[DitV] Question about Escalation

[Darren Hill]

From another thread, I understand this is okay.

Dog is talking down Evil Gunslinger (EG). EG escalates to gunfighting. Dog doesn't, still trying to talk, so EG gets extra dice and Dog runs the increased risk of losing.

What about this case?

Dog is talking down Evil Gunslinger (EG). EG escalates to gunfighting. Dog keeps talking, but it isn't working, so he escalates to Fighting, and hits him with his axe.
Can Dog do this?
Does EG also then get extra dice (which would be Body) since he switches to melee too?

Or this case:
Dog is talking down EG. EG escalates to gunfighting and accepts. But then both decide to de-escalate to Melee.
Is this okay?

My gut feeling:
Once someone escalates to one level, you must either escalate to that level or not - if not, you can't ecalate any more.
If someone escalates to gunfighting, you must escalate to gunfighting or stay at your current level - you can't escalate to anywhere between the current and the escalated level.

I ran my first session last night and had a more complex version of the above.

Player 1 & Player 2 were facing down a gunfighter, and it escalated from talking to gunslinging.
Meanwhile, as part of the same conflict, another player was trying to talk down someone who wanted to "help" the players kill the gunslinger, and that quickly escalated to Fighting, and _then_ escalated to gunfighting.
Those characters had started involved with the first trio, separated and fought each other, then both turned on the gunslinger, rejoining the others.
But because of the way the escalation had occurred, they had gained Body dice when the other group hadn't.

Did I do something wrong?
Byt he way, the conflict stakes were: "does the gunslinger ride of with his baby son, against the wishes of his grandparents." The other NPC involved didn't want that to happen and was technically on the PCs side, for a while anyway.

[Lance D. Allen]

Escalation is all about the extra dice from traits; that's pretty much the entirety of it. So you can escalate from guns to talking or to physical, or whatever.

Narration determines the fallout level... escalation determines which stats are in play, and to some extent limits which traits might apply.

[Darren Hill]

Narration determines the fallout level... escalation determines which stats are in play, and to some extent limits which traits might apply.

I realise that. In the examples I gave, though, some people might get more stat dice than others - are the examples wrong?

[Lance D. Allen]

Hm. Re-reading your post, I think I glossed over the last example the first time. Your first few examples are legitimate.

That last one is kinda tricky. I think maybe you might have complicated it by having two separate conflicts rolled into one. The main conflict seems to have the Dogs working to stop the gunfighter from leaving with his son. The second conflict, if I read right, begins from the first, and ends before the first, to rejoin the first. All the same, this sub-conflict has it's own stakes: "Does the NPC help kill the gunslinger?" in which all raises and sees do not directly effect the main conflict until the sub-conflict is resolved.

A pretty mess. I don't know that allowing the sub-conflict was wrong by the rules, but for simplicity's sake, I just would allow that sort of thing to happen; My rule of thumb for determining valid raises is that the raise can potentially win the conflict if the opponent sees instead of gives. In the case of the sub-conflict, The Dog raises with "I'm not gonna let you shoot that gunslinger!" and if the GM gives, that doesn't win the stakes of "does the gunslinger ride off with his son?".

All in all, I wouldn't worry about how many dice anyone has; As you can only roll a given stat once, all you had to do to even the playing field was have one of the first group throw a punch or swing a stick at someone, and they get to roll body too. So in that aspect, I'd say no, you didn't do anything wrong.

[Darren Hill]

That last one is kinda tricky. I think maybe you might have complicated it by having two separate conflicts rolled into one.

As I wrote up the question, I was beginning to think that too. It arose naturally within one conflict, and it would have been difficult to stop that conflict, resolve this one, and then resume the other conflict. If I'd have been more on-the-ball I might have been able to set it up so that conflict was settled before the other one. The main conflict there (gunslinger-baby) had already followed another conflict (does Lakey get hung by the mob) where the gunslinger basically sat out, and that had felt unnatural.

My rule of thumb for determining valid raises is that the raise can potentially win the conflict if the opponent sees instead of gives. In the case of the sub-conflict, The Dog raises with "I'm not gonna let you shoot that gunslinger!" and if the GM gives, that doesn't win the stakes of "does the gunslinger ride off with his son?".

I wasn't thinking of it in terms of whether the GM gives. Samuel and Cutter were both in the conflict, and Samuel could Give, and if he did, Cutter would still be doing his thing.
Yes, I see that is wrong and makes it more clear that it should have been a separate conflict.
Then again, let's say the 3 players are fighting the gunslinger - each of the players can Give independently and drop out, and that doesn't end the conflict. Does it?
So that's not so different from three NPCs each facing the PCs - each of them could Give, and the conflict continues (a PC raise of "I'm gonna shoot if you don't Give!" followed by one NPC giving, means that your suggestion of "a Raise is somthing that can potentially end the conflcit" might not work in all situations. Which is a shame, because it sounded so good I was planning to use.
Please show me how I'm wrong, so I can keep that guideline :)

All in all, I wouldn't worry about how many dice anyone has; As you can only roll a given stat once, all you had to do to even the playing field was have one of the first group throw a punch or swing a stick at someone, and they get to roll body too. So in that aspect, I'd say no, you didn't do anything wrong.

Could they do that after the shooting had started though? Is this okay?
1) PC1 & 2 talk to Cutter, and start shooting.
2) PC 3 and Samuel talk, then fight, then shoot, and then join the others.
3) PC1 then punches Cutter, so getting his Body dice, even though they are already Shooting.

[lumpley]

Holy cow that's a lot of posts! You win the prize of: a lot of short answers!

a) In practically every case, when one person escalates on a raise, the other person will escalate to match on the see. To escalate on a see, all you have to do is have your character react appropriately; dodging a bullet is escalating to shooting. Ducking a punch is escalating to fistfighting.

If someone starts shooting at you, any reaction at all to the bullets is escalating to match. To not escalate, you have to stand there as though there were no bullets coming at you.

b) There are no limits to when you can escalate or in what direction. A conflict can start with shooting and end with talking, or start as a footrace and end as a screaming argument, with a shootout in between. No restrictions.

-Vincent

[Darren Hill]

Holy cow that's a lot of posts! You win the prize of: a lot of short answers!

Well, I'm suffering from post-count envy :)

Thanks for the clarification, particularly about "de-escalation"

Darren

[Eric Provost]

a) In practically every case, when one person escalates on a raise, the other person will escalate to match on the see. To escalate on a see, all you have to do is have your character react appropriately; dodging a bullet is escalating to shooting. Ducking a punch is escalating to fistfighting.

If someone starts shooting at you, any reaction at all to the bullets is escalating to match. To not escalate, you have to stand there as though there were no bullets coming at you.

Wow.  I think this is the first time that I didn't like your answer Vincent.  It would seem to me that if you narrate dodging a bullet, you're escalating to Physical and not to Gunfighting, same with ducking the punch; Physical not Fighting.  Your answer here seems to soften one of the hard questions that makes the game great;  

Just because they're being violent towards me, does that mean I have to be violent back towards them?  Can I still win this conflict without resorting to violence?

Now, one might say that, if the player dosen't narrate violence they don't provide the big dice o' fallout to their target, and that's true, but I don't think it's enough.  If a player(or GM) can access their characters' Willpower dice without resorting to doing violence... Well, once again, it does seem to soften one of the finer edges that we like about Dogs.

-Eric

edit:  Okies, I quickly found my brain again, and here's a slightly more rational argument against getting to escalate to Fistfighting or Gunslinging without narrating violence:  If one player narrates a gunshot to escalate, they are doing so to gain more dice, to try to gain an edge to win the conflict.  If their target can gain their Gunslinging dice without having to violence in return, so where's the edge for the character that first escalated?

and...

We all want to tempt the Dogs into violence, don't we?  So, if a Dog can get his entire host of attributes without ever doing violence, then haven't we taken away a great deal of the temptation?

[TonyLB]

I'm with you, Eric.  This answer doesn't easily jibe, for me, with other things Vincent has said.

Me, I like it simple:  You escalate to Gunfighting when you pull out your gun and shoot at somebody.

If you really want the rules to read that way, Vincent, I'll give them a try that way and see what happens.  But can I ask you to, y'know, confirm the launch sequence?

[lumpley]

Them's the rules.

The rationale is mechanical, as it must be. Here's the scenario: you and I are arguing, just talking. It's my raise, it's the end of the argument; I'm down to two dice, a 1 and a 2, and you're down to three dice, two 1s and a 3. Not an uncommon scenario by any stretch.

So I've lost the argument; I just can't win with those dice. I say, "screw this, I punch you." I roll 7d6, I come up with a 6, a 5, and some lower numbers. I'm like, "yay!" I put forward the 11.

You've still got only your 1, 1 and 3. If you can't escalate on the see, you're out! That's not okay. That's far, far worse than whatever the bad consequences of allowing defensive escalation are.

Here's a character for you: in his youth he was a cold and wicked gunfighter, but now he uses his experience and fearsome will only to walk unharmed through gunfights, never pulling the trigger himself.

-Vincent

[Brand_Robins]

You've still got only your 1, 1 and 3. If you can't escalate on the see, you're out! That's not okay. That's far, far worse than whatever the bad consequences of allowing defensive escalation are.

I don't think anyone would argue that you shouldn't be able to escalate on a see, the argument (at least the one inside my head, which sounds much like what Eric and Tony are saying) is that we don't think that you MUST escalate on the see if you react to the bullet/punch/whatever at all. Can and must are two different things, and while the first is certainly needed I don't know that the second is.

Or would you just make it all a matter of how things are staged?

For example: Raise "I shoot him in the head" followed by See "I hurl myself out of the way!" = Escalation on both sides

Raise "I shoot him in the head" followed by See "I narrow my eyes, knowing that he's going to miss by a hair, and stare him down while the bullet only grazes my coat" = Escalation for first character, no escalation for second character

[Darren Hill]

I don't think anyone would argue that you shouldn't be able to escalate on a see, the argument (at least the one inside my head, which sounds much like what Eric and Tony are saying) is that we don't think that you MUST escalate on the see if you react to the bullet/punch/whatever at all. Can and must are two different things, and while the first is certainly needed I don't know that the second is.

I know I'm the newbie here, but that was the impression I got from Vincent's post. Basically the person who is being shot at chooses whether the defensive action she takes counts as an escalation or not, depending on what she plans after that.
It does seem to leave things open to 'abuse' - escalating to gunfighting, and then just talking anyway, for example. Assuming that is abuse - you don't get to roll your shooting-based traits after all.

[lumpley]

Oh. Yeah, the (potential) escalater decides whether to go ahead and roll the Will dice. Can, not must.

It's not abuse to escalate to gunfighting and then have all your raises be just talking. Your Will dice let you keep talking with someone while they're shooting at you? That sounds right to me.

-Vincent

[TonyLB]

Okay, I'm confused.  Can you give me an example of a situation in which the (potential) escalator would choose not to escalate on a See?  Or is that always the right move?

[lumpley]

"Practically every case."

I've heard of it done once, maybe twice, just to make a point.

-Vincent