Burning wheel/Riddle of steel style beliefs a la GLOG spellcasting dice.

We’ve already visited past me in 2010. A couple of months after discovering the Warhammer RPGs I discovered two games that shaped me tremendously as a gamer. The Burning Wheel and the Riddle of Steel. TRoS has the most realistic and awesome (and crunchy) combat system and the Burning Wheel is probably the most flawlessly designed game with magnificent GMing advice. One of the many things they have in common is their introduction of belief mechanics.

These are a very interesting idea, that I wish more games imitated or re-implemented. Alongside a character’s regular attributes and skill and whatnot you also got to define the things he cared about. And they actually had mechanical impact. TroS had a dice pool system and if a belief was relevant to a test you could add extra dice to it. A freedom loving former slave for example could augment their rolls against a sorcerous slaver. Similarly a father who is defined by his great love for his daughter could augment a cooking roll. I cannot stress how much I adore such mechanics. First, by having mechanical weight the ideals that shape your character become equally significant and gameable as their skills, second, they can be used to inform a character’s roleplay and third they are much more relatable compared to the cosmic abstraction of an alignment system.
But enough about what is already written by better designers that me, read the books yourself and you will reach your own conclusions. Let’s see how we can remix the GLOG spellcasting rules I posted earlier to model a character’s beliefs.

The simplest and less involved implementation would be to give each character a simple defining belief. It is represented mechanically by a single dice. The player can invoke it on any test relevant to their beliefs and risk losing it by going for a larger die size or play more conservatively and roll a d4. If the die is lost it is refreshed after a night of rest.

Examples: Amelie the druid has a belief of “Civilization is part of nature and not opposed to it”. When she realizes that the mad treekin of the forest are planning to kill every single creature they find in the lumberjack camp nearby. She realizes she has to get there ASAP she runs as fast as her she can. The referee calls for an appropriate check and Amelie invokes her belief, opting to roll a d6. She really needs to get there in time but knows that she will need to be there top-shape if a fight breaks out.

Garus the former slave turned freedom fighter has a belief of “Slavery for one is slavery for all”. Leading a strike force of former slaves against a slaver’s camp he spots the Slaveprince trying to flee. He shoots a poisoned arrow, electing to invoke his belief for a d8. He really needs to hit and if he does the poison will do the rest.

What does it mean when a belief dice gets expanded? Well, the easiest solution is to assume that it is simply gone. But we ain’t doing that lazy stuff here. The moment the die is expanded the character has a though that is contrary to their belief or make their faith in it waver. Looking at our examples above as Amelie is running for the camp perhaps she thinks that these stupid lumberjacks shouldn’t have actually set camp in the forest, nevertheless she grits her teeth and presses on. As Garus takes his shot perhaps he thinks momentarily that maybe the slaves held there are cowards for not attempting to kill the slaveprince themselves. I like this because similarly to how real people cannot be mindful of their thoughts all the time player characters should be having second thought or thoughts they aren’t proud of thinking. It makes them feel real and three dimensional.

Now let’s mix things up even more by having belief dice refresh more “interestingly” than simply “once per day”. I think it would be nice if they actually refreshed after an external event that assures the character that they are fighting the good fight. Back to our example above Amelie arrives in the camp exhausted and thirsty. The first thing the lumberjacks do is offer her water and wine. This display of hospitality warms her heart and strengthens her belief that civilization is anything but unnatural. Garus on the other hand is hard pressed by five slave guards when a slave rushes them with nothing but her broken chain. As she dies a free woman Garus’ wrath is unleashed.

I really like how this homebrew is shaping up. What I like the most about it is that it can be used in many games, completely unrelated to GLOG or the OSR movement in general.

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