[DitV] Question about Relationships

[Simon Kamber]

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

Might be off, but not way off. Most of the things that seem wildly out of sync at first glance make sense when you take a second look. You could concievably recreate characters over and over, but it would cost you more storywise than it would gain you stat-wise.

I'm just trying to figure out how that works with relationships, because it seems to me that a trait at 2d6 would earn you far more influence on the game in the long run than a relationship in the same size. I'm asking mainly because I have that "it makes sense, I'm just not seeing it" feeling.

[Joshua A.C. Newman]

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.

Really? How?

Dogs is a pretty strict rule set. In Dogs, power gaming is synonymous to good character development and story creation. Min/Maxing can only be done by making an interesting character.

[Mike Holmes]

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

Might be off, but not way off. Most of the things that seem wildly out of sync at first glance make sense when you take a second look. You could concievably recreate characters over and over, but it would cost you more storywise than it would gain you stat-wise.

I'm just trying to figure out how that works with relationships, because it seems to me that a trait at 2d6 would earn you far more influence on the game in the long run than a relationship in the same size. I'm asking mainly because I have that "it makes sense, I'm just not seeing it" feeling.

I'm with Simon on this one. Not that I've played a ton, but when we did, we didn't see even one relationship die come into play. Not one. Now, in part this is because we didn't assign any in play. But it's also because the conditions in which they can come into play seem somewhat limiting. Basically there seems to be one big one missing:

D) When the Dog would worry about what the character would think.

Even if it's not stakes in the contest, if the player says, "Eustace thinks about his brother Jake, and how he'd be ashamed if he lost this spittin' contest," that should count.

I mean, consider - towns are not built around the NPCs that a player takes relationships to, neccessarily. As such, there's no reason that the characters might even be present. Actually if they aren't present, the GM can bring them in as stakes by threatening the NPC. But that'll grow old fast, too.

Can anyone think of other ways to ensure that NPCs will be available for contests? I mean it's one thing to suggest taking broad groups as relationships and whatnot. But I'm just thinking that people will want to take "My Dad" as a relationship, and that it ought to be able to come into play somehow with some frequency. As it stands I was thinking that it might never happen.  

Mike

[Yokiboy]

Not that I've played a ton, but when we did, we didn't see even one relationship die come into play. Not one. Now, in part this is because we didn't assign any in play. But it's also because the conditions in which they can come into play seem somewhat limiting.

Why did you not assign any during play? And what stopped you from putting some of their selected relationships in the town played, character generation comes before town creation? In order to make a "grabby" town, is there a better way than filling it with NPCs that the characters have relations with? The rules say the following regarding the allocation of relationship dice.

Don't create very many, and leave most of your character's Relationship Dice unassigned! You can assign them to the people your character meets after play begins, so save a bunch of them for that.

Remember the automatic 1d6 for all blood relations as well, it is quite easy to have relatives pop up in just about every town.

I must say though, that I like your suggestion, Mike, of bringing relations into conflicts in the same manner as traits.

TTFN,

Yoki

[joshua neff]

Not that I've played a ton, but when we did, we didn't see even one relationship die come into play. Not one. Now, in part this is because we didn't assign any in play. But it's also because the conditions in which they can come into play seem somewhat limiting.

Why did you not assign any during play? And what stopped you from putting some of their selected relationships in the town played, character generation comes before town creation? In order to make a "grabby" town, is there a better way than filling it with NPCs that the characters have relations with? The rules say the following regarding the allocation of relationship dice.

Because I, the GM, wrote up the town before character creation, so that we'd have a town we could start playing in the same session as characters were created. The town didn't have anyone the Dogs had relationships with for that reason. They could have assigned Relationship dice to any of the NPCs at any time, but I don't know if all of the players remembered that, and I didn't think to remind them.

Don't create very many, and leave most of your character's Relationship Dice unassigned! You can assign them to the people your character meets after play begins, so save a bunch of them for that.

Remember the automatic 1d6 for all blood relations as well, it is quite easy to have relatives pop up in just about every town.

I actually did plan on having at least one blood relation for a Dog--but in the heat of GMing, I forgot to make any of the NPCs a blood relation.

[Yokiboy]

Because I, the GM, wrote up the town before character creation, so that we'd have a town we could start playing in the same session as characters were created. The town didn't have anyone the Dogs had relationships with for that reason. They could have assigned Relationship dice to any of the NPCs at any time, but I don't know if all of the players remembered that, and I didn't think to remind them.

I think the creation process in the game is listed in the order it is for a reason. You wouldn't create kickers and start playing Sorcerer in the same night would you? Anyhow, this is one thing that I have a hard time with narrative style games as well, the prep work before the first session means less playing right away, but obviously leads to a more interesting story and less prep-work as the campaign takes on a life of its own.

One suggestion though, could you not have simply taken a few of the players' relations and swapped out the names of the people in your town? Who would've known the difference except for you?

TTFN,

Yoki

[lumpley]

Yoki: I always bring a prepped town to the first session. No need to wait to see the characters.

Mike: I have two answers. Answer one: try assigning some relationship dice next time and see how it goes. Answer two: bringing relationships' dice in as though they were traits is a bad idea, but I'm very comfortable with implicating distant relations in the stakes of the conflict. "What's at stake is: do I win the spitting contest? I'm gonna let Jake down if I lose to these yokels."

What's important is that it be genuinely at stake. Not "what would Jake say?" but "what will Jake say?"

-Vincent

[TonyLB]

With the implication being that your relations bring you strength because they are constantly judging your actions.  Right?

[lumpley]

...Yeah, I guess that's the implication, isn't it? Cool.

-Vincent

[sirogit]

I think the thing that makes Relationship dice viable is, that people in general, such as the players of the game, care more about what happens to the people than they do about thier character's shtick.

'Course, there are some players that couldn't give a damn about npcs and wouldn't let anything get between them and their shtick, but the system allows for that by distegarding relationship dice altogether.

[joshua neff]

Because I, the GM, wrote up the town before character creation, so that we'd have a town we could start playing in the same session as characters were created. The town didn't have anyone the Dogs had relationships with for that reason. They could have assigned Relationship dice to any of the NPCs at any time, but I don't know if all of the players remembered that, and I didn't think to remind them.

I think the creation process in the game is listed in the order it is for a reason. You wouldn't create kickers and start playing Sorcerer in the same night would you? Anyhow, this is one thing that I have a hard time with narrative style games as well, the prep work before the first session means less playing right away, but obviously leads to a more interesting story and less prep-work as the campaign takes on a life of its own.

I think in general you're correct, although Vincent did just point out that he brings a pre-created town to the first session. In fact, doesn't the text explicity say, "Create characters, then go straight to the first town"?

Practically speaking, if I hadn't done that, we never would have played. We got that one session in, and then school and work schedules have conspired to keep us from playing a second session so far.

One suggestion though, could you not have simply taken a few of the players' relations and swapped out the names of the people in your town? Who would've known the difference except for you?

I absolutely could have done that. But again, in the heat of GMing and my usual nerves about performing well--especially since we had a new player who had mostly only played D&D before and not had a great time, and I wanted to show her that gaming can be fun--I completely forgot to do that.

But since everyone had fun, I don't think it was a major loss.

[Brand_Robins]

I have a player who loves to use relationship dice. Just loves the hell out of them. He took the "Complicated Community" background at chargen, and has decided to play the hell out of the fact that his family is the most FUBARed family in the land.

He'll sit collecting fallout dice into his unassigned pool and grabbing them up left and right in reflection phase. Then when we come into a new town he waits for the first half hour or so as the Dogs go through the "everyone in town tells us what is wrong with everyone else in town" phase. He'll select the person that sounds the most screwed up of all, the one he bets money will be a sorcerer, and then says "Yea, well what would you expect? She's my cousin" and plonks down 1d6 for Blood and usually something like 2d8 or 4d4 from old fallout/reflection dice.

The result is that in every town we've played so far (a whole 6, I'm the most experienced GM in the world!) that character's relationships have ended up in numerous pivitol conflicts, because even when he doesn't get the sorcerer he'll get one of the NPCs most involved in the town's sin, and they tend to be related to most of the other big sinners -- letting him play on the web of judgement, sin, and degredation to work that relationship into contest after contest.

The other players, however, horde their relationship dice like they were gold nuggets and as a result tend to have maybe one or two blood relations per town (because they get them for free and I tend to design towns with blood relations anyway). They haven't yet found a way to make the relationship dice work in a solidly protagonizing/conflict generating way for them as of yet, and don't seem to value them as much -- despite having seen what "Mr. FUBAR Family" does with them regularly.

[Mike Holmes]

Why did you not assign any during play?

As a veteran of lots of HQ play, I love relationships and getting to make characters associated with them. So I blew all my dice on established relationships (or are you required to save some?). Otherwise I would have, likely, spent some dice in play.

Basically I shoulda known that putting lots of dice into a cool brother figure and then heading into a pre-gen town wasn't going to do a lot for me.

That said, in HQ, I'm constantly using relationships for non-present people. Characters are rarely at home, so you have to get creative about it. I understand the idea the neatness of having the stakes mean that it's about people's judgment, but what I think is cool about my method is that the character let's the NPCs judgment affect them even when they're not present.

Consider how cool this is. Morals are transmitted from one individual to another by people having expectations of others. What ends up happening is that the person being transmitted to, doesn't need to have the transmitter present, merely the memory of the transmitter is enough to inform the characters values. If it's always "What will he do when he finds out?" then you never get the very real motive "What would he do if he found out?" Even if the person in question can't possibly find out.

I mean, think about it. People teach you that it's not enough to do good only when you might get caught at it. You have to do good even if there's no chance of detection. People teach this by saying, "What would so and so say?"

What's at stake is your personal sense of pride that, if you had been seen by the individual that you would have come out looking good. That you have stood up to their standards even though they aren't present makes it all the more powerful, not less.

Mike

[lumpley]

Like I say, make it part of the stakes, not part of a raise or see, and it's by the rules.

-Vincent

[Mike Holmes]

Well that seems to contradict what you've said above. You implied that "what would X think" isn't stakes. If I said, "Where would my pride be at if I did something that X would disapprove of?" would that suffice?

I feel that I'm being made to jump through some semantical hoop in order to get to roll that die. :-)

Mike