[DitV] Stillwater Branch

[Darren Hill]

It's our first time playing Dogs In the Vineyard. We expect to be playing for 6-8 weeks, and I hope to do 4-6 towns. This is the second session - we played the previous week, but that was just setting up test characters and doing a few conflicts - at the end of which nearly everyone died. :)
There are 6 players (including GM) - Me, Gary, Jim, Helen, Stuart, Mark. Gary isn't here for this first session.
We've been roleplaying together for 10 years or so - Gary is a new addition to this group, but I've roleplayed with him in another group for just under 20 years, and he's fitting in well in this group.
The group is used to fairly traditional rpgs. I have a long fantasy campaign played in FATE that is fairly traditional, mechanics wise. Between story arcs I've sneakily slipped in sessions of The Pool, Trollbabe, Donjon, Heroquest, and Pantheon. (Actually, the Pool was used as a storytelling game within the fantasy campaign setting, with the PCs having to entertain their King with tales of previous adventures, which was fun.)

Character Design
Jim: Samuel Hawkwood, a convert. His father was a non-Faith guide and caraveneer, making money by help people come from the East to the West, and Sam grew up on those caravans. Accomplishment: Doesn't Back Down From Intimidation. Notable traits: "I Can Neuter a Gnat with This Whip" and his gunfighting trait - "I Need a Shotgun"
Helen: Nuko, a Mountain Person who was raised in the Faith by a family who found her as a child. Accomplishment: I Can Resist Firewater (When I'm Locked In A Box)
Stuart: Elwood Black: ex-gunfighter (His "I'm a Dog" Trait: "God's Left Hand"). Accomplishment: The Gun Rules The West (his teachers tried to teach him other ways to solve problems; he didn't learn - he also picked up an enemy Relationship during the accomplishment.)
Mark: Walter Newell, ex-doctor ("Gunplay is new to me 1d4"). Accomplishment: he wanted to show his extreme competence by getting through his training quickly - and named his trait Self-Assured (I suggested "On The Fast Track To God" but he wasn't keen on the double meaning :)).

I find it really hard to do the accomplishments. Once play begins I seem to have no problem with setting up conflicts, raises and sees, but I'm always (well, twice so far) stumped during the accomplishments. What basically happened here was when one player said what he wanted to do, I basically asked the group to frame the scenes and then the raises and sees came a bit more naturally. So it worked out, but I definitely have some kind of block there - the worst time to have it, when you're introducing the system.

I was running Stillwater Branchhttp://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=14763, but I added a bunch of extra NPCs, many of them relatives of the PCs. We also have a Mountain People convert among the PC's, which is good considering the Mountain People problems facing this town. The writeup mentions that the Steward's son in law has performed a marriage, but doesn't say who - so I added a Mountain person convert living in the town as the groom. This gives a more immediate focus for the anti-mountain people feeling among some of the residents - and gives something concrete to question the Steward's son in law's authority over.

So, the Dogs approach Stillwater, arriving by night - they have to travel along the shore of a lake, and Hester, Samuel's Aunt is spotted in the water. She claims that her children are trapped deeper in the water and need help. Samuel jumps in and runs up to her, intending to put his cloak around her and lead her to the shore. Elwood keeps an eye on him as the other two look around to see if anyone else is here.
Hester evades Sam's embrace and urges him to help her find her daughters, and begins leading him deeper into the water. (Raises were appeals to his love of his family and urgency - and cries for help heard from the deeps.) Elwood sings hymns, performing ceremony, calling for help to see more clearly so he can see those in trouble - clouds part, the moon reflects off the water, and and Hester is seen is a dead woman - an axe protruding from her back. Staggering away from her in panic, Sam almost goes under the water.
The other Dogs are called back, and the group attempts to lay Hester's ghost to rest. (Missed an opportunity to mention Three in Authority here.) They strip the disguise from the demon, and it tells them "this town belongs to us! Is this best that the Faith can muster!" and does the "look demonic to frighten the children" routine - they all stagger back (Samuel running in wild panic from the water), but recover their nerve and banish the demon.
This scene was made up of a nice set of follow-up conflicts:
1) demon masquerades as a relative, attempts to lure a PC into the lake and take him deeper
2) Discover the relative is dead, and - thinking that she is a ghost - attempt to lay her spirit to rest. Discover it is a demon.
3) Attempt to banish the demon and succeed.
The way we (actually I) set stakes during these conflicts might be a little suspect.
In the first conflict, one character's aunt is seen in the water - and she claims her children are deeper in the lake and she needs help. So the players decide they want to get her out of the water, and the stakes are set as something like: "Do we get her out of the water to talk rationally and calmly, or does she convince us (actually Sam) to go deeper with her into the lake?"
That could have lead to a follow up conflict where Sam is separated from the rest of the group and the demon attempts to drown him.
During the conflict, the PCs realise the aunt is dead - one person raises with an effective Ceremony, and she Takes the Blow - and the players get to see the aunt as she is now: dead, with an axe wound in her back. So they realise that their goal - "get the aunt out of the water" is now impossible. I suggested they Give, and change their goal to something else (drive the spirit away, or run away, or something) but they had difficulty with the concept of Giving one conflict to start another, clinging to the current 'fight'. Only two of the 4 PCs were actually involved in this conflict (Sam, in the water, and Stuart, providing musical accompaniment*) - so Giving was in their best interest, to allow the other two PCs to get involved.
It also felt unnatural to me to Give, since the demon had a goal - get Sam to deeper water, separate from his allies - and it was still possible to achieve that.
I think I should have told the players that conflict was over by definition, and started a new conflict by fiat.
We did another round of raises and sees, but it felt increasingly wrong given the changed situation, and the players did actually Give.
Then I put the dice of fallout the demon had suffered in the middle of table and told them they could draw on them in the next conflict - now they seemed much more able to handle the concept of follow-up conflicts :) I don't think we'll have that problem again.

Declaring the stakes for the first follow-up conflict - I may have done something else that wasn't right here. Now, the aunt was a demon, and was not the ghostly spirit of the aunt. The players decided they wanted to lay the spirit of the dead aunt to rest. This was impossible, but I didn't feel like disabusing them of their mistake. Instead I decided the stakes were really "discover this is not the dead aunt and reveal the demon" - it seemed that much of the same raises and sees would take place, building to a reveal.
I know in some conflict resolution systems the GM is supposed to come clean about hidden facts that might have an effect on the stakes and conflict, and I'm not sure if this is necessary for Dogs. Thoughts? (I know "what works for your group is fine" - but I'm wondering what the purist by-the-rules should be.)
During this conflict, the players discovered the ghost was a demon, and so called for a new follow-up to banish it - getting a bunch of extra fallout dice.

This whole battle (three following conflicts) took up most of the session - after character design & accomplishments - and was slow and a bit clunky. I have 4 players, including two who spent a lot of time on their actions. But much of the time taken was due to unfamiliarity with the way Dogs works - I think even a big conflict like this will go pretty smoothly once we've got a few sessions under our belts. (And of course, many conflicts will be with fewer participants.)

Memorable moment 1: At the end of the first conflict, Sam was in the water and realised he was trying to grapple a ghost who was trying to lure him deeper. He rolled his fallout (3d6) and got 12: Injury! Then he had a Body roll to make to see if it bumped up to 16+ - needing medical attention. It looked like the follow-up conflict was actually going to be "rescue Sam from the water" - but he just made it.
Memorable Moment 2: Revealing the Demon. The Dogs all Take The Blow, and roleplayed their fear at facing the demon (Sam realising he is in the water with it and getting out of there in panic, Nuko backing to a horse and clutching her Book of Life for comfort)
Memorable Moment 3: the guitar playing ex-gunslinger using his Soulful Musician trait to sing hymns at the demon and develop the trait Singing Praise - very 1950's Singing Cowboys style :)

After this conflict, they met Hiram riding back to town, drunk, after trying to find Mountain People to kill (they didn't discover that bit). They sobered him up (a gentle dunk in the lake), and learned of the death of his family - Hester was his wife. He said she and the children met him here by the lake, where they were killed by those savages, the Mountain People.
It was getting late, so we wrapped up as follows:
The Dogs then went into town and I promptly divided them up in preparation for conflicts.
I had created a few extra characters for the scenario:
Alexandrina Miller, whose husband had been killed in the last Mountain People attack and secretly is happy to be free of married life (especially after three miscarriages). She is now being feted by several young men eager to marry her and help her run the mill. She wants to Dogs to get the townsfolk to let her hire people to do the work, and live as an independent woman.
Enoch Smith: wants to marry Alexandrina, and thinks he can prove himself to her by joining Hiram and killing Mountain People. Wants to Dogs to persuade her to marry him.
Cornelius and Jane Tanner: these were married by Carter, the Steward's son-in-law. Cornelius is actually a Mountain Person convert (it's not his birth name!), and they were getting some unpleasantness over the relationship. In marrying them, Carter hoped to show he had the authority to run the town, and also hoped that legitimising their relationship might help build bridges between townsfolk and Mountain People - obviously, it's become a major bone of contention in the town.
Edwin Cooper: just a good guy in town, knows Carter should not be acting as the Steward and wants the Dogs to restore the Steward and strip Carter of his false authority. Not out of maliciousness - it's just the right thing.

Walter met his cousin Judith, daughter of the Steward, learned there was some dissatisfaction at her husband assuming the stewardship of the town, and that Judith's father, his uncle, was abed. He was given a bed for the night. He made it clear his intention to see the Steward in the morning, while Martha, the stewards wife, will be attempting to stop that.
Elwood found his cousin, Alexandrina was in town, and he met Enoch and was then given a bunk for the night. Alexandrina will be asking him to help her in the morning.
Jane and Cornelius invited Nuko to stay with them, and from them she learned of the Mountain People's beliefs about the local river and lake. They also told her of some prejedice they had faced... They will be asking her to legitimise their marriage and Carter's authority in the morning.
Hiram invited his nephew, Sam, to stay with him - which led to the last conflict of the night.

Sam v Hiram
Sam attempted to persuade 'Hiram' to give up his drunken ways.
Sam (Raise): "Do you have any more whiskey?"
Hiram: (Take The Blow) "Of course not" - Panicky glance at the cupboard he keeps his drinks in.
Hiram (Raise): "You've had a long day, I'll take you to your bedroom."
Sam (Block): "I'm fine."
Sam (Raise): "That's fine carpentry," I say as I walk over and open that cupboard...
Hiram (Block): "Why thank you," as he innocently steps between Sam and the cupboard and redirects his attention - "I'm particularly proud of this stool," (and uses his carpentry trait, hehe)
Hiram (Raise): "Really, it's time we retired," and puts his hand on Sam's shoulder and leads him out of the room (escalating to physical!)
(A funny thought occurred to the GM here - if Sam took the blow and his later fallout was a maximum roll, he could die! Maybe he slipped on the floor and banged his head on that fine stool! That's not a complaint by the way - I just remember that thought popping into my head at exactly this point in the conflict.)
I'm fuzzy on the next couple of raises and sees, but Sam managed to discover Hiram's stash and says it must be destroyed, leading to this:
Hiram (Raise): "Please, let me keep just one bottle for the night - I can't sleep without seeing my wife and children being hacked to pieces by those bloodthirsty savages! Hearing their cries for my help! Just one last bottle, please?"
Sam cussed at me here - how vulgar. :) He was also getting very low on dice, but didn't want to give, so I suggested a time trick - why don't you Take the Blow - say, "okay, just one bottle." and then Raise with something starting, "The Next Morning..." He liked that but changed it a bit.
Sam (Take The Blow): "Alright, just one last bottle this last night."
Sam (Raise): I wait a while after he retires, then sweep all his bottles up and empty them into the sink.
Hiram (Block): Before you empty them - Hiram hears the clatter, and staggers in, drunk and desperate - "Stop!"...
Hiram (Raise), ... and fires his Shotgun. He's not really aiming - he waves his gun and it goes off.
Sam (Block): His drunken aim misses me...
Sam (Raise): but hits the bottles!
Is this okay? Sam wasn't narrating anything to do with his own character but it made sense as a raise.
Hiram (Take The Blow): "No!" He drops his gun and runs over to the whiskey draining away.

I'm fuzzy on the last few raises, but it ended with Hiram sobbing in grief unable to overcome his need for the drink - and with none left, he'll soon be driven to desperate acts. Sam had failed the conflict, but had deliberately chose not to use his gun or whip traits, not wanting to raise his hands to kin - either one alone plus the attendant equipment dice would have won the conflict comfortably - this one went right to the wall. It was one of those moments when all of your stats have been used, you've ransacked your traits, your opponent has just spent all of his dice on his last raise, and you are just two points short of being able to See. Two points! Those moments are fun :)

That was the session. After the previous session and the outcry over the speed of experience gain, here's the House Rules in use:
Change a Die: you can only change 1 step at a time (d4, d6, d8, d10) and can't choose the same value for experience twice in the same session. No limits during Reflection.
Normally, if you roll a 1 during Fallout you get Experience. We discard d4's for this purpose. This introduces another dynamic - players have another reason to escalate, so they can get at least some physical fallout, but not too much.
Once per session you can declare that you gain experience in that conflict, and apply it as you see fit. You can do this for a conflict you get experience on. (So you can change a die by two steps, if you really want to.)

The group seemed to enjoy it so far - they aren't particularly eloquent in saying what they like about the systems they play, but it's gone down well so far. Not spectacular, but enjoyable. With one exception.
Most of the players are pretty rowdy - that is, they are excitable, enthusiatsic, and happy to talk over each other. One of the players, Helen, isn't quite so exuberant and often allows herself to fall into spectator mode, finding it hard to make herself heard. (I sometimes have that problem and I'm the GM!) She's optimistic about the way the conflict system can apply structure even to conversations, giving her a way to make herself heard. This is a based on a post-Pantheon revelation, where we realised that the turn-based structure, and the ability to declare things for other players, really empowered her.

The players looked pretty blank when I initially explained part of the rules, so it was fun to run them through the accomplishments, and see the look of revelations on their faces - "that's not as hard as you made it sound!"

The large group: I'm told 4-5 players is a little high for Dogs, but I expect to handle this by having more NPCs, more things for each PC to do. Most of the players are used to going off and doing their own thing, and getting into disputes with each other. Have other people had problems with large groups and do they have any advice? - as long as it isn't "lose a couple of players" :)

I think that's it for now.

[Ginger Stampley]

How did you find GMing Dogs for 5? My husband is GMing a 5-player group in our irregular Albany game. I have 4, which is hard, but 5 seems to be really hard. If the group sticks together, it becomes difficult to oppose them, at which point the action seems to end up being more about clever decision-making than exploiting traits and relationships in conflict.

[Lance D. Allen]

We've got a similar situation: 6 person group, but one person not currently present, so we've yet to actually run with 5 Dogs present (except for a very brief segment at the beginning of this town, which we decided to retcon because the absent player wouldn't make it to the next Dogs game; Malachi decided to escort some people from the last town)

Something that boggles me:

Normally, if you roll a 1 during Fallout you get Experience. We discard d4's for this purpose. This introduces another dynamic - players have another reason to escalate, so they can get at least some physical fallout, but not too much.
Once per session you can declare that you gain experience in that conflict, and apply it as you see fit. You can do this for a conflict you get experience on. (So you can change a die by two steps, if you really want to.)

Why? The way I see it, the whole POINT of d4 Fallout is to increase the chances of experience fallout. This second house rule only seems to mitigate the loss of the former.

By the by, the fallout from taking the blow on the "I'm proud of this here stool" raise would nave been d4, not d6, as the raise is basically talking. Remember, the fallout level progression is Talking-d4, physical violence-d6, weapons-d8, guns-d10. Putting a hand on someone's shoulder isn't physical violence (man! What if a kiss could kill??) so it's still d4.

[Darren Hill]

Something that boggles me:

Normally, if you roll a 1 during Fallout you get Experience. We discard d4's for this purpose.

Why? The way I see it, the whole POINT of d4 Fallout is to increase the chances of experience fallout. This second house rule only seems to mitigate the loss of the former.

And the whole point of our removing it is to reduce the frequency of experience. It suits our sensibilities. I'm not prepared to discuss the rights and wrongs of it - I've been through that once already over on the lumpley forum. It looks like it works for us, and that's that.

edit: By the way, sorry if that came over a bit harsh.

By the by, the fallout from taking the blow on the "I'm proud of this here stool" raise would nave been d4, not d6, as the raise is basically talking.

I'm aware of that. If you reread that section, the fallout I was referring to was if Jim took the blow when Hiram physically steered him out of the room (hand on shoulder, drive him to the door) - I was imagining scenarios the injury might come about: fall and hit head on previously mentioned stool.

[Darren Hill]

How did you find GMing Dogs for 5? My husband is GMing a 5-player group in our irregular Albany game. I have 4, which is hard, but 5 seems to be really hard. If the group sticks together, it becomes difficult to oppose them, at which point the action seems to end up being more about clever decision-making than exploiting traits and relationships in conflict.

I've only ran it twice so far, so I'm sure others know more about this than me. But my feeling is that there's a definite bias in Dogs towards the PC's winning. The higher player number games just bring this into the spotlight more.
If you have only two players, and they work as a team, they will nearly always have more dice than the GM has. Even when the GM uses Raises to attack both of them simultaneously, they still have the edge.
When you have 4 or 5 players, it's just more obvious.

Now, I'm sure the more experienced players will say that Dogs isn't really about winning or losing, but how you get there. The choices you make, the traits you use, the points you choose to give or take the blow - these are the important things. Also, very important, the context in which those things occur.
You mentioned "the action seems to end up being more about clever decision-making" - I'm a bit unsure exactly what you mean here. The term clever suggests to me use of tactics in a problem-solving kind of way - I might be misunderstanding, but if I'm not, that shouldn't be a focus of Dogs IMO. It should be about facing situations that demand the players make a judgement - Is this choice right or wrong in a moral sense? Which is the least of two evils? There should be situations and dilemmas that the players connect to on an emotional level, where there is no right answer.

That all said, the structure of the conflict system does give ways to produce uncertainty in the outcome. When GMing my raises, I find myself not thinking tactically, but trying to think what sort of things might reach the player. In that big Hiram v Sam conflict, the player admitted that he almost Gave when Hiram mentioned how he needed to drink to keep the nightmares of his family's death away - at that point the pc had plenty of dice, but almost threw the conflict. (That's why he cussed at me, the varmint.)
So the things you use as Raises have power, each individual Raise has power to change the way players think about the conflict. They might actually change their minds and decide they don't want to win. Even if they don't change their minds, they've been made to think hard about their choices. (Hmm, that might be what you mean by clever decision-making.)

And if they persist, pull out the guns and hit them with a big raise and be ruthless about using multiple actions. If several pcs simultaneously face a big and dangerous raise, some of them may decide to drop out, evening the odds a bit. Even if they don't, they've had a moment of fear, and that makes even a continuous string of victories enjoyable.
In my first session, I had someone shooting at all three pcs in that scene and he raised with an 18 - that gave them a fright, and also lead to near-TPK: none of them Gave, and two of the characters died. That was their first experience of big fallout, and it's good for something like that to happen to inform their future decisions.
(For a big group, I'd recommend being strict about the healing rules: according to the book it works like this - Healer rolls patient's Body plus his own Acuity, and can use any traits that might help as usual. The book is fairly silent about whether other players can help - many people on these boards are generous and allow it, but this is a very different conflict to me: the way the stats are set up, the fact that there's no way to escalate. So the way I do it: if other players help, they do so by allowing the healer to call on any traits they might have to help. They give 2d6 stat dice. Basically it's the group rules being used by the PCs.
This rule means that if characters have a big conflict, taking lots of d4 and d6 fallout in the early stages, then get a gunshot, it can be impossible to save them. I had one player with fallout of 17d6, a few d4's, and a few d10's - plus the demons 3d10. There was no way the healer could match that. This adds further tension during a conflict: If I Take This Blow, will it push me past the point I can't be healed?)

The really big thing to help with large groups though, if you can, is to create conflicts that set the players to arguing amongst themselves. (This comes naturally to my group :)) The instant they start arguing, tell them it's a conflict and get them to roll non-physical dice. If you don't do this kind of thing normally (I don't know anything about your experience - you might do this more than me for all I know!), it might seem strange to get them to "fight" out their disagreements in the system, and some players will never accept it. But it's very liberating for those that do, once they get over the strangeness.
A good Dogs town should really create situations where there is no right answer, and if there is no right answer, any sizable group of players should disagree how to proceed.

Also, have some NPCs that are tied to certain PCs (Family is always easy), and try to get them alone for a conflict. The GM can be proactive in this area - don't wait for them to split up, but have NPCs that want to speak to a specific Dog. You don't even need to split them up - if it seems to be a personal matter, others might decide its none of their business. In my first session, I very nearly had a conflict with the stakes, "Can I speak to you alone?" :) - even though the other pcs were there, they didn't get involved, so it would have been a one-on-one conflict with spectators. Just as we were about to roll dice, the player sighed and said okay.

Anyway, hope those rambling thoughts help. I wouldn't have thought there was that big a difference between 4 and 5 players. That's worrying - the two sessions I've played have each been with 4 players. Next session is the first with five. <worry worry> :)

[Ben Lehman]

Talking-d4, physical violence-d6, weapons-d8, guns-d10. Putting a hand on someone's shoulder isn't physical violence (man! What if a kiss could kill??) so it's still d4.

This is wrong.  The scale is actually.

d4 Talking
d6 Physical non-violent (a race, a hug, a kiss, touching on the shoulder)
d8 Physical violent (punches, axes, knives, spears, rocks, etc.)
d10 Guns (bang!  Also, dynamite)

yrs--
--Ben

[Lance D. Allen]

At risk of turning this into a "No, YOU'RE wrong!".. You're wrong, Ben.

Physical violence is d6, as per the example on page 37 of the hardcopy. The d8s are weapons only, as per the quick reference on the character sheet. What I'm pretty sure of, but unable to find anything (yet at least) to back up is that physical non-violent is NOT d6. The quick reference just says 'physical'.

demiurgeastaroth,

By way of clarification, I was actually referring to the wrong conflict; I reread but didn't change what I said to what I meant. I was referring to the physical steering, rather than the stool one. My confusion came due to the reference to the stool in your parenthetical self-commentary.

Back on track, I have to agree with your assessment of how to deal with large parties. The two most memorable conflicts in this last town was one in which the Dogs took some fairly large amounts of fallout dice (all d4s, because we helped each other to prevent physical or higher fallout) during a ritual battle against demons, and the other was an argument between three of the PCs, with no NPCs directly involved, over the fate of a murderess. Divide and conquer is also a good technique, especially dicey when the other Dogs are knowingly or unknowingly rushing to the rescue, but you're stuck with a serious issue to resolve that they can't help with, because their assistance cannot come in until after the conflict is resolved.

edited to expand argument on fallout dice sizes, and for clearer reading.

[Darren Hill]

At risk of turning this into a "No, YOU'RE wrong!".. You're wrong, Ben.

Physical violence is d6, as per the example on page 37 of the hardcopy. The d8s are weapons only,

I agree FWIW that d8's are weapons. I fully intend to use the d6's for physical actions - including punching, but also shoving, physical posturing, and "helping in a chosen direction" as in the example.
My reasoning: in arguments, they start out verbal but often escalate to physical posturing - where one attempts to invade the other's personal space, push & shove, etc. These sorts of things are definitely escalated from normal social debates, so I'm happy to use the d6 for fallout here. The chance of injury makes sense - because people do get injured when this happens, usually by accident.
I lump punching in here mainly because I'm uneasy with putting it on the same level as axes, but I may change my mind on that because escalating to outright fighting is an escalation above posturing even if it's "just" fists. And anyway, once the fists come out, you can have people smashing each other's heads against walls, breaking bottles, and so on. So maybe the d8 is best, after all.

demiurgeastaroth,

It's Darren as in the sig :)

[Darren Hill]

We've played our second session in the town of Stillwater, and pretty much wrapped things up.
I'll start with the Play, and wrap up with the Reflection which had some very interesting revelations.
It was a new day...

The Fifth Dog, John Cade, another ex-gunslinger, rode towards town and was fired on by three Mountain People. They called him a murderer, and he killed one, captured another, and drove the third off...

Walter meanwhile was a guest of Judith, Carter, Martha, and the near-comatose Steward. After breakfast, Walter insisted on seeing the Steward, Absolom, but Martha objected - and tried to persuade him to leave it "for a day or so" - but he wasn't having it, and forced his way into the Steward's room, almost knocking the old lady down the stairs. That done, he heard a commotion outside (which drew Judith and Carter away - more of that below), and took no notice. Absolom soon revived, only to tell the Dog how he had let his flock down (explaining his pride), and he should be punished - he should be stripped of his authority. Walter wasn't having it, but lost the conflict - so told him he would serve a penance - he would become the town's dogsbody, performing menial duties, starting with cleaning out a pigpen. Just then Elwood arrived...

Elwood Black was staying with his cousin Alexandrina. In the last Mountain People attack, her husband had been killed, freeing her from an unhappy marriage. She was in no hurry to get married again, and wanted to make a go of running the mill on her own - maybe hiring people from the branch to provide what physical labour she couldn't perform alone. Elwood had spoken to her suitor, Enoch, the previous night and took up his cause - he persuaded Alexindra that she was shirking her duties and persuaded her to give Enoch a chance. (He didn't force the marriage, just made her open her mind to the possibility.)

As Enoch arrived, the three heard gunfire - and Elwood headed off to investigate. He met John Cade and his injured prisoner. He headed back into town, collected Walter and brought him out to tend the patient. Upon revival, they questioned her, and learned she had been seeking vengeance against a townsmember who had killed her brother three nights ago - she had thought Cade was that man. They sent her back to her people, telling her they would find out if the murderer was in town, and meet the Mountain People's representative tomorrow to sort it out.

Samuel was a guest of drunken Hiram, and tried to wake him - and gave up to investigate the commotion in town. Someone was getting married.
Meanwhile, Nuko was having breakfast with Cornelius (ex-mountain person) and Jane Tanner. They explained that Carter had married them, but some complained the marriage wasn't legal. Would Nuko confirm their marriage so no-one could complain? Yep - no problem. So they headed off to the church house, with Jane telling everyone excitedly how they were going to be married. A crowd of witnesses gathered.
Brother Willem tried to persuade Nuko not to do it - he had a rabid hatred of mountain people, saying that this town should be kept pure. (Nuko was of Mountain People ancestry so that didn't go down well.). This conflict almost escalated to violence, but Willem gave when he realised that would be the only option (he didn't want to fight a Dog!).

Carter and Judith arrived after the marriage (having been delayed by concern with Walter and their father), and were shocked - Nuko had undermined Carter's authority by showing that the ceremonies he performed needed to be confirmed by a Dog. Nuko had no hesitation in promising to publicly acknowledge Carter's authority. As long as he didn't plan to get the people together to go out and slaughter Mountain People. Carter agreed - he had been trying to calm the more rabble-rousing townsfolk (like Willem and Hiram). So Carter headed off to gather the townsfolk for a town gathering (many of those at the marriage had dispersed, and it had been done so quickly that most hadn't had time to get the word).

Samuel had arrived during the marriage and had been content to let Nuko take the lead. They heard some people talking about the steward being up and about, and mucking slop out of pig pen! Then Martha came running up and asked the Dogs to help her get Absolom back to bed. They headed off to investigate. As they got there, they met the other three Dogs returning into town. They had a quick conferral, so all knew Carter was gathering the townfolk so Nuko could get everyone to get behind him. That not all the Dogs were on the same page page soon became apparent.

Walter decided that he should be the one to address the townsfolk (he's the Impassioned Preacher") and Elwood went with him. The rang the church bells to get everyone to gather quicker - people soon ran in guns at the ready, since that was now the signal for Mountain People Sighted. Walter soon calmed them and addressed the crowd with Elwood backing him up. He wanted to persuade everyone to rally behind Carter as the new Steward. Willem served as the main voice of objection - wanting to rally everyone to go on a Mountain People hunt. But Walter prevailed, and appointed Carter as the new Steward...

Meanwhile the scene involving Nuko, John, Samuel, Martha and Absolom took place. Martha was irritating everyone by demanding the dogs get her husband back out of the pen and into bed - Nuko had a conflict just to get her to go home. Samuel and John in the meantime questioned Absolom about what he was doing - he explained it was his penance, Walter had made him the towns dogsbody - it was a deserving penance. They didn't like this, and had a fairly intense conflict to get him to put aside his penance and resume his role as Steward!
Towards the end of the conflict, one funny Raise:
John Raises: I take out my Book of Life and put his hand on it, telling him to remember his Duty!
Absolom Reversal: As John gets the book, it falls out of his hand into the pig muck.
Absolom Raise: "It's a sign!"

So Absolom stood tall and walked to the church house, to hear everyone's cheers as they welcomed Carter as the new Steward! Hmm.
The Dogs got together and decided that their decrees both stood - they declared Absolom was Steward, and Carter was Steward-in-Training - he would be the successor to Absolom. (Yes, the PCs were performing theological reinterpretations of their own decrees in the best traditions of any religion.)

Judith tried to persuade them to make it the other way around - that Carter was Steward, and Absolom would guide him with advice, but their mind was made up. They also told her off for her little white lies - that Carter had been carrying out Absolom's instructions when he was actually in no condition to give instructions. Walter took her off for a quiet word, telling her to remember her place as a wife and daughter. John then also quietly told her to remember her place - as a strong woman, supporting and challenging her man to be a better man.

At the end of this little happy occasion, Hiram wandered in with a whisky bottle in his hand and slurred, "Is there a party?"
They took him away, found his secret stash and destroyed them (Nuko quietly squirrelling away a couple of bottles for medicinal purposes...).
Then they and the stewards went to meet the Mountain People to negotiate an end of hostilities.

The Mountain People wanted their sacred fish and waters respected. The Dogs got the Stewards to agree to this. They reasoned - this would give the Mountain Folk the opportunity to interact with the people of the Faith, to be impressed by them, and so have the chance to turn to the Faith.
There was one small matter the tribal leader mentioned - that of the murderer of Black Teeth's brother. (In fine PC tradition, the player of John mentioned, "I knew there was someting I was forgetting.")
If they could find the murderer and hand him over to the tribe for their judgement, they would agree that the Townsfolk could be trusted to keep this treaty. All they knew of the murderer was that he'd left a homemade whiskey 'bottle' by the site of the murder...

So they went back to town, questioned Hiram and he confessed - guilt-stricken. He wasn't sure if he'd dreamt it, he was drunk. But he did remember how his wife Hester had urged him to avenge her murder...
So the Dogs got together to decide what to do, and this became the most intense conflict of the night.

John and Walter believed they should hand him over, while Nuko, Elwood, and Samuel thought they should handle it themselves.
The argument did run around in circles a couple of times, with some players reusing other players earlier Raises, but then, arguments to tend to get circular when people aren't willing to give up.
The most memorable raises (the first because of who was saying it):
Nuko, the ex-Mountain Person: "we can't hand him over to them. You don't know what they'll do to him!" and "I grab my knife, put it to Walter's scalp to make a statement of what sort of thing they'll do."
Samuel: "he's my Uncle. I'll shoot him myself before I let those savages have him!"
One by one they dropped out, no-one willing to escalate to violence. Samuel did take it to physical - slamming his hand on the table and shoving it against Walter.  Incidentally, Walter rolled 4d6 for his Body at this point and got all 6's. Samuel wasn't happy. But Walter took physical fallout - more of that later...
Finally, only Walter and Samuel remained, with 1d6 in front of them. Each die showed a 1. It was Samuel's turn to make a Raise, and he saw he would put his single die forward, Walter would Reverse it and he'd be facing a Raise he couldn't block. At this point, Samuel's two allies helped pore over his sheet and they figured out a way to use one of his few remaining traits and he won.
So, Walter caved, and the group decided they, not the Mountain People, would punish Hiram. They immediately decided that Samuel would kill him. And no conflict! They had spent an intense conflict arguing over who gets to kill the grief-stricken, demon-driven killer :)

Now they rolled fallout - and Walter got two 6's. He rolled his body, and it jumped to a 16. It was a "new conflict to save Samuel" situation. Everyone looked a bit confused - how did that happen? I suggested that we leave that till next week - start the session with a scene in which Walter gets injured and the others can try to save his life.

They then took Hiram to the Mountain People, and shot him in front of them. It went like this: Samuel (whose gun trait is "I need a shotgun" because he's not a good shot) fumbled with his pistol readying to shoot Hiram. John, seeking to spare him the burden of killing his uncle, drew his gun and shot Hiram for him.
I joked "and that startles Samuel, and he shoots one of the Mountain People - and it's war!" Everyone chuckled, but Walter's player jumped up and said, "That's it! John shoots Hiram, and started, Samuel fires his gun accidentally - and hits me. That's how I get injured!"
With that agreed, the Mountain people accepted this judgement of Hiram, the treaty was sealed, and the players set about saving Walter.
It was very late, so we left the medical attention till next session, and did the Reflection.

Reflection
The players decided that the town was better than when they arrived. They thought they were saying things about duty - which does come over very strongly. Everyone had something to say about how their characters developed, and could name a character they liked better than their first impressions. The Reflection process went very well.
In the past I have tried to get the players to talk about the game after the session, but it's never been very useful. Here, with the specific, formal questioning process (at least that's the way I did it), it was quite productive.

When I asked about what areas of the gameplay and system they thought went well are badly, the answers were a bit disappointing.
I should say something about the players here.
Mark, Jim, and Stuart form the core of another gaming group, run on Sunday nights. Actually, it was originally the same group getting together for both Sunday's and Monday's. Helen and I used to attend both sessions, but we dropped out of the Monday night at different times.

Me: I've been a GM for many, many years, and always thought I just didn't enjoy being a player. Since the net has revealed the variety of gameplay out there, I now realise that it's far more likely that I just haven't been exposed to the type of play that I would enjoy. I've dallied with being a player from time to time, in different groups, but usually only long enough to get my first stint as GM - which is where I stay from then on, or eventually leave the group. That's part of the reason I left the Sunday nights - the other part was the extremely rambunctious, rowdy, and undisciplined social dynamics. If you weren't willing to be just as rowdy, you were ignored. Much of this was due to the core GMs - both called Mark! - who were both very easily distracted, and poorly prepared. I'm hesitant to try to classify their play in Forge terms (my too low Forge Mythos skill), but I'm inclined to think it's dysfunctional rather than satisfactorily fulfilling any of the Social Agendas.
One of the Marks dropped out of the Monday night play due to work pressures, which gave me the opportunity to stage a takeover. I had been on the verge of dropping out of both nights, but I made Monday my GMing night, using my new authority to create an environment I was comfortable with.

Helen had stuck with the Sundays for longer - the games were played at her house and she thought it would be rude to drop out, but eventually she gave up. She couldn't make herself heard, and even when she could she felt stifled by the games they ran. I've discussed her interests in the light of what I've learned from the Forge, and we both think there's a strong possibility that she's a another frustrated narrativist.

Jim is Helen's husband. He is strong-willed and given the slightest chance will drive adventures in a direction that seems make sense to his character concept, regardless of the GMs plans. This isn't "My Guy" syndrome - he's the most unselfish player I've met and will always inflict setbacks on himself to provide reasons to avoid stealing the spotlight from others, and spoiling their fun. He's very good at resolving intra-party conflict due to his complete lack of ego. He says he prefers rules-light and freeform play, because rules just get in the way. (The wrong sort of rules, maybe?) So maybe he's another narrativist-leaning player, or a collaborative storyteller.

Stuart and Gary are very traditionalist players - they tend to wait for the GM to drop plots in their lap. Gary is obsessed with team play - he is always trying to get the group to work as a unit, and share information. Stuart isn't so wedded to the team concept - he's happy to get involved in his own personal story arcs (so's Gary for that matter - he likes to have it both ways) - but Stuart tends to flounder when presented with choices where there's no clear right answer. At such points, he tends to seek the help of priests and divine intervention to find out what the GM wants him to do. Very frustrating when you want to see what he wants to do :) I think I'm slowly training him off that - and he never had any such moments during Dogs.

And Mark... I could rant about Mark a lot, but that would give the impression that I resent his presence in the group. That's not the case - he's a lively, entertaining player, and many of the most enjoyable moments of play involve him. But he can be a bit much at times - I've mentioned he's easily distracted, and he loves to make in-character speeches - long ones... He is convinced he is unlucky, and seizes on every bad roll to show how unlucky he is. So he can be a bit of a prima donna.

Just in case there's any doubt due to comments above, I consider all five to be good roleplayers, and every session with them is fun.

Now on to what the players said about mechanics of game play:
Stuart, Gary, and Mark all said they found them intrusive - having to think of their Sees and Raises and pick numbers and so on. They compared it to D&D with the visibility of the mechanics. (Note: those three are the D&D fans of the group. Also we play a lot of FATE, where the same process is going on with justifying aspects and fate point use, and they love that. So I'm inclined to think it's just that the system is so different - and possibly for some of them it's harder to work the system tactically.)

Mark also found that the formal structure of social conflict was constantly interrupting his flow - a blessing!:).

Helen then gave a staunch defence of the system - she reminded them of why she dropped out of the Sunday night session, and asked them to compare how "much we got done tonight compared to Sundays!"

The unholy trio :) then mentioned that it was possible they were being too harsh on this system because they weren't too keen on the setting. They had difficulty getting past the preacher element. All three like Western games, and wanted to play a "real Western". But they acknowledged that they did enjoy it "despite the setting and mechanics" - but didn't know if they could take it for long. They were happy to continue for a few more sessions to see if the system and setting grew on them.

Jim didn't say much during this - he enjoyed the game very much, liked the setting, but was a bit unsure about the mechanics. (Remember, he's the one who prefers mechanics to be out of the way completely.)

So, not as positive an endorsement as I hoped for, but certainly not a disaster. I've certainly run plenty of games before where players were far from keen on playing again, but later came to love the systems. (Pendragon and Fate were two such games.) All the players really got into their respective conflicts - and Mark was still able to pull off a few great in-character speeches despite his flow being interrupted. So I'm optimistic their impression of the game will improve. Time will tell.

[Ginger Stampley]

Sorry to be so long answering. I was blown off the net by a lightning storm that fried our DSL modem over the weekend and have been on dialup until the replacement arrived.

You mentioned "the action seems to end up being more about clever decision-making" - I'm a bit unsure exactly what you mean here. The term clever suggests to me use of tactics in a problem-solving kind of way - I might be misunderstanding, but if I'm not, that shouldn't be a focus of Dogs IMO. It should be about facing situations that demand the players make a judgement - Is this choice right or wrong in a moral sense? Which is the least of two evils? There should be situations and dilemmas that the players connect to on an emotional level, where there is no right answer.

I'm finding that my group sticks together a little too much so far--they seem to value group consensus pretty highly.

The way to provide a solid challenge to a large group is clearly to give them challenges that put them on opposite sides, as you point out further down in your post. I haven't yet found the right button for that. It may be lack of frequency of play--I was sidelined for six weeks this spring by an illness that kept me from GMing--or it may be that the characters weren't designed with enough exploitable differences.

I know that the group I play in has some definite hot spots that the GM can use to get us to line up on opposite sides. I'm not sure that the group I GM is as easy to divide.

[Darren Hill]

I'm finding that my group sticks together a little too much so far--they seem to value group consensus pretty highly.
<snip>
I know that the group I play in has some definite hot spots that the GM can use to get us to line up on opposite sides. I'm not sure that the group I GM is as easy to divide.

It's always possible that they genuinely won't enjoy situations where they are involved in PvP conflict. But I can see at least two avenues to take - apologies if you've tried them already:

You could talk with the players about the team's proclivity for teamwork during the Reflection phase. Ask them why they think it's so important, mention situations where you could easily have seen potential for group conflict and were surprised that it didn't happen. Also mention how in Dogs it's possible to play out conflicts between PCs without anyone actually getting hurt. That in doing so, they are showing exactly what their character stands for.

I haven't seen what happens in your session, but when situations crop up that might be good sources of PvP conflict, do the players immediately assess the situation and come to a consensus? Or do they discuss it back and forth, possibly argue a little bit? If the latter, you can be more proactive - the moment you see such a conversation starting, immediately call out, "that's a conflict!" Get them to roll dice and play out their discussion in the conflict system.
The actual calling for conflicts may not come naturally to them, but they might embrace it if you guide them through it. If they like it, they might start to use it themselves.
Tell them if they are uneasy, they can always Give as soon as dice are rolled - they don't have to play out the conflict. So the opportunity to come to a quick consensus without conflict is still there - you aren't forcing them into it.

Once the conflict is underway and dice are running out, it does no harm to gently suggest that they can get more dice from escalating... :)

[Darren Hill]

Another thing, Ginger.
You could suggest to the players of the group that you'd like them each to find some cause to have a conflict with another player. It should be something minor, something they aren't going to want to shoot each other over. Maybe promise them a reward - extra experience maybe. Or even just point out how easy it is to get experience-type fallout in a social conflict.
Point out they don't have to escalate - it's an exercise in using the system.

[Joshua A.C. Newman]

House Rules in use:
Change a Die: you can only change 1 step at a time (d4, d6, d8, d10) and can't choose the same value for experience twice in the same session. No limits during Reflection.
Normally, if you roll a 1 during Fallout you get Experience. We discard d4's for this purpose. This introduces another dynamic - players have another reason to escalate, so they can get at least some physical fallout, but not too much.
Once per session you can declare that you gain experience in that conflict, and apply it as you see fit. You can do this for a conflict you get experience on. (So you can change a die by two steps, if you really want to.)

This seems really kookball to me.  You're removing authorial power of the player over their characters, you're making it so character development in social situations is slower (which doesn't make sense) while removing an incentive for taking the blow (thereby reducing the value of playing for fallout and experience, which is a fun way to play a character), and then you're hobbling together a solution to both problems you've wrought when the solution was already there.

[Ginger Stampley]

Those are some good suggestions and I'll definitely implement some of them with the group. Thanks!

[Eric Minton]

I just want to say that I'm glad you got some use out of Stillwater.  I may end up running it for my new group's first town (hopefully we will play within the month), and Hester and the Tanners look like they'd make good additions to the NPC roster.