Another escalation question

[David Hallett]

We just finished our first town last night, and it was fun, though I think I can do better on the next one. We had to replay the final conflict after realizing that we weren't following the rules very well, and whereas the other ones were too minor to be worth redoing, the last one was too consequential - basically a PC died because our raises were too sloppy, and traits were being narrated as Gunfighting (d10s fallout) that just weren't very plausible. We reran it with the "must be something that can't be ignored, must be entertaining, keep standards high" criteria, and it all went much better. I'll post an account when I have time to finish the write-up.

Anyway, we ran into a few questions about Escalation and Fallout, etc. most of which I've answered by searching the forum. But one question remains. Lemme start by summarizing what I think I've learned so far in case I've got something wrong.

1. Escalation widens the field of conflict. It can happen at any time, on a Raise or a See.
2. If you want to escalate on a See, it's enough to (e.g.) dodge a bullet, or a blow. If you don't want your extra dice for some reason, narrate ignoring it completely (though this seems to make the Raise invalid, as you're not supposed to be able to ignore them?).
3. Conflict (as opposed to Reflection, etc.) Fallout happens from a Raise, and the die size is determined by what the Raiser narrates. Your opponent may have escalated to Physical, and you may have wriggled out of their grasp (Escalating in turn) but if you narrate Just Talking on your Raise, they will only take d4s in Fallout if they Take The Blow.
4. So if you don't want to shoot people as a Dog, you can still get the dice for your gun just by showing it to someone and saying "Don't make me use this". And you can get your Gunfighting dice when they start shooting at you and you calmly step out of the way. Cool.

My remaining question is this. If some is Just Talking on their Raise, and you have to raise to (e.g.) Gunfighting on your See because you ran out of dice, it seems like you should have to narrate something than involves shooting at them. But whatever you narrate, they can't take any Fallout, because it's only a See. Is that right? It seems... a bit unsatisfactory. That's my biggest concern. I don't much like the idea that my Dogs can escalate to Gunfighting on a See against a little old lady to get their dice, then drop back to Talking on their Raise, and never do her any harm. Am I missing something?

It's also not wholly clear to me what Taking or Reversing the Blow vs. Dodge/Block would look like when narrating such an escalation. OK, so if you Take the Blow, his argument hits home, and you have no answer but to draw on him. A Block could be something like "I believe my gun can answer that question. Bang! ". But Reversing the Blow? Not sure. Suggestions welcome.

[lumpley]

If you're escalating on a see, you have to commit your raise to the escalation. "Screw this, I shoot her" narrates both the see and the raise. Without "screw this," there's no see; without "I shoot her" there's no escalation. The fact that you roll dice for the escalating raise before you put dice forward for the see shouldn't throw you, it's just a funny hiccup in the timing.

So no, you can't get your gunfighting dice without either shooting someone or being shot.

-Vincent

[Eric Provost]

Yeah, what Vincent said.  You've got the rules right and I wanted to chat with you about the satisfaction of it all.

See, I kinda ran into the same feeling when I first read about escallating on a See.  I mean, escallating should have consequences, right?  And without the fallout, that takes away a big chunk of the consequences, right?  Well, what I've learned from play is that often times the narration provides a bigger and more satisfying consequence for escallation than the fallout ever would.

What I like to do is over-react and ham it up a bit when one of my players suddenly escallates.  I'm all like Dude!  You're gonna shoot that old lady for telling you to get off her lawn?  Cold, dude!  Then, later on in the same conflict, I'm going to try to mess with the player's heads.  Try to get some kind of emotional responce directly from them.  Maybe my next raise will be something like, So, the old lady is on the ground, her blood spilling out of her and leaving a thick trail behind her as she tries to crawl away.  Over her shoulder she's looking at you fearfully, trying desperately to get at one of her kitchen knives that fell to the floor when you shot her.

See that?  With my next raise I still lay into the players about shooting an old lady.  I'm gonna use my raises and everything I've got in that story to remind the player how his character shot an old lady.  There wasn't any mechanical fallout because it was a See, but that doesn't mean that I can't, or shouldn't, bring in some narrative consequences to their actions.

Now, as for reversing the blow, that can be difficult.  It really depends on the specifics of the conversation at hand.  All I can really say is that it's important to remember that the dice and the narration are symbiotic.  One doesn't exist without the other.  If you have the dice to reverse the blow, but not the narration to back up the dice, then you don't have a reversal.  Use the dice you've got narrations for.  And vice-versa.

-Eric

[David Hallett]

Excellent, thanks guys.

Vincent, gotcha. That's reassuring. I guess it could get a little more complicated if it's not that player's turn to Raise next, but as long as we know that they're committed to shooting when their Raise comes around, I'm happy with that.

Eric, love your narration. Yes, I agree, and of course there could be consequences in the town when everyone hears what the Dogs did, too. Your point about the narration and the dice is well taken. There's been occasions already when I've underplayed my hand in a tactical sense because I couldn't come up with a narration to fit the dice I wanted to use. And that's fine with me. You could get stuck with some awkward dice when you escalated, but I guess you're never forced to Reverse the Blow. If you only have dice to do that, but you can only narrate a Block, I see no reason why you can't just Block with one die and not get to keep it for the next action. Vincent, if you think that's a big no-no, let me know. I'm thinking aloud here.

(PS Sorry about forgetting to put [DitV] at the front of the title. I meant to, but somehow it got away from me.)