[DitV] New game, new group, return to play

[Alex F]

I posted this in the wrong forum. Foolish, foolish me. Please ignore the one in the lumpley one, and if you have input post it here. Ta.

So last week I played a fair bit of Dogs, first games for me and the other players. Relevant backdrop:
I had never played with most of the players before.
I have not played a roleplaying game (this includes GMing) for over a decade, and was not unique within the group.

After an abortive attempt to get a minimum of players together before Christmas, I ended up hooking me six willing players for the same weekend. I felt that although cramming everyone into one session might not break the game, it sure would break me, and having no other plans I broke things into 2 sessions, a Saturday and a Sunday. I knew everyone and most people knew one another; both sessions spilled over onto other days, which was cool with everyone.

Oh, and the other thing, I played the same town with both groups. Smart-smart or smart-wayyyy stupid? It seemed sensible beforehand, as it cut down on the prep and familiarisation I needed to do: this was pretty much true. I also had an idea that this setup could explore how situations metamorphose into entirely new beasts, given the right fodder. This was smart-stupid: I had enough on my hands playing the town to be considering meta-issues of whether the situation I was presenting was or wasn't similar in each case. Plus, I felt that my excitement about the town was ever so slightly blunted by the not-quite freshness of every townsperson; altered colour and the variance in how they entered conflicts prevented this getting acute, but I should have seen this coming. Stoopid.


The town was Clement's Patch. I picked it as I dug it as written. Moreover, I can see subsequent groups being a mishmash of the currrent two, and felt that the town components were universal enough that it wouldn't spear continuity if Bros Rugged and Hirsute toured together after separately dealing with situations seeded the same way.

Both games were spread over multiple sessions - 2 and three respectively. What can I say? New group, new game, some new gamers (and most at least pretty rust). The triple session was a bit much, and if it would have worked I would have wrapped it up short. I'll talk about The first group (daubed Mauve coats pre-game, this having no actual impact upon coat colours) in this post.

Mauve Coats: Saturday
Players: Alex A, Andy and Tom. Tom and Alex A are brothers; Tom and Andy were at university together.  I lived with Tom and Andy for a year in a big house and have known them on and off for about six years.

I ran the town as written, taking on board some of the suggestions in the following thread, and creating a bit of a bang with a critter skinned by the boy of the house; just a tension crank really, and a way to distribute some attention to the kid who otherwise feels a bit peripheral.

Alex A's character was Bro Hiram, a nice guy  dog with a strong history.
Ac: 4 Bo: 2  He: 5  Wi: 2
Traits: I'm a dog 1d6;  I don't like blood 1d10; I enjoy small talk 2d8; My childhood broken leg never healed proper 1d8; I'm a likable guy 1d6; Kal's laugh (a mutual friend, with an unforgettable howl) 1d6; I always believe what people say 1d6.
Relationships: My mother who most influenced my childhood 1d8; I wish my friend Newton didn't lie so much 1d4.
Notable belongings: excellent boots, family portrait.
Coat: Brown, with the tree of life permeating through it in orange
His accomplishment was to see whether he could get through small talk without seeming like a  soft touch. The conflict began with a physical obstacle to be overcome, and flash-forward to a corridor confrontation with a bully, which Hiram got through without escalating to violence, and even ended up taking the bully dog as a relationship. This  was the first accomplishment, and was cool!

Tom's character, Bro Nathaniel, came from a complicated history which included a beginning in a non-faithful town where he learned gunplay young on the streets, and was blinded in a gunfight at the age of 12.
Ac: 6 Bo: 3  He: 2  Wi: 4
Traits: Blind 1d4; Blunt straight talker 2d6; Spent childhood fighting gun duels 2d4; Tall and imposing 1d10; Bubbly scarred eyes 1d4; I'm a dog 1d4.
Relationships: A problematic one with the steward who took him in but may have mistreated him 2d6.
Notable belongings - quality ornate pistol, big black hat.
Coat: Brown faded patches of maroon, dark green, dark red, used to belong to his steward.
His accomplishment was to  memorise the book of life, as without eyes he could not recite from it. I struggled a little bit in this conflict, as we set the scene as the final exam testing scripture, and the nature of the narration (a few blows taken) made it clear that there were some aspects of the book where  Nathaniel's knowledge was inperfect. I tried to push the conflict into a shape that seemed to make logical sense to me - `"OK, so given that you've admitted an error here, maybe your next raise could be to ask the teacher to give you extra lessons after the test, and that's how you get it perfect.'' But this wasn't how the player wanted to do it - and he was right: it was a cool scene and we needed to complete it. It finished with the Dog showing that even if he didn't know all those soft verses from the Song of Solomon, he commanded all the parts that matter - the words of a righteous judging god. He took a trait of `"I can recite from the books of prophecy and revelation''. In my opinion it turned out cool.


Andy took on Bro Newton from a complicated community. The complicated community was a travelling sideshow/circus precursor, playing exotic music and displaying oddness.
Ac: 5  Bo: 3   He: 5   Wi: 3 
Traits A knack for lying 2d6; Shoots his mouth off 1d6; Forgetful 1d8; an eye for detail 1d8; acrobatic 2d6.
Relationships [NB we fell off the wagon here, and started with more than 2 relationships]: Watchdogs of the king of life 2d8; Circus Giant 1d10; Polish John (a mystery: Newton can't remember him, but will recognise him when he sees him) 1d4; Mayor baggins (who ridiculed him so much that he left the circus in a weeping rage, to find a community that coudl stand proud) 2d4.
Notable belongings: Clockwork timepiece/device purloined from his travels
Coat: Oversized, half grey half black

His allegience was clearly still with the circus, as his accomplishment stake was ``Do I get people to respect the circus?'' In a way, this was my favorite accomplishment. The scene was the dinner table on the first night this batch of dogs were brought in, with the newbies discussing their background. Newton tried to defend his heritage against some hostile other trainees. Due to some high dice on my side, Newtons lying raise was exposed (reversed the blow) and his snooty adversary proclaimed him a perfect example of why circus folks were bad. Andy could have gave, but he decided to escalate up and pop that girl in the jaw as his see, taking some fallout but getting enough dice to finally raise it all out, snarling at the stunned table that THIS was why you should be respecting the circus folk, and staring each of them down. He took the dog he decked, Sister Fidelia, as a 1d4 relationship from fallout.

I'll put the town play up presently. Chargen took a little while, but the system was new to the other players, and none of them have played Narr-heavy games like Dogs; Andy's never played any rpg before. The initiations came together really well, and created a safe place for everyone to explore the system. There was laughter and appreciation through each one, and we were nearly gasping through Newton's: "I can't believe you did that - but it's so cool that you did. Mate, those are issues."

[Alex F]

Mauve Coats - Saturday - Town
Overall the town produced some really great play. I was pleased to find we seemed to be all on the same page, if not the same paragraph, when it came to flexibility with raises. Jump-cuts and slo-mos were grokked as a cool option, stepping away from task resolution quite happily; on the other hand, bringing in really tenuous traits was called out on both sides. A mistake I made with both groups was equivocating on whether multiple traits can be brought in on a raise: of course they can, and I should have welcomed that. Also,  players seemed quickly prepared to take seemingly harsher fallout, such as dropping die sizes, when this was thematically appropriate, as well as offering raises that didn't effect all their opponents. It happened so naturally that it didn't seem weird, but the fact that we could be privileging story while still all up in the dice mechanic (and loving it) was cool.

To recap for those not interested in reading the town description, Pride = Bro Pleasant's desire to have it as good as Bro Derrick without putting in the work; Injustice = his according treatment of his family; Sin = his families actions: wife Sister Ninea prays for his death; son Jada takes to hunting and killing for attention; daughter Sister Althea begins prostitution; Demonic Attacks lead to oprhaning Sister Marille, who joins the family, and is lead into Althea's sin; False Doctrine = belief that whoring is right, and Corrupt Worship = celebration of this, and attempts to win over a third girl, Sister Electa, an unfaithful (in my rendering a dogmatist).

We only got into a few conflicts before our first session ended.
The first one was trying to get Sister Ninea to spill the beans. Sister Ninea hints, then goes cold, gets angry, with her strong temper, women of house and meaty paws tries to throw the dogs out, eventually trying to woop them out with a broom, thwacking Nathaniel over the head and tearing his coat. They stand firm and  she gives up that her husband is the source of her woe, and gushes over how her children are shining examples to her. This was fun.  Everyone seemed engaged by the fact that this little housewife was running rings round their agents of the lord through the proper use of system, rather than arbitrary fiat, and the scene was funny with a backdrop of tension. It also provided a real framework for roleplay, which was great as I was incredibly rusty and might have sunk amongst all the townspeople without a mechanical structure to activate and reuse; I suspect it served a similar purpose for Andy.

Cue Sister Althea, leaving to do some chores downtown looking nicely dressed up. The penny quickly drops (I hope I wasn't hiding it) but the dogs go up to speak to Marille, who eventually admits to her situation. They initiate a conflict ``Do we get Marille to give up whoring?'' which goes from a spat in her room to a frosty dinner table denouement with the whole family about to say grace! Her sin was exposed and she reached shameful understanding. Outraged, Ninea hits the roof - ``in my house, this is what we've been reduced to?'' and goes for hubbie (Bro Pleasant) with the rifle. The dogs take her down pretty quick, and snatch up the rifle.

Mauve Coats - Tuesday
This session stepped it up a bit. A bit of mass-email banter had identified that the other group (Grey Coats) had enjoyed some character-character conflict. In addition, I'm sure exposure to the system meant the players were more confident in what they could do. My scene framing and conflict initiation had been too wishy washy the last session so I announced that I would push things harder, and wanted the players to do it too.

It began with Blind Nathaniel barking to Newton to train the confiscated rifle on Bro Pleasant. Andy was all ``what? why? I don't have a beef with him'' and when I suggested a conflict they went straight to it: does Bro Newton train the gun on Pleasant? Some of the conflict was beautiful:
Nathaniel raises: This man is the source of our troubles.  Raise the gun to his head.
Newton dodges: Don't you tell me what to do, brother! I am not subordinate to you!
Newton raises: (A knack for lying) Anyway I am training the gun on him!
Nathaniel takes the blow: (blind) Oh. good.
Nathaniel raises: Because, of course, a real servant of the king of life would recognise that he must be vigilant, and keep sin within his sights!
...keeping the conflict going at an ironic level! This stuff came mostly direct from the players but everyone was pretty open to proposals thrown out at the table. Eventually, the wind was taken out of Nathaniel's sails.

Bro Pleasant implores dogs to sort out the true problem behind it all - Bro derrik - and at this point I engineered a party split - Alex A had been out of the last conflict so I wanted to offer a little spotlight and introduce Jada, who wanted to show the big huntin Dog his spoils. This resulted in a cool tuff dog scene where Hiram pursued a partially skinned demon-inhabited coyote down the street and blasted it to bits. Interesting that the first time the guns came out were when the opponents weren't people. There were no real issues at the table, and it acted as breathing-space between the high-tension familial arguments.

Let me say that again.  Hunting demons was a relief from the real action, dealing with familial issues. I can't help but think of this thread , and think of every great TV show (most clearly encapsulated by something like Buffy) which demonstrate how natural this should be; but still, to systematise it so the game reflects this is a real 'whoa!' for me.

Meanwhile the other dogs played a conflictless scene with Derrik, where I volunteered everything that I felt was worthwhile (he was a decent guy,  didn't give any evidence of hidden secrets or sin under interrogation). I worry that  things sagged a little in this scene as I had nothing really going on in it: the NPC as written (and played) is decent and uncomplicated, and really not involved in the problems at all. Possibly the game felt more of a clue hunt there, and I feel that the players shifted down a gear.  I cut into the scene with the sound of gunshots from the coyote killing outside to step things up, and their final addresses did naturally lead to Derrik providing some impetus, by naming another girl who may have alluded with Althea.

The Dogs sped off to the blacksmiths shop to confront the nonFaithful girl Electa, who lives there with her dogmatic invalid mother [mental note: how do a teenage girl and an invalid run a blacksmiths?]. Electa denies that Althea is there, and kicks the dogs around for a while with her Innocent face, Pout and Friendless traits - she won't give up the only girl in the town to give a damn about her non-faithful ass. I forgot then, as throughout the game, to assign relationship dice to characters and draw them into conflicts, which was a major slip. After a fun conflict - looming, fearsome Nathaniel tries to break Electa's pout by meeting her gaze with blasted, bubbled eyesockets, but takes the blow and is staring at the fireplace instead -  The Dogs win out with restraint, but when Althea appears the stakes go way up: the two girls attempt to seduce a Dog.

Kapow! This really set the game alight. Those girls were good. And it unfolded like a scene of great fiction. Clean-cut Hiram opening with small talk to really try and change the subject like the awkward virgin he is, to get everyone to calm down and have a chat - raising everyone in the combat. He gets a reversed, escalated fist in the face from Nathaniel for his troubles. Electa pressing her flesh against Newton, who gets a big helping dice from Nathaniel, as he shakes his bloodied fist in his field of vision to ``help'' him remember the consequences of poor decisions. Yet Nathaniel himself is only immune to their visual charms, and no match for Altheas delicate hands, twitching helplessly (in every sense).  His catastrophing overreaction is to draw and fire on her just as Marille enters to try and address the situation. Gouts of blood from Althea. Whose Tolerant of pain 2d4 keeps her going when she should have gave. Still trying for those stakes, staggering towards Hiram and Newton with a leer of pain and lavisciousness! Of course, Hiram Can't Stand the Sight of Blood 1d10... it all gelled fantastically.

Of course, the girls gave... of course, Althea is seriously injured and starts to die... and of course, Nathaniel takes the responsibility for taking her back from the brink, and raises with his last two dice to do so.

After this, any conflicts seemed superfluous, and the denoument was cracking. Pleasant and Derrock dragged to the boundaries of their plots, in the middle of the night, to have Nathaniel lecture them on the clods of earth they both possess, resonant of the sanctified earth used to plug Althea's wound, and how envy and lethargy present infertile soil to grow upon. Then in a stunning piece of judgment, they conclude that each farmer must henceforth tend the other's ground, and learn from this how to serve as good neighbours! I just said yes, yes, yes.

Feedback after the game has been positive. I haven't had a chance to entirely gauge Andy's take on the whole enterprise, but his at the table demeanour was as involved, if a little more cautious, as the other people playing. If the game was thin on anything it was setting colour - I need to dose up on a few good Westerns, as I kept flailing about for what goes on in a border town besides farming. My imagined story felt a little bit like Dogville at times, conflicts in a suggestive vacuum, which was cool in some senses but I'm not sure what we're all after.

Any input would be valuable. One thing I took home from this sesion was a counterfactual to the claim that traditional gamers take to DitV harder than new gamers; my sense at the table was that this wasn't really the case; Tom and Alex A have been D7Ding from way back to now, whereas Andy has never played a game before. While I wouldn't consider that Andy got to grips with the game any slower than the other two, I equally wouldn't say he was any quicker.

I'll get a precis of the other group's play presently [EDIT: not so presently, as we've moved our final session back to wednesday], and get into some issues . A few questions:

1. What is the point of scenes such as the one with Derrik?  It felt appropriate to not connive a conflict, especially one based on thin air (``Does Derrik spill whether he's causing problem in  town?'' Roll, roll, give. Uh, He spills, and he's not.) and it seemed to work, more or less, as fallow space between conflicts and  juxtaposition with the action outside. But I couldn't shake the idea that the players were waiting out the scene to see what clues I was saving, and there wasn't anything there. This was a bit more of an issue in the next game.
2. A subset of 1, really. Does the GM have a role in pacing play? Clearly, she doesn't have total authority to do so - if the players want to launch a conflict from the bones of the previous, that's all dandy, system-wise. But can dogs be the better for interjections of meaningful colour scenes (raising a barn, say) that generate involvement in the situation without directly contributing to it? Or should it all be conflict, conflict, conflict?
3 Technical Q:. What happens when you escalate on a see? Technically there is no opportunity to deliver the higher fallout, so it seems to maintain the risk the next raise should also be narrated at that level (e.g. a gunshot if shooting). From the book I think this is how it should go, and I'm thinking also that the escalating character should get to do their raise immediately, barring any clear unfairness, otherwise so much can happen narratively meanwhile that forcing the action would seem unfair.

[syrupalex]

Aaah. I realise what the Jada was on about now with his shed of animal corpses. I think I was very dense in that scene and i didn't quite imagine properly the disturbing nature of a boy of 12 having his own little museum of death. I suppose my view of the game environment was one where people and animals are killed so callously, that this scene really didn't cause the reaction it perhaps should have done. But it does leave the possibility in the future of Jada coming back to haunt us - revenge for being ignored YET AGAIN.

I really love the control we, as players, can have over the narrative and unlike D&D it really benefits from crazy flights of fancy. D&D as we play it is quite a sober game where our character's personality is generally our own and we play heartlessly to gain treasure and experience. As Dogs we gain little without experiencing fallout and thus we are always tempted to emerse ourselves in conflict and whether win or lose is not really that important. In fact, as dogs, we gain very little anyway. Bro Hiram finished the town with stats that were raised in some areas and lowered in others and I don't think he could be said to be more or less powerful than when he started. Without this constant quest for longswords+5 and the like, it really gives the imagination better reign.   

[Alex F]

Cool Alex. One thing I've heard here is that if Dogs return to a town, any new Sin can't be the consequences of the Dogs' actions: the way in which you solve the problems of the town is doctrine. So basically, even though I waved the lonely kid stuff around like a squeaky toy,  if the Dogs didn't bite then there's nothing there to worry about. It was a component of the nascent story that didn't catch fire, so it can be ignored.

Another town, with circumstances that parallel but complicate Jada's plight in Clement's Patch, on the other hand, would be deeply interesting. Especially if it resonates with the Dogs and sows ambivalent seeds...

PS I thought I should post a link to the original town writeup, courtesy of Eric Provost.

[Tom A]

Alex F - this is a great summary of our sessions. I was on the edge of my seat grinning with delight as I re-lived our formative excursion to Clement's Patch.

The notes on whether or not heavy D&Ders like me and Alex A should take to a game like Dogs in the Vineyard are interesting. I guess I would consider myself first and foremost a gamer, and to be a gamer you've got to surrender to what makes that game great. I really love D&D and what it has evolved into – that is, 3rd edition D&D with all its internally consistent, excessively detailed modelling of every facet of character life. Fitting yourself to the levels, classes, skills and millions of campaign sourcebooks is all part of the fun. It's all about that slow accumulation of character power, and unravelling the plots and schemes of the forces of two-dimensional evil.

Dogs in the Vineyard on the other hand requires a different approach, and after an initial disorientation I think we grasped what that is. There is a wonderful feeling of heady recklessness as you propel yourself into conflict in Dogs in the Vineyard, where you know that wit and circumstance could lead to a glorious victory, or could escalate into tragedy. The use of traits is a brilliant way to privilege the role of narrative over game mechanics, and the poker-style use of dice heightens that feeling of gambling with fate each time you enter conflicts. I like the fact that verbal, physical, violent and gun conflicts form a spectrum of equally important interaction, and that all have consequences that are often simultaneously good and bad.

Unlike D&D, where players can carefully direct their players through reasonably predictable and detailed adventuring terrains, their characters gradually accumulating power and colour, Dog in the Vineyard puts you in a position where control over the character is much more primal, immediate and unpredictable, with what Alex F called a Dogsville-like backdrop that gives free rein to the beauty and ugliness of the players.

Hmmmmm, where am I going with this thought? To draw on the religious underpinnings of Dogs in the Vineyard, the game offers a shamanistic experience, one based very much on a personal, subjective, narrative understanding of reality, as opposed to the more communal, intersubjective validation of reality offered by organised, Old World religions. In the shamanistic worldview, political power can be constructed and torn down with greater rapidity, and the ability to structure potent narratives is often key to creating that power.

Alex F's fabulous observation that it was the high-tension familial arguments that really coloured the game and provided the main path of character evolution, while the battles with demons served as entertaining breathing spaces from this tension, is so true. My character's relationship with my fellow players was a really important part of how I evolved in that first session. It's a great game for assuming, and then questioning, strong moral convictions.

[lumpley]

Wow, Tom. I'm flattered.

-Vincent

[Ron Edwards]

I'm a little puzzled by the assertion that Dogs' actions cannot themselves lead to sinful consequences, later in the same town. I think I'm reading the business about "the Dogs' decisions become doctrine" a little differently.

As I see it, the Dogs' decisions become doctrine in the fictional game, but doctrine is only what's eventually written down in books in Bridal Falls. Furthermore, doctrine can always be twisted, and in many cases what twists it are plain old human emotions and conflicts, some of them conceivably sympathetic.

Another way to look at it is that the Dogs' decisions are never final - especially if they revisit a particular town, because that by definition means that town is a multi-chapter story for the Dogs, not a single-chapter story. By revisiting, the group is establishing that "it ain't over here yet, not by a long shot."

Vincent, you want to help me out on this one? When I read "The Dogs' decisions are right," what I'm seeing is, "The players' thematic decisions are not pre-set." I'm not seeing, in the fictional space of the game-world, that the fictional King of Life nods his blessing, and the fictional metaphysics of the game-world are adjusted. I consider your points about how "nothing exists beyond the story" to make any such considerations null and void.

Or to put it a little more bluntly, you know how in classic fantasy role-playing, "the gods exist"? Well, in Dogs, He doesn't, or perhaps less harshly, He only and ever might. He's not there as a feature of the fiction under creation.

Best,
Ron

[Brand_Robins]

A couple of things, starting with Alex's quesitons:

I find that the GM has a large part in pacing play in a couple of ways: deciding who cracks, who comes to the Dogs, who hides from them (all one subset) and then by pushing for smaller or larger stakes in conflicts. Calling and not calling conflicts doesn't often work, as I find that when I don't call the conflicts quick enough, my players will.

B: "So you're raising a barn and talking with folks and it's all lovely"
G: "I help on the ropes, using my Strong 1d10"
B: "Um, are you wanting a conflict here?"
G: thinks... "Yea, I want to impress someone in the crowd with my strength and willingness to help with the community so much that they come to me to confess because they know I'm a good person."

Which, I suppose, also answers the "indirect scenes" question -- I frequently have filler scenes to go into the gaps, much like such scenes in a TV show. The important thing about such scenes is that, just like with TV, either they are very, very short or they quickly pass from filler into conflict or story of one type or another.

As for the whole 'raise on a see' issue -- can you give me an example of a time when this bugged you? This sounds much like a thing each group needs to work out their own protocol for, and without some more context I'm finding it hard to answer.

Finally, as to Ron's comments:

Ron, I'll take your blow, and admit that following the narrative sense of Dogs is more important than diggiling in the "does God or does not God" areas. However, I'd still like to add this as a raise: Even if God does exist it Dogs, and even if the Dogs are RIGHT IN THE EYES OF THE LORD, it doesn't mean that evil and more trouble won't come from the results of their actions. I really think people need to get a little more Old Testemant here: good people doing good things can lead normal people to doing evil in response. God giving people laws can lead to them butchering each other like cattle. God wanting to test the good and try the evil can lead to horrible things happening.

So even if everything the Dogs do is right, even if they really have real faith in a really real God: it doesn't mean that they will bring peace, or an end to troubles. Let us not forget that Christ himself said "I come not to bring peace, but the sword."

So go ahead, be right. Moses was right. He still came back from getting the 10 commandments to find his people worshiping a golden calf.

[Ron Edwards]

Hiya,

I think we're agreeing in full, Brand. It seems to me that you just moved a die from your roll over into mine.

Best not to derail the thread, though, so I'm done posting until Vincent or Alex lets me know. Brand, if you want to continue, or perceive that we're actually disagreeing, email or PM me.

Best,
Ron

[lumpley]

I expect that what Alex is referring to is this, of mine:

The rule is, when you write up the revisited town, the pride can't be the Dogs'.

But read the rest of that post, and a bunch of others I've written, like this one and this one and this one - in fact read that whole thread - read those and you'll see that I agree with Ron and Brand. "The Dogs are always right; what they decide is God's Will and nobody can ever question it" is not so.

-Vincent

[Brand_Robins]

Wow, if Ron and I agree on something it must be true. ;)

Oh, and Alex, I realized I missed one of your questions: From the sound of it the scene with Brother Derek shouldn't have to have been a full scene. If Derek doesn't have anything about him that will pump up the tension or reveal the sins, then I'd just have it be a "you question him and find he knows nothing" passover. If the players feel that there is something they should get out of the scene, but can't figure out, they'll keep rooting around for it. So it is often just best to let them know pretty quick that no, there is nothing to find here -- or give it to em explicity. "Brother Derek doesn't have any big sins, and he seems confused as to why Brother Pleasent hates him so much. In fact he starts crying and begs you to fix it up between them, because he wants to be Brother Pleasent's friend."

Then they can go back to Brother Pleasent and ask him why the hell he's pointing them at nice Brother Derek, and get into conflict there. It can be especially good once they know he's the source of the pride and want to get all shoot-in-the-facey, but have just had brother Derek begging them not to hurt Brother Pleasent....

[Tom A]

Cool. On that existence of god point, I really love the game's ambiguity on the question of the existence of gods and demons. I think the emphasis placed on the power of the Dogs to determine Doctrine just helps to underline where the game is coming from, and put players in the mood of the seventeenth century.

The thing about religious and magic beliefs is that they are fundamentally unfalsifiable and thus totally compatible with scientific belief. Everything that has a rational explanation also has a irrational explanation. When I laid hands on Althea to heal her and she started convulsing, this could have been a demonic possession or a response to traumatic blood loss and injury. The game is great at getting you into this perspective.

Otherwise, you suffer from the old-fashioned mindset of seeing religion and magic as little more than a primitive attempt to explain phenomena in the natural world. In fact, religious and magical social mechanisms perform many other functions in most human societies. There is a small part that offers some explanation for natural phenomena, but religion and magic are usually primarily geared towards maintaining social and psychological well-being, creating symbols that sustain motivation in the face of hardship, structuring political power and providing a moral framework for everyday life.

So, regardless of any objectively understood supernatural reality, the moral authority of the Dogs serves to structure people's lives. If there is a problem in the town, it is likely that belief in the authority of the Dogs is so strong that they can create a solution to the problem, even if they cannot discover what the problem actually was. Bringing back my random shamanistic analogy, the Dogs are like shamans in being able to recast social problems in the discourse of symbols that have massive social potency and which can't be falsified rationally. So even if our actions in a town lead to hideous calamity in rational terms, the people would probably still believe that they had just failed to act in full accordance with the decrees of the Dogs.

[Alex F]

Lots of good stuff.
Play example of our see/escalate issue:

<raise>Electa thrusts herself toward Newton.
Andy: shit, all out of dice. I think I'll escalate to gunplay.
<Dodge> Newton draws and shoots her.
Me: Hmm. OK, cool, but if you want those escalating dice you've got to be prepared to cause the escalated fallout. Checking p60 of the rulebook, it seems what you do is say that the next raise is the escalated action, so let's say that your dodge is to pull and cock the gun, and then you'll take a shot on your next raise. Cool?
Table: Cool.
(the above was less me-monologue than I've written it, promise)
And so it was Cool.
BUT THEN Newton doesn't get to raise for some time, until after the narrative has calmed somewhat - mechanically with Electa taking the blow from a raise employing Marille as an improvised item, pleading them all to leave each other be, so she's half-persuaded. [perhaps crucially, Newton may have taken that blow too; I forget.]
So when Newton raises, should he be forced to shoot?
If yes, it feels a little narratively odd, but it would be firm mechanically, and maybe force the narrative in a wrenching direction.
If no, it let's things get to a hairsbreadth of violence - he pulled the gun with intent [certainly the player was willing] but events changed. Which is cool. But he gets the escalation dice for free.

I can't actually remember how we resolved it (though I imagine Andy or one of the others can), but that's the gist of it. I think this would have been more or less reconciled if I said 'OK, see with gunplay, and now you get your next raise NOW with a shot to her heart. Then you can wait for the others to catch up Raise-wise. [or even play on as normal?]'

[Andy R]

Hullo. Just thought I'd chip in with my views as a newcomer to this whole rpg scene.

I did find it a little tricky to get into at first. Mainly, perhaps, as I was unsure of whether to conjure up an image in my mind of what my character was like and then fit his traits to that, or whether I should come up with a few traits and see what kind of person that gives and go from there. Similarly I faltered quite a lot during the conflicts as I was torn between trying to think "what should happen next?" and then coming up way a plausible way of getting my character to achieve that, and alternatively thinking "Ok, the situation thus far is [insert situation as appropriate]. Now, what traits/characteristics of my character can I bring in here and how will they fit into the narrative?" This clearly isn't a criticism of the game itself, just a general musing on what I was thinking at the time. I can see that the answer to both these problems is simply "a little from column A, a little from column B." On the other hand there were bits where everything seemed to come together and there was no contradiction in what I wanted to happen and what I thought seemed plausible given everything that had gone before. Which was nice.

And now to our problem with escalating/seeing: as I remember it that harlot was coming at me with her jubblies fully cocked and I hadn't the dice to fend her off so I tried to shoot her (was it Electa? I thought I wanted to shoot Althea, she was the trouble-maker if I remember rightly, but maybe I did want to shoot them both at different times), and that led to a Dodge, but the next Raise, in the proper order of things, went to someone else, and by the time my Raise came around again Tom had shot the other one and maybe Alex A had kicked him in the crotch or some such and Marille had come in and there was blood everywhere and someone had Raised that we should all calm down (I think you're right Alex, I think I did take that blow) so then I would have to (a) calm down and (b) shoot someone, which seemed to grate. I think in the end we all let it lie and set about saving the girl, so it was all fine, but there was a point at which we seemed to stumble over the game mechanics. I think it's a problem of once I escalated to gunplay did that mean I was stuck in that mode for the rest of the scene, even if no one else escalated similarly, or could I de-escalate, as it were, if it seemed to fit with the narrative?

[Andy R]

Oh yeah, and to follow on from what Alex F said, if we had foregone the Raise order (based on each characters first roll in that particular conflict, I think, although I'm sure earlier in the game we'd played a more "whoever wants to go next does, given that we all think their reaction is reasonable and fits into the story" kind of way) then the seeming contradiction would have been avoided. Basically, how hard and fast should the Raise order be?