Burning Empires (Baltimore City, starting January)

Once, the empires of humanity covered galaxies, and we benefited from technology only dreamed of by poets of earlier ages. But now the Wheel of Fire has turned, and we struggle in the dying light to retain half-remembered secrets and finish our petty revenges. Within the Iron Empires, princes contend as if it mattered, while without the Vaylen gorge themselves on human hosts and plot to take over other worlds for the benefit of the trillions of them yet to be born.

Our world sits like a jewel in space, isolated from even its nearest sisters by weeks of travel in centuries-old Hammer spacecraft. Only a few of us understand the threat it now faces. Will you look beyond your station and attachments to fight the greater enemy? Would you sacrifice the projects and connections that make you human to save humanity, if only for a brief hour?

I'm looking for 2-4 players for a game of Burning Empires - a science-fantasy game based on the Burning Wheel system. The game is moderately crunchy, but focuses intensely on the characters' morality, goals, desires, and relationships - you'll roll a bunch of dice to figure out whether your squad of power-armored Anvil Lords can breach the ship's hull before the aliens finish body-snatching their target - but whether you succeed will have as much to do with what you will do to save your lover from becoming an alien host as with how many ranks you have in your Squad Support Weapons skill. We'll collectively create a world in the dying Iron Empires that is being infiltrated by the parasitic Vaylen, and then play the major characters on each side of the war to subvert or preserve it. The game is also moderately competitive - the PCs will be on the human side (but may be otherwise antagonistic to each other) and you all and I will contend on a meta-game level to see whether the humans or the aliens achieve their global goals.

No previous experience with Burning Wheel-based games will be presumed, though of course it's handy. If you like free-form games best, this is probably not the game for you. If you like mechanics that are deeply integrated with the story-telling, this may be your game.

Logistically, I'm looking to play 1/2 weeks, ideally in the evenings, starting in January (I'm overseas until about Christmas). I can host at my place in Charles Village, or we can talk an alternate venue (those of you who already know me know that my main scheduling determinant is the fact that I've got a three-year-old that I like to be able to put to bed before I game). Which particular night will depend in part on other folks' preference and in part on when I end up teaching in the new semester. If I get enough interest to run the game, though, I hope to do a bunch of the prep, including creating characters and a world, via email/G+/chat before I get home, so we can "hit the ground running."

Hey, I'm at Charles Village. I'm dying to game. Do you think I can get in on this?

Just so you know: I don't have any experience with Burning Empires. To be honest, my lack of experience and the resultant quality of discovery is one big motivation for getting into this game. And oh, I'm big into discovery and negotiating gameplay, worlds, and rules.

Please let me know. Let me know. Let me know-ow-ow!

-- Ishai

Sure, if the logistics work out, you can have in. As I said, I'm not assuming that everyone in the game would have experience with Burning Empires, or even the base system. If you're interested, it might be worth downloading the free Burning Wheel Gold - Hub and Spokes doc from the Burning Wheel webstore - Burning Wheel is the base, fantasy game, but that doc will at least give you a feel for the basic die mechanics, etc. on which BE is built. I (and any other experienced folks who may jump in - alas, most of my fellow Burning X players aren't in the Baltimore area) will hand-hold through specifics.

I'll try this. January seems too far away to make any hard and fast commitment, but I should get over that. So let's say I'm in.

Will do. Let me know when there's a date and time bouncing around in your head. Meanwhile, PM me if you need to. I'll even give you a direct email address if PM-ing feels too roundabout.

-- Ishai

I'll nail down the day of the week as soon as I know when I'm teaching (may not be for a few weeks).

Just as an aside - it would really be ideal to get one more player for this (for structural reasons of the metagame, and also because it makes it easier to play if one person doesn't show!). So feel free to spread the invite around.

Once we either get three players or a bit closer to the start date (hopefully I'll also have a day of the week in mind - are any particularly good/bad for you guys?) there's some collaborative world-building that we can start via internet. In a nutshell, there are some fixed elements of the game (what the Empires are like, what the Vaylen are like, that the main overarching situation is the Vaylen invasion of your PCs' planet), but we'll collaborate on designing the details of the planet we'll be playing with, and the main characters (PC and NPC) that figure in its story.

OK! I just roped in a third (we can probably still accommodate a fourth if there's someone eager to join, so no need to rescind any invites - and it might be good to have a fourth person involved in case timing ends up not working out when we try to nail it down) (Adam, it's Rachael Storey). But I think it will be easier to coordinate this from here via email (I'm a big fan of Google Docs for the collaborative materials we'll need) than on the HGO forums. Ishai, would you mind PMing me your email?

Well it's hard for me to say right now how free I will be in January, but I'd totally be interested in this.

Steve, I've currently got 4 players, which is the max I think I can handle in the game. But there's lots of room for schedule problems, and so I will absolutely let you know if someone drops and we'll see if you can make it work.