[DitV] Police procedurals

[whytcrow]

I was introduced to DitV by a friend today and rather liked it.  We enforced justice (well, enforced that we were the only ones allowed to enforce justice), banished demons from a just-being-born babe, and other fun stuff.  The system is rather neat, with the traits/relationships/etc playing into the back and forth in quite a fascinating way.  I even enjoyed the intra-pc Conflicts.  Normally, resulting to dice in those scenes would be annoying, but in our game it adding a dimension to the debate that added to it without becoming too much of a distraction.  (It was to some extent, as we were still learning the rules).

As I was driving home, I began thinking, as I usually do, about what other things I can do with the system.  The setting is neat for a short term game, but I don't know that I'd enjoy running it as is.  Then I thought about how the idea of the Dogs could be transfered into a modern-day police drama, like the rougher ones on TV--where the law is a fuzzy thing handled by cops in plot-necessary ways.  You'd have to replace the demon element with something akin to simply "criminal element" or the like.  

I guess my question, having only played the one session of it and not owning the book, is whether anyone thinks this spin can be done reasonably with the rules as is, with only the supernatural/religious elements changed. And if so, what rules things should I look closely at to figure out a change.

Jennifer

[Lance D. Allen]

Easily? Yes.

You'd lose a good bit of the thematic kick, though.

The supernatural elements seem to be best off when played very low key, very uncertain as to how real they are. I think this could work even with a gritty cop drama, only it'd be even more subversive, because your cops don't necessarily believe they're on a mandate from God to save the souls of the citizenry.

What I think would be really cool is if, in fact, they were on such a mandate, but they didn't get the memo, so to speak.

[Judd]

You have rituals in modern day police show.

Probable Cause, Affadavits (spelling?), and wire taps.

I think this could work and work well.

Neat.

[whytcrow]

Putting some more thought in it, I think that the thematic kick is just different and less concrete.  In many cop shows, it seems, there is a palpable belief in the evilness of people, with a corresponding belief in the redemption of people in certain places.  There wouldn't be any "begone, foul demons" or the like, but there would be a play of essential good and evil.  As defined by the characters, of course.

Defining the ceremonial stuff may require some thought.  The post on doing DitV as Jedi was actually helpful in that respect, because it delved into what purpose the ceremony mechanic has.

Now I just may have to do this...

[TonyLB]

I find it fascinating that Judd's ceremonies are concerned around the legal system.  It gives me an image of the failings of the system (as far as the virtuous goal of putting bad guys in prison) being the demonic influence.

So raising with demon dice would be like "Sure, you know that he's got drugs in his house, but can you get a search warrant?"

[Lance D. Allen]

Whyt,

Oh, by the way... Welcome to the Forge.

Pleasantries outta the way..

Now I just may have to do this...

Now that you've engendered discussion, you'd damned well better. ::grins::

I was thinking about this post at work today, actually. For those who care, and as background, I work security at AZ National Guard State HQ. My Co-workers have both been over in the middle east during one or both of the last two U.S. wars. Thinking about how how Dogs might handle cops, I began to wonder how it could handle soldiers in a warzone.

But that's wandering.

But yeah.. In a cop show genre, the cops wouldn't be exorcising people, but there's a lot of forms "demons" can take. Drug addiction. Fear. Hate. Despair. I could see a really awesomely gripping game where you play with themes like these, but you toss in undertones of the supernatural.. The drug addict's eyes catching the moonlight in a bizarre fashion just before he blows his own head off. A mother smothering her own children trying to protect them from something she can't ever quite describe to the cops after the fact. An otherwise calm, likable white kid found in the middle of a bloodbath of his own creating, turns out one of the black kids he killed called him "cracker" and he went into a berzerk rage, as if possessed.

Things like that. They could easily be explained away. But the theme is underlying, it's ever so subtly there, but also oh-so-subtly NOT there.

Your preference, of course. But I love the potential that's there.

[Tobias]

Some stuff to take a look at, if you like, for alternative settings:

Delta Green/Call of Cthulhu... run using the Dogs in the Vineyard system.

Medieval DitV with dead gods

Bantha's in the vineyard (star wars)

Perhaps it's an idea for Vincent to put up alternatives on his website, somewhere? Vincent?

[beingfrank]

In the first session I ran with players new to Dogs, one of them kept approaching things in the fashion of a police procedural.  He made little comments comparing his character to characters from shows like Law and Order: Criminal Intent, and CSI.  This bugged me at the time because I didn't want the players to get tied up in investigation instead of judging, but maybe it's not that unusual a response?

[Lance D. Allen]

Claire,

I don't think that IS an unusual response. Our 1.5 sessions so far have included a lot of investigation, a lot of trying to get to the bottom of things. I'm not entirely sure if that's a bug, or a feature.

Maybe the Dogs should start off each town by taking confessions?

[Judd]

In the first session I ran with players new to Dogs, one of them kept approaching things in the fashion of a police procedural.  He made little comments comparing his character to characters from shows like Law and Order: Criminal Intent, and CSI.  This bugged me at the time because I didn't want the players to get tied up in investigation instead of judging, but maybe it's not that unusual a response?

I had an instance during my first few games of DitV where my players were looking for the clever plot twist in the whodunnit.  I had to stop the game and let them know that there was no plot twist, nothing clever.  In Dogs, the cleverness isn't in the plot but in the JUDGEMENT.  It is a game pushing the players to pass their judgement as the King of Life has mandated.

Playing it whodunnit, I'd think, would be rather fast, one conflict TOPS, most likely to look things over and throw the dice around.  However, when players want to know information, when they want to make what would be a Lore roll in other games, I'm prone to just telling 'em and getting on with the game.