Two quick circles questions

Ok, I’m breaking the rules and asking two questions at once. Both are small (I think).

  1. In the Omac scenario, I want to circle up some Anvil troops from the garrison. Are they common, uncommon or rare? (I would say common, troopers from a garrison, but I want an answer from more experienced minds.)

  2. Still in Omac, I want to get many Anvil. Not a squad or other organized unit though. I want to get a cross section of the garrison who are Kern sympathisers. It doesn’t really fit to circle up an officer and use his troops because his troops might not have the same opinions as him. Can I just raise the Ob by one or two to get more than one guy? (Similar to how it is done in resource roll.)

Thanks,

  1. “Troops”? Yeah. That sounds pretty common. You don’t have any parameters?

  2. For this, do an appropriate -Wise check, or perhaps Research, to cover the selection process (Circles someone up if you gotta), and then Circles up a second in command if you want to organize a unit from these number. At least that’s what I’d do. What are you trying to accomplish?

  1. This depends on your character. Someone with Anvil LPs would have them as common. Everyone else would probably have them as uncommon.

  2. I’d first ask what you are trying to do. It’s quite likely that a Circles roll would not be required at all.

Excellent. Glad to hear I was thinking along the correct lines for #1.

On to #2. As Julius in Omac, I want to find some troops to support an attack on the prison. Ideally, I’d love to get a bunch of troops.

I could circle up an officer and get him and his troopers. I had two concerns with that.

First, the attack is probably treason. I would expect the troops wouldn’t necessarily follow their Lt in such an attack. So my thought was to circle up more than one trooper, all with the loyal obstacle.

Second, I want to search for ‘Kern sympathisers’ in the garrison. By looking for the reputation, I think I get a +1d on the roll and it fits my needs. But again, I really don’t expect the troops to go along with their officer that much.

So, I figured the mechanics might work like resource rolls. I specify the Ob for a single trooper like I want and then add 1 or 2 to get more guys like that first one.

You make Circles tests to find characters. The characters come along with what ever is appropriate. That include sympathetic followers. If you all still think it’s a conflict, then make it one. Convince the soldiers to fight for you. Earn the Kerrn’s sympathy.

So assuming we take a circles roll with the +3 Ob for loyal we can assume that the officer and his soldiers are loyal to the cause, unless the GM intervenes?

I guess we can also make it into a conflict ourselves by rolling for Persuade and other things, but we’re not obligated to do so. (“Say yes or roll”).

I’m fine and cool with that (I’m playing the GM role in said game) - what I was unsure of was the request for 100 loyal guys. Circles seem to be steered towards getting hold of one or a handful of characters.

So, is it possible? Recommended? What’s the Ob increase?

Julius is an officer and affiliated with the garrison, so you get as many soldiers as an officer can be expected to have for that situation, given the methods he used to find people sympathetic to his cause, and his ability to convince or order that many troops to come with him. A lot of this really depends on what sort of power Julius is expected to have at the garrison. What I would say is decide on a reasonable number for an officer like Julius to have available, given the circumstances. If that number is less than 100, then perhaps the character needs to take more steps if he wants more. Maybe he needs another officer to justify the size of the company.

It’s not necessarily about what’s right, but what would be a good challenge in this situation. If you hesitate to give him 100 troops, then make him pay for it with a few tough checks first.