[DiTV -Criminal Variant] Thief Guild Enforcers with d20

[Rustin]

I managed to incorporate some Dogslike, Forgish elements into an adventure for my gaming group last Friday, and I must say it was quite successful.  I figured I'd report what happened, detail what worked and what didn't work.

Details on the Dog's variant that I used can be found Here.   I used the Guild structure and rules from that thread though I ended up using a different mechanic.

The adventure was sold as a "crunch fest" where the players could roll up a 16 Level character, 8 levels had to be thief.  They were to play guild enforcers. Seven players showed up.  I didn't advertise the Forgish/independent elements because I didn't want the group (mostly gamists) to get skittish.  Though I did tell them to write up a good history, and told them it would be important.

The city had three original progressions of Pride, but I cut it down to just two to save time.  I also included a standard d20/gamist portion to end the adventure with some standard combat, as insurance if the dog's like elements didn't work. 

The Dogs like progressions. 

#1
Pride: Very effective guild member felt he deserved the another guild members betrothed as his wife.   He convinced the brother of the woman to re-arrange the marriage for his benefit.  A guild Governor gave his blessing on the deal.
Injustice: Leonis, the man who lost his betrothed.
Sin: Leonis got drunk and sloppy.
Attacks:  A devil found the weakness and beguiled Leonis,
False Doctrine:  Leonis, mislead by the Devil started collecting fingers of people through the town.  Leonis thinks the fingers are part of a spell that will win back his love-- but really it is just something that will give the Devil more power.
I stopped there. 

I had the players all gathered together and told by the Guild King that there was trouble in The City of Cliff Shadows.  The minute they were in town I started hitting them with NPC's trying to persuade the enforcers to help, and escalating.  I've been gamming with this group for years, and hitting them with information like this was so much fun.  I was loving it.

I had a guy who just had his fingers chopped off stagger into the bar and plead for help-- I made it a guild member just to get them riled up.  He told them it was Leonis who did it. 

They wanted to reprimand the Governor of the Guild (each guild has three governors..) for letting on of his guild members to go about chopping off fingers.  When they asked the governor what he knew of this I did the Dog's trick: have the character say "I know nothing about this.." but then did that thing the eyes and the tone of  voice so they know the guy is lying.   

Here is where I had my first glitch.  We set the stakes, "do you intimidate the Governor to tell the truth." and the Consequence, "If you fail you will be at -2's against this Governor for the rest of the adventure." I should not have made these the stakes.  Information should always just flow freely.  I should have just told them he gave his blessing because he though it was just.

Players were allowed to invest personality into any role if they narrated.  Then for each personality trait narrated they would role 1d6 -1d4 for good ones, or 1d4-1d4, etc..  But they would only take a positive number.

Unfortunately, non of the players had "crunched" for intimidate or diplomacy.  They rolled for crap and lost the stakes.  I basically told them, "Well, you'll not get the information from him...but maybe elsewhere."  We had a real good energy going up to that point.  The "say yes or roll the dice" was working like gang busters.. nobody felt bad that they had basically wasted points in Sense Motive or Gather Information.

No real stakes were set after this.  I just gave them so much power that it wasn't an issue, and they seemed to really like it. They eventually hunted down Leonis, found out the truth, killed him, killed the devil and then yelled a bit at the Governor who allowed it.   

#2
Pride: One Guild Governor member to beat up another guild member because he felt that the Guild Master did not properly reprimand him for embezzling monies that he properly stole. 

Injustice: guild friends of the guy beat up felt that they were disrespected because nobody would do anything about the beating.

Sin: The friends pooled together and hired an assassin.

I stopped there. 
The guy that beat up the other guy wanted the blessing of the enforcers, and argued his case.
The guys that hired the assassin want the enforcers to meet out justice.

I had one of the four who hired the assassin approach an enforcer telling them about the beating of his friend and that he felt it was unjust.  But I did the "he's holding something back" technique again and the players loved it. They dug right in.  I don't recall setting stakes here, but I had him spill the beans about the assassination attempt. 

Next thing I know they are hunting down people.  It was great to just let them frame the scene.  They would say something like, "ok where would I find this guy."  And I'd reply, "who do you want in the room and where?"  They picked up the scene framing pretty easily from there.

They ended up getting the assassination called off.  Then, they killed all the guys that hired the assassin, but gave the guy who beat up the other guy in the first place just a slight slap on the wrist.

Both progressions were happening simultaneously.  I just detailed it here separately for clarity.

Time was short so I moved into my standard d20 adventure.  The energy and flow of the game almost immediately vaporized.  They snuck into a Mage tower, did their thief stuff. I gave them plenty of chanced to show off their gamist skills.  It was ok fun, but not as fun as those first 2 hours.

Things I learned:

Don't try to do a Dog's adventure with Seven players.  I wanted to move things along quickly so I couldn't really set the stakes as often as I'd like.  We didn't get much detailed narration because of this, but the plot did move along nice and fast.

I was surprised just how unnecessary setting the stakes actually was.  We had a good time just going through the roleplay and allowing the characters to meet out justice without any opposition that required dice.  Towards the end, when asked if they could do something I would say, "sure you're a kick ass enforcer you do whatever you want." They seemed to like that.

I had one chance to ask "what is your intent" when a player wanted to use his handle animal skill to manipulate some pitbulls in a pitbull fight.  When he detailed what he wanted to result, I was able to guide the narration so his role did exactly what he wanted "to intimidate the peon thieves watching the dogfight" of his powers.  I have that one forge thread to thank for that.

I really missed the DitV mechanics.  The fallout and the traits would have made setting stakes much easier.   My mechanics worked, but they were probably a poor substitute for the Dog's dice.  To be true I didn't use them enough to say one way or another.

If anyone wants my d20 mechanics variant just let me know.

[Storn]

That was a very interesting read.

Yup, I concur, Stakes don't seem to be used often (I just started weaving them into by bag of GM tricks myself).  Intent seems to us, to be used A LOT.   A great communication checkdown between GM and Player. 

My recent use of Stakes went over really well though.  Alterion, a handsome rogue and Harper (re: secret agent) had just met the bosses' daughter, Cailinn.  The boss, Khelban Blackstaff, was reluctantly turning Cailinn over to the PCs to help in an investigation needing a Gifted one's insights (re: spells and magical ability).  In my head, I had thought of Cailinn as fiery, young, earthy but impetious. 

Matt, the player, layed a charming line down on her.  And then asked to roll dice to REALLY charm her.  Well, I knew right then that Cailinn was vulnerable to precisely that tact... so my Stakes were this:  "Cailinn is going to be charmed no matter what the roll, but if you succeed, her father, your boss, will be charmed as well.  If you fail, well, Khelban is going to be annoyed."  In the game, Khelban has a pretty astounding reputation.  Matt rolled out the ying yang (Savage World exploding dice), WAAAAAY over the target number.  We all laughed.  And I gave him a Benny for really roleplaying out his character and driving the scene before and after the die roll.

Cailinn is besmitten.  Khelban implicitly trusts Alterion.  And Matt is struggling (in an engaging way) with the responsibility this "winning" has brought him.  It drove a great vibe through the whole night.

So.  Don't give up on Stakes quite yet.  I don't think you are.  d20 Stakes mechanics may need to be retooled a bit...  I don't have an opinion unless I saw them.

I loved hearing aobut the pitbulls and the Intent behind it.  So very Guild Enforcers, perfectly in the vibe of the setting you've weaved here.

And I don't care what the game is... 7 players would be my idea of a GM nightmare (I like 2 to 3, myself).