The character you circle up doesn’t circle up the third party. She introduces you, and then you make your case. Linked test, as it were.
Limitations make circles interesting. Limitations create culture in your world. If there are no limitations, your world is likely squishy and boring.
I’m on the road now. I’ll get back to this this weekend.
Exactly. Your intent was to Circle a person that knew the person you wanted to find. And really, isn’t this how the real world works in so many cases? The only difference is that now the intended target’s attitude isn’t guaranteed. So some kind of Social test is required when you do actually meet for the first time.
Example of success:
“Hey, Luke! Do you know any illustrators that would work for me?” (Circles Test to define relationship/attitude with Luke)
“Sure. Here’s an email address. Tell him I sent you.”
“Thanks!”
“Dear, Kurt…” (Persuasion/Haggling Test)
Example of failure:
“Hey, Thor! Do you know of any good travel agents?” (Circles Test)
“Sure, here’s a number. AND… I’ve got some vacation time and would love to join you and your family on your trip to Disney World!”
“Ummm…” (A Social test to avoid hurting Thor’s feelings as I reject his suggestion. Otherwise, he’s coming.)
Hahaha! Nice examples. I think I gotcha now. Basically: Consider the attempt to Circle someone outside of your circles as an exercise in medieval networking. It’s not direct contact, but it’s not a form of obstruction, either.
As I understand it, Circles represent people you’ve potentially met, interacted with, or otherwise come across. This is why Circles, by definition, has to be limited. You can’t Circle up the Emporer of another country if you’ve never been there (which is represented by Lifepaths, Affiliations, Traits, and so on). You CAN Circle up your own king or whatever, and even though it’s a high Ob, half of the fun of Circles is explaining just how the heck you ran across the king and why he’d even be willing to see you.
But Circles isn’t the only way to run into NPCs, which seems to be the issue of this thread. You can go door to door, try snooping, and even ask around in the market. Or you could ask a friend to intercede for you, which plenty of us do every day (“Oh man, you had dinner with Danny DeVito? You need to introduce me!”). And that’s why you’d Circle up somebody to, well, Circle for you.
THe other thing to remember is that you can circle up someone who knows the type of person you need… you can circle up a connected friend.
I’ve got one of those… if I need something off the grid, I don’t need to know who has it, I just need to know the guy who knows the guy who has the thing. And then not ask too many questions.
Definitely makes it more interesting that you have to circle a maid born in your village instead of just “being more difficult”. I really like how the limitations of it drives play.
Do you let people with affiliations circle anyone within the same affiliation, or do you require the trait for that? We’ve had a tendency to the former in our games.
I can only second this. we have all done this with getting referral to a job or just having your people talk with your people. this is what makes the real world go round and so only logically should make the burning wheel go round.
Keep in mind that wises are the ultimate stepping stone, particularly with regard to circles. The “servant from my village” example, to me, works on its own if it’s the village around the castle; however, if there are countless villages from which servants could come, then you’re going to need a wise (perhaps in linked test form) to explain why you’d have any idea that your old neighbor has taken such a job. Unlike circles, which are bound by your setting, you can attempt to open up any skill. I’d steer clear of something like old-neighbor-wise, which sounds ripe for abuse, and more towards some variant of servant-wise. I’d be cool with Name-of-Hometown-wise, but I’d increase the obstacle with both the size of the town and perhaps the relative insignificance of the information.
One way to kind of neutralize insignificance of information is to go ahead and make that servant a blood relative of yours, which is going to be more interesting than random-person-who-will-provide-information. Now, the fact that a blood relative of yours is a servant here is rather specific, so not necessarily an easy obstacle (probably Name-of-my-family-wise), but, in my mind, it’s better than, “Oh my garsh I remember you from middle school!” And it makes enmity clauses stick because you’ve already established that the individual in question knows a lot more about you than most people do - a member of your family having a bone to pick is a lot better than a distant acquaintance.