[DitV] "Relationships Determine What Conflicts Will Be About"

[Josh Roby]

Okay, so I've read the line "Traits determine how conflicts are resolved, but Relationships determine what conflicts will be about."  I don't see how this works out mechanically, except if the GM is looking over character sheets and putting the mentioned people into the towns he's creating.  Is this the intended meaning?  Because otherwise I don't see how my character's Relationships will necessarily be relevant in Random Next Town when the Relationship is with a person two towns back.

[Vaxalon]

The GM should very much be taking into account the relationships that the PC has.  Remember that one of the options is to revisit a town you've left behind before.

[TonyLB]

I don't see how this works out mechanically, except if the GM is looking over character sheets and putting the mentioned people into the towns he's creating.

Why should it be the GMs job?  The GM isn't going to get an extra 3d6 if he makes certain that Molly Patkins is mentioned in the Stakes (as in "When Molly hears the story of how I talked to this mob, is she going to be proud of me?")  The player is the one that benefits, they need to be the one applying creativity to making sure that the stakes are such that they get their Relationship dice.

[Neal]

First of all, the rulebook suggests that GMs take their cue from Players in determining which conflicts matter.  Second, Relationships aren't always with people, but can be with institutions, sins, demons, etc.  And finally, yeah, the Players should be taking some responsibility to steer the game themselves, so long as they don't tread on the toes of the GM.

Suppose my character has written in his Relationships, "Only stern self-discipline keeps me from returning once again to Gluttony, 1d4."  Man, I'm just begging my GM to write temptation into a story.  How about a banquet to welcome our Dogs to the branch?  And if he doesn't, hell, I might put it in there myself.  I mean, every town has food, right?  And that d4 means I want my character to be especially vulnerable to this sin; it really "complicates his life."

Or suppose my sheet says "A long conversation with a marshall has made me sympathetic to the goals of the Territorial Authority, 1d8."  That spells trouble, too, when my duties as a Dog don't match the goals of the TA.

I think it's the GM's job to follow his Players' cues.  But it's also the Player's job to select his Relationships with care and to follow through when they're presented as possible stakes or opponents.  If my character from the second example passes up a couple opportunities to make his Relationship with the TA "what's at stake" in a conflict, or to mess with TA personnel, then I can't rightfully expect my GM to keep serving up those conflicts in the game; It'd just waste his time and mine.

Don't forget, too, that characters should have a handy little pool of unassigned Relationship dice.  Why not declare them when you get to a new town as a way of steering the action toward conflict?  After a conversation with the branch Steward, I assign a Relationship die: "I really mistrust that arrogant Brother Ephraim in Cow Hollow, 1d6."

[Brand_Robins]

Assuming that you start off with, as the book tells you to, mostly relationships to other people and develope the ones to sins and institutions in play then Tony's method is one of the best to keep the relationships hopping.

Josh, do you watch Law and Order SVU? (I can't remember now if you do or not.) Because that show has all sorts of relationships that keep coming up over and over, even when the person isn't actually physically present. At least two or three times a year Olivia will spur a conflict with her relationship to her absuive, drunken, raped mother -- who just happens to have been dead for 5 years or so. Same deal with Jack's wife on 24, or Bartlet's father in the early-mid seasons of West Wing.

I mean, your character has a relationship to "Abigail Tomson (the girl who wanted Rebecca to stay): 3d4" -- even if I don't bring Abigail into play, but have other girls wanting girls to stay, or girls wanting you to stay, or girls who were forced to leave because of the way they felt about each other, do you think you won't be able to drive that relationship in there and make the conflict (at least partly) about that?

[Josh Roby]

I thought the Relationship was only relevant when the person was (a) the stakes or (b) the opponent.  Can I bring the Relationship in through allusions or associations, as well?

[Neal]

Consider.

My character has a relationship.  "Sister Harriet, the victim of sexual abuse in Green Meadows branch: 1d8."

Now, thinking as a GM, I'm wondering whether I should let this player bring such a relationship into play only when it involves Sister Harriet, or when it involves anyone who's a "victim of sexual abuse."  My gut tells me "only Sister Harriet, the person described in the Relationship."  My gut tells me, "If the player wants a Relationship to an allusion, the closest thing would probably be a Relationships to the Sin of sexual abuse."  My gut, in fact, seems to echo the Schoolhouse Rock lecture-in-song about Nouns: "A noun is a person, place, or thing."  Am I wrong to apply the same general guideline to Relationships?  Does it restrict them too much?

And depending upon the Accomplishments a player declares during character creation, I don't see any problem with letting the player select a Relationship with a Sin or Institution.  In fact, part of the Creating Characters section declares openly that if the player does not select a Trait such as "I'm a dog," he or she must declare a Relationship with the Dogs.  I'm not clear why Relationships should be restricted to people at the outset.

[TonyLB]

Am I wrong to apply the same general guideline to Relationships?  Does it restrict them too much?

Right or wrong, those are the rules, aren't they?

Okay, I'm going to rant.  Of course, this is my own opinion, take with a grain of salt, all that.  But, nonetheless, a quick rant about the brilliance of the design as it stands ...

The thing to remember is that the world of the Dogs is not a faceless, mobile, modern society where things happen and it concerns nobody but the people who are there on the spot (and sometimes not even them).  Harriet is going to hear about what you do.  Harriet is going to have opinions about what you do.  Harriet is, in short, going to judge you in the same way that you judge others.

That is the power of a relationship.  You have the strength to do something because your failure would reflect poorly on others.  They are counting on you.  Or maybe they expect failure for you, and are just waiting to hear how you blew it this time.  Whatever.  Your actions matter to them, and their opinions matter to you.

And that's why the Relationships have to be part of the Stakes.  You, the player, want to up the Stakes from the measly "Will I fall off this horse?" to "Will my papa (God rest his soul) watchin' from heaven see me fall off'n a horse, after all the hours he spent teachin' me to ride?"  You get dice for making it more important to you.  But that's meant to be a gamble, a big gamble.  If you lose those Stakes, you've got to know, with the utter certainty that you would for any other Stakes, that your father does see you, and that he is disappointed in you.

So, if that's the cool thing about them then why let players take relationships with Sins and Institutions, and what-not?  Well, I have a theory:  Relationships are only with characters.  They can be with abstracts, but only so long as those abstracts are understood as characters.  If you have a relationship with Sexual Abuse, and you let a mother go on abusing her son, then Sexual Abuse, as your adversary, your hated rival, has won a battle against you.  You are losing the fight, and you know it, and the sin knows it.

[Brand_Robins]

And to go along with what Tony was saying:

You've to a relationship to "Sister Maria, a sexual abuse victim over there." You are now dealing with a sexual abuse victim here. Can you add dice? Not just for saying, "Oh, I know another girl that was sexually abused." If otoh, you set the stakes as "I want to stop this now so that I can go home and look Sister Maria in the face again" then you'd better believe that it will.

Same deal in 24, Jack's player can't just say "Oh, this woman could die, like my dead wife, so I want to use my dice." He can, however, say, "This bitch killed my wife and my love for my wife demands that I shoot her ass now despite the fact she has important information and I'm on camera at the moment" and get those "Dead wife" dice in the conflict -- because his relationship to the dead love is at the heart of what the conflict is actually about.

To get the dice the conflict has to be about that relationship as a person that you love/hate/whatever. That is how relationships decide what conflicts are about. However that doesn't mean the person has to be there looking at you for the conflict to be about them.

Consider the difference between the conflicts of "I kill the man because he's a sinner and chid abuser" and "I kill the bastard because he's so much like my dad, who I couldn't kill but always wanted to and killing him will be like murdering my father" and how very different it makes your character to everyone at the table.

[Brand_Robins]

P.S. Not to mention what happens when everyone else that watches you starts to send word back to your dad about how you killed the guy and obviously were thinking about him when you pulled the trigger.

[IMAGinES]

... thinking as a GM, I'm wondering whether I should let this player bring such a relationship into play only when it involves Sister Harriet, or when it involves anyone who's a "victim of sexual abuse."  My gut tells me "only Sister Harriet, the person described in the Relationship."  My gut tells me, "If the player wants a Relationship to an allusion, the closest thing would probably be a Relationships to the Sin of sexual abuse."  My gut, in fact, seems to echo the Schoolhouse Rock lecture-in-song about Nouns: "A noun is a person, place, or thing."  Am I wrong to apply the same general guideline to Relationships?  Does it restrict them too much?

Also, could taking a single relationship that can potentially apply to both a Sin and a Person be seen as "gaming the system", if you know what I mean? I might'nt have a good grip on the concept of "Currency" within a system, but in part this seems like a Currency issue.

On the other hand, the rules allow for as much in the way of Possessions as the group is comfortable with, so maybe there's no real need for that sort of  - for want of a better word, stickiness?

[Darren Hill]

While the method Tony and Brand advocates is a fine way to play (and easier in many ways, too), Vincent is on record as saying that's not what he intended - but that he does break that rule occasionally when it feels right.
(If I am misquoting Vincent, this will at least prompt him to clarify :))

By the rules, which are quite clearly stated, a relationship with a person is only relevant in certain circumstances, and "because they might hear about my deeds" is not one of them.
However, players do have the power to bring any relationship into any conflict, by describing as part of a Raise or See how they are suddenly physically present and helping. This might stretch credibility if done too often, or not - depending on the game and situation.

If players want a relationship to "Sister Maria, a sexual abuse victim over there," and want to use this with any sexual abuse victim they encounter, they can take this as a Trait, not a Relationship.

[Brand_Robins]

FTR, I think Darren is right.

It just happens to be the ONLY place where I disagree with Vincent about the perfection of Dogs.

However, I've had my say and will shut it now.

[TonyLB]

By the rules, which are quite clearly stated, a relationship with a person is only relevant in certain circumstances, and "because they might hear about my deeds" is not one of them.

For what it's worth, I will point out the subtle but essential difference between "because they might hear about my deeds" and "because they will hear about my deeds."  Their hearing about your deeds, and their judgment of those deeds, are all included in the explicit stakes, and are unavoidable if those stakes occur.

Now, what Vincent thinks of that, I'm not really certain.  So I won't speak to that.

[Vaxalon]

Dogs win conflicts often enough, in my experience, that it really isn't necessary for them to take broadly applicable relationships.

I have, however, seen players who are desperate for more dice, assign their free relationship dice to their adversaries in a conflict, in the middle of the conflict.  "I hate Brother Jesse" is a powerful statement to make on a character sheet, and not one they do lightly... it was very much a last resort.