Life path makes character creation a roleplaying experience. Consistent skill and combat system with unusual advancement system. However, editing needed to catch minor discrepancies.

In the introduction to the Burning Wheel, Luke Crane says "I wanted to construct a game that could create better stories - something closer to the thrilling narratives that we all grew up on and that still grip our imaginations."

And so, in starting a character we come up with a concept and follow its lifepaths (different lifepaths for different races) that lead up to a career in adventuring. Each lifepath allows certain skills, grants points for skills and traits, and adds quirks to help define the character.

Lifepaths alone would make this system worth trying. But it continues with a (mostly) consistent skill system based on rolling against a target number and counting successes. Although there are as many exceptions as rules, the basic mechanic is simple to use and easy to follow.

Combat requires you to write your moves out in advance and predict your opponents actions for the next few seconds. Although this could be chaotic, isn't that what combat is all about?

Characters are defined by the traits they choose. Herein lies one of the biggest flaws. Characters have to choose (and pay for) negative traits as well as positive traits. Very few roleplayers are willing to do so without a reward or at least no cost to them. Why wouldn't they simply roleplay the flaws without having to spend points?

In addition to this, there are a lot of inconsistencies in the system, bugs that need to be worked out. But overall, I think this is a good system and worth a time on the wheel. Intriguing system for players who want to emphasize the roleplaying of their characters. The book will take more than one read before you can use it well, but I think it is definitely worth the effort.