The Beasts Of Rosespire

This will be a highly player-driven adventure and for that, I need 3 players with a license to drive

I would describe my GMing style as 'grounded'. Consequences shape the world, actions have consequences, and actions are rooted in convictions. Convictions -- your Beliefs -- will drive the game. In fact, they will shape the world. I appreciate a discussion of feudal power politics as much as the next guy but if it does not serve the themes or the story, then I handwave it. This of course means, that you will enjoy this game the most if you burn yourself a fleshed-out character which you continue to develop in-game. When the stakes and scope grow with your character's rise (and especially) fall of convictions, the sky is the limit.

Tonally, I tend to go for a middle ground where I start out light-hearted, as rising stakes bring with them the seriousness. Along those lines, I would like to start with low global stakes (personal stakes are always high). High stakes need strong, well thought out and yet flawed convictions to work or they tend to be overbearing, so to create an organic, engaging, and enjoyable game-flow, we will adjust the stakes to our convictions, not the traditional, other way around.

If you haven't played Burning Wheel before, that's fine, I've also only GMed a few sessions until now, but you will have to be either familiar with the book or do a lot of reading homework for the game. You don't need to know all the rules, especially as we'll not use all of them, but you'll need to understand the reasoning behind the rules to understand the game -- how and why everything revolves around Beliefs.

I'm looking for 3 players to have enough people to interact with, but leave everyone enough room for their own story and time to be able to weave them together with the other 2. We will start with a session 0 (or maybe two) and make sure everything fits and there is nothing in the way of a nice adventure. I'm calling this game an 'adventure' again instead of a 'campaign', as we'll set no long-term goals -- mid-term goals at best -- as I've found deciding what the game will about before even session is played extremely limiting. For the story and especially the characters.

I cannot stress this enough but you need to be comfortable creating a flawed character. This means being invested in both their success and their failures, whichever may happen. Sometimes the dice want to see you cry and sometimes great drama comes at the cost of giving up what you value most (but hey, there might be a deed point for you in it at least).

The 'Big Picture' idea is set in a country which has been ruined by a war it has lost. The conquerors have left little of the countryside except for the capital as it was surrendered before it could come to harm. Now it is a time of rebirth, to rebuild. Rebuild a social structure inside the capital, rebuild the country before the wilderness reclaims it. For the natives who still dwell in the city or lay highway in the underwood, the times spell out a different future.

I have the Gold Revised books with me, but there hasn't changed that much since Gold, so if you know/own that, you will be fine.