Dust Devils, leaner and meaner

[Matt Snyder]

Kay-RIST -- I'm getting to be worse than a software developer with all these "beta releases."

Anyway, folks, for those of you that give a gal darn, I just uploaded the latest version of Dust Devils. I've added a new introduction based on the thread started by Ron on Premise (thanks for that and helping me with the prose, Ron).

The new version also fixes some typos and clarifies a rule or two, namely the Draw text.

Oh, and it's got a nifty new barb wire graphic.

All this, and I actually managed to decrease the PDF file size by one-third thanks to some groovy new Acrobat settings. It now weighs in at a slim 650K or so.  Have at it!

http://dragons.carlisle.ia.us/downloads/dust_devils.pdf

Have a good one,
Matt

[Valamir]

I get bad object errors when trying to open this file.

[Matt Snyder]

Doh! Wouldn't you know it. I'll check into this as soon as I can. Sorry.

[unodiablo]

Odd, I didn't have any problems opening or printing it... It opened much faster than before, tho the color graphic "Dust Devils" loads slowly... And the charsheet isn't as pretty as the one I made. :P

Sean

[mahoux]

Sooo-weet.  I personally enjoyed the new layout.  The whole thing looks like a rather nifty little dime novel from that time period.

Although, I must admit I have a soft spot for the western genre.  I have all these great ideas for Deadlands, but my current group takes the & out of AD&D if ya know what I mean.

Anyway, nothing of substance in this post other than saying I like, I like veeeerry much.

Aaron

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Matt,

Here are some of my thoughts as I prep for playing Dust Devils.

1) I think the Devil ought to have an "intensity" that shifts from session to session. Start the Devil off at 1 to 3, purely up to the player. Modifiers due to the Devil use that many cards. However, between each session, the Devil may go up or down (3 max, 1 min). I don't suggest some complex method for determining this, perhaps even leave it up to the player and GM (draw high card to settle a disagreement about it).

I like this - you get the idea of "the Devil rides him hard" and the temptation to get the extra cards by acting in accordance with your Devil can never be shaken off ... yet you also get the strong incentive to keep the damn thing down, if you're trying to be a better person.

[If you haven't seen Django, by the way, do yourself a favor ASAP.]

2) Related to #1, I think every player should provide a one-or-two sentence Devil story from the character's past. If the Devil is "wanted man," what did you do?

Now the really fun thing I have in mind is that this back-story can be created during play, using flashbacks or even stories/gossip by NPCs. It seems fair that such a thing would coincide with the use of the Devil as a mechanic, whether as penalty or bonus.

3) It is crucial to all westerns that "no man is an island." You simply do not wander in, do stuff, and ride on with no one noticing. It seems reasonable to me that scenario preparation take the Consequences of characters' actions very seriously, in terms of NPCs and communities. For instance, one might say, no matter what, at the end of this scenario, Deadbeat, Nevada, is either going to be a great new boom town or it's going straight down to hell.

Best,
Ron

P.S. The players came up with this list of movies for the basis of play:
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
No Name on the Bullet
Destry Rides Again

[Valamir]

Strange.  I am still getting "Object Label badly Formatted" whenever I try to open the file.  I know my version of Acrobat works I use it frequently.  Could this be caused by the version I have.  I'm using 5.0

[Blake Hutchins]

I like Ron's proposed Devil mechanic.  It almost exactly corresponds to the Shadow in Wraith.  Give the bad side something to tempt the player with.  Seems to work very well in practice, according to my admittedly limited experience.

Best,

Blake

[Paul Czege]

Hey Ralph,

I am still getting "Object Label badly Formatted" whenever I try to open the file.

I have Acrobat Reader 5.0. I get the same error as you if I launch the link into the MS Internet Explorer Acrobat window. But if I download the file to my hard drive and launch it into the Acrobat Reader application itself, no problems.

Paul

[Emily Care]

Paul has pegged the problem.  

Microsoft Internet Explorer is incompatible with PDF files, at the moment.  I know this because my job involves posting PDF files on the web for academic purposes, and we've run into this problem.   Apparently the powers that be are in in the know, but no one is hurrying to correct the problem.  I smell a big, fat, technogeek rat.

--Emily Care

Added after a little more thought, and some digging:

Well, regardless of my suspicions, here is documentation of how to deal with the problem from each party:

http://www.adobe.com/support/techdocs/98fe.htm

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;q177321

[Valamir]

Thanks Paul and Emily.

I did know that and did try it, and got essentially the same error after downloading (worded slightly differently).

However I just redownloaded to try it again, and it works.  My initial download must have gotten corrupted.

So now I to can enjoy the spiffy new Dust Devils (yeah)

[Matt Snyder]

1) I think the Devil ought to have an "intensity" that shifts from session to session. Start the Devil off at 1 to 3, purely up to the player. Modifiers due to the Devil use that many cards. However, between each session, the Devil may go up or down (3 max, 1 min). I don't suggest some complex method for determining this, perhaps even leave it up to the player and GM (draw high card to settle a disagreement about it).

I like this - you get the idea of "the Devil rides him hard" and the temptation to get the extra cards by acting in accordance with your Devil can never be shaken off ... yet you also get the strong incentive to keep the damn thing down, if you're trying to be a better person.

This is a great idea, Ron. I really like the notion of the Devil "creeping" up on a character. I've been mulling this over, as well as Bailywolf's ideas about Devil 'subtypes' -- I like both ideas, but my only concern is the Keep It Simple Stupid maxim. I've been so darned busy these last few days, I just can't stand still long enough to decide what to do with Devil, but your suggestion is great. I'll likely do something very much along these lines.

2) Related to #1, I think every player should provide a one-or-two sentence Devil story from the character's past. If the Devil is "wanted man," what did you do?

Now the really fun thing I have in mind is that this back-story can be created during play, using flashbacks or even stories/gossip by NPCs. It seems fair that such a thing would coincide with the use of the Devil as a mechanic, whether as penalty or bonus.

Well, I figured folks would indeed detail their character's past (though maybe I shouldn't make that assumption). However, the idea that they'd craft that dark history on the fly in play is a cool one, too. I had assumed players would create details about their Devil in the character creation process, but the on-the-fly technique, flashbacks, etc., jives well with the genre -- learning this history in pieces, like when Josey Wales flashes back to the razing of his family's farm. I like it. Jeez, you'd think this Ron guy has good ideas or something.

Oh, and thanks for the recommendations. I gotta check out Django.r