[DitV] The Law

[Warren]

How about (assuming Escalation, of course):

"Those Rangers must have winged me with a bullet as I was making my getaway from that last town, and now the wound has become infected?"

[Warren]

How about (assuming Escalation, of course):

"Those Rangers must have winged me with a bullet as I was making my getaway from that last town, and now the wound has become infected?"

[James Holloway]

But in any case you can take injuries from Physical fallout.

Right -- you just can't drop dead from it.

Off the top of my head, for injuries I'd say that 'rode like hell through badlands to get away from the law and done tore hisself out.'

If you escalate to guns, you can easily take this level of fallout -- but if you escalate to guns, I would expect the GM to give narration like "yeah, you've lost 'em after you fired that warning shot across their path... or so you think until they kick in the door and come in guns blazing." And there's no problem imagining how you might wind up shot there.

Conflict feeds narration like narration feeds conflict. It's all good.

[Darren Hill]

I'm getting confused. Just so I'm clear: are the last few posters aware we're talkiing about conflicts that the player's characters aren't actually involved on?
If not, have a look back at Vincent's second post in this thread, and my post immediately preceding it.

[Warren]

Yeah, I am aware that the conflict didn't happen in the past, but that doesn't mean you can't narrate a conflict that happened 'off-screen'. To continue the example conflict Vincent gave, wouldn't it be possible for something to go like this:

You, block or dodge: Alma wouldn't do that. Raise: She sent them off toward Marston.

Me, escalating to Physical, block or dodge: They couldn't find any evidence of you on the road to Marston. Raise: But they did see tracks from your horse leading them here.

You, taking the blow: Yeah, they're on my trail. Raise, escalating to Physical: But I drive my horse real hard so they can't catch me.

Me, out of dice: I give.

Now, if you roll real badly on the fallout dice and get injured, that could be something like "I drove my horse so hard that it threw me when it stumbled. I didn't think much at the time, but now I don't feel so good, and I've just noticed that my pantleg is covered in blood."

(Sorry for the double post earlier, by the way)

[James Holloway]

I'm getting confused. Just so I'm clear: are the last few posters aware we're talkiing about conflicts that the player's characters aren't actually involved on?
If not, have a look back at Vincent's second post in this thread, and my post immediately preceding it.

Sure, but as soon as the player picks up those dice, the character is involved in the conflict. You're asking how you would justify injury fallout without physical conflict.  The answer is that you can't -- how can you get physically injured without some possible source of injury? But you did get physically injured. Ipso facto there must have been some source of injury.

Now, I suggested one ("gosh, all that fleeding through the pouring rain and now I have pneumonia" or whatever) that doesn't actually require contact with the enemy. I'm sure you can come up with some others -- starvation, hostile Mountain People, the baking heat of the sun, a bad fall from the horse, whatever. My "kicking the door in" example was shady because it's assuming the stakes within the conflict, I admit.

[lumpley]

Okay, Darren, this is the good stuff.

Under most circumstances, if your character's not present, you'll take d4 Fallout. Remember that the fallout dice you get depend on the details of the raise, not on which stats are in play.

"They catch your trail past Silver City," even though you've rolled Body and so have they, will usually inflict d4s. The raise doesn't implicate the character's physical self at all. Just as James says.

So mostly it's not a question. I can easily imagine a group playing with all kinds of remote conflicts that never, ever, ever inflict fallout past d4s.

SO, play it easy if you like. If your character's not there, your fallout can't go past d4s. No sweat.

BUT, that's not the interesting solution. Valid, perfectly functional, you should totally play that way if you want, but it doesn't reach into Dogs' coolness.

What follows depends on this: your group wants remote conflicts to inflict d6 or higher fallout. You get in your guts that fallout is the causality of fiction, not the causality of the game world, and you're psyched about that. You want "they catch your trail past Silver City" to be as life-threatening as "they tie you up and toss you in the back of the wagon."

Me, raise: they catch your trail past Silver City.
You, taking the blow: Crap. That means ... crap.

You take 3d6 fallout. You roll it: 12. You roll Body: not good enough. Bump to 16, your character needs "medical attention" or he'll "die."

First of all, you take two permanent fallouts. You can't take "I'm physically hurt" in any form, because you couldn't justify it out of the conflict. Your character wasn't even there, how could he be hurt!

Possible traits:
"Doom is on me d4."
"I watch the horizon d4."
"I gotta prepare for the day d4."
Possible relationships:
"The Texas Rangers d4."
"My be-danged horse d4."
"Murder d4."
"Silver City d4."

That part should be easy by now.

Go read this excellent post by Ron, then come back.

We bump you to 16: your character needs "medical attention" or he'll "die."

Let's start with "die." Must it mean bodily death? Of course not. "Die" can mean any kind of leaving play for good. "I can't take it, I ride west." "They catch me and take me to trial." "Why would the King of Life have me kill? My faith's broken, I return to Bridal Falls to be released from duty." Any form of "I'm no longer a Dog."

So: your character needs "medical attention" or he'll be out of the game for good.

Now do the same to "medical attention": "medical attention" can mean any kind of dedicated support from another character.

Your character needs the dedicated support of another character or he'll be out of the game for good.

Now it should be really easy to see how that "medical attention" conflict might go. It might go like this!

Me, raise: You find yourself too scared to sleep, you keep jumping awake, gun out, every time the fire pops.
Your friend, block or dodge: that only happens once; after that I recite prayers with him before bed. Raise: the King of Life takes away his fear.
...And so on.

-Vincent

[Warren]

Wow, Vincent - that's great! I had never thought of medical attention like that, but it just opens up so many cool possibilities!

[Darren Hill]

Thanks, Vincent. Reading that post was a great "Doh!" moment - I'm familiar with that approach to injuries from Trollbabe and use it a lot in Fate, but it never occurred to me here. So I'll say it again, "Doh!"

Also, thanks to everyone else who tried to wrestle with my boneheadedness. :)