Circles like mechanic for skills?

[jenskot]

Thor's post here filled me with excitement! (http://www.burningwheel.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1636&start=20) And as I was recovering from my euphoria I wanted to throw out the idea of possibly using a circles like mechanic for skills.

I haven't thought this out, and it is probably too intrusive to BW's current character burning process but it's an interesting concept to me that I think is worth exploring.

Random thoughts... You only buy the skills that are important to you (skills you want involved directly as part of the game's narrative). Other skills that your character might know due to their lifepaths and professions can be brought into play using a circles like mechanic.

Let me stress that I am not saying such a mechanic should be incorporated as an optional rule. Just trying to see where we can go with this. A lot would need to be figured out but before I invested any addition thought into this idea, I figured I would throw it out there for some initial reactions.

[Thor Olavsrud]

Hey John! I think it's interesting, but I also think it's largely already in the system. You buy the skills that you want for your character at Character Burning. During the course of play, you can try to pick up new skills using the Beginner's Luck rules.

Is there more to your idea than that? Am I missing something?

[jenskot]

I don't have the BW books in front of me but isn't the Beginner's Luck rules where you roll an amount of dice based on your stat in place of a missing skill against a double obstacle? And the test itself counts towards opening a root to the skill itself? Or something like that? And FORKs and lifepaths do not effect this roll either? Is there any more to it that I am not recalling?

I want to make sure I fully understand Beginner's Luck before explaining what I was thinking.

[luke]

You're right, john. That's Beginner's Luck. And I think I see where you're going with this.

But please, do tell.

-L

[jenskot]

<disclaimer> Beginners Luck rules. BW rules. I have played BW as is, and will continue to do so. At this point, this is just theory (more like meandering), and not meant as an applicable optional rule. I love circles, and I wonder if an entire game can conform to similar mechanics. </disclaimer>

Rock, so as I understand it, Beginners Luck is used for skills you don't have where what I am proposing is a mechanic that is used for skills you already have, but are not recorded on your character sheet.

I would like to use BW in a very modern setting. A lot of modern professions (take a police officer with 4 years on the job) require a very long list of skills that are mediocre to average just to do your job. One of the benefits of the circles mechanic is to eliminate endless list of minor NPC. I LOVE that. There are also plenty of skills that may not come up in a conflict or are just so routine mechanics are not needed (say yes or roll... thank you Vincent). But there are times where they may come into play:

GM: As you are driving on your nightly patrol, a car appears behind you and begins spraying your vehicle with a barrage of bullet fire.
PLAYER: Shit, I call for back up and try like hell to loose this guy.
GM: Roll your driving (I know you can use range and cover rules here but lets keep it simple).
PLAYER: What? Driving skill? Who buys a driving skill?
GM: Default to your stat, double obstacle.
PLAYER: But... part of my job is that I drive a patrol car every night, and my character has been driving for over 10 years since I got my junior license in high school.
GM: Your character does not exist, as a player, if driving was important to you, you should have purchased the skill when you burned your character.
PLAYER: This happens in every f---ing RPG I play, there just aren't enough skill points for everything I should be able to do! And even if there were, should I have 2 pages of BS, crappy skills that I might use once or twice in a campaign. Have you ever looked at the Call of Cthulhu character sheet? It's a freakin mess. None of this would make sense in real life.
GM: This isn't real life. It is a game. Pretend we're playing Monopoly. Anyways, if it is important to you, spend some Artha on the roll.
PLAYER: But, but... ok, I'll spend the Artha. Wait... the Circles mechanic is so damn cool, why can't we use something like that. If it let's me avoid having a long list of minor NPCs written on my character sheet (mom, dad, sister, uncle, 1st person I had sex with, person I was friends with but wanted to have sex with, my judo instructor, that crazy dude at the con that I shared a hotel with) then why not do the same with skills?
GM: That's pretty cool. I'll look into it. Now let's get back to the game, you're going to have to survive this car chase if your character has any chance of saving the world next adventure.

So my goals are:
- Eliminate long list of minor skills.
- Access skills that a character logically could have that were not purchased at character burning.
- Tie this mechanic directly to a characters lifepaths vs. only a defaulting stat.

Ultimately, this might just be a variation of the Beginner's Luck rule. But just like circles, a character's lifepaths should define the basic skeleton of this mechanic. Plus circles is so much more exciting. Imagine having an "Enmity Clause" type rule as a part of this. A player fails their role, but still has access to the desired skill, but... :twisted:

[stormsweeper]

I think as a variant of the Beginner's Luck rules this could work well... a Circles-like attribute that you would use for those skills as opposed to the base stat. Otherwise it would work the same.

[Redoid]

As I understand it, it's not a Generic Skill linked to a lifepath/profession, but rather as something that you would roll to check if your character has learnt that appropriate skill in a given situation. Roll against an ob dictated by the rarity of the skill in the corresponding lifepath, and you've the skill opened at its root for free, fail and... mmm, you really didn't know learn how to drive under stress during those years patrolling the safest suburb of town.

On the other hand, if there's no penalty for failing, everyone would spend points in this meta-skill instead of opening several specific skills and just hoping to win the test... Maybe suprress the Learning New Skills rule, and allow only learning by study/training to get a new skill?

[Kublai]

This is an excellent idea, jenskot, and something I've been muddling in the foggy dew that is my brain for some time. I totally think such an attribute would be perfect for a modern or futuristic campaign.

Determining Obstacles for knowing skills would be the biggest task.

This attribute could replace beginner's luck. You need to roll it in order to learn new skills. The amount of times you need to roll it is based on the Root Stat as normal.

You could call this attribute "Aptitude" actually.

[jenskot]

As I understand it, it's not a Generic Skill linked to a lifepath/profession, but rather as something that you would roll to check if your character has learnt that appropriate skill in a given situation. Roll against an ob dictated by the rarity of the skill in the corresponding lifepath,
Yup this is pretty much what I am talking about.

and you've the skill opened at its root for free,
I'm not sure how this would work (I haven't been thinking about rule specifics yet but more of the intent of the mechanic) but whatever it is, I think it should be consistent with other rules in BW. So it might be closer to Circles where if you succeed, you may use the skill as if you had opened its root for this test, or scene (as opposed to the way Beginner's Luck works). Then you can use "Naming the Unknown" (BW, bk1, p114) and "Building Relationships" (BW, bk1, p119) to actually acquire the skill permanently. But again, I haven't thought that far and I think we should focus on the intent of the mechanic and if it adds value.

fail and... mmm, you really didn't know learn how to drive under stress during those years patrolling the safest suburb of town.
Exactly. You could narrate an interesting reason for the failure. I would also advocate some sort of fun penalty or consequence as well. You could also include a variation of the "Enmity Clause".

On the other hand, if there's no penalty for failing, everyone would spend points in this meta-skill instead of opening several specific skills and just hoping to win the test...
This is a bigger issue that I wouldn't want to touch quite yet. I believe there are many solutions to this, but it might be jumping the gun a bit.

[jenskot]

This is an excellent idea, jenskot, and something I've been muddling in the foggy dew that is my brain for some time. I totally think such an attribute would be perfect for a modern or futuristic campaign.
Thanks Kublai! It's definitely something that I feel could be very valuable for a modern/futuristic campaign although possibly less so for a historical/fantasy world.

Determining Obstacles for knowing skills would be the biggest task.

This attribute could replace beginner's luck. You need to roll it in order to learn new skills. The amount of times you need to roll it is based on the Root Stat as normal.
Good points. You probably know better than I would how to go about implementing this. I figure once we see what everyone's reactiosn are, we can start nailing down specific mechanics.

EDIT TO ADD: It should be noted though that this isn't primarily used to learn new skills but rather adding skills you may have always known to your character sheet. It might mechanically end up being the same but there are subtle differences. Redoid explained it well. When thinking of this mechanic, keep thinking circles. The skill was always there, it was just not worth defining till now!

You could call this attribute "Aptitude" actually.
Good name.