D&D General [rant]The conservatism of D&D fans is exhausting.

[Old Fezziwig]

But the PC does not have the ability to just decide that another person is there.

A player could declare for their character (we'll assume this is in line with their BITs), "Jonno's a fisherman, and we need a boat out of here. I want to see if I can find one of my fishing buddies at the docks." This is a perfectly reasonable action declaration. If they met the Ob when they test, Jonno'd find one of their fishing buddies. If they beat the Ob, the player could say who it was (give them a name). If they failed, Jonno might still meet one of their fishing buddies, but Jonno's done pissed them off. Or something else could shake out. (The enmity clause, which is what that last situation is, isn't required on failure; it's just an option.) So they're not deciding someone's there, they're looking for someone they know.

 

[pemerton]

It sounds like here if you pass the OB test and meet the other conditions, you will get a new contact?

Yes, you will meet the person your were hoping to meet. Whether they're a new contact will depend on the details of the declared action.

I don't think that AW/BW have the sort of "spend a meta currency to introduce a new detail to the game as a player disconnected from the actions of my character" that like, FATE or Fabula Ultima do?

That's right.

 

[pemerton]

But the PC does not have the ability to just decide that another person is there.

No. They have the ability to hope to meet a person. Whether that hope is realised is determined by a dice roll.

 

[pemerton]

Yes, intent has to be honored. Even if you meet the Ob, you'll get a new contact, but you won't get any special bonuses to Circle them up again. If you fail the Ob, you might get an enemy or the person you tried to circle up but they're pissed at you.

Right.

Here's an example, from actual play, of success at Circles, and another of failure:

Thurgon decided that they would head east, along the river, looking for the cave - which must be a goblin cave, he thought - the old-fashioned way. He also kept an eye out for an ex-knight, Friedrich, who lives in the area and had helped Thurgon and Aramina when they were on their way to Evard's tower. This Circles check (base 3 dice +1 for Reputation as the Last Knight of the Iron Tower and +1 for an affiliation with the Order of the Iron Tower, vs Ob 2) succeeded, and as the character trudged along Friedrich passed them, poling his skiff along the river. Thurgon told him that the tower was no more, and that a demon had been driven off, and asked for a ride. Aramina mended the dents in Thurgon's breastplate (successful Mending vs Obstacle 1) while Friedrich took them as far as the next tributary's inflow - at that point the river turns north-east, and the two character's wanted to continue more-or-less due east on the other side of both streams. This was heading into the neighbourhood of Auxol, and so Thurgon kept his eye out for friends and family. The Circles check (base 3 dice +1 for an Affiliation with the nobility and another +1 for an Affiliation with his family) succeeded again, and the two characters came upon Thurgon's older brother Rufus driving a horse and cart. (Thurgon has a Relationship with his mother Xanthippe but no other family members; hence the Circles check to meet his brother.)

There was a reunion between Rufus and Thurgon. But (as described by the GM) it was clear to Thurgon that Rufus was not who he had been, but seemed cowed - as Rufus explained when Thurgon asked after Auxol, he (Rufus) was on his way to collect wine for the master. Rufus mentioned that Thurgon's younger son had married not long ago - a bit of lore (like Rufus hmself) taken from the background I'd prepared for Thurgon as part of PC gen - and had headed south in search of glory (that was something new the GM introduced). I mentioned that Aramina was not meeting Rufus's gaze, and the GM picked up on this - Rufus asked Thurgon who this woman was who wouldn't look at him from beneath the hood of her cloak - was she a witch? Thurgon answered that she travelled with him and mended his armour. Then I switched to Aramina, and she looked Rufus directly in the eye and told him what she thought of him - "Thurgon has trained and is now seeking glory on his errantry, and his younger brother has gone too to seek glory, but your, Rufus . . ." I told the GM that I wanted to check Ugly Truth for Aramina, to cause a Steel check on Rufus's part. The GM decided that Rufus has Will 3, and then we quickly calculated his Steel which also came out at 3. My Ugly Truth check was a success, and the Steel check failed. Rufus looked at Aramina, shamed but unable to respond. Switching back to Thurgon, I tried to break Rufus out of it with a Command check: he should pull himself together and join in restoring Auxol to its former glory. But the check failed, and Rufus, broken, explained that he had to go and get the wine. Switching back to Aramina, I had a last go - she tried for untrained Command, saying that if he wasn't going to join with Thurgon he might at least give us some coin so that we might spend the night at an inn rather than camping. This was Will 5, with an advantage die for having cowed him the first time, against a double obstacle penalty for untrained (ie 6) +1 penalty because Rufus was very set in his way. It failed. and so Rufus rode on and now has animosity towards Aramina. As the GM said, she better not have her back to him while he has a knife ready to hand.

The characters continued on, and soon arrived at Auxol.

Alicia and Aedhros escaped the guards, but Alicia then returned to fight them so that Grellin would not be captured. Alicia defeated the guards near single-handedly with her martial art; Aedhros helped a little at the end, and was then going to kill one of them with his black-metal long knife Heart-seeker. Due to a failed test of some sort (Intimidate, I think) it had been established that Thurandril, Aedhros's father-in-law, whom Aedhros blames for the death of his spouse (the event that sent him onto the Path of Spite) was watching things unfold (having come to the docks on some or other business). Alicia tried to use Persuasion (analogous to D&D's Suggestion spell) to stop Aedhros, but she failed both her casting of the spell, and her roll to endure the tax of casting.

The mis-cast created a fire effect nearby, which caused the Golden Sow - the vessel on which the two PCs had arrived in Hardby, and still docked in the harbour - to catch fire. The failed tax roll caused overtax equivalent to a mortal wound, and so Alicia was dying. Her player - my friend - spent the Persona to establish that she had the will to live. Aedhros, determined not to have another person in his charge die in front of Thurandril, tried to staunch her bleeding with his Song of Soothing, but failed. So then he did the only thing he could think of - as someone whose Circles include the Path of Spite, and who has a reputation as ill-favoured for himself and others, he looked to see if a bloodletting or surgical necromancer or similar ill-omened type might be nearby the scene!

But the Circles check failed: and so no friendly bloodletter appeared, but rather the Death Artist Thoth, who - for reasons not yet clear, but certainly not wholesome - carries a lock of the hair of Aedhros's dead spouse (even though that death occurred when the now-41 year old Thoth was only two years old). Thoth took Alicia into his workroom, through the secret entrance that leads onto the docks; and Aedhros had no choice but to go with him.

<snip>

Aedhros had helped collect the corpse, and also helped with the Taxidermy (using his skill with Heart-seeker), but was unable to help with the Death Art. He was reasonably happy to now leave the workshop; and was no stranger to stealthy kidnappings in the dark. I told my friend (now GMing) that I wanted to use Stealthy, Inconspicuous and Knives to spring upon someone and force them, at knife point, to come with me to the workshop. He called for a linked test first, on Inconspicuous with Stealth FoRKed in. This succeeded, and Aedhros found a suitable place outside a house of ill-repute, ready to kidnap a lady of the night. When a victim appeared, Aedhros tried to force a Steel test (I think - my memory is a bit hazy) but whatever it was, it failed, and the intended victim went screaming into the night. Now there is word on the street of a knife-wielding assailant.

Aedhros's Beliefs are I will avenge the death of my spouse!, Thurandril will admit that I am right! and I will free Alicia and myself from the curse of Thoth!; and his Instincts are Never use Song of Soothing unless compelled to, Always repay hurt with hurt, and When my mind is elsewhere, quietly sing the elven lays. Having failed at the most basic task, and not knowing how to return to Thoth empty-handed, Aedhros wandered away from the docks, up into the wealthier parts of the city, to the home of the Elven Ambassador. As he sang the Elven lays to himself, I asked the GM for a test on Sing, to serve as a linked test to help in my next test to resist Thoth's bullying and depravity. The GM set my Spite of 5 as the obstacle, and I failed - a spend of a fate point only got me to 4 successes on 4 dice.

My singing attracted the attention of a guard, who had heard the word on the street, and didn't like the look of this rag-clothed Dark Elf. Aedhros has Circles 3 and a +1 reputation with the Etharchs, and so I rolled my 4 dice to see if an Etharch (whether Thurandril or one of his underlings or associates) would turn up here and now to tell the guards that I am right and they should not arrest me. But the test failed, and the only person to turn up was another guard to join the first in bundling me off. So I had to resort to the more mundane method of offering them 1D of loot to leave me alone. The GM accepted this, no test required.

Then, repaying hurt with hurt, Aedhros followed one of the guards - George, as we later learned he was called - who also happened to be the one with the loot. Aedhros ambushed him from the darkness, and took him at knife point back to the workshop, where Thoth subject him to the necessary "treatment"

The successful tests meant that Thurgon had the encounter that he was hoping for - with the ex-knight Friedrich, and then with his brother Rufus. The success on Circles didn't mean that things with Rufus went as Thurgon hoped, though.

The failed tests mean that Aedhros did not have the encounters he was hoping for - rather than a friendly (if seedy) bloodletter or similar, he and the dying Alicia were taken in by the sinister Thoth; and rather than an Elf (with whom Aedhros would most likely have conflicted, similar to Thurgon and Rufus), Aedhros found himself accosted by a second guard.

These examples illustrate, I think, how the declaration of a Circles test does not involve the player doing anything more than having their PC hope for an encounter. They also show how the general resolution rules and (re)framing rules shape the GM's decision-making: by declaring the test, the player has put their PCs meeting of someone at stake, and so that is what the GM has to attend to in narrating any failure.

 

[pemerton]

The earliest version of a Circles-type mechanic I know of is the Streetwise skill in Traveller (1977). Like Circles, it includes a variable difficulty to reflect the likelihood of the desired sort of person being found.

The fictional flavour is different, though: Circles is about people the character knows from their past, and friends of friends and the like; whereas Streetwise in Traveller is purely about familiarity with the working class and under-class of the galaxy (and the skill description expressly states that the culture of these people is common across the worlds of Traveller).

The other difference is that Traveller doesn't make clear what the referee is supposed to say happens next on a failed Streetwise roll. BW is much clearer in this respect.

 

[Maxperson]

What does "sneaking up" actually mean? How are the shadows, the distracting noises, etc established?

I mean, think about a children's game like Giant's Treasure: this actually depends on people looking this way or that, observing bodily movements, etc.

In the fiction of D&D, those things are not narrated. Rather, they are retroactively understood to have occurred, once the roll of the dice has taken place.

How was the dirt they were walking on established? Who planted the grass? What kind of tree is it over there? Did the air being breathed come from land vegetation or plankton? Inquiring minds don't want or need to know.

The level of detail you are talking about is rarely necessary, and if it is, it's generally pre-established. ie. the group is walking through very high grass, and the monsters used the grass as cover. Not retroactively.

Normally it's sufficient just to narrate something like, "As you walk through the high grass, arrows start to fly at you from orcs that you failed to see. You are surprised. Roll initiative."

 

[pemerton]

The level of detail you are talking about is rarely necessary, and if it is, it's generally pre-established. ie. the group is walking through very high grass, and the monsters used the grass as cover. Not retroactively.

Normally it's sufficient just to narrate something like, "As you walk through the high grass, arrows start to fly at you from orcs that you failed to see. You are surprised. Roll initiative."

High grass would be unusual in a dungeon, I think.

 

[Hussar]

And regardless of whether it's the baseline or not, in actual play it's not going to be 60% that often. It will be higher or lower the vast majority of the time.

Except that it's pretty close most of the time. That's why we have fairly flat bonuses. Most of the d20 tests that you make in 5e D&D will be roughly in the neighbourhood of 60%.

 

[Hussar]

The illusion breaks and it is clear everything is being made up for the PCs.

So, to put it another way, there is no actual difference. The only difference is how well we can cover over the fact that the material is created based on nothing more than completely arbitrary reasons which have nothing to do with the players or the game world whatsoever.

It's simply a difference in presentation, rather than substance.

 

[Maxperson]

Right. Because instead a roll is used: a roll that does not take fiction - imagined facts about what the PCs are doing, what they are paying attention to, etc - as input.

Sure it does. The roll just indicates a monster is going to wander by. The facts about what the PCs are doing, paying attention to, etc. will all play into the encounter.