Torchbearer - Kickstarter is UP

[...You Lost Me]

I can't really hear what's going on in the gameplay video they posted on the kickstarter, but in the end I think a couple of the players want to go do something, one player objects on account of the fact that she's incapable of acting ("I am hungry, angry, and afraid") and then the other players appear to ignore that and go on.

I don't know what caused her to suck so hard in comparison to the others, and I'm not sure what kind of mechanic encourages going on when your party members are incapacitated, but I sure don't like it.

Also, races are coupled with classes. Ohgodno.

[noclue]

It can be 6" wide and just have a torchholder (or lantern holder, as most lanterns are smaller than that. Two wheels with a single short axel and a long handle. It would be fucking simple to make. It wouldn't 100% all terrain, and you'd have to step away from it when the combat music starts, but you could build it so it props itself up fairly easily as long as no one makes an effort to kick it over.

You read the part on the forbes.com site about the game trying to capture the designers experience delving in a real cavern, right? "The cramped caves, the oppressive dark, none of that came across the way it felt in an actual cavern."

Anyone who's been caving can tell you that you're not taking a cart, even a 6" wide cart, anywhere.

I don't know what caused her to suck so hard in comparison to the others, and I'm not sure what kind of mechanic encourages going on when your party members are incapacitated, but I sure don't like it.

She's not incapacitated. She's got Conditions (3 of them), which is more than some of the others. From the discussion, there's no mechanic encouraging them to go on, there's people that need saving.

[silva]

So, did anyone get it ? Any impressions so far ?

Im still waiting my copy to arrive.

[wotmaniac]

So, did anyone get it ? Any impressions so far ?

Im still waiting my copy to arrive.

Have you not been getting the emails?
They've had 19 kinds of production problems ... while they don't yet have a revised date, it'll likely be at least the first of the year.

[Previn]

Anyone who's been caving can tell you that you're not taking a cart, even a 6" wide cart, anywhere.

A 6" wide cart is going to fit pretty much anywhere the human body fits, especially with a rope lead, and netting for containing goods stored on it. There may be some argument for it being more trouble that it's worth, but it is sure as heck possible and realistic.

I also have to question that it you can't fit a 6" wide object, like the human head, through an opening, how are you supposed to fit a human body through such a small opening, and what kind of treasure you're really going to be able to haul out of there?

[Zaranthan]

For my money's worth, I'd say a sack with some tools in it is abstracted as part of your encumbrance, representing your shoulder or back slots. I've seen some of the stuff cavers do, and a common spot to find yourself in seems to be a squeeze where you can't turn around. If you find yourself unable to progress, you'll need to inch your way backwards in whatever position you find yourself in. For this reason, anything that's not your clothing, helmet, or the light on your helmet is not dragged behind you but instead pushed ahead of you. If you're backing up and your bag gets stuck, it's probably gone. You might be able to leave it and come back with some rope and gain leverage to recover it, but you might not.

If the bag was not in front of you, but behind you, you're dead. Hopefully you've got some buddies behind you who can make their way in and pull your bag free, but if you were bringing up the rear, now you're ALL stuck.

[ETortoise]

They've had 19 kinds of production problems ... while they don't yet have a revised date, it'll likely be at least the first of the year.

I got mine on the 5th.

As of yet I haven't had a moment to really go through it. My first impressions are that it is physically a great book. Nice art, good binding and layout. The rules seem to be a middle ground between Burning Wheel and Mouse Guard. I'd like to come to grips with it in some actual play but my gaming time is currently full.

It's a limited game. It's intended to emulate Red Box D&D and so you adventure, make camp and blow your money in town, and that's it.

Question of 6" wide carts are kind of missing the point. If you dont want to play a dungeon delving game where you worry about light and how much you can carry on your person then you don't play Torchbearer. The same company has made two other fantasy RPGs that each have their own focus.

[wotmaniac]

Strike what I said earlier -- I got my kickstarter projects confused.
(I was thinking about Torn Armor)

[Concise Locket]

I got mine on the 5th.

As of yet I haven't had a moment to really go through it. My first impressions are that it is physically a great book. Nice art, good binding and layout. The rules seem to be a middle ground between Burning Wheel and Mouse Guard. I'd like to come to grips with it in some actual play but my gaming time is currently full.

Ditto and ditto.

It uses a pared-down BW engine so if you like that system then you'll probably like this game.

[Lago PARANOIA]

So. A lot of the people who originally posted on this thread aren't here anymore, but for those of you who are or are just interested in Torchbearer:

How about giving us a rundown of the pros and cons of this game? As I said in another thread, I really want to give this game a chance because any game that causes grognards to scream bloody murder about hipster games pissing on the graves of OSR can't be all bad. And as much hell as I raise about games bait-and-switching you with Steve the Crap Covered Farmer, if the game was up-front about having you play Steve and made the experience streamlined I could see myself having fun. Hell, back in some ancient Disney thread I said I'd be willing to play as one of the tiny Disney protagonists. Where the adventure was seriously 'find garments and accessories for Cinderella's wedding dress' -- as long as the system was good and the setup wasn't retarded. Well, otherwise retarded.

But I'll be fucked if I drop 15 dollars for a PDF unless it came with a few TGD recommendations.

[Aryxbez]

So. A lot of the people who originally posted on this thread aren't here anymore, but for those of you who are or are just interested in Torchbearer:

How about giving us a rundown of the pros and cons of this game?
But I'll be fucked if I drop 15 dollars for a PDF unless it came with a few TGD recommendations.

Wait, seriously, we lost posters??! I suppose it's true they haven't posted in long time, but it saddens/surprises me for us to have lost members all the same.

Me and a couple other friends all split and bought the Book +PDF copy on its website (The site has some free 2 classes,10pg-preview & printouts). We've yet to play it since we had been waiting for the book, and otherwise any organizing on getting a group together for that. When we do, I'll try to borrow the book and maybe see if I can give a run-down of it.

Ah yes, the whole What you've heard bit. I've actually shared that post with everyone in relation to the game. I seriously urge you/someone find out WHY, this game has Grognards in such an apparent frenzy?

[Concise Locket]

I own a set of pre-Gold Edition Burning Wheel books and I've read them all cover to cover. I haven't had a chance to crack my Torchbearer book but I'll share an overview when I do. Soon.

[Lago PARANOIA]

I seriously urge you/someone find out WHY, this game has Grognards in such an apparent frenzy?

I actually know why Torchbearer has the Grognards in such a frenzy. It's because the game shamelessly promoted itself as being dungeon crawling for REAL MEN instead of that candy-ass crap 1E-2E D&D grognards wank to.

“Groups can go in without a guide,” he says of his trip to Clarksville, “but you’re required to wear a helmet with a chin-strap, kneepads, and each person must bring three light sources, the primary one helmet-mounted. It features a number of tight squeezes that you have to worm your way through head first, an underground stream and other hazards.”

Olavsrud says he was “consumed with the experience, but when I got home, it struck me that D&D, even with the AD&D Dungeoneer’s Survival Guide, doesn’t really reflect that experience.”

The cramped caves, the oppressive dark, none of that came across the way it felt in an actual cavern.

“I wanted to make a game where caving and dungeoneering felt like a big deal,” he says, “where your character could be cold and wet and feel the oppressive weight of the dark.”

Now, does Torchbearer actually deliver on this promise? I don't know. I think that this gambit is comically pretentious in a way that would make the promoters of 4E D&D and oWoD blush. And it's quite possible that the game ends up being a huge piece of unplayable shit once you look past the promotional campaign.

But as we can see from our resident grognard shadzar here, OSR people take pride in how hardcore and gritty their games are. So the thought of a fluffybunny indie game that explicitly rejected the OSR because it wasn't hardcore and gritty enough sends them into a tizzy. It's sort of like a gangsta rapper getting his ass kicked by a prog rock hipster wearing a red fedora and Pabst Blue Ribbon-stained prewashed jeans. That causes a level of resentment above and beyond being beat up by another rapper or even a punk or country music singer.

[Concise Locket]

This hardly qualifies as an objective review of the system but I found the following statement amusing/interesting:

Unlike many other roleplaying games, Torchbearer is very much a "we all hang together or we all hang separately" experience. The restrictive nature of light sources, the grind of the turns, the layering of condition upon twist upon condition, the desperate need to make every individual roll count... it all comes together in gameplay that'll punish players trying doing their own separate things. Splitting the party is never a good idea. Doing something "in the meantime" while another player is occupied is not an option. Taking a "kill them all, let whomever sort them out" approach to conflicts will lead to an inevitable TPK.

Luckily, the game I ran on Sunday only involved two players, so it was less effort to ease them into it. One of them had previously played Mouse Guard and had even ran a Torchbearer game himself. But still, it took a bit for the two of them to understand the almost-comically-unforgiving nature of the game. Within an hour, one of them was injured from a fall and sick from a fever. They had run through most of their torches. They were quickly going through all their rations. They were exhausted. They were thirsty. They were often stranded in the dark. And they had only gotten through three rooms! Resting up in a much needed camp phase, they proceeded with a more cautious, cooperative approach and found themselves making better progress.

[Lago PARANOIA]

I got to look through a buddy's PDF earlier today. Not long enough to deeply scan it, but enough to pick up a few points of interest.

• The resolution mechanics are pretty damn solid. The TN is 4 on a d6, Obstacles (DC) range in difficulty from 1 to 10, and the vast majority of bonuses come from situational modifiers or from limited resource pools. The numbers and odds are pretty unobfuscated and there aren't a lot of steps.
• The game shamelessly advertises itself as a hardcore oldschool dungeon crawling experience and I reluctantly admit that it delivers. Even without playing the game reading this game really made me feel like I was playing a dung farmer turned murderhobo. The game enforces this mindset by deliberately stacking the deck against you and forcing you to special plead, roleplay, or accept measured victories against common obstacles. While you're not exactly a worthless pigfarmer who wets his pants at a kobold holding a pitchfork -- and in fact you can take on a guard squadron by yourself at level 2 or 3 with some decent gear, the game never misses an opportunity to kick you in the groin.
• The way the game kicks you in the groin is effectively but maddeningly simple. It has three kicking techniques.
  
  The first is how the game clocks time. It doesn't do objective time like most games: it does narrative time. Parlaying with a group of orcs underground takes as much time as climbing up a mountain as much time as disarming a trap. Every time you undergo four of these events, you get an escalatingly bad status effect that starts out at hungry/thirsty and piles on if you can't cure the previous tier. Remember that the RNG is pretty small in Torchbearer so just being at a -1 to your die rolls is brutal. There is downtime in the game, however, you only get a 'camp' phase with the attendant actions if you used your traits against yourself during the adventure phase (so there's a limit as to how long you can camp) and downtime only lasts as long as you have treasure and/or are willing to put up with bad status effects for not being able to afford creature comforts. You can survive in the wildness by foraging for food/clothes materials/treasure/etc., but it's difficult and should only be done as a last resort. Most of the time, you're cycling through adventure -> camp --> adventure --> camp --> ... --> town --> adventure. You are always on a time limit and while the RNG provides some GM-proofing both the basic rules and the GM's perogative can make this time limit more stingy.
  
  The second groin-kick of the game revolves around six status effects: Hungry/Thirsty, Sick, Exhausted, Angry, Afraid, Injured, and of course Dead. Dead is simultaneously a persistent yet difficult status effect to achieve; Burning Wheel doesn't really do the Death No Save or even Save or Die. Rather, the game deliberately stacks the deck against you and encourages you burn through your limited resources and accept negative status effects in order to keep you moving at a good clip. Want to camp right here so that the party chef can stretch out the rations and the healer can tend to the wounded? Well, the GM rolled a 'this place is damp and hot' for the campsite so you'll be exhausted afterwards. That anecdote above me about the players being unable to get past three rooms before being tapped of resources? That guy is not kidding. With the mental math done in my head I can see that's a real possibility even without the GM trying to dick the players.
  
  The third groin-kicking technique is the much-hyped inventory limits. If you don't know what the Knapsack Problem is then you'll be dreaming about optimization arrays by the time you're done with a few sessions. Long story short, you can't be overly prepared in this game. You have a limited encumbrance and the game will hold you to it. What's more, things that players take for granted like light and food and bandages are heavily monitored and you will be agonizing over load limits. Don't forget that you still need to grab treasure. You can alleviate some of these pressures by foraging and nicking gear and even some prayers/spells, but considering how brutal the status effects in this game you don't want to risk it. The game also tries to break the 4th wall (with varying amounts of success) by instituting a metagame punishment for trying to get around load limits. You know, shit like rats getting into the wagon and eating the rations or people knocking over lanterns that get put on the ground. Annoying as fuck, but also sort of vital for the game.
• The game sits halfway between a class and level system and a skill system. Special abilities like spells and certain abilities like the ability not to get the Angry condition after combat come from your race/class (Torchbearer combines them OD&D style, ugh) while almost everything else comes from the skill system. The skills system includes static skills along with geegaw like Wises and Traits. The game splits the difference on the I Am Batman problem by making the more freeform skill options only add situational bonuses to be applied to skills you can't bullshit on.
• The game is in an unstable equilibrium. You're supposed to barely be able to scrape by the skin off your teeth for each adventure and even be at a slight loss. The game really wants to nickle and dime you between downtime. This definitely gives the game a feeling off progression but the downside is that the game is deliberately paced to make it so that you don't have much room for dicking around.
• The rules are really tightly focused around you murder-hoboing. Like, tighter than Shadowrun. In a way this is good because the game moves at a good clip and don't stall out. On the other hand, the game doesn't react too well to you trying to move outside the system. Trying to earn money in a way that doesn't tie back to non-repeatable events or dungeon crawling breaks the game, for instance.
• You all sink or swim as a group. Aside from the fact that the game has a lot of outright communistic design decisions (like the group voting on whether you're roleplaying your trait or alignment and changing it for you if you deviate too much from it), the game really expects you to preempt other peoples' decisions and assist whenever possible. And considering how mean some of the standard challenges are, you will want to be doing that. The game is so stingy with bonuses that you don't want to be doing stuff in the 'meanwhile' unless you're safe or you have to. Party optimization is a lot more important than character optimization. The game makes no bones about the fact that the best Goals and Traits are those relating to the other players and suggests that the person who took it in the shorts the most to help others accomplish their goals gets an extra share of story rewards. Seriously, I've never read a game more communistic and codependent than Torchbearer.
• Failure, even show-stopping failure, is a part of the adventure. Seriously, the game is set up explicitly so that having an Obstacle 4 challenge when the most you can roll is a 2 on a TN4-of-6 RNG and you can't just pull some dice bonuses out of your ass is a common situation. Burning wheel has 'Succeed with Compromise' rules however where if you fail only by just so you can take on a bad condition in order to succeed anyway. Moreover, you pretty much have to fail on skills to advance them. Moreover moreover, the game expects you to use your traits against yourself FATE-style in order to built up Persona points.
• The game hinges on mechanic-aided roleplay. Traits and Instincts (automatic actions that you do for free during certain phases like 'always check for mushrooms to eat' or 'always try to keep a light lit, even with improvised materials') and Nature (how much you're fucking like your original race) are
• Despite the difficulty of the game and the unstable equilibrium, it's actually pretty hard to actually die if you take reasonable precautions. You pretty much die by: completely getting your ass handed to you in a Kill encounter (which are rare), pushing your luck when you're already injured and failing, and getting sick/injured/exhausted twice in a row during a Winter phase.
• The GM has a lot of discretion on how easy or difficult the adventure will be. The baseline mechanics of the game are already pretty cruel and the rules encourage the GM to introduce minor complications at every opportunity to get people to roleplay more and keep people moving. That said, there are some GM-elected mercies in the game such as the Town Phase (which is also stacked against you) letting a friend pay off some of your debts or the Guild sticking you with a quest to call off the press gangs.

That said, Torchbearer has a few unacceptable design conceits, even for a retroclone wannabe.

• The first is that the game explicitly tells you that you're not supposed to start characters at higher than first level, even when you introduce new characters. This is total fucking bullshit.
• The game has a lot of situations in the game where the GM may or may not dick with you. For example, if you place your lantern on the ground during a conflict, it may get knocked over at the GM's discretion. If it was a die roll, even a heavily stacked die roll, that would be okay but forcing the onus on the GM is rules dickery.
• The elf wankery in the game is just appalling. They get the best Nature traits, they get one really good elf-only gear, and the game flat-out admits that Elf Rangers are easy mode as long as the players are familiar with the game.
• The GM portion admits that the classes are deliberately unbalanced, especially at low level. That is fucking fucked up and completely unacceptable for a game made in 2013 or after 1995 for that matter. Thankfully, the bonuses you get from leveling and the class bonuses in general aren't that high. But still, if it was my PDF I was reading I would have pissed all over the screen at that point.
• Strong racial segregation. Seriously, as a Halfling your Nature traits are shit like Merrymaking, Hiding, and Comfort. Nature adds huge bonuses to certain rolls and if you doing use it enough or use it too often really bad shit starts happening to you. Dwarves have something like Crafting, Avenging, and one other one. Elves have Singing, Remembrance, and some other one. Humans have Boastful, Demanding, and Running.

On the whole, I'd say that from what I saw Torchbearer is definitely more playable than most OSR wannabes or designated D&D-killers like Exalted. I could even see myself having fun playing this game with a closely knit group. However, they couldn't resist throwing in quite a few irritating design decisions that I can't tell was either to emulate the 'feel' of classic D&D or just out of spite. Burning Wheel has this weird thing in which the GM isn't supposed to control the plot or take center stage but is encouraged to continually dick with the players to force them to roleplay. This happened in Mouseguard, too, but it's a lot more obvious here. As a D&D-killer that makes grognards feel short in the pants and/or a love-letter to the genre, well, there are a couple of conceits about the game (specifically, the narrative time and the lack of Death No Save/Save or Dies) that don't make it really feel comparable but it comes a damn sight closer than a lot of games.

Honestly, I'd love to see the Burning Wheel system and Torchbearer adapted for another game altogether. A lot of the objections I have to the system are within certain interpretations of the rules and setting-specific add-ons. The basic resolution mechanic, pacing, and challenge system is solid. This is a game I can see really improving with just a new book that strips out all of the bullshit.

[Username17]

To me the line in the sand is having advancement dependent on your skill rolls. That kind of crap was an understandable but terrible design decision in 1978. It produces results that are unfair, character growth that is in undesired directions, accounting that is a pain in the ass, and incentivized player choices that are neither in-character nor interesting. That's the part I just can't see any justification for on any level.

Yeah, there are people who get a chubby over Elves being better than you. And there are people who get offended if anyone wants to play a Dwarf who isn't also exactly like Gimli. But as far as I know, there are zero people anywhere who are in any way happy when you decide to call time near the end of an adventure to try to climb a tree with your hands tied behind your back because you can soak the fall and the difficult test gives you an opportunity for a skill-up you otherwise would miss out on.

-Username17

[hogarth]

It sounds like a board game, frankly. Not that there's anything wrong with board games.

[Koumei]

Yeah, in a game of Forge, one player asked if he could practice picking everyone's pockets as we travel, as that would be something like a bajillion skill checks, each check resulting in one "spend this point to roll the skill check, if you fail it then you gain 1%" chance. The DM said no, but had no actual justification beyond "it would be overpowered".

Now apply that to "hitting people with an axe" or "jumping almost to your death". Or fuck, ask teammates to stab themselves so you can practice your surgery skills. Suddenly it becomes completely stupid.

Every time I see this thread, I think "Oh, Torchlight!" and then realise it's just Torchbearer and I'm disappointed. Not that TL would make a particularly fascinating game world for an RPG, but it'd be an acceptable one, and the bit where each class has its own power gauge thing does suggest that, if expanded to a tabletop, it would work well as a demonstration of the "every class works in a different way from every other class" idea. But no, it can't be that, it's just Torchbearer.

[hogarth]

Now apply that to "hitting people with an axe" or "jumping almost to your death". Or fuck, ask teammates to stab themselves so you can practice your surgery skills. Suddenly it becomes completely stupid.

It's not really any more stupid than anything else that happens in a board game, like driving around Atlantic City in a giant shoe.

[Koumei]

It's not really any more stupid than anything else that happens in a board game, like driving around Atlantic City in a giant shoe.

In before someone shows a photo of a car that is made up to look like a shoe. But still, at least the shoe could go on your foot as you walk around, it's better than an iron. Have you seen the irons in all the races? Whether it be boats, dogs or cars, nobody brings an iron. They're shit at racing.

[silva]

To me the line in the sand is having advancement dependent on your skill rolls. That kind of crap was an understandable but terrible design decision in 1978. It produces results that are unfair, character growth that is in undesired directions, accounting that is a pain in the ass, and incentivized player choices that are neither in-character nor interesting. That's the part I just can't see any justification for on any level.

"Advance as you use" is one of the most organic, non-metagame and sim-fitting method out there. There is no problem in not liking it ( I dont like classes and levels for eg ), but saying its objectively bad just means youre not judging the game by its own terms and goals, like someone criticizing a Miles Davis jazz for not being pop music.

Yeah, in a game of Forge, one player asked if he could practice picking everyone's pockets as we travel, as that would be something like a bajillion skill checks, each check resulting in one "spend this point to roll the skill check, if you fail it then you gain 1%" chance. The DM said no, but had no actual justification beyond "it would be overpowered".

Except that in most games that use this method, from RQ to Pendragon to Burning Wheel, it only counts as a valid check if its used in a stressful or plot-relevant situation. Example:

Experience checks for skills are intended to be very
difficult to gain, and are not automatic whenever a success
is achieved. Gamemasters must explain this point to the
players. The ability to award or deny an experience check is
one of the key powers of the Gamemaster.
Note that a squire’s skills may increase in the same
manner as a player knight’s skills.

A check for a skill is possible only if at least one of the
following two statements pertains:

1. A critical success is achieved. If a character does his
best possible, learning is likely.

2. A success in a significant situation is achieved. Even
a dozen successful attacks on a gang of poorly armed peasant
levies would not be justification for a check to a weapon
skill, since no real risk or challenge was incurred by the
attacker, and nothing important was achieved by their defeat.

[Seerow]

To me the line in the sand is having advancement dependent on your skill rolls. That kind of crap was an understandable but terrible design decision in 1978. It produces results that are unfair, character growth that is in undesired directions, accounting that is a pain in the ass, and incentivized player choices that are neither in-character nor interesting. That's the part I just can't see any justification for on any level.

"Advance as you use" is one of the most organic, non-metagame and sim-fitting method out there. There is no problem in not liking it ( I dont like classes and levels for eg ), but saying its objectively bad just means youre not judging the game by its own terms and goals, like someone criticizing a Miles Davis jazz for not being pop music.

I sometimes wonder if you realize what a constant font of bad opinions you are.

[silva]

I sometimes wonder if people around here realize how much fat they generate by trying to offend people gratuitously instead of contributing meaningfully to the discussions.

[Username17]

silva, once again you're simply objectively wrong. And more importantly, you're wrong in a specific way that was thoroughly discredited in the early 1980s. You are wrong in a way that would get you funny looks and deep sighs thirty years ago.

"Advance as you use" is the most metagame advancement schedule possible. Because unlike every other possible advancement scheme, it encourages the character to take actions in the world that make no sense outside a metagame context.

The thing you have to understand here is that the association of specific actions into skills is a wholly arbitrary game construct, and furthermore that the limited "up time" of the game is also a wholly metagame construct. The "advance as you use" system is thus a perfect storm of advancing towards goals by performing tasks that are only related because of metagame constructs at specific times of the day defined only by metagame constructs.

So let's take a hard example: you want to pick a lock in Magister Cruelle's abode. On the way there, you decide to attempt to gain some skillups by picking pockets of other player characters. First of all, this is only a relevant skillup in the first place because we're playing a game with the "Theivery" skill that handles both picking pockets and picking locks. If those were different skills in the game system, then our character would have to get practice some other way. Secondly, the only reason we're allowed to make these thievery checks at all is because we're not in "down time" - any practice you do or don't do during a "time skip" is glossed over if not discounted entirely. But unless you're playing an extremely fourth wall breaking game, the characters can't see whether they are in a time skip or not. They just see a smooth progression of minutes and hours, and never hear the combat music or leitmotifs of "important" characters.

"Advance as you use" is more metagame than any system that has ever been implemented in any game. Fuck, I'm not sure it's possible to have an advancement system that is more metagame than that. What you said isn't just wrong, it isn't just that's it's wrong in a way that has been known to be wrong for a likely longer than you've personally been alive. It's that it is an open and legitimate question as to whether it is physically possible for you to be more wrong about the thing being discussed.

-Username17

[fectin]

Challenge accepted: Riddles incorporating modern pop culture references might be more metagamey. I'm reaching here.
Danger Patrol is more metagamey, but that's by deliberate design.

Anyone else have any? I can't think of any more.