[Circle of Hands] Rules questions

[Nyhteg]

Ron, hi

No reason not, but every time I found myself about to write it, my hand rebelled.

That's interesting.

I find it curious that you're happy to say "Knights! But not the sort of knights you're thinking of - these sort of knights...!" but you're uncomfortable saying "Anglo Saxon vibe! But not the Anglo Saxon vibe you're thinking of - this sort of Anglo Saxon vibe..!"

Perhaps I just don't have the same associations with 'Anglo Saxon' as you do; I am British so that possibly makes a difference, although I definitely go straight to Germanic and absolutely not Disney-Arthurian in any way whatsoever.

For what it's worth, I actually find I have no associations with the term 'Iron Age' at all; in fact I immediately skip in my brain to 'Stone Age' which is just weird and unhelpful. 'Anglo Saxon', on the other hand, gets me exactly where the text is aiming.

In any event, I suspect that a selection of cool pictures of PCs in action in the final text will help clear everything up enormously.

So...rules questions...let me see what I have so far...

1. Is it your intention that the two-characters-per-player rolled up at the start are the sum total of all PCs for the entire the duration of the game (ie if things get bloody there could come a point where there are not enough PCs to go round)? I get that when a PC dies they remain as a spirit until the end of the adventure in hand but does their 'slot' in the Circle get filled by a new character for subsequent missions, keeping the roster constant at 2-PCs-per-player? I couldn't decide from the text one way or the other.

2. Small thing, but in the Feature section of character generation, what is a "Blaze" when it's at home..?

3. I really like the mission creation process and the advice you give on running an adventure, but I'm not clear at all on how to know when a mission is done (and I appreciate you make a nod to that in the introductory notes). My suspicion is that it will be obvious in play, by a sense of "Yeah, that felt climactic...let's wrap up..." or what have you, but...maybe not. In particular, could you explain what this bit means: "One marker [of the end of an adventure] is the adventure component with the highest numerical value, using the numbers from when they were rolled. If the events of play effectively finish off that component as a crisis, then it's time to wrap up."

Is this talking about an NPC's stats, or the rolls to determine which elements went into a mission, or..?

4. Regarding clashes, I just want to make sure I'm getting the rules straight (particularly because the 'Example' sections just say the word 'Example').

So if your guy attacks my guy, we roll 2d6 with one of us typically getting an extra die for an advantage. Then we add Q twice? Once when applying our single roll for defence and again for attack? But we will also shuffle that 2xQ 'pool' around between attack and defence before we roll if we want to be more aggressive or cagey?
Assuming that's on track:

- Do you do that allocation of 2xQ in the open or secretly?
Is that a thing which (named?) NPCs will do also or just a PC thing?

- If you allocate 0Q to offence, your character doesn't attack.
Is the converse true?
Does 0Q allocated to defence mean the opponent's attacking roll is not opposed at all and simply lands at full strength?

- If I choose to 'only defend' because, say, I want to toss a spell at that other dude when you've finished trying to hit me in the head, does this mean I only add one lot of Q to my defensive roll?
(It would make a lot of cool sense to me if that was the case; I can imagine that the best way to defend yourself is to fully engage in the fight but concentrate on defending not attacking.)

5. Regarding injury and healing from injury:

- Is the number in the B column of the weapons table to be added to BQ when dealing damage or is it something else?

- When healing from damage, the text says "recovery occurs at 1 BQ per day per missing Brawn".
Which seemed to make sense to me, but then it doesn't when I try to apply it.
Does 'BQ' here mean "1 point of B and one point of Q", for instance?
Say I've been injured for 3BQ. So my B has been reduced by 1 and Q reduced by 2, right? My B has dropped by 1, so after the first day I've healed '1BQ'. So what are my B and Q totals now..? B at full, Q still at 1 lower? Both at full? Am I missing something?

6. Finally, I wanted to ask about narrating the effects of damage.

Let's say my dude clashes with someone and they score a hit with their spear.
It's clear that 1BQ of damage is very different from 3BQ and from 8BQ or 15BQ, but what do these numbers mean in terms of "[conveying] content through naturalistic descriptions of what is happening"..?

I can imagine that this might be one of those things that is obvious to you during your own games.
It's perhaps just common sense to you that a character receives wound type X from BQ result Y in context Z, maybe?
From the text I think I can sense you trying to convey important aspects of this in your qualitative descriptions of various weapons, and in the details you go into about physical combat tactics but, for me at least, I needed it to be more explicitly laid out.

What's the fictional difference for my character between taking 1BQ of injury and taking 9BQ?
What's the difference between 6BQ from a knife and 6BQ (or 1, or 3 or 18) from a spear?
Is my guy's nose or finger broken; is he bleeding from a nasty flesh wound or a severed artery?
Has he had his ribs cracked or lost a tooth...or a finger...or an eye...or hand...?
I can see all this being vivid and essential aspects of play, but how to calibrate it consistently and fairly?

Or do we not really care blow by blow in that sense. During a fight it's all oof, hack, wallop until a death blow or two lands, then the survivors look at their scores when the dust has settled and decide what's been chopped off? I feel that must go against the moment-to-moment visceral horror of combat, so I'm assuming not...

Again, is this simply more obvious in play than I think it is?

Oh, and:

7. Just a data point as much as anything, I found the section on recording and balancing white and black colour points just plain confusing and hard to figure out. With the Anglo Saxon thing in mind, however, I appreciate that might just be me again. ;)

Best

G

[Ron Edwards]

I bet that Anglo Saxon thing is pure U.S. I assure you it is a very big deal here, and I'll have to resolve it in the text in one of the ways I described. Some of the nuances include anti-Irish, anti-Ulster Scot, and slave-owning in areas like coastal Virgina and the Carolinas; more recently, associations with upper-middle class privilege in New England, and especially in the interesting border cutting right through the middle of Long Island.

1. Is it your intention that the two-characters-per-player rolled up at the start are the sum total of all PCs for the entire the duration of the game (ie if things get bloody there could come a point where there are not enough PCs to go round)? I get that when a PC dies they remain as a spirit until the end of the adventure in hand but does their 'slot' in the Circle get filled by a new character for subsequent missions, keeping the roster constant at 2-PCs-per-player? I couldn't decide from the text one way or the other.

The intention is not to make up new characters, but that's based only on my playtesting. I've seen a couple of deaths and one TPK (with just two characters), and my current estimate is that we'd be done with the game as a whole before running out of characters. That's also based on my observation of the learning curve ... it's a bit hard on the first-chosen characters, but people get better at keeping their characters alive as they go along. Since my concept of ending play as a whole is nebulous, I'd like to see what happens in other groups for a while.

2. Small thing, but in the Feature section of character generation, what is a "Blaze" when it's at home..?

Oh shoot, I forgot to explain that. I meant to. It's a streak of a second hair color, what makeup people call a skunk stripe. Not cosmetic, but pigmented.

3. .... In particular, could you explain what this bit means: "One marker [of the end of an adventure] is the adventure component with the highest numerical value, using the numbers from when they were rolled. If the events of play effectively finish off that component as a crisis, then it's time to wrap up."

Is this talking about an NPC's stats, or the rolls to determine which elements went into a mission, or..?

It's talking about the rolls to determine the elements. So in the example adventure, if the various people and problems centered on "monster" reach resolution, then it's time to wind down the adventure even if the "hidden knowledge" isn't all that done yet.

Another way to look at it is to kick the rest of it strictly to player-proactivity at that point - so if they're really into the action and are stating actions and interactions a mile a minute, then keep going, but if not, then it's time to let the wyrm-fight (or whatever it turned into) be the closer.

4. Regarding clashes, I just want to make sure I'm getting the rules straight (particularly because the 'Example' sections just say the word 'Example').

So if your guy attacks my guy, we roll 2d6 with one of us typically getting an extra die for an advantage. Then we add Q twice? Once when applying our single roll for defence and again for attack? But we will also shuffle that 2xQ 'pool' around between attack and defence before we roll if we want to be more aggressive or cagey?

You got it!

Assuming that's on track:

- Do you do that allocation of 2xQ in the open or secretly?
Is that a thing which (named?) NPCs will do also or just a PC thing?

I like secretly, or at least in the understanding that you're not basing your choice on what the other guy does. They should be juxtaposed, not one optimzed against the other. In practice, the people I've played with have been honest about it and said, "this is what I'm doing" without being cagey, even if we didn't go so far as to write it down and reveal.

Named NPCs do it too. For sure. Beware the wizard character who throws all his or her Q into defense, because casting spells is not dice-based task. Those fights get quite horrible fast.

- If you allocate 0Q to offence, your character doesn't attack.
Is the converse true?
Does 0Q allocated to defence mean the opponent's attacking roll is not opposed at all and simply lands at full strength?

Nope. You'll still get the "naked" rolled value as defense.

- If I choose to 'only defend' because, say, I want to toss a spell at that other dude when you've finished trying to hit me in the head, does this mean I only add one lot of Q to my defensive roll?
(It would make a lot of cool sense to me if that was the case; I can imagine that the best way to defend yourself is to fully engage in the fight but concentrate on defending not attacking.)

Nope, you'll get full value, twice Q. I might be misunderstanding, but I think my answer is consistent with your point in the parenthesis.

5. Regarding injury and healing from injury:

- Is the number in the B column of the weapons table to be added to BQ when dealing damage or is it something else?

You add the attacking character's current B. I suddenly realized I didn't explain the number in the column, which is a minimum B for wielding the weapon. The idea is that if your B gets reduced to a level below that for your weapon, then it's another possible factor to consider regarding the advantage die.

- When healing from damage, the text says "recovery occurs at 1 BQ per day per missing Brawn".
Which seemed to make sense to me, but then it doesn't when I try to apply it.
Does 'BQ' here mean "1 point of B and one point of Q", for instance?
Say I've been injured for 3BQ. So my B has been reduced by 1 and Q reduced by 2, right? My B has dropped by 1, so after the first day I've healed '1BQ'. So what are my B and Q totals now..? B at full, Q still at 1 lower? Both at full? Am I missing something?

Shoot, now I'm all mixed up. Let me think about it. I know it makes sense, dammit, but hold on a bit.

6. Finally, I wanted to ask about narrating the effects of damage.

Let's say my dude clashes with someone and they score a hit with their spear.
It's clear that 1BQ of damage is very different from 3BQ and from 8BQ or 15BQ, but what do these numbers mean in terms of "[conveying] content through naturalistic descriptions of what is happening"..?

This is a really good question which matters a lot. Here is the answer.

i) Consider where the inflicted damage places the character. If B and Q are both still above 0, the hit looks horrible and feels horrible, but doesn't necessarily do permanent damage. Another, softer boundary would be the thing mentioned above about B and the weapon, again, mainly for Color and a little bit of mechanics effect material.

ii) Player-characters are plot-armored against instant maiming. If your character takes a bad hit, then narrate what it seeems like in the absence of permanent fixation. So, "Your shoulder feels dislocated," not, "Your shoulder is dislocated." The trick here is that if the player-character makes it through the fight mechanically speaking, then all those hits turn out to be "not so bad." But being taken down to 0 in either B or Q makes the narrated effect more real, and being killed lets us know that holy shit, that spear-thrust back in the start of the fight was a clincher from the very beginning.

This concept is taken from the first version of Hero Wars and I consider it to be very, very good game design. It resolves all the hassles about "well shit, he rolled a crit so my foot's cut off," Rolemaster style, vs. "hit hit hit hit hit no narration what's going on hit hit, oh now I'm dead, how did that happen."

Just as you say, all the details should be inspired by that wad of color text about the weapons and fighting. The trick is in exactly how it's said in the moment. You will discover the effect is astonishingly vivid in play, to the point of adrenalin-fueled nausea. Um, maybe not my best selling-point phrasing, but true.

7. Just a data point as much as anything, I found the section on recording and balancing white and black colour points just plain confusing and hard to figure out.

It'll help if you make a little chart just as shown in the video. If you want, do that and then bring a sequence of spells, just any spells you think would be fun to cast in sequence, I'll show you how that works.

Best, Ron

[Ron Edwards]

OK, I remember now. The guy in the example was taken down by 4 BQ. So that meant he was at -2 B and -2 Q. He gets one attribute point back after four days, so is now at -1 B and -2 Q. Then three days later, he gets one point back, so is at -1 B and -1 Q. Two days later, he's at -1 Q, and one day after that, he's fully recovered.

So the core concept is that the recovery alternates between B and Q, point by point.

I usually start with B so that the final point recovered is Q, or if it was an odd-numbered total BQ, the final two points recovered are Q. I base that idea on the fact that one is still achey for a while after the basic tissue damage is healed.

Let me know if that makes sense!

[Jonas Ferry]

Hi Ron,

I found out about Circle of Hands from the March thread "Stuff To Watch" at Story Games. I read the playtest document today and I'm dying to test it. I can't promise anything, as my two current groups already have games planned, but I'll try. I should at least be able to start a thread here in the next couple of days going through the GM situation prep, so that you can see if I get it right by using the text.

A couple of short observations after my first read, then the questions:

- I love the "angelic" vs demon war (even though "angel" is a Rbaja creature), especially that it's not a fight between good and evil from humanity's point of view. Both sides have a detrimental effect on normal human activities.

- The Knights being pragmatic and utilizing powers from both sides is nice. I thought of the classical Yin and Yang symbol, with a circle of light in the dark part and vice versa. I think it's easy for players to go in thinking they will play a PC that will always choose one side over the other (either a "good" PC or an "evil" PC), but if you look at the list of spell lists there are useful spells for all PCs in both lists. Non-wizard PCs can pick a 1 point spell of the "opposing" color and just ignore it, but a wizard PC will most likely be tempted to use spells from both lists.

- The spider-hags are hilarious! Talk about that one-night-stand coming back to haunt you.

- I didn't know the word scramasax, but Wikipedia helped me out. I'm from Sweden, so both parts of the word still mean something today ("scrama" is "skråma", that is, "a scratch; a flesh-wound" and "sax" is "scissors"). I also learned about the connection of the weapon to Saxons and Essex. Another English word I learned was "gravid" (from the pode monster). This is the common word for "pregnant" in Swedish, but I hadn't seen it used in English before. I guess that, same as "gratis", it's been so completely imported into Swedish from Latin that we don't even think of them as imports.

- The situation generator looks very usable. I also think your general observations on prep in the text, for example not putting all eggs in one basket by tying everything to a single NPC, are very valuable.

- I like the limited amount of armor and weapons presented, compared to most other fantasy games I've played. Instead of picking armor and weapons from any age and culture, it feels like a snapshot of the current state of the art of those lands. I like how different social classes learn different weapons and that the different lands have different weapons they are famous for.

Now, the questions:

1. The white tallies list "Shape-shift into small silver dragon once per adventure, +1 to both B and Q". The silver dragon is also described in the Eidolon section, where they both have a specific behavior and special attacking options. There are a couple of questions here:

a) I think a PC wouldn't be forced to automatically attack people with black tallies, right? But they get the attack options, for example Dazzle breath and fighting groups as individuals?

b) What does "if anyone with current black color points requests, it does not kill him or her but rather removes the points from existence" mean? If you have a PC with 7 white points and 2 black, would it mean they now have 7 white and 2 neutral, or 9 white, or a new maximum of 7 points? It's the "removes from existence" part that confuses me.

2. In the situation prep on page 31 I think there's an error in the example following the list with 7 items. The third bullet says "2 3 2 yields 2 5 7, for humanitarian crisis, monster, and Amboriyon interference (in Tamaryon)", but the first "2" should be "Ordinary local-power tensions", not "Humanitarian crisis". I know you don't want feedback on stuff that will be fixed during editing, but I think the examples are important also when playtesting.

3. On timing in fights, if two PCs want to attack each other and have the same Q, we would go to alternative "If both are player-characters, the respective players decide". But what if neither player want to let the other go first? We would surely manage to resolve it at the table, perhaps through a dice roll, but perhaps you want the text to handle that case as well?

Again, I was hooked by the bullet list of details in the Kickstarter page, but I'm even more enthusiastic after reading the text.

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Jonas!

Re: silver dragon transformation:

a) I think a PC wouldn't be forced to automatically attack people with black tallies, right? But they get the attack options, for example Dazzle breath and fighting groups as individuals?

Correct on both points.

b) What does "if anyone with current black color points requests, it does not kill him or her but rather removes the points from existence" mean? If you have a PC with 7 white points and 2 black, would it mean they now have 7 white and 2 neutral, or 9 white, or a new maximum of 7 points? It's the "removes from existence" part that confuses me.

Ah. I wanted it to mean "with no effect on white color points." So the character in your example now has 7 white points and that's all.

2. In the situation prep on page 31 I think there's an error in the example following the list with 7 items. The third bullet says "2 3 2 yields 2 5 7, for humanitarian crisis, monster, and Amboriyon interference (in Tamaryon)", but the first "2" should be "Ordinary local-power tensions", not "Humanitarian crisis". I know you don't want feedback on stuff that will be fixed during editing, but I think the examples are important also when playtesting.

Thanks! That is legacy from a recent change switching the order of 1 and 2.

3. On timing in fights, if two PCs want to attack each other and have the same Q, we would go to alternative "If both are player-characters, the respective players decide". But what if neither player want to let the other go first? We would surely manage to resolve it at the table, perhaps through a dice roll, but perhaps you want the text to handle that case as well?

Well, wait – if they are attacking each other, it doesn't really matter, does it? They're in a clash. It's going on one of their turns, nominally, but really, it's run as one clash after another (presuming both are able after the first), and if no one else is going in between, then no change-over of the advantage die based on the order seems possible. As written, I don't see any need to break the tie.

If somehow the order matters to the advantage die (but I can't see how), then it would matter. And if there were three player-characters all at the same Q, and the third is doing something that matters to these two fighting, then it would matter.

So I guess a roll-off is necessary ... or maybe I can come up with some other way. Because the whole point here is to avoid two layers of tie-breaking, I find that inelegant and annoying.

Best, Ron

P.S. The plan for tomorrow is to consolidate the rules Q&A to date into an update.

[Nyhteg]

Thanks for the answers, Ron, all most helpful.

you'll get full value, twice Q. I might be misunderstanding, but I think my answer is consistent with your point in the parenthesis.

My question was about the situation where A wants to attack B (or some other action, whatever it is) but C is able to get in and attack A first due to the Quickness order.
So if A decides to stick with the intended action vs B, the trade-off being made is not about it being harder for A to defend (because A can still apply a full 2Q to the defence roll) but is simply about not being able to harm C in the clash. C gets a free shot, basically.

Is that the correct gist of it?

G

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Gethyn,

That's correct, although "free shot" is against quite a bit of defense. I see what you mean in terms of C, because he doesn't have to worry about taking damage ... well, unless A does decide to abandon the planned action and counterstrike after all ... which C doesn't know one way or the other, going in ...

[John W]

Getting ready to teach and run this.  Ron, a couple of rules questions that I want to get in before you write up that FAQ:

1. When a fight breaks out, we pause as the GM describes the terrain, movement, immediate circumstances and relative positions of all involved.  "From that point forward, the actions of a fight will indeed be mechanically affected by circumstances, strictly as consequences of successful and unsuccessful actions along the way, and the nuances of the immediate terrain will matter too. But all of these are already embedded in the resolution mechanics and cannot be influenced by extraneous narration." 

Affected how?  Just through allocation of the advantage die, or are there other mechanics that achieve this?  Okay, successful attacks reduce the Braun and Quickness of their victims, that's mechanical, consequential and immediate. 

Anything else that I can imagine depends upon narration of tactics.  E.g. there's a tree stump in the clearing, I stand on it to attack my foe from height.  That's advantage... but it came from narrating tactics, so we shouldn't allow it?  Does a character get a chance to seize an advantage after a successful attack?  How do characters use the terrain etc. except by narrating tactics?

2. There are no rounds.  I'm having trouble picturing how this would work.  I'm familiar with Sorcerer's round structure, of which this is an evolution.  And I understand what you said: the initiative order doesn't change, we just keep going around.  But after the initial fair-and-clear phase and everyone's first action, are there no subsequent fair-and-clear phases?  So, after the first "round," characters don't have to declare their actions before their subsequent turns in the order?

3. Unarmed combat.  The first time you reduce someone to B 0 Q 0... that damage heals as normal injuries?  Really?  Like, if I've lost 4 Braun, it takes 10 days to heal from the beating, just like as if I'd lost those points through being stabbed?  Okay, I guess the difference is: if you're reduced to zero by weapon attacks, then healing time is doubled.  Did I just answer my own question?

4. Recovery: in the example on pg.60, I think you're using "Braun" and "BQ" interchangeably.  If I read this right, then for example someone who has lost 4 Braun needs 4 days to heal 2 BQ (1 B and 1 Q).  3 days later, he heals another 2 BQ, etc.  Am I right?

Thanks!
-J

[Ron Edwards]

[paragraph snipped] Affected how?  Just through allocation of the advantage die, or are there other mechanics that achieve this?  Okay, successful attacks reduce the Braun and Quickness of their victims, that's mechanical, consequential and immediate. 

Yes, advantage die + reductions in scores. That's what I'm referring to in the paragraph.

Anything else that I can imagine depends upon narration of tactics.  E.g. there's a tree stump in the clearing, I stand on it to attack my foe from height.  That's advantage... but it came from narrating tactics, so we shouldn't allow it?  Does a character get a chance to seize an advantage after a successful attack?  How do characters use the terrain etc. except by narrating tactics?

A couple things.

i) Some successful attacks are very much game-changers. First on the list is a shoulder-strike with a shield, which I was planning to explain (but I think I forgot) is a serious "advantage die grab" move. Another I recall from play is the guy armed with a staff facing a charging spearman, who made it through the clash barely scathed and landed a solid blow as well – I can't see any way to interpret that except as having totally bollixed the horseman and negated the advantage of the previous round (i.e. seized it). So weapon comparison + effects of just-prior action.

ii) Sucking a guy into a clash is a good way to get the advantage too, if the weapons and stuff are pretty much alike. This is a reason to care about the order, so I'll add it to the justification for addressing Jonas' concern about the ties too.

iii) Terrain does matter, but not as mere announcement. This is another situation where Wits matter, I think – if you can defend successfully and use your action for a W vs. 12 roll, I think that can count for grabbing the advantage on the following move. In fact, as a fight-opener against a foe with a better position and/or weapon, I might make it a habit to do that the very first thing (defending if necessary along the way), then if successful, instantly spending 1 B to go again immediately.

I'm all about people getting the advantage die, but not gabbling away to control the imagined space.

2. There are no rounds.  I'm having trouble picturing how this would work.  I'm familiar with Sorcerer's round structure, of which this is an evolution.  And I understand what you said: the initiative order doesn't change, we just keep going around.  But after the initial fair-and-clear phase and everyone's first action, are there no subsequent fair-and-clear phases?  So, after the first "round," characters don't have to declare their actions before their subsequent turns in the order?

Right. The initial fair-and-clear is there pretty much to get everyone at the table on the same page. After that, it's say-and-go on your turn, subject to tricks like the above.

Full disclosure: most of my playtesting has been running this with a Sorcerer round-like structure, but in practice, I found that stopping for the new fair-and-clear turned out to be sort of bogus. It's very useful for the initial picture in everyone's mind to be clear, and from there, not so much.

3. Unarmed combat.  The first time you reduce someone to B 0 Q 0... that damage heals as normal injuries?  Really?  Like, if I've lost 4 Braun, it takes 10 days to heal from the beating, just like as if I'd lost those points through being stabbed?  Okay, I guess the difference is: if you're reduced to zero by weapon attacks, then healing time is doubled.  Did I just answer my own question?

Pretty much. Having had to recover from a beating or two, I am here to say that bruising is a wound, differing from a stab or a slash only in that it happens not to include opening the skin. Or as an example with less internal bleeding, taking a heavy blow to the throat – not so good for the breathing and therefore for any major action, for at least a week. Been there too.

4. Recovery: in the example on pg.60, I think you're using "Braun" and "BQ" interchangeably.  If I read this right, then for example someone who has lost 4 Braun needs 4 days to heal 2 BQ (1 B and 1 Q).  3 days later, he heals another 2 BQ, etc.  Am I right?

Damn it, you're right, and I talked myself out of it somehow in answering Gethyn's question above. This is the way I originally intended it. Brawn sets the pace, and Q comes back with the B, but if total BQ taken was odd, then you have one more day to go after that to get your final Q back.

Best, Ron
edited to fix a person's name - RE

[Nyhteg]

Ron

When a character 'spends 1B' to jump into first place in the combat order, do you treat that exactly like a wizard spending B to cast spells?
ie The spent B returns rapidly after a decent rest to get one's breath back.

G

[Ron Edwards]

When a character 'spends 1B' to jump into first place in the combat order, do you treat that exactly like a wizard spending B to cast spells?
ie The spent B returns rapidly after a decent rest to get one's breath back.

Yes! Good question, that's important.

[John W]

Thanks Ron, that clears up a lot of things for me - your previous reply, too.  The flow of the game is taking shape in my head.

Outside of combat, I'm getting the idea that personal dynamics (the C vs.12 roll) and acting within social norms (or not) are very important in this setting.

Thanks,
-J

[Nyhteg]

When a character 'spends 1B' to jump into first place in the combat order, do you treat that exactly like a wizard spending B to cast spells?
ie The spent B returns rapidly after a decent rest to get one's breath back.

Yes! Good question, that's important.

Cool. So does this potentially open up into an instantaneous 'bidding war' situation like pumping B in spell casting?
Character X spends 1B to jump ahead of Y, who immediately spends 1B to claim the top slot back again, but X spends a second point...etc?

Couple of other questions:

1. Ranged attacks (spear throwing, bows, franciscas, etc). Are they treated as clashes?
I had assumed they would be, but there's a sentence at the end of the 'Ranged Attacks & Clashes' section which muddies the water for me.
If the person using the ranged attack is not targeted, and is aiming at someone who is not able to strike back, then the action becomes a simple Q vs. 12.

2. If a character wanted to do something to gain advantage in a fight (throwing sand in someone's eyes, say, trying to trip them up with a bundle of rope or whatever) which is physical but not really in-fighting, is that a W vs 12 situation or a clash?  I'm thinking it would be quite important for a high W, low Q/B sort of character to pull off those sort of dirty tricks.

3. Tallies. I'm looking at the list of indexed powers gained when a character acquires a Tally. The text mentions that NPCs always have their Tallies determined randomly. Nothing is mentioned - except to say that a Tally is a tactical choice for Circle members - but does this imply that player characters select the Tally power freely rather than rolling?

4. What does it mean for a White spell to be cast by an Rbaja wizard "using Warp"? Does the white spell cost 2 extra points or does the Warp Spell need to be cast first, then the white spell on the next action, or..? Not sure if there are mechanics involved or if it's effectively just a textual justification because the caster is an NPC anyway or what.

Cheers

Gethyn

[Ron Edwards]

Hi G!

So does this potentially open up into an instantaneous 'bidding war' situation like pumping B in spell casting?
Character X spends 1B to jump ahead of Y, who immediately spends 1B to claim the top slot back again, but X spends a second point...etc?

Hypothetically yes, but B is precious. The same goes for the various opposed spells – there's no limit to whipping up the bidding war, but everything bid is spent, and you do not want to push yourself down to the basement this way, not when that bastard has a chained mace.

1. Ranged attacks (spear throwing, bows, franciscas, etc). Are they treated as clashes?
I had assumed they would be, but there's a sentence at the end of the 'Ranged Attacks & Clashes' section which muddies the water for me.
If the person using the ranged attack is not targeted, and is aiming at someone who is not able to strike back, then the action becomes a simple Q vs. 12.

It's easy in practice. You have to make an archer's life hard or he or she can sit pretty and base the shots strictly on personal skill.

The difference is, basically, that attacking someone with a ranged weapon doesn't suck them into a clash unless they can strike back right at that moment. So shooting an arrow at someone who also has a bow of some kind means they can shoot back – i.e., be "sucked in" – but shooting it at someone on the opposite hill armed only with a sword is a turkey shoot.

No one likes an archer.

Shoot, I think I forgot to explain that in the "turkey shoot" situation, BQ delivered = 6 + the difference above 12.

2. If a character wanted to do something to gain advantage in a fight (throwing sand in someone's eyes, say, trying to trip them up with a bundle of rope or whatever) which is physical but not really in-fighting, is that a W vs 12 situation or a clash?  I'm thinking it would be quite important for a high W, low Q/B sort of character to pull off those sort of dirty tricks.

All of those are mere narration unless they are full actions, delivered as such. Since they're W vs. 12, it's clear to see why high-Q characters hate this stuff so much.

3. Tallies. I'm looking at the list of indexed powers gained when a character acquires a Tally. The text mentions that NPCs always have their Tallies determined randomly. Nothing is mentioned - except to say that a Tally is a tactical choice for Circle members - but does this imply that player characters select the Tally power freely rather than rolling?

Yes, player characters choose.

4. What does it mean for a White spell to be cast by an Rbaja wizard "using Warp"? Does the white spell cost 2 extra points or does the Warp Spell need to be cast first, then the white spell on the next action, or..? Not sure if there are mechanics involved or if it's effectively just a textual justification because the caster is an NPC anyway or what.

Effectively, it's just adding 2 points to the cost of the White spell, and turning the black color point gain into 2 + whatever the white spell was. So if you were to cast Beacon with Warp, you'd spend 3 B and gain 3 black color points.

[Nyhteg]

The same goes for the various opposed spells – there's no limit to whipping up the bidding war, but everything bid is spent, and you do not want to push yourself down to the basement this way, not when that bastard has a chained mace.

Heh. I can see it's not necessarily a wise way to go most of the time, but if it's a situation of do-or-die regardless then it's an interesting possibility to have available I guess.

Shoot, I think I forgot to explain that in the "turkey shoot" situation, BQ delivered = 6 + the difference above 12.

:) That was going to be my next question.
So, unless an opponent is getting in your face (in which case you're sucked into a Clash) all ranged attacks are Q vs 12? And the target can do not a thing to avoid damage except hope the roll goes badly?
And all damage is 6 + difference, whether it's a spear, a crossbow bolt or a lobbed rock?

Does the target of a ranged attack include all armour - shields, helms and everything - as per hand to hand fighting? (with exceptions for spears ignoring chainmail and so on)

All of those are mere narration unless they are full actions, delivered as such.

OK, that's lost me slightly.
By 'mere narration' you mean, what...descriptions made to explain already-rolled results?
So if a character says "Right, I'm going to hurl my shield at his legs to try to trip him up", that's a full action and a W vs 12 roll is attempted? Compared with a situation where...no, I'm definitely not sure what would count as 'mere narration' here... Describing the results of a successful clash involving a chained mace maybe?

G