[DitV] Disconnection between mechanics and in character experience

[Wade L]

So, since the last time I was here I ran Dogs in the Vineyard again.  Much more successful this time.  Probably helped by the fact that I only had three players instead of four, and I didn't sell it as "trying out" a new game this time(I think previously some folks had thought it was their job to tell me why Dogs sucks and I should ignore it because I pitched the game as being oh so very different). 

The Players:
C, who had played Dogs in the Vineyard once before with me and enjoyed it.  She's just finishing a degree in Art History and Religious Studies, and finds the themes of Dogs intriguing.  She's in her mid-twenties and has been gaming since she started University, I think.
J, never played Dogs before but maybe the most experienced gamer in the group(probably tied with me).  Late 20's, used to work in a comic book story, played every type of game under the sun.  Perhaps the most entrenched "traditional" game - he seems open-minded about indie games, but retains healthy skepticism(unlike me, who I'm sure sounds like a Forge fanboy sometimes...).
R is the only one who has played any indie games that weren't with me - she played My Life With Master with some friends in High School and really enjoyed it.  Probably tied with me for having the most experience with indie games, but probably also has the least experience gaming as a whole.  She's also in her late teens, making her the "baby" of the group.  Heh.
As usual, all of these people are folks I've met through Vampire LARP over the years.

Anyway, the whole "Let's try Dogs" thing wasn't exactly impromptu, but on short enough notice that I once again did a town out of the book - Boxelder Canyon, I believe.  We were playing pretty late at night(no one had to work in the morning), getting characters made sometime before midnight(it took us about two hours, but that was with a fairly lengthy disruption from an outside source).  Accomplishments went well, people seemed really hyped about it.  J seemed a little bit wary in that "Are you sure this is balanced?" kind of way...I told him it didn't need to be and not to worry about it, and he sort of did that "Okay...I'll trust you...but I'm pretty sure you'll regret how much power us PCs have..."

The bulk of the game went pretty well.  There was a moment where people stalled out because the problems in the town weren't apparent enough - I think I and they both fell into thinking of it as a traditional CoC style "ferret out the mystery" type of deal, largely my fault because I hadn't gotten myself into proper mindset.  Also, our brains were dying because it was like 4am.  But we got things back together, swung through it.

The thing that made me go "Hrm?" is a mechanical thing that happened that was exactly the opposite of what I saw happen the previous two times I've run Dogs.  Previously, I had seen players seem very frightened of Fallout and it took them a while to get brave enough to accept any.  Not so much here - people, especially J, figured out pretty quickly that although low rolls(and thus low traits) weren't very good for raising, you were best off Taking the Blow with those dice and saving the big dice for later.  If you had to See a 9, and you had sitting in front of you "6, 6, 4, 3, 2, 2, 1, 1" if your goal is to win the Conflict, your best strategic move is to See with 5 dice("3,2,2,1,1"), and save your bigger numbers for raising.  This very quickly become the strategy everyone used(myself included), and it wasn't uncommon to see people take the blow with 8 or 9 dice if things were "just talking".  The reasoning, mechanically correct I suppose, was that no matter how many dice of Fallout you took if things were "just talking" the worst possible result was the same, and you'd be more likely to get Experience Fallout, too!  Plus, when your winning strategy is "Take the Blow using all those d4s and then Raise with your big traits", people really don't mind putting a whole lot of Fallout traits on their sheet.

"But what about when things were not just talking?", a hypothetical reader might ask.  Strategy there was to essentially escalate upwards for one Raise to get extra dice(and if the foe was escalating, then they usually used fewer dice to See), and then quickly revert to just talking in any way possible to get the Fallout die type back down.

This felt unsatisfying to me at least...  I hope it isn't just me being a sore loser because the Dogs never once gave on a conflict!  It just felt that the drama that was happening in character wasn't "keeping up" with the mechanics - lots of dice were getting slung around, lots of Fallout getting taken, but although bad stuff happened when I kept ramping things up it felt a little forced.  In short - it didn't feel like there was enough real tension...often instead it was just word wrangling to bring traits in or other cleverness instead(in the important conflicts, by the end each Dog had pretty much brought in every trait they had even if just by a thread).

Is this a problem?  Despite an overall positive experience, it felt like what was positive about the experience in the fiction and what was positive about the mechanics were completely unconnected.  It feels like a problem.

If it is, the two things I've thought of doing differently are:
a) Have NPCs that are more willing to escalate on their own - if the NPCs are slinging lead, taking a whole bunch of Fallout seems less attractive.
b) Emphasize more that Raises have to be "something the other guy can't ignore" - often our "just talking" raises were pretty weak, being exchanges back and forth of "I think you should", "I think I shouldn't", with some flavour text added on to justify bringing in Traits "I think you should because my daddy always taught me..." "Well, I think you shouldn't because as the good book says", etc.  As such, the whole "Taking the blow means their action you can't ignore happens" bit has no impact and tended to get narrated as "See with 8 dice.  Oooh, your words stung.  I compose myself for a moment and say my daddy always taught me you should..."  The "something the other guy can't ignore" bit actually seems really hard sometimes...

Anyway, thoughts, ideas, suggestions?  Maybe I'm seeing a problem where there isn't one, too, and if you think I'm wringing my hands over nothing, please point it out.

[Andrew Cooper]

Wade,

I think your two points at the end are extremely important.

1.) Escalate! Escalate! Escalate!  If the Dogs handily win the first Conflict with just talking, introduce the next Conflict with bigger Stakes.  Then do it again.... and again... and again.  And remember that NOT using that gun that you drew can be just as much a thematic statement as actually firing it.

2.) Weak raises will kill the tension but I think that is something you learn through playing a bit.  You noticed it and put it to words after a session or two.  I think the solution to that is not to explicitly say something to the other players but to correct your own raises in an obvious manner.  If as the GM you really dig at the players with your raises they'll likely feel compelled to follow suite.

Just a question.... Did you ever Give voluntarily on a Conflict?  If the players are used to systems where you fight everything out to the end, they sometimes need to be retrained in systems like DitV.  The most effective way to train that behavior is Give yourself as the GM.  A really effective way is to give and launch an immediate follow-up Conflict with even higher Stakes.  Push things to see how much they are really willing to risk.

[Blankshield]

Another suggestion for dealing directly with "shoot once to get my shooting dice, then keep talking" is to take the blow for the gunshot.

James

[Web_Weaver]

Hey Wade,

On the whole I just think your group are just going through a learning curve with this game.

I am interested to know what was at stake in one of these conflicts where the players brought in so many dice, and were never inclined to give. I have noticed similar problems when the stakes are set too high in my games. The book recommends a balanced approach to setting stakes, trying to set the level such that the players weigh up their options of escalation or giving.

Also, it sometimes takes a demonstration of the benefits of giving when its your turn to raise (keeping your best dice for any follow on conflicts).

As a GM, it is not necessarily your job to push the conflict to a logical conclusion, but to make sure that the players have difficult choices. In many conflicts my aim as GM in Dogs is to stay in the conflict until I have managed to make a point about the NPC involved, or presented an appropriate dilemma.

When the rules say Escalate, Escalate, Escalate they are not advocating higher stakes for the conflict as a whole, they are advising you to test how far they are prepared to go to win the stakes, or to give and start follow-on conflicts to ask more difficult questions.

Also, if the players move to a more dangerous arena during escalation make a big thing of it, have the NPC react strongly, have accusations of heavy handedness fly, if weapons or guns come out have innocent parties get hurt as part of your raise, then take fallout and pile it into skills that twist the NPCs views and colour their opinions on the Dogs. In other words never let the players feel comfortable escalating, as you can use it against them regardless of who wins the stakes at hand. Of course for the astute "use it against them" actually means take the good stuff and make it better, make it mean more.

If a player starts referring to his gun for instance, what I want to know is does he want the dice, because if so he is accepting the possibility that I will narrate that gun into my raises, or take the blow from a stray bullet. i.e. an NPC makes a sudden grab for the gun, and it goes off by mistake.

[Valamir]

Here's something crucial you may have missed.

Taking the blow means more than just taking fall out.  Taking the blow means whatever your raise was...happens.  The only way to stop your raise from happening is to either block (i.e. not use the above default strategy) or...if the can't block...give.

Every now and then you'll want to throw in a raise that the players will really have to think about whether they can afford to let that raise happen.

IMO its far more important to the smooth mechanics of the game that your RAISES be hard core and compelling (and hopefully even discomforting) than it is for the stakes to be.  The raises are where the characters have to make a stand "I absolutely cannot live with that happening", or "Ok, fine, if that's what happens, we'll deal with it later".


For instance...here's one of my favorites:

The Dogs are committed to saving one of the townsfolk who've been duped into Sorcery, a young mother.  They're "Just Talking" but all the Dog's together will be easily too much for even a formiddable NPC.

The Stakes are "The Sister's Soul" and the raises and sees are the usual gamut of invented scripture verses.

Then the GM raises for the Sister:  "So, you think I'm worth saving, bringing back to the Faith...do you still believe that?"  As she says this, she knifes her infant.  That's the Raise...the Sister kills the Baby.

The GM pushes forward the Big Dice...none of the Dogs can block.  If they take the blow the baby dies.  They can go on to "redeem the sister"...they've got enough dice...but the only way to stop the baby dying is to Give.  Either way they choose...whoa.


So my advice, is push harder on the Raises...taking the blow won't seem like such a safe option.

[Andrew Cooper]

Fred speaks wisdom and does so with greater eloquence than I.  Listen to him.

[Christoph Boeckle]

Hello!

"But what about when things were not just talking?", a hypothetical reader might ask.  Strategy there was to essentially escalate upwards for one Raise to get extra dice(and if the foe was escalating, then they usually used fewer dice to See), and then quickly revert to just talking in any way possible to get the Fallout die type back down.

Just a quick check: did you base Fallout dice on the aggressor's conflict type or the defender's?
Because it seems the guys were escalating for the dice and going back down, but if I've understood the rules correctly, it's D10 fallout if the opponent continues shooting, even if the PC is talking.

I reckon people will really think twice about maximizing fallout as soon as you are in physical conflict and lots of this "unconnectedness" will fade away, precisely because this way things are connected.

[Ron Edwards]

Clarification for all readers:

The person who posts as Valamir is Ralph, who is also Ramshead Publishing (Universalis). The person who posts as Vaxalon is Fred. Very, very different people.

Best, Ron

[Andrew Cooper]

Gah!  My bad.  I knew he was Ralph.  Somehow my fingers betrayed me and typed Fred.  Ralph, please forgive me.

[Wade L]

First of all, thank you for your thoughts thus far.  There were helpful when going into a much-demanded second session...  Instead of replying to questions directly, I'm going to just try and reply by way of citing actual play from the second session that is my "in play" answer to the questions.  If you still have questions I don't answer, feel free to ask them again, of course.

This time we did the Whitechurch Branch from the book.  I'll try and design my own town next time, but play keeps on just sort of creeping up on me(the players are enthusiastic.  This is a good thing).  I have a feeling some of my problem might stem from not creating the towns myself, and thus not having a real sense of where I want to drive things.

I tried to work on the whole "Weak Raises" thing - it is hard to do when just talking and the situation doesn't merit escalation.  There were a couple this session that made the players think...  The most memorable one was when the Dogs decided instead of shooting the (non-Faithful) shopkeeper who was driving prices up, for instance, they would instead try and get the community to start a cooperative rival shop, bring in supplies from outside, etc.  Many of the starting raises were pretty weak "He already has a store", "Well, I'm good at logistics"(we'll get to  that in a second)... But then they raised with "Well, we get all the townspeople together and boycott the store, refusing to buy replacement equipment from him"...I blocked and raised with "Well, your equipment will take awhile to get in.  Unless they buy from him, the entire harvest won't get in, and people might go lean or starve during the winter" - with the implication that if they Took the Blow on it, it would indeed mean that the entire harvest wouldn't get in and people might face starvation because of the boycott.  It ratcheted up tension...but was it a valid raise, I wonder?

Incidentally, I have identified a pattern in the "Weak raises" that occurred especially in Just Talking...they aren't actions, and thus probably not valid raises.  For instance, in a "Do we convince the shopkeep to lower his prices?" Conflict, stuff happened a lot like "Raise: I say 'Well, I'm not sure if I trust you...' and thus bring in my 'I don't trust people' 2d8 trait" or "Raise: I say 'I try to lead a simple life, and as such I don't understand why you need so much money...' and thus bring in my 'Lead a Simple Life' 1d10 trait" or whatever.  These seem less like raises and more like simple accounting or declaration "I have this facet of my character.  It could help here." - although they are usually accompanied by dialogue, it feels less like continuing action and more like back and forth negotiation between GM and player: "Well, he's pretty stubborn..." "But I'm charming!"  "Yeah, well, but he's written you off as a religious fanatic" "I am a religious fanatic - that should be intimidating."  Does it make sense the kind of pattern I am describing here?

That all being said, I think we're gradually working out way out of that, but it is a gradual thing and if I can help the process that's cool.  The players are generally doing a better job of escalating than I do, actually - I am inherently a pretty reasonable person, and find it pretty hard to understand why anyone would ever pull a gun except for when under direct threat(You know that guy in Shadowrun who always gets frustrated when he can't do anything, and pulls his gun and says 'You'll do it or I'll shoot you?'  I'm the other player at the table shaking his head in frustration - why would anyone ever do that?).  They won against the shopkeep, for instance, and then as he was leaving town they decided to kidnap his children instead of letting him take them Back East...in the conflict "Do the Dogs get away with the shopkeep's children?", they Escalated to Shooting first, actually...  One of the few tough choices, when the Shopkeep escalated as well, and took a shot at one of the Dogs, and one of the Dogs faced having to meet a 15 when his highest die was a five - he took almost ten minutes to finally make up his mind, but finally decided to take 5d10 of shooting Fallout to continue on in the Conflict(which he eventually won - badly injured, but won).

As far as giving conflicts...one of the players has started to do it when things got too intense.  I've tried to do it when it seemed cool, if only to go "Hey, look, I get to keep this die if there is a follow-up conflict!"  I give on most conflicts when it gets to the point that the NPC can't win, and most conflicts where I'm less interested in the outcome than how much the Dogs care about the outcome.

Realization that Taking the Blow means the Raise happened changed things a little...  It is very hard to make every Raise be something they don't want to happen though(is it expected that I do this?  In a game with an experienced GM, what proportion of Raises really have an impact?).  So the ones like "He shoots and kills your horse!" or "He calls you out as a false Dog to the crowd!" get blocked, but in general it is an all or nothing - if you can't Block or Dodge, instead you Take the Blow with 6 or 7 dice(since Fallout really doesn't have an impact, if you're going to have to Take the Blow at all, might as well get rid of as many low dice as possible).  This is better than always Taking the Blow, though.

Part of it might also have to do with the hours we've played...usually starting very late, and going til like 3am.  When I asked one of the players why they wanted the "Kidnap his kids" conflict at the end, the answer was "Well, I was tired and not really in character, I just wanted to be able to roll more dice!"  Heh, I have found thus far with Dogs not to underestimate the allure of the mechanics themselves, which are an alluring minigame even separated from the rest of the roleplay.

[Web_Weaver]

Hi again Wade,
Sensible approach to the thread, keeps it moving forward and focused. Two closely related issues seem outstanding.

Firstly I am not sure you are using the word escalation in the same way as the game rules. To escalate in Dogs (in terms of resolution mechanics) means to change the current arena, not to move from a less violent arena to a more violent one. So for instance it is possible to start a conflict in a Gun-fighting Arena, and then 'escalate' to talking. This was initially an issue I had to wrestle with in my head, and some of my players are still wrestling with it, it's an easy thing to miss.

This could potentially be having an effect in how you see the conflict as it progresses, as you seem to imply that "shifting back down to talking" is a de-escalation of the conflict, when it is really just a further escalation.

For example, imagine a scene where two gunfighters shooting at each other from cover down a dusty street. You could start this scene with the Gun-fighting  arena, and start the first action with guns actually firing. It is then perfectly valid, after a few shots to have either yourself or a player decide to escalate the drama by directly confronting the issue that has brought this situation about. i.e. one gun-man takes the risk of breaking cover with his gun-arm outstretched, shouting out "let us try and work this out, we are both reasonable men".

That is a raise that can't be ignored, is a shift in arena to talking, requires a talking block (other party rolls talking dice straight away), and should certainly be framed as an escalation. If you can shift your perspective on this and that of your players, things may fall into place.

Secondly, and related I think, this comment seems crucial:

...although they are usually accompanied by dialogue, it feels less like continuing action and more like back and forth negotiation between GM and player: "Well, he's pretty stubborn..." "But I'm charming!"  "Yeah, well, but he's written you off as a religious fanatic" "I am a religious fanatic - that should be intimidating."  Does it make sense the kind of pattern I am describing here?

Yes, the pattern is clear, and suggests a detachment from the narration, resulting in a lost opportunity to bring out the drama of the conflict.

These are probably not genuine raises, if you take the books advice, a raise is not possible to ignore. Another way to view it may be, unless the raise provokes the other party and necessitates a block it should be rejected from play. This may be difficult to impose immediately, so my best advice would be to raise in this way yourself, and when offered a weak raise by a player gently ask for more.

Example:

GM Raising: "OK, out of the blue Jack slaps you across the face and shouts 'how dare you judge me that way!'"
Player Blocking: " I block his slap with my hand" (requires a fighting block and relevant stat roll).
Player Raises: "I use my character's calm so as not to get flustered"
GM "Good, you can do that, but can you narrate that as a raise, how do you use it actively against Jack such that he can't ignore you"

If the tables are reversed, you should demonstrate this by using raising narration like "I get under your PC's skin by calmly smiling at his lack of control and tutting under my breath as a sign of disapproval".

Sure he can block and say "you don't get under his skin" but you have provoked that response.

Used in conjunction with my first point, an escalation from gun-fighting to talking should equally provoke the other party.

[lumpley]

Hey Wade.

Yes! Every single raise you make should be something that at least one of the Dogs doesn't want to happen. That's what "can't ignore" means.

And absolutely do make up your own town. Be sure to go all the way up to hate and murder. That'll probably be hard for you, but just keep saying to yourself, "how would an unreasonable person respond to this?"

-Vincent

[Valamir]

I blocked and raised with "Well, your equipment will take awhile to get in.  Unless they buy from him, the entire harvest won't get in, and people might go lean or starve during the winter" - with the implication that if they Took the Blow on it, it would indeed mean that the entire harvest wouldn't get in and people might face starvation because of the boycott.  It ratcheted up tension...but was it a valid raise, I wonder?

That's an AWESOME raise!  Its raises like this that keep the Dog's dice dominance from just ramrodding over everything.  You don't need more than a couple at this level in a given session.  Not every raise needs to change the direction of the whole game.

Incidentally, I have identified a pattern in the "Weak raises" that occurred especially in Just Talking...they aren't actions, and thus probably not valid raises.  For instance, in a "Do we convince the shopkeep to lower his prices?" Conflict, stuff happened a lot like "Raise: I say 'Well, I'm not sure if I trust you...' and thus bring in my 'I don't trust people' 2d8 trait" or "Raise: I say 'I try to lead a simple life, and as such I don't understand why you need so much money...' and thus bring in my 'Lead a Simple Life' 1d10 trait" or whatever.

Yeah, it can be pretty hard to "do" stuff when just talking.  I think you can make talking raises more compelling when you make them as factual assertions that essentially the players make "come true" if they take the blow.

For instance instead of "I'm not sure if I trust you", say "I don't trust you".  If they player's block than the absolute of "I don't trust you" was averted.  If they "Take the Blow" they may get the stakes their way, but at the cost of this guy never trusting them again and all of the repurcussions that might have down the road.

Other fun "just talking" raises include things like:
"Keep talking, all these people can see you're no Dogs, you're just bullies with guns, and fancy coats".
"If I don't let you have your way, you'll just pull out your guns and shoot me dead, and everyone knows it"
"I'll take this up with the Territorial Authority and they'll run you out of town on a rail"

The way I see it the difference between a good raise and a weak one is consequences.  If you can't see a consequence from a player taking the blow and the raise becoming "true" then its' probably weak.

In the first two examples above consequences include swaying the opinion of the townsfolks that the Dogs are bullies who'd shoot people to get what they want.  If the players Take the Blow on the third one than everyone knows trouble is coming with the TA and that the TA will be inclined to take the NPCs side.  If the players block the third one than they have at least prevented the TA from getting involved biased against them.

The players are generally doing a better job of escalating than I do, actually - I am inherently a pretty reasonable person, and find it pretty hard to understand why anyone would ever pull a gun except for when under direct threat(You know that guy in Shadowrun who always gets frustrated when he can't do anything, and pulls his gun and says 'You'll do it or I'll shoot you?'  I'm the other player at the table shaking his head in frustration - why would anyone ever do that?). 

In some ways, escalating is a bit of a crutch.  What's compelling are the hard core raises that can't be ignored and change the tenor of the whole story.  Its easier to come up with a non ignorable raise when you pull a gun and point it in someone's face.  So when you read advice like "Escalate, Escalate" IMO what the advice is really giving is to find those compelling raises...its just easier to find a compelling raise with a gun...

That in itself is pretty profound social commentary on us as players, when you think about it.  We can come up with compelling un-ignorable raises when we describe our characters gunning people down (or threatening to), but we find it harder to do so just talking.  Probably due to our lack of training in rhetoric and a heavy diet of action movies.

They won against the shopkeep, for instance, and then as he was leaving town they decided to kidnap his children instead of letting him take them Back East...in the conflict "Do the Dogs get away with the shopkeep's children?", they Escalated to Shooting first, actually...  One of the few tough choices, when the Shopkeep escalated as well, and took a shot at one of the Dogs, and one of the Dogs faced having to meet a 15 when his highest die was a five - he took almost ten minutes to finally make up his mind, but finally decided to take 5d10 of shooting Fallout to continue on in the Conflict(which he eventually won - badly injured, but won).

Whoa.  That's the kind of scene that later on when you're reminiscing about the game it can really hit you.  I mean your players just had a shoot out with a father in order to take his kids away from him.  The game didn't tell them to do that...they just fell into that on their own.  And one of them thought it was worth risking death to kidnap these children.  Even if the player later blames "being tired and just wanting to roll the dice, there's some profound stuff buried in there.