Dust Devils Play

[Clay]

I played Dust Devils for the first time last night.  We hit a few snags, but none of them related to the system.  Overall we really liked the narration mechanic, although it took us some time to get the hang of it.  The five card stud resolution mechanic was also very satisfactory, especially for the new players.  While various funny dice rules might have confused them, a poker hand was easy to understand.

We had two neophyte players with us.  The wife of a friend that I've had some excellent gaming experiences with, and my own girlfriend were first time gamers in this session.  The general feeling was that the narration mechanic was a little difficult for new gamers, but after a few rounds of passing the narration around we had the hang of it.  In particular, my girlfriend grasped the concept the very first time that the narration passed to her.  We were instantly immersed in an in-game dialog, and the plot hooks were set.

Not suprisingly with new players, there was a strong tendency to be overly concerned with whether or not their characters would be motivated to become involved in something.  Once I mentioned that the story would move along a lot faster if we worked from the position of trying to think of a reason why the characters would care, we progressed nicely.  By the end of the session my neophyte gamers had moved around to solid director's stance.

As far as actual game concerns go, I have the following concerns:

1. In spite of my overall satisfaction with the session, if I had it to do over again I probably wouldn't have introduced people to roleplaying with Dust Devils. The game mechanics, especially the control of narration, is fantastic, but players had some trouble getting the hang of it at first.  In particular, people had a tendency at first to avoid getting themselves into trouble.  Unfortunately, trouble is exactly what a protagonist needs to get into.  You need to pull your fat out of the fire to be a decent protagonist, and you can't pull it out until you've first leapt in (preferably from the frying pan).

2. In order to help the players get into their characters more, I stole the kickers from http://www.sorcerer-rpg.com/" target=_new>Sorcerer

[Matt Snyder]

I played Dust Devils for the first time last night.  We hit a few snags, but none of them related to the system.  Overall we really liked the narration mechanic, although it took us some time to get the hang of it.  The five card stud resolution mechanic was also very satisfactory, especially for the new players.  While various funny dice rules might have confused them, a poker hand was easy to understand.

Wow, another rootin', tootin' session of Dust Devils. I love it! Glad to hear you like the narration mechanic, Clay. As I've said, it's the one thing about the game I'm really proud of.

1. In spite of my overall satisfaction with the session, if I had it to do over again I probably wouldn't have introduced people to roleplaying with Dust Devils. The game mechanics, especially the control of narration, is fantastic, but players had some trouble getting the hang of it at first.  In particular, people had a tendency at first to avoid getting themselves into trouble.  Unfortunately, trouble is exactly what a protagonist needs to get into.  You need to pull your fat out of the fire to be a decent protagonist, and you can't pull it out until you've first leapt in (preferably from the frying pan).

Good to hear you thought the game system seemed to work well. Ron and others have voiced a few good critiques, so I'll be amending the game soon. But, overall, it seems like the system ain't too damn crazy!

As for it not being for newbies, well, I'm not surprised. I didn't design the game with that in mind, so I'm sure there are a few assumptions in the game text that might stump neophyte gamers. But, you raise an interesting issue -- that the poker mechanic, at least, is something most anyone can understand relatively easily.

2. In order to help the players get into their characters more, I stole the kickers from <a href="http://www.sorcerer-rpg.com/" target=_new>Sorcerer</a>

[/quote]

A fine idea. Now that I've actually read Sorceror (just picked it up at my LGS a couple weeks ago), I can see why you'd want to steal most anything from that great game. That said, the Devil mechanic in Dust Devils is sorta a half-assed Kicker, with some other things thrown in too!

[Ron Edwards]

Hi there,

What a fortuitous thread - we just had our second Dust Devils session today. Some of the system discussions over the week helped a lot, especially in terms of using a five-card "show" hand for resolution, no matter how many cards you got to draw.

Matt, I'm not sure you ever did answer one of our queries ... say I've got 8 cards in my hand, and the best I've got is a pair of 10's. OK, fine - I show five of the eight which are my "hand," and I do badly or well, whatever, based on the 10's in there. Now for the interesting point: one of those other 6 cards is a king, and no one else had a king.

Does that king count for me gaining the narration, automatically? Or does it have to be in the five-card "hand" that I showed, for it to count in that regard?

As for the game itself, I have this to say: Dust Devils drives toward endgame very fast, as soon as you have three devil-ridden characters moving in the same area at the same time. I think one character's switched sides three times at this point, and the other two are gearing up for a very bloody showdown with exactly the same guy the first one is probably going to try to save ... In other words, it's great.

However, I think traditional RPG "character improvement" is going to be a very minor design consideration. Considering they'll have to live in order to improve ...

Best,
Ron

[Clay]

Ron,

Glad to hear that your game is driving so hard.  From what I've read from you on other games, you have a very dynamic play group that gets down to brass tacks in a hurry.  As I mentioned, my group was somewhat the opposite: they tried to shy around the trouble, only I wouldn't let them escape it.

Matt,

Would you have a problem if I were to write up the scenario that I've put my group in and publish it on the web (at http://www.story-game.com )?  Barring that, I could send it along to you.  A game is rarely hurt by having supplemental material available for it.

I'm running something taken pretty much verbatim from Red Wind, a short story that was used as the pilot for the Phillip Marlowe radio show.

[Matt Snyder]

Would you have a problem if I were to write up the scenario that I've put my group in and publish it on the web (at http://www.story-game.com )?  Barring that, I could send it along to you.  A game is rarely hurt by having supplemental material available for it.

Aww, heck no! Post away! I'd be happy to see materials of any kind available for folks to see -- I think you're right that it can only help.

Ron (and Clay too) -- I'll post more tomorrow when I can see straight. Just got done w/ another marathon layout session, and I'm tired as holy hell. Damn daylight savings time.

[Ron Edwards]

Hi there,

What I need to learn to do better in running Dust Devils:

- Apply damage! I keep friggin' forgetting about damage. This is strictly a matter of being used to Hero Wars, in which damage is expressed quickly and instantly with very little reference to numbers. I'm totally not accustomed any more to applying damage directly from the Fortune mechanics.

- Encourage more oomph and description in narration from everyone, including myself. We still haven't settled on just how much colorful description goes into a fight scene narration, or description about what.

- Promote utterly self-centered protagonism, not in terms of a character surviving the scenario, but in terms of person-faces-Devil-inside. I remembered to mention this about halfway through the latest run, and it seemed to me that all the players acted upon it with enthusiasm - for bit, before that, they were beginning to be vague and confused about "what to do."

Best,
Ron

[Matt Snyder]

Better late than never, Ron. Sorry for the delay in responding. Here goes ...

Matt, I'm not sure you ever did answer one of our queries ... say I've got 8 cards in my hand, and the best I've got is a pair of 10's. OK, fine - I show five of the eight which are my "hand," and I do badly or well, whatever, based on the 10's in there. Now for the interesting point: one of those other 6 cards is a king, and no one else had a king.

Does that king count for me gaining the narration, automatically? Or does it have to be in the five-card "hand" that I showed, for it to count in that regard?

That King would indeed count, as Dust Devils was originally written. I think in subsequent discussion we had here on the Forge about poker hands, etc., we confounded the issue by agreeing that five cards is a "hand." But not so in Dust devils. Well, kinda. Five cards IS the limit for what you can "lay" to win conflict resolution. BUT,  whoever has the highest card in all final hands (regardless of whether a persons hand is 3 cards or 9) narrates. I say final hands, because it only matters what you have in your hand when the dealer "calls" -- i.e., you may  have given up the high card when you drew back cards after the deal, but obviously, that's not part of your final hand.

Now, other folks thought it'd be clever to MAKE people choose to put the high card in their "five-card hand." I don't like this because while it seems fun to have to choose between a full house with low card or two pair with a great high card, it really spoils the fun of getting to lay a five-card hand. Frankly, this probably won't happen too often. Straights, Flushes full houses and "five of a kinds" aren't too common, so why make people choose not to use 'em by enforcing the "five-card" rule. Follow me?

Obviously, if your group likes it that way, do it. But yer a by God, good-fer-nuthin dude if you do. Heh.

As for the game itself, I have this to say: Dust Devils drives toward endgame very fast, as soon as you have three devil-ridden characters moving in the same area at the same time. I think one character's switched sides three times at this point, and the other two are gearing up for a very bloody showdown with exactly the same guy the first one is probably going to try to save ... In other words, it's great.

However, I think traditional RPG "character improvement" is going to be a very minor design consideration. Considering they'll have to live in order to improve...

Ron, you've touched on something I've been wrestling w/ recently, which is character death. You suggested that Dust Devils would be better if it didn't concern it's last section with character death so much as characer, um, expiration? That is, you thought the game should address the "end" of a character who might solve or become absorbed by his Devil. This is similar to Humanity in Sorceror (as I understand it, anyway). I've really been thinking about character endings lately, and I'm going to post my thoughts in Indie Game design about that topic soon.

Anyway, I largely agree with you on this issue, it's just that you can see my Sim-y, traditional gamer roots showing here in Dust Devils, which was in part my attempt to come to understand Narrativism and my own gaming and game design.

[Ron Edwards]

Hellfire, man, if Dust Devils is your "attempt" to understand Narrativism, God help us all, if you write a game when you do understand it.

In case that's puzzling, what I mean is, Dust Devils succeeds in that attempt to a frightening degree.

Anyway, thanks for the resolution clarification, and let's keep talking about the death and fate stuff. By the way, Sorcerer is mostly oriented about goals - the character is "successful" if his or her goals are met and if his or her demons haven't initiated some horrible consequence that devalues the goal. I even have a little matrix in the last chapter about how these possibilities can play out. Character survival is considered a secondary issue relative to the position on the li'l matrix. In fact, one might even consider Humanity (the central mechanic of the game) only to be a facilitator of that li'l matrix.

Dust Devils, to me, would be more oriented toward one's "relation to self" - whether regarding denial, or rage, or addiction, or whatever. Actual goals of the moment, in Dust Devils, might not be such a big deal - although relationships (people) embedded in the goals of the moment would be. That's my take on it for the moment, though, just food for thought.

Best,
Ron