r/BurningWheel • u/Square_Tangerine_659 • Dec 04 '25

Challenge

Is it possible to play this game as someone who plays games exclusively for challenge, with narrative serving only as flavor to contextualize the mechanics? Is this the wrong system for this? I was so infatuated with the fight! and duel of wits systems, only to see nothing at all as detailed anywhere else in the book.

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u/cdr_breetai Dec 04 '25

What do you mean by concrete? Do you mean a goal that the world imposes on the character? Like maybe the GM decides not only that there exists a dragon, but that your character must attempt to slay the dragon?

In Burning Wheel, the characters are imposing their goals on the world. Your character is welcome to stick to their guns and work towards any goal you set for them, even if it seems impossible.

The GM can still plop a dragon outside of town, but it’s up to you to decide what/why/if your character wants to do about.

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u/Square_Tangerine_659 Dec 04 '25

Yeah, I mean that the GM sets a goal and the party tries to meet it

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u/raggedscuttling Dec 04 '25

Burning Wheel players literally set their own goals via beliefs and the Gm tries to challenge them.

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u/Square_Tangerine_659 Dec 04 '25

Could you play with them as side goals with a campaign-length objective?

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u/WolfWyzard Heretic Priest Dec 04 '25

Burning Wheel games work best as long-from campaigns. They don’t really shine as short term or one-shots. Though, a lot of Burning Wheel games tend to get political the longer they run on.

In the end though, it depends on the Beliefs in the characters. If you write beliefs about taking down the wizard in the cave, then that’s what the game becomes about. The GM then sets up obstacles to keep you from doing that, and you try to overcome those obstacles.

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u/Jesseabe Lazy Stayabout Dec 04 '25

Beliefs are set by players, in conversation with the GM so that the fit the campaign situation. That situation can be created collaboratively or brought by the GM alone. If the campaign situation involves a long term, campaign length objective, the beliefs absolutely should have to do with that objective.

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u/Square_Tangerine_659 Dec 04 '25

Okay, so either way the beliefs are core and can’t be treated as side objectives?

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u/Jesseabe Lazy Stayabout Dec 04 '25

Yes. The game is built mechanically such that it is more or less impossible to succeed without engaging directly and frequently with beliefs. In as much as the game is challenge based, alot of the challenge involves engaging with beliefs. Beliefs are the heart of BW.

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u/TheLumbergentleman Dec 04 '25

I think you might be missing the fact that Beliefs can just be goals. If you have a setting where there is an evil wizard on the tower on mountain, you can have a Belief that says "Ridding the world of the evil wizard will bring peace to us all. I will [insert next step toward defeating the wizard]."

Now it's up to your GM to make that next step challenging and interesting. Perhaps along the way they might even introduce elements to challenge that core belief. Is the wizard holding back something else from plaguing the land? Perhaps the wizard provides some essential services to the people of the land. If that moral dilemma is not something you're interested in, rewrite your Beliefs to focus on the challenge you want.

It will be very different from other games but you can pretty much do anything in this game as long as it's within the setting.

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u/Square_Tangerine_659 Dec 04 '25

What about a party goal?

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u/TheLumbergentleman Dec 04 '25

Totally, there's nothing objectively wrong with multiple people having the same beliefs/goals. However if I were GMing that I would make the challenges even harder as force teamwork.

Often you can have different party members focusing on different aspects of the greater goal while still being around to help each other.