Circling an (established) NPC?

[pseudoidiot]

So I had a thought.

Say there's an NPC your character has been introduced to. Not through Circles or a Relationship, but just an NPC the GM brought in. And there's some situation the characters are in where you think "you know, it'd be really great if <NPC> were here right now." Can they be brought in through Circles?

If so, should any bonus/penalty apply (aside from the standard Circles ob penalties)?

If not, is there any other way to try and bring them in?

Actually, on that note (somewhat slightly tangential), what if they are a relationship but you're not really where you'd expect them to be or something. Is there some way to try and bring them in?

[luke]

I generally don't like players tampering with my characters, so I make sure I give the right here and right now penalties if they want to bring in one of my precious NPCs.

-L

[stormsweeper]

For relationships, I just have a little sidebar deciding how the character ends up in that location. You just need to figure out how to work it into the fiction, if appropriate.

[Dwight]

Actually, on that note (somewhat slightly tangential), what if they are a relationship but you're not really where you'd expect them to be or something. Is there some way to try and bring them in?
Circles may do that as well. A great example is that the Relationship doesn't want to be found (they are hiding). So you Circle that bastard up. ;) Probably coloured as Circling up the person that knows where the Relationship is.

Depending on circumstances a Wise might be able to as well too. To get a reason as to why it is reasonable to expect them there. An example of this could be that the Relationship is a dirt farmer some distance away. You could use Animal-Wise FoRKed with Celebration-Wise to establish that there is a local festival that requires a lot of a certain breed of animal that that farmer has a number of. So he's in town with his animals.

[zabieru]

Can you rephrase the question about relationships? Are you asking "Hey, sometimes with my relationships I want to bring them in but I can't think of a good establishing shot to use before we start the dialogue, any advice?" or "Is is legit to bring in a relationship even if you can't think of why they'd be there?"

In either case, relationship characters can be in strange places, but use your head. Bottom of a dungeon? Not usually. Different town, though? Sure. Why? Eh, make something up if you want, or they're just visiting. I don't like Dwight's idea of making players test Circles or a Wise to bring in relationship characters. It's double-dipping: unless the NPC is trying to hide, you already paid for the relationship so asking you to Circle them up is like asking you to make a Resources roll to get the sword you paid for in character burning. A wise might be appropriate in some circumstances, but I'd save it for times when there's a clear obstacle to overcome, rather than just because you feel like it's too easy. If you're visiting your rich uncle in a strange city in a far land, and this is your first time off the farm? Yeah, you should test to navigate the city. If you fail, you get rolled and left in an alley, you'll wake up tomorrow with no money and no pants.

[Judd]

I also find myself saying, "yes," rather than rolling the dice if I think the scene is a groovy idea in some cases.

[MadJay]

I also find myself saying, "yes," rather than rolling the dice if I think the scene is a groovy idea in some cases.

Yeah - I'm all for groovy...why don't you elaborate for us pseudoidiot, who do you wanna circle up to save ya from the Red Trolls?!?!?!
;)

[Judd]

Yeah - I'm all for groovy...why don't you elaborate for us pseudoidiot, who do you wanna circle up to save ya from the Red Trolls?!?!?!
;)

By groovy, I mean, something like:

"After that last scene, I'd really like to have a conversation with X."

If it is more like:

"When I get to the prison, I want to Circles up my old escape-artist buddy from my thieving days..."

Then dice are going to hit the table, groovy-be-damned.

[pseudoidiot]

Yeah - I'm all for groovy...why don't you elaborate for us pseudoidiot, who do you wanna circle up to save ya from the Red Trolls?!?!?!
;)

Haha. You caught me :)

Actually, aside from our current predicament, I had a fleeting thought of whether we'd see Karukas again while we're in the forest. And it went from there to wondering whether it's possible to circle a known NPC.

[Dwight]

Bottom of a dungeon? Not usually.
So what do you do in that case; if you "use your head" and judge the Relationship unlikely to be there?

[Aramis]

So what do you do in that case; if you "use your head" and judge the Relationship unlikely to be there?

Set a circles test Ob that is high enough to require Artha...

So, if the PC has Circles 3 and 3 relevant affiliation, crank it up to Ob 7 or so. Doable, but WAY the * past likely... if the player gets creative, or assisted, sure, Mr. Contact might be there where he shouldn't be.

And, if they fail, he's there cause the PC's need to RESCUE him. Or he's there selling them out. Or he's there because he needs their help.

Make it work!

[Dwight]

Ouch, that is harsh. But I'm interested in what Devin does without using Circles and Wises.

[Thor]

Technically, you do not use Circles to bring in a relationship. As I see it, you generally have two options:


Do you know where the NPC is? Then you are totally within your rights to say No. He's in such and such and you'll have to go there to see him. I also think it's fair to say no if the request is completely cheesy or inappropriate.
Otherwise, use the Die of Fate. That's what it's for.

[Dwight]

DoF = missed use of Wise.

[Thor]

DoF = missed use of Wise.

That's fine. In this case, the DoF is appropriate.

[Dwight]

A Wise wouldn't be? :confused:

[Paul B]

How I'd bring in a non-relationship, but known, NPC into a scene:

I'd use Circles, with the "Has specific knowledge" and "Right here, right now" modifiers. Might give the roller a +1D because, after all, he does know the name of the character (although that's a pretty liberal reading of that rule). That ought to bring it to like Ob7 or 8 or so. Oh, and definitely use the Enmity Clause.

So the Circles roll isn't ever about finding the dude, it's about rolling to see what kind of mood he's in when he shows up in the scene.

p.

[Thor]

A Wise wouldn't be? :confused:

If you're trying to bring in Baron Orloss and you have Baron Orloss-wise, sure, I'd accept it. But generally no.

[Dwight]

If you're trying to bring in Baron Orloss and you have Baron Orloss-wise, sure, I'd accept it. But generally no.
Oh sure it's got to be an appropriate Wise. Something personal to the Relationship.

EDIT: After all you have to be fair ways out there, requesting something quite specific, before requiring a roll for Relationships since they are generally automatic. The way I've always read it is that getting hold of the Relationship is automatic assuming your ability and willingness to bridge the gap of where they'd normally be found. So, for example, I can always find them if I'm willing to travel to their home or their place of business [assuming there were no facts in play like the Relationship having been kidnapped]. Wises are one way to bridge the gap, coming at it from another angle.

[zabieru]

Oh sure it's got to be an appropriate Wise. Something personal to the Relationship.


Okay, your initial example was taking an NPC who raised a certain sort of animal and then using Festival-wise and Animal-wise to bring them in. Not That-NPC-Wise, not Llama-Farmer-Wise, and not even Llama-wise, but Animal-wise. Those Wises are neither specific nor are they even germane to the relationship. They relate to the circumstances you've imagined to bring the NPC to your location. You've now come around about 120 degrees to "only a Wise that is personal to the relationship." I still think that's too generous. Wises aren't the appropriate tool here, so you need an extraordinary, not merely appropriate, Wise. I wouldn't let you roll Baron-wise, Nobleman-wise, or Silvy-Vale-Wise even if Baron Orloss is the Baron of Silvy Vale. Those Wises are good for knowing things about Baron Orloss, but this is beyond the ordinary scope of a Wise.

To answer your prior question, I will refer you to the Relationship rules, BWR109. With a relationship "the details of contact and communication are worked out ahead of time" and the player character has "reasonably free" access to the NPC provided that it makes sense within the game context. "Well, we worked out ahead of time that he would meet me in the dungeon on the day I didn't know I'd be there so that he could help me undo the ward I didn't know existed" is well outside the scope of the first clause and IMO does not make sense within the game context. I'd say no, just like I'd say no when a player asked if the RPs he spent to buy a Superior Quality sword also gave him a horse.

The other side of this is that I'm not denying them access to a relationship. If they want to see the Wardbreaker, they can. He's in his storm-wracked tower. You could write him a letter and mail it as soon as you're out of the dungeon, or you could go see him yourself. You just can't suddenly turn a corner and see him. Nothing in the Relationship rules gives you that ability. The Circles rules do give you the ability to have someone appear in places or times that push coincidence (but not ones that would be truly strange) at an additional obstacle, but that's a different rule.

[luke]

What Devin is rightly pointing out, is that the relationship rules exist to give the game a sense of time, place and scope.

For example: You find runes while out on an adventure. Take rubbings of them and return to your mentors tower, seeking advice.

This type of circumstance and narration gives BW a certain feel -- there's living breathing world in which these characters exist.

[Dwight]

Okay, your initial example was taking an NPC who raised a certain sort of animal and then using Festival-wise and Animal-wise to bring them in.
I gave a poor example, that is true. The particular Ob in my example would be ... prohibitive. :) That's largely an artifact of [me coming up short] trying to come up with some sort of hypothetical situation without context and without being really explicit about the context. Your example details are a lot better. EDIT: Although really it is a bit awkward anyway because, at the heart of it, it is Wises encroaching on Circles territory.

The Circles rules do give you the ability to have someone appear in places or times that push coincidence (but not ones that would be truly strange) at an additional obstacle, but that's a different rule.
So when you said it'd be wrong for a player to use [EDIT:, or a GM to ask for the use of] Circles to get hold of the NPC their PC had a Relationship with you really meant "yes, that's how you do it in some circumstances." Say yes or roll, baby. :D

EDIT: BTW, because of the nature of Instincts, you can find yourself in the bottom of the dungeon and finding you have already written letters and sent them before coming down. Something you wouldn't to want have happen a lot. Otherwise it'd feel more like a game of Polaris or something with mind bending moving of the story back and forth through time with qualifications here and there. Fortunately Instincts don't trigger like that a lot.

[Dwight]

What Devin is rightly pointing out, is that the relationship rules exist to give the game a sense of time, place and scope.

For example: You find runes while out on an adventure. Take rubbings of them and return to your mentors tower, seeking advice.

This type of circumstance and narration gives BW a certain feel -- there's living breathing world in which these characters exist.
Certainly a fair statement, there are two sides to it for sure. If you want a heavy traveling vibe to the world that's good. [EDIT: Or really a heavy journeying vibe to the PCs' story.] In any event what I was initially talking about is probably not something you'd want to see a lot of. But acquaintances showing up on the road by 'happenstance' does happen in genre. An NPC being tied firmly to a location is something I'd more expect out of an CRPG, it just doesn't work for me. *shrug* Of course the GM can move them around. But [IMO] turn-about is fair play ... if your PC has the tools for it and you are willing to toss the dice and risk failure.

[stormsweeper]

I'd be fine with some kind of test (most likely a Wise) to establish fiction for why the NPC would be there. A confab can work, too, if the situation isn't too crazy. Don't forget that as a GM you can still control the framing of the scene with relationship NPCs. Maybe Frank the Farmer has been conscripted? Or Tom the Thief has been arrested (or is just in hiding)?

The rules don't really handle abuse here, as that's usually a social issue. "I so can have Mr. X right here and now because I bought him!" Likewise the GM shouldn't cock-block the NPC from showing up in a reasonable situation.

[Maedhros]

Just played our first session of BW last night, and we ran into a Circles issue.

One of the PCs, an ex-Marine Criminal, was trying to find another PC by using Circles (since they both were associated with local organized crime). We fumbled about with it, then I had what I thought was an epiphany:

Circles is used to establish the existence and location of a desired person, not to locate know individuals. It's like the Yellow Pages: I need to find a plumber in Yorba Linda that can handle antique brass fixtures. A successful Circles test will give you the name and address of such a plumber; an unsuccessful test means that there isn't such a plumber in Yorba Linda (and you'd have to drive all the way to Anaheim to find one.

Is this Right Thinking?

[stormsweeper]

You don't ever use Circles to contact another player character. The Circles and Relationships rules are solely for NPCs.

As to failed Circles tests, you can go lots of ways with it, a straight failure, or enmity of some sort. I often used failed Circles tests to pull in something I have "waiting in the wings" or just otherwise get them in trouble.

[zabieru]

So when you said it'd be wrong for a player to use [EDIT:, or a GM to ask for the use of] Circles to get hold of the NPC their PC had a Relationship with you really meant "yes, that's how you do it in some circumstances." Say yes or roll, baby. :D

Nope. That's not at all what I said. I said and meant "It would be wrong for a player to test Circles to bring in a Relationship NPC, but if the NPC wasn't a relationship, you'd use different rules (Circles) which have some different abilities." Reframe this with magic: What I'm saying is equivalent to "Immanent Summoning doesn't let you do X, but Spirit Binding does." I'm not saying you're allowed to Spirit Bind a demon or use Circles for a relationship NPC, only that Circles lets you do things that relationships don't when you are using Circles to find an appropriate NPC (i.e. not a relationship NPC).


EDIT: BTW, because of the nature of Instincts, you can find yourself in the bottom of the dungeon and finding you have already written letters and sent them before coming down. Something you wouldn't to want have happen a lot. Otherwise it'd feel more like a game of Polaris or something with mind bending moving of the story back and forth through time with qualifications here and there. Fortunately Instincts don't trigger like that a lot.

Actually, you don't strictly need an Instinct for that. The relationship rules text says that you've already worked out details of contact, so it's perfectly legit to say, at noon on Saturday, that way back on Monday you'd made a dinner date with the Wardbreaker for Saturday night. It is legit for the GM to say "That's nice, the Wardbreaker stands you up" if there's something else going on, and it's also legit for the GM to say "Well, you sent a note over but never heard back. I wish you'd mentioned it then, you would have had a chance to investigate, but we're not retconning it now. Your date's off." But all other things being equal, you're not required to explicitly arrange contact with relationship NPCs, you've bought a capability that lets you wave your hand and have it managed offscreen.

An instinct strengthens that a great deal (for instance, it would only make sense to let the above happen if you knew the Wardbreaker was in town, knew you'd be in town Saturday, knew you had some reason to talk to the Wardbreaker (even if it's just "we're friends") and so forth). An instinct might let you do something a little cooler (like "Always tell my backup where I'll be and when I'll check in again" to bring in help if you're kidnapped) but it still won't let you break reality. If you didn't know there were wards in the dungeon until you got there, you can't prearrange to have the Wardbreaker take them out for you.

If you're careful with this stuff, it can add a very nice heisty feel instead of a time-bending Polaris feel. I've been reading the Vlad Taltos books lately, and there are plenty of times where Vlad has prearranged backup or a meet or something that he hasn't told the reader about. It's always clear that he could have arranged it and that he could have figured out that he'd need help back then (though it may not have been clear to the reader), so it never breaks suspension of disbelief*. As long as you're sparing with it and careful about those issues, these uses of relationships can be pretty versatile.

*It helps that Vlad is honest with the reader about his total bewilderment when someone else has arranged help for him and he's not expecting it. There's a moment in Yendi where he's been ambushed and he's in the process of collapsing to the ground bleeding, thinking to himself "Damn, I really should have seen that coming" and suddenly his posse's teleporting in and fucking shit up and he's all "Durr, where'd they come from?" (Then he passes out). It adds a lot of credibility to the times where he claims to have been one step ahead to know that when he's just gotten lucky or when someone's been looking out for him, he knows it.

[Dwight]

"It would be wrong for a player to test Circles to bring in a Relationship NPC,
See. You said it again. :) Now if you are trying to dance around it being a different NPC (even though it is the same character) when it's outside the reach of automatic contact via the Relationship ... well that's just a confusing way of agreeing with me. :p


EDIT: Anyway I think stormsweeper brings up a great point about framing. Which gets back to intent. Truth is that often "Yes" would be fine (outside of denying the player a Test) because Relationships bring interesting conflicts with them. I'm stuck in a cage at the bottom of the dungeon. The Relationship showing up can be a great opportunity for things to be mixed up. You want help getting out of the cage? Gas, grass, or ass; Nobody rides for free. ;)

[zabieru]

Dwight, you're quoting me saying "No" and asking if that's just a fancy way of saying "yes." It's not.

Never test Circles to bring in a Relationship NPC.

If you have a relationship with Baron Orloss, and you want to find Baron Orloss, you should not test circles.

I think you're confused because you think I'm being clever, or subtle, or dancing around. I am not. I am saying what I mean. You and I do not agree about this. There's nothing tricksy about it. You think that under some circumstances, you should roll circles to bring in relationships. I think that under no circumstances should you roll circles to bring in relationships. I'm not sure if I said something misleading early on that led you to believe that I agreed with you on this, but the entire content of my last post was devoted to explaining that I don't think you should ever roll circles for a relationship character.

Now, Circles does let you control some things about the way the NPC enters play. A relationship doesn't. That does NOT mean that you can test Circles for an NPC who is covered by a Relationship in order to gain that extra control. You cannot.

Likewise, when you use Summoning to call forth a demon, you must pay a price, perhaps your very soul. When you use Spirit Binding to call a river spirit, you don't have to pay a price (ignore Retribution for now, it's different from bargaining for a pact). That does not mean that you can use Spirit Binding to call a demon, in order to avoid the price. Summoning is for demons and so on, Spirit Binding is for animistic spirits of the world. They both call up spirits, but they have different effects and they work on different spirits. Same thing with Circles and Relationships. Both are used to locate NPCs, but they work differently and cover different NPCs. You don't just get to use whichever one you prefer.

Now, if you have a relationship with Baron Orloss, and you want to turn the corner in a strange city and run into Ferk, the blacksmith's apprentice from your old village, who you do NOT have a relationship with, then yes, you can test Circles, and if you take the penalty for "Right Here, Right Now" he can even (assuming it's plausible) be right there on the street with you. But you CANNOT do that with Baron Orloss, because you have a relationship with him, and you cannot roll Circles to find relationship characters. You also cannot test circles to find "the baron who rules my old village" because that would be Baron Orloss, and you have a relationship with Baron Orloss, and you cannot use circles to bring in relationship characters even if you are a master rules-dancer.

Are we on the same page now?

[Dwight]

That does NOT mean that you can test Circles for an NPC who is covered by a Relationship in order to gain that extra control. You cannot.
...

Are we on the same page now?

Nor Wises? Then I guess we aren't on the same page, at all. That's a spit in the eye of "Say Yes or roll." It is a position that becomes especially bizarre when you consider that you might not have had a Relationship for the very same NPC only one Circles Test ago.

[Trithemius]

Can someone else Circle up "the baron that ruled my friend's village"?

I let players circle in established NPCs - including those that other (N)PCs have relationships with - in BE, but that's something of a different beast to straight-from-the-book-pseudo-14th-century-infrastructure BW. I don't let them circle in their own relationships because I assume that the relationships are there, unless someone has hulled, killed, kidnapped, or otherwise employed them.

I get the feeling that Dwight is trying to find a mechanical way to regulate the whole "Is my powerful wizard mentor in the dungeon with us?" sort of question. Perhaps people are trying to use Circles as if they were Pokeballs in his campaign? Personally, in this sort of situation, I would just tell the player he is a being a jerk and that if he wanted his mentor along he could have gone and asked them to come (and maybe DoWed them if they said "Hell no!").

(P.S. I think the Summoning vs Spirit Binding analogy is poor, unless people with relationships are categorically different entities to those without relationships)

This raises a question for me actually: I tend to restrict reflexive circles rolls ("Oh hell, this meeting is a trap, where are my goons?") to those triggered by instincts ("Never go to meetings alone", "Always keep the goon-squad near", "Never leave the house without my armiger and stentor", etc). If you already have those guys as relationships then they are there. If you need to make a roll you can. People who lack these instincts are left goonless and alone - unless they circled up some in an earlier roll.

Is this being a jerk on my part?

[Trithemius]

Nor Wises? Then I guess we aren't on the same page, at all. That's a spit in the eye of "Say Yes or roll." It is a position that becomes especially bizarre when you consider that you might not have had a Relationship for the very same NPC only one Circles Test ago.

Isn't pressing the "Say Yes Or Roll The Dice" issue likely to result in some "Fine! Roll Odd-Habits-of-the-Lesser-Nobility-wise Ob30 to see if your baron is hanging out just around the corner!" responses from an exasperated GM?

[Aramis]

Setting an Ob above their available dice by a few points makes it hard enough...
and set a particularly onerous fail condition lets them know that it makes a difference.

So, if they really want him/her/it there, they need to spend some Artha, AND roll well, AND be wiling to accept that the odds are that they will wind up worse off.

Several Ways to make it worse off:
1) NPC needs help from the PC's on his task and won't divert until they agree to do so.
2) NPC appears in opponent's prisoners
3) NPC is being chased by mutally hostile group
4) NPC is really a dopplegänger posing as the sought NPC
5) NPC is evil twin of the sought NPC, trying to pass self off as the original.
6) NPC is replaced by big nasty monster. Yes, it might scare off the opponent...
7) PC circling reaizes he's without hope, and surrenders for now
8) NPC shows up looking to figure out "Why they betrayed him"... when THEY haven't.

[Hirram]

This raises a question for me actually: I tend to restrict reflexive circles rolls ("Oh hell, this meeting is a trap, where are my goons?") to those triggered by instincts ("Never go to meetings alone", "Always keep the goon-squad near", "Never leave the house without my armiger and stentor", etc). If you already have those guys as relationships then they are there. If you need to make a roll you can. People who lack these instincts are left goonless and alone - unless they circled up some in an earlier roll.

Is this being a jerk on my part?

I think that requiring them to make a roll in this situation is unnecessary. The whole point of an Instinct is to allow characters to break the rules in some way, or to allow them to essentially retcon something in- such as having a lackey by their side if a meeting goes bad. If the situation isn't explicitly stated to negate the instinct (GM: "The bouncer says you have to go in alone." Player: "OK.") then it's assumed that the Instinct was followed. No Circles roll needed; the Instinct makes it clear that unless the player says otherwise, he's got someone by his side. You approved the Instinct, now you've gotta live with it.

[zabieru]

Nor Wises? Then I guess we aren't on the same page, at all. That's a spit in the eye of "Say Yes or roll." It is a position that becomes especially bizarre when you consider that you might not have had a Relationship for the very same NPC only one Circles Test ago.

Actually, it fits perfectly in "say yes or roll." The GM is saying yes. The answer to the question "Can I get help from the Wardbreaker?" is "Yes. He's in his storm-wracked castle." The answer to the follow-up question of "Why can't he be here right now" is "Because he isn't, and you don't have teleporting magic or a special ultrasonic whistle to bring him here." That's another way of saying "Roll Teleporting Magic at Ob 4 to bring him here. That's Ob 3 for a teleport from somewhere to your location, +1 for only having a general location. Oh, you don't have the skill? Well, it's Sorcerous, so no Beginner's Luck, sorry."

This whole thing is a bit of a rabbithole. If I didn't have a relationship with the Wardbreaker, would you really let me use Circles to find him at the bottom of a dungeon? No, of course not. 'Right Here, Right Now' is for finding a doctor in the middle of the night in the bad part of town, for places where you wouldn't expect someone to be, not for places they'd rarely if ever be (or for "I make a phone call and we're whisked into the CEO's office instead of working through underlings for a day and a half just to get an appointment for next week"). Circles is clearly limited by the rules text to finding people in places they might conceivably be, relationships are the same.

The fact is, the scope of Circles and the scope of Relationships are almost identical. There's a little fuzz in that Circles gives you a tiny bit more latitude to control where and when you find someone, but the whole idea that Circles lets you find a specialized wizard in a dungeon corridor is silly. (I know I brought that example in, but I want to point out that it's extreme and is a classic "say no" example of breaking game reality that shouldn't fly for Circles or Relationships anyhow).

The other side of it is that if you were in Paris at 1am with a knife in your gut, yeah, you can't find your buddy Doctor Phibes (who lives in Avignon) right now (You could easily send a message, but here you don't have time). You can still roll Circles to find some other doctor. Hell, I might even give you an advantage die if you were able to convince me that Doc P introduced you to his doctor buddies when you were golfing together, and you think you remember a guy around here. In a modern game, I would absolutely let you call Doc P and have him call a buddy.

Having a Relationship doesn't cut you off from Circles, it just cuts you off from Circling this guy. You can circle up someone else to do the thing you were going to ask him to do, assuming that's within your Circles and you can make the Ob. It's like speed dial versus the phone book: With speed dial, you can just call your plumber, who you know doesn't suck, while the phone book might get you a shitty plumber. But your plumber is only in one place at a time, so if he's booked up or you're in a different city, it's back to the phone book.

[zabieru]

(P.S. I think the Summoning vs Spirit Binding analogy is poor, unless people with relationships are categorically different entities to those without relationships)

This raises a question for me actually: I tend to restrict reflexive circles rolls ("Oh hell, this meeting is a trap, where are my goons?") to those triggered by instincts ("Never go to meetings alone", "Always keep the goon-squad near", "Never leave the house without my armiger and stentor", etc). If you already have those guys as relationships then they are there. If you need to make a roll you can. People who lack these instincts are left goonless and alone - unless they circled up some in an earlier roll.

Is this being a jerk on my part?

They're not categorically different in a universal sense, but for a given character, the set of NPCs that character has relationships with and the set of NPCs she can use Circles to find are non-overlapping, and there's no way to move an NPC from one set to the other without making enough circles tests to get a relationship, so from the perspective of a specific intent and time, they might as well be.

You're not being a jerk: Reflexive circles rolls are illegal unless you have an Instinct. I can't say "Oh hell, this meeting is a trap, I'm gonna roll Resources to buy some armor yesterday and be wearing it now," can I? I can't say "Oh hell, I'm gonna find a swordmaster last month and pay him to have taught me to fight before we throw down." The instincts allow that, because they state that it already happened. Without the instinct, you need to have explicitly allowed for it in advance.

Now, you could maybe try to have met one of the other guy's goons before and toss him a payoff as the swords clear the scabbards... But that's a present-time action, not a reflexive one.

EDIT: Hirram, it depends on the circumstances. If you've got relationships and affiliations that give you access to goons, then yes, you just have the goons. Otherwise it can be fuzzy... The instinct doesn't give you the goons, just the forethought to have brought them. It's like "draw my sword" instincts: You need a sword. If you lost yours yesterday and we skimmed over the intervening time with something like "I go home, sack out, and then get ready for the meeting" I'd let you count "find a new sword" as part of "get ready" but if you were poor and didn't have buddies with extra swords, you might need resources. Don't let it go to more than one test, though. Pick the crux of the matter, roll that test, and go with it. Let everything else just happen and sort out the consequences later. So do your circles roll, and then if you survive you can pay your goons after the job's done.

[Aramis]

Having just poured over the rules for it, the wording is that "Players do not need to roll to contact them." (BWR 120)

The implication, however, in the text several pages earlier is that using a relationship means going to them.

Heck, all the circles rules imply a default condition of "Free to go to them" and "Eventually"...

So to get a Relationship someplace or somewhen they wouldn't normally be, I'm leaning towards a Circles Roll myself. Definitely get the bonus die for known contact, maybe a second as an "Advantage" die.

After all, it doesn't say you can't circle up a relationship. It just says meeting and contacting a relationship (on their turf in their usual hours) is automatic.

[Dwight]

If I didn't have a relationship with the Wardbreaker, would you really let me use Circles to find him at the bottom of a dungeon? No, of course not.
Wrong? :p That's where your confusion seems to be. This isn't about the impossible. This is about the unlikely. The NPC being outside the normal Relationship range but not outside the 'impossible' range. If the NPC has the means, by their own locomotion, with help from another, or even via some message agent (mundane or magical) to address the intent, to get down to the bottom of the dungeon, and there is some sort of plausible, albeit rarely occurring, explanation. That's where the Circles comes in. For anyone.

The fact is, the scope of Circles and the scope of Relationships are almost identical. There's a little fuzz in that Circles gives you a tiny bit more latitude to control where and when you find someone, but the whole idea that Circles lets you find a specialized wizard in a dungeon corridor is silly.
Hard, not silly. Well maybe a little silly because....

(I know I brought that example in, but I want to point out that it's extreme and is a classic "say no" example of breaking game reality that shouldn't fly for Circles or Relationships anyhow).
And there-in is the problem, of your own device. You went to the extreme, what in your mind wasn't possible in any way. You are ignoring the middle. An NPC outside their normal range but inside the plausible. Like the traveling farmer. Does it happen a lot? *shrug* It can happen because a Relationship for contacting the NPC is associated with a predetermine locale (for the good reasons mentioned up-thread). But arbitrarily saying that an NPC can never travel nor extend their presence outside of that? That screams "cardboard cutout prop" to me. Depending on your world there might be a few NPCs like that. An Oracle comes to mind ... though even then there is leeway for their influence to move past their locale, and thus be called upon for their presence-by-proxy to satisfy an intent.

Having a Relationship doesn't cut you off from Circles, it just cuts you off from Circling [I]this guy.
But someone else can Circle this guy? The GM can move him around? Those are trick questions because answering yes or no to either of them creates bizarre results. EDIT: Of course moving him around outside the locale you should keep in mind that this could create availability issues for the player who has the Relationship, and therefore Rule 0 would be to get sign-off for the Circles/appearances from the player if it could make that sort of impact.

P.S. "Because he isn't, and you don't have teleporting magic or a special ultrasonic whistle to bring him here." That's a bullshit answer. Because it assumes the player's action is causing the NPC to move at teleport speed. Which, unless there was a prior scene that explicitly put the NPC at a distant locale just moments ago, just isn't necessarily so.

[Paul B]

Okay, so is there an actual play situation this is attached to or are we just trying to work it out in advance of it actually happening?

The only unclear case -- and it happens at my table sometimes -- is when the player really really wants a Relationship to be available in a (highly) unlikely location. The rules are pretty clear, right? Total access. But I do put it on my player to come up with a plausible reason why a Relationship would be present in this unlikely location. If the rest of the table agrees that it's a reasonable scenario, cool, let's just get on with it. Mostly peer pressure works well to keep players from being too wanky about this (i.e. "Look! My sword teacher, the great Master Quintiferous, just happens to be walking by my locked cell in the sub-subbasement of this remote island prison." The rest of the table: "You're shitting me. That's retarded.").

But not always. It's an area of play that isn't covered by any written procedure in the game. "Is this reasonable?" seems to be the solution, and it's a good one.

In all other non-Relationship cases, the rules are clear: You use Circles, period. In the event of failure, the GM can just say no. Fuck it, you're done. Or he can extend the Enmity Clause, which is IMO 99% of the time the right answer. If you want to try and Circle up that sword teacher you met (Circled) up in the last town you were in before being captured and locked in the sub-subbasement of a remote prison island, knock yourself out: I'm eager for the opportunity to turn a valuable NPC into your worst enemy.

It would be interesting if there was a clear Ob penalty for Circling up a specific, named non-Relationship NPC, but really, it's easy enough to come up with untouchable Circles Obs based on the list we already have. Which gets back to the AP example, Dwight: did you have a circumstance in which a player really wanted to position an NPC in an unreasonable location?

p.

[Aramis]

Relationships are not "total access," but "Routine means of Contact"...

Circles are for anything outside this.

[Paul B]

Okay, let's read the actual text of the book. This first bit is an explanation of Relationships:


Meeting and consulting with a relationship character doesn't require a roll. By spending resources points on establishing relationships with these characters, it is assumed that all the details of contact and communication are worked out ahead of time. So long as it is reasonably feasible in the game context, a player can have his character visit his relationship contacts freely and often.

No mention of Relationships visiting PCs freely and often.

The section on Circles is less explicit. There's no specific mention that I can find that Circles is not used on Relationships, but by my reading of the Relationships rules, it's unnecessary because that's not what Circles is "for." It's not a summoning tool for the character, it's an authorship tool for the player. There's also the optional rule that you can convert oft-Circled NPCs into Relationships if you do it enough -- that, to me, is a strong implication that Relationships exist outside/above the Circles rules.

But, yeah, it feels weird that, system-wise, you have rules to back the appearance of a useful NPC but that NPC can't be your Relationship.

So you've got a situation in which you really need a Relationship in your scene. I see two things to consider:

* Is it reasonable and feasible for the character to visit the Relationship in the scene? As a followup, how do you define "visit"? A normal English reading of that suggests that a Relationship passively awaits your visit, but in my own game I'm quite a lot more flexible about what a "visit" entails (and as a result, I do not have any problems with this in my own game).

* Do you have some kind of Instinct that addresses your communication with your Relationship? Because that might go a long way toward making a meetup "reasonable and feasible."

(And just to be clear, this has drifted quite a bit off-topic now, hasn't it?)

p.

[Dwight]

Which gets back to the AP example, Dwight: did you have a circumstance in which a player really wanted to position an NPC in an unreasonable location?

p.
For just a Circles Test, no. I expect I will never see one. "Say 'Yes' or roll" isn't an empty slogan. I urge anyone that thinks they might say "No" to check out this AP for inspiration. (http://www.burningwheel.org/forum/showthread.php?t=3695) Down at post #9 is the relavent example Circle. Never saying "No" means "this is our game, our world." EDIT: If you aren't seeing eye-to-eye you review the facts [EDIT: and intent]. If you still aren't seeing eye-to-eye you are out of play and back to fixing up your joint understanding of the premise of the game. Once that is done all becomes clear.

For Relationship [EDIT:NPCs] I've seen Circles where if it had been a Relationship I'd be hard pressed to say "Yes", they'd have to roll something. Whether that is going clean outside of the Relationship to Circles or just requiring a Wise because the plausibility is a stretch. But that's still hypothetical. I expect it to be relatively rare, it was a hypothetical question that started us down that trail in this thread, but I definitely can picture it (because of the description of Relationships on page 109). Now this was BE and ironically the situation I'm thinking of it was me doing the Circle. But usually my players, being big pussy wimps :^) , chicken out on using "Right NOW!". ;) ((EDIT: To be fair I probably could come up with an example of this for other people doing Circles where this is the case, it's just that that one sticks in my mind at the moment. ))Then couple that "Right NOW!" with an oddball location (that's going to add a couple Ob by itself) makes it risky for even well connected characters [without spending a ton of Artha]. But if you are willing and able to spend even just 1 Fate there is always a chance.

[Aramis]

Relationships are as much an authorial tool as circles.

They are a way of defining: This NPC is important to my character for some reason, and has a certain expected interaction.

Circles are a way of getting NPC's into scenes when and where you need them.

With a relationship, it is relatively explicit that you go to them.

Circles are generally You go to them, unless you can make +3 Ob for Here and Now

one of my players is working on wapping an NPC from Circle to Relationship. Why? because she's cool to have defined, and he'd rather have her present more often. He's her boss. But, if he needs her outside of work, even as a relationship, that would be outside that relationship.

Note also: in BE, p 349, it gives the following:

Searching for a Reputation
If a character who has a reputation is being sought, the seeking player
may use the other character’s reputation as advantage dice for his Circles
tests. Reputations can make it a lot easier to be found.

Since major NPC's are the ones most likely to have reputations to add.... and Relationships are, by definition, major NPC's... I can see no reason why one should not be allowed to circle up Relationship NPC's, after the GM says "I don't see them being available here." Time to roll some dice and settle the matter.

And yes, I've had (in one session) players circle up relationships I wouldn't have otherwise had where they were.... more correctly, the player rolled Circles to get (and keep) a FoN out of the scene by having him "busy elsewhere".... Specific Time and Place (Not here, right now, for a short while), specific character. Use his Rep, too.

[Dwight]

@Paul

After digging through my aging grey matter :) ... I do recall once I called for a Circles test to locate a Relationship character. This was BE (so things are a bit different there). The player was running their second-in-command character after their main PC had been hulled and wanted to locate his main PC. The problem was I had had this [former] main PC go to ground. They went really deep. Left the territory of the Merchant League (main form of government) to hide out with a violent rebel group (and a Relationship for one of the GM-FONs) within the Commune territories. He was laying low because 1) he had a surgery wound 2) another PC was on trial for killing a superior and the worm in this character's head was a key piece of evidence to corroborate the accused PC's story. I'm a little fuzzy on the details at the moment but I might have even had them foresake their Affiliations/Reputations ((but I don't recall the Relationships being foresaken, I'm not sure you can even do that...probably because of it's two-way nature?)).

IIRC I wasn't going to be a dick about failure by not letting them locate the hulled character. It was more about advantage/disadvantage in their attempt to apprehend the hulled character. Incidentally they succeeded at the Circles Test.

[Paul B]

Well, I'm a little torn about the Circles thing now. System-wise, I can see a strong argument in support of allowing Circles to bring in named NPCs (especially if they have Reputations!).

So, just to further complicate/discuss matters, let's bring in another factor...

What does a Circles roll look like in the game fiction?

The reason I ask this is that, once you consider that Circles as a fictional context, it suddenly looks a lot less like a "summon NPC" spell. In my game, at least, rolling Circles means you're tapping your social circles -- talking to friends, friends of friends, acquaintances, etc. It's going to the bar and asking around. It's going to the places a particular NPC is "known" to visit (because, after all, you visit the same types of places -- since you're required to share Settings, right?). It's actively pursuing your social connections.

Now let's go into the sub-subbasement of our remote island prison.

It sure would be handy to have your swordsman teacher right there, at that moment, to let you out. Right? Shit, let's summon him up with Circles! But wait: how are you gonna actively pursue your social connections whilst locked in a prison cell? I'd ask the player for an explanation, and I can already think of a few situations:

Assuming your swordsman NPC shares Settings with you, folks from your setting might be the type of people who end up imprisoned in sub-subbasements. Alternately, the NPC might have been hired as a guard or administrator.

Okay! So now we have some context to that Circles roll -- everyone at the table is agreeing that, should you succeed at this crazy ass roll, the guy you find will either be a fellow prisoner or working for The Man. Fine. But now you can finagle a scene with him, and use DoW or whatever in the (highly likely) case he's not going to help you.

I'm the first to acknowledge that situations like this are way, way easier to unpack in the comfort of a discussion board, with lots of time to think through the situation. But the bottom line is, think about what the Circles roll looks like in the fiction -- if you can't make it fit, don't break the fiction just to engage the system.

p.

[Dwight]

I'm the first to acknowledge that situations like this are way, way easier to unpack in the comfort of a discussion board, with lots of time to think through the situation. But the bottom line is, think about what the Circles roll looks like in the fiction -- if you can't make it fit, don't break the fiction just to engage the system.
It calls for certain flexibility in how you perceive Circles, to be sure. So let's go with your example of a master in your sub-basement (you know what sub-basements are in dreams, right? ;) ) and the first explaination that came to my mind (maybe not the best, the tough part of these hypothetical examples are the derth of details that matter so much). The passive effect of knowing people. The master heard your character was going there and for some reason wanted to talk to you, 'bout something. That's the thing with many uses of Circles and Wises, you [EDIT: the player] are discovering things that have already happened! It can even represent things that the character themselves did in the past but were below mentioning or perhaps even notice by the character.

That's a big block for some people to get past. Yes the player is only doing something now and from that POV they are changing the world. However from the game world's perspective the players are discovering things not changing them. If you want an in-game explaination [that makes sense] you must climb in the cockpit and view/craft it from the in-game perspective.


EDIT: BTW my above explaination fits well with others being able to use your Affiliations and Reputations to find you. You leave a trail behind you. Sometimes good things follow that trail, sometimes bad things follow it.

[Dwight]

Also, IMO, Circles also represents a more abstract idea of things going the character's way. The better your Circles the more things just go you way in regards to the right people in the right place at the right time. Sounds sort of wishy-washy? *shrug* From my way of seeing things less so than Artha and no more so than Steel & Perception being open-ended.

P.S. The various kinds of magic gets a pass on being open-ened because it is wishy-washy by definition. :D

[stormsweeper]

I think all of you trying to use Circles to get a relationship are barking up several wrong trees. :P

Let's back up to the conflict at hand. You're stuck in a dangerous dungeon and need Mr. Smartypants (known to be in Thereville many miles away) to come and let you out because you can't do it yourself (failed digging test or whatever is riding). The conflict isn't getting Mr. Smartypants there to help you, but staying alive long enough for him to do so. So the test here really should be a Forte test or similar to stay alive. Pass it and Mr. Smartypants shows up and gets you out before you are gone. Fail and he gets there to find you mortally wounded.

Or, how about you've been imprisoned by Count Badguy. The conflict here again isn't whether or not a Sir Fancytalker can be here, it's if he can be here before you get thrown to the wolves in the arena or whatever. Make some sort of test to keep yourself out of the Arena until he arrives and can help you.

[Dwight]

I think all of you trying to use Circles to get a relationship are barking up several wrong trees. :P

Let's back up to the conflict at hand. You're stuck in a dangerous dungeon and need Mr. Smartypants (known to be in Thereville many miles away) to come and let you out because you can't do it yourself (failed digging test or whatever is riding). The conflict isn't getting Mr. Smartypants there to help you, but staying alive long enough for him to do so. So the test here really should be a Forte test or similar to stay alive. Pass it and Mr. Smartypants shows up and gets you out before you are gone. Fail and he gets there to find you mortally wounded.

Or, how about you've been imprisoned by Count Badguy. The conflict here again isn't whether or not a Sir Fancytalker can be here, it's if he can be here before you get thrown to the wolves in the arena or whatever. Make some sort of test to keep yourself out of the Arena until he arrives and can help you.
Some good examples ... of why it's hard to work with made-up examples with the derth in details [of the intent]. :)

What of my AP example? Their intent was to find this fellow and apprehend. My intent was to hear about them coming so I could prepare for and lead them into an ambush and kill the PCs ((well actually it [ended up] 1 PC in particular, who was the guy doing the dirty work at the end of the conflict))

Now I suppose they/I could have found some other test, in a pinch. But:
1) the player was keen to to use their Affiliation & Reputation ;) , to have these aspects of their character represented in this scene
2) locating someone via contacts seemed important in this context
3) this was a build-up to the main conflict

The Task really seemed to fit the Intent. *shrug*

EDIT: You might try to say that the Circles was for finding the people that the Relationship was with only that isn't really what you end up in your mind with when you are sussing out the Ob and what Affilitations and Reputations can come into play. In this case the PCs had no idea of who the Relationship was with and I don't think it was a good LP match either. If I had been on the other side of the table I would have thought that a royal screw-job.

[Aramis]

A lot depends on how you narrate it.

Having Mr. Übersword come save your butt when you're stuck in the dungeon, as a GM, I'm going to have him arrive looking for the PC's for another reason. The question is "Is he there to Rescue you or be rescued by you at this point."

Now, if you don't mind waiting a scene or two, sure... he's noticed you're a day late, and comes looking for you.

Here and Now, well, that's +3 Ob for a reason... so the player really should be including some reason why they came looking. Even if it is a retcon... like "He was supposed to join us, but sent word he couldn't. So he came to see if we'd gotten stuck without him."

[Paul B]

Bottom line: If it looks right in the fiction and everyone's having a good time, awesome.

In my game, it'd be a huge, disbelief-suspension-breaking jump to try and retcon the presence of a lifesaving NPC into a situation via the mechanics, even if the mechanics somehow allowed it (Ob 9 roll on Circles 3 and big Artha bonuses). I'd stop the game at that point and ask the player, "Are you just trying to win the scene by any means necessary? Is there any other approach that's more suitable to your BITs?"

You have to use some discretion in any RPG. If that result is suitable for your group, then whatever. Say yes, even.

p.

[Trithemius]

I think that requiring them to make a roll in this situation is unnecessary. The whole point of an Instinct is to allow characters to break the rules in some way, or to allow them to essentially retcon something in- such as having a lackey by their side if a meeting goes bad. If the situation isn't explicitly stated to negate the instinct (GM: "The bouncer says you have to go in alone." Player: "OK.") then it's assumed that the Instinct was followed. No Circles roll needed; the Instinct makes it clear that unless the player says otherwise, he's got someone by his side. You approved the Instinct, now you've gotta live with it.

I'm not sure if the Instinct would bypass the rules to accquire NPCs via the Circles mechanic. My interpretation is that it would allow it to be activated "instantly" or even retroactively. The rule-breaking of the Instinct allows you to make the roll in an unusual situation, it doesn't mean you get to pop a bodyguard of exponent 6 knights into play. You can if you make the Circles roll though.

If someone had done the hard yards needed to "get a crew" then I think I'd probably forgo rolling.

EDIT: Ohg ignore all this, zabieru did a much better version and actually answered everything. I need to read the whole damn thread and then start replying. I fail at the internet again. :(

[Dwight]

retcon
The only retcon BWR rules allow, anywhere, are additive. Thus no changing of previous established facts about the past. IMO if additive 'retcon' is an issue then you'd do well to steer clear of RPGs period. Trying to explain the results of any simple die toss in terms of in-game fiction is usually an exercise in additive 'retcon'. This is even more-so in BWR. Of course you can just try not to look so closely at them....hope I didn't just screw things up for you by drawing attention to it. ;)

Outside of that little nitpick :p , agreed. Ultimately all the people at the table have to be on board with a shared vision this imaginary world and why stuff is happening the way it is. If someone is getting really esoteric with the use of Wises and Circles or another is being particularly thick about them you've got to address that somehow. EDIT: The good news is that esoteric Wises and Circles = high Ob, so the proposed Intent is rarely successful. If you look at it from that POV you might find that these kinds of Tests re-enforce your view that these Intents are really longshot happenstance events. Even when the player plows their Artha from the last 3 sessions into a single roll making the odds of that particular roll itself better than a complete longshot.

P.S. As a BWR GM I sometimes find myself thinking I've slipped a cog and am stuck in a repeating loop. "For what purpose?" "What do you want to happen?" "Why are you doing that?" "What is your INTENT?!" :)

[Trithemius]

(i.e. "Look! My sword teacher, the great Master Quintiferous, just happens to be walking by my locked cell in the sub-subbasement of this remote island prison." The rest of the table: "You're shitting me. That's retarded.").

I guess he could be there? He'd have come to break your incompetent arse out of there and kick seven shades of shit out of you before formally disowning you for disgracing his reputation by being imprisoned in the first place?

"Quintiferous rolls like Edmond Dantès, sucka!"

The whole "You're shitting me. That's retarded." thing works fine too.

[Aramis]

Actually, no, circling someone up isn't a retcon. It's a flashback, perhaps...

A retcon would be that he'd been along the whole time.

A flashback, however, is providing definition that wasn't there before.

Sure, it's revealing stuff that happened before, but this information could be revealed either as a flashback, or as character exposition.

EG - Exposition.
Übersword: "After our lunch, I got to thinking. You guys do tend to get in over your head, and well, I decided to come looking for you. So I finished up what I had to do, and got here as fast as I could. And, it appears, I was just in time."

EG - Flashback.
Joe: "Übersword, you gonna join us on our clearing out the caves of Din?"
Übersword: "Sorry, my friend. I cannot. I must attend to the ladies... Ze don't stay if you don't attend to them, jah?"
Joe: "Damn, man, we really could use your help. Oh, well, not like you can't find the caves if you change your mind."
Narrator: Back to the present.
Übersword (later): "Vell, I'm here, jah? I vas guilty feeling... Oy, you need ze help now! "

[Dwight]

I personally don't like to use 'retcon' to describe it either, because of the "change existing facts" connotation usually associated with the word. But it falls into what some people include under 'retcon'. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retcon#Addition) *shrug*