Introducing facts with Wises

So the question is all there, i was wandering how do you guys are using the wises to let the players introduce facts in game. Could you give me some exemples of a character with family-secret-wise? How could he narate something about a noble family in your setting for exemple, what is the obstacle, what kind of test are you using for that kind of purpose as DMs.

Thanks

Yoan

Using Family - Secret-Wise on a Noble family.

Player first narrates something about the Noble Family. For example “Duke Barrington has hidden away in the country a bastard older half-brother, with claim on the title”

The GM assigns an obstacle, based on the the obstacles from page 309 of the BWG book. There is a GM call here, and I think it important that the wise CANNOT contradict someone’s fact in a previous successful Wise test (It’s a dick move, and robs someone of a successful test), and it really shouldn’t contradict GM notes on a subject (but it’s really the GM’s call on this).

Ob 1 - Common knowledge of the Subject

Hidden away indicates that most people wouldn’t know this. If the Duke had a half brother but publicly denounced him, then that’d be common knowledge just by the nature of the public act.

Ob 2 - An interesting Fact

Though interesting, efforts were made to conceal this fact. If the wise was about the publicly denounced Half Brother having a passion for horses, that’d be an interesting Fact.

Ob 3 - Details

Again, not quite what I’d give the difficulty. Again, the details are kind of hidden. If the wise was about the publicly denounced Half Brother having a passion for horses, and a favourite horse in particular, A Rouncy named Snowflake, that’d be some really specific details.

Ob 4 - Uncommon Knowledge

This sounds about right! The duke is taking pains to hide this figure, so it would be more difficult to make a fact like this.

Ob 5 - Rare Goods

If the wise was to determine that the bastard was the rightful duke, and the Ruling Duke was secretly the bastard, I’d set this difficulty.

Ob 7 - Bizarre or Obscure

If the wise was to determine that the publicly denounced bastard was actually an identical twin, I’d set this obstacle.

Ob 8 - Freaky details or specifics

If the wise was “A magical accident created two Dukes, and one was hidden away, because they are both identical in every way (physically and mentally), and impossible to tell apart. Even if one was scarred, there’s no way to determine which was the original.” That’d be up there at obstacle 8.

Other GM calls would differ, I imagine, but that’s how I’d adjudicate it.

Family Secrets-wise: “My father’s only heir, Elise, is pregnant. The master of hounds is the father. No one knows but me.”

Ob 3 or 4, depending on the setting and context established so far concerning Elise, etc.

In our game, a priest created a holy sword, a relic weapon of his faith once wielded by a champion of the nation/religion. Ob 7, I think, since he created it in an odd place and time (Balrog fight around the corner) and due to the setting and events/facts already established.

if you pass the test: this is true, Elise is pregnant and the master of hounds is the father. No one knows but you.
if you fail the test: Oh yes, this is true, Elise is pregnant, oh yes the master of hounds is the father. But no, no, no you’re not the only one to know. Elise’s father (*) knows too. And he knows YOU know.

(*) variation: The master of hounds knows you know. Don’t go alone into the woods, pal.

Exactly.

Thanks for those replys, it gives me nice advice and tricks for my campain.

In our campaign, one of my players was having a private dinner party with his father the Grand Magus of Milan to reconcile with him after years of hatred and strife. His ‘friend’ plays a corrupt tax-collector; to be precise his reputation is ‘the bastard tax-collector of Milan’. He has a believe to ask for the hand of the Grand Magus’ Daughter and wanted to write himself in the scene.

He used family secret-wise to write in “The Grand Magus has secretly been evading taxes for years” and since only he knows I put it at ob 4. He succeeded with lots of Arta. He arrives at the dinner party with a large retinue of guards to arrest the grand magus for embezzlement in front of his family and blackmail him to get his way with his daughter. Great entrance, very nice role-playing but needless to say, this action complicated things for everybody.

you can use declaration for more mundane purposes, like getting (or not) an advantage on the fly (kind of a linked test)

In one Battlestar Galactica campaign of mine, PCs Raptor was being chased by Cylons Raiders.
One player had Cylon-Wise 4. She declared that Cylon radars were somehow sensitive to humid masses (because their homeworld had no atmosphere): “Hey, Pilot, go into the clouds !!!”

> If she passes the test, that’s true: Cylon Radars are jammed by clouds, +1D to any Linked Test (Pilot for escaping, Signal/Sensors for jamming, etc…); nice juicy fact, pal !

>If she fails the test, that’s wrong : in fact Cylon Radars are very sensitive to atmospheric humidity, but the right way : a ship signature is amplified when passing through clouds: +1 Ob to any Linked Test. Think better next time !!!

Ran The Sword a couple days ago. Right off the start the Human’s player declares he is going to go grasp the Sword off its pedestal. The Roden’s player says “Doesn’t that ceiling over it look a little shaky?” I ask the Roden player if he wants it to fall, or if he is just talking smack. Being the first time playing BW or any game with a mechanisms like Wises, it hadn’t occurred to him to even consider that but he said “Sure”. The Roden has Below-Wise, somewhere in the vicinity I thought, though a bit of a reach since this was not a true Roden home. I asked everyone else how they felt about that. The Elf’s player chimed in that of course it was going to come crashing down, Elven artifacts always have traps set around them, and pointed out Elven Artifact-Wise. I pointed out that that did not really apply here because was very unlikely to be put here by Elf and in any even this wasn’t its natural setting. But then somehow we came around to the idea that Elven artifacts have been known to have a power that will exploit its environment, I truly forget who spoke what words to get us there. I thought this concept was then closer to Elven Artifact-Wise, so the Elf player would be rolling with the Roden player contributing a Help die.

I figure the Human would roll Speed Versus the Elf, and floated that idea. The Dwarf’s player said he was going to push his Belief to bring everyone home safe and shout out a warning to 1D Help the Human (Tunnel-Wise). Solidified that Elf win would result in Human wounded without possessing the Sword, Human win was grabbing the Sword and dodging the piece of ceiling as it fell.

Could you give me some examples of a character with family-secret-wise? How could he narate something about a noble family in your setting for exemple, what is the obstacle, what kind of test are you using for that kind of purpose as DMs.

Usually the player will asset something even though it is more a suggestion, as per the Roden above (even though that player did not even think of it that way in this case). We might kick it around a bit to make sure everyone is good with it, sometimes tweaking like with the Elf player’s adding the magical aspect and then the whole table refining it.

The Ob is going to be setting dependent, as per Glendower. In our case we using it in a Versus but if it was going to be against a static Ob, hmm, I would say maybe Ob 4. But that really has to do with what the nature of magic in the setting is envisioned and how powerful an item this artifact was envisioned was. So maybe as low as Ob 2 if artifacts often had side abilities like this (or this exact one), as high as Ob 7 if the concept of magic in the setting was that this artifact would be one of only a small handful that had such an ability.

EDIT: One thing I will note, I prefer in-character asserting statements and hardly ever roll back the fact the statement was made. Even if the Test fails I just assume the character made a statement that was mistaken, intentional or otherwise. It usually is not important one way or another, and usually a source of humor later when recalling some character declaring in certainty some assertion of fact which was followed by an unceremonious face plant (literal or metaphorical) by the character.

[QUOTE=Dwight;129458]Ran The Sword a couple days ago. Right off the start the Human’s player declares he is going to go grasp the Sword off its pedestal. The Roden’s player says “Doesn’t that ceiling over it look a little shaky?” I ask the Roden player if he wants it to fall, or if he is just talking smack. Being the first time playing BW or any game with a mechanisms like Wises, it hadn’t occurred to him to even consider that but he said “Sure”. The Roden has Below-Wise, somewhere in the vicinity I thought, though a bit of a reach since this was not a true Roden home. I asked everyone else how they felt about that. The Elf’s player chimed in that of course it was going to come crashing down, Elven artifacts always have traps set around them, and pointed out Elven Artifact-Wise. I pointed out that that did not really apply here because was very unlikely to be put here by Elf and in any even this wasn’t its natural setting. But then somehow we came around to the idea that Elven artifacts have been known to have a power that will exploit its environment, I truly forget who spoke what words to get us there. I thought this concept was then closer to Elven Artifact-Wise, so the Elf player would be rolling with the Roden player contributing a Help die.

I figure the Human would roll Speed Versus the Elf, and floated that idea. The Dwarf’s player said he was going to push his Belief to bring everyone home safe and shout out a warning to 1D Help the Human (Tunnel-Wise). Solidified that Elf win would result in Human wounded without possessing the Sword, Human win was grabbing the Sword and dodging the piece of ceiling as it fell.

Usually the player will asset something even though it is more a suggestion, as per the Roden above (even though that player did not even think of it that way in this case). We might kick it around a bit to make sure everyone is good with it, sometimes tweaking like with the Elf player’s adding the magical aspect and then the whole table refining it.

The Ob is going to be setting dependent, as per Glendower. In our case we using it in a Versus but if it was going to be against a static Ob, hmm, I would say maybe Ob 4. But that really has to do with what the nature of magic in the setting is envisioned and how powerful an item this artifact was envisioned was. So maybe as low as Ob 2 if artifacts often had side abilities like this (or this exact one), as high as Ob 7 if the concept of magic in the setting was that this artifact would be one of only a small handful that had such an ability…

Nice… very nice, those kinds of twists i would like to appen in my game. It confirms the way it meens to be played to me. Thanks again!