[DitV] A few questions

[ffilz]

Looking back over my one play session, I have some questions:

First, in that session, we had a conflict on the way to town. The conflict was cool and all that, but if I'm reading the rules right, since we had not been exposed to the sin ladder yet, the demonic influence would have been none, so the GM should have only got 4d6 (for a conflict not against an individual), which would not have been very interesting. I think the general idea of such a conflict is interesting, but I'm not sure it was handled the best way. Any thoughts on that? Probably not too important for tonight since I don't plan to do such an "on the way" conflict.

Reading some of the threads, I definitely have a better feel for how to handle group conflicts, and I will also try to keep the PCs from tromping around as a group.

I have a question about arenas though and escalation. If I open a conflict with talking, and an NPC responds with a punch, does the NPC get all his stat dice? In other words, does everyone in a conflict start with the same dice? Then when an escalation happens, does just the person who escalated get the new stat dice? Do the other folks have to escalate also (in their see or raise) to get the new stat dice?

Hmm, I felt like I had another question, but I guess that's it.

Frank

[Vaxalon]

IMO, there shouldn't be any conflicts until the town is presented, at the very least as represented by one of its folk.

[ffilz]

Fred - yea, I'm coming to that conclusion. In play, I liked the conflict (though I think we should have handled it slightly differently), but yea, following the standard procedure, it's out of place. Now we were sent based on a letter from one of the townsfolk, so that could have counted as revealing part of the town, but then the conflict should have directly related to something revealed in that letter. But still there's the problem of who is the conflict against.

So I'll leave that idea as something that needs more exploration before actually using...

Frank

[Joe Zeutenhorst]

As to what was going on in my brain on the first conflict. I'd revealed a little about the town by a letter sent by the Territorial Authority post - that the town is in conflict with a nearby unfaithful mining camp and things are getting violent. The Steward at the Dogs' Temple lays out a bit about the town's founder and etc. Then, I immediately hit the conflict, "Do you arrive at the town before the letter's writer is hung?" I gave the distance to the branch 4d6 + 4d10, basically because I thought that's a good amount to force the Dogs to take fallout if they want to win, but definitely can beat if they're motivated (which is against the rules).

I said that if one Dog made it, they'd all make it in time. Reading the conflict rules again, I'm thinking this was actually right. If the Dogs win, and the "journey" gives, the Dogs get the stakes, right? It doesn't matter which of them are in at the end. At the time, though, I really didn't want to shut some players out of the decision on the hanging, which was why I did things that way.

So yeah, it was messed up. If I did this town again, would it be legal to establish heresy or sorcery in the letter and roll a decent Demonic Influence straight out? Is knowing a Faithful man is concerned about local violence, his life is in danger and he can't use the Faithful post enough to put him at stake in a conflict? Should I have established that the constable of the unfaithful town and the Steward were doing the hanging and rolled their dice?

[ffilz]

Hmm, perhaps it would have been better to just open a conflict right with the hanging. Then clearly the constable, the steward, and the crowd are all involved. PC's could take a relationship with Cyrus for some extra dice, plus he could count as an ally for them.

Also note the rule that the GM only gets one dice pool. That definitely worked better when I played this evening.

Frank

[Eero Tuovinen]

I have a question about arenas though and escalation. If I open a conflict with talking, and an NPC responds with a punch, does the NPC get all his stat dice? In other words, does everyone in a conflict start with the same dice? Then when an escalation happens, does just the person who escalated get the new stat dice? Do the other folks have to escalate also (in their see or raise) to get the new stat dice?

Everybody gets the dice for what they're doing. If you start with talking, you get the dice from the talking stats (I forget the stat names this far in the game). If another character starts with fistfighting, he gets his fighting stats (Will and Body?). So I don't see how and why a NPC should get all his dice for starting with a punch. Specifically, despite the name, escalation is not a one-way street, you can start with talking and escalate to fighting, or the other way around.

Escalation is always a personal choice, and doesn't affect the dice of the other characters. Thus the escalating person is the only one who gets to roll new dice when he escalates. If the others want new dice, they have to escalate also.

[ffilz]

Top clarify my question a bit better, do all the players roll the same stats based on the starting arena? I'm thinking yes, and in many conflicts you should know who has the first raise, and based on that raise, what the arena is. Of course someone can immediately escalate, and I agree, you can escalate in any direction. This evening, we played everyone having to escalate individually, and that worked well.

It was also nice to see that just because guns were out, not all raises were gun shots. One thing I'm not sure we did quite correctly was having a gun drawn as a threat, but not escalating, and taking the gun's dice of course. It seemed to flow well, but might not be strictly by the rules.

Frank

[Eero Tuovinen]

No, the characters need not act on the same "arena". One could well start the conflict by talking, while the other started a fistfight. Then they'd get different dice both. Also, you might want to give the first raise to the player with the best dice in some situations, as suggested in the rules.

Guns are tools like everything else, so of course they can be used without shooting as long as they're useful for the situation. You don't have to escalate to draw in dice from tools.

[lumpley]

One thing I'm not sure we did quite correctly was having a gun drawn as a threat, but not escalating, and taking the gun's dice of course. It seemed to flow well, but might not be strictly by the rules.

Not only is that strictly by the rules, it's an effect I'm pretty proud of.

...Then, I immediately hit the conflict, "Do you arrive at the town before the letter's writer is hung?" I gave the distance to the branch 4d6 + 4d10...

I like that kind of conflict a lot and strongly endorse it - but the Dogs' opponent would be whoever's hanging the guy. The distance to the town would be a constraint on the raises and sees.

-Vincent

[ffilz]

Vincent: cool! And you're definitely right, it's cool that a gun has value as a threat.

On the getting to town in time conflict: Yea, that would work much better to be against a specific individual, and I agree, you just need to think about the context in making raises and sees.

Frank