the intent of a Circles test

You find him but he’s embroiled in something, and now you are too.

Okay, fair enough. I’m convinced. Good talk, everybody.

So we’re dividing a task into several segments, each of which requires its own roll. The intent of the Circles test is just “introduce an NPC into the story,” not “introduce an NPC willing to do x.” We’re using a “failure complicates the matter” approach, so we can give the player his intent (okay, you can bring an NPC into the story…) and just embroider it a little (…but he’s ON FIRE). Makes sense.

LOL, I’d love to Circle up a dude who’s on fire!

One of my favorite failed Circles results was finding someone that was too much like I was looking for. Like someone that agreed with my character’s political views, but turned up to 11. He quickly started causing lots of problem for me. It was pretty fantastic.

Very cool. That reminds of the “Crazy Friend” from Yeloson’s article on Seven Types of Antagonists.

My favorite Circled NPC was a scribe the illiterate mayor PC Circled up to work as her personal assistant. And she failed, so the Enmity Clause was invoked. For flavor, I chose a random Trait to give him from a short-list I keep handy … and rolled up “Trustworthy”. So, she ended up with a personal assistant who absolutely hates her guts and is very vocal about it, but is so trustworthy that he just grudgingly does his job anyways. Pretty awesome humor factor there.

Bartleby the scrivener would make a great enmity clause! In general, I think recurrence and enmity work great together. If you’re looking for someone who can do something and find out that such a person exists, but you hate her already, is good. Having such a person exist and just be a dick is more annoying.

I try to have one test to rule them all as much as possible, unless a player wants otherwise. I’ll usually demand the player give me details about the person. What does this person know, etc. They are free to add in details about why the person would be predisposed to help–and I’ll raise the Ob accordingly. I avoid making it a linked test unless the player wants that or needs that or it’s particularly appropriate and dramatic.

With the teamster example, I may be willing to make the teamster owe a the PC’s dad a favor for +1 ob and forgo any persuasion after. There’d then be just the exit itself. Or the player could opt to make it a linked test, or one could do the finding and another could do the convincing, for instance.