying
[13:20] Pet peave of Sean's: Players don't recognize authority figures. How does it play out differently when they are controlled by the GM vs. another player?
[14:28] Group dynamic. These are people climbing the food chain, not the heroes of the dawn.
[15:06] The mechanics support this. NPCs have some serious weight to throw around.
[16:06] NPCs and PCs use the same tactics, and death is easy.
[16:58] Separate plots advancing during the game.
[17:44] Players opting to screw themselves over made the game rock.
[18:58] Opening scene as a foreshadowing for the themes of the session.
[19:13] Character driven story meant we could split up and move the story forward
[19:37] A very restricted geography keeps the characters running into each other.
[20:58] Burning Wheel mechanics make it unnecessary to have a story scripted, everything moves forward from a starting condition.
[21:39] Thanks to Shaun, Kristin and Randy.

Links

RPGPodcats.com
This Modern Death
Burning Wheel
Deadwood

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