| Mighty Thor 34 |
| 5 people marked this as a favorite. |
So I am planning on running Extinction Curse this week and was struggling with the details of the Circus working for my players. So thanks to the thoughts and suggestions of Zapp and IcedMilk and combined with some thoughts I had for running the circus I decided to put together some rules for my party of circus freaks and fanatics to run through in my campaign.
Here is the document I ended up coming up with, I took a lot of notes from Zapp/Iced Milk, but added a number of my own details to the mix:
1. Changed the way payouts are made to be multiplicative with the Prestige leading to more rewarding payouts especially in the late campaign
2. Added a new role to the circus for the Ringmaster, this performer is an active participant in the show and can really change the overall success or failure of the show by highlighting the right acts and minimizing the impact of the biggest mistakes.
3. Changed the way merchandise and advertisements work in terms of impact. Merchandise now adds temporary prestige to the show (which can significantly impact payments). This is to represent merchandise flying off the shelves after a successful performance. Advertisement was moved to a temporary upgrade for simplicity and has been entirely restructured to be profitable if used properly by the circus in generating pre-show anticipation.
4. Removed the "multiple checks" for a signature trick and changed each of these events to allow the player to have a second (or third) trick that they practice. Performing different tricks in the same show does not suffer from MAP (performing the same trick multiple times does)
5. Reworked amusement rides to work with the prestige change for payouts
I spent way too much time on this, but I am pretty happy with it. I will probably make a few more tweaks next week as this continues to mull over in my head. Please give me any feedback if there are things that I missed or you think could be improved. If you use it in your groups I would love to hear how it goes.
Anyway here is the link Circus Plus+
| Mighty Thor 34 |
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
So thanks to the idea for profounddark I decided to work on a leveling chart for each of the initial 6 characters in Extinction Curse that I intend to use to give each of the performances a bit of character and a way to grow and stay in the show over time. I am still working on it quite a bit but I think I am pretty happy with it as a rough draft.
Essentially each performer earns up to 4 "generic" abilities that can be earned by a number of the NPC performers and each performer also has a unique ability that is unique to them and helps define what their act is. Right now I have them earning these abilities at 12 (only Mordaine gets hers a bit earlier at 10). These are unique passives/actions/reactions that hopefully give each of the performers unique flavors and reasons to interact with them.
I am also adding a "sideshow" upgrade that will allow for 1-4 acts (different priced upgrades) to perform in a sideshow during the day leading up to the big show. This gives more use to leveling a larger set of performances and gives additional traits. Also while playing with the characters I ended up coming up with a couple new traits for the tricks as well which both were added to my circus plus+ document.
Far from set in stone I figure I will keep playing with it as I run through the first book and get comfortable with it. Circus Performers Level Guide
| profounddark |
I'm excited to see this continue to expand!
One of the things that I was tossing around was the idea of having side-quests throughout the AP corresponding to individual performers. A sort of "loyalty quest," to use a common video game term, with the completion of the quest either allowing higher levels of advancement (i.e., you can't go above level 10 without the Featherfall Five find their lost brother) or having some bonus ability or skill boost associated with it. I'm not a Pathfinder-Pro, but some could be exploration focused or combat focused while some could be downtime focused. For example, maybe Elizia's side-quest involves crafting the elixir that uplifts Mr. Tickles (predominantly Downtime activities).
Granted, this is getting in the weeds, but I was reading some other folks complaining about how the circus NPCs aren't really that well integrated into the AP and this seemed like a keen way to make them a lager part (if the PCs want).
Part of this goes back to my interest in making the circus a larger part of the story, as well. I'm actually a bit bothered that the circus falls almost entirely by the wayside in parts 5&6...
Then again, a lot of it depends on how my own home game proceeds, so I guess I'll find out.
| Mighty Thor 34 |
I'm excited to see this continue to expand!
One of the things that I was tossing around was the idea of having side-quests throughout the AP corresponding to individual performers. A sort of "loyalty quest," to use a common video game term, with the completion of the quest either allowing higher levels of advancement (i.e., you can't go above level 10 without the Featherfall Five find their lost brother) or having some bonus ability or skill boost associated with it. I'm not a Pathfinder-Pro, but some could be exploration focused or combat focused while some could be downtime focused. For example, maybe Elizia's side-quest involves crafting the elixir that uplifts Mr. Tickles (predominantly Downtime activities).
Granted, this is getting in the weeds, but I was reading some other folks complaining about how the circus NPCs aren't really that well integrated into the AP and this seemed like a keen way to make them a lager part (if the PCs want).
Part of this goes back to my interest in making the circus a larger part of the story, as well. I'm actually a bit bothered that the circus falls almost entirely by the wayside in parts 5&6...
Then again, a lot of it depends on how my own home game proceeds, so I guess I'll find out.
I do really like the idea of relationship quests, I could see unlocking some bonuses or something after doing each act's personal relationship quest, definitely an interesting idea depending on how the party interacts with the performers and if I am in need of additional content to juice up the campaign time.
Certainly something I will keep an eye on as I go through my campaign if it is something I think will engage my players.
My session 0 is Tuesday with my players really interested to hear what they think of the rules and how excited they are to interact with the Circus. In my side conversations so far people are excited to get into it and are really focusing on the circus aspect. As for books 5 and 6, I have a feeling the circus will feel a little excessive by that point so it might be a good thing it fades to the background, course I will find out in probably like a year :)
| Mighty Thor 34 |
So ran my first session with the rules and overall I was really happy with how the updated rules went with them.
The party ended up succeeding on their first performance, though they were a bit disappointed because they had a crit success with a couple performers to go and lost it by continuing to succeed. I think I am going to change the crit success rules to be if you are more than 50% over the anticipation it is a crit success.
Overall, really happy with how it went.
| profounddark |
So ran my first session with the rules and overall I was really happy with how the updated rules went with them.
The party ended up succeeding on their first performance, though they were a bit disappointed because they had a crit success with a couple performers to go and lost it by continuing to succeed. I think I am going to change the crit success rules to be if you are more than 50% over the anticipation it is a crit success.
Overall, really happy with how it went.
Good to know! I'm doing my first on Saturday, although it's the actual *first session*, so I'm probably going to only use some of the new stuff (as it's the first show with no build-up beforehand).
| profounddark |
I had a last minute inspiration that worked well, although I'm still tinkering. I'm just going to be upfront: this isn't for everybody. I'm not a super simulationist so I don't mind if things are more "gamey" then "realistic." With that said ...
CLOWN POINTS.
Every show, the Circus starts with a certain number of Clown Points. They're contextually like Focus Points. Every Clown action takes a clown point.
My concern was that the clowns could become surprisingly effective later, especially if one person acts as the Backup Clown and another acts as the Clown Coordinator. But, also, I thought it would be interesting to add other ways that the Clowns interact with the show.
As of right now, I have two Clown actions: the original "Send in the Clowns" and the new action "Segue the Clowns."
Segue the Clowns (Clown Action)
Free Action
Trigger: An Act of the Circus concludes
The troupe of clowns come onstage, acting as an entertaining distraction between acts of the show, helping to set the audience's expectations. You may raise or lower the show's Anticipation by 1.
[Explanation: Thematically, the idea is the clowns either calm down or build up the audience a bit between acts. It also provides a way for the PCs to manage Anticipation, in the case that there's a major Anticipation/Excitement mismatch.]
I'm thinking that as the circus expands, I'll create a few options for additional clown actions that also add more Clown points to the pool.
| profounddark |
I should add that one of my thoughts behind this was that the clowns only work so much before the audience gets tired of them... So, the PCs would want to be a little bit more choosey about WHEN they use clown actions.
I may change the restriction on Send in the Clowns to be any number of times per Act, just because having two limitations (once per Act AND Clown Points) is a bit much.
| McaPhoo |
Hi, I like the circus rules you've got! I just used it for my first session, and it worked great! I noticed a few contradictions that I want to point out for you in case you want to tidy it up.
1. Under the Terminology -> Prestige section, you say the circus starts with Prestige 1. But in the Payouts and Prestige -> Earning Prestige section, you say the circus starts with Prestige 0.
2. On the first page, under Running a Show -> Excitement, you say that "if a great amount of excess excitement is generated you will critically succeed in the performance". But in the Payouts and Prestige -> Degrees of Success section, you say "in order to put on a critically successful show, the PCs must generate exactly as much Excitement as Anticipation."
I have a few other comments about the the Preparing the Show activities.
1. For the Circus Parade Success reward, is the Anticipation generated equal to half the character's level rounded down (as most things are) or rounded up (which is the level of the trick being performed during the parade)?
2. For the Practice Trick activity, you use the word "skill". I assume this activity should also be allowed to be completed with a saving throw or attack though, so the wording should be changed to allow for that. You could just say the PC Performs a Trick, like you did in the Circus Parade activity.
3. For the Practice Routine activity, you do not say what roll to make. I assume it is the same roll as Performa a Trick. Furthermore, the description says that the costarring PC gets the bonus, but the effects of a success and critical success say that the recipient of the Costar gets the success. Furthermore, if the costarring PC gets the bonus, it is unclear if the circumstance bonus applies to the Costar reaction's Aid roll or if it applies to their personal trick checks that have nothing to do with the costarring. Also, does the critical failure mean that the Costarring PC is not allowed to be a performer in the show, or that they just cannot use the Costar reaction with the PC who rolled the Practice Routine activity? Or is the intent that this activity must be used by the person who will use the Costar reaction? This activity is very unclear to me the more I think about it.
4. I actually have no idea what the Group Rehearsal (misspelled) activity is for. I guess it has nothing to do with Costar, since Practice Routine is already related to Costar. So the activity is just with some other PC or NPC? But there doesn't seem to be any interaction with that other character. It seems identical to Practice Trick. Are the circumstance bonuses of Group Rehearsal supposed to apply to the chosen PC or NPC, as if the person using this activity is auto-critically succeeds an Aid check, possibly granting the bonus that a person with legendary proficiency would give (+4)?
5. Are the circumstance bonuses from these activities supposed to apply to all of those trick checks in the show, or do they only apply once at the PC's choosing? I'm still pretty new to PF2, so I don't have a lot of intuition for these numerical bonuses yet.
6. Back to the Practice Routine activity. Since this applies circumstance bonuses, it is competing with the circumstance bonus from the Costar (Aid) reaction. Since the bonus of Practice Routine is larger than the bonus from Costar, I think this makes the Costar reaction obsolete, since bonuses of the same type do not stack.
7. In the Putting on a Show -> Act Success sidebar, you clearly define what it means for an Act to be successful, but I think you missed The Big Number. Is the Big Number successful if there are at least two successful performances, just like the Opener?
8. How would you feel about a critical success on a trick check counting as two successes for the purposes of determining whether an Act is successful or not? Seems reasonable to me.