[Dogs] Has it happened yet?

[Jason Newquist]

A smattering of thoughts.

- People who are not good with words will hate the game because they won't be able to think of ways to See and Raise.

Do you think DitV is for virtuoso players?  It seems to me a lot more open and newbie friendly, though I can't quite put my finger on why.

Anyway, this reminds me of something Vincent said in Adventures in Improvised System...

"Nah. What I'm really not happy with is the Certamen. Cause of A) the pressure to come up with cool magicky attacks under pressure."

The pressure of being put on the spot -- that is, of struggling to keep up with the pace while being as creative as possible -- seems present in DitV, yeah.  But it doesn't seem to be on the same order as what Certamen seems to demand of you in ArM.  OTOH, it happens a lot more often because this is the primary mechanic.

DitV asks you to come up something as small as a one liner, and you are given cues from your in-play Talents, Belongings, and Relationships.  Also, you know what the stakes are, and you know what your guy wants out of the conflict.  Just pick one to emphasise, maybe?  As opposed to: Certamen, where you have a couple magical Arts, and are encouraged to come up with budget-busting special effects which are a direct and appropriate response to the attack just presented.

At the very worst, your group could agree that "Oh yeah?  Nuh-uh!" is a valid response in the heat of the moment.  Anything to remove un-fun pressure from being on the spot seems like a good remedy to me.

I'm sure there must be threads on the Forge which address performance pressure and anxiety, and ways to mitigate them in the various Creative Agendas, but I don't have them at hand.

[WiredNavi]

This is where I started bashing my head against the table.  Frankly, I think my mistake was talking about it, instead of just running it.  My solution will be to say 'pizza at my place, bring your dice, I'm running a game, don't think about it, just enjoy it for an evening and you can bitch about it later.'

BL>  Yeah, it's a problem.  My advice is to just invite the people who aren't going to be bitchy about it, let them have a great time and make everyone else envious.  That worked for me with Riddle of Steel ;-)

yrs--
--Ben

[Ben Lehman]

That was actually me, at Dave's house.

yrs--
--Ben

[Jason Newquist]

It also occurs to me that playing live online (which I've done lots and lots of) really helps mitigate the On the Spot feeling quite a bit.

(1) You're behind a screen and keyboard.  One is aware that there are others listening, and that the game is being logged verbatim, but that's quite different than having a table of faces watching to see what you do next, RIGHT NOW.

(2) You have more time to reply.  For online live games, you have tens of seconds to think of a response, which feels like eternities more time than FTF, where time is measured in heartbeats.

-Jason

[Brand_Robins]

- But if I come up with a better argument while Just Talking, why shouldn't I win regardless of what the dice say?  Anything else is wrong and unfun.

The snarky part of me wants to ask this player if he's ever seen an online argument.  Better and winning become meaningless real fast... but you just know if you could punch the other guy in the face everything would be solved. ;)

Of course, I also love the double-standard of "if I'm really clever I should win" and "this game is bad because it expects you to be clever."

Frankly, I think my mistake was talking about it, instead of just running it.  My solution will be to say 'pizza at my place, bring your dice, I'm running a game, don't think about it, just enjoy it for an evening and you can bitch about it later.'

I think that's the best way to deal with it.

[timfire]

The snarky part of me wants to ask this player if he's ever seen an online argument.  Better and winning become meaningless real fast... but you just know if you could punch the other guy in the face everything would be solved. ;)

So True. ;)

But as a data point, in the demo I played with Vincent and nikola, Nikola was playing a chauvanistic Dog, and I wanted him to feel shame for some comments he made. So me and another Dog confronted him about it. Well, as you would expect, the conflict was escalated more than once, and nikola pulled a gun on us. It furiated me that another Dog would do such a thing, so I of course pulled mine as well (and with full intent of using them I might add). The only thing that stopped us was that the third Dog Raised with his highest dice, forcing both of us to back down (or me at least, I forget if nikola  gave in at that point or later).

[Lance D. Allen]

A smattering of thoughts.

- People who are not good with words will hate the game because they won't be able to think of ways to See and Raise.

Do you think DitV is for virtuoso players?  It seems to me a lot more open and newbie friendly, though I can't quite put my finger on why.

While there is a certain amount of pressure, my group is living proof that you don't have to be a "virtuoso" to do kickass things with Dogs. As I've mentioned, we've got a player who's a bit of a wallflower. He's typically very uncertain about what to do, and often chooses not to act, or to act totally on a whim without considering the character. Dogs.. Doesn't allow that. In the beginning, we had to kibitz a lot, but after all of our kibitzing, he managed to find the dramatically coolest thing to say on his own, and he's coming out more and more as we continue playing.

Basically, it's a bit of a hump, but once you're over it, it's smooth sailing.

Also, Claire mentioned that a "virtuoso" won't like Dogs because they want to win on the merits of their own persuasion.. Thing is, that is absolutely not a problem in play. At any time that there's a talking conflict between the players, you can win out over the other if your argument is enough to convince them. The other Dog can give at any time if they're convinced your way is better.

Trust me on this. I've done it a few times already.. and then, once I'd won the point, I convinced the other player to keep playing the dice to argue their point until the very last, even if they ended up giving up short of running out of dice because their dice were stronger than mine. It lends a fun bit of tension to the game.

[beingfrank]

A smattering of thoughts.

- People who are not good with words will hate the game because they won't be able to think of ways to See and Raise.

Do you think DitV is for virtuoso players?  It seems to me a lot more open and newbie friendly, though I can't quite put my finger on why.

I don't personally, but my gaming experience has all been with highly articulate people.  The people I play with used to play with people they reckon would be deeply unhappy with being asked to match up their actions with mechanical considerations.  They felt that these people would have trouble thinking up something that could be a Turn the Blow, or a Block or whatever.  That they could describe what they wanted to do, but getting that to fit specific circumstances defined by mechanics would be too intimidating, and would disadvantage them compared to more creative players.  And being thus disadvantaged, they'd not enjoy the game.

At least, that's my understanding of their argument.  I'm not convinced myself, but I do not know they people they were thinking of, and I have only played with a small number of people.

[Vaxalon]

Mechanically speaking, Dogs is definitely not for everyone.  The "just talking" conflict mechanic is a big leap from how it's done in most games.

[Kaare Berg]

I'd say that the DitV mechanic works for controlling conversations even for erudite players.

I've had some of the stumbling and complaining from my players as I've tried to implement Luke Crane's Duel of Wits in our ongoing Burning Wheel campaign. The same players have not lifted an eyebrow when we are playing Ditv and they have to follow the dice in the discussion.

So I have to disagree with the notion that you have to be virtuoso to play
DitV.

Hell, even our local munchkin gamer (who allways tries to cover his back) shone when he ralised that mecanically there was little way to protec oneself from the story, and when he realised that the story was generated by the players, and not by me following a script, well the look in his eyes was religous.