[DitV] Olive Grove

[Neal]

There were only two players for this session.  Mike played Brother Thomas, brought up in a strict religious house where personal liberties and happiness were very often sacrificed to right doctrine.  The Faith, for Thomas, has always been a painful thing, but a thing that must be endured.  Dave played Brother Jeb, raised in a household that rang with song and near-ecstatic joy in the Lord.  His was a large family that tied every exercise of right religion to love and bonding.  Two very different Dogs.

The town of Olive Grove is described in Lumpley's forum.  I used the final version, with one alteration: the steward never got cataracts.

The Dogs rode into town on a bright, warm day in early summer.  Olive Grove sits up against a long, crisp escarpment, and it occupies miles of flat, arable land.  The scarp itself is lovely to see, with rivulets from above cascading down like silver ribbons to meander across the green and growing expanse of farmland below.  On this particular day, the sky was mostly clear, and the smell of summer perfumed the air.  The Dogs were met at a farm by a deputation which included Steward Solomon Hopewell (Thomas's uncle) and two of the young men of the town, Brother Clement and Brother Michael.

Stopping at the Steward's home, the Dogs refreshed themselves with eggs, biscuits and gravy, and tall glasses of buttermilk.  The Steward had to argue for a moment with his wife before she would agree to confine herself to the kitchen; she clearly had something she wished to say.  Steward Hopewell informed the Dogs that a boy had recently taken his own life, that his own (the steward's daughter) had been stung to death by hornets, and that a man from Back East, a journalist named George Baker, had been shot to death.  He warned the Dogs that some in the town, his wife Ruth among them, suspected witchcraft, and that they placed blame on the new finishing school.  The steward himself discounted these suspicions, but he nevertheless appreciated any help the Dogs could give him in restoring full normalcy to the town.

The Dogs spoke next to Sister Ruth, wife of the Steward.  They got her story, as given in the town write-up.  She was strident and a bit shrill in her insistence that she could tell there was witchcraft afoot because she could smell it.

The Dogs were offered rooms at the Steward's home, or they could go and see Brother Lucas, father of the boy who committed suicide, and owner of the town's only hotel.  They were warned that Brother Lucas was one of those crying "witch," and he had even hinted that he might take matters into his own hands.

On the way to the hotel, the Dogs met Sister Rebecca and Sister Rachel, two of the girls from the finishing school.  Rebecca was flirtatious and bold, and she tried to get Brother Thomas to promise to be a judge at the school's upcoming talent show.  Rachel wondered about what sermons the Dogs would give while they were in town, and she made some suggestions.  She especially like the story of Jael and Sisera.  The Dogs were polite but noncomittal, and when Sister Patience, one of the women who ran the school, came out to shoo the girls away from the riders, they had a brief convesation with her, during which she expressed guarded concern for the safety of her young charges if men like Lucas and women like Sister Ruth had their way in the town.

The Dogs visited Brother Lucas, whose lack of deference to them enraged Brother Thomas.  Lucas told them there were others in the town like him, who expected results from the Dogs, and that quickly.  If they didn't see positive improvement, there might be some so rash as to act under their own advisement.  It was a thinly veiled threat, and it was clear to the Dogs that the only outcome that would satisfy Lucas and his ilk was the closing of the school and the punishment of all involved.  Thomas's player stopped just short of initiating a conflict (perhaps he thought it was too early yet).  Needless to say, the Dogs decided not to stay in the hotel.

Instead, they rode out to one of the ranches, where Brother David and his family live.  Brother David's wife, Sister Naomi, is Brother Jeb's aunt.  The two of them spent a little time catching up on family news, and then Naomi admitted that not everything was going well at the ranch.

Here was one of my favorite conflicts of the session.  Sister Naomi balked at telling the Dogs everything.  They pressed her, and a social conflict ensued.  The stakes: "Does she spill her secrets?"  Brother Jeb, Naomi's nephew, took the lead, reminding his aunt of their stations as Dogs, and urging her to let them judge matters, however painful they may be as they stand.  Naomi's Sees and Raises clustered around her horror of revealing a shameful family secret, and the presence of Brother Thomas actually made my decisions easier, since he was no kin to her, and he would know the family's shame.  Naomi's loyalty to her husband factored in as well, as did her upbringing as a reticent, submissive wife.  There was no Demonic Influence in this conflict, as I did not think it would be something that interested the Demons.

Naomi lost the conflict, and the Dogs learned that her husband had been keeping distant, that his manner had changed recently, and that Naomi knew he'd been unfaithful.  "A wife knows these things."  And she knew with whom her husband had been unfaithful: his own neice, Sister Rose, a fifteen-year-old girl.  She didn't blame the neice; she was a fifteen-year-old girl offered an opportunity that never should have come her way.  She didn't even blame her husband, for she held certain beliefs about the nature of males.  She blamed herself for not being exciting, not being the kind of woman who could hold David.

Naomi suffered fallout in this conflict, but the players held onto it for the follow-up with Brother David.  I smiled to myself when I realized I was handing my players a fistful of d4s.  Yeah, fallout.

Brother David was a big man, topping six-three and with a tendency to loom over other people.  His hands were large enough to cover a man's face entirely.  All these things I pointed out as the Dogs sat him down in the kitchen to talk.  David kept looking at his hands, curling them into fists, flattening them out on the table.  I wanted to make sure the players knew if this came to blows somehow, he could hold his own.

They didn't take the bait.  Brother David, as written, wanted to unburden himself of his sins.  He wanted to be judged, but he didn't want to take his wife and family down with him.  Now that the Dogs assured him she already knew, his Raises and Sees were undercut; he had no real secret to protect, and only his shame drove him to conflict.  "You don't know how it is to have something that hurts you so bad, but you can't break away.  You can't."  David never once accused Rose of seducing him or using any kind of witchcraft.  He was honest.  He lost the conflict, in other words, and seemed almost visibly to dwindle in front of the Dogs, as if a reservoir of strength had been sucked out of him.  [The d4s I'd handed over to my players didn't end up causing any fallout for them.]

I say that was one of my favorite conflicts because it was entirely human.  David let slips some things that supported Naomi's self-doubt.  No, in fact his wife wasn't exciting enough to satisfy him.  It hurt him to admit that, and I think it hurt the Dogs (perhaps even their players) to hear it.  They could solve the immediate problem, but the deeper problem was out of their reach.  Here was a nice couple, otherwise ideal Faithful, whose marriage had clearly seen its best days.

Another of my favorite conflicts arose when the Dogs came back from the ranch into the town.  It was drawing dark, and they could see as they looked up the street that there was some kind of commotion underway.  When they rode up, they saw that some of the townspeople had formed a ring around a young man (Brother Matthew) who was holding a smoothbore carbine in his hand.  He was standing before the finishing school.  He had clearly been crying, and was now enraged.  He demanded that the girl, Rebecca, be sent out of the school and delivered up to him.  He insisted she was his, promised by her father, and he allowed as he was going to have what was his by rights.

The conflict that ensued was my favorite of the session.  Demonic influence came into play here because the Demons were, indeed, taking an interest in making things as bad as they could get.  But it was the Raises and Sees, and how they fell out, that made this conflict memorable.

The conflict's stakes were initially "Can the Dogs disarm Brother Matthew?"  I assigned Demonic Influence to Matthew's side, as the side most likely to spill blood and cause mayhem.

The Dogs tried to at first to talk Matthew down from his rage, but I'd assigned him some traits, including "Clear in his purpose" and "Guided by prayer" that helped even the score.  In fact, they turned the tides early in the verbal conflict when Matthew Raised with "She was promised me, and I got a right!  Don't I got a right?"  I Raised with a crushing 18, knowing my players couldn't Block or Dodge.  Both Dogs were forced to Take the Blow, form a Relationship, or Escalate.  They both Took the Blow, and it was crippling.  They had just conceded that this furious fifteen-year-old had a right to Rebecca.

Brother Jeb countered on his Raise by saying, "Right or no right, if some buck come calling for my daughter with a fowling piece in his hands, I wouldn't give him up.  Put down the gun, Matthew."  Matthew Blocked by saying, "I ain't so stupid.  I hold onto this gun, folks gotta listen to me.  I put it down, I might as well be just another dead kid in this town."

Brother Thomas Escalated to physical violence.  He was still mounted, unlike Brother Jeb, and he rode his horse down on Matthew, trying to knock him to the ground.  Matthew Dodged and Escalated, bringing up the single-shot smoothbore and firing a shot at Brother Thomas.  With that, the guns came out and the townspeople scattered for cover.

Brother Jeb, unwilling to fire on this boy, drew his pistol but did not himself Escalate to gunfighting.  Instead, using the piece as a club, he buffaloed Matthew with a blow to the head.  Matthew put up a fight, but the two Dogs knocked him to the ground twice again before the fight was taken out of him. 

Matthew suffered pretty hefty Fallout, but he wasn't killed and didn't need a doctor, thanks largely to the fact that Brother Jeb never escalated to gunfighting.

The Dogs tied Matthew's wrists and, in the company of the steward, escorted him to the shed that served for a town jail.  They questioned him about his reasons, and Matthew, still enraged but knowing his was caught, took the opportunity to speak his piece.  In the course of vilifying Rebecca for an uppity thing and a loose girl, he revealed that none of the other girls in town would have to worry about that eastern snake, Baker, for Matthew had done for him proper.

"Oh crap," Dave said.  "Did he just confess to murder?"
"Yep," I said.  "Sounds like it."
"Did you kill George Baker?" Brother Thomas asked him directly.
"I only done what any righteous man would have done.  What any man would do to protect what's his."
"Did you shoot George Baker with that rifle?" Thomas repeated.
"Yes I did."
"Steward Hopewell," Thomas said calmly.  "Please have some boys erect a gallows."

Both Dogs had taken some short-term Fallout from the conflict, and it was past time to assign it.  Mike chose to add a new d4 trait to Brother Thomas's sheet: "My coat is my burden."  Brother Jeb asked Brother Thomas, "You mean to hang him?"  Thomas told him, "We have to show these people our justice is swift.  There's a lot of anger here.  We can't waste time."  Dave said, "Okay, Brother Jeb can't stick around for this."  He had his character go away for awhile as his Fallout.

All the way to the gallows, Matthew sang hymns loudly.  "I'm only going over Jordan.  I'm only going over home."  When he was led up to the gallows, in full view of the town, with the three sisters who ran the finishing school looking on from their gate, he shouted out, "Y'all are killing a righteous man!  How's it feel to hang a righteous man?"  The hymn that followed was cut short as the trapdoor opened, and two of Matthew's schoolmates ran forward to jerk his legs and still his spasms.

That was my favorite conflict of the session, and both my players jokingly called me a bastard for setting them up like that.  "Welcome to the life of a Dog," I replied.  And it was only going to get worse...

The Dogs met the New Coven (or rather, Rebecca and Rachel) again in the streets near the finishing school.  Rebecca was bubbly and clearly taken with the stern Brother Thomas.  When they were asked where Sister Rose might be, the girls said Rose had been sick for a few days, and her parents were keeping her home.  [I think the players might have assumed the girl had gotten pregnant by her uncle David, but in fact, she had been chosen by the Coven to receive a demon.  She was undergoing the throes of demonic possession in a secluded place.]

They next spoke with Sister Constance as she drew the giddy girls away from them.  Things seemed to be dragging a bit.  Aside from the fact that the finishing school was voted upon by the whole town, and was approved unanimously, the Dogs learned nothing genuinely new, and they seemed unwilling to initiate a conflict with this unassuming and attractive woman.  I decided it was time to stir something up, so I upped the ante...

When the Dogs returned to the home of the steward to sleep, they found a scrawled note nailed to the door with a fancy ivory-handled pen knife.  It read "Suffer not a witch to live.  You have five days."

They showed the note to Steward Hopewell, who was aghast.  "Recognize this knife?" they asked him.  "That's Brother Lucas's knife.  He's very proud of it.  Uses it for a letter opener."

They wasted no time.  It was after sundown, but they visited Brother Lucas in the hotel.  "This your knife?"  And they tossed the knife down, followed by the note.  Lucas admitted it was his knife, gone missing for the last few days.  He brazenly told the Dogs he didn't write the note, but he agreed with the sentiments completely.  "A lot of us are tired of waiting.  We're tired of watching our children die and our girls turned into city whores while that so-called steward hems and haws."

That seemed to be enough for them.  "Come on, let's go see where your son died."  They took Brother Lucas out to his ranch.  He led them in, past trophies in the den, mounts holding guns of all varieties, from ancient-looking matchlocks to a swivel-barreled two-pipe muzzle-loader.  He took them into the study where his son, Simon, had painted walls and ceiling with the contents of his own skull.  The walls and floor were still stained, and the air stank.  A stuffed bear stood in the corner amid other furnishings: large maple desk, iron safe, bookshelf, and a roll-top hutch in the corner with its lid secured.

Brother Lucas was guarded, countering questions with declamations about the trouble the town had seen, and the uppity nature of the girls and their teachers.  It was clear he was hiding something from them.

Conflict.  Stakes: "Does Brother Lucas tell the Dogs whatever it is he's hiding?"  Go!

Lucas's initial Raises clustered around his feeling of personal loss.  The Dogs pried at him, tossing out their authority.  Within only two or three Gos, Brother Jeb tried to force escalation.  "You got quite a mouth on you, Lucas.  I'm getting tired of your little threats.  You want to mix it up with a Dog, you just say so.  Otherwise, answer our questions."

Lucas took the bait and Escalated instantly to physical violence, and I Raised with a 14, knowing Jeb couldn't Block.  Jeb Took the Blow on the jaw and staggered back, slamming against the maplewood desk with a grunt and knocking a penstand to the floor.

It was Thomas's Go, and he grabbed for Lucas to pin him.  Lucas Blocked by grabbing for Thomas's holstered Colt Dragoon, and Thomas had to disengage to keep him from getting hold of it.

On Jeb's Raise, the Dog grabbed for Lucas's shirt in an attempt to throw him to the ground.  I Took the Blow, beginning with my 1's, for five dice of fallout.  Lucas was whirled about and sent crashing headlong into the roll-top hutch, smashing the lid with his forearm.  [Note: the players had never seen me deliberately take maximum fallout, and Mike winced, while Dave said "Oh, you bastard."]

Meanwhile, the crushed top of the roll-top hutch revealed the contents inside: a blood-spattered girl's bonnet and a dueling pistol.  Lucas saw where the Dogs' eyes went, and his face grew red.  On his Go, he escalated to weapons, snatching the pen-knife out of his vest pocket and struggling up to lunge at Brother Thomas.  I deliberately pushed forward a Raise that could be blocked, and Thomas knocked the knife-arm aside.

On Thomas's final Go, he charged at Lucas and slammed him back down onto the hutch.  The two went down in a tangle, and Brother Jeb made a third, his last Raise forcing Lucas to Give.  [Note: If I'd had the foresight to arm the gun-loving Lucas with a pistol, things would have gotten much messier, and Lucas would almost certainly have died.  As things turned out, I was glad Lucas was unarmed.]

Lucas spilled it.  He related in full tearful detail his son's last day on earth, from his own harangue that drove Simon back to humiliation at the hands of the tomboy Rose, to the boy coming home with wet trousers and a girl's bonnet on his head.  "There was something in his eyes, like he didn't know where he was.  And he moved different, like somebody had ahold of him."  Lucas is convinced that witchcraft took his son's life.  As he sat there and felt his broken teeth with his scuffed fingers, the Dogs told him they would get justice for his boy's death.

I made it clear at this point that Brother Lucas did not blame himself at all for what happened to Simon, though it was pretty clear to the Dogs that his bullying treatment of his son was instrumental in the boy's death.  I mentioned that they could, by rights, stage a follow-up conflict to get Brother Lucas to recognize the part he played.  The players opted not to do so.  They felt Lucas had suffered enough, watching his son blow his own brains out; he didn't really need them adding self-hatred to the mix.

[After the session, I asked Dave why Brother Jeb had forced Escalation so early.  He said, "I knew Lucas needed to hit somebody.  I was offering myself.  I thought maybe it would calm him down."  Interesting logic.]

[Neal]

The next conflict, and what turned out to be the Queen of them all, occurred when the Dogs decided it was time to go check out the cottage where Matthew had shot George Baker, the city man.  Rebecca and her parents were at the house, and when the Dogs said they wanted to look at the cottage, Rebecca did her best to keep them in the house, flirting with Brother Thomas, bringing cherry cobbler from the kitchen, and offering to sing for them at the family's harpsichord.  She did her level best, but the Dogs would not be dissuaded.  They went out to the cottage.

I described for them the cluttered and ransacked interior of the cottage, as well as the gory spatter all over the bed and the back wall.  Matthew's high-caliber smoothbore had taken George in the viscera, blowing bowel and blood all over the place.  But someone had been through here afterwards, and from the clues the Dogs found, they doubted the searchers had found what they were looking for.

We ran a short conflict.  "Do the Dogs find what the previous searcher could not?"  They stumbled around at first, and my Raises and Sees were all about the stench, the chaos, and the aura of a life snuffed out.  But they found what they were looking for.  Love notes from Rebecca, stuffed in the back of a box of clippings, told them all about the girl's ongoing tryst with this man (in shameless detail), as well as hinting at the fact that Rebecca had placed a spell on him to keep him from leaving.  [Note: the mechanics for unopposed conflicts didn't work well for me.  Resisting the players with Demonic Influence only prolongs the inevitable, as well as dragging in a faux-conflict the GM can't reasonably win.  Had I known that, I simply would have said "yes."]

With the secret out, I decided it was time for a showdown.  I asked the players, "What do you think is going on in this town, so far?"  I was looking for them to hand me that fifth Demonic Influence die.  If they suspected Hate and Murder, I was go for 5d10.  Mike obliged me by saying, "I'm starting to think Evangeline getting stung to death wasn't an accident."  Thanks, that's all I needed.

More to come...

[Neal]

As the Dogs exited the cottage, a single horseman rode up.  When the horseman turned in profile, he was revealed to be a nicely-proportioned she.  "Ah," Jeb said.  "We finally get to meet Sister Rose."

I described her dismounting, then turning toward them, all athletic curves and lovely dark curls.  As she approached, they say her lambent yellow eyes, her bizarrely long fingers, and the way her smile gave off a light of its own.  She sauntered forward, her young hips swerving in snug doeskin breeches, and ran her fingers up her torso seductively.

"Oh shit," Dave said, lowering his head.  "She's possessed."

Conflict.  I asked what the stakes should be, and I proposed my end: "Do the Dogs survive to make use of the secrets they've discovered?"  Dave and Mike agreed, but Dave said, "I really would like to exorcise her.  I mean, she's just a little girl.  She's only, what, fifteen?  I don't want to kill her."  I think I might have grinned openly at that point.

Rose was athletic, supple, with quick hands and a killing smile.  She also had the powers of Cunning and Preservation.  I opened the conflict, so I took the first Go.

"Rose glances over at Brother Thomas.  'You're Becky's toy,' she says.  Then she turns to you, Jeb, and says, 'But I can play with you if I want to.'  She runs her hands over her taut curves.  'Lie to me, Dog.  Tell me you don't want to play with me.'"  And I Raised with the highest dice I had, a whopping 19!

[Note: I pointed out that her voice didn't sound normal at all.  It sounded like the voices of three different women, all speaking in unison.  "The voices have different colors, like the individual threads of a braid.  One is haughty and out-of-reach: you just don't deserve her; another is bubbly and excited: she wants to have fun; and a third has a kind of purring gentleness: she wants you to take control."]

"You bastard," Dave chuckled.  "What happens if I Take the Blow?  I'm gonna have to Take the Blow."

"That's up to you," I said.  "Though you could Escalate... or form a Relationship with her, if you like."

"Crap.  I don't want to hurt her, and there's no way I'm forming...  I'll Take the Blow.  Yeah, Jeb's only eighteen.  He definitely sees something he wants.  He's never felt this way before."

On Mike's Go, Brother Thomas advanced between Rose and his fellow Dog, holding forth his grandfather's Book of Life and reciting passages about the evils of lust and tempation in a ceremonial attack.  He kept his best dice in reserve and put up a Raise of 9, something Rose couldn't Reverse.  I called upon a Free d10, scribbling down "Memorized all the racy parts of the Book of Life" on Rose's sheet.  I rolled a 9, and Rose intoned select bits of the Song of Songs in purring voice, then waved her hand dismissively at Brother Thomas.  His cherished Book of Life burst into flame, and he frantically slapped it against his thigh to put it out.  Rose also got her 9 back for the next Raise.

Dave had Brother Jeb follow Thomas's example, and he invoked the ancients and called Rose by name, urging her to throw off this unclean spirit.  She Blocked and laughed at him, and then on her Raise pushed the 9 and a 6 out.  "Maybe I was wrong.  You're only little boys playing at being men.  If you were men, you'd know how to take what you wanted."  Both Dogs took Fallout from that, and they were beginning to question their own ability to resist this demon.

[Side note: The soundtrack for this night's session included "Wikked Lil' Grrrls" by Esthero and "The Girl's Attractive" by Diamond Nights, both of which drew chuckles when I played them for this conflict.]

Mike looked at his dwindling dice and said, "Screw this.  I'm rushing her."  He Escalated to physical and got crap dice, but Thomas rushed Rose anyway.  She Blocked him handily.

Jeb was unwilling to come to blows with a fifteen-year-old girl, and he tried again to use ceremony, but was likewise blocked.

On her Raise, Rose Escalated to physical as well, and she brought in a 2d8 trait, "Rough play makes her feel alive."  She grabbed Thomas's gunbelt, said "I told you I don't want to play with you."  Then she threw him over the fence with a 14.  He Took the Blow, sailed through the air, and landed in a heap in the pasture beyond.

Thomas scrambled to his feet and drew out his pistol, Escalating to gunfighting and firing at Rose from a crouch.  "She's a demon.  I'm tired of pulling my punches.  Besides, I just got tossed over a fence by a girl."  This time, he got good dice and shoved a 14 out onto the table.  I grinned and began with my 1s again.  It took six dice, and Rose shrieked as the bullet spun her around and made a mess of her right arm.  I made a point of mentioning that her scream didn't sound at all supernatural, but rather like a fifteen-year-old girl had just been shot.

Dave gasped at that.  "Oh god, the demon's letting Rose take all the pain herself?"  It was his idea, not mine, but it sounded wonderful, so I just grinned and nodded.  "Oh, you are a double bastard."

Jeb whipped out his revolver and rushed her, trying to conk her on the head as he'd done Brother Lucas.  I called upon Rose's "Rugged Beauty 2d8" and stopped him in his tracks with a Block.  He just couldn't cold-cock an injured girl.

Rose was running low on dice.  I could bring out her rifle or resort to something else.  I decided to hold off on Escalating to gunfire on her part, so I had her Raise by pulling the rifle from the sheath on the side of her horse, then laughing and whispering to the horse.  It charged Brother Jeb, and he barely sidestepped it.  [The horse was "excellent" and Rose had the trait, "Really knows how a horse thinks 1d6."  Jeb's Dodge left him with precious few dice worth counting.]

Meanwhile, Brother Thomas had been creeping forward, and he made use of Rose's distraction to rush her.  He brought out one of his better traits: "Growing up with six brothers teaches you to give as you get."  He rolled that into the Raise, and Rose went down.

It was all over at that point.  Rose had nothing left to offer up, once her rifle was taken away, and the Dogs performed their exorcism on the girl.  As the demon fled her broken body, I described the sound it made:  "There's a gaseous pop, like someone breaking a seal, and you hear three women suddenly sigh in an erotic chorus."

They tied Rose up quickly.  Or rather, Thomas tied her up.  Jeb demurred: "I probably shouldn't be touching her body right now."  Still, they both agreed she had to be tied up; she may no longer be possessed, but she was still a witch.

We dealt with the PCs' Fallout.  Dave rolled a 1 and added another die to his "I've exorcised a demon" trait.  He also gave himself a d4 Relationship with Rose.  Mike reduced his Body stat, reflecting the bruises and scuffs he'd taken when flung over the fence.

Rose had taken massive Fallout, even after her Preservation power had been taken into account, and I offered it to the players for a follow-up if they wanted it.  "Or I can apply it right now, if you like."

"No, no," they both agreed.  "She'd probably die.  We'll hold onto it."

More to come...

[Neal]

It proved to be the right decision.  One of the players asked, "What happens to a demon, anyway, when you exorcise it?"

I responded with "You heard a loud bang from the house.  It's followed by a woman's anguished scream.  You look around in time to hear the second bang, and to see it light up the windows of the family room."

"I think I know where the demon went," Dave groaned.

Rebecca stepped forward from the house, a rifle in one hand and a pistol in the other, their barrels still smoking.  Her fine eastern-cut dress was spattered with blood, and she had the same lambent eyes, the same glowing smile, and the same long fingers Rose had when she attacked.

"Crap," Mike said.  "She just killed her parents."

The conflict which followed was somewhat easier for the players than the battle with Rose had been.  They escalated quickly and smoothly, and Rebecca had fewer fighting traits to offer.  She did manage to fend off some early attempts at exorcism with a trait "Never gives in to authority 2d8."  And she fired a couple of shots at the Dogs, draining some high dice.  But in the end, Jeb brought his pistol down across her forehead, and I took as much Fallout as I could manage, describing her stunned grunt as her scalp opened and her lovely blond curls began to turn red.

There was one moment toward the end of the conflict with Rebecca when I tried something rather gruesome.  Casting my eyes over Rebecca's sheet, looking for anything to deepen the conflict, I found the Relationship "Her mother just infuriates her: 1d10."  So, while Brother Jeb as holding her down and Brother Thomas was trying to mark her forehead with consecrated earth, a coughing sound came from behind.  Brother Thomas felt a clumsy hand clutch at his coat, and he turned to see Rebecca's mother standing there, half her midsection blown away.  The Raise was only an 8, and Thomas recoiled, then Blocked, shoving the walking corpse to the ground.  The players afterward agreed that feeble Raise was one of the creepier moments of the game.

The Dogs got both girls exorcised and bound, then went into the house.  It was a mess.  Daddy's head had been taken off from the jaw upward.  Worse, there was a sound of children crying upstairs.  "How many brothers and sisters did Rebecca have?" one player asked.  I held up two fingers.  "Great, we've made more orphans.  We seem to do that, don't we?"  They went up and secured the children in a bedroom, telling them under no circumstances to leave the room, even if they heard Rachel downstairs.  Especially if they heard Rachel downstairs!

Then they loaded the bound girls into the family carriage and hitched up a team of two horses.  They took off toward the town.  I'd let them keep the Fallout from Rebecca, too, because by now they were pretty certain there would be a follow-up with Rachel.

They were right.

Conclusion to follow...

[Neal]

Storm clouds were scudding across the summer sky, and in a flash of lightning, they saw a girl in the road up ahead of them as they careered toward town.  It was Rachel.  She was holding a big carving knife, and she had a bag slung over one shoulder.  Dave said, "Oh, screw this.  I'm gonna run her down."

Conflict.  The stakes agreed upon were: "Can we take out this last witch?"  Go!

Dave rolled crap again, and he was opening the conflict at physical.  He Raised with a 12, but I'd rolled some fat 10s and 9s on my Demonic Influence dice.  Rachel stepped aside swiftly, and her Raise followed.

"She whispers something in passing to the horses.  It's just a whisper, something in an ancient tongue, but it's louder than the thunder in your ears.  The horses begin to separate, straining in the traces as they try to go in different directions."  I pushed a 17 onto the table.  "The carriage is coming apart," I said.  "That Raise is to both of you."

"Crap!" Dave said.  "I have to take the blow again.  I'm going to shout 'Jump!' and dive off the seat."  Mike did likewise, leaping clear as the horses shattered the traces and the carriage veered madly, then flipped end-over-end down the dirt road, coming apart spectularly.

"The girls?" Mike asked.  "I don't think they survived."

Mike's Go.  He came up clutching his grandfather's now-scorched Book of Life and began to intone verses about the fate of witches and the seductive ways of the Adversary.  Rachel Blocked with verses of her own and a trait, "Astute scholar: 2d6."

The conflict was hectic, with a couple of memorable moments.  Notably, Rachel had a Relationship she brought into play, "Despises Steward Hopewell for thwarting her: 2d10."  When she reached her hand into the bag she carried, Dave said, "She's got a gun!"  It was worse.  She drew forth the steward's severed head, then flung it at Brother Thomas.  "Let them stand in my way, if they wish.  They will come to this, one and all!"

"She's throwing my uncle's head at me?" he asked as he Dodged.  "Oh, this chick is going down.  The gloves are off now."

The rest was a bloodbath.  Rachel and the Dogs ended up fighting around the crushed and scattered remains of the carriage, and at one point. Rachel drew upon some Free Dice to heft a wagonwheel at Brother Jeb, catching him in the ribs and knocking the wind out of him.

The Dogs won.  The follow-up conflict with a bound and struggling Rachel revealed that the girls had learned their craft from the three Sisters, that they had embraced the love of "a secret angel," and that death could not stop them.  Brother Thomas didn't even hesitate; he put his Colt to the back of Rachel's head and scattered her brains across a country road.  By that time, Rachel had taken so much Fallout that I simply ruled it a done deal; she was dead, and we settled up the Dogs' Fallout and moved on.

The climax was the showdown with the Elder Coven.  Here, I was quite disappointed.  I treated the Three Sisters as a group, by the rules, with each additional member endowing the primary with +2d6 Stat dice and a trait.  This is not, I decided aftewards, a good way to handle what should have been a chancy conflict.  It severely weakened the Sisters, and the conflict was over almost before it had escalated.  If I'd treated them as individuals, however, the conflict would have been unwieldy and slow.  Even with a fresh batch of Free Dice and full access to Demonic Influence, the women didn't stand a credible chance.

The only truly memorable part of the climax was when I pulled out the stops and made use of Sister Patience's trait, "Commands the loyalty of the girls at her school: 2d8."  I trotted this out and had an eleven-year-old girl rush between Patience and Brother Jeb just as Jeb unloaded with a heavy shotgun.  Dave visibly flinched as the girl was blown nearly in half, saving Patience in the process.

All in all, the most exciting conflicts were those with the three young witches, one at a time.  The least satisfying was with the Elder Coven, as a group.  For me, the most satisfying was the conflict with Brother Lucas.

The Dogs took their last Fallout, and Brother Thomas ended up dropping his Will score by one.  I was also impressed when Mike, during Reflection, took a new 1d6 trait, "I don't always have the right answers."

My notes:

The players and I both liked the more human-scale conflicts better than we liked the full-tilt fury of the fights with the witches.  We all loved the way the conflict with David and Naomi worked out, with no bright future ahead for the couple.  And we liked the idea that the Dogs withheld that final bit of judgment in Lucas's case because, brutal bastard though he was, he had a right to their sympathy.  In future games, I'll play more "small ball," bringing multiple tough human conflicts into play, rather than trying to play "slugger" with big-big badness.

The seduction didn't come off like I thought it should.  There was one exchange I failed to mention above, when Rebecca Raised against Brother Thomas with "If you get rid of this little boy, we can play all you want."  Thomas Took the Blow hard, and on his next Raise, he actually fired a shot at Brother Jeb, though he Raised with a pair of 1s.  Mike explained that he was willing to play along with the atmosphere, but he didn't really see Thomas shooting Jeb with his full ability because Thomas had no illusions about Rebecca permitting him to live afterwards.  I thought that was a pretty good answer, and I said so, but it also made me think about the mechanics for seduction or compulsion in the game.  They just aren't there, which is perhaps as it should be.  Giving in to temptation is more satisfying for players when they know they don't really have to give in.

[lumpley]

Hey Neal!

This was the first time you played?

The climax was the showdown with the Elder Coven.  Here, I was quite disappointed.  I treated the Three Sisters as a group, by the rules, with each additional member endowing the primary with +2d6 Stat dice and a trait.  This is not, I decided aftewards, a good way to handle what should have been a chancy conflict.  It severely weakened the Sisters, and the conflict was over almost before it had escalated.  If I'd treated them as individuals, however, the conflict would have been unwieldy and slow.  Even with a fresh batch of Free Dice and full access to Demonic Influence, the women didn't stand a credible chance.

This happens. A lot of times a town will have some mop-up at the end, where the real climax is past and done but there are a couple things left to take care of. I always say yes during that phase.

"The gloves are off now" and "Brother Thomas didn't even hesitate; he put his Colt to the back of Rachel's head and scattered her brains across a country road" - those kinds of things are how you know where the climax really is.

The seduction didn't come off like I thought it should.  There was one exchange I failed to mention above, when Rebecca Raised against Brother Thomas with "If you get rid of this little boy, we can play all you want."  Thomas Took the Blow hard, and on his next Raise, he actually fired a shot at Brother Jeb, though he Raised with a pair of 1s.  Mike explained that he was willing to play along with the atmosphere, but he didn't really see Thomas shooting Jeb with his full ability because Thomas had no illusions about Rebecca permitting him to live afterwards.  I thought that was a pretty good answer, and I said so, but it also made me think about the mechanics for seduction or compulsion in the game.  They just aren't there, which is perhaps as it should be.  Giving in to temptation is more satisfying for players when they know they don't really have to give in.

I've found this too; trying to entice a Dog to sin never works. I'm also in the "which is perhaps as it should be" camp. Emphasis on the perhaps.

-Vincent

[Neal]

Hey Neal!

This was the first time you played?

Hey Vincent.

Second time, actually, but it was the first full-length session, our previous (first) session having gone only about four hours with interruptions. 

You know, to be honest, while my players really enjoyed the first session, I was worried that a town couldn't go a full eight-hour sitting without the players running out of steam.  I'm pleased to say I was wrong.  We ran close to nine hours with this one, and I didn't even play all the NPCs as fully as I could have.  The players seemed to choose their favorites within the first half hour, and I went with that, shelving the others.

I've found this too; trying to entice a Dog to sin never works. I'm also in the "which is perhaps as it should be" camp. Emphasis on the perhaps.

Yes.  I figure if I make the offer enticing enough, the player will find it too good to pass up.  Which is really how temptation/seduction is supposed to work in the first place, right?  Tempt the characters well enough, and you tempt the players, and that's when things happen.

[lumpley]

A full-length session is eight hours? Man!

You were right to worry - I designed the game with 3-4 hour sessions in mind. I'm glad you're able to make your longer sessions work.

-Vincent

[Neal]

A full-length session is eight hours? Man!

You were right to worry - I designed the game with 3-4 hour sessions in mind. I'm glad you're able to make your longer sessions work.

Well, we don't actually get rolling until about an hour into gametime, and then there are the interruptions (food, kids, etc.).  Actual playing time averages about six-and-a-half hours.

Still, for me and my players, a game just isn't a game until we've hit the six-hour mark.  That's why I've been trying to go for denser towns during Town Creation.  When I think I'm done, I try to come up with about three more NPCs and tie them in somehow.  I'm not sure that will always work for us, but there's only one way to find out.

[Jason Morningstar]

Hey Neal,

I really enjoyed following this town from initial design to revision to actual play.  One thing that I wonder about is the background of your players - are they used to this type of game, or were they wrapping their minds around new modes and concepts as well as playing really interesting characters?  From the write-up it sounds like things were just humming.

--Jason

[Neal]

I really enjoyed following this town from initial design to revision to actual play.  One thing that I wonder about is the background of your players - are they used to this type of game, or were they wrapping their minds around new modes and concepts as well as playing really interesting characters?  From the write-up it sounds like things were just humming.

Thanks, Jason.  I'm grateful you followed along.  I'm even more grateful for your comments and suggestions.  They helped.

In answer to your question: a little of both.  We're all still getting used to DitV's system, and especially the unaccustomed freedom it offers toward the treatment of conflict.

More than anything, though, I think we're breathing a sigh of relief that here is a game in which you can enjoy playing a character you don't always like.  Sure, other games pretend to offer this, but exactly how sincere is the angsting of a mega-powerful vampire?  Do you really feel that?  Nah.  But just in the last session, there were two instances in which my players actually felt the wrongness in the situation.  I mean, felt it in their guts.  They didn't glue the backs of their hands to their foreheads and moan about "Monster I am, blah blah blah..."  No, they beat the living hell out of an angry, grieving father in the very room where his son blew his own brains out.  And they realized what they were doing, and they felt it.  Just as they felt the creeping wrongness of having to hang a jilted boyfriend for... well, for not shooting a seducer and not having the good sense to shut up about it.  That kind of visceral response to game badness just doesn't come along every day.  To me, that's really what horror is about.  It isn't the monsters and the dead folks coming back and all that.  It's when you have to watch a human being do something bad to another human being.  And when the human being doing bad is you... well, it's even worse.

Honestly, I think my players and I have been waiting for a game like this.  The way it forces tough moral choices, it's a nice antidote to the usual ego-masturbation being dished up by the big gaming companies.  "Would you like another helping of 50th-level Half-Dragon Jedi Kinfolk Gundam Warrior?  Of course you would, you pimply little misfit, because you're not quite smart enough to discriminate."

Ugh, I'm ranting.  Hey, thanks again for following this town to its bitter end.

[oliof]

Hello Neal,

on a small conventon this weekend, I took olive grove as the introductory town for a group of four dogs, and it did show all the
elements a town can have. But I had some problems, most of which are to be discussed in another thread.

I think the cult-within-a-cult idea, while very nice from a literary point of view, is just too much to be useful. As you felt yourself, the three sisters of the finishing school are a let-down on the end. I just skipped them and only told about them in a session wrap up at three o'clock in the night.

In my opinion, all of Olive Grove works without the demons becoming active by sending agents into town. There already are pride, sin, and injustice - the demonic attacks will come by definition of the rules.

I think the three girls meeting each other in finishing school might be just enough of a catalyst to proceed in the progression
by itself. The girls meet and feel an almost unnatural attraction to each other. At first, they include Evangeline in their little group - she is the Steward's daughter after all - but the little girl proves to be too weak to help them.

Oh, by the way - I left out the Steward acquiring cataracts, but it would be a nice thing to happen during the time the Dogs are in town. At the first meeting, everything is OK,and when the Dogs see the Steward again, he is struck with blindness.

Thanks for the great town.

Regards,
    Harald

[Neal]

Hi Harald,

And wow, thanks a lot.  I'm glad you found the town worth using, and I feel somehow vindicated that you had some of the same problems with it that I had.

In my opinion, all of Olive Grove works without the demons becoming active by sending agents into town. There already are pride, sin, and injustice - the demonic attacks will come by definition of the rules.

I think I agree with you.  In fact, Jason mentioned in an earlier thread that he felt the town worked at earlier "points of attack."  I think you're both right: I was trying to pull in too much of what DitV has to offer, rather than being satisfied with making more of less, which is what I've tried to do in Red Horse Pass.  Live and learn.

I think the three girls meeting each other in finishing school might be just enough of a catalyst to proceed in the progression
by itself. The girls meet and feel an almost unnatural attraction to each other. At first, they include Evangeline in their little group - she is the Steward's daughter after all - but the little girl proves to be too weak to help them.

In hindsight, I agree completely with this.  This is how the town should have been written.  The girls turned out to be my favorite part of the town, and if I hadn't been struggling to include other elements, they would have stood out much more vibrantly.  Not only that, but the decisions the Dogs had to make would have been a lot harder if the girls had been played with more gusto and sympathy.  Even the demonic possession element, which I loved playing, really got in the way of turning this into a tough moral battleground: it's just too easy to shoot a possessed witch, but a fifteen-year-old girl standing up for what she feels are her rights?  I would also have liked to feature each of the girls' parents blaming anything and everything except their own little darlings for what was going wrong -- the "not my little angel" syndrome that so often clouds parental judgment.

Thanks for the great town.

You're quite welcome, and thanks for the honest and helpful post-game review.

Best,
Neal

[Pôl Jackson]

Thanks for the great game write-up!

We ran a short conflict.  "Do the Dogs find what the previous searcher could not?"  They stumbled around at first, and my Raises and Sees were all about the stench, the chaos, and the aura of a life snuffed out.  But they found what they were looking for.  Love notes from Rebecca, stuffed in the back of a box of clippings, told them all about the girl's ongoing tryst with this man (in shameless detail), as well as hinting at the fact that Rebecca had placed a spell on him to keep him from leaving.  [Note: the mechanics for unopposed conflicts didn't work well for me.  Resisting the players with Demonic Influence only prolongs the inevitable, as well as dragging in a faux-conflict the GM can't reasonably win.  Had I known that, I simply would have said "yes."]

Wait! The problem here isn't the unopposed conflict rules. It's the stakes.

"Do the Dogs find what the previous searcher could not?" are not good stakes. You want the players to find the hidden thing in the cottage. You want to get them to the juicy parts of the game quickly, not have them fumbling around looking for clues.

Here's one way to do it: "You enter the cottage. There's important evidence stuffed in the back of a box of clippings, but you don't know that yet. All you see right now is debris and blood. What do you do?"

Then, if you wanted to do an unopposed conflict, you could do stakes like, "Are the Dogs shaken by what's in the cottage?" Then you could go into the stench of blood, the aura of death, etc. Those are good stakes, because a player might want to give on them ("Of course my Dog is shaken! It's horrible!"), or take a little fallout, and win them ("My Dog has a heart of stone. Death is his companion"). Both options say interesting things about the characters.

I wouldn't want to use the unopposed conflict rules all the time. But used occasionally, with interesting stakes, I think that they'd work really well.

- Pôl

[Neal]

Thanks for the great game write-up!

You're quite welcome.

Wait! The problem here isn't the unopposed conflict rules. It's the stakes.

"Do the Dogs find what the previous searcher could not?" are not good stakes. You want the players to find the hidden thing in the cottage. You want to get them to the juicy parts of the game quickly, not have them fumbling around looking for clues.

Here's one way to do it: "You enter the cottage. There's important evidence stuffed in the back of a box of clippings, but you don't know that yet. All you see right now is debris and blood. What do you do?"

Of course you're right!  This is another bit of evidence that this game has a learning curve attached to it, and it's not like the learning curve of moving from one d20-like system to another.  It's more an un-learning curve.  Unlearning the flatly adversarial GM/Player relationship bred into me (and others of my generation) by two decades of dungeoncrawls.  Something to work on in future sessions.

Then, if you wanted to do an unopposed conflict, you could do stakes like, "Are the Dogs shaken by what's in the cottage?" Then you could go into the stench of blood, the aura of death, etc. Those are good stakes, because a player might want to give on them ("Of course my Dog is shaken! It's horrible!"), or take a little fallout, and win them ("My Dog has a heart of stone. Death is his companion"). Both options say interesting things about the characters.

You're quite right.  Again, this is a fine example of how different this game is from others I've played.  It will take time, I think, for my players and me to learn to exploit the possibilities fully, but we'll get there.  Suggestions like this one help.

Thanks, Pol.