Low-key towns for new players?

[lumpley]

I specifically did not want to ramp up all the way to Hate and Murder. This was the first town (and the first game) for this group of Dogs (and players), so I wanted to start lower-key as contrasted with future towns.

Totally not picking on Mischa here - I imagine he did right by his group. But I've read this a couple few times, this thing about starting new players off easy by making a town that maxes out at sin or maybe false doctrine. Where on earth does that come from?

To me, it reads like "I want to start my players off easy, so I'm going to have them take on a town mired in the shades-of-gray of small sins and subtle doctrinal points. Then when they really get their legs under them - when they've really established an understanding of the game's doctrine and theology, and they really care about the nuances of their characters' consciences - then they can take on a town where the problems are clear and life-or-death and they can kick their ass."

Isn't that, like, exactly backward?

-Vincent

[Brand_Robins]

I think I've said something like that before, so I'll go with "Yes."

Now, don't get me wrong, if you have a group of subtle players looking for all the shades of grey then starting them with what they want can be a wonderful thing.

However, my experience has been "start with the murder, then work backwards." Both because its easier to get into when bodies are hitting the floor and people are worshiping demons, and because once the Dogs have seen that they will KNOW that when they get into the shades of grey town that they have to stomp the little sins in order to keep that from ever happening again.

[Levi Kornelsen]

quote]

From where I sit, yes.

My group started off with a clear and present danger, an evil cult originating from failure of stewardship, which wanted the dogs dead.  Fight the cult, find their stewards, bang things into shape, figure out what worked on how things had gone wrong, move on.

Subtle doctrines, I'm saving for later.

[Eric Provost]

I'll concurr that it seems backwards.  When we first played we totally got off on the high-intensity hate & murder stuff.  It took a while before we were content with deciding who needed to get married and to whom. 

That form of the contrast was very satisfying for us. 

We also started with out supernatural knobs on low and slowly ramped them up.  It was our bloody visceral knobs that we started on 11. 

But then... "Backwards" or "Forewards", it's all a matter of taste and the habits of the group, isn't it?  I mean, like, 110% all in the tastes and habits of the players.  I can easily imagine two completely different groups of gamers being introduced to DitV; One gets off on how well the system actually supports things like having the authority to tell an NPC to move his fence off his neighbor's property.  Another that gets off equally well on the hellfire and damnation that a cluster of murders tends to cause. 

Or, alternately, maybe there's a possibility that some readers are seeing fewer steps in town creating equaling a simpler town.  You know; less prep = less complex = easier on new players.  After all, the classic 'scenairo-building' method of prep from games like D&D and Shadowrun supports that idea. 

-Eric

[Arturo G.]

Eric said:

Or, alternately, maybe there's a possibility that some readers are seeing fewer steps in town creating equaling a simpler town.  You know; less prep = less complex = easier on new players.  After all, the classic 'scenairo-building' method of prep from games like D&D and Shadowrun supports that idea. 

I have played DitV only twice and I should recognize I was somehow falling in this thinking line. I was expecting that both, players and me, we were going to find easier (and quicker) to play a town with less things going around.
In the moment I read the first post of this thread I saw clearly that it was mainly a mistake.

On the other hand I think that in the back of my mind I also wanted to show to my players a game where we can really enjoy making ethic-judgement without too much violence around. Indeed it worked perfectly for our small group (you can see some details of our playing experience in the following thread: [DitV] Fun, fun, fun... with no fighting! ).

Cheers,
Arturo

[Chris Crouch]

My first post here...

Speaking as someone who's just run his first town, I totally agree.

I actually designed a town with some subtle nuances of sin, and cast of thousands (well, about 8 main NPCs). Then I realized that

(a) they'd never get to do character creation _and_ a subtle, complicated town in one session

(b) we'd probably have enough problems just getting all of the rules straight (none of us had ever played DitV before)

So I created another town where the Sin was big and obvious, and with only 4 main NPCs, and ran that for our first session.

We (a) did get to do the character creation and the town in about 5 hours, and (b) we did have enough problems just getting our heads around the rules :-)

The only "problem" is that any follow-up town will have to be a slight de-escalation - if the last lot all deserved to die, what about _these_ sinners, who's sin is less extreme. Or maybe I should turn the next town's Sin down a lot, so that the players get to explore different avenues of judgement.

Chris (who may or may not get around to posting an "Actual Play"...)

[Andrew Morris]

Yep, I'd say smack 'em in the face with a clear-cut problem to cut their teeth. I know that when I'd played a few sessions of DitV, I was already in "find the sorcerer or murderer and work back to the cause" mode. Then I played in a town Tony Lower-Basch was running at a convention that had nothing more than sin going on. We foundered around forever, trying to figure out what was "really" wrong.

As stated, however, personal tastes differ, but I'd only go with a subtle town for new players if you were absolutely certain that's what they were looking for, preferably through explicit discussion beforehand.

[Iskander]

Yes.

For me (running my first, a one-shot), the limiting factor was that it seemed that right after False Doctrine, you're getting into Sorcery, and are immediately faced with determining where you are on the supernatural dial without necessarily having time to discuss that with the players. In AP, I turned the dial up way too loud, with some very hentai tentacle pregnancy weirdness that was bordered on the comical. Whoops.

There's still a kind of speed bump in my head, thinking about the progression, that meets Sorcery and thinks, "how can these people not know they're sorcerers, given their Faith, and howcome they don't just stop?" That made it hard for me justify continuing to False Priesthood, and forms quite an inhibition.

This may just be a function of the circumstances, that meant I was coming up with the town cold for a first-time one-shot, though. I'll find out next month.

[Rossum]

Totally not picking on Mischa here - I imagine he did right by his group. But I've read this a couple few times, this thing about starting new players off easy by making a town that maxes out at sin or maybe false doctrine. Where on earth does that come from?

No worries, Vincent. I'm pleased to kick off controversy and discussion. :) Thanks for assuming I'm in the right, though. I'll leave it to my players to decide once and for all if I did right or not. (Guys?) They told me they had fun. (Guys? Any time now...)

This thing about starting players off easy (in my case) comes largely from wanting some sort of arching progression across towns (particularly with the supernatural- see below). For some reason, and I blame both Clinton and the notion of Three in Authority, I have the semi-unspoken assumption that a crew of Dogs has three towns in a circuit before returning to the Dogs' Temple. So not only do I want goodness and excitement in a single town, I also want each to have its own feel and appropriate contrast with the rest of the towns in their circuit and therefore the campaign. Besides, "the situation seemed grabby enough" to me. But seriously, this was the first time I had ever run Dogs, not to mention playing with five more-or-less strangers for the first time who had never really played an indie game and wanting to finish in an evening.

Recall also that I wanted to show (not tell) the importance of the Steward's role in a town. I know I met this goal with this town for my group.

Or, alternately, maybe there's a possibility that some readers are seeing fewer steps in town creating equaling a simpler town.  You know; less prep = less complex = easier on new players.  After all, the classic 'scenairo-building'  method of prep from games like D&D and Shadowrun supports that idea. 

Guilty as charged, Eric! Vincent forgive me, I wanted a level one town for these n00bs!

Er, I mean to say that assuming "less complex" equals "easier on new players" leads to the assumption that "fewer steps of town creation" equals "less complex." Only after seeing my players flounder a bit with the as-I-now-realize subtle goings-on, "fewer steps of town creation" does not equal "more obvious" and therefore "more easy." Mirroring a certain other larger issue that I shall not bring up, I didn't realize this until Actual Running of Dogs, even though I had Actually Played Dogs previously. Does anyone else find this out besides me?

Accidentally setting up too-subtle situations is a shortcoming of mine as a GM. Generally, I don't do as much prep for a game as Dogs requires, so I'm still twisting my brain into the required configuration.

For me (running my first, a one-shot), the limiting factor was that it seemed that right after False Doctrine, you're getting into Sorcery, and are immediately faced with determining where you are on the supernatural dial without necessarily having time to discuss that with the players.

I hate to just say "me too," but I had this in the back of my mind as well. When I first approached running Dogs, I expected a lower supernatural dial, but I found via the initiation and character creation that one player wanted it turned up higher than I expected, so we finished off that session with a pretty strong supernatural influence- an exorcism in the Dog's Temple, very cool- and I really wanted to showcase the contrast with no overt supernatural.


So in a nutshell, like many starting GMs of Dogs, I made a few common assumptions that completely sets the game's tone in terms of supernatural, subtlety, and gratuitous violence. I don't know if I would do it again for a group of new players, but I might not. Yall will be pleased to note that the lightning-fast Vincent, in starting this thread shortly after I posted the Sutter's Mill writeup, causing people to comment on the phenomena, influenced me into ramping up to Hate and Murder (albeit maybe a bit too subtle, or maybe they just haven't spoken to the right people yet) in their current town. I'll post Cold Coyote once they get through it.

MDK

[Frank T]

I have come across this issue, too:

The problem with low-key towns

Especially check out Tony's excellent comment.

- Frank

[Arturo G.]

Hi, Frank!

I have read the Tony's post in that thread. After some reflection of my (short) actual play experience, I agree with him. My most successful town was the one in which I was playing the NPCs like that: Looking for Dog's advise and help desperately. Not in denial of their sins. Or just playing hard their wants from the Dogs. They provoke intense reactions on the players because they implicate them more in their role as moral-judges.

Cheers,
Arturo