Dana talks about Origins 2014, we all discuss upcoming innovations in “traditional” gaming (i.e. D&D5), plus some announcements on where to hear us on other podcasts.
- Heroine
- Dream Askew
- The Climb
- Urban Shadows Kickstarter – only 5 hours left!
- Dana on the Jank Cast
- The Walking Eye (a very special episode to be joint-broadcast soon!)
About whether or not Burning Wheel is a “Trad” game or and “Indie” game, there was actually a discussion on the Burning Wheel forums about this a while back. In my opinion, probably the best post was this:http://www.burningwheel.org/forum/showthread.php?13882-How-is-the-GM-intended-to-interact-with-the-game&p=137980#post137980
“To me, BW is: A ‘trad’ game where characters’ motivations are always in the spotlight, there’s no filler stuff during a session, and illusionism is considered downright obscene.
* An ‘indie’ game that puts *hard* constraints on fictional statements based on the characters’ actual talents and tools, so you can’t just wave a problem away through some kind of ambiguous narrative force. Like, both of those together, at once.”
People often think about the whole trad/indie thing as a spectrum with story-driven, color-first “indie” systems on one end, and gamist mechanics-first “trad” games on the other. Burning Wheel doesn’t really lie anywhere on this spectrum; it’s it in a category all it’s own. Yes, it is very crunchy mechanics heavy, but it is also very story-driven; the mechanics literally won’t let you play BW as a non-story game.
Laughing about “very special episode” – i’m thinking of those after-school specials on drug abuse.