I was of the impression that you use circles to find people you already know. I have now come to understand that you can circle up completely new people who your character has never met?
So how do you find new people? Especially people who fall outside your lifepaths? If I’m a young city-born sorceress, and I want to find and enlist the help of a ship-captain, how does the game expect me to do that?
Another question is about how to create new groups/orders/associations from scratch?
My sorceress had a belief that the regent’s sister was a dangerous woman, whom the regent needed to be protected from. After failing to convince him to be wary of his sister, my character decided to forge a group of people to keep a watchful eye on the regent and his sister, to keep quiet vigil, and be ready to intercede and save the regent from his sister, if it becomes necessary.
How would I go about doing this, mechanically?
Furthermore, my character also wants to create a brotherhood of people, who are willing to fight fate itself, so as not to be slaves to prophecy. My thought was that I’d find members for this group whereever they may be. Knights Errant, Travelling swordsmen, Brave guildsmen, and of course, adventurers.
As above, how do I go about doing this mechanically?
That seems weird and clunky. So if I’m James the farmer, with only village lifepaths, and I arrive in the big city, rather than tug on someone’s sleeve and asking where I can find a ship-captain, I’m instead relying on finding Clyde from the village, who happens to be here, and ask him where I can find a ship-captain?
Thanks for that reference to buying new affiliations. That definitely seems like the answer.
In terms of creating this last group, I’m not really interested in going from person to person, having several conversations and spending oodles of time on talking to individuals about joining. I’d prefer to just look to my GM and say “I want to create a brotherhood of brave and defiant folk, who will fight fate with me” and then hopefully resolve it in a roll or two, and have the Breaking Up The Test rules apply whereby those simple rolls represents an extended effort. Am I right in thinking this is doable, and if so, how?
The reason I want to create this group, is that my character stole a glimmer of the future from the gods - it wasn’t a pretty future. Rather than roll over and accept predeterminism, waiting for the ugly future to hit us square in the face, my character wants to forge a group of people, who will help her proactively prevent this bad future from coming to pass. People who are daring enough to give the middle-finger to fate, and whichever gods spun it.
My intent as the player, is to form a group of people that I can take out into the world, and use to work towards an end-goal where we break the grip of fate, by preventing my character’s vision from coming to pass. As a player, I would consider the group a tool for my character to use to chase their beliefs on this matter.
Unless such a group already exists, your character would have to recruit each member on their own. Or at least recruit the recruiters.
In game you would need at least one belief dedicated to seeking out and the type of individuals you wish to induct into your group and find them through various “wises”
Buying their loyalty, earning their trust, or winning them over through a duel of wits.
If you can justify their existence through one of your circles, so much the better, but finding them is just the beginning in my opinion.
I don’t think you’d need to recruit each member. You could leverage a Relationship character to bring some people into the fledgling group, and then buy an Affiliation to represent that group being formally created. You’re basically using the gang/crew rules.
If you’ve stolen a glimmer of the future from the gods and, I presume, have beliefs riding on dealing with this, then why would it be a couple of rolls away? It’s not the GMs job to fulfill your destiny for you. The GM is too busy putting your character’s feet to the fire.
[FONT=Verdana][FONT=Tahoma][i] Originally Posted by Nearyn
That seems weird and clunky. So if I’m James the farmer, with only village lifepaths, and I arrive in the big city, rather than tug on someone’s sleeve and asking where I can find a ship-captain, I’m instead relying on finding Clyde from the village, who happens to be here, and ask him where I can find a ship-captain?
[/i]
[/FONT]Well, you’re thinking small. You can use Circles to “reveal spies in your ranks, tap informers, discover traitors in your enemies’ household, uncover officials who harbor hidden secrets, find the character who knows what you need to know (Page 378 )!”
[FONT=Tahoma]
In terms of creating this last group, I’m not really interested in going from person to person, having several conversations and spending oodles of time on talking to individuals about joining. I’d prefer to just look to my GM and say “I want to create a brotherhood of brave and defiant folk, who will fight fate with me” and then hopefully resolve it in a roll or two, and have the Breaking Up The Test rules apply whereby those simple rolls represents an extended effort. Am I right in thinking this is doable, and if so, how?
Sounds like you don’t want to create a group, you want to have a group that you’ve created. That’s pretty much what character genration is for. Once you’re in play the game runs on task and intent. Your intent is to recruit people, your task is how the character is going about it. What is your character doing? It’s not enough to just look to the GM and say “make me a group now please.”
[/FONT]
[/FONT] Last edited by noclue; 04-10-2017 at 07:41 PM.
It’s not that I want my GM to hand me my belief without effort, nor that I want to already have the group.
Much in the same way that you can buy a ship, without buying first a hull, then a mast, then 100 seperate rolls for rope, then sails.
Much in the same way that you can craft a clock without rolling once for each gear.
I was hoping there’s a way I could place my intent on a bit more of a macro level, than a micro level. That instead of saying “I want to talk to the butcher. Now I want to talk to the baker. Now I want to talk to the candlestickmaker” I could aim my intent directly at my main goal and have the associated rolls represent a prolonged effort at forging such a group. I would, of course, fully expect the obstacle to fit the task, and for there to be complications should I fail.
And yes, my character does have a belief about this issue.
Okay, so given that you’re my GM, you’re aware that after Mason (my sorceress) had that vision of terrible doom, she started wondering if predeterminism is real and whether anything has any meaning if our fate is already sealed. So to look deeper into this, Mason had a talk with the local authority on prophecy, who told her to just accept her fate. This conversation evolved into a shouting match, and Mason, not willing to just accept the grim future, decided to give fate the middle finger, prompting the belief: “There is yet enough fire in the hearts of men to steer a course over dark seas. I must start rallying those who would defy the tyranous stars”. You’re also aware that I already convinced the local legend known as The Raven, champion of the god of destruction, to join me in this effort.
My intent is to gather a group of bold and capable individuals, who will fight alongside me to prevent this grim future vision from coming to pass.
To do this, I’ll visit people who fit the bill, and tell them of the grim future that lies in wait. I’m talking knights, I’m talking rangers, guildsmen, and of course, who are more known to stand in bold defiance of the insurmountable, than adventurers and local heroes. I’ll visit these people, present myself as a sorceress(as you know, we’re somewhat rare in this world), and tell them that I have foreseen great calamity, and I want them to join me in fighting back. And so we shall form a fellowship against fate.
So, you’ve got a champion to act as your second in command. I’d probably have you make a Resources test to buy into an Affiliation, which would represent the expenses of traveling, recruiting, and outfitting your cadre of dudes. Maybe you could work a linked test into it, if it seems unlikely that people would just go along with it.
I agree with pretty much all the advice you’re getting here. Just wanting to add a bit.
Based on your description and Belief about the situation this is a Big Deal. I understand not wanting to have to come up with a roll to recruit every single person. But also distilling it down to a couple rolls robs it of its importance. I feel like this is definitely the sort of thing that an entire campaign could be made out of. Find/recruit some key people, leave them to continue the work, check in on them, help keep them funded, help deal with road blocks. Maybe you have to personally see to some favors or whatever. Forge relationships with the important people in your growing organization and buy affiliations/reputations.
Just forming the group could be an epic undertaking in its own right. Groups like that don’t form overnight. Maybe eventually it starts to become a race against the clock. Can you get enough people competent enough in time to avert the future disaster?
See, I get that, and I don’t disagree. My own stance however, as a player, is that I don’t really care about any of these individuals, I just care that they exist and that I can draw on them. I don’t want to care about them because I had to take sessions and sessions of time gathering them, but because of the things we will see them accomplish AFTER they’re gathered. I don’t want this to be a Suicide-Squad thing, where we give everyone a cool backstory and highlight how cool everyone is, and then we wait and pray that the time-investment pays off later. I’d rather have it be a fellowship of the ring thing, where everyone is brought together, there’s a bit of talking, not alot, but just enough, and then we can start caring about the characters later, as they start doing stuff.
Also I agree that the belief is a big deal, but I think the things the group would strive to accomplish is a bigger deal than the mere act of forming the group. This is why I’m asking you fine fellows what’s the best way of handling the forging of such a group on a more abstract level. Not so I can avoid complication, but so we can cut to the chase in the game. Make sense?
What this sounds like is a case of you not writing a belief you actually want to play.
If the good stuff of the game is going to be down the road, then just skip over it and get to the good stuff.
Start already having the group formed, pay the RPs for the affiliation, relationship, and rep, for the gang or crew rules.
Now, if you are already in game, I’d try to establish a group that suits your purposes (an order of knights, say), with wises or some such, and circle up their leader and convince him.
Well if you want to cut to the chase, I see two possibilities for abstracting this.
Circle up the leader of an existing group. If you can sway the leader to your cause, some or all of the group comes with. At first anyway.
Use wises to find a place where such people gather. Make a rallying, the end is Nigh! speech to the whole place. More successes equals more people coming over to join your fledgling group but the initial Ob would be high to not be dismissed as a another crazy street person claiming the end of the world.
Originally Posted by 
