A humble beginning and then some questions

[Superstar]

I've been reading about DitV for some time and when a guy at my local gaming store mentioned that he owned it, played and didn't like it I asked him if I could buy it from. He said that he'd give it to me for free. Turned out it was a printed version (1st ed) that he had bought as an PDF but never mind, I was thrilled. I read it yesterday and high-jacked Tuesday night usual gaming slot (Mutant, a Swedish RPG). The players where a bit reluctant at first but when the night was over they had all capitulated before DitV's greatness.

The Deal

The town of Elk Home is in trouble.

Delilah, the old steward's young wife, has taken the young, handsome & unmarried smith Jason as a lover. They are deeply in love but Delilah still holds great love for the steward as a husband, father and caretaker of the community. She thinks that the fact that he cant provide her with the "earthly pleasures" gives her the right to take a lover.

The dry-store owners wife, Lavina, adores the Steward and sees that he's broken from his wives side-business. She overcharges the smith and his elderly mother.

This in turn leads to resent from the smiths mother who begins spreading false rumours that the shopkeepers it at his wife's leach and not a proper, authoritiv husband.

These sins ( the cheating and the lies) opens for a demonic attack in form of a disease among elks in the surrounding woods, the livelihood of one quarter of the community's male adults (the hunters).

The hunters explain this disease by pointing towards the recent return of the Mountain Folk to the area (who by the way don't seem to have any trouble finding healthy elks to hunt). Surely it is so that the elk is intended for those who worship the nature spirits.

One hunter, old Jeremiah, has begun worshipping the nature spirits of the mountain folk and is trying to get more of the hunters to join him.

The Story

Brother Aaron, brother Joshua and Brother John arrive at Elk home after receiving a letter from Brother Johns cousin, the cheating Delilah, asking the for help.

She meets them outside town and describes the entire story (except the sick elks and the unfaithful hunter Jeremiah. She invites them to dine with her and her husband that evening.
During the day the Dogs see some hunters hanging around the dry-goods store with nothing to do. They ask what is amiss and are told the story of the dying elks. Jeremiah takes them out in the woods to show them and tells of the return of the Mountain Folks.

Now the players, armed with the knowledge of sin structure, are able to paint the entire picture and decide to act.

After dinner Brother Aaron tries to convince Delilah to stop seeing James while Brother Joshua takes the steward out on the porch to convince him that he must pray to the King more often so that his manhood returns.

Brother Aaron fails to convince Delilah and takes some fallout but Brother John continues the persuasion and escalates the conflict to violence (a bitch slap) as the young girl tries to seduce him, thereby making her see her faults.

Outside Brother Joshua has no trouble making the steward realise that the community hangs on his ability to fulfil his marital duties.

The next day brother Joshua and Aaron seek out the smith who escalates the verbal conflict to physical as he is out of dice and humiliated. Both characters take some nasty fallout but manage to wrestle him to the ground, winning the conflict.

We stopped there as it was getting late.

The questions

A d4 trait is mentioned as something of a disadvantage but I don't see how. Ok, it can potentially result in a lot of fallout but it's still better to throw in a couple of d4's than nothing, right?

When Aaron tried to talk to the young wife he lost the conflict and Brother John took over. Is this ok or should they have tried to solve the conflict together from the start? I gave John Aarons fallout dice as a negative modifier (i.e. I treated it as a Follow-up conflict). Is that ok?

When Aaron and Joshua started the conflict with the smith what was at stake was "Can we convince him to stop seeing Delilah?". It then escalated to physical combat and ended with the smith being wrestled to the ground. Should I have changed the stakes to "Can we detain the smith" as it went physical? We had trouble seeing how they had "Convinced him to stop seeing Delilah" when the actual result was "He is pinned to the ground".

My player seemed to throw in the "I'm a dog trait" constantly. They had no problem justifying it: "This is part of a Dogs job, right?" How do you use the "I'm a dog"-trait?

When convincing the steward to pray more I decided that he had the trait "I trust the King". This trait seemed to work against him: the players where asking him to do just that: pray to the king and he will make you be able to pleasure your wife. How would that be handled?

Ok, I have loads more questions but I'll start with these.

And by the way: Thanks for the best RPG experience I have had in ten years! It was a BLAST!

[TragicHeroBC]

Hey Superstar! I have no authority, but I'll try to answer your questions, anyway. :D

A d4 trait is mentioned as something of a disadvantage but I don't see how. Ok, it can potentially result in a lot of fallout but it's still better to throw in a couple of d4's than nothing, right?

The trick is d4 Traits tend to complicate things, they are not necessarily disadvantages. The book simply suggests that most straight forward way of dealing with d4s is to put them into disadvantages (which are brought up and used the same as any other trait). They complicate things because, as you noticed, they may add dice, but they tend to result in more fallout.

When Aaron tried to talk to the young wife he lost the conflict and Brother John took over. Is this ok or should they have tried to solve the conflict together from the start? I gave John Aarons fallout dice as a negative modifier (i.e. I treated it as a Follow-up conflict). Is that ok?

A follow-up conflict's "stakes can be the same as the previous conflict's stakes only if all three of its participants, its stage as set, and its opening arena are different." They can either wait for a different time to try and convince her (and this time they have to do more than talk) or they can escalate. A person can't enter a conflict in the middle of it, although Aaron could have used John as belonging of sorts under the normal rules. I'm pretty sure that you should have forced John  to pick new stakes, someone can correct me if I'm wrong.

Whatever you want to do is 'okay', but I think Aaron should have taken the Fallout as normal (taken some sort of damage).

When Aaron and Joshua started the conflict with the smith what was at stake was "Can we convince him to stop seeing Delilah?". It then escalated to physical combat and ended with the smith being wrestled to the ground. Should I have changed the stakes to "Can we detain the smith" as it went physical? We had trouble seeing how they had "Convinced him to stop seeing Delilah" when the actual result was "He is pinned to the ground".

The stakes of the conflict don't change. Even when they were fighting, it should have become something akin to beating some sense into him. The end result may play out differently ("You're right, I shouldn't see her anymore" if they talk him out of it, or "I give up, you win, I won't see her anymore" if they beat him up, as they did).

My player seemed to throw in the "I'm a dog trait" constantly. They had no problem justifying it: "This is part of a Dogs job, right?" How do you use the "I'm a dog"-trait?

You get to bring in a trait whenever it becomes pertinent to the conflict. This will probably vary by person, but I think a pretty common use would be reminding someone of the authority of the Dogs, like if the smith wasn't listening to them, a raise could involve reminding him they they are the will of the Faith, and one of God's Wathdog's (pick up your "I'm a Dog" dice). If your players feel their use is proper, allow them to use it, generally, but make them bring it into the conflict. Don't just let them say (IMO) "I'm a Dog and I'm in a conflict, I get dice", make them bring their being a Dog into the conflict.

When convincing the steward to pray more I decided that he had the trait "I trust the King". This trait seemed to work against him: the players where asking him to do just that: pray to the king and he will make you be able to pleasure your wife. How would that be handled?

To the best of my knowledge, traits do not ever cut against someone. They always allow them to roll extra dice (and should also reflect something about the character). I guess I just don't really understand your question. Sorry...

I hope that helps some, and I'm sure you'll get more people in here to correct me if I'm wrong (again, I've got no authority).

Tragic

[Superstar]

When convincing the steward to pray more I decided that he had the trait "I trust the King". This trait seemed to work against him: the players where asking him to do just that: pray to the king and he will make you be able to pleasure your wife. How would that be handled?

To the best of my knowledge, traits do not ever cut against someone. They always allow them to roll extra dice (and should also reflect something about the character). I guess I just don't really understand your question. Sorry...

I hope that helps some, and I'm sure you'll get more people in here to correct me if I'm wrong (again, I've got no authority).

Tragic

Ok, let me clarify by a somewhat stupid example: Its the time of feasting. A NPC has the trait "Loves roasted chicken 2D6" and the players try to convince him, through conflict, to break the feast by offering him, per chance, a roasted chicken. Shouldn't this trait in some way work against the NPC in the conflict?

As for your other answers: Thanks man.

[Danny_K]

It seems like they should, but they don't.  Seriously.  The game's mechanics just don't work that way.  Traits are things you use, not things other people can "grab" to use against you.  Even if you have a negative trait with 1d4, it doesn't come into play unless you decide to invoke it.  That happens more often than not in a tense conflict where you're looking for all the dice you can get. That's why good all-purpose Traits like "I'm a Dog" and "The King of Life gives me strength" are nice to have, because you can invoke them in lots of likely situations. 

I'm going back to the original, non-humorous example:

When convincing the steward to pray more I decided that he had the trait "I trust the King". This trait seemed to work against him: the players where asking him to do just that: pray to the king and he will make you be able to pleasure your wife. How would that be handled?

OK, you could just ignore that trait if you don't think it's applicable.  OR, you could Raise with something like this:
"I trust in the King of Life, but I don't know about you-all."  and use the dice for that Trait.  It works for the conflict, and it's guaranteed to set the Dogs' teeth on edge. 

[Pôl Jackson]

When convincing the steward to pray more I decided that he had the trait "I trust the King". This trait seemed to work against him: the players where asking him to do just that: pray to the king and he will make you be able to pleasure your wife. How would that be handled?

OK, you could just ignore that trait if you don't think it's applicable.  OR, you could Raise with something like this:
"I trust in the King of Life, but I don't know about you-all."  and use the dice for that Trait.  It works for the conflict, and it's guaranteed to set the Dogs' teeth on edge. 

Which might work like this:

Players: "You must trust in the King of Life!"
Steward: [Rolls dice for his trait, "I trust in the King of Life", and...]
     [Reverses the Blow:] "I do trust in the King of Life. He knows I am a good man. Why should I trust you?"
     [Blocks or Dodges:] "I do. And my trust will see me through this."
     [Takes the Blow:] "You're right. I do trust in the King of Life, and must heed His wisdom."

So in terms of the game rules, the trait does not work against the Steward. That's OK! The rules aren't written to simulate reality with "strong" and "weak" traits. The rules are written to make conflicts really cool.

- Pôl