Alternate Worlds and Burning Wheel, Rough Draft: Part One, The Underground

By Aged Pixel

At one point I tried to run a Burning Wheel campaign where the players were kidnapped to Faerie. While the game's narrative was... alright (getting ready to be deployed made me a bit distracted).. I was not very satisfied with Burning Wheel on a mechanical level for dealing with going to a different world. Faerie didn't feel very different from the world the players came from. And it wasn't that I was trying to get the system to do different stuff than usual: set Beliefs, challenge, and resolve. A huge part of the setting for my Burning Wheel games that I've not yet really explored is how integral the underground is to it. We walk on a solid wave, with an endless ocean of stone beneath. But I've avoided those jaunts below the surface, because I want those places to feel legitimately alien. I hadn't thought of it then, but I think that means the mechanics have to shift a bit.

Now, the next part I'm going to make giant and bolded, in case it gets missed.

None of this is tested. This is a rough rough rough rough draft.

 Got it?

Cool.

A lot of my ideas are adapted from the brilliant and haunting "The Veins of the Earth" by Patrick Stuart. In fact, if you haven't read it just drop what you're doing and give the man the money he deserves for such a fantastic book. And then read it. It's superlative. I'm sure he'd love a dirty storygamer stealing his ideas, but I highly doubt he'd come for my mechanics, given that they're dirty storygame mechanics

THE DIVIDE IS REAL FOLKS. I'M A DIRTY OSR THIEF. COME GET ME.

Going Underground

Beliefs

Whenever you go underground you must rewrite two of your Beliefs: one to address what you see when the darkness comes in, and the other one about the person you're near who's holding the torch. If you're the person holding the light source this Belief should be about what you think of holding the torch. The previous Beliefs have artha awarded for attempting or completing them, and play commences.

Lumes

The concept is stolen directly from Stuart's book: light is time is money. Essentially Lumes are a specific personal tracker of how much light generating potential you have. Don't have light in the pitch black of the underworld? I don't have hard numbers in place yet, but I'm thinking at least +3 Ob, to almost any action that involves moving around in the dark.

Lumes are an abstract measurement of how much supplies you have for light. It's usually oil, but could be other things. After you do any action roll the Die of Fate: If you roll lower than your Lume rating the Lume rating decreases by 1. If you roll a 1 the light source goes out and needs to be re-lit. At Lume 0 your light source goes out and you may not relight it without finding a Lume to sacrifice.

To increase your Lume rating you must pass a Resources test. Obstacle is equal to the difference between your desired Lume rating and the Lume rating you have now (Lume 6 - Lume 4 is an Ob 2 Resource test). Lume takes a number of inventory slots equal to its rating.

Inventory

I know I know, I said inventory in a Burning Wheel game!! Please come back! It matters here! Like, a lot. Go spelunking for five minutes and you'll see that's it's a matter of life and death. Before you go underground add up all your Stat exponents and divide it by 2, rounded down (Power B3, Forte B4, Agility B6, Speed B3, Will B3 and Perception B5 gives you 10 Inventory). Items take a number of Inventory Slots equal to the number of hands required to hold them. I need to come up with harder numbers than this, but that puts everyone at not quite enough stuff, which is the point.

Cracks

When you're spelunking you're going to have to crawl through some tight spaces. This requires a Speed test. Players with an Inventory rating higher than the Obstacle the GM assigns may not attempt the test. Players with an Inventory rating equal to the Obstacle roll the Die of Fate when crawling through: if a 1 is rolled then the player must sacrifice a random piece of equipment from their Inventory to complete the test.

Reflexes

Characters who are with someone with a light source (or holding a light source) get +1 Reflexes. Characters without that light source get -1 Reflexes.

Putting It All Together

It is imperative that the reading understand the following: none of this matters if it doesn't challenge a Belief. Burning Wheel is not a simulator, nor should it be. All this does is give some additional wrinkles to scenes you already know how to run. That being said, don't be shy about handing out these types of tests while you're underground. You want players taking too much down and then pushing it through tight cracks, ahead of them. You want them having to figure out what to do when the last Lumes source broke by accident. These can be really challenge and dramatic moments, and the GM should lean on them, given that the campaign's underground. Used well, these rules should give a very different feel for those who are journeying around, in the veins of the world.