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Hi Everybody,

There's been some talk (http://www.lumpley.com/comment.php?entry=96#1) about a certain game of Dogs in the Vineyard that happened at GenCon. It contained some serious and disturbing events that had happened in the town, and raised issues for the actual people involved. So, I will proceed by discussing the general in-game events and my own issues with what transpired, and leave everyone else to address their own issues as they wish.  If we all observe this boundary, I believe we may be able to have good discussion while respecting everyone's privacy.  Tom and Meguey have given a good example in their posts (http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/index.php?topic=16465.0) about the game of Bacchanal played at the Embassy (also on Saturday night, no coincidence in my book) of how to discuss touchy issues sensitively.

Enter the Vineyard
The group of us took part in the game, 4 players & 1 gm. There were many strong bonds of friendship between the people in the group. The characters were a slow Dog with simple faith (male), a solid Dog with a strong faith (female), a world-wise Dog who had strong skepticism about the faith but who was versed in it front and back (male), and a combat-strong  Dog who was struggling with issues of anger & forgiveness with his family. Players matched gender of characters, gm was male. 

So the initiation conflicts spotlighted issues we chose:  self-doubt, forgiveness, inspiration & belief, helping others believe.  The characters, to my eye, formed an interesting web of overlapping issues, I couldn't wait to see how they would interact with the story unfolding.

Broken Arrow Proper
We get to the town, Broken Arrow Branch. True to form we are brought into it from the first. The whole town is gathered together, neglecting the fields to sing in the church, praying together for deliverance from the wrath of demons or G*d that were smiting them.  It turns out that for the last year or more no child had been born living to the town.  The current Steward was taking the place of the old one who had lost his faith.  With the continued loss of the babies, he had begun preaching that the Faith was a lie and had taken to a retreat in the woods, abandoning the town. 

The Dogs responded to these issues. We split up—two of us going to speak to the old Steward, one to talk to the midwife, one to the graveyard where the children were buried.  No dice (figuratively speaking) with the midwife—she already knew to sterilize here equipment. No dice with the Steward, he chased us away with a barrage of shot-gun fire coming from (presumably) others who had joined his false Priesthood.  The trip to the graveyard ended with the souls of the children sent to heaven.  Inspiring and very productive, but not leading to an end to the troubles.   A bifurcation in the experience of the characters began here: the one with simple faith sent the souls to heaven & had a strongly supernatural experience; the skeptic spoke with the midwife, and for him the trail was grounded in the material of the earthly plane.

But when the Dogs delivered the mail to the family of a young 14-yr old mother who had lost her child, it all exploded.  In the mail was a doll her family had ordered to help her greive, she broke the doll & ran.  She wanted to die, felt she had done wrong, felt the towns' loss was her fault, but it turned out she had been raped by two young men of the town. 

Lines, Veils, Father, Sons
At this point we discussed, as players, how we felt about these issues: were there lines we needed to not cross, were their veils we needed to draw?  Context of the situation was discussed: 14 was marrying age for the setting, very different from present day.  The rape was likely in the order of date rape, non-consensual but with grey lines.  We discussed it and were content that all were okay with what happened before going on.

The two Dogs who confronted the young men happened to be my own (the female with strong faith) and the skeptic.  We shook down the father, and made him bring forward his two sons. He denied the allegations at first, then blamed himself, saying he had let down his family & his father in how he'd raised his sons.  Of the two sons, when questioned, one was quiet and troubled, he smirked and acted unrepentant, inciting us.  The Dogs were at the pass—did they enact justice & save this town by killing the young men who had wronged the girl, ending the horrendous trauma that had swept the whole town, or act with mercy, or look to other authorities? 

My character had helped a friend believe that he could become a Dog during her initiation conflict.  She had strong faith in the efficacy of faith and the power of transformation.  The skeptic had a strong belief in the authority of the Church, but no faith in the supernatural effects of God or demons.  He put the gun in the hand of the father, telling him to put right what he had done wrong in raising the boys.   The repentant boy was to be pardoned, sent to the Territorial Authority, but the other, to be punished on the spot. 

Ms. Dog & Isaac
This was an interesting point for me.  All along, the others had checked in with me to see if the events as narrated were within my comfort zone. I was the only woman.  Would I take the events more personally? Would I be horrified by the narration of a cold blooded execution before my eyes?  I had to take a moment to look deep inside myself.  I was not triggered, I was not horrified.  These actions fit the characters, fit the time, fit the setting & the mission of the game.  Or rather, I was horrified, of course, but in the way that art horrifies.  It takes us by the hand, and walks with us to the edge of horror, allowing us to look with our own eyes upon what things we might otherwise look away from. Things of the world, things of ourselves.  What we are, and what we are not.  So that we can look upon eachother with greater understanding, and hopefully, more compassion. 

So, it was fine for me.  But I and my conception of the character did not want the young man to be executed.  I wanted to affirm the theme of transformation that I had brought in with my character's story.  I wanted the defiant young man to change.  To have the option of change, to be able to truly heal this town, rather than to tear out the festering wound by cutting off an arm.  I said much of this, the other players knew my intent. So, I had my character who was standing near the two sons and the father, allow the father to raise the gun.  The father clearly did not want to do it.  Then, in a raise or a see—I don't recall which—the other brother put himself in harms way.  Again, my character had the option to affect this, but did not. Again, the father did not want to kill his son.  At the last moment when he had made the decision to kill the son, I would say, you do not.  We arranged for a follow-up conflict to follow the current one which would have the stake "does the young man truly change".  And then, the unexpected happened.

The player of the skeptic had the raise or the see as the father held his gun to the repentant son's head.  And in his narration, he jostled the gun so that it went off.  The player was dead to rights (so to speak) in his right to make this happen, but still, I recall him checking with us all to be sure this would not upset us as an outcome. It would have taken some conversation to figure out how it would have gone if any had said no, but it was okay. We accepted it.  It occurred.  The follow-up conflict happened. The gm gave.  The son changed. 

...Makes us Stronger?
Strong, strong stuff.  It affected us as people.  It brought us to our own feelings about these events. For some the impact was stronger than others.  And then, we had the pinball effect of reacting to each others' reactions.  Dogs allows (encourages?) you to take a stick to the hornet's nest.  Can we blame the designer if we get stung?  We spent a good couple hours checking in with each other afterwards, talking about the issues that had arisen.  We found out a lot about each other we hadn't known, little and big things.  We left, I felt, better friends for having gone through a harrying experience together.  As the gm said,  Moose in the City had a similar outcome but was much more fun.

Another aspect of the game that I saw, was that the issues we bring into play with our characters are not  necessarily what will be addressed in the game.  They may be over time—there is plenty of advice for the gm in the game to watch carefully what your players write on their sheets about their characters, watch their choices, and build towns that intersect with them. Poke your players where they show they want to be poked.  But in a one-shot what you get is that the characters are going to influence the answer to the questions posed by the gm in the town.  A pair of young men rape a girl causing the death of countless innocents—should they be shown mercy? Is a change of heart enough to redeem them? Is justice in the death or in the life? 

I'm deeply glad I was part of this game.  I am glad for the depths to which the others were prepared to go with me and with eachother.  Also, I'm sad that it hurt so much.  A large part of what we talked about after the game was:

If we are going to do this together, how do we do it so we don't hurt one another?  Can we? And if so, how do we write our games so that other people can do the same? 

These are the questions.  What are our answers? What are the questions we haven't touched yet?  This is new territory, we need new ways.  But, also,  hurting one another in gaming is very much not new.  It happens over and over, we all know the stories.  How do we take what we are doing and help people be kind with one another, rather than just giving them new tools to inflict old damage?

Best,
Emily

Hello,

I was not in the game. However, I have suffered many hours of debriefing about it and would like to use them as legal tender to participate in the discussion. Furthermore, I am not going to discuss events in the game at all.

Instead, I will offer an interesting difference between two "superfamilies" of highly Narrativist-focused game design (yes, the ones on my diagram that I waved around the whole con; people who haven't seen it, too bad).

Well, a little orientation. This is a diagram of techniques families. No one post it, please; I just fixed it and your versions are tehsuxx. On the left-hand side, one superfamily is rooted in stuff like Over the Edge and Cyberpunk and goes on through the "door" of Sorcerer, branching apart from there. It includes Dogs in the Vineyard.

On the right-hand side, the other superfamily is rooted in stuff like Story Engine and Soap, and it goes on through the "door" of Universalis, branching apart rather drastically from there. It includes (via MLWM) Polaris.

All you people who are crazed with anticipation, just settle down. All that matters now is one single point, and you don't really need the diagram for it. Except to see Dogs 'way over on one side and Polaris 'way over on another, like critters in vastly different sectors of a phylogeny.

On the side which includes Dogs, single participants have overriding, brutal, arbitrary authority over the "II" of IIEE. In other words, what their characters want to do and start to do cannot be overriden or even mechanically modified by anyone else at the table. If you state, "He kisses her," and the group goes into the Conflict Resolution system, it's established, the kiss is both intended and initiated.

On the side which includes Polaris, the entire IIEE of any character's actions/etc is subject to vetting of some kind, whether it's negation, modification, or letting it lie, and whether it's full-group or by a designated person. All actions are subject to drastic reinterpretations of the outcomes of Conflict Resolution. Including the first "I," intent, of IIEE. If you state, "He kisses her," then eventually, the way the scene works out, it's at least possible that he never even thought about or tried to kiss her.

Bald, painful fact: the left-hand side is socially more dangerous, and the right-hand side is socially safer. And it strikes me very firmly, after discussing this game with a number of people who were involved, that at least a couple people were approaching playing Dogs as if it were in the other "superfamily." They assumed that if they were uncomfortable with what a given PC was about to be doing, that they had a say in vetting that stated action. Whereas, bluntly, the game is set up for exactly the opposite.

Best,
Ron

Thanks for the low-down, Emily; we Gencon-limited have been on hot coals about hearing what the session was all about.

Ron: it's really, really good of you to post that. When you showed the diagram to me in Stockholm I took it into my backbrain, but didn't really process it yet. Then I started playing humongous amounts of Dust Devils, and noticed that the one thing I absolutely love about the game is the manly, gloves-off gambling rights the players have on stuff. It's not a weak-livered concensus building exercise, it's something where each player has the right and the means to stand his ground. Then I started thinking on it, and what do you know: I came to this exact conclusion, that one fundamental difference between the two historical "traditions" you outlined is in how they deal with player-character rights. Thanks for affirming the idea.

Ron, I like what you wrote. Group consensus is required in Dogs to hit the Conflict Resolution system, though. So I think this is maybe where the 'schizophrenia' you're talking about comes from: once you're in the process you're in it, no going back, and people can do things to each otehr, but you don't have to 'go there' in the first place until everyone agrees.

Emily said

QuoteIf we are going to do this together, how do we do it so we don't hurt one another?  Can we? And if so, how do we write our games so that other people can do the same? 

Funny, I can away from Bacchanal with a nearly idential question burning in my brain. I'm working on it *right now* in another window.

This seems to have been a game similar in harshness to the no-fantasy-at-all Under The Bed game. I'm really intrigued by how conscious you were of *not* stepping in to change things in the second-to-last conflict. It sounds like everyone was being fairly careful to check things first, and then it hit a wall. I hope other players can add more light to this. It's pretty clear to me that knowing which superfamily you are playing in will/could help people be better prepared for the level of possible emotional issues. 

~Meguey

Quote from: Meguey on August 26, 2005, 03:27:30 PM
It sounds like everyone was being fairly careful to check things first, and then it hit a wall. I hope other players can add more light to this.

So, I was a player in this. Guess who I played? (The skeptic.)

I think we all were very careful to check things first in this game. I think we might not have been as honest on  saying if we had a problem. From my standpoint, I didn't check because of some hippy-Universalis-like-"superfamily"-concept, but because I knew I was going to hit buttons, and just wanted to make sure it was cool with everyone. How do I put this? I didn't ever give up any rights over my character, but I wanted to make sure everyone was ok with what I was doing with my rights. Does that make sense?

I really want to talk more about this, but I have work in front of me right now. I will post my thoughts on the game in a few hours.

I'd like to lay out the game's ultimate two conflicts, if I may. I don't know about anybody else but I found them both technically and emotionally devastating. In a good way; in the best way.

---

So they've found the two brothers out. On the town writeup it says "older brother (Joe) wants the Dogs to punish him; younger brother (Sam) wants the Dogs to forgive him" - so that's how I'm playing 'em. Sam's disturbed, quiet, and he's just admitted that they'd raped the girl; Joe's smirking, flip, and I don't believe he's going to live through this. The Dogs present seem very inclined to give both of the brothers just what they want.

The father's just protested that it's his fault, not his boys'. One of the Dogs - Clinton's - responds with a horrific pronouncement of judgement: "then it's yours to punish." He forces his revolver into the father's hand.

Conflict: Will the father kill Joe? Emily specifies that it's will the father, not does the father, to give herself room for a followup.

Talking raises and sees, physical raises and sees, and finally the father escalates to fighting: he starts stomping the shit out of his own son, so he won't have to shoot him. The Dogs pull him away and I'm out of dice, I give. He'll do it. He points the gun at Joe's head.

Em has her Dog put her hand on the gun. We're all going, Abraham and Isaac. Conflict: Will Joe change? The players are on the side of yes he will, I'm on the side of no he won't.

Em and Clinton roll; I roll the two brothers as a group NPC. I have wicked big dice, including a 2d10 relationship - and they all come out high. I'm looking at a roll that can beat two Dogs: practically every die showing a 5+.

I raise: Sam [the younger brother] kneels and pulls the gun over to his own forehead.

Clinton's first to see, he takes the blow. He could have blocked, but instead he kept his high two dice. If he uses them on his raise, I'll have to take the blow.

He looks at me with god damn a terrible look. I know what he's going to do. He raises that the gun goes off - but he can't quite even bring himself to say it. He gestures, starts and stops, he lets me tell it. The father blows his other son's brains out, the younger son, the son they were going to forgive and rehabilitate.

I give at once, I shove all those big 5+ dice away from me. Joe changes, you can bet your ASS he does.

---

The game was problematic. Here's my free advice: think hard before you decide to bring two brothers raping a 14 year old girl into your game, and then think hard again before you actually go through with it. And yeah, I worked that out all by myself.

But damn, those two conflicts, those were pure and perfect.

-Vincent

Quote from: Ron Edwards on August 26, 2005, 03:02:37 PM
And it strikes me very firmly, after discussing this game with a number of people who were involved, that at least a couple people were approaching playing Dogs as if it were in the other "superfamily." They assumed that if they were uncomfortable with what a given PC was about to be doing, that they had a say in vetting that stated action. Whereas, bluntly, the game is set up for exactly the opposite.

Best,
Ron

Ron, I tried to express this when you talk about it in person, and failed, but you're just wrong about this statement.

The conflict between players in the game, all of the problems in the game, at least on my end, had nothing to do with the shared imaged space at all.  Zip.  Zero.  Zilch.  There is, in another universe, another game where the exact same events transpired in the SIS and an identical Ben was totally fine with it.

Hi, guys!  I was one of the head-smashers with reference to the game.  Let's not get too deeply into the personal issues at stake, but suffice it to say that rape is a personal issue for Clinton and I, and our opinions on the subject of rape victims and rapists are about as different as jack cheese and the color pink are different.

Everything that grated on me about the game, that in all honesty makes me shake and tremble a bit when writing about it, had to do with Clinton (and the rest of the group's) reactions to the actions of Clinton's character in the game space.

That Clinton's character wanted to kill the boys: Fine.

That Clinton's character did accomplish the killing of one of the boys: Also fine.

That Clinton, with great relish and enjoyment, detailed to us all his plans for his character executing the boys without trial in cold blood, or maybe castrating them, and then announced that he had come up with something "way, way, darker" that he wouldn't tell us what was: Not at all fine.

Is the difference between the two of these just not clear?

If we had been playing Polaris and Clinton had announced the same action, it wouldn't have mattered if he had later recanted it, because, frankly, I don't care whether the character does the action, or wanted to do the action, or tried the action, or what.  The character doesn't exist.  The players do.

These issues between players will exist regardless of what branch of the tree you're on, because the issue is between people at the table.

yrs--
--Ben

Quote from: lumpley on August 26, 2005, 04:00:21 PM
The game was problematic. Here's my free advice: think hard before you decide to bring two brothers raping a 14 year old girl into your game, and then think hard again before you actually go through with it. And yeah, I worked that out all by myself.

It could have been worse. It could have been her father (my first guess) or she could have been pregnant. I might have set the town aflame for either of those.

Anyway, you're right about those two conflicts. They were totally the crux of my experience and they were, what, five minutes apart? That's a lot of emotional barbeque in a short about of time.

I want to talk about why my character was who he was, and why I as a player had such a strong reaction in game.

All good role-playing is group therapy.

That's not a "theory" or anything. It's a tenet, something I believe like others believe in reincarnation or the Flying Spaghetti Monster or whatever. Ya can't argue me out of it, but you can discuss it if you like. It's important for this.

Months back, I made a Dogs character named Esther Whatley at Dreamation. I got real attached to her: she was the strong, kick-ass, tomboy woman character I always wanted to play. (We can go ahead and assume she's a sexual fantasy of mine. Why not?) Here's a corollary to the above statement that matters for her, though:

All characters you make are, in the end, a part of you.

I call this the "Grotesque Principle." Every character I make will be a grotesque of one of my own emotions or experiences, something about me taken out of context and magnified. Esther is my feminine side, no doubt about it. I've noticed that in Dogs, it's easier to not go too far with the grotesque - it's not that removed from you.

Virgil Whatley, the character in this Dogs game, was her brother. That was clear on the character sheet. What was unclear, what maybe I should have said: Virgil was me. I didn't push the magnification at all. Skeptic? Check. Knows the religion of his birth well? Check. Wishes he could fit into it? Check. Angry? Check. Judgmental? So check.

Shit, my name, had my father chosen instead of my mother, would have been Virgil. Named after my great-grandfather, Virgil Whatley. Circles within circles here.

Vincent didn't know my background, either. I grew up in a foster home. From age 10 to 18, one hundred abused or neglected children came in and out of my home, often going back to the people who originally abused them. A lot of this was sexual abuse. I enjoyed (?) it - I mean having the kids around. But the sense of righteous anger, the wish I could do something about it, and feeling like I couldn't, well, that apparently got buried deep.

'Cause when I found out this little girl was raped, my character turned from thoughtful, quiet skeptic into fucking Batman. And what was a little scary, and definitely a source of contention was the fact that it wasn't that I was playing my character as willing to end this problem violently. Apparently, it showed on my face that I as a person wanted to end these problems violently.

For the record, I don't. Do I like playing it out in a game, though? Yeah. I knew it was going to be dramatic and awesome and was grinning like a meerkat at the thought of ol' Virgil striking a blow for vengeance. I think some of the problems in game were mistaking me really enjoying how dramatic this was going to be as me really enjoying the idea of killing a rapist.

My final thoughts
It wasn't the tramatic experience it was made out to be. It was healing. That's what therapy does, although it hurts sometimes to see the scabs. I learned that, man, I kind of have issues about wanting to shoot child molesters in the face. And that's ok. But, also, I learned that's not acceptable, and I've got to figure out a way to integrate my wish to make a difference into society (in this case, work with other players to make a dramatic scene that no one was too upset with.)

But Virgil? He's a scary fuck to play. I think that toy goes back in the box. Maybe me and Esther should hang out next time.

EDIT: Cross-posted with Ben. I, um, pretty much don't disagree, except with regards to how I was at the table. See above.

I'm watching this so closely you won't believe it. Awesome write-ups, people, and please continue. One thing that jumps at me from the last few posts:

Quoteexecuting the boys without trial in cold blood

That's Dogs. They are judge, jury, executioner, everything. They are the hand and voice of the King of Life. I can totally see that it freaked you out, Ben, but the cross-posted bit goes a long way to explain it, from where I sit.

We had a very similar shooting in one of the first Dogs games I played, with three Dogs; one was for mercy, one was for vengance, and I stood back as the faithful one who saw that the King's work would happen between the other two. The man got shot point blank in the head. Also a rapist, as I recall. I wish deeply we could pick that game up again, because I spent the next few days channeling Clint Eastwood, and it was way cool.

I also think we all have "Batman buttons", when our personal history overpowers our character concept. I personally think I've gotten some of my best gaming in that place.

Another true thing about gaming: we are not going to ever know the full backstory of the players at the table, and this sort of misunderstanding is going to happen. Period.

~Meguey

Hello,

Ben, you misunderstand me. Again.

I see no point in my continuing the conversation. If anyone can see where my point plays a role in what Ben said (because his text is, I think, 100% compatible with what I said), then make whatever use of it you want. I'm out of it.

Best,
Ron

This is what dogs does.

I don't understand why Ben is uncomfortable with Clinton's character's actions.  Shouldn't he be allowed to author his own character's actions?

When the game works, Dogs begins with players being excited about their ultimate authority and ends with the terrible weight of that kind of power pressing down on them.  The end result of their actions, for any solid session, ends with the players at the table in some manner of ethical debate.

Quote from: Paka on August 26, 2005, 08:10:19 PM
I don't understand why Ben is uncomfortable with Clinton's character's actions.  Shouldn't he be allowed to author his own character's actions?

Ben, smack me if I'm wrong here, but ...

People don't seem to be getting it. It really has very little - if anything at all - to do with the game. It's purely Ben discovering in play that Clinton's opinion on something really jars with his own. It doesn't have anything to do with a family tree or game rules either. It could have happened in a discussion as they were walking back from the exhibit hall.

The same thing could have happened in a game of Primetime Adventures. It could have happened in any game. It could have happened anywhere. It happens to me all the time when I'm watching a TV show or reading various Internet discussion boards.

It's along the lines of you and me hanging out and me saying, "I think all people with brown hair are scum, and my character's going to kill them all." It's not me playing a character an opinion, it's me as a person having that opinion. Clinton's and Ben's reactions had nothing to do with their characters or the fact that they were playing Dogs. It was "you, a person, have an opinion that I'm not comfortable with."

Game rules can't do anything about that. At least no game rules I see.

Thanks Matt.

Although I don't think either person's opinion was as unreasonable or abhorrent as

"I think all people with brown hair are scum, and my character's going to kill them all."

I'm sure that that's pretty much hyperbole, though.

The game brought up the issues.  The issues weren't about the game as a game.  Dogs in the Vineyard, as a game system, performed admirably.  As I understand it, it is designed exactly to bring up such issues.  It certainly has for me every time I've played it.

I think there's a couple of places we could go from here.

1) We could talk about the issues that came up between Clinton and I in more specific detail, and not talk about the game.  (I'd rather not do this in great, graphic detail, honestly.)

2) We could talk about how we handled those issues, during the game, and how the game brought them up.

3) We could talk about the game itself, which had a bunch of stuff that was also pretty fascinating.

4) We could talk about the discussion afterwards, which is tangentially related to #2.

Other folks who played?

yrs--
--Ben

Emily's post way up at the top asks questions about how we can hit these hard, thorny issues without getting/causing hurt and how we can write games to facilitate that kind of hurt-free play.  Sadly, I don't have anything smart to say on it, but I think that direction is more interesting than any of the four options that Ben's presenting.  I've played some hard issues over the years and never been hurt by them.  What I'm wondering now is if I've ever hurt others with my bull-moose "lines and veils are for pansies" attitude.  I think it's possible.

I was reading Emily's post and thinking, "So?  Looks like perfectly normal play to me.  What's the big deal?"  Of course, I believed there was something personally revealing to the players involved because Emily said so and she wouldn't lead me astray.  Would she?  But I didn't see it at all.  The issues weren't anything unusual, they were just your standard R-rated movie issues.  I mean no disrespect.  I just didn't see anything out of place.  I mean, if you aren't feeling anything while playing then why are you playing?

So then I read Ben's post and maybe started to see what all the hubbub was about.  If this is really about Clinton and Ben's personal differences in perspective colliding then I can see how that would be significant.  If the game became a vehicle for forming a bond between the players, some "real life" connection was made, then I see the significance.

I'm sure you can design for this kind of get-to-know-each-other play, but I'm not convinced you can engineer a game system to do it safely.  You need mutual respect to talk to others about personal issues.  That can be moderated by another person, but you can't actually create it - it has to be both voluntary and conscious.  How you choose to go about discussing those issues is just going to affect how effective it is.  Perhaps you can engineer distance to the issues into a game, and therefore some artificial safety, but if you don't start bringing the issues close at some point you won't get any personal growth.  Well, that's how I see it anyway.

Unless... I'm still missing what's special here?

Hi Jason,

Quote from: Jason Lee on August 27, 2005, 12:23:16 AM
I was reading Emily's post and thinking, "So?  Looks like perfectly normal play to me.  What's the big deal?" 

At least one other person pm'd me asking a similar question.  Guess I did a bad job of communicating the level of emotional collision, or else this kind of hurt and (mis)understanding is more common than I realize, though I doubt it.
First off, let me say that this is 100% not the place to process the issues between Clinton & Ben. Ben, if you want to do that, take it to pm or phone call.  The purposes of this thread (since I was requested to begin it) are to 1) communicate to others how it is that Dogs creates a situation where the players may easily get in over their head, as happened in this game, and 2) to see if there are ways we can address it via rpg design.

To answer Jason and address the first issue:  The events in this game were probably typical for Dogs.  That's a huge thing right there about the game--how many games allow & even ask you to be judge, jury & executioner over someone in a situation that you might have experienced in college, or in your childhood?  If it is common in other games, how do people deal with the real-person reverberations that it may bring up? 

Because a big difference in Dogs, as I see it, is that it strips away many of the distancing techniques that role playing games (and video games & films etc) use to allow us to skate through the treatment of huge and horrible situations.  Take killing an orc.  The most standard of role playing situations. As emotionally un-problematic as it gets.  Why?  Imagine your own self in the position of standing over an enemy with a sword & cutting their throat so that their blood gushes over you & the last light of sentience ceases in their eyes right before your own.  No, the experience is never like that. "Orcs" have been demonized, we can imagine killing them in droves & not bat an eye. We as people have so little connection to them as a concept that the intense violence we hand out affects us not a whit.  As I'm sure we've all noticed, Dogs is different.

Instead, we have small towns, full of people that could well be like our descendants, or our neighbors, over whom we have moral and judicial authority.  And as players we are given due cause for metting out justice--sins, injustices, demonic attacks, etc--but as players we are given absolute authority to decide how our characters handle the situation.  There are not safeties.  There are not real guidelines.  A friend of mine asked how it is that a coherent sense of the policies of the Faith can be established using the rules of Dogs.  That's just it--what gets established is not some authority from far away, it is simply the choices and narrations that are handed down in this place and this time.  Not even this "town" and "territory" but this table, this hand pushing dice forward.

So, for me, though I completely agree with Ben and Matt that the issues raised were independent of the in-game events.  We could indeed have stumbled over the same conflict while watching a film, or having a chat on the Con floor. But Dogs unerringly lead us to a place where we not only were exposed to some issues that triggered Ben & Clint, but that gave Clint the ability to act on them in character that gave Ben an experience of Clint's reactions that was deeply troubling to him.  Clint said he found things out about himself he hadn't known before. I don't know if any of us would have seen the depths of each other's reactions to all of this in another venue outside of a therapy session.  I completely agree with Clint that all role playing is group therapy.  Whether we acknowledge it or not, we are asking parts of ourselves to come out and play, and they will surprise us and others if we are not aware of it.

best,
Emily   

Quote
Although I don't think either person's opinion was as unreasonable or abhorrent as

"I think all people with brown hair are scum, and my character's going to kill them all."

I'm sure that that's pretty much hyperbole, though.

Yes, exactly. Your reaction during play was kind of "just slapped in the face," so I provided a slappy-to-the-masses example.

The account of what happened and the discussion of the theraputic effects of gaming got me thinking about this other post (http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/index.php?topic=11829") of Emily's.  How does that curve apply to this game?  You were all friends, so was skipping the warm-up OK?  Is this very discussion part of Integration?  Is it possible to consider all elements of that curve when you're playing a one-shot?  It seems that to whatever extent this will sprout ideas about game design methods, the techniques of psychodrama will be fair game.

Quote from: Emily Care on August 27, 2005, 07:17:17 AM
Hi Jason,Because a big difference in Dogs, as I see it, is that it strips away many of the distancing techniques that role playing games (and video games & films etc) use to allow us to skate through the treatment of huge and horrible situations.  Take killing an orc.  The most standard of role playing situations. As emotionally un-problematic as it gets.  Why?  Imagine your own self in the position of standing over an enemy with a sword & cutting their throat so that their blood gushes over you & the last light of sentience ceases in their eyes right before your own.  No, the experience is never like that. "Orcs" have been demonized, we can imagine killing them in droves & not bat an eye. We as people have so little connection to them as a concept that the intense violence we hand out affects us not a whit.  As I'm sure we've all noticed, Dogs is different.

Sure, but isn't that the whole point of "orcs"?

The process of sanitising violence to the point it can actually appear as good, clean fun in genre fiction is something we take for granted, but its actually quite a sophisticated achievement. And it works. We get all the thrills and we don't have to pay the emotional price.

Frankly if you are talking about removing those 'distancing techniques' then I'd expect the subject matter of the game to be comparatively toned down. I've never killed anyone, odds are I never will. But a few years back I lost someone I was close to, I guess we all have. My world did not come crumbling down, but it was not that great either. The point being I am in no hurry to rediscover those feelings, certainly not just for a game.

If you want to evoke real feelings in a game, maybe the starting point should be things which are more "real" to us to start with and which we are more experienced with dealing with; the messing end of a relationship or the long bitter legal squabble over an inheritance with estranged relatives.  These are the kind of strong emotional situations I can relate to though either direct or indirect experience and handle.

Maybe I am just too British...

Thanks, Emily.

I don't think bad communication is to blame.  There is a bit of a veil over the events and motivations of the people involved, so it's hard to get a grip on the whys.  I've never met the people involved in person, so I can't really reconstruct the interactions.  That's perfectly fine, I wouldn't ask for otherwise.  That leaves me a bit fuzzy on the chain of cause and effect, and hence the significance - even with Clinton and Vincent's additions.  However, I'm quite honestly content to stay fuzzy (I hate shaving anyway), seeing as the topics for the thread can be discussed in the abstract.

So... hmmm... grief...

I tend to think of the effects of grief in circles of empathy.  The closer you are to a loss the more severe the grief - this is usually associated with actual physical proximity (how close it is to your perceptions).  You might feel more grief when your cat dies then when your uncle who lives in another state dies.  Or you might feel more grief when you run over a cat then when someone tells you their cat died.

Your father dies of liver failure after struggling in the hospital for 2 months.
Your father dies young of a heart attack while helping you shingle your roof.

Your friend tells you their cousin was decapitated by a bridge in a boating accident.
Your friend then tells you their cousin's eight year old son was in the boat watching.

What makes certain events more painful than others?  How is grief, and empathy with the grief of others, made more intense?  Did my use of the word "Your" in the above statements instead of "Someone's" have any effect?  Does a change to daily life increase the perceived "amount" of loss and hence the "amount" of grief?

Anyway, what I'm getting at is:  Is there anything specifically about the structure of Dogs that closes the circle?  I've read a few actual play threads and a briefing of the mechanics, but I haven't actually read the book or played it, so I certainly don't know.  I do see how it being setup to have more intense issues will increase the chance of emotional collision, but is there anything that increases personal significance? 

I'm not sure how or if this relates to Ron's categorization of Dogs.  If players have more control over events then they have more ability to create some distance for themselves.  However, that can be a doubled-edged sword if other people's control can be used to prevent you from turtling up.  I know Dogs has a rule about allowing you to veto stakes before hand, but based on the play examples I've seen that rule doesn't seem to get much use, and without it control is allowed to come in both flavors of ugly.

Even though I've seen some pretty vicious behaviour from characters in Dogs, I don't think that they've been malicious or aimed at upsetting other players, but you can guarantee that players won't get upset if what transpires is close to home. Players have their feelings and they bring them to the table. I guess the important thing is not to take away from the table feelings of antipathy towards other players. I don't see that there's any shame in moving away from the table if you're uncomfortable about the game, but I'm not so sure that it's possible to play Dogs under censure. I think this might change the focus from exploration to avoidance.

Every time I've run Dogs I've been a pretty agressive GM but this has stayed at the table. The viciousness is aimed at the characters and making their lives more interesting, and hence, hopefully, more enjoyable to play. Dogs is about moral choices and consequences so I give 'em that, in spades.

I haven't so far gone deep into any idea of social contract, nor have I given any warnings with Dogs. I've just gone with a gut feeling that the players can handle it. So far, I've not been proved wrong. And several of my players have bought Dogs on the strength of this too. But a warning at the start about content of the game is not necessarily out of place, especially if you don't know the players well.

I don't agree with Clinton's bit about group therapy. It's only therapy if you want it to be, and therapy is quite resistable. I generally don't go along to learn or grow as a person and the gaming set-up is often false. But as that's not really up for discussion, I'll just show that I'm sitting on the other side of the fence.

A things that's interesting about Dogs is how some players use it as an opportunity to move away from the White Middle Class Liberal mindset that is pretty much the norm for roleplayers (well in the UK and France it is), and play characters with much more absolutist views. Given that there tend to be different degrees of this movement away from liberalism around the table, it inevitably leads to conflicts between the characters, conflicts that would not occur between the players under usual circumstances.

A few examples of this are:
- on meeting starving children who looked enviously at his food, one Dog beat them and decried their sin of envy.
- another Dog, on finding out that someone was a cannibal, shot her straightaway.
- several Dogs stood by and watched a man beat his wife with a stick, and persuaded another not to intervene.

(All this happened in Fort Lemon which is my favourite Town at the moment).

This whole thread is pretty fucking intense shit.

Quote from: Christopher Weeks on August 26, 2005, 10:36:52 PM
Emily's post way up at the top asks questions about how we can hit these hard, thorny issues without getting/causing hurt and how we can write games to facilitate that kind of hurt-free play.  Sadly, I don't have anything smart to say on it, but I think that direction is more interesting than any of the four options that Ben's presenting.  I've played some hard issues over the years and never been hurt by them.  What I'm wondering now is if I've ever hurt others with my bull-moose "lines and veils are for pansies" attitude.  I think it's possible.

What Weeks said.

Because I think the real issue that came up in this game -- first in the fictional backstory in one context, fuelling what occured between the actual players in a completely different context -- is "When does one have consent to step over that interpersonal boundary?"

Holy fuck if that ain't a loaded question. Answer wrong and people can get broken.

Quote from: Larry Lade on August 27, 2005, 09:51:04 PM
..."When does one have consent to step over that interpersonal boundary?"

Holy fuck if that ain't a loaded question. Answer wrong and people can get broken.

It's interesting. That kind of thing comes up a lot in Sex and Sorcery (which has been really helpful to our group) but as we've seen here, it can easily happen in other areas of controversy.

Quote from: Larry Lade on August 27, 2005, 09:51:04 PM
This whole thread is pretty fucking intense shit.

Because I think the real issue that came up in this game -- first in the fictional backstory in one context, fuelling what occured between the actual players in a completely different context -- is "When does one have consent to step over that interpersonal boundary?"

Holy fuck if that ain't a loaded question. Answer wrong and people can get broken.

No joke.

Here's a followup question: how do we know we're crossing a line?

I've been ticked about this thread all day, as I feel like I'm being portrayed as a bad guy. And that's made me think about it a lot. I wasn't a bad guy, in my opinion, but I had to question that. And what I came to is this: I obviously crossed a line Ben didn't want to. Not with my character, but with my personal portrayal of him. (I tend to take on the voice and face of my characters: see retarded bugbear named Buglurz for more details.) But I didn't know I was doing that. I had no idea what was making him uncomfortable, and as I recall (please, guys, correct me here if wrong), once it was obvious Ben was uncomfortable, Vincent asked him about it, and he said to let it wait until the end of the game.

So, hm. So, how do we know each other's boundaries, especially in a game like this? We had several sets of friends at the table, but some of us didn't know each other that well. I have no doubt whatso-fuckin'-ever this wouldn't have happened if Ben and I had been playing RPGs together for even a few weeks.

Anyway, cool stuff here to chew on.

Larry

Quote"When does one have consent to step over that interpersonal boundary?"

Clinton

QuoteHow do we know we're crossing a line? How do we know each other's boundaries, especially in a game like this?

Wht you are talking about is Containment. Containment is what allows people the safety net to go into the deeper places. I explicitly Do Not mean that no one will be emotionally triggered or even wounded, I mean that they will be supported into and out of the experience in ways that foster positive integration of the experience.

Now, it's a truth that the possibility of something *way* more intense than you expected coming up in your game is there. However, Dogs specifically drives you towards that place, and it says so explicitly in the text.

~Meguey

I'm sure it's tempting to think that this is all some kind of IIEE issue. That's good for theory. It's not though. This is about one player being made uncomfortable by another and it has nothing to do with mechanics or even the implied or explict social contract of the game.

Look at this:

Clinton:

Quote
All good role-playing is group therapy.

That's not a "theory" or anything. It's a tenet, something I believe like others believe in reincarnation or the Flying Spaghetti Monster or whatever. Ya can't argue me out of it, but you can discuss it if you like. It's important for this.

I wouldn't try to argue you out of it. I do psychodrama and I think the connections with roleplaying are there and extant (I think there's a paper to be written on that, in fact). But, you know, are you familiar with for-real group therapy (and I don't mean marrige counseling)? Or are you just talking about it? In for-real group therapy there is a facilitator who has powers that DitV explictly takes away. There's also rules or structures for discussion and for making the place safe for that kind of activity.

If you want to argue that good roleplaying is some kid of degenerate group therapy, fine--but consider who you are hangin' out with:

See, there's another way to get to those same dark places very reliably: it's when people in late high school play evil characters in Dungeons and Dragons. Again and again (and look around if you don't believe me) you get people who let their collective Ids out (terrible psych term, yeh?) and then, because they've got themselves a drop of maturity, after a while, become horrified with themselves.

Yeah? I've heard that story at least 10 times.

It doesn't require special rules or special IIEE mechanics. All it takes is the group going "Hey, let's be *evil.*"--and evil they are. Impressing others with their evil too. That's not uncommon. And it's not especially therapeutic IMHO even though it does get them in touch with a part of themselves they don't like. It's not therapeutic because: (a) it can hurt other players at the table (in at least three cases I know of the parties that put a stop to it were women who were applaed by PC rape) and (b) because despite having some psychological truth to it, it isn't therapy. There is no structure. The "learning" is very, very basic.

Quote from: Christopher Weeks on August 27, 2005, 08:02:27 AM
It seems that to whatever extent this will sprout ideas about game design methods, the techniques of psychodrama will be fair game.

You could use a psychodrama group to address issues around rape and justice. However, if one participant was discussing fairly sadistic justice with great relish and enjoyment that would become a topic of the therapy and not a socially acceptable hands-off area of it. It wouldn't play out as described here. The techniques would also be substantially different. And when the issues that were actuall there out of the game came up, they'd be addressed between the people (where they really existed) and not in the game (where they didn't).

That's why IIEE doesn't apply to this.

-Marco

Quote from: Marco on August 28, 2005, 04:11:55 PMYou could use a psychodrama group to address issues around rape and justice. However, if one participant was discussing fairly sadistic justice with great relish and enjoyment that would become a topic of the therapy and not a socially acceptable hands-off area of it. It wouldn't play out as described here. The techniques would also be substantially different. And when the issues that were actuall there out of the game came up, they'd be addressed between the people (where they really existed) and not in the game (where they didn't).

That's why IIEE doesn't apply to this.

Hey folks,

Many good points have been made, but if it is agreeable to those who took part in this actual game of Dogs, I would like to wind down this thread & end it soon.  I am finding it extremely painful to see our feelings & actions be used as examples hypothetical or otherwise. 

Also, I did not raise this early enough, but I've talked with Ben about it, and part of my ground rules about describing each other's issues & so on were not observed early on in this thread.  The reference Marco makes to "with great relish" et al, was said about Clint before he had a chance to describe his own feelings etc.  My apologies, both Clint & Ben, for not stepping up to talk about this earlier, I think I've done you a dis-service by not addressing it sooner. 

So, folks involved in the game, please feel free to give your parting thoughts. Other folks please take discussions of these issues to other threads/blogs. 

best,
Emily

Parting thoughts:

This thread was great, if a little touchy. Most of that's probably my fault: I spend a lot of time in my personal life making sure no one thinks I'm the bad guy, and that might have gotten transferred here.

If you asked me, "Would you play that game over again with the same people under the same circumstances," absolutely. In a heartbeat. For all the drama, it was a good game, and we became better friends. It's funny: it's like the dark sibling to my totally positive kill puppies for satan experience long ago that made my group better friends then. Discussing why DitV makes for rougher games than kpfs could be a whole thread.

The only thing I'm really disappointed with in this discussion is that Vincent described me pulling an awesome and trixy dice manuever in Dogs and we never got to discuss how awesome dice strategy can be in Dogs to get what you want. When I looked at his dice, which looked like he'd win, and looked at mine and realized I could beat him through forcing him to take a blow he didn't want to take, I felt like the world poker champ or something.

And I'd like to say publically, "Em, thanks for moderating this discussion."