Players, how do use your traits to get into trouble?

[Gwion]

As a player how do you use your character trait to get into trouble (to earn fate points)?

I mean how do you do use your trait while playing? Do you wait for a occasion to come by? Frame directly yourself in some situation? Do something and hope that trouble will come?

My first BW character was a Miller with the traits Brutal and Bitter. I was getting in trouble often by escalating a situation to showcase my brutal or bitter trait.

But now I play the daughter of a Duc, a runaway cloistered nun and I find it harder to use my trait to get in trouble.

My traits are: faithful, tonsured, mark of privilege, restless, ingenue. And I have recently earned the trait scarred (a miraculous burn mark).

With those traits I kind of find it more difficult to get into trouble.

I managed one time to get in trouble by accidentally showing my tonsure while I was trying to not be spotted as a nun. And a other time I was again trying to be inconspicuous and I got in trouble because I roleplayed too much my mark of privilege on purpose.

I also have used restless to wander around during the night when I was supposed to stay hidden, but it was kind of weird since I was now the one baiting the GM and I was not certain if I should wait for him to give me trouble or if I should directly aim for some trouble. The GM was ready to give me trouble, but at first I was like "ok I am trying to get myself in trouble..." And I made some suggestions.

[noclue]

My character has the Lame trait. I once used it to say that I could not escape a poison gas grenade and instead followed my belief about protecting my comrades and started tossing them out of the expanding gas cloud.

[luke]

My Elf Varda has the Guide character trait, I use it as an excuse to lead the way into danger. Gets me trouble all the time.

[Peregrine]

My character has the patient trait. I plan to work carefully because of the patient trait and end up with all kinds of time complications.

[Dwight]

My character has the patient trait. I plan to work carefully because of the patient trait and end up with all kinds of time complications.

You gain a Fate for that? Er, I wouldn't award one. Hrmmm...

[Peregrine]

I haven't yet but the inevitable situations are sure going to give me things to do that might earn me artha.

[noclue]

If you worked carefully in a dangerous situation that clearly demanded haste, I'd definitely award the Artha.

[Gwion]

Cool examples.
But what I am wondering is how do you drive toward those fate awarding scene? When you want to be pro-active and you look at your character sheet and you decide "ok I want to earn a fate point with this trait soon", how do you do it? Do you have some "tactic" for showcasing and getting in trouble with a more passive or situation dependant trait? Or do you wait for a occasion to come up organically within the fiction to showcase your trait? When you create your trouble yourself (or strongly want to drive toward it) how do it happen at the table? (I am thinking more about passive or maybe positive character traits who seem more tricky).

Maybe my question is too broad or formulated in a confusing way (english is my second language)?

EDIT: oh, examples of traits getting characters into trouble are still very welcomes. :)

[noclue]

I think it needs to be placed in a larger context. Look to your Beliefs and Instincts and see if acting on them puts you in a position where your trait might complicate things. Then push for those Beliefs and play those Instincts with your traits in mind.

[noofy]

I like Paul B's Trait based complications to failure:

When you're considering complications that will arise from failure, look to the roller's Traits for guidance. A trait-driven failure complication will pay 1 Fate. Either you get your intent, or you get a Fate Point (along with the complication cause you got into trouble!). If you can't get a Trait involved, then it's probably time to Say Yes to that particular intent.


His ideas are outlined here:
http://www.burningwheel.org/forum/showthread.php?6512-Three-things-(houserules-for-our-badass-Orcs-game-and-one-realization)
And Showcased in the Great Orc Lord is Dead AP here:
http://www.burningwheel.org/forum/showthread.php?6527-[BW]-The-Great-Orc-Lord-Is-Dead&highlight=lord+dead

Hope they help, I use this technique all the time to get my characters into trouble.

[luke]

We were in bugbear infested caverns. I bravely said, "I'll go up ahead and scout. Boy, come with me. The rest of you wait here." Boy and I were ambushed. It was an artha bonanza -- the ambush triggered Beliefs, Instincts and that trait.

[Rafe]

My character had the Hoarding trait. Instead of running away from the farm in the middle of the night, he wanted provisions and such, which meant sneaking into the farm house. ... which led to him being caught (twice), being beaten (Midi wound) and being tossed out of the farm. All in the first session. heh

[Thor]

In a blossoms game, I play a fallen bushi who is in love with a kitsune and has a belief about finding a way to be with her. I have the Romantic trait. The kitsune my character pines for had insinuated herself into another warrior family. Despite my status, I managed to get myself into the household so I could recite romantic and suggestive poetry when I knew she would be listening, knowing full well that failure would have meant that my bushi hosts figured out exactly what I was up to.

The whole episode was also totally counter to my instinct about always remaining inconspicous around bushi.

[Fuseboy]

I try to bear my traits in mind, so that when there's an opportunity I don't miss it. I'll admit I'm often not especially graceful about it. I usually say something like, "Jost is in trouble? Well, I'm Confident; I grab my sword and head through the crowd to attack the guards that are arresting him."

Restless and Ingenue look like a goldmine to me. Any time your gut tells you to be careful, to keep your mouth shut, that someone isn't trustworthy, that's time to pull out Ingenue! Restless is great, too. Any time there's a lull in the action, a need for patience, quiet, contemplation, deferred pleasure, long-term plans - an irritation boils up within you that can't be stifled. You need to do something!

[doycet]

Restless is great, too. Any time there's a lull in the action...

One of my players in a FATE game had the Aspect "Bored Now" -- it was a goldmine in scenes like the one's Fuseboy describes.

[Gwion]

I agree Restless is easy to use. I think I don’t use it as much as I could since I have so many things to do with my character, so I kind of keep her naturally busy.

Here, I have a example from our last session to illustrate my interrogation about getting my character in trouble and creating the trouble myself (with my ingénue trait for example).

After doing a healing miracle in public, my character sister Brigid is followed by a crowd of people who want to see more of her healing. The session turn around this event: what all those people want out of my character, a confrontation with a other miracle healer, will my character gather the courage to speak to the masses and will I follow one of my belief and condemn the cult of the holy relics in my preaching.

No special occasion to get in trouble with ingénue came up by itself. So when there is no occasion to showcase a trait do you sometime as a player create yourself the situation to get in trouble? Like maybe I could have said something like: "ok I want to get in trouble with ingénue, somebody come to praise me, but in fact he is openly flirting and I just don’t get it and I play along, but some beliver see this and is outraged." So you see, this is the kind of stuff I hesitate to do.

I dint force it, but I thought about it. What happened is at the end of the day, after preaching and all, my character was excited but very tired and I went to talk with one of my relationship (Bastian) who have a love interest toward my character. (when we voted traits, the group awarded me the ingénue trait because Brigid was getting more and more attached to Bastian (and getting him attached to her) while never getting that he had feeling for her).

So we roleplayed the scene, I talked about how I was moved by the events of the day and I described how in her excitement Brigid was holding his hands and was sitting very close to him. But we were like: "ok but this don’t really get Brigid in trouble". One of my belief was to find the courage to tell Bastian the secret vision I received from the god Lugh. So I said to the GM that I want to move the discussion to speak about my vision, but I am trying to get in trouble with my trait. He said, fine I want Bastian to try to seduce Brigid.

We made a test of seduction VS persuasion (I forked suasion). I said ok if I loose you get your GM intend and Brigid wont talk about her vision, but if I win Bastian stop thinking for a moment about seducing Brigid and he is interested by her spiritual feelings. I lost the test and I dint get to speak about my vision so I finally received a fate point for my ingénue trait.

But it felt like I could not work alone to get in trouble with my trait, I needed the GM help and complicity. I guess it is positive to openly tell where you want the scene to go and that you want to get in trouble with your trait. But still, we felt the need to talk about this after the session. I talked about my above example were I kind of frame myself the trouble. But we dint really know what to think about this. I think we felt better with how we played the scene with my relationship. But I asked, ok when I play a (edit) trait who is a little bit passive in a scene like that should I ask you from the start to get me in trouble? We said yes, but we hesitated.

[Fuseboy]

Like maybe I could have said something like: "ok I want to get in trouble with ingénue, somebody come to praise me, but in fact he is openly flirting and I just don’t get it and I play along, but some beliver see this and is outraged."

Ah, I see what you mean by framing the situation. What you've described is just playing by yourself, creating your own situation. Focus on what your own character would do. I suppose you could Circle up someone who wants to help you because they find you attractive, and then play dumb about this. ("He's so passionate about the cause!")

I recommend interpreting the trait more broadly. You may have earned this trait because you didn't pick up on Bastian's feelings, but there are a lot more ways to be innocent and naive than failing to notice when men are attracted to you. If you limit the trait to this situation alone, then yes, you're going to struggle with ways to apply it. Imagine it a bit like an instinct, what would it say?

[noclue]

In my mind it might have gone something like this:

Player: "I want to talk about my vision, but in my naivetee I don't notice that he's not listening and is just keeping me talking in order to get romantic."
GM: "Okay, take a Fate. He's rolling Seduction. Do you have an intent or should I roll against your Will?"

(Edited to try to get that proactivity your looking for. I prefer to wait for situations to rise organically myself).

[luke]

So I said to the GM that I want to move the discussion to speak about my vision, but I am trying to get in trouble with my trait.
Yeah, we don't play like that at all.
As Michael said, we just have our character do the thing that would get him in trouble. It's part of the performance aspect of the game. During the artha awards at the end of the session, we talk about how we used the traits to get us in trouble.

[Gwion]

Ok cool, thanks for the comments, it help my reflexion. I think I also prefer to play the traits "organically" within the fiction.
So with more passive traits, you can make a opening, but you have to trust the GM to take the bait and to give you the trouble.

[Thor]

Ok cool, thanks for the comments, it help my reflexion. I think I also prefer to play the traits "organically" within the fiction.
So with more passive traits, you can make a opening, but you have to trust the GM to take the bait and to give you the trouble.

Yes. And sometimes the GM will fail to take the bait. You should talk about it after the session. You won't get Artha for it this time, but next time the GM will (hopefully) remember and make sure to give you enough rope to hang yourself.