[TMW] [DitV] DunDraCon 2006 CA: 6 Ronin + 8 Dogs = Fun!

[cdr]

Fun is running Dogs until 1am and waking up at 6am full of energy wishing I could run again right away.

DunDraCon 2006 in northern CA was a lot of fun.  I had six players for my 8am Saturday game of The Mountain Witch.  The witch and 5 of Ronin died, and the sole survivor met the dark fate from his nightmare, and it was all very satisfying and finished up in 7 hours.  Four of the players expressed interest in trying Dogs, so I ran Tower Creek for them Saturday evening, and had awesome fun.  Brother Jabez named the dead baby Jeremy ("God has uplifted") while two of the other dogs were in conflict with the Steward in his corn field on "Does the Steward confront Brother Jabez?" Those Dogs gave when the Steward's youngest daughter Tirzah (14) came to his aid with a kitchen knife "You get away from my pa!", rolling 2 8's on his 2d8 relation, and raising 14 to stab them both.  They weren't willing to get stabbed by or shoot a young girl to have their way, so they gave, and everything worked out for the best eventually.  There was some discussion that maybe Tirzah might be headed for the Dog's Temple, 'cause it's surely not a girl's place to defend her family.

Sunday Steve Long expressed interest in trying Dogs, which he had read, and he roped in Ken Hite, along with another couple of great players, all of whom were playing Dogs for the first time, and I ran Tower Creek again. My sixth time, for anyone keeping count, and EVERY time that dead baby gets a name, but this was the first time the baby got dug up. (My thanks to Earl Hubbell for the idea of having the umbilical cord tied in a hangman's noose around the baby's throat.  That sure got folks' attention in a hurry!)

This time there was quite the bloodbath in the Stewards' house, with Tirzah winding up crippled but not dead.  It was really interesting seeing "every die in a gun is a die that wants you to shoot someone" in action, and in the healing conflict with Brother Obadiah vs. Tirzah's 6d8+5d10 (for fallout from Brother Joshua's clubbing her down, plus demonic influence for hate and murder) I was down to 8,7,7 and raised 14 for "She'll never walk again" and he struggled a bit over whether to give (she dies from her wound), or escalate to guns and shoot her in the head (so it's clear that she's dying as his deliberate choice), or take the blow.

He took the 3d4 fallout, and raised more than 8 that she would still be able to bear children, and I gave (not being able to see) but also accepted that she could have children.  (Technically you could think of that as a followup conflict which I immediately gave on.)

Brother Joshua (Complicated Community) had the trait "I drownd my sister 1d8" and his accomplishment was "I hope I forgave my Mother for giving birth to evil."  The Temple instructors put him and his mother in a room with a loaded gun on the table between them, and told them to work it out. After a bit of back and forth he pistol whipped his mother, and I used my ast two dice to Raise 19 "And she dies from it" and he took that blow, then forgave her posthumously.  Whew.  For the experience from fallout he kept the blood-stained gun.  He had a relationship with Aunt Wilhelmina, who was the only one of the family who had treated him decent after he'd drownd his baby sister in the bath, and she hadn't got the news yet so greeted him with the usual "How's your mother?"

"She's passed on."

God I love running Dogs.

I'd love to run for them again at some future con to see how Brother Zadok and Brother Melchior's head-butting turns out, with Zadok built for alking and Melchior's "Deadly shot 3d10".  And I haven't even mentioned Brother Obadiah's holy axe-handle that he took as experience from his accomplishment "I do not wish to join a community 1d6".

I have some thoughts on relationships in one-shots that I may post seperately in the Lumpley games forum or Actual Play, but it was definitely a good thing to have someone linked to all 4 Dogs in the town. (Brother Joshua had Aunt Wilhelmina 2d8, Brother Zadok had the Sheriff Cyrus 1d6 as his older brother who hated him and made his life hell  growing up, Brother Obadiah had his oldest sister Bethia 2d6 as the first wife of the Steward, and Brother Melchior had a 1d6 relationship to "My sister Rachel's contemptible husband Luke" (Rachel being the woman who lost her baby) which led to the memorable moment when Brother Obadiah
offered Melchior his holy axe-handle and Melchior said "Beatin's for a man." and instead had Zadok horsewhip his brother-in-law for not protecting his wife properly.

As a bonus, Monday morning I got to talk about the game a bit with Ken nd Steve and Brad and Jason and that was great fun too.

And I may have to change my mind about Dogs being best with 3 players, and say it's best with 4.  (It's very good with 2, but 5 is just crazy talk.)

DunDraCon's program mentioned you could rent a table and chairs for the weekend for your room from the hotel for $75 and I left voice mail Saturday for the hotel contact and heard back Sunday they were out, so that was too bad.

Endgame in the Dealer's Room sold out of Dogs, Mountain Witch, and Octane (possibly other things too).  I'm hoping to run Demos of Dogs, Mountain Witch, or Polaris at Endgame sometime, and to run Dogs at their April 1 Game Day.

If you're going to be at Gencon, Conquest (San Francisco Labor Day), and maybe Origins and Conquest Sacramento (April), and would like to try Dogs, drop me a line, because I'm always up for running it.  (I won't be at Kublaicon Memorial Day weekend because it's the same weekend as Fanime in San Jose, but if for some strange reason you'll be at Fanime and would like to try Dogs with a shoujo style to it, do let me know!)

--
Carl Rigney
cdr@telemancy.com

[lumpley]

Cool!

Why Tower Creek? I think it's awesome that you've played the town so many times - I've played it three or maybe four, I forget - what do you dig about that one in particular?

-Vincent

[talysman]

yeah, I went looking for Dogs at DunDraCon and couldn't find it. I must have just missed it. I picked up Monster Burner instead and played two Burning Wheel games at the con, which I will perhaps post about later.

I couldn't make the Mountain Witch game because I was arriving saturday and had no way of getting to the game that early. I'd like to see how it and Dogs are played at Conquest Sac, if you head up this way.

I'm a little sorry that the scheduling wiki you set up didn't help any of us to meet up.

[cdr]

Sorry I didn't meet you John.  I ran into Chris Musgrave in the halls a time or two but we didn't get to game together. The Scheduling Wiki was an experiment; I'll try it again for Con Quest Sacramento in April. I'm also hoping to run Dogs at the Endgame April 1 Game day, and maybe Polaris as well.

I want to see if I can talk DunDraCon into using the same room for indie games so that there'd be a natural place for people looking for other indie gamers to check and hook up and leave messages.  (Endgame also seems very supportive of indie games so I wonder whether they might find room for a message board in their booth.)  For those not familiar with DunDraCon, they give each RPG session its very own hotel room (although Open Gaming is still a giant hot noisy room), not like Origins or Gencon where there may be 10 tables in one big room.

Part of my reason for posting the brief summary here (instead of detailed analysis, which I may do also, but have to think about some more first) is to show that there ARE indie games happening at DunDraCon, in the hopes that next year more people interested in that sort of thing will decide to attend, and critical mass will be developed. That's a little hampered in that DunDraCon wants 6 players minimum, and a lot of the new hotness doesn't work well with that many players.  But they will schedule 8-hour slots, and Mountain Witch works great with 6 players, given 8 hours for things to stew and bubble.

I'll answer Vincent's question about why I like Tower Creek so much in a seperate post, probably later today since I don't have time just now to do it justice.

--Carl

[cdr]

I've made a stab at answering why I like running Tower Creek so much at http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/index.php?topic=18826.0.

[sirogit]

I was in the Mountain Witch game, and it indeed was quite rockin'. I'd be intereasted in working with a wiki to schedule more indie-games during a Con, but I'm not sure what next con I'll be attending.

- Sean Musgrave

[EndGame]

yeah, I went looking for Dogs at DunDraCon and couldn't find it. I must have just missed it. I picked up Monster Burner instead and played two Burning Wheel games at the con, which I will perhaps post about later.

Hey there, we sold 7 copies of Dogs on Saturday, leaving us with one on Sunday that was already spoken for. Sorry we didn't have it for you when you can a-lookin. I emailed Vincent about fast tracking us 10 more copies, and am awaiting word on that front. I was glad EndGame could bring a little Indy goodness to Dundracon, and we will be doing the same thing at Kublacon and Conquest SF.

Carl, next time you run Dogs or any Indy sessions at local cons, let me know. We Sposnored a 30+ person L5R game, and provded them with drinks/caffinee to get through the night. Happy to do that again...

Cheers!

[Ben Lehman]

EndGame guys --

Good to see you here.  Welcome to the Forge!  Which one of you is this?

yrs--
--Ben

[timfire]

I had six players for my 8am Saturday game of The Mountain Witch.  The witch and 5 of Ronin died, and the sole survivor met the dark fate from his nightmare, and it was all very satisfying and finished up in 7 hours. 

7 hours is a decent length for a game. Let me ask a quick data point---When the Fates were revealed, did the revelations act as the climax of the story, near the end of the session? Or did they occur more towards the middle, with a significant amount of play afterwards?

When I do my 4 or 5 hour Con games, revealing Fates tend to act as the climax of the story. But when I take my time for longer games, I usually push lots of Fate-related stuff after they are revealed, to further build the tension.

Thanks!

[EndGame]

EndGame guys --

Good to see you here.  Welcome to the Forge!  Which one of you is this?

yrs--
--Ben

Hey there, Ben...

It's Chris. Being the marketing guy for the store, I also tend to be the one trolling the various forums. Thanks for the warm welcome, I love the community here!

Ch