[Dogs] Wolves of the North

[Jason Morningstar]

And sword = gun is thematically appropriate, as swords were a Big Deal and symbols of wealth, status, and power in a way that an axe or spear was not.  All the guys in the sagas who carry swords are utter bad-asses from important families.  Makes perfect sense. 

--Jason

[Falc]

While I can certainly accept the thematical aspect of putting swords in the place of guns, there's still a few aspects that bother me in that solution.

First, it feels a bit awkward to have swords as an escalation from regular weapon fighting. It's like... you start fighting, draw some axes or whatnot. But only later do you actually draw your sword? I don't know, something about that feels wrong.

Also, using Acuity for fighting with bladed weapons feels off as well.

I'm not trying to discredit your way of doing this, it obviously works for you. It's just that I don't think it'd work for me, and perhaps other people have other insights to offer on the matter?

[lumpley]

Hey Falc.

I wasn't there, and I've never played with swords instead of guns, so take this for what it's worth.

Acuity
Acuity makes sense to me for swordfighting - consider Acuity to be skill. Strength+Will for hitting with an axe, Skill+Will for hitting with a sword. That looks fine. That looks, in fact, old-fashioned and well-worn.

Escalation
In straight Dogs play, escalation reliably goes like this:
talking -> shoving -> fists -> guns or else
talking -> shoving -> fists -> knives

I don't belive I've ever seen it go like this:
talking -> shoving -> fists -> knives -> guns

It might help you to review which stats you get when, when you escalate. You'll see that in practice you escalate from talking to shoving to fists to whatever kind of weapon your traits and possessions best support - if that's knives, it's knives, if it's guns, it's guns, and that's pretty much where the conflict ends.

So if you substitute swords for guns, it goes like this:
talking -> shoving -> fists -> swords or else
talking -> shoving -> fists -> axes, clubs, knives, etc.

That seems like no problem to me.

-Vincent

[Vaxalon]

Actually, I think he was using

talking -> shoving -> fists and knives -> guns

[Nev the Deranged]

I don't have my copy yet (ordered this weekend... wee!) but it seems to me that guns, knives, swords, axes, whatever... they are just symbolic of the escalation from nonlethal to lethal.

Each step of escalation isn't just a matter of degree, it's a whole other order of conflict, which is exactly the point, I think. Talking is never going to physically injure someone. Shoving might, and laying hands on someone is definitely a whole new situation from talking. Actually hitting someone, whether it be western style punching or martial arts or whatever, is intended to injure, maybe permanently. Drawing a weapon, well... a smart man doesn't draw a weapon he doesn't intend to kill someone with.

Just my 2c.

*edit* While I was posting this yesterday, the Forge went down, so it has been sitting here on my screen waiting to be posted until this morning */edit*

[lumpley]

Actually, I think he was using
talking -> shoving -> fists and knives -> guns

I know that's how looks mechanically. But, seriously, if you look carefully at when you get which stats, you'll see that that isn't how it'll ever go in practice.

-Vincent

[Vaxalon]

Oh yes, I know, but reading between the lines of the posts, that's what I thought the poster was saying.

[Falc]

Oh, I see my error now... I must say, it's indeed a bit unclear that the actual final step of escalation is weapons of any kind, and not just guns. That's not made very clear in the book, so perhaps a little note about it somewhere could be useful.

But this has truly helped, so thanks.

[lumpley]

Falc - you're misunderstanding me, I think. I've started a thread about it in the lumpley games forum though, since we're not really on John's topic anymore: Swords for Guns?

-Vincent

[philaros]

Getting back to John's topic, I thought I'd add a comment or two.

Bren? She's busy. See Sigurd really isn't "out" of the cult just yet. It's not that simple. Hermod has the demons possess him, and he goes demonic on Bren's ass. So, we have a two conflicts going. I think I rolled all the dice I own. Phil takes an interesting tack in his conflict. Bren is built to be a sword-slinging badass. First, Phil has the option to participate in the conflict with Hermod. In which case, it will be Hermod and Sigurd against the Wolves, with d10 Fallout raining down. Bren will get to kick much ass though, which she is made to do.

Instead, Phil spins off his own conflict to exorcise Sigurd's demon. Which she does by laying hands upon Sigurd, gently, while he demons-out and claws and bites her in a fury. She just holds him, taking the wounds, and refusing to escalate back. Phil brings in one of his belongings, a locket with Sigurd's portrait in it. The demon snatches it and crushes it. She raises with stories of when they were kids. The demon mocks her in a false Sigurd voice. But Bren just endures. She takes the high road. Or rather, Phil does, by using the system in just the way he wants. And he wins too. Sigurd never takes worse than d6 Fallout from Ceremony. The demon is washed away, and Sigurd is there, unharmed.

It was awesome.

One thing John doesn't mention is that Bren's relationship wasn't simply "Sigurd". It was "Sigurd, the suitor I spurned (whom I secretly admire)". My initial idea was that Sigurd was from a well-to-do family, a good warrior, just generally a really desireable match for most women, including Bren; but her strong independent streak and desire to do things in the world - and rebellion against her very conservative traditionalist parents, who wanted her to be a "good girl" and just become a housewife - led her to spurn him in favor of becoming a Wolf. Naturally, that colored much of her actions in this game.

So, when despite being convinced earlier by Bren that he'd strayed from the true path, Sigurd fell to demonic possession, it was clear that Bren was going to have to deal with him directly. And it was also clear that she would start by trying to reclaim the spirit of the man she once admired. Also, I had enjoyed the earlier supernatural conflict with the three of us against Dain, and I already knew how I wanted to bring Ceremony into my conflict.

Another thing that John doesn't mention is that we all screwed up regarding Ceremony. See, John had prepared a reference sheet for us, and it included a list of the elements of Ceremony, followed by different die types: Calling By Name 1d4, Laying On Hands 1d6, and so on. When we started using Ceremony, somehow we all made the mistake of thinking that those were dice we got to add and roll as part of a raise. (Some of our confusion was probably due to the Things dice types being listed right below Ceremony - since those *are* the dice used for things in a conflict, it was natural to think that of the ceremony list as well.) So I began the conflict at talking, rolling Acuity and Heart (reaching out to Sigurd), and on my first raise I Called (Sigurd) by Name and Invoked the Ancients, and rolled an extra d4 for each of those. Oops.

That oops points out a second mistake we all made: we were bringing in multiple dice with our raises, picking out whatever traits or belongings or what have you that we thought were relevant at that moment and rolling the dice for each of them. So, if we'd been playing according to the rules, the conflicts would have been more drawn out as only one new dice roll could be added for each raise. Also, I could not have brought in the elements of Ceremony as tools to attain my goal of saving Sigurd, and I would've had to escalate up to Swords pretty quickly, dooming Sigurd to death.

And the thing is, I liked being able to use Ceremony that way. It added a lot of depth to the conflict, and let me win the conflict in what felt like the right way for Bren's story to go. If I'd realized the Ceremony dice were only for fallout, I'm not sure I would've bothered with any Ceremony, as it would've just seemed like it was just going to dump even more dice on Sigurd and doom him. Too, as it was, even with the Ceremony dice added to her pool for raises, Bren still took enough fallout from the conflict that she nearly died. So, it'll be interesting to see whether Bren becomes quicker to draw her sword in the future, and becomes a darker, more judgmental character, when we play again and actually follow the rules.

Umm, this got longer than I expected, and I have a few other comments, so I'll just stick them in a separate post.

[philaros]

A couple other notes...

Bren (Phil): A tough swordmaiden of Thor. Bren was once engaged, but broke it off and became a Wolf instead. "I need no man" is the trait that says the most about her. Her accomplishment was beating all the men at the Wolves' temple at swordplay (including Einar and Kveld, which Brandon and Tony played and enjoyed).

This was a particularly enjoyable first conflict for me, as it was fun playing directly against my fellow Wolves to attain my goal. Interesting that we never had any further conflicts amongst ourselves in this game, though as John mentioned we did discover at the end that we had differing ideas on what to do about the town, and that might've led to some dice-rolling conflicts if we'd had time.

So, they pick up the man that the Skraelings were trying to abduct. Guess who it is? It's Bren's ex-fiance, Sigurd. The man she dumped so she could become a Wolf. Phil, playing Bren, just shakes his head at this, like, "of course it's him." Tony looks at me wild eyed and grinning. He says, "You're good at this." I just point at Phil's sheet, under relationships, where it says "Sigurd" and I say, "Nope. I just do what I'm told."

I was a bit surprised that John pulled him out immediately, as I'd been thinking it was something that would come up down the road a bit, and of course I already had an idea of who Sigurd was which didn't include "heartbroken religious fanatic."

Dain's a true-believer. He believes in the cult leader with all his heart, and has murdered in his name. All to keep the townspeople from starving to death. He is righteous.
(...)
And when the guy had a nasty Fallout roll, they jumped into the medical conflict and saved his life. The willful possession and murder? Washed away. He gets mercy, with both barrels.

The funny thing is, even at that point I still wasn't thinking of the chosen ones as murderers, I was thinking it was still an open question whether or not that's what was going on. And of course, the Steward of the town is responsible for the people, so poor misled Dain gets redemption and the Steward gets confronted with his actions.

[John Harper]

As I recall, Phil, you beat demon Sigurd pretty badly. You had to take some nasty fallout, but you had a lot of dice left when he ran out. I think you could have done the same "peaceful resistance" tactic, even without the extra Ceremony dice. It would have been more of a nail-biter, though. And your sword would have been awfully tempting....

The funny thing is, even at that point I still wasn't thinking of the chosen ones as murderers, I was thinking it was still an open question whether or not that's what was going on. And of course, the Steward of the town is responsible for the people, so poor misled Dain gets redemption and the Steward gets confronted with his actions.

This is the great thing about Dogs. As a Wolf, you are in a position to make that judgment stick. As GM, I don't have to deal with how things "should" go. You think, as a player, that it's an open question, and you can then enforce your judgment on the game. "Poor misled Dain" is your invention. You guys never asked how Dain got into the cult. He was actually one of the chosen ones who knew they were committing murder, but he did it anyway to save the people. But you guys as Wolves were ready to fight and die for the sinner, no questions asked.

See how that actually says something about people, and wrong-doing, and justice? I mean... damn. That's the stuff right there.

[Darren Hill]

That oops points out a second mistake we all made: we were bringing in multiple dice with our raises, picking out whatever traits or belongings or what have you that we thought were relevant at that moment and rolling the dice for each of them. So, if we'd been playing according to the rules, the conflicts would have been more drawn out as only one new dice roll could be added for each raise. 

By the way, you did this right. Vincent has clarified on his subforum that you can roll any and all traits that apply on a particular Raise or See - you aren't limited to just one.