Circus Rules Plus

[Derry L. Zimeye]

Hey gang! After browsing the forums and reading through the rules for the Circus, I got the urge to expand on it. So, compiling ideas from Zapp and IcedMilk in the Circus Analysis Thread, and then expanding on those further, I bring you...
THE GREATEST RULESET EXPANSION ON ALL OF GOLARION!

Featuring...

*Rewards for Successfully Completing Acts
*PC Wages
*Tie In with the Reputation Subsystem
*Expanded Trick Traits
*NPC Training
*More Use for Non-Performer Roles
*More Upgrades, like Amusement Rides and Drumrolls
*More Actions specifically for shows, like Building Hype and Taking Risks
*Locales
*Expanded Random Events

And much more! Feedback welcome, we'll be using these in Dice Will Roll's playthrough of Extinction Curse which starts Thursday the 30th alongside the release of the APG in order to show off some of the new character options available in the book! Hope you enjoy!

[IcedMik]

This looks amazing, there's a lot of great material in there that helps tie everything together. I'll be trying out some of your new stuff tonight. I'm sure whoever this "IcedMilk" guy is would be proud to help!

Something I've been doing in my games, which you may or may not like, is trying to enhance the random event system to be more active. I roll two or three, AND roll which acts they occur in. These happen during the acts, and must be dealt with for PCs that aren't currently On Stage.

During an act with an event, I roll initiative with all PCs (On Stage and Backstage), NPCs who are On Stage, and "the event." In this initiative, each action represents 5-10 minutes (the average I imagine a trick to take), allows for one skill check to try and resolve the event, and everyone in initiative gets ONE action per round.

The reason it's in initiative is that each event needs to be resolved before the On Stage acts are finished, including skipping their last action. This means that if the event isn't resolved by the third action, one of the On Stage actors (PC or NPC) needs to do a third action of some kind (including summoning clowns, even if there isn't another benefit). We assume the On Stage actors are aware of the status of backstage (there's stagehands whispering to them throughout the trick, or they can see there's stuff going on).

Now, this hasn't been calibrated against your other actions and non-performer rolls, but it's worked well in my home game so I'll try and work it out some more.

[profounddark]

This is pretty great. I had actually started doing something similar, so having somebody else throw something together is awesome!

I'm weirdly into the Circus concept, to the point where I'm also looking to make the Circus more relevant in the later modules; the Circus was my big buy-in for the AP, so I was disappointed when it basically falls off in the last two adventures. As far as I'd like it, the finality of the AP would be "solve the big fancy adventure problem AND put on the greatest show in the galaxy."

One thing I was working on: Having a "level up" chart for the Performers. My thought was to make it clearer how the Performer's Trick Checks go up and to provide some obvious choices for added skills/traits. Part of it was based on the fact that it's not entirely clear how their Trick Checks would increase by level; the other part was just to make it simpler for ease of play/tracking.

The other idea was to add a bit more late-game character for the characters. For example, it seemed obvious to me that Axel would add Society as his second Trick Check and Audience as his second trait. But, what does he do at higher levels? Add Sleight of Hand? Magical? Elemental/Air?

Of course, once I started thinking about that, I also thought about performers having special abilities or powers, but that's probably waaaay out of scope.

Anyway, thanks again for this! You made my day!

[profounddark]

profounddark wrote:

One thing I was working on: Having a "level up" chart for the Performers. My thought was to make it clearer how the Performer's Trick Checks go up and to provide some obvious choices for added skills/traits. Part of it was based on the fact that it's not entirely clear how their Trick Checks would increase by level; the other part was just to make it simpler for ease of play/tracking.

The other idea was to add a bit more late-game character for the characters. For example, it seemed obvious to me that Axel would add Society as his second Trick Check and Audience as his second trait. But, what does he do at higher levels? Add Sleight of Hand? Magical? Elemental/Air?

Of course, once I started thinking about that, I also thought about performers having special abilities or powers, but that's probably waaaay out of scope.

https://scribe.pf2.tools/v/7dDmfjMS

So, for reference, this is my "not even done yet" draft for what a Performer level-up chart would be. I still have a few ideas I'm throwing around (for example, make his choice-of traits be Magical or Musical, having a level 20 "super duper" ability that makes leveling him up cool).

I was also thinking about making a side quest or two related to the performer that crop up between big events. And maybe even tie them to the level up choices (i.e., he learns Magical or Musical based on something that happens during the side quest).

Anyway, this is still very early thought but I wanted to provide context so people know what I'm suggesting.

[IcedMik]

Some organizational notes: under Tricks you have the "Each time you switch to a new trick check you haven't used earlier in the act..." clause - but this is not listed under the Perform a Trick action. In addition, that text is listed in the Versatile trait.

Was the intention to have Switch Bonus (as I'm gonna call it) be a default rule, or only for Versatile tricks?

I also notice that you've added "At level 1, performers can choose any one trick trait, even without access" - that seems like an important distinction. Any chance of you making a sidebar of changes to the rules text, or adding some formatting (highlight, bold, etc) to things that are new in this text versus the default rules?

[Mighty Thor 34]

Hey I love what you have here but want to tweak a few things, would you mind sharing an editable version where I can tweak a few things that I have rumbling around in my hand and share this with my group?

I posted a separate thread here with some of my thoughts, the main thing I am looking to add is a dedicated "Ringmaster" slot for the show to run the show and provide bonuses to the show and how it goes. I also want to update the reward to factor in the prestige more and fix advertisements which make no sense from a cost perspective.

[Jared Thaler - Personal Opinion]

Given the circus prices, it seems like it would make more sense for Circus Payout to be Prestige x Anticipation, rather than Prestige + Anticipation.

Would that break anything?

[Luebbi]

I really like these expanded rules, and will incorporate quite a few of them! I especially like the idea of giving different benefits after successfully finishing an Act.

However, unless I'm missing something, you don't specify when an Act is considered to be successful. After at least one succesful Trick Check? Two? Every Trick check taken? How about when multiple Acts perform? Specifying this further would be greatly appreciated!

[Tikael]

I just started playing in an EC campaign and made a spreadsheet to help track performance using these rules. Quite a few things are automated (payout calculations, max and starting excitement, most random events, DC changes, etc). If anyone wants to use it or give some feedback of things I got wrong or need to improve. There may be some things I didn't understand correctly when putting the rules in so just let me know if you catch any issues.

Here it is.