The Supernatural Dial

[jburneko]

Hello,

I'm very interested in how the supernatural dial generally gets set, in your game, and once set, how it ultimately affects your game.  This weekend I had the opportunity to play Dogs as a solo PC.  The supernatural dial was pretty much set at zero.  At one point, I was pretty sure which NPC was a sorcerer and was considering doing the whole, break out the book of life and candles and exercise this woman of demons, all Salem Witch Trial style.  But that felt weird because at that point in the game no supernatural special effects had been introduced by the GM.  More specifically, I had never been the target of a supernatural effect.  I discovered that breaking out the ceremony is just as uncomfortable as breaking out the guns if you aren't shot at first.  And then it occured to me that had supernatural special effects been introduced then it would have been a very different game indeed.

So, what is your experience with the supernatural dial?

Jesse

[ffilz]

We had set it sort of low in our initial discussion, but I'm not sure it hasn't crept up. We had some supernatural stuff in one of the accomplishment conflicts, and in our first town we had to exorcise a demon. I wonder if the supernatural dial ends up being set in play as the players feel their way through the game. Talking about it up front is still useful, but I can see it sliding up or down from that initial point in actual play.

Frank

[cdr]

A fun topic!

I've usually seen the dial set between off and low, with eerie creepy effects, wind, leaves rustling, whispered temptations, flocks of birds carrying off a dead sorcerer's soul, like that. I  always explain to the players at the start that where the dial gets set is up to them, and I'm
OK with anything between "Demons are just bad luck and sorcerers are bastards" to "Bride with White Hair bullets off the coat spang-spang-spang."

I've never seen the Dogs even attempt to raise the dead, although sometimes I point out to the players that if they wanted to, I'd have to say yes or roll dice.  That usually gets a nervous laugh, but no takers.

Faith healing is often called on in healing conflicts.  Earl's Brother Jabez ("born in pain") had the excellent trait "Blood-Stopper 2d10" inspired by Ozark folk legends about people who could read a certain passage from the bible and stop a wound from bleeding.  They could teach three people, who had to be non-relatives of the opposite sex, and after they teach the third they could never use it again. He has a 1d8 relationship with Sister Mina, the dog who taught him to stop blood, and I would not be surprised if her last name were Harker, although she never showed up. Jabez also has "Only one knows all but still there is much I know 1d10" which I believe is Mephisto's line from Faust.

I've seen the trait "Seventh son of a seventh son 1d6" although I don't recall it being used.

One of Earl's towns had tongues with eyes and faces ripped off to reveal insectoid horror but in discussion afterwards we agreed that may have been a mistake - it's a lot easier to shoot a hideous bug-thing than a little girl, and thus less interesting.  Brother Ethan from that game took fallout from an accomplishment that involved a haunted library "Books don't scream 1d4."

Ceremony is pretty common, and we often interpret "souls of the faithful" to mean that if
Three in Authority is invoked vs. a Faithful and they take the blow, it's d8 fallout, not d4.
Souls matter.

I've played one game where the GM seemed reluctant to have the King of Life be real in the setting, and while that's absolutely not the GM's call I played along, although I was sorry to not take the trait "The King of Life talks to all who listen 1d8."  Someday I will.

The most common supernatural accomplishment I've seen is "I exorcised a demon", and several times I've described the silent grove out behind the Dog's Temple that the trainees are forbidden to enter or even look at, with the cold marble box with symbols and sigils carved all over, and its heavy lid.  Rumor has it there's a demon in there. Sometimes I frame an accomplishment with a Temple instructor wanting the trainee to open the box to let the demon out, then put it back in, while he watches to make sure no harm comes, and usually instead another trainee talks the PC into sneaking out there the night before "to practice."

One Dog smeared his hands with consecrated earth and wrestled a demon, with the eventual trait "I'm stronger than the devil 3d6." (He also had the trait "Something not right about that Boy 2d8".)

I've never used corporeal demons, although I've used possessed folks a fair bit. I don't consider demons to be individuals or named, I like to think of them as the leftover bits of creation that Adam didn't name and thus don't serve the King of Life, but that doesn't have any influence on play.  I might use it for a town someday.

Earl's Brother Makepeace wanted his accomplishment to be that he bound a demon.  His father had died in a mining cave-in, and when Makepeace and a young boy were caught in a cave-in, Makepeace accepted a demon into his heart to save the boy, and took the traits "There's a demon bound in my heart 1d6", "Bulletproof heart 1d4" and a relationship "Demon in my heart 1d6".  That last makes him a sorcerer, but it never came up in the game.

Earl's suggested a common sign of possession is the claim that demons don't exist.

A very effective (if desperate!) tactic in a hard fight against a sorcerer would be to take a relationship with the demons, then roll that in PLUS call upon the demons for aid, giving you the 4d10 for demonic influence.  I've never seen anyone do that, and I don't imagine it would end well, but if Solomon could do it, why not the servants of the King?  Possibly your fellow Dogs may have something to say on the matter, so you might want to secretly murder one of them so you can get the full 5d10 you deserve.

I'm looking forward to hearing what others have done with the supernatural dial!

[Iskander]

My first game, I ramped it up way high... and it was not very good. When the Steward's wife was like something from anime, it was pretty clear she needed exorcism, stat. Not so much of the meaty challenging play. My bad. Second game (same town, different players) the dial not so high, and we got a lot more satisfying play. The differences between the two groups makes comparison a bit moot, though.

Recently, I've been keeping it fairly low, but with plenty of mid-level colour: smoke and flames doing things, stuff that could be a trick of the light, big gaps left between effects and cause. This was a choice based on the slightly different desires of the group, and I've found that it works just fine for each of them to have their own dial. It seems to be working well. One Dog sees Achitophel in the smoke, another sees... just smoke. The variety is quite spicy.

[Vaxalon]

We've decided, after four sessions, to dial it to "1"... as low as we can go without turning it off.

When demons are exorcised from someone or something, wisps of black smoke can be seen emanating from them, but only to those who are paying attention, and only to those who know to look, i.e. if a Back East scientist were to be there, he'd say they were imagining things.

The PC's have used faith healing on several occasions, but it doesn't make the victim immediately hale and hearty; it gets them through a crisis point in their affliction and leaves them with ordinary healing to do after that.  They only do it when they believe there are demonic attacks at stake; they didn't try to heal Sister Peace's crippled hand, for example, because they determined it to be the result of purely human spite rather than demonic ire.

At this point, if I were to describe any big deal supernatural stuff, my players would balk.  And that's a good thing, I know I can trust them.

That being said, though, I think the dial may creep up at the end of the series of towns.

[jburneko]

It seems that people have the experience that as the supernatural dial goes up the game actually becomes a little more difficult to run.  The reason seems to be that if you have weirdness flying around it's much easier to say, "SORCERY!  Shoot 'em!"  than if the dial is down where a Sorcerer is just someone taking advantage of everyone's unlucky misfortune.  Am I reading this right?

Jesse

[coffeestain]

That's been my experience.  It tends to make the situation less human.

Regards,
Daniel

[Levi Kornelsen]

In our game, the dial starts low.  When there are non-Dogs watching, it stays low.  The less observers, the higher it can go.  The Dogs see what others don't - they check towns for blighted crops, have been attacked by a possessed child in the dark that could apparently jump higher than a man's head...

...But it's all "apparently".   Almost all of it can be "explained away"; the regular people don't know, and they don't want to, and it never really comes out until after decisions have been made, or where they don't matter to the main parts of the game.  In effect, crazy supernatural stuff is like a side dish for our game.  The main course of people and judgement remains, and is the real deal.

It works for us, at least.

[cdr]

It seems that people have the experience that as the supernatural dial goes up the game actually becomes a little more difficult to run.

My experience so far has been that supernatural effects are easy to come up with and fun in small doses; the mechanics handle them just as easily as anything else.  But I harbor concerns that too much supernatural is a distancing mechanism, like humor.  In small doses it builds tension, in large doses it relieves tension.  That can be fine, to keep the game at a comfortable level, but it can also be regrettable, to pull back from the full impact of a decision.

If the Dogs make a beeline for the sorcerer and shoot her dead, is that a GM Force in subtler clothes?  Has anyone run a game in which the Sorcerer *didn't* get killed (or the Dogs die trying)?

But Actual Play is the real test, so there's a town I have in mind to test these ideas on.

To me at least, a high supernatural also makes things feel "less real."  If bullets bounce off you, then there's less at stake when someone points a gun in your face, even though "Ice for Blood 3d10" and "No White Man's Bullet Can Kill Me 3d10" would both suffice. Thinking about it, I think that in the former it establishes and reinforces how bad-ass the Dog is, staring down that gun, and in the latter, since there's no real danger because bullets can't hurt you, you aren't cool.

I think it's similar to my distaste for shooting guns out of hands.  There's nothing to stop a Dog
using trick shots, but it feels very wrong to me (even though I was the one that did it and my fellow players let me). It's like saying "I want my gun dice and all my gun traits but without anyone getting hurt."  I  don't know, is anyone out there running Dogs as singing cowboys in white hats? (If so, I'd really love to hear how it went!)

--Carl

[Vaxalon]

the Dogs didn't kill the sorceress in my last game.  They decided that since she hadn't converted in her heart, she belonged with her family Back East.

[Supplanter]

the Dogs didn't kill the sorceress in my last game.  They decided that since she hadn't converted in her heart, she belonged with her family Back East.

That's pretty damn cool.

Best,


Jim

[Levi Kornelsen]

If the Dogs make a beeline for the sorcerer and shoot her dead, is that a GM Force in subtler clothes?  Has anyone run a game in which the Sorcerer *didn't* get killed (or the Dogs die trying)?

Yup.

Broken, driven to repentance, dressed in sack-cloth, and dragged back to the Dog's temple.

There to become a Dog, or die trying.

It was a moment of pure awesome.

[Ben Lehman]

Two of the best games of Dogs I've played have had the supernatural dial turned way up.  On the surface, everything is ordinary, but as soon as the demons and Dogs come out, things get mighty strange.

This resulted in the raise of "A great tree of life grows up in the center of the village, showering down its blessings on everyone."

Which got blocked with "lightning strikes the tree, and it burns."

Joy.

yrs--
--Ben

[Alephnul]

Only run 1 town so far. My players seem to want high supernatural, so we'll be trying that for a while. I think what I'm going to do to avoid the "Oh, she's displaying supernatural powers, she must be the the Sorceress, kill her," problem is to declare that the Dogs and the sorcerers aren't the only ones who get to run up the supernatural dial, so just because someone has moderate super powers doesn't mean they are a sorcerer. The Dogs aren't the only ones who are given gifts by the King of Life.

Does that seem like it would work rasonably well? Has anyone else run that way?

[Ben Lehman]

Only run 1 town so far. My players seem to want high supernatural, so we'll be trying that for a while. I think what I'm going to do to avoid the "Oh, she's displaying supernatural powers, she must be the the Sorceress, kill her," problem is to declare that the Dogs and the sorcerers aren't the only ones who get to run up the supernatural dial, so just because someone has moderate super powers doesn't mean they are a sorcerer. The Dogs aren't the only ones who are given gifts by the King of Life.

Does that seem like it would work rasonably well? Has anyone else run that way?

I'd be a little worried about doing things that way, simply because I think it shifts the tone less from "creepy mystical west" and more to "mormon hogwarts."

When I play a game with a high supernatural dial, my general rule of thumb is: If the Demonic Influence dice are on the table, the GM gets to use magic in their raises and blocks.

Note that not everyone who gets Demonic Influence is a Sorcerer.  For instance, someone possessed by a demon gets them, even if they are possessed unwillingly.  Likewise, someone doing the will of the demons gets them, even if they are good people who mean well.  Likewise, natural phenomenon always get them.

yrs--
--Ben