Burning Empires is Back on My Shelf

This is a story of love, struggle, and insanity. I should not have this book back on my shelf. Like, all logical and rational thought forbids it. But here we are. This is the craziest game I own, by just such a wide margin. But it's back. It ain't going nowhere.

The instant I saw the cover I fell in love. I know it's probably not obvious as to why, but just bear with me. The back cover is the same people all hurting each other and being hulled out by the worm. By just looking at the cover I knew everything I needed to know about the game: love, betrayal, sci-fi, and giant space frogs. And who couldn't have more space frogs?

There's a correct answer to that question. No, it was not rhetorical.

And then I played an actual game. It was a short campaign, just six sessions of actual play, but it was one of the most intense things I've ever played. And yeah, we completely screwed it up, multiple times over. And yes, the game is incredibly clunky. But it was just an amazing experience: the confluence of Burning Wheel's intense character development and the clashing of two different worlds, human and vaylen, made for a madhouse of the game. I adored it.

And then I didn't run it for the next seven years.

Now, in my defense, I joined the Army, deployed, and then left in five of those years. I could barely run a game because of the schedule, period. I guess I just kinda gave up on the idea of ever having the emotional energy to get a game together. And then all of a sudden I had two Burning Wheel games, soon to be three, and I just.. I don't know. I didn't think I could get another game running.

So I sold it.

Months went by, and I just couldn't get Burning Empires out of my head. I wanted the adrenaline rush again, of running a game of that scope. I never said it was a sane desire, but I couldn't... get it out of my head. One day I found myself returning back to the Half-Price Books I had sold it to, to find that the book was still there. 

So I re-bought it. Y'know, cause that's the sane thing to do.

I'm going to try to get my boardgaming group to try this game out. It's the most unique thing I've ever played, for better and for worse. Even if I can't, this game is some sort of a guiding light in my collection. It is everything that I want a story to be like: the personal and the epic, entwined together to where the two are one.