[Dogs] Hurting third-parties in a confict

[DevP]

Is there a recommended way to frame conflicts where there's a chance of harm to be done/prevented by a third party? Examples:

• Lous tries to shoot up Mark. How are Louis's raises used to cause some Fallout/damage/death to Mark? How do you use your dice to stop Louis?
• Louis and Mark are about ready to duel with each other. How do you user your dice to try to break up the fight? How do you determine how much hurt they end up taking along the way?

Let me know if I need to clarify this further.

[Josh Roby]

In the first case, Louis' stakes are "I shoot Mark."  In the second case, the interrupting character's stakes are "I prevent the duel."

Technically, I don't think they take fallout, because fallout is not exactly damage.

[lumpley]

Two different circumstances. Dev, it may help you to clarify more, or maybe one of these two circumstances is just what you have in mind.

Louis and Mark are NPCs. Abel is the Dog.

Circumstance one: what's at stake is, does Louis kill Mark? Abel doesn't want him to.
GM, raising: Louis shoots Mark in the head!
Player, blocking: I smack Louis' hand and the shot goes wide. [Nobody takes fallout.]
-or-
Player, taking the blow: Crap! Mark goes down. [Player takes fallout: d4s.]

Circumstance two: what's at stake is, does Abel get into the barn? Louis doesn't want him to; Mark's helping Abel.
GM, raising: Louis kills Mark dead, dead, dead.
Player, blocking: I jump in the way and take the bullet. I go down with a bullet in my lung. [Nobody takes fallout.]
-or-
Player, taking the blow: Crap! Mark goes down. "You killed my brother, you bastard!" [Player takes fallout: d4s.]

You take fallout when you take a blow, and no other time.

Oh and do note that where PCs live and die by fallout, NPCs live and die by fallout, raises, sees, and the GM's whim.

-Vincent

[avram]

Player, blocking: I jump in the way and take the bullet. I go down with a bullet in my lung. [Nobody takes fallout.]

I was wondering about that. That's a bit weird.

[lumpley]

Weird - not mechanically weird, not to me. Why you'd want that bullet in your lung with no mechanical significance, yeah, that's a little weird.

All it means is that any player who finds it weird, won't do it, and that's just fine.

-Vincent

[Chris Peterson]

Player, blocking: I jump in the way and take the bullet. I go down with a bullet in my lung. [Nobody takes fallout.]

I was wondering about that. That's a bit weird.

I'm thinking about taking the following Trait: "Undead 2d10".

[Particle_Man]

[Monty Python and the Holy Grail] It's only a flesh wound!  I've had worse! [/Monty Python and the Holy Grail] :)

[DevP]

Vincent: So the difference between circumstance 1 and 2 is that, in the first one, the conflict is probably now over because the stakes have been resolved?

Also, here's a similar case: Mark is helping Abel to stop Louis from getting inside the barn. I'd like the system to show me how much hurt / consequences Mark will endure because he was trying to help Abel (and to the players, we assume this matters as well; the consequences of letting non-Dogs into their duties, etc.) It seems the way to do this is purely as a result of what raises I do, whather they are "I shoot Mark dead" or "I shoot Mark in the knees" or whatnot.

[lumpley]

It seems the way to do this is purely as a result of what raises I do, whather they are "I shoot Mark dead" or "I shoot Mark in the knees" or whatnot.

Exactly.

The difference between case 1 and case 2 is that in case 1, you aren't allowed to raise "Louis shoots Mark dead," because that's the stakes, where in case 2, you are. At the end of my example for case 1, Mark is still alive and may survive, despite being shot in the head.

-Vincent

[Joshua A.C. Newman]

From a game I ran a while back, distilled down.

Rebekah is a Dog. Mikah is a little boy who's taken the Dogs to see Benjamin, a possible sorcerer. I'm GM

Rebekah: (raise) Tell us what happened. Mikah here told me you did it, but I want to hear it from your lips.
Me: (reverses the blow) Benjamin draws and shoots Mikah dead for ratting him out.

Naturally, Rebekah is taking fallout here, not Mikah. Rebekah's the protagonist.

[DevP]

From a game I ran a while back, distilled down.

Rebekah is a Dog. Mikah is a little boy who's taken the Dogs to see Benjamin, a possible sorcerer. I'm GM

Rebekah: (raise) Tell us what happened. Mikah here told me you did it, but I want to hear it from your lips.
Me: (reverses the blow) Benjamin draws and shoots Mikah dead for ratting him out.

Naturally, Rebekah is taking fallout here, not Mikah. Rebekah's the protagonist.

Damn. What were the stakes on that one?

Also, your "reverse the blow" is that Mikah is shot dead; is it all right for the Dog's block to be "I push Mikah out of the way" if she doesn't want that to happen, or is that dead already done, and Mikah is dead?

[Joshua A.C. Newman]

Rebekah didn't have the dice to block without taking the blow. I think the stakes were, like, "Can you get Benjamin to spill?" If I recall, both had rolled pretty crap, but Benjamin had a couple of high dice that he could hurt Rebekah with.

[Warren]

Just for my own clarification of Joshua's situation with Rebekah, Mikah and Benjamin:

Benjamin (Reversing the Blow): "Benjamin draws and shoots Mikah dead for ratting him out."

If Rebekah Takes the Blow, Mikah must be dead and she takes Fallout (d4s, I expect). "Mikah's blood splatters over my coat as I look on helplessly."

If Rebekah Blocks or Reverses the Blow, Mikah isn't (always) dead, depending on the narration. "I push Mikah out the way of the gunshot and put my own gun in Benjamin's face".

But what if Rebekah Gives? OK, we know from the stakes that Benjamin doesn't spill, but does Mikah  die? If he does die, then Rebekah doesn't suffer any Fallout from it, and if he doesn't then what happens? Is it just down to the Give narration in a similar way to a Block? Who carries out this narration - the Giving player, I assume? "I scream out 'No! Let the boy live' before Ben pulls the trigger, and walk away."

[Vaxalon]

In Dev's example, does the GM have to escalate to Gunplay for that narration?

[Brendan]

Wait, wasn't shooting Mikah dead Benjamin's See?  I know Reversing the Blow kind of combines Raising and Seeing, but I would have imagined it like

Rebecca [Raises, say, 8]: Tell us what happened. Mikah here told me you did it, but I want to hear it from your lips.
Benjamin: [Sees with a 10 to Reverse the Blow]: Benjamin draws and shoots Mikah dead for ratting him out. [Rolls in Will for escalation to gunplay, adds another 2, Raises with 12] The boy's blood sprays your coat.
Rebecca [Takes the Blow with 2, 5, 6]:  Damn! My jaw drops and I grab Mikah's body as he crumples.