John Stavropoulos I can totally see why that’d be a neat way to resolve physical stuff, especially in a Nordic style play space. There’s a whole structure built up to accommodate that.

Matt Wilson agreed! And I’ve been thinking hard about the feel of social conflict as well. Like…in my head, Burning Wheel games already feel like the sort of fiction where folks give dramatic speeches and passionately implore one another. It also feels like the kind of fiction where being dim-witted or hard-headed or whatever is an important part of one’s characterization.

But like…I’m thinking about MYZ and my current go-to model for social interaction is The Walking Dead. And that comes with some assumptions: nobody can survive and get away with being dim-witted or hard-headed or whatever. There aren’t a lot of big speeches or impassioned pleas, but a lot of growling one-on-one threats and grumbling. 

One huge thing that’s missing from MYZ that I think you’d need to make it more BW-y is Talents that reflect something about the character’s personality. Talents are universally positive benefits in the game, so already you don’t have that whole “get paid to play your weaknesses” element in BW. But I think it would be useful to be able to buy a Talent that said you were stubborn (+2 to the empathy damage you can take), or sly (always get a compromise even if you’re Broken), or zealous (+1 Gear die, never accept a compromise) or other genre-appropriate personality tweaks.