[DitV] Zarephath, A Town Too Proud For Its Name

[Robert Bohl]

A few notes:

First, some of the players seemed to feel that the NPCs were all very clearly scumbags or goodies.  For my part, I'm sanguine about it.  I took to heart Vincent's stuff about how in a movie, you can always tell who's lying.  Dogs can see to the heart of things the way that ordinary people can't.

Also, these Dogs worked much closer together than I've ever seen before.  In my other two games--one turned out to be almost entirely PC vs. PC, the other had a lot more fractiousness than this even if that's not what it was all about.  I'm happy about that.

I'm also happy to present a town conflict I feel good about.  They did an amazing job, too.  They really healed the town.  I was shocked and pleased.  And they did it pretty much how heroes would.  If I run this again with this group, I want to present a much thornier conflict.  Something that bothers me more.

Finally, I think I screwed up in the end.  The conflict with Cuthbert Calhoon was just too easy.  It was anticlimactic after the firefight and the cleansing of the tree.  All three Dogs were working against him.  I should have had his "converts" adding dice for him, as per the group rules.  However, I wasn't really up on the rules.  Also, Judd was asking if it weren't the case that if I did that, shouldn't the Dogs' "converts" also be on their side?  I was thinking not, because the Dogs have one another to work with.

--

Anyway, thanks for slogging through this.  I had a hell of a lot of fun with this.

[Spiral Jacobs]

Spiral Jacobs, aka Paula here.  This was a really fun game.  Bert, Judd and I worked together pretty well... the last DitV game I played in, the party split and my character ended up burned (saving someone from a pyre), faithless, and devastated.  This was not like that.  We were able to agree on who the heavies in the town were and how to deal with them, so we meshed well.

I think if we played again, I'd like to see a thornier conflict, a more divisive, morally challenging dilemma that might set the players to questioning each other.  For instance, I see my character as a real goody-two-shoes, straight-laced, by the Book guy, love the sinner, hate the sin type.  Bert's character was a kill 'em all, let the King of Life sort 'em out type.  I think, if we played together for any length of time, we'd come into conflict over how to deal with breaches of the faith.  It worked out fine this time b/c he was able to kill Mordecai while Noam was able to belay killing Phineas, essentially putting the kid's life in his father's hands. 

DitV really does bring out these moral questions, and I'd love to be in a longer game of it to see how young characters such as these would develop over the course of play.

Thanks, Rob, for a satisfying game!

[Danny_K]

It sounds like an excellent game, and the unholy Tree of Life steeped in blood is a fantastic image.

Rob, great writeup as well.  I like the seamless way you incorporated game mechanics into your description of the events. 

[Judd]

Spiral Jacobs, aka Paula here.  This was a really fun game.  Bert, Judd and I worked together pretty well... the last DitV game I played in, the party split and my character ended up burned (saving someone from a pyre), faithless, and devastated.  .

I liked your burned, faithless and devastated character.  I thought that was a really valid response to life as a Watchdog.

Thanks for the game, Rob.  It was really fun to be able to finally play Dogs.  I love how character generation takes a vague idea and sharpens it to a honed edge. 

Just when I thought I couldn't love an RPG anymore...

Do you want to bring up the issue where you wanted the big-bad at the end to get helping dice from NPC's in town who supported him?

[Robert Bohl]

Do you want to bring up the issue where you wanted the big-bad at the end to get helping dice from NPC's in town who supported him?

I actually did put that in one post, here I will requote it, but no one commented on the comment:

Finally, I think I screwed up in the end.  The conflict with Cuthbert Calhoon was just too easy.  It was anticlimactic after the firefight and the cleansing of the tree.  All three Dogs were working against him.  I should have had his "converts" adding dice for him, as per the group rules.  However, I wasn't really up on the rules.  Also, Judd was asking if it weren't the case that if I did that, shouldn't the Dogs' "converts" also be on their side?  I was thinking not, because the Dogs have one another to work with.

[Bastoche]

Sounds like it was a load of fun!

[lumpley]

Finally, I think I screwed up in the end.  The conflict with Cuthbert Calhoon was just too easy.  It was anticlimactic after the firefight and the cleansing of the tree.  All three Dogs were working against him.  I should have had his "converts" adding dice for him, as per the group rules.  However, I wasn't really up on the rules.  Also, Judd was asking if it weren't the case that if I did that, shouldn't the Dogs' "converts" also be on their side?  I was thinking not, because the Dogs have one another to work with.

You can either have the converts be part of the conflict via the group NPC rules, or have the converts split up the conflict into a bunch of one-on-ones, resolve them all before you launch any followups, if that suits your pacing better.

I don't generally give the Dogs dice for their NPC backup. You can if you want - but I wouldn't say that you need to just because you do for your NPC.

-Vincent