[DitV] Finally got started on our game...

[ravenx99]

We finally got started, but we only got through character creation.  (I finished the details of my town at the last minute, so I didn't post it for review.  I'll probably do that early this week.)

You can read the whole experience on my blog but I have couple comments and questions prompted by our experience.

We found a couple of the "I hope" statements difficult to deal with.

A young doctor, raised Faithful, trained back East and returned to Bridal Falls City when the King told him to go be a Dog.  "I hope I prove that I'm not like 'those people back East.'"  After a bit of talk, we landed on the problem that he had already been accepted into the Dogs Temple... that alone proved he wasn't all decadent and sinful, because he wouldn't be in training to be a Dog otherwise.  We talked about it being at the very beginning... what if the conflict was about them accepting him into the training?  Problem was, we couldn't come up with a situation that would work.  (And we were seriously in a "let's get this moving" frame of mind, because dinnertime was looming and this was only the second of three characters.)  We settled on something completely different, "I hope I save someone from dying."  That was easy enough.  (The character is a realist and doesn't want to believe in demons, faith healing and the like.  That will change, and I'm looking forward to that defining moment when his doctor skills fail him and all he has left is calling on the King of Life to save his patient's life.  He wouldn't do it during the initiatory conflict, and he came within a hair's breadth of losing the dying girl.)

My question is, if we stuck with the initial, "I hope I prove I'm not like 'those people back East,'" what kind of conflict do you think might work?

Second issue... Taking the Blow.  I read the exchange awhile back about the horse-beater that told the Dog to "get off my land" as the initial Raise, and the Dog had to Take the Blow, which meant he had to get off the guy's land.  (Even if the group that played it didn't see it that way.)

In my third player's conflict, she's trying to shoot a branch off a tree.  My initial Raise is, "There's a mighty strong breeze, and the branches are swaying something fierce."  And the Dog has to Take the Blow.  And we sat around for twenty minutes trying to figure out just what it means to "take the blow" when the "blow" is supposedly an impediment that really isn't going to mean much (other than she gets Fallout) because the Dog's got a lot more big numbers than I do.

How it went was this... she Takes the Blow, saying, "I bet it wasn't this windy when my brother made this shot."  And then Raises with, "If it weren't for this wind, I could shoot a branch off that tree out yonder."  My dice suck and I Take the Blow... "For just a moment, the wind dies down and all is calm."  She Raises, and I Give, because I've got a piddly 3 and she's got buckets of dice still on the table, and she makes the shot with ease.

I think it went well, but figuring out how to See, Raise, Take or Reverse the Blow was awkward in spots.  Maybe that's just because we're new at this.  In any case, I think it took something as simple as "do I make this shot" and raised it far above "roll below your Sharpshooting skill, with a -4 for the wind modifier" and added a spice that's been missing from my games.

I'm looking forward to playing our first town.

[Simon Kamber]

A young doctor, raised Faithful, trained back East and returned to Bridal Falls City when the King told him to go be a Dog.  "I hope I prove that I'm not like 'those people back East.'"  After a bit of talk, we landed on the problem that he had already been accepted into the Dogs Temple... that alone proved he wasn't all decadent and sinful, because he wouldn't be in training to be a Dog otherwise.

The teachers know that (hopefully), but do the other dogs in training? I could easily see him facing some prejudice from the "faithful" trainees. A discussion with one of these, perhaps a particularly offensive one, might work.

In my third player's conflict, she's trying to shoot a branch off a tree.  My initial Raise is, "There's a mighty strong breeze, and the branches are swaying something fierce."  And the Dog has to Take the Blow.  And we sat around for twenty minutes trying to figure out just what it means to "take the blow" when the "blow" is supposedly an impediment that really isn't going to mean much (other than she gets Fallout) because the Dog's got a lot more big numbers than I do.

I think your problem is that "the blow is supposedly an impediment that really isn't going to mean much". A raise must be something the opposition can't ignore. If you stray from that, narrating sees and taking blows is going to get very difficult and very awkward. The taking the blow narration you went with sounds pretty fitting, only it would probably have worked better with a more personal raise. "There's a mighty strong breeze. Making this shot is going to be difficult, very difficult". It's the same thing being said, but I find it works to underline how the branches aren't just swaying, they're swaying against the dog.


However, I have to agree with you that initiations are difficult. In my experience, at least some of them always end up being really awkward, and they're always the ones that ought to be interesting. I mean, saving a girl is allright, but it's better if you can get started with some issues about being "the guy from out east", isn't it?

[lumpley]

Taking the breeze blow only means admitting as a player that yes, the wind is making the branches whip around. A block or dodge could be "...but that was just a gust and the wind dies almost at once." So taking the blow could be as little as "frickin' wind, I'm going to have to take that into account" and then straight forward into the raise.

For "I'm not like other Easterners," proving it to the fellow students is how I'd go too.

It went okay otherwise?

-Vincent

[ravenx99]

The teachers know that (hopefully), but do the other dogs in training? I could easily see him facing some prejudice from the "faithful" trainees. A discussion with one of these, perhaps a particularly offensive one, might work.

That probably would have worked, but the player was thinking specifically the teachers, and I didn't manage to get off that line of thought.

I think your problem is that "the blow is supposedly an impediment that really isn't going to mean much". A raise must be something the opposition can't ignore. If you stray from that, narrating sees and taking blows is going to get very difficult and very awkward.

I like the whole thing, but working out a one-person conflict in itself is awkward to the beginner.  It's going to take some practice to get the hang of it.

However, I have to agree with you that initiations are difficult. In my experience, at least some of them always end up being really awkward, and they're always the ones that ought to be interesting. I mean, saving a girl is allright, but it's better if you can get started with some issues about being "the guy from out east", isn't it?

Very much so... they wanted conflicts that were about defining aspects of their characters, which I thought was a good thing.  But those "defining aspects" were a little vague and somewhat difficult to pin down into specific situations... "just what does your brother have a reputation for?"  Well, for being a really excellent Dog, of course.  He does almost everything better than the PC does.  So we ended up going with the one thing she knew she was better at.  That wasn't quite as satisfying as I'd have liked.

In both cases, I think the problem is that the defining aspect was a collection of things, and no one "straight" conflict is going to cover the spectrum of that aspect.  On the "living up to brother's reputation," I'd considered doing a montage of scenes to show her in situations where she usually did as well as her brother, but I didn't quite feel up to trying to pull that off.  (And we were short on time... we'd already gone past our usual ending time.)

[ravenx99]

Taking the breeze blow only means admitting as a player that yes, the wind is making the branches whip around. A block or dodge could be "...but that was just a gust and the wind dies almost at once." So taking the blow could be as little as "frickin' wind, I'm going to have to take that into account" and then straight forward into the raise.

I was wondering if it were that simple, and I was trying to work too much into it.

It went okay otherwise?

Aside from my players being uncomfortable with creating characters on the spot and essentially being unwilling to make suggestions or discuss each others' ideas, yeah, everything else went well.  (It's not that they don't want to, they're just uncomfortable doing it.  As a GM, I've learned t ask all kinds of "what if" questions about characters in development and make suggestions, if only to get the answer of, "No, he's not that kind of character.")

I think it'll smooth out when we get into the first town.  The most awkward stuff was really trying to create a good context out of whole cloth for the accomplishments.  The players only have a vague grip on their characters at this point, so they're not much help at coming up with one.  Though discussing what kind of conflict we could use helped define the characters better.  (Made it clear that the doctor puts more faith in his skills than in the King when it comes to healing, for instance.  Though he doesn't want to be like those Easterners, he's still brought a lot of baggage from that secular college he attended.)