[Dogs] Red Creek Runs Red

[lin swimmer]

Thor
Thanks for that. I knew the "20% for everyone" was stupid as I wrote it, and fully expected someone to take issue with it. I think that, simply, I was trying to state that every player has the same right to have a good time. As soon as a player steps on another player's toes in this regard, I say screw the mechanics. He's sitting right there, looking at me. Let's talk. If I go into a PvP situation, it better damn well be absolutely necessary to the story. (Hey, this isn't really the place; but we should, like, play something together sometime. [Vague enough for ya?])

Luke
I want to clarify one point that I feel we're divided on. Yes, I tried to talk to the other players on my perception of what DitV is like. This was not me, as a character, trying to manipulate situations to suit my personal tastes. This was me, a player playing a game that I love. I've read the book about six times. I know it pretty well. Others didn't (perhaps including yourself, no offense intended). I wanted to make sure that our differences of opinion on what the book says stem from opposing interpretations of the text, rather than unfamiliarity with same. If anyone wants to say that I was telling people how they should play the game, frankly that's incorrect and a little insulting. I realize no one here really knows me, as I'm a nOOb, but give me a break. I wouldn't post here if I wasn't seriously invested in playing RPGs to the absolute best of my ability. Hey, I play to win, too! But at the table, not on my fucking character sheet.

Valamir (Ralph, right? Hello, btw.)
Excellent points regarding my expectation that the GM will step in to mediate. I'm taking your comments very seriously, and will certainly examine that trait in myself as a player. I've given it a lot of thought, and I think if I had known going in what kind of game Luke is known to run, perhaps things may have unfolded differently. Live and learn, and I'm still game.

Ravi
Don't change on my account. I'll change to accommodate you, not vice versa. Next time I'll happily shoot your character in the head (dice willing). My only issue in the way you played the game was that there was no consideration of why? Why burn everything to the ground? Dan came up with some good bullshit justification (and it was steaming and paper thin, to thoroughly mix my analogies), which I'm told is his specialty, but I got the feeling you just wanted to play Kaiser Souse (spelled atrociously, I know). And please don't say, "my traits" because I think that's been addressed already. My view of it was "kill as many as possible, and look cool doing it" (hence the, um, cavalry saber). I was sitting there saying, "What about the guys kids?" I don't play games full of mooks, and certainly not DitV. It goes against the entire point. Vincent, am I missing something?

Tony (Hello as well)
C'mon, man. I'm straining at etiquette over here. This is straight-up insulting. First, read my posts, please. Second, I'm standing (or sitting) right here. I'm not a petulant child, and I don't appreciate this shit. Obviously you need clarification of how the session went. Have you read DitV? The town was, in the end, by most standards, a raging clusterfuck. This was achieved through pointless and thin player choices. You wanted me to step in and draw a gun in game. I wanted to talk in my big boy voice. That's the kind of gaming experience I'd prefer. If the group isn't interested in that, maybe I'm not right for the group. But I'm not a broken machine in need of diagnosis. So, third, I may end up buying your game eventually. I'd like to like the author. Work with me here. Thanks.

Yeah. So.
Peace,
Ryan Theodores

[Mayuran]

But what about when my bookwormy guy came out of his shell and stood in front of a bunch of drunk, gun-toting fucks?  I made a stand, and it didn't amount to shit.  I think this was possibly a mechanics issue (not necessarily the game's mechanics, but our misunderstanding of them ) as I was in a conflict with the group leader, and then Ravi decided to jump in as well.  It was when he threw in his 800 or so dice that I gave.  But fuck it.  I played my guy, and in the end, as Dogs, we failed. 

Jason (or someone)-

can you clarify this incident?  It sounds like Jason's Dog was already in a conflict with the group leader, and Ravi decided "hey I'm going to join in."  This, if I'm recalling correctly, can't happen in the game's mechanics.  All participants have to be declared at the beginning... (and, I think, players should be able to give and take so that a Dog is allowed to handle a problem on his own).  If Ravi wanted to help Jason while he was already in the conflict, then Ravi get's added to Jason as a trait (based on their relationship dice, if I recall correctly), and the Jason gets to say... "I have Ravi hold them back with his sabre while I continue negotiating" rather than have Ravi declare his own action.

Same as "when an NPC helps a Dog" in the rules.

mmt

[Valamir]

We ran into some issues with how to handle group conflicts as well recently.

This Thread was pretty useful.

[Andrew Morris]

Interesting. This touches on some of the issues I was worried about in my [DitV] Choosing traits thread. Instead of just taking general "I'm awesome" traits, Ravi optimized his character for combat. And it seems like this stepped on the fun for the other players. From that same thread, Vincent gives advice on "problem" trait choices:

If it's anybody's problem it's the whole group's. If everybody but you is cool with it (whatever "it" might be, not only bogus traits), then it's your responsibility to chill and go along. Especially as GM. If this were a democracy, the GM would only get to vote in case of a tie.

Now, turning that around, it would seem to say that if everyone else is not cool with "it" (in this case, Ravi's actions), the player should knock "it" off. I might be twisting Vincent's words around, though.

[TonyLB]

As soon as a player steps on another player's toes in this regard, I say screw the mechanics.

Why?

So, third, I may end up buying your game eventually. I'd like to like the author. Work with me here. Thanks.

Ryan, I sincerely think you should avoid buying or playing Capes.  It would not be a good match for your style of play.  The game is, deliberately, "Step on another players toes, then resolve it with mechanics."

[daMoose_Neo]

Well, when you're prepared for Game A and it suddenly starts playing like Game B, I'd be a bit miffed too.
Were I to sit down ready to step on toes, take names and dice and all that good stuff, awesome. If I sat down to tell a morally compelling story that ended in bloodshed for no appearent reason other than "My character/the mechanics made me do it", its another.
From what I can see, Dogs isn't a D&D/Capes-milk-the-system-for-all-of-its-mechanical-worth. Even Fallout is a specialized, personal, story-based system, unlike damage in D&D. Capes, dunno too much about that but I do know you can milk the system as such and everyone can have a blast doing it. Dogs, I just don't see it.

If I might ask, WHY did you, Ravi, choose the traits you did? Why did you engage in the conflicts you did?? Was there a reason for doing so?
Stepping on toes occured. Cool that is not. If there were some reasons within the context of the game, a "well, back off a touch and let the other folks offer up some material" is warrented and everyone could still have their fun. If the player were gaming like a 19th Level Fighter in D&D booking for that Level 20 in a game about tough moral choices and its personal and emotional effects on everyone, yea...

[Luke]

Tony,

Would you mind terribly if I asked you to back away from this thread? I think you, Ryan and Jason and I are talking past each other. And it's not constructive at all.

Thanks.

-L

[TonyLB]

H'okay.  Best of luck!

[Andrew Norris]

Hi all,

It sounds like the folks who were involved in the session are a bit frustrated, and it's understandable. Mismatched expectations are something that can get ugly. But I wanted to say that as an outside observer, I think you're all doing a good job of expressing where you're coming from, which is actually kind of rare. I've heard and been in these kinds of arguments a lot, and typically they were all getting expressed in terms of the fictional activities at the game table. You folks are mostly talking about what you were feeling as players. That's a good sign, to me; the only time I've ever had any luck getting these kinds of things resolved was after we moved to that step.

I also wanted to say that I see the potential for a similar situation in the game I'm currently running, and listening to this conversation has made me realize I want to have a group powwow about expectations, to head it off. So I for one am really glad you're having this conversation in public.

Sorry for the digressinon -- now the questions.

Ravi, could you speak some to your expectations of what the game was going to be like? How you expected to act, and how you expected the other players to act? I got the "This is what my character would do" thing, but what did you go into the session wanting to accomplish? How did Luke describe the game and the scenario to you?

Ryan, I totally got your point about "why burn everything to the ground?" and I'm wondering whether you were able to express it during the game. What's your take on how the "why" in a game should be established, and by whom? Was there a time you wanted to raise that question during the session, and did you? Were you expecting Luke to do it?

I hope those questions don't sound leading or judgemental. I guess you can sum it up as asking both of you, "What was the 'why' of the session, how did you decide what it was, and how in general would you like differing 'why's to be resolved?"

[Luke]

Some more interesting AP data:

Ryan and Jason both had played the game before. And the group definitely looked to them for cues at the beginning of the game. Ryan helped us  out with a lot of rules questions and offered a lot of good input on the town.

Socially, Chris was being an affable middle man, trying to get Ryan and Jason comfortable and make them feel welcome. Ravi was talking about killing shit. Dan, interestingly, turtled up in the beginning of the game. He wouldn't participate in the town creation. He wouldn't build any of his relationship into the story. And for the first half hour, forty five minutes of play, he wouldn't even say anything.  He just gave the classic, "No, I just hang back and wait."

The conflict, at this point, was centered mostly around two relationships, Ryan's sister and Jason's former patient, the Amputee. However, once the Mountain Folk Chief entered the scene, Dan and Ravi started to get a little agitated. And after a bit of roleplay with the sister, Dan jumped into the scene all fire and brimstone, preaching hell and damnation for the sinners. Dan focused this furor at Ryan, actually. This is where the doctrinal war began. And I dare say, Ryan, you seemed taken aback. Dan was bulldogging Ryan to bring his sister to justice. Dan was saying that if Ryan failed to do so, Ryan wasn't a Dog.

It was a fairly intense burst from Dan. And I think it changed the tenor of the table. Because things pretty much went south after that. Ryan, Jason, you guys pretty much tried to ignore Dan and focus on the sister and chief NPCs. I understand now why you did that, but I felt like our dear readers deserved a bit more info.

Also, let's try not to get too emotional in here, fellas. As Andrew pointed out, this is a great AP thread, full of good juicy bits.

-Luke

[Thor Olavsrud]

It was a fairly intense burst from Dan. And I think it changed the tenor of the table. Because things pretty much went south after that. Ryan, Jason, you guys pretty much tried to ignore Dan and focus on the sister and chief NPCs. I understand now why you did that, but I felt like our dear readers deserved a bit more info.

OK. Let's try to get this thread back on track.

Ryan, from my offline conversation with Luke about the game and this thread, it seems like the point things broke for you had nothing to do with Ravi at all, but when Dan tried to force a conflict about bringing your character's sister to justice. Now, I understand that Luke drifted the game a little bit here and allowed you to not deal with Dan right away because you looked uncomfortable. So my question is: what is it about Dan's confrontation that made you uncomfortable. Why did you not want to engage him on this issue?

[Jason Lee]

Hrrrmmm... the interaction between Ravi's and Ryan's play... let me ramble for a bit and see if anything clicks.

Play isn't moving in a direction Ryan wants it to.  There is an aesthetic conflict there.  Those can be brutal.  I wanted chinese food, but here I am at Tortilla Marisa's and this salsa is going to give me the runs.  Thanks for the gastrointestinal torment, jackass.  Ryan feels he has no power to change it, because his character is mechanically inferior to Ravi's.  If he steps up to fight, he'll almost certainly loose.  So, if I was Ryan (which I'm not), I'd say there isn't much choice between "playing the game I didn't want to play" and "being dead and just watching the game I didn't want to play".  Trapped.

I always play to the character's strengths when I play (if the mechanics will support it).  This leads to certain other players (some are fooled, some aren't) coming off with an inflated perception of my character's actual effectiveness.  This illusionary effectiveness can trap them in the way above.  It's not ever really a PvP problem, because I'm very mindful of where the breaking point is between character personality conflicts and forcing a player's hand - kind of short on the "violence is the answer" characters anyway.  Pops up fairly often when either I'm GMing or in relation to when another is GMing, though.  Well, at least with those who give into the illusion.

Somehow, whether true effectiveness or not, this causes people to try and play directly against the character's strengths.  If my effectiveness is double for wrestling than avoiding getting shot, what do those players do?  Try to out wrestle me!  Hence, they create their own damn trap by choosing the same methods and criteria for victory that I do.  I'm playing to my strengths and so are they.  I'm reinforcing my character concept, and they are weakening theirs.  Nice of them and all, but...

Anyway, I might eventually have a point.  Oh wait... I think it's coming.  Don't be fooled.  If Ryan's character can't beat Ravi's character in a gunfight, then he shouldn't try.  Stage your side of the conflict in a way that favors your traits and you'll end up reinforcing your character concept in the process of winning (because that's what winning is in this sort of game, after all).  I don't know specifically what would have been possible in that situation, or for a Dog in general, nor what would have favored Ryan's traits.  Perhaps Ryan's character could have turned on the two bloodthirsty Dogs because of her sister, claiming them corrupted by the power over life and death that steel has given them, and convinced the mountain folk to redeem their pagan ways by helping the righteous warrior purge the fallen angels, and hence received a mighty number of bonus dice from all those braves.  I'm certain that sentence could have been longer.  Or perhaps fled with her sister through cover of tipi (chiefs have tipis right?) and letting the other Dogs have to make the choice of whether to shoot one of their fellows in the back.

[lin swimmer]

I'm going to ask everyone to not bother engaging me personally in this conversation if they're not going to read my posts. I put a lot of thought into the friggin things, and I not going to quote myself. Also, please don't quote me out of context. I'm trying to wipe my feet off as I'm in someone else's house, and I appreciate everyone's assistance and valid engagement of the subjects at hand. (Me <3 Forge)

Back on topic.

Nate (Hi)
You very much summed up my feelings of what went wrong on the highest level. I believe that we weren't playing DitV as written. The entire premise of the game was tossed as being somehow irrelevant. I've tried to bring this subject up explicitly several times, but no one until now seems to think this is a point worth discussing. Trying to discuss the premise of the game was interpreted as me telling people what dogma to play. They're fundamentaly different, but unavoidably tied to one another. If I played a game of Sorcer where my only interest was having my demon eat random people's eyeballs, and having my PC engage in sexual intercourse with as many attractive NPCs as possible, without caring about why I wanted these things to happen, I think others would be justified in saying, "You're not getting it." It's not about them trying to tell me that I can't ever play a game like that in my life. It's more about engaging and melding with the material, to me. Agree, disagree?

Andrew (Hi)
I'm extremely happy that others out there are gleaning useful material out of this. I'm trying to step outside of my personal feelings regarding the session and learn something as well. It's been a while since I've had so much food for thought. I guess problems can sometimes do that more powerfuly than a mediocre session.

I definitely felt that I tried to make everyone know that I didn't understand the motivations for quite a few player actions, and that I'd like to before we irrecovably start tilting the situation. It was frustrating to have the answers always be, "They're pagans." So? How are they affecting the body of the Faith, our whole reason for being here? Are we going to ride East out of the Faithful territory and kill every person we see, coast to coast?

In some cases players were pointing at the book and saying, "See, it's right here. Three followers constitutes a false priesthood. They're sorcerers." But in the instance of what must be done about my sister, it was like, "Has anybody read the section on stewardship?" Ryan, don't tell people how to play the game. Er.

Frankly, that's incorrect manipulation of the text within the book (Vincent, take me to town if I'm off base.) Wait, I can see the problem with that statement already. Hang on. Rebuffering.

Okay. It's not incorrect manipulation. The game allows that kind of manipulation. But at least acknowledge that you're deviating from default. Don't point at various examples of the extreme sides an issue can have, and claim that since it's written here, how can I play it any other way? There was a lot of denial of responsibility with players not owning up to even the possibility that things could go other ways. Hence my desire to step OOG for a minute to check what people were doing. This, as Luke stated, was unallowed. No discussing the fact that we're playing a game. Any confusion can be settled with a gun, in-character. Since this was a first time Dogs session for the players I had issue with, this seems unwise to me. I've GMed two towns, and run two more. I don't claim to be an expert.

Did that address your question? If not I can buckle down and focus a bit more.

Thor
The Dan thing was just confusion. I was operating under the assumption that since it's my sister, it's my stewardship. But I didn't feel that I was allowed to talk about those kinds of things. Refrencing game text was frowned upon. Plus I don't know Dan at all. He's pulling a gun on my character. He hasn't said 10 words before now. I'm confused.

Cruciel (Jason)
::nodding:: Complete aggreement.

End transmission
Ryan Theodores (I worked on this all day.)

[Darren Hill]

You very much summed up my feelings of what went wrong on the highest level. I believe that we weren't playing DitV as written. The entire premise of the game was tossed as being somehow irrelevant.

This was my impression from reading the initial posts in this thread, too.
It's my impression that the town creation rules weren't referenced during the design of the town, and they are there for a reason.
If so, I am not surprised that playing through a town in Dogs without using the town creation system exactly as written produced surprising results. This is like playing through a combat in Burning Wheel without using Scripted Combat and saying "combat didn't work the way Burning Wheel combat has been described to me."

Following the Town Creation system is every bit as important as knowing how to handle the conflict rules to get the right sort of play.

[James Holloway]

Certainly some of the issues in Dog's in the Vineyard require a certain amount of investment in whether the fictional characters live or die. A lot of the time the question is "are you willing to kill this man for, I dunno, adultery?" If you're willing to kill a guy for living, it's not as interesting a question, and I can see how Ryan would feel that this detracted a lot from gameplay.

A side comment on a specific point, though: familial Stewardship is trumped by Dog stewardship. You have Stewardship over your family, but the Dogs have Stewardship over you and over each and every one of them individually; they have Stewardship over absolutely everybody. A Branch Steward couldn't mess with your sister without your say-so, but the Dogs can do whatever the hell they like. This is a specific feature of the Dogs' Stewarship: nothing is out of their jurisdiction, and there's no local chain of command, which foregrounds the issues again.

Lastly, I'm a little confused by the whole "unbeatable character" thing. Barring very poor dice rolling, any two Dogs shoudl be evenly matched, more or less, and any two Dogs should be more than a match for any one as long as they open the conflict (that is, define it as starting with something they've got strong dice in). So if you start talking to Ravi, and he immediately escalates to fighting, you still have all your talking dice, and he's going down. However, conflicts between PCs can be very tense and unpleasant, especially if the players don't know each other well, so I can see how people would want to avoid this.