[DitV] Narrativist Blueballs

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Filip,

I think that you have mis-represented my post, or perhaps I have failed to make my point clearly. I will try again. I am not suggesting that the supernatural dial is the only source of confusion regarding the game. I stand by my point that it is a key indicator, meaning that confusion on that issue is a symptom of deeper confusions, rather than being something that is easily corrected only for itself.

This thread exists for Joel's benefit, so I think we should focus on his game and fellow players, about this issue, rather than talking about Dogs and the discussion community as a whole. My point did concern that whole community, but only to identify a pattern. I'd like to know whether Joel's group fits that pattern; that is my goal in posting.

Best, Ron

[FredGarber]

Good tip, Vincent, thanks.

And Jason, I see your point, and I'll have to try that. Newbie that I am to this sort of play, I guess I kind of felt if the problem were too simple and direct, the town would be over in five minutes, y'know?

Peace,
-Joel

One of the things that I found myself doing when exploring this sort of play was to keep reminding myself that the payoff is in the addressing of the Premise, in the moment-to-moment, rather than in the solving of the town's problems.  If they players finish with this town, and go on to the next then they're just on to the next chance to address Premise.

Heck, I've even run a one-shot where the PCs wrapped things up much faster than expected, and we kept going.  We had some fun with what happens in a simple town once some judgemental, strong-willed judges have settled the trouble, but don't have somewhere else to go. It wasn't DITV, but it could have been...

[Joel P. Shempert]

Whoa, you go off on your honeymoon thinking the thread's put to bed, and lo! It's still up and kicking!

Cool.

So, some stuff to address:

Maybe I'm missing a point, but how much does it matter whether the disease was (1) demonic or (2) just brought on by grief?  My reading of Dogs is that you can have demonic influence be metaphorical or metaphysical -- and I'd be inclined to push that notion a little farther and say that it's an artificial division.  Demonic attacks of whooping cough ARE natural when your husband's been murdered and you're under all kinds of stress.  Of COURSE you feel better after religious authorities lay hands on you.

I'm totally with you, Greg, on the metaphorical/Metaphysical (non-)division. I think where I hang up is the play group understanding of same. That is, to what extent is the "dial" set through group discussion, vs. intentionally preserving the ambiguity? Prior to play, I had been contemplating a discussion at the start to set this sort of variable (a la the PTA pitch sesson), but reviewing the book, I discovered that it describes an approach of diving right into play and letting the supernatural bar kind of naturally settle in to the group's preference and comfort level. At least in my reading of it.

So when we played I discussed in general the metaphor-metaphysics range (a better concept than division, I think), and left it at that. I tried to make clear what the general paradigm of the Faith is, as far as Demonic attacks and where and why they come from, and what form they take, then we were off and running.

I'd say my concern over all this mainly lies with folks being on roughly the same page when they play. It seems to me that this is essential for addressing Premise, or at least for group appreciation of it. If one participant (say, me) is like, "whoa, that was intense how you dismissed the accusations of Sorcery out of hand! What a strong statement!" and the other player responds, "Oh, was that supposed to be a real possibility? Just seemed bonkers to me, so I didn't even consider it," then where does that leave us? There's a disconnect there. Sure, we're all experiencing our individual enjoyment, but that shared appreciation that's the real payoff is absent, or at least distorted or muted.

Does that make sense?

I personally use the openness of interpretation as a way of confronting the players/PCs. So if players were trying to work out if a disease was of supernatural origin I would clearly and openly leave that in their hands. It is all part of their judgment role, and so to say "its clearly demonic" is actually withholding in my opinion, luckily some of my players would probably say "it's not clear to my Dog".

In my games I might have this type of exchange:

GM: His eyes flash wildly as if illuminated from an unseen place.
Player 1: So is he possessed?
GM: You tell me, I am using demonic rules but your Dog gets to decide these things not me.

Nothing is certain until the town is finished. Hate and murder can be sanctioned and sorcery interpreted as righteous divine miracles if the players so wish.

This is a very powerful and helpful post, Jamie! it really crystalizes a lot of previously-murky things in my mind.

For starters, my issue was for sure related to the "not witholding" thing. When Madeline said, "Dinah afflicted me with this cough!" and Dogs went, "No, she didn't," I was paralyzed: how do I establish or reinforce that yes, she did, it's right here in my notes, without stomping on the players' right of judgment? Madeline's assertion was a statement in line with the Faith's default assumptions regarding how the world works and what to expect from towns in trouble. So my fear was, do the players not understand these default assumptions? Yeah, they have the right to declare that it ain't Sorcery, but are they, as players, making that call with all the info and understanding required to truly make it, rather than fumbling blindly? If they assume "Nope, no Sorcery here," will they feel unfairly blindsided when Dinah's status as Sorceress and Cult Leader makes itself known?

These are all issues that would be useful for present discussion to have seen resolve in play. Alas, it was not to be. So I can only guess as to what problems would have arisen. It does sound, though, From post-game discussion that the play group was perfectly fine with turning out to be wrong or whatever. Though I did detect a hint of assumption that "guess what the right answer is" may have been the point in some people's minds, much as I tried to avoid that style of play.

The approach you describe, especially in that last line I quoted, really expl;ains clearly how I'd like to approach things: There are things happening, actions being taken, what you make of them in your Dog's personal moral landscape is up to you. it still requires an agreement that something has happened, but interpretation/approval/condemnation resides in the individual planer and character.

That's certainly how Dinah sees things: "I prayed to God and he saved me from my attacker, I prayed to God and he silenced my accuser." And of course the Dogs are perfectly free to agree with her. What took me aback was that the group didn't even seem to consider the matter, like "Let's talk to Dinah and see if we can get to the bottom of this." of course they might have, given continued play. too bad we'll never know.

This thread exists for Joel's benefit, so I think we should focus on his game and fellow players, about this issue, rather than talking about Dogs and the discussion community as a whole. My point did concern that whole community, but only to identify a pattern. I'd like to know whether Joel's group fits that pattern; that is my goal in posting.

Well, Ron, I can't really say if you're on target or not. I suspect that if you are, that selfsame confusion is obscuring my perspective. At this point I can only offer the above musings as evidence; examine them and feel free to make some educated guesses for me to confirm or deny. I'll offer this last anecdote, in case it helps: When I was laying out the whole Sin Ladder concept before play, Julie commented (Specifically on the point of Sin leading to external misfortune a la Demonic Attacks), "Oh man, I'm going to have to completely ignore my sense of how things work in real life." To which I responded, "Not necessarily, you can look at this as the natural result of tension and division within a community, regardless of the religious and ethical overtones," and explained by example pretty much the way Greg did. I'm not sure how well I communicated though, in light of that "guess the answer to the puzzle" vibe I described above. Make of it what you will.

Peace,
-Joel

[Callan S.]

For starters, my issue was for sure related to the "not witholding" thing. When Madeline said, "Dinah afflicted me with this cough!" and Dogs went, "No, she didn't," I was paralyzed: how do I establish or reinforce that yes, she did, it's right here in my notes, without stomping on the players' right of judgment? Madeline's assertion was a statement in line with the Faith's default assumptions regarding how the world works and what to expect from towns in trouble. So my fear was, do the players not understand these default assumptions? Yeah, they have the right to declare that it ain't Sorcery, but are they, as players, making that call with all the info and understanding required to truly make it, rather than fumbling blindly? If they assume "Nope, no Sorcery here," will they feel unfairly blindsided when Dinah's status as Sorceress and Cult Leader makes itself known?

It's one possiblity amongst many, but while your scratching your head about this stuff, what the player is actually saying is 'I don't care'. Whatever you have written down, they don't care - in fact in a GM like way, where say a player wants to skin a slain worg and the GM just isn't interested in anything like that in the game (for whatever reason). You know how you can crash a server by overloading it with e-mails and then the hacker takes over while its crashed? Well here your scratching your head over this, overloaded, and she's using that as a GM'ing tool. To control the current of interest parts of the game.

I'm not saying thats what happened - it's just a profile of behaviour that you can compare against the actual play and see how many parts of it happened Vs how much of it wasn't happening.

[Web_Weaver]

Joel,

Glad some of my ideas helped, I get why you ask if they understood the situation enough to make a judgement,  but in general Dogs takes a while to settle into a pattern (shame you won't get to settle these things with the group).

I believe your current reading of the supernatural dial to be spot on, its not as clearly stated in the book as I seem to remember, so I may have got this impression elsewhere first.

I am going to play devil's advocate here over premise considerations, this game has premise running right through it like a stick of rock, I don't think you need to worry about it during play. If you force the players to judge then that's everything covered as far as premise is concerned.

[lumpley]

Hey Joel.

I'm totally with you, Greg, on the metaphorical/Metaphysical (non-)division. I think where I hang up is the play group understanding of same. That is, to what extent is the "dial" set through group discussion, vs. intentionally preserving the ambiguity?

Neither! The supernatural dial is set by your group's raises and sees, and a little bit by some stuff that various characters can do before and after conflicts. After a few sessions, then you can look back and see where it's set, and start to make decisions about when and under what circumstances to violate your players' expectations.

When Madeline said, "Dinah afflicted me with this cough!" and Dogs went, "No, she didn't," I was paralyzed: how do I establish or reinforce that yes, she did, it's right here in my notes, without stomping on the players' right of judgment? Madeline's assertion was a statement in line with the Faith's default assumptions regarding how the world works and what to expect from towns in trouble. So my fear was, do the players not understand these default assumptions? Yeah, they have the right to declare that it ain't Sorcery...

But ... no they don't.

I mean, sure, they can declare until they're blue in the face. But if your town writeup says it's sorcery, it's sorcery.

The only power the players have to judge or decide anything, anything at all, bindingly, is by having their characters act and then backing it up with dice.

-Vincent

[Web_Weaver]

Hey all,

Vincent, your definitions seem to be drifting towards semantics and I am not sure this really clarifies anything for me. Are you making the reasonably non-controversial statement that any assertion over the towns problems should be put to the test via conflict, which to me is the same as saying continually MAKE the Dogs judge, and don't let them off the hook?

Another way of reading this would be that you are removing the ambiguity of the situation, which is at the very heart of the conflict laden situations in the first place.

Sure, referring judgements to the conflict system is the only way to make sure every decision is meaningful and is reflected via fallout on the character sheet, but I am not sure that it matters to anyone whether sorcery is anything other than a game mechanic EXCEPT where reflected in conflict and Traits/Relationships.

So are we agreeing or talking past each other?

To keep this as actual play rather than navel gazing over potential problems that don't occur, I play a Dog that has serious doubts over Demons/Sorcery.
He began his career with "Being a Dog is Just a Job" and "Religion is just a point of View". Over the course of playing him, he has been confronted during conflicts with experiential evidence of the supernatural, and has lost his "Religon is just a point of view" and gained an "Unnerved by Demons" Trait. The way I currently play him is that he knows in the back of his mind that Demons exist, and even talks about them during the course of his duties, but he isn't yet fully reconciled with their reality, and may yet block the possibility from his mind.

So, as I understand it, this character is an example of what you mean by "The only power the players have to judge ... is by having their characters act and then backing it up with dice." You appear to be saying that unless the system is utilised to full effect to ensure that the characters are mechanically effected by their judgement then you are missing out on the core of the game.

To me this isn't the same thing as making a declaration on what is or isn't Sorcery, or even debating dismissive judgement outside of conflict. It's just saying, if the player makes these dismissive judgements then be sure to test them mechanically as soon as possible.

[Joel P. Shempert]

Hi!

Vincent, I'm in the same boat as Jamie, confusion-wise, especially in light of this earlier post of his:

As to the Sorcerous sickness or mundane sickness debate, I think that a lot of the game's potential is contained in these situations. It is perfectly feasible that the Dogs can take the slant that there is no demonic influence in the town. It is even possible that they can end up judging a false doctrine as compatible with the faith and accepting any sorcery as divine intervention. I like to design towns where this ambiguity can hold for at least a while, and the ones that demand negative judgement can be revealed in the middle of conflicts to great effect.

What do you think of that statement? Agree, disagree? How does it jibe (or not) with what you just posted above?

I would say that the Dogs' (and the players') right to judge includes any and all interpretations on Sorcerous events. Even if Dinah caused the caugh (as an empirical fact in the fiction, outside the sphere of the players' decidey-power) there's still the possibility of the players through their Dogs backing up Dinah's own view, that she prayed and the King of Life struck down her enemies. Is that legit? If dissenters from the Faith are always Capital-W Wrong (which "they're heretics who become Sorcerors who invoke Demons" seems to imply) then the range for judgment in a town that's decended to Sorcery is pretty narrow.

Peace,
-Joel