Campaign Burning

[Enoch]

I'd like to get your input on what you'd like to see in this campaign. The default assumption in Torchbearer is that you're the down-and-out of society, digging into old ruins and disturbing goblin nests because your next-best alternative is starving in the streets: nobody really wants to be an adventurer, and they aren't that well accepted, either. If you want a more heroic feel, we can do that; and if you want a more pulpy feel, there's no reason you all couldn't be members of an Adventurers' Guild of sorts (either official or unofficial).

Some things to think about:

• Anything you might want to see in the game world (a particular faction, a scene you'd like to see play out, etc.)
• What sort of character you might want to play and why they find delving into dark and dangerous ruins to be preferable to finding a steady job in town. Torchbearer hews fairly closely to 0e conventions (basic classes are warrior, cleric, mage, thief, elf, halfling, dwarf, though there are some optional classes we can explore as well).
• Whether you want to use any, all, or none of the modifications that Mythcreants has proposed to improve Torchbearer, and each of them has some merit. I'd like to discuss whether you all want to use any or all of them once we get a forum up. Those rules can be found here: Seven House Rules for Torchbearer Campaigns.

Please respond on this thread and share your ideas for any and all of this!

[Stirling]

Hello and thank you for including me in the game.

My initial thoughts for would be to have the party form as apprentices or members of various guilds seconded to work for some anthropological society like a 'National Geographic' type thus giving reason to explore and relic hunt in ruins, temples and wilderness.

Or to have us be members of a rogue guild involved in urban turf wars

Or perhaps even members of 'the Resistance' to an invading enemy in some cosmopolitan city.

Thoughts?

[Rex]

I am fine with the base assumption of down on our luck. Anything can be made to work if everyone puts effort into it. As far as the house rules, they all look good to me but I am not familiar with the system so it may not count for much at this point. I do like that they seem to be designed to promote flexibility which I always prefer.

[Paladin]

Hi! Thanks for letting me give it a go.

Speaking for myself, I'm fine with playing a hardscrabble nobody looking to make a few coins delving in the dark.

I've only read the book once, so I'm not hugely familiar with the rules yet. But one house rule I did notice that looks helpful is altering the turn progression to where players act simultaneously without advancing a turn until everyone has acted or until a player who has already acted attempts to act a second time. Seems like that would be useful in PbP.

[drpete]

I'm fine with the various house rule fixes. It sounds like they've gone through and found various points that are problematic and developed workarounds. I'm happy with character creation as is, or with the extra options. I was thinking I wanted to play a dwarf, and would be fine with the default skills, though I wouldn't mind swapping a few around..

As for scenarios or factions, I like the idea of having a thieves guild type group in play, though my sense is that the game is more about dungeon delving than urban adventure.

[Enoch]

As far as traditional theives' guilds go, Torchbearer does assume a fairly migratory lifestyle: leave town, adventure, return (not necessarily to the same town). It could be made to work, but a system like Blades in the Dark would probably suit that better.

That said, there's a whole spectrum of what society considers thieves, and there's no reason why your guild or group (even if it's just you all) have to be particularly respectful of property rights...

[Rex]

What should I pick up for the rules? Is this it?

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/116482/Torchbearer

I also saw this, looks cool.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/14 ... ts--Exiles

[drpete]

I guess I don't particularly mean that we're in a thieves guild... we could be too mangy to be in it, I guess. Basically, I was thinking of having a mobster enemies rather than being in the mob.

I know that there is a setting book called Middarmark, but don't know much about it, except that it's based on Vikings, etc. Do we want to play "regular" torchbearer, or explore the settings?

[Stirling]

As a relative newcomer to Torchbearers I have been trawling the archives to pick notes and tips from other TB games ran on the forum. Seems some of you guys are old hands adventuring together in Skyrim's world, 'No Place for Deadbeats'.

[BillTheGalacticHero]

I've played in one Torchbearer game here in unseen, and have been running a Torchbearer campaign for the past year in real life (sessions once or twice a month).

I'd probably would like to play one of the characters from on of the official expansions, possible a Ranger from Exiles (what I played in the unseen game last year), or possibly a Forsaken Ridder from ?Middermark?

[Marullus]

Excited to be here!

Ideas so far
The idea of being Resistance to some organized foe (be they an invasion force, or mob bosses, or the cosmopolitan elite) is different and interesting... I could see it working as long as we "leave town" to take our actions and then return. It is more "Robin Hood in Sherwood Forest" than it is an Urban game. I agree with Enoch that being in the urban setting is good for Blades in the Dark and bad for Torchbearer. See being in the Resistance and being the downtrodden outcasts as easily co-existing.

Middarmark is a cool setting with good flavor, but the "lift" to all learn that setting is pretty hefty. It has a "frozen north" feel and it subdivides the Human race into multiple sub-races, which adds variety. If we're all excited to play in that epoch I am in as well, but we need to all commit to some hefty reading for the setting in addition to learning the system; I don't take that as a given and assumed you'd skip it.

What should I pick up for the rules? Is this it?
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/116482/Torchbearer

Yep, that's the one!

I also saw this, looks cool.
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/14 ... ts--Exiles

It IS cool. You can also get the Bonus Classes, Bestiary, and other goodies for free over here:
https://www.burningwheel.com/torchbearer/
They're selling Middarmark for half price right now.

New Ideas
I really liked the concept of a previous campaign here that didn't last long enough - we were all partially-monsterish from the Denizens of the Dark suppliment, struggling with our (and society's) view of humanity -- a half-vampire hunter, a undead paladin reanimated by vengance, a young witch afraid to have powers -- under the tutliage of our old cleric companion. I wouldn't mind revisiting something like that. I'm inspired by October right now.

I would like to propose that we include all supplimentals for consideration.

I am personally interested in playing a Witch or a Minitaur (or perhaps eventually both, as this sandbox idea is awesome. ) I will tailor them to fit whatever group concept we arrive at.


The Mythcreants House Rules
Here's my thoughts...

1) Mix and Match race and class. Harmless enough and I like supporting variety. Unintended consequences are pretty easily identifiable early on and can be dealt with by the GM during creation.

2) Extra Traits for Reduced Nature. I strongly agree with this one. Huge and fixes bad math.

3) Skill Customization. With new players, we should stick close to the pre-sets. Having a mechanic for managing swaps, though, isn't a bad thing. I suggest we allow this with discretion.

4) Game balance tweaks. I think these all make sense.

5) Advancement from Helping. This overlooks an existing rule. By the book, you can mark advancement for helping if you spend a Check. (Which means you need to perform a test as the die roller, use a trait against yourself to earn a check, and then give up that check's utility at healing in camp to gain the advancement.) I've never seen someone give up a hard-earned check to do it, so the article's argument is still salient.

This rule then warns that characters advance much faster when you allow advancing from help. We need to be clear that we want that. For me... I do. I love advancing and Torchbearer is pretty slow. I would like this rule a lot, but it does change the feel of the game.

6) I haven't really felt the pain of resource rolls. I leave this up to Enoch. It's too complex to even argue over.

7) Actions for everyone. I normally oppose this rule... modding the turn counter really impacts the flavor of the game. That said, I see it as balanced by rule #5, Advancement from Helping. If each turn allows each character to either roll OR help and both rolls and help have equal advancement opportunities, then it evens out more. It also is deeply affected by group size. Implementing this rule AND having large groups (more than 4 PCs) would break the game utterly. Also, with multiple actions happening, it means that not everyone helps where they can on each action - that decreases dice, which decreases success, which increases the Twists and problems the whole group faces.

Other House Rules
Because of the post-speed in play-by-post (pbp), we adopted an "Assumed Help" rule in the past games on this site. Under this rule, the person who's taking the actions checks the other's sheets and it is assumed that if they have a relevant skill they're helping. The dice roll and we don't have to wait for every player to post before each roll.

That house rule doesn't function if we implement rules #5 and #7 above. It is very important that every PC state their action and if (and who) they're helping with those rules in place. In pbp, having everyone act every turn requires everyone to reliably post. The turns take longer, but they accomplish more. There's real trade-offs here.

My first inclination is to keep Assumed Help and Help Advances (#5) without Everyone Acts (#7) but keep group sizes at four or so so people have enough opportunities.

[BillTheGalacticHero]

...
5) Advancement from Helping. This overlooks an existing rule. By the book, you can mark advancement for helping if you spend a Check. (Which means you need to perform a test as the die roller, use a trait against yourself to earn a check, and then give up that check's utility at healing in camp to gain the advancement.) I've never seen someone give up a hard-earned check to do it, so the article's argument is still salient.
...

I recall Rabon the Thief did it once in our game last year.

[Marullus]

I stand corrected.

[Enoch]

The basic house rules are good for everyone to have. I will do my best to keep everyone aware of relevant rules, etc., and I know we have several experienced players that can help with that as well, but there's nothing like being able to look something up yourself.

As for the supplements, Wanderers, Outcasts and Exiles has some great classes, as does Denizens in the Dark. I'll post the classes that each provides shortly, but there's no need to get either unless the group decides they want to allow either of them and one appeals to you (or if you just want a complete collection).

My assumption was that for new players simply learning a new system was likely to be tough enough. I'm not particularly familiar with Middermark myself, but I'm willing to learn it if there's interest.

As for the Mythcreants variant rules, I'm ok with any or all of them. I think Marullus makes some good points about how they interact, particularly in terms of the turn economy. It does seem like we need to either use implied Help or one action per player per turn, not both. In terms of advancement, I've always felt like games by Luke and Thor advanced really slowly. That group plays several times a week and typically has campaigns that stretch for RL years, so slow advancement suits them.

I'm happy to discuss swapping out skills if the class skills don't quite suit your concept, and there are some "trap" skills that don't tend to see much use in the dungeon (I'm looking at you, half the skills for the Paladin). I'll point those out if I see them.

I've only done one or two Town phases myself, and was too poor to do any Haggling, but this rule makes sense. The math just doesn't work to haggle over each item.

[Enoch]

Classes

Core Rulebook

• Dwarf Adventurer
• Elf Ranger
• Halfling Burglar
• Cleric
• Magician
• Warrior
• Thief
• Paladin

Wanderers, Outcasts & Exiles

• Assassin
• Barbarian
• Half-Elf Bard
• Druid
• Monk
• Strider
• Dark Elf Sorcerer
• Gnome Illusionist
• Half-Orc Pirate
• Minotaur Pit Fighter
• Roden Guide
• Sea Elf Mariner
• Dwarf Oathbreaker
• Halfling Thain

Denizens of the Dark

• Death Knight
• Servitor
• Goblin Shaman
• Skin-Changer
• Doppelganger Spy
• Dhampir Vampire Hunter
• Witch

Fearless and Freebooting

• Herald
• Spiritsmith
• Journeyman Cook
• Volva
• Forsaken Ridder
• Wolfskin Shapeshifter
• Troll-born Enchanter
• Berserker Outlaw
• Artificer

Frozen Fiends

• Dire Wolf Omega
• Winter Elf Shaman
• Frostfolk Warden
• Human Shaman

Others

• Astral Knights
• Dwarf Wanderer
• Fisk Gambler

I'm happy to provide more detail on any of these. You don't all necessarily need to pick classes from the same book, so long as you can make the concept work, but everyone should have a different class.

[BillTheGalacticHero]

I have the Fearless and Freebooting expansion which adds some more classes, one I am intrigued by is the Forsaken Ridder, would there be any objection if I took that as a class?

Elf Herald
Human Spiritsmith
Halfling Journeyman Cook
Human Völva (prophet/seer)
Human Forsaken Ridder
Human Wolfskin Shapeshifter
Huldrefolk Troll-born Enchanter
Human Berserker Outlaw
Dwarf Artificer

[Rex]

Everything looks good to me. In my experience the GM needs a strong buy in on the setting. I will pick up some rules now and start reading. I kind of liked the idea of the forsaken trying to figure it out (I could see myself running the witch easily).

[Marullus]

What does everyone think of Stirling's suggestion to have an Insurrection campaign?

That's a decision we should make early as it impacts a number of later choices (classes like Human Assassin and Doppelganger Spy and spells like Arcane Semblance, for example, don't usually fit in the dungeon but become well-suited).

It could be a Xenophobic Polity (Lord Farquad of Dulac creating his perfect, homogeneous world, or the Paladins of Black and White Vision eliminating all races they see as born evil) or a simple might-is-right oligarchy and we're on the wrong side (jerkish knights, pragmatic mob bosses, etc). The "Man" we are fighting against could be human or not - I've long imagined an oppressive dwarven set of crime families, for example. (Burning Wheel's greed attribute lends itself naturally to dwarven crime lords.) I like that this insurrection scenario incentivizes us to play oddball options and have social skills emphasized for civilized encounters. I have been in games where we emphasized social skills in creation and then ended up only in dungeons with nothing intelligent to Social with.

We're grubby outcasts. Are we seeking fortunes "lost and in the unknown" like traditional delvers, or "taking it back from the Man" in a rural insurrection?

[drpete]

I think that sounds pretty neat.

I started thinking about a character, leaning in to the greedy side of dwarf nature, and imagining being on the outs with some kind of gang.

Having some focus on opposing dwarven crime lords really jibes with that initial concept, so I dig it.

I'm not sure what that would look like in practice in torchbearer... are there rival parties going after the same loot? Are we trying to rob their bases? Is it mostly about what happens in town?

[shroomofinsanity]

Glad to see some familiar faces, and always glad to see Marullus and his well thought out and info packed posts. I am a little busy atm, moving and such in the real world, but I am very in. I also played in the game last year, and have run several one shots and a few sessions into a campaign, so I have a little experience with the system, and it does deliver that narrative skill based OSR style play, with surprisingly tough characters. my 2 cents:

for new players especially, I like the idea of keeping skills close to class norms, as new players don't know just how important cooking or cartography is until we are down to our last scrap of meat.

I am up for trying house rules that aren't striking against the core of the experience, and as long as our party remains as large at it seems to be, I can be for the helping advancement, as there will be sessions where an individual may make all of 1 test.

I think the more experienced players should probably help guide our new players into something they will enjoy playing, and then we pick up any slack we see in either racial or skill holes.

I really think that whatever game we are playing, for the sake of teaching the system to its strengths, we should start play at the dungeon door with our chosen supplies, to show what the game is good at simulating. I would say even a 3 room dungeon can be enough to show what can happen here. Then if we want to swerve the game into something else, we can.

This can give players that don't like their characters after the initial little delve a chance to remake into something that like based on how the system really works in practice, and don't feel stuck to a character due to story.

As a possible idea: we find something in the dungeon, that gives us the idea of turning against the government.

And to the question about rival parties; this system builds in the idea of enemies in a very real sense. They could be out for your blood, or just a rival adventurer. In the last game, my enemy was the mentor of the party's thief, and my parent/mentor was the enemy of the party's dwarf, which led to some interesting moments and interwoven character story.