Circle

THE CITY OF CIRCLE IS UNDER ATTACK!

Circle is a stand-alone tabletop RPG based on Marcia B.’s Fantastic Medieval Campaigns Basic (FMC Basic), itself an elegant distillation of the original edition of the world's best known RPG. It is designed to refocus game sessions and completely change the flavor of the original Fantastic Medieval Campaigns.

Circle is also a homage to the works of Marcelo Cassaro, who authored a few RPGs in Brazil in the 1990s, particularly Defensores de Tóquio (“Defenders of Tokyo”) and its modular sequel 3D&T. Published in magazine format and sold at regular newsstands, they were inexpensive, widely available, and had concise, flexible rules that required only a common six-sided die to play (at a time when other polyhedral dice weren’t cheap or widely available in Brazil). These games – whether satirical takes on Japanese superheroes or official adaptations of fighting videogames – introduced an entire generation of Brazilians to the hobby and left a profound mark on Brazil’s RPG scene.

In Circle, your goal is to defend the world from the endless attacks of an Evil Army. For some inexplicable reason, every Evil Army in the world (the Children of the Night, the Dragon Forces, the Theng Empire, and others) begins their grand offensive against humanity by attacking the medieval city of Circle – your home. The city has unusual defenders: martial artists, mutant warriors, supernatural knights, and others. You are one of them. By saving Circle, you are, by extension, saving the entire planet, either  because the monsters are too dumb to try invading anywhere other than a city with so many heroes or because are they drawn to something sinister at the heart of Circle.

Most days, your life is far from heroic. You are expected to work, attend lessons, run errands, and help others, as well as navigate awkward romances and complicated friendships. But even as you wrestle with doubts, desire, heartbreak and guilt, you’re still a hero, one who never asked to be the city’s salvation, but who will do everything to keep its people safe.

Suddenly, alarm bells toll across the city: the Monsters are once again on the attack. You and other defenders rush out to confront the new threat with your battle cries, dramatic poses, rehearsed formations, swirling special effects, magical transformations, and sometimes heavy music blasting in the background (why not?). These are, of course, quickly followed by flaming punches, acrobatic kicks, spell-charged sword strikes, and world-shaking energy blasts.

Thanks to you, the old city of Circle still stands. But for how long?

CIRCLE’S FEATURES:

Easily playable as a solo or GMless game. Circle can easily be played as a solo (or cooperative team) game without a referee. This is due to Circle’s more narrowly focused campaign structure, which assumes player characters to be selfless, heroic and honest defenders of a besieged city.

An “inverted dungeon” structure. In Circle, player characters are not knaves entering dungeons in search of gold – they are the brave defenders of a City that is being invaded by monsters. Instead of going after adventure, the heroes prepare for the monsters’ next attack. 

Interesting player options. Circle reimagines the Fighter, Mage and Expert of FMC Basic as six strange, flavorful and very distinct player options (Blind Master, Cosmic Knight, Feral Avenger, Martial Artist, Ninja Assassin and Shadow Sorcerer).

Lightning-fast campaigns. Complete stories, from the first skirmish to the dramatic final battle, can be played in one or two game sessions. Circle offers a replayable campaign structure where players defend different city locations from the incursions of a randomly generated Evil Army.

An alternative progression system. Character progression works differently, based on the outcomes of battles and downtime activities. No XP for coins, as monetary gains don’t matter as much to the valiant defenders of Circle.

License to Use: Everything in this book is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 (CC-BY-SA 4.0) license.