Oh no, I started rereading Torchbearer by @Mimir9 and accidentally became obsessed with it all over again. It's high in the running for my single favorite #rpg. Let's talk about why! A thread. Art from Torchbearer by @TickleMeCthulhu .

TB is laser-focused. TB is a game about painful, scary, resource-depleting dungeons, and the foolish, poverty-stricken tomb robbers who decide to go to them. With so many big RPGs that try to be/do everything, its complete dedication to theme is refreshing.

TB is complex. It is not a game where the rules "get out of the way so you can tell a story." Its rules are ever-present, and they will fight you if you try to ignore them.

This is actually extremely freeing. TB has process and mechanics where more light games can leave the GM struggling to improv in a vacuum. TB's rules propel things forward, and the players must react, engaging the rules which in turn push back on the fiction.

I never went into a TB session worried about having to come up with extra stuff on the fly, or what would happen if the players' went off the rails. I had my dungeon, they had their goals. Then we just played the game.

This isn't to say a session was ever predictable, linear, or rote. TB makes a dungeon into a living space, constantly pushing back. I have a feeling it could turn even a generic "monsters and corridors" dungeon into a great session with its rules.

But it isn't content with that. The book tells you how to make an interesting dungeon, in a way that a thousand D&D advice videos haven't. Straight up instructions on how to think about and map an adventure space. With plenty of room for creativity. It's gold.

Characters. As much as the rules are present, the game is deeply character focused. It asks, "What happens when these specific people encounter these challenges?" and you can't half-ass it. You have to know who those people are, because it will be mechanically vital.

Bjorn moves forward too quickly, putting the party in danger, specifically because he is Brave, and in his eagerness to prove it has a moment of foolishness. This isn't just description, every part of this moment is tied to important game elements.

Some players chafe at this, because it requires you to very consciously go from thinking as a character to thinking as the player of a game. However I think we do this in subtler ways constantly when we play RPGs.

You're doing this when you role-play your INT 6 Barbarian as a bumbling fool. What TB does is make that foolishness meaningful on the game-level. You turn the crank of the game engine by bringing your character to life. There is no equivalent in D&D.

Then there are subtler things. The way TB uses abstraction for light and combat is a stroke of brilliance. People ignore light sources in D&D because measuring a 30' radius is a pain in the ass, especially if you don't have minis and stuff.

TB tells us a torch provides enough light for two people to see well. It seems counterintuitive at first, but is actually a much better fit for the imagination-space of an rpg. Bjorn and Kristina are in the torchlight. Fimble is at its edge. It's descriptive and experiential.

Combat is abstracted in a way that demands moment-to moment discussion and teamwork. everyone is involved in everyone's turn. No one's eyes are glazing over waiting for the part where they get to try to do their cool thing.

Okay I'm almost finished here. Anecdotally, two of my favorite RPG moments ever happened while playing TB.

At the end of the first session, still fumbling with some of the mechanics, the PC's fled in terror from a crypt, pursued by the angry ghost of a warlord. In the last roll of the session, the Dwarf had to make a very hard roll to save the party. If he succeeded...

...they would all live. If he failed, everyone but him would live. He'd die, and it'd be fair, because that's how the game works and not just because I'm a mean GM. All the consequences were out there, and there was more tension in than I've ever seen in a game.

My other moment came three or four sessions in, when my players really started to grok the mechanics. They couldn't just tell me what they wanted to do and rely on me to know the rules. They started to really play the game because TB demands that. And its worth it. It's so fun.

Anyway go buy Torchbearer, and if you know where I can get one of the awesome t-shirts from the kickstarter, tell me now

https://www.burningwheel.com/store/index.php/torchbearer-print-pdf.html.