Fir Tree Branch

[Graham W]

There was a thread a while ago called Holidays. It got me thinking and this town is the result.

I'm thinking of running it later this week. Could I get some feedback? It's very rough: would it work? Have I missed anything or are there any potential pitfalls? Is it too much of a comedy routine?

PRIDE

It's midwinter. Fir Tree Branch has been prosperous and has built up a stock of food and even wheat beer. The Steward, Brother Justice, has decreed a time of celebration: the Faithful have worked hard and deserve a feast.

INJUSTICE

Brother Jeremiah is new to Fir Tree and has a sickly child. He protests that, if the feast goes ahead, the food will not last until spring. Although the others may be willing to go hungry for a while, the lack of food would make the child worse.

SIN

With the feast approaching, some of the younger townsfolk have stopped working. Some have acquired liquor from the Faithless and are drinking in the evenings.

DEMONIC ATTACKS

The demons are encouraging the greed by leaving small gifts for the Faithful as they sleep. A child might wake and find a straw doll or sweet baked goods.

FALSE DOCTRINE

"By feasting, we celebrate what the King of Life has given us".

What do the NPCs want?

The Steward wants the Dogs to attend, and give their blessing to, the feast.

Jeremiah wants the Dogs to persuade the townspeople to restrain themselves.

The young people want the Dogs to turn a blind eye.

The families want the Dogs to leave the children to enjoy their presents.

What do the demons want?

The demons want greed to grow in the town, until the townspeople are more concerned with pleasure than work.

What if the Dogs never came?

The town would use up their stock of food and work less. Too late, they would realise that there was not enough food to last until spring. Many would starve and Jeremiah's child would die.

[Vaxalon]

One question: When the dogs say, "I inspect the food stores.  Is there, in fact, enough to have the feast and get through the winter?" what will you do?

[Graham W]

One question: When the dogs say, "I inspect the food stores.  Is there, in fact, enough to have the feast and get through the winter?" what will you do?

Probably "no", otherwise the problem doesn't make any sense.

But it's interesting you should ask. It strikes me that something's wrong with my planning if questions like that need asking. If you see what I mean.

Graham

[Vaxalon]

I agree... and if it's obvious that there isn't enough food to last the winter, the Dogs might wonder what got into the steward and ALL the townsfolk (save one) to think that they did.

I'm thinking that this town might snap my suspenders if it were me playing it.

[Mikael]

Some ideas:

- Not enough interpersonal conflicts yet. Turn "young people", "children" and "families" into named NPCs.

- Whether the stores last through the winter might be more of a matter of judgment than an easy fact. It might all be down to an estimation of contingencies. What if some of the food becomes spoiled during the winter? Also, I would expect each family to keep their own stores, providing estimates to the Steward, rather than one large central stockpile.

- Demonic attack: mice in the larders

Cheers,
+ Mikael

[Jason Morningstar]

Hi Graham,

This isn't morally ambiguous enough for me.  I could see some Dogs (Lisa, I'm looking at you!) coming in and saying "no holiday.  End of discussion.  Next crisis?"  Or, better yet (Eric, I'm looking at you) "OK, heal the child with the King of Life's blessing, then have a big fuckin' party.  Next crisis?"  It might not go down that way, but those were my first thoughts. 

Maybe change the point of attack.  If the sickly child died because of the feasting, and the father's already gotten his righteous revenge by spoiling what grain remains, and the whole town is starving, then the pot is boiling merrily and there is some genuine judgement to be meted out.

--Jason

[Graham W]

You're all right, this is complete bollocks, isn't it?

Jason, yes, not morally ambiguous enough. I like the father taking revenge.

Mikael, even naming the NPCs wouldn't do much to the town, I don't think.

Fred, I don't know what snapping your suspenders means, but I get the feeling I don't want to do it.

There's another problem. The group I was going to play this with includes a couple of new players. Now, this sort of town - where the main point is to judge the Christmas traditions - would be quite good for established players as a special, one-off town. It wouldn't be good for introducing someone to DitV.

Thanks for your feedback. I'll file this under "Nice ideas to come back to sometime".

[Andrew Morris]

While you've decided to shelve the town, I'll kick in my main concern, since it wasn't addressed (though Jason's points are excellent, too). The "pride" doesn't feel like pride to me. Bad judgement, maybe, but not pride. There's nothing wrong with wanting something, or even thinking that you deserve something. It's when you think that you deserve something better than that other guy, that's when you've got pride. So if the town wanted to throw a better bash than a nearby town, okay, I'm with you.

[daHob]

Good observation about the pride. You could make it work by making a umber of families that have 'gotten into the spirit' and are competing to have the nicest party/decorations/presents. that is causing them to individually stretch thier resources and thus put the community in danger.

Steve