Questions hard to search for

[rvowles]

Hi all,

I just purchased Dogs (3 days ago??) and today a friend of mine and I played through the creation of his character, I needed to understand the system properly and deal with any gotchas that we came across.

I noticed a few things
(1) To understand the way the conflict system worked, we actually went through the example and allocated the dice. It goes fine until pg62 - when Zeke shoots "you". Then the description forgets that "you" have a 5 sitting on the table. It gave us enough to understand by, but it does mean this section needs a bit of fixing?

(2) Initiation

The character decided that for his Initiation "I hope that I learn to curb my temper" would be what we did. So we chose what was at stake "Do I learn to curb my temper"?, the setting was that he was in the hills outside Bridal Falls - he decided to be a Mountain Man Convert, and that another Mountain Man convert from a different tribe came across him and started insulting him (as they came from different tribes I though this could be OK) - "You shouldn't be here among the Faithful, your tribe are bad, you can't possibly imagine you could be a Dog" (sort of thing).

So I roll my 4d6 and 4d10 - now this is a spectacular number of dice that there is no way he is going to beat unless he escalates. But clearly from his stated hope he doesn't want to. Now I don't put my best dice out here, I got the best roll (a 9 and a 7) but I only put out a 6 and 1.

So he sees and raises, and this happens one more time before he runs out of dice. Now we get to me raising 9 ("Why don't you go back home to your tribe where you belong?") and him left with only 4 points of dice left. He can't see, so he decides to Give - escalating would mean he lost his temper wouldn't it? This would be OK with me - he lost and he wanted to loose, there was almost zero chance of him winning the "conflict" without resorting to voilence which would have made him fail his Hope. So loosing the conflict means he succeeded in his Hope - which is really pretty difficult to come to terms with. We both sat at the table wondering if this was right, hence the posting.

Furthermore, because he could not See, he had to Give - but he had never needed to "Take the Blow". Hence no fallout. I would expect on a loss like this he would have taken some fallout. Again, this left us perplexed. What would have happened on pg62 if Zeke said "I shoot" and you just said "I give"? At that point you have no fallout, does it mean you can just walk away? That doesn't make sense?

If this has been discussed somewhere, I'd love for someone to just point me at the thread.

I need to get this sorted out, I want to take a couple more people through initiation and then some simple conflicts before I try and run a game, which I _really_ want to do. My parents are LDS so I know the stories... :-)

Last thing which I'm sure has been pointed out before:
pg 5 - It should be Desert not Deseret
pg 68 - should be Acuity and Heart not Acuity and Heat.

[Andrew Morris]

For the initiation, why did you think the player couldn't have escalated? If it was me, I'd have been gunning the guy down, and then taking a trait like, "When I lose my temper, people die" or "I know the dangers of wrath" or something.

I'm no expert, but I don't see why violence or even losing his temper would have anything to do with the declared stakes.

For the issue of someone giving without fallout after getting shot, that's fine. Fallout is not damage. So the guy gets shot with no mechanical effect, but he loses the stakes of the conflict.

[Brand_Robins]

First, I'll go with Andrew -- there are a lot of ways to escalate without losing your temper. Losing your temper is all about how you describe it. You can shoot someone in the face without losing your temper, doing it in cold blood. You can also run in fear (physical escalation) withouth losing your temper. Or hold someone down until they get a hold of themselves, and so and so and so on.

Second, I often finds it works best when there are stakes that the player obviously wants their character to get in an intitiation to have them play to earn them, not to stop them. Unless I'm misreading you, the player said his goal for the character was that the character would learn not to lose his temper. So why not have him play for "If I win I learn not to lose my temper, if I lose I do not learn that at all?" Then if he gives, he loses what he wants.

Note: This isn't always neccisary in initiation conflicts. I've had players fight hard against things they want to lose at, to better show the intensity of the conflict. However, it often feels more natural (easier to get to grips on) when you set it up so that if you lose your conflict your character does not get what you want them to get.

And yes, you give you take no fallout from that action. How this makes sense is a matter of naration. You can say, "Zeke shoots at me but I duck and run away, letting him get to town" if that is good with your group. You lose the stakes you're playing for, but if its better to do that then take a bullet, then give and duck and hide like a good coward. (jk). Or you can do what every Hollywood action movie in the history of the world does -- have the hero take the bullet, go down bleeding, then grit their teeth and get back up to fight on with no loss of ability in the next scene. (The times when the hero does lose ability is, obviously, because they actually took fallout from that one.)

[Ice Cream Emperor]

I noticed that you didn't mention the player using any traits during the Initiation conflict, and also suggested that Escalation was his only chance to win. Did the player narrate in any traits? Was he having trouble thinking of ones to bring in, or were your dice just too good so it didn't matter?

In my (albeit somewhat brief) experience, Initiation conflicts almost always favour the player, even without escalation -- and escalation is just the clincher, if they're willing to go that route. You have all those dice, but in theory the other player has his entire character sheet -- and he can just keep bringing in more of it, while you're stuck with whatever you rolled. Whether on purpose or not, this really allows the player to control the pace and the results of their Initiation conflict -- much more than in later conflicts, where all those options are available to the GM as well.

[Brian Newman]

What I learned was that it's very important to make the stakes and the stage something important to the character.  It doesn't sound like the situation was all that interesting for him -- he had no *reason* to lose his temper.  Build a reason into the situation.

And remind your player that he can Give but then he has no chance of getting Experience.  My players love to get Experience, so the more conflicts they can get into, the better for them.

Also, "Deseret" is correct.  It's a name, not a geographical feature.  Google "define:deseret".

[Ice Cream Emperor]

And remind your player that he can Give but then he has no chance of getting Experience.  My players love to get Experience, so the more conflicts they can get into, the better for them.

To clarify: my impression is that you can still get experience (i.e. a special case of Fallout) after giving a conflict, provided you have taken Fallout during previous raises. Giving keeps you from taking fallout from the last raise, but it doesn't eliminate all previous Fallout -- so you still have a chance to roll a 1 on those dice.

I agree, though, that it may be worth pointing out that the longer you stay in a conflict, the more likely it is you'll gain some positive Fallout. Of course, it's also a good idea to take lots of blows during talking conflicts, for the same reason.

[rvowles]

This helped a lot. A lot. The loosing of the temper here can be in the verbal exchange and doesn't need to reflect what happens. So when he decided to get up and walk away, that could be saying "I escalate to physical". Thats cool. I think it will take me a bit more to get used to it!

The fallout still rankles a bit. But I can deal.

Deseret - who knew?

First, I'll go with Andrew -- there are a lot of ways to escalate without losing your temper. Losing your temper is all about how you describe it. You can shoot someone in the face without losing your temper, doing it in cold blood. You can also run in fear (physical escalation) withouth losing your temper. Or hold someone down until they get a hold of themselves, and so and so and so on.

Second, I often finds it works best when there are stakes that the player obviously wants their character to get in an intitiation to have them play to earn them, not to stop them. Unless I'm misreading you, the player said his goal for the character was that the character would learn not to lose his temper. So why not have him play for "If I win I learn not to lose my temper, if I lose I do not learn that at all?" Then if he gives, he loses what he wants.

[Marhault]

So he sees and raises, and this happens one more time before he runs out of dice. Now we get to me raising 9 ("Why don't you go back home to your tribe where you belong?") and him left with only 4 points of dice left. He can't see, so he decides to Give - escalating would mean he lost his temper wouldn't it? This would be OK with me - he lost and he wanted to loose, there was almost zero chance of him winning the "conflict" without resorting to voilence which would have made him fail his Hope. So loosing the conflict means he succeeded in his Hope - which is really pretty difficult to come to terms with. We both sat at the table wondering if this was right, hence the posting.

Losing the conflict definitively means he failed in his hope.  The key here is the way the stakes are phrased.  "I hope that I learn to curb my temper."  He's not hoping that he did curb his temper, but that he learned to.  What better way to learn to control yourself than through a loss of control?  If it had been my Dog in that scene, I would have escalated as hard and fast as possible, drawn the biggest, most excellent gun I could, and blown that bastard away.  Then taken one of the traits Andrew suggested for any fallout, which would be a lot more likely in the longer conflict.

Brian's advice is great, too.  Before framing the scene, discuss it.  Say to your player, "Dude, so what would totally piss your guy off?"  Then throw it at him.  See how hard he fights to control himself then!

[Jason Morningstar]

Welcome to the Forge, by the way!

You are right when you say Dogs takes some getting used to, but it is so worth it!  A word of advice - when you find yourself stuck or confused about what to do - do what the book says to do.

It may seem hard to implement or wrong-headed, but it's generally neither.

--Jason

[rvowles]

Losing the conflict definitively means he failed in his hope.  The key here is the way the stakes are phrased.  "I hope that I learn to curb my temper."  He's not hoping that he did curb his temper, but that he learned to.  What better way to learn to control yourself than through a loss of control?  If it had been my Dog in that scene, I would have escalated as hard and fast as possible, drawn the biggest, most excellent gun I could, and blown that bastard away.  Then taken one of the traits Andrew suggested for any fallout, which would be a lot more likely in the longer conflict.

Brian's advice is great, too.  Before framing the scene, discuss it.  Say to your player, "Dude, so what would totally piss your guy off?"  Then throw it at him.  See how hard he fights to control himself then!

Yes, well we didn't have a problem here. Race attacks were what would sufficiently annoy his character, but I can't see how escalating to a gun fight shows that he learnt to curb his temper. Only escalating to a gunfight or physical violence if the other guy did and only to defend himself makes sense to me, pushing the guy aside to leave the scene makes sense to me, going into a gunright right off the bat, that makes no sense to me whatsoever when he is trying to learned to curb his temper!

[Simon Kamber]

A common way to do conflicts like that, where the character changes, is to reverse it (it's described in the book, in fact).

In this initiation conflict, with those stakes, I think the player should have played pro-temper. That is, the player should have taken the "I did not learn to control my temper" side of the conflict. You, as the GM, should then have made the raises towards his learning to control his temper. It sounds a bit odd, but it actually works out a lot better.

[Marhault]

but I can't see how escalating to a gun fight shows that he learnt to curb his temper. Only escalating to a gunfight or physical violence if the other guy did and only to defend himself makes sense to me, pushing the guy aside to leave the scene makes sense to me, going into a gunright right off the bat, that makes no sense to me whatsoever when he is trying to learned to curb his temper!

Actually, what you're saying shows that he controlled his temper in this particular instance, which may or may not mean he learned to do so in the future.  Whether he can curb his temper going forward, ie. whether he gets a trait that demonstrates his ability to curb his temper, is determined exclusively by the resolution of the conflict.

For instance, the way you played it out, the dog didn't escalate to violence, nor did he win the conflict.  So he has shown that he cancontrol his temper, but that doesn't mean he will.  This points to a character that maybe regrets having done so on that occasion.  Maybe he takes a trait like "I'll not hold back my wrath again." or somesuch.

Now, if he'd refused to escalate, and won the conflict, he would have achieved something great!  He would have held himself in check and seen what can come of it.  He'd be going forward with newfound knowledge of how he can accomplish more if he stays calm.  "Anger solves nothing."

The scenario I was talking about, and the one I would've played for as a player, is that he escalates, wins, and regrets, thus learning a hard lesson in the process.

Am a making any sens?

[rvowles]

The scenario I was talking about, and the one I would've played for as a player, is that he escalates, wins, and regrets, thus learning a hard lesson in the process.

Am a making any sens?

Key step missing was regrets. The mechanics don't suggest or recommend this as far as I can see. This really is going to take some getting used to.

[Brand_Robins]

Key step missing was regrets. The mechanics don't suggest or recommend this as far as I can see. This really is going to take some getting used to.

See, it can work that way, but it doesn't have to. The key to making conflicts work is doing what makes sense to you and following the methods in the book. If Marhault's way seems too complicated for you, or not like something you'd think of at the table, then don't worry about it. You don't have to take things to that level in order to make it work. Similarly, if you find my ways to simple and not subtle enough, then don't worry about it. You don't have to do things so simply in order to make it work.

The key is to find a place where you are comfortable, and to pay attention to the human drama of the situation. Players will have final say in the kinds of fallout they take, so you don't have to always worry about what their stakes mean -- they have the largest say in that. Just worry about keeping the tension up and the feeling real, and then if you just follow the steps in the book it will work out.

I've pimped this before, but as you're new I'll do so again. Here is an actual step by step record of how I ran a Dog's Initiation Conflict, complete with all the OOC talk around it and how things got framed, played, and decided: http://yudhishthirasdice.blogspot.com/2005/11/dogs-initiation-conflict.html