[DitV] Question about Relationships

[THowell]

Hello all.  I'm new around here, and just recently purchased a copy of DitV.  Good stuff!  

I have a question about relationships - they seem to me to be something that won't come up all that often.  Are they intended to be so limited?  The idea of assigning them later is useful, but it seems that once they're assigned, they're pretty much good for that town only.  i.e. if you have a relationship with someone in a town, you're not really going to be able to use it once you leave that town.  

Could you use relationship dice when OTHER people have a relationship to that person?  i.e. I meet my brother in Town A, and use my dice there, and then I meet someone in town B who also has a relationship with my brother.  Otherwise, when is that relationship going to come up again?  It's not like these people by and large are going to follow the Dogs around from town to town.

TJ Howell

[TonyLB]

I've seen Relationships applied to more general groups, like "The Mountain People."  I don't know whether that's kosher or not by the rules, but it clearly keeps the issue more alive across multiple towns.

[Lance D. Allen]

Remember that Relationships can also be to other things than just people. Relationships with demons, Sins, even locations and the other Dogs are all nice and useful.

[Simon Kamber]

Second the relationships with other things, and with dogs. Those are pretty nice.

But I gotta agree that relationships with townspeople seem pretty useless beyond the scope of that single session.

[joshua neff]

Second the relationships with other things, and with dogs. Those are pretty nice.

But I gotta agree that relationships with townspeople seem pretty useless beyond the scope of that single session.

Except that you can return to a town. It's always an option.

[Bankuei]

It might also help to remember that folks often have family and connections across the different towns... "Hey, if you help me out, I can send you over to your Aunt's farm two towns back.  Besides, there's a young lady you might consider a'courtin' round that ways..."

Chris

[cdr]

Relationship dice are pretty easy to come by, though, since 1d4 is an easy thing to take in long-term fallout, and you can get more unassigned dice in Reflection between towns.  And since you can use  them if the person is your opponent or what's at stake, it's an easy way to get an extra die when you really need one.  If you use lots of d4's, you're more likely to take fallout, which (especially if it's d4 nonphysical fallout) can  lead to yet more d4 relationships and experience.

If you run into demons a lot, you could take 1d4 relationship as fallout, lots of times, and then in the later towns  use experience to bump that 5d4 (or whatever it is by then, 8d4, whatever) to 5d6, then 5d8, then 5d10, and you can use them when your opponent is a demon!  Of course, having a relationship with demons also makes you a sorcerer, which your fellow Dogs may object to, so you may want to invite the demon to possess you so you can use Cunning to add those dice to your social interactions, and then call on the demonic influence for additional d10's, and explain to your fellow dogs why binding demons is a proper tool entrusted to you by the King of Life, to scourge the unworthy.

Or if that's not the path you want to go down, all paved with good intentions that it may be, note that you can take 1d4 relationships with your fellow Dogs, who'll always be there, and get those dice when they're what's at stake (very handy for a healer!), or your opponent (as you try to argue sense into their fool heads), or if they come to your aid in a conflict (pretty common!)  Then when things are building to their climax use experience to bump the boatload of d4's to d6, d8, d10, and you're ready for a showdown.  Note how it so nicely models a relationship getting more and more intense, and then blowing up?  You could do both romantic comedies and stalker movies with it.  Beautiful system.

Not that you have to pump things up like that, for them to still be useful.  Even if you have a scattering of single dice for people you may not run into again any time soon, and you're not rolling the dice, looking on Brother Jabez's character sheet to see "Crippled Sister Philomena 1d6" and "Scarred Brother Daniel 1d4" gives insight to his approach to problems.

[Simon Kamber]

It might also help to remember that folks often have family and connections across the different towns... "Hey, if you help me out, I can send you over to your Aunt's farm two towns back.  Besides, there's a young lady you might consider a'courtin' round that ways..."

Chris

That still doesn't give you relationship dice though.

[Bankuei]

Hi Simon,

Conflict: Get the young fellow to help me
Raise:  I can get his Aunt, whom I'm on good terms with ("Well liked by Aunt Patience 2D6") to give him a place away from his troubles.

Seems like a reasonable dice bonus to me.

Then- Fallout either comes in extra dice with the guy liking my Dog, or disliking my Dog.  

Aunt Patience relationship dice gave a small bonus for this conflict, which then produces new relationship dice.

Chris

[Simon Kamber]

Hi Simon,

Conflict: Get the young fellow to help me
Raise:  I can get his Aunt, whom I'm on good terms with ("Well liked by Aunt Patience 2D6") to give him a place away from his troubles.

Seems like a reasonable dice bonus to me.

That's not a relationship, that's a trait. Relationships come into play when:

a) The person is your character's opponent
b) The person is what's at stake
c) The person comes to your character's active aid in a conflict.

(page 39, emphasis mine)

Neither of which is the case here. Using relationships as traits is a common houserule, but it's not the rule of the game.

[lumpley]

I have a question about relationships - they seem to me to be something that won't come up all that often. Are they intended to be so limited? The idea of assigning them later is useful, but it seems that once they're assigned, they're pretty much good for that town only. i.e. if you have a relationship with someone in a town, you're not really going to be able to use it once you leave that town.

Hi, welcome to the Forge and to my forum!

Yes, they're intended to be so limited. That's what makes assigning relationship dice a trade off, instead of a no-brainer.

-Vincent

[Simon Kamber]

Hmm, if that's so, wouldn't a player creating a new character after retiring the old one want to take advantage of the ability to move dice from relationships to traits, since traits are used so much more often?

[lumpley]

Try it and see!

-Vincent

[Bankuei]

Hi Simon,

Oops, guess you're right.

Chris

[Ul]

Hmm, if that's so, wouldn't a player creating a new character after retiring the old one want to take advantage of the ability to move dice from relationships to traits, since traits are used so much more often?

Just me that considers the talk about dogs and game balance completely off?

If a powergamer wants to abuse the system, so he can. Easily. Play it however you like it, although I do prefer the way lumpley describes it, makes more sense to me.


Personally I hit the "looks like a nice game, game balance be damned" about the point where I realised that by retiring your character, you get a stat/trait-wise stronger character. And that retiring can be done whenever you like.