[DitV] Long Term Games: Experience

[Joshua A.C. Newman]

But you've admitted that you don't play it for long games, which is precisely the situation I'm wondering about.

As it happens, if it happens, make sure to write it up in Actual Play so we can all see how it plays out. I'm really curious. I've only played three sessions with my group (plus a couple with Vincent like a year ago during playtesting), so they're just getting the gist of "use every trait you can! Take social fallout! Make up reasons the regalia does stuff!"

They're certainly not superheroes. They're going heavy on texture: taking bullets and relationships that will complicate their lives down the road.

[Darren Hill]

I'm sorry.
It wasn't my intention with raising all these questions, particularly the Long-term XP one, to appear to be casting aspersions of the game (or, in fact, to actually cast aspersions on the game).
I realise (after the fact, sadly), that my unrelenting pursuit of my theory might have been argumentative or unduly critical. I'm sorry if that's the case - I'm sorry anyway!.

I said, "I'm a gamer and thus not very socially adept," thus proving the second part in spectacular fashion as that could be read to be an insult to everyone who is likely to read this thread.
I wasn't kidding about being not very socially adept! Apologies to everyone!

[Darren Hill]

As it happens, if it happens, make sure to write it up in Actual Play so we can all see how it plays out. I'm really curious. I've only played three sessions with my group (plus a couple with Vincent like a year ago during playtesting), so they're just getting the gist of "use every trait you can! Take social fallout! Make up reasons the regalia does stuff!"

My group got the gist of all three of those in their first session! And how! :)
My group and I are currently discussing having a break from my main long-term campaign, and having a (roughly) 12 session game of Dogs. But it won't start until the current story arc in the other game finishes - a couple of months probably. But after that, I may have a report.
I'll try to resist the temptation to fiddle with the game mechanics, but it'll be hard!

[ptikachu]

It's true that dice inflation will be a problem in the long run. I forsee running Dogs for 5 sessions at a time, in the fashion of single "season" like in Primetime Adventures.

You could do what I did by accident during my last game, and only give one experience gain per session (plus reflection).

Kai

[Darren Hill]

You could do what I did by accident during my last game, and only give one experience gain per session (plus reflection).

  I like that it happened "by accident" :)
  I'd prefer to keep the experience tied to specific instances, as in the conflict where it's gained.
I was considering all kinds of needlessly complex rules to limit experience (throw away the first "1" you roll, or the first "1" on a d4; choose the trait you want to increase before rolling fallout, and if it's a high rating you need more "1"s to get it, and so on) - it's just as well I haven't posted them or I'd probably have been burned at the stake by now.
If I was to limit experience (I don't plan to in my first mini-campaign), here's the way I might do it:

Some ratings need two instances of XP to increase. If you gain experience in fallout, and choose such a trait, put a check mark next to the trait. The next time you gain experience on that trait, it actually increases.
These situations are:
- increase a die type from d6 to d8, or d8 to d10.
- increase a d8 trait from an even number of dice
- increase a d10 trait

It seems fairly simple. If a standard game is expected to run 4-6 sessions, say, this approach might give much the same ratings over a 6-12 session game.
Well, probably.

[cdr]

I think it would be really useful to take a snapshot of the starting characters, run the Dogs through 12 towns with the rules as written, then show another snapshot.  I'd love to see that!

And so what if the Monster Dogs can run roughshod over the townsfolk?  They still have to decide who gets their wish granted and who gets crushed underfoot, and if the Dogs have different opinions on the matter, then its Monster vs. Monster!  Are you willing to use your Dog's "Talk the wings off an Angel 6d10" to force your brother Dog to decide whether  it's worth escalating to get his "Shoot the pecker off a gnat 6d10" dice to use against you or to give in YET again?

And that's not even getting into the 10d4 relationship built up over many, many conflicts and building towards the final confrontation using experience to bump it to 10d6, 10d8, ... and maybe he wants to do something about it before you bump it up.  The best allies make the worst enemies.

Less apocalyptically, long term fallout can also reduce stats and traits, so it's not a one-way march upward, necessarily.  Dropping a die of Heart or Will seems as plausible a choice as taking the trait "I shot my brother dead in front of his kid 1d4" or a relationship "Dead brother I shot 1d4".  (Or come to think of it, "Nephew whose Pa I killed 1d4" which might be handy for the followup conflict.)  I find how a player chooses to take fallout is mighty interesting, and I've only run Dogs twice so far.

[Darren Hill]

I think it would be really useful to take a snapshot of the starting characters, run the Dogs through 12 towns with the rules as written, then show another snapshot.  I'd love to see that!

I hope to do that.
First, I need a character sheet that actually has room for the traits you get in the first session, never mind the 12th!

And so what if the Monster Dogs can run roughshod over the townsfolk?  

Personally, I think the main enemies of players after a while will be each other. Having a system that allows players to directly attack each other without necessarily leading to violence (though the temptation is there) really encourages that.
It's certainly what I've seen in other games that allow this.

Less apocalyptically, long term fallout can also reduce stats and traits, so it's not a one-way march upward, necessarily.  Dropping a die of Heart or Will seems as plausible a choice...

Maybe so, but realistically, it's not going to happen very often. Vincent said in another thread that he'd never seen anyone reduce a stat. (It was an old thread, that might have changed by now.) It's nice to have the option, but I don't think it'll get used very often (not by my players anyway).

[Joshua A.C. Newman]

So Vincent doesn't pop a vein, I'll say this here and now:

Play through. See what happens in several months when what you fear has been set up. Then see if it happens.

My guess is, this is irrelevant. Folks will stop taking dice in Traits and Stats and start taking dice in Relationships. The players will disagree about what's worth fighting for and things will get reallly interesting.

What do you hope to accomplish with these rules? It doesn't change anything about the core of the game: making decisions about what to do. All it will do is make it more likely that they will have to pay a higher price when they make that decision.

My problem with D&D advancement is not that it's too fast. My problem is that the choices you can make suck. A new spell from the list? Another hit point? Shit, I want to show that my fear of my enemies is consuming me! How do I represent that without it straight out killing my character as soon as it comes up?

You're right: beefing up the opposition just puts you on a treadmill, but more importantly, it's a treadmill that's orthogonal to what's actually going on in the game. You've got everyone running sideways because "getting more powerful" isn't the issue: choosing a direction in which to focus that power is meaningful and relevant.

See Yojimbo. Notice the concentration of opposition it takes to rough up Sanjuro. If it took less, he'd have been incompetent to take a moral stand on the situation in the town.

The game's about the protagonists, not their opposition. When they've all chosen what's important to them, it won't match with the other Dogs and the protagonists will have meaningful, competent, and rich conflicts about it.