Reverse Dog Style (Not like that!!!)

[TheHappyAnarchist]

Courtesy of jhkim here.
http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?t=251894&page=2

Anyone ever considered doing dogs with the players creating a town and the GM creating the dogs and trying to fix the town with his pack 'o dogs?

[Vaxalon]

Whoa.

[coffeestain]

Man, do I think that's a cool idea.

Regards,
Daniel

[BollaertN]

Wouldn't this just turn into a regular Dogs game with one Player (your "GM) and multiple GMs (your "players")?

The main flaw I would perceive is that the "Players" in this game would routinely "lose" and that I would personally find extremely frustrating...

Unless I am misreading you are just suggesting the entire process be collaborative, with the Players participating in town construction and the GM in the PCs construction?

[TheHappyAnarchist]

So it's supposed to be fun for the GM to always lose?  I think you may be looking at the whole roleplaying thing from a slightly different aspect then the rest of us.
No one loses if the result is dramatic, fun, exciting, engaging or intersting in some way.

Basically, the PCs go through town creation together, making NPCs and sins and such.  The GM goes through Dog creation, with the PCs providing hints and oversite and helping in such a way as the GM would usually do for dog PCs.

Maybe it would just be a different way to say multiple GMs and one PC. ;)
Either way, it would be kind of like the old Dungeon Keeper games.  Which I liken to be a good thing. :)

[BollaertN]

No the GM doesn't "lose" because the GM is revealing the town in play.  The Players are portraying Dogs who have goals - serve the will of the King of Life and set his people on the right path.  Therefore the 'Characters' of the players /can/ lose.

I'm fine with the idea of reversed roles, I just wasn't seeing the benefit.  Maybe a round robin style could be interesting, especially if there were only one or two Dogs, then everyone at the table could be portraying a single character (be they Dog or Townsfolk) at a time.

[TheHappyAnarchist]

Here's what I am thinking as the bennies of this.

The players get a chance to create a tapestry of characters, which may very well be more convincing and conflicting and disfunctional as they come from the minds of many as opposed to one.

They reveal their creation and the GM has to use the tools he has, in this case, his own band of likely disfunctional dogs to unravel the knot.

In this case, it would be more of the players creating a challenge and the GM trying to solve it, rather than the usual question of what would you/will you do that Dogs usually has.

Not sure how much merit it does or does not have.  Just an idea that made me think I suppose.