When does the conflict start - and why not roleplay it instead?

[GB Steve]

I'm not trying to be incredibly dickish here, but I think you're using that word "acting" like Humpty Dumpty's vocabulary.

Not at all, that's the cut and thrust of conflict discussion.

Acting doesn't involve deciding how well your character does something solely by your own personal skills of negotation. That's, well, I guess it's "negotiation."

"Acting" happens all the time in structured games. I'd posit it happens more: you're given a scene and you act it out.

I'm absolutely not saying what you want is invalid. But if you use a term to define it that other games have as much of a claim on, then you do the argument a disservice.

Fair enough. I may need some help in naming what I like to do then and from thinking about what you've said, there's more than one thing happening at a time, i.e. characterisation (being in character in first person and what I was more loosely calling acting), conflict stucture (the way in which the conflict unfolds, around the acting - or vice versa depending on what you prioritise in the game - when you have to roll dice etc.) and decisions (the way in which outcomes of the system occur and are enforced). I think this last term could be better chosen.

Characterisation, then, I find harder in Dogs because the action is interrupted by dice rolling and the poker game that ensues. In octaNe and MLwM you roll once at some point in the scene giving the players more free rein over what happens and how it happens. The decision making in Dogs is much more stuctured through a progression of the escalating conflict. The flow of the characterisation is very important to me and I find I get less enjoyment from it in Dogs. On the other hand, Dogs does set the stakes and outcomes more clearly than octaNe and is stronger on the sacrifices that the PC might make than in MLwM.

I'm not sure I'd agree that characterisation happens more in structured games. I think that very much depends on the players.

[Clinton R. Nixon]

Characterisation, then, I find harder in Dogs because the action is interrupted by dice rolling and the poker game that ensues.

While I mentally can't conceptualize this, I totally understand. I had one player drop out of my group after Dogs. She loved the concept of the game, and we had a great time playing, but there was one scene where she wanted her character to kill and through resolution, she lost. The other characters ganged up and used some physical action, but mainly talking, to stop the character. She couldn't believe it.

I tried helping - "maybe you hesitate for a moment." (I can't remember the details, but that would have made a difference - maybe the winning roll knocked the gun away while everyone else was talking to the character.) She said, "I wouldn't have hesitated."

And it sucks - she's a great player. But it's definitely two different play styles. I've had a lot of trouble with people who just "want to play this character." When I hear "I'm just doing what he/she would do," it's a red flag, not that they're wrong, but that it won't work out with us.

[TonyLB]

Another thing I'll point out:  In a game that is not structured by conflict, it is possible to spend your time and energy (perhaps even a lot of time and energy) developing your character in ways that nobody else will ever care about.  Whereas in a conflict-structured game you are always detailing the character in a way that at least one other player (and often everyone) finds interesting right now.  If it weren't interesting to them you wouldn't be in a conflict.

Just like Clinton, I'm not trying to say either of those modes is superior.  They're different.

Of course I have a personal preference:  I'm impatient.  I want the other players to be entertaining me... not later, now.

[GB Steve]

And it sucks - she's a great player. But it's definitely two different play styles. I've had a lot of trouble with people who just "want to play this character." When I hear "I'm just doing what he/she would do," it's a red flag, not that they're wrong, but that it won't work out with us.

That is a shame but I don't mind enacting what the dice tell me the result is. I just mind the actual physical interruptions of having to move dice around and get out of character to do so.

[Clinton R. Nixon]

That is a shame but I don't mind enacting what the dice tell me the result is. I just mind the actual physical interruptions of having to move dice around and get out of character to do so.

Ah! As much as we're "piddly-typing" (what I call short posts), I'm starting to get it, and this has totally been worth it. Again, I get what you're saying, even though to me it seems like alien-talk. I was totally misreading you - or projecting my own thoughts - before.

Really? Just rolling the dice breaks up the fun for you? Hmm. You know, that's my favorite part, although my last session of TSOY totally worked the way you talk about and we had a great time. It's the first time I've ran a game in a long time where the dice didn't touch the table once. I've been baffled by it all week. And we did have conflict, but everyone was a situation in which I, as Story Guide, gave without rolling - which is cool by the rules.

[Valamir]

Steve, you're not the first to make that comment about the Dogs mechanics.  Because a single Dogs "roll" actually involves handling the dice in numerous discrete chunks throughout the resolution...rather than say an Otherkind kind of roll where you roll once and then are off to the races filling in the details...I've seen several reports of the phenomenon you describe.

when you say

I just mind the actual physical interruptions of having to move dice around and get out of character to do so.

Is it possible that you'll only mind that until you become use to it?

In other words is it possible that the in-and-out routine of manipulating dice is far enough outside of the usual way you'd approach your characterization that its currently jarring...but that if you were to play long enough for the die manipulation to become second nature that you'd eventually adapt and discover that you can get the full characterization you desire?

[Mark Woodhouse]

One way to work it might be to just slow WAY down. Leave more space between Raises for "daisy-picking" and detail-filling. You can see whether you've got resources on the table, and you can see what your opponent has, too, so take your time setting up the play.

That does require a feel and an eye for the Dogs mechanics. I can look at the dice and the Traits on the table and get a pretty good idea (in that chess-match way) what the direction and the tempo of Raises & Sees is likely to be barring escalation or surrender.

[GB Steve]

Is it possible that you'll only mind that until you become use to it?

In other words is it possible that the in-and-out routine of manipulating dice is far enough outside of the usual way you'd approach your characterization that its currently jarring...but that if you were to play long enough for the die manipulation to become second nature that you'd eventually adapt and discover that you can get the full characterization you desire?

It's probably more 'put up with' rather than 'mind'.

Dogs is a great game so I'll still play it but one of the best damn games I've ever played was the Origins Cthulhathon final 3 weeks ago. As 6 players playing inmates in an asylum we just go so totally into character that we got up from the table and LARPed it, and the GMs did too (all four of them). I think I made 4 maybe 5 dice rolls in 5 hours play.

I've been trying to describe the experience for the thread on immersion but I just don't seem to have the words to do it justice. But to get back to the point, we resolved conflicts on the fly with no system except trying to be true to character and genre and being interesting for the other players. This kind of coolness only really works when everyone is clued into the same wave length and then not very often. I think we pretty much got it when we LARPed John Tynes' In Media Res (4 players, 2 GMs) all round in my house.

Of course, it could just be that I'm looking in the wrong places for the experience I want. That said, James Holloway's game of Dogs at SteveCon IX was very immediate for me so perhaps it's that I've mainly run rather than played. But as you say, others report this problem too, which has been the case for most of the players for whom I've run the game (in which case it could be my fault. Nah!).

So the issue seems to be about what I expect from games rather than there being any problem with the games themselves.

We seem to have reached some kind of resolution so unless anyone has anymore pressing or extremely illuminating points to make, I think I'll close this thread.