Sorcerous Dogs -- Actual play questions

[Matt Kimball]

Last Sunday I ran a one-shot session of Dogs.  A friend of mine from Salt Lake City was visiting me in L.A. and he expressed an interest in playing a session of Dogs after I linked him to an actual play post describing one of the towns in our Dogs game run by Jesse Burneko.  Given his request to try out Dogs, I organized an Easter Sunday session of Dogs.  The game was successful, but it did raise some questions for me about how to handle player characters who are both dogs and sorcerers. 

So, I'm running the game, and Cameron, Meghann and Jesse are playing.  Cameron is my friend from Salt Lake.  He plays Brother Zach, a dog from within the faithful with a relationship with Lust.  His initiatory conflict is "I hope I can avoid sleeping with someone while in training."  Meghann plays Sister Josienne, a convert from the South whose family was killed in Sherman's March during the Civil War.  Her initiatory conflict is "I hope I can feel empowered to affect change as a dog."  We played this out as Sister Josienne reconciling a failing marriage.  Then we've got Jesse's character.  He's Brother Luther, he's from within the faith, and his family was killed by demons.  He's got traits like "I sin so others don't have to."  He's got a relationship with a demon called "Lamanus."  (Of the Lamanites, or perhaps Laman himself, I suppose.)  Jesse was playing him as a character who dealt with demons because demons mean power and to his character, the ends justify the means.  His initiatory conflict was "I hope I can keep my relationship with demons a secret during training."

During the game, I had no problems engaging Cameron's and Meghann's characters, but I had more trouble playing to the particulars of Jesse's sorcerous character.  Here's the town I was using:

Plentiful Valley

Pride:  Sister Faith thinks she's too good to accept Sister Georgia as a second wife in her marriage to Brother Andrew
Injustice:  Brother Henry, who is Sister Georgia's son is forbidden from courting Sister Kesiah, who is Sister Faith's daughter.  Thing is, both sets of parents forbit the courtship because they are both Brother Andrew's children.  The children don't know it.
Sin:  Brother Andrew meets and proposes to Sister Sylvia while Back East.  Thing is, Sister Sylvia doesn't know Brother Andrew already has a wife until she shows up in Plentiful Valley for the wedding.
Demonic Attacks:  Sister Sylvia writes to her politically-connected Back East family about her unhappyness with being second wife in an existing faimly.  The demons inspire the President of the U.S. to send a military man, Colonel Davis, to Plentiful Valley to determine if the Faith should be in-charge of the Utah territory.
False Doctrine:  Brother Joseph, the steward, teaches that the President of the U.S. is the Antichrist.  He teaches Brother Henry that Henry will kill the Antichrist someday.
Corrupt Worship:  Brother Joseph (incorrectly) believes Colonel Davis to be a demon, and he imprisons him in Sister Georgia's shed.  Brother Joseph organizes regular bleedings of Colonel Davis, believing that Blood Atonement is necessary.

As part of the solution to the town, Brother Luther uses his sorcerous connections to both incinerate Brother Joseph and also to wipe the memory of Colonel Davis before releasing him to go Back East.  During these conflicts Jesse rolled Demonic Influence, on the theory that his character was a sorcerer and therefore the Demonic Influence should come in on his side of the conflict.  I checked the book after the game and I'm pretty sure that having a player roll Demonic Influence isn't correct by the rules, but I was fine with the first use of demonic powers in part because they were pushing the same agenda as "What the Demons want."  See, the demons want create a divisive relationship between the Faith and the U.S. Government, and when he incinerated Brother Joseph, this assisted that process because it would create a martyr of Brother Joseph in the eyes of Brother Henry, who was being groomed to be an assassin anyway.  It was the second use of demonic powers -- the wiping of Davis' memory -- that I think shouldn't have worked because it is counter to "what the demons want."  However, in the context of the game I was thinking "Say yes or roll dice" and we rolled dice, and I lost.   

The way it played out worked fine and was fun for everyone, but it left me feeling like it wasn't in the spirit of the game.  In retrospect, I think that maybe making "What the demons want" about something larger than the town was a mistake on my part because the connections between the actions that worked with "what the demons want" and the result were too long term.  But I'm still not sure exactly how to reconcile a sorcerous player-character, demons who want something other than what the sorcerer wants, and "say yes or roll dice."    Does anyone have any ideas or experience with this?

[jburneko]

Hey Matt,

First, what I did was totally legal by the rules in my edition.  I don't know if that's one of the things that changed between your edition and my edition.  I've been staring at the passage in my book about how Dogs can do the Demonic Influence thing too and thinking, "Man, I want to do that sometime."  So, thanks for the opportunity.

And as a very minor point: I didn't wipe his mind.  I gave him visions and then threated that he'd have nightmares for the rest of his life.  Out and out mind control is beneath both me as a player and I think Luther.  He'd rather have blood on his hands than toy with someone's soul.

So, to speak to your question here are my thoughts on Sorcerous Dogs.  I admit that a lot of this derived from my experience with the game Sorcerer which, I believe, Vincent acknowledges is one of Dogs' parents.

First the distinction between a Possessed Person and a Sorcerer is very clear in my mind.  A Possessed Person is doing the bidding of the Demon.  Because I like the idea of Demons blending with the personality of the Possessed Person I use the rule that the person must already want to do whatever it is the Demon wants done, the Demon is just empowering them to do so.  But one way or another the goal of the Demon and the goal of the Possessed Person are one and the same.

A Sorcerer on the other hand has command over the Demons regardless of what the Demon wants.  Brother Jonathan in our game was not possessed, was not under the influence of demons and was not acting acording to a demonic agenda.  He was acting on his own agenda and the demons were at his mercy.

So what happens when you have a Sorcerous Dog who is most likely going to be weilding demonic power in a manner counter to the goals of the demon?

In the short term, you have to start playing the Demons more like proactive NPCs in their own right.  Have the demon possess the nearest believer in False Doctrine and come and try to kill the Sorcerer.  I would break my own rule above for this.  This is pure possession and control and has nothing to do with the agenda of the heretic.  If the Demon can't take coporeal form then start up a Conflict directly with the demon and narrate a thunderstorm that burns down the house of the Sorcerer's cousin.  The top stair suddenly breaks and the Sorcerer falls.  Watch the movie The Omen.  I'm not sure if this is legal by the rules but if the demon wants to aid someone roll the demon in like an improvised tool and narrate how the Sorcerer's gun mysteriously jams.

In the long term, if you have a Sorcerous Dog I think it's very important to develop a demonic mythology along the lines of what you see in Buffy The Vampire Slayer.  It's important to give the Demons that are influencing a specific town, names, motives, methodologies and perhaps a mythology.  This will distinguish clearly between whatever Demon is at hand and the Demons the Sorcerous Dog has a relationship with.  It also allows Demons to recure and become the source of direct conflict.  If you write up a town with similar problems to a previous town then reuse the Demon.

I'll be curious to see others thoughts on the manner as, is obvious, I'm very interested in it too.

Jesse

[Matt Kimball]

Hey Jesse,

First, what I did was totally legal by the rules in my edition.  I don't know if that's one of the things that changed between your edition and my edition.  I've been staring at the passage in my book about how Dogs can do the Demonic Influence thing too and thinking, "Man, I want to do that sometime."  So, thanks for the opportunity.

Maybe I missed something, but in my first edition, all I could find is something like "If I'm the GM, and then I roll demonic influence in these following situations."  I can't get an exact quote, because I am at work right now, and don't have my book handy.  I interpert that to mean that only the GM should roll demonic influence.  Maybe this changed between editions.  Vincent?

I agree with your suggestion about making the demons more proactive.  This would have helped.  This is not intuitive for me to do, though, I think in part because my personal inclination supernatural dial is set much lower than yours.

[Vaxalon]

This seems to me to be a significant deviation from the way Dogs is normally run...

Of course, if you look at my Jedi Dogs game, you'll see that I have no qualms about significant deviations...

[Matt Kimball]

Hey Fred,

This seems to me to be a significant deviation from the way Dogs is normally run...

Yeah, I agree.  That is what I meant when I said "it left me feeling like it wasn't in the spirit of the game."  But, it's still fun for me and it is what Jesse seemed to want to do with his character, and saying that it is uncool seems dangerously close to judging the actions of the PCs to me.

And after all, in our ongoing Dogs campaign, my Dog is an alchoholic who thinks he has to experience sin to judge it.  That seems like just a smaller scale version of Brother Luther to me.

[jburneko]

Hello Again,

Well, I agree that what I'm talking about adds a completely different dynamic to the game but I don't think it represents a major deviation from the game.  There are several things in the rulebook that I've noticed people often overlook.  One is the rule about Sorcerous Dogs (I don't have the book with me either but it's not under the Demonic Influence section.  It's under the section about Relationships). 

Another is the fact that Ceremony works on "the souls of the Faithful."  The one thing I would have liked to have done with Luther is have one moment where he used Ceremony in some fashion that was potentially greater than all the demonic stuff he was doing.  When I first asked my wife what she thought "the souls of the Faithful" refered to she immediately suggested a form of mind control.  I thought that was too extreme until I found the example in the book where a Dog uses an element of Ceremony to command a non-possessed, non-sorcerous person to drop a gun.  So, I think if people started playing around with this version of Ceremony more you'd also have an usual dynamic.

Third, there's a lot of discussion in the book about "developing the setting."  This is something I don't think a lot of Dogs players do to full potential effect.  These brief phrases and passages suggest to me a much deeper feeling setting then just the Faith heirarchies and vague town logistics outlined in the book.  When I see passages about "developing the setting," I think about things like the demon mythologies and even potential Faithful legends as well the culture of the Mountain People.  I think of sacred places and cursed places.  I think of family heirlooms and hand-me-downs that have taken on spiritual meaning.

So, I think there's a whole layer of Dogs play that most people ignore.  But they're there in the book if you look for them.

Jesse

[jburneko]

Just for everyone's reference:

p.69 of my edition:

"If your character has a Relationship with a demon, he or she can ask the demon for help at any time.  Add the situation's Demonic Influence to your side, with supernatural special effects.  This makes your character a Sorcerer; what that means to your character's soul is, as always, in your hands."

This is all in reference to the PCs under the section Using Relationships.

Jesse

[lumpley]

Yeah. It's true that this isn't where Dogs play usually goes, but I included the rules on purpose.

What a sorcerer wants automatically supercedes what his or her demons want. When Jesse's character wants his demon to do something, that's exactly what the demon wants too. As GM, you might make it be that Jesse's character's demon is at odds with the other demons in the town - up to and including casting Demonic Influence in on both sides of the conflict, if the town has a sorcerer of its own. Or, especially if the town doesn't have a sorcerer of its own, you might even make ALL the demons want whatever Jesse's character wants.

"What the demons want" doesn't have any more mechanical power than "what Brother Elton wants," anyway. It's just a guide for you as GM when it's time to play your NPCs.

It's also worth noting that Jesse's character can, in addition to throwing Demonic Influence into a conflict, a) perform ceremony to invite demons to possess others, and b) become possessed himself at will. In this latter case, Jesse's character gets manifestations and powers just like a possessed NPC.

-Vincent

[jburneko]

It's also worth noting that Jesse's character can, in addition to throwing Demonic Influence into a conflict, a) perform ceremony to invite demons to possess others, and b) become possessed himself at will. In this latter case, Jesse's character gets manifestations and powers just like a possessed NPC.

Oh my.  I didn't know the rules extended THAT far for PCs.  Wow.

Jesse

[ffilz]

Hmm, I've been contemplating about Star Wars Dogs, and how to handle the Dark Side. And I think this thread answers it all. Dark Side is demons and sorcery. And PCs can make use of it. And the PC's conscience is totally in the player's hand. No need to add any new mechanics to handle the Dark Side.

I continue to be amazed at how Vincent has thought of everything, at least in Dogs revised...

Frank

[Matt Kimball]

For what it's worth, the text Jesse quotes is in the first edition too.  Page forty-two.  It didn't make an impression on me, I guess.

Thanks for the comments everyone.  Considering the information in this thread, I probably wouldn't play the original game any differently than I did, but now I feel better about the way it played out.  If we were lacking for conflict, I might have pushed with some other demons fighting against Jesse's demon, but we already had enough stuff going on in the town anyway.