I got to be the audience.

[Levi Kornelsen]

Had a Dogs game last night where my players decided to have their characters sort out their internal problems.  They spent all night, and fought like...

...Well, like Dogs.

I was, frankly, not necessary, for the whole night, and it was cool.

Has anyone else ever had something like this happen to them?

[Vaxalon]

Dogs is always at its best when the Pack starts to fracture.

[Levi Kornelsen]

Hmm.  Well, they appear to have patched things up temporarily, but they do have a bunch of new grudges.

One of my players had an interesting comment - his opinion was that the dice mechanics, which keep asking how far you're willing to push something, will often naturally lead players into pushing things farther as time goes on, because the players want to win, even if the issue is a small one.

His opinion was that once the group starts calling actual conflicts, it's a natural progression when people push on - to larger grudges, stronger conflicts, and an eventual group explosion.

I thought that was pretty notable.

[oreso]

the idea of using 'successive commitments' to make folk do unreasonable things is psychologically sound too. the participant goes, "just this little more, and then I'm done", because the more they've invested in the conflict the less likely they'll let it go, regardless of whether its actually worth it.

[khelek]

Very cool,

I had a game this week with only one player, his first time. The others (who also have never played) could nto make it. I might be running a gam ethis coming weekend too... It will be very interesting to see how the Dog who acted without censure last time deals with th rest of his group.

the group dynamics are soo interesting to watch in dogs.

[greyorm]

One of my players had an interesting comment - his opinion was that the dice mechanics, which keep asking how far you're willing to push something, will often naturally lead players into pushing things farther as time goes on, because the players want to win, even if the issue is a small one.

Heck, Levi, go have an argument with your wife/girlfriend/whatever and then take a look back at it a week or a month later...that's when it hits you you didn't really need to say this thing to her, you could have stopped there, compromised, said something else, etc. That's when you realize you pushed it further than you should have, you were stupid for saying this, even if she was stupid for saying that, that you really shouldn't have started throwing things, slept around, etc. If anything, the Dogs mechanic is actually modelling basic human behavior on some level: it's all about how far you push things, when you're willing to give, and what you're willing to give on.

The mechanic taps into that instinctual urge to argue to win, to be right, to "go for the gold" that immediate human interaction is colored by for most of us. It really showcases the idea that though we know the fight is not worth it sometimes, we fight anyways, and that many times we don't always realize right then that it isn't worth it because of that "win" desire. And in the long term, it shows how we set ourselves up for increasing long-term failure by following this conflict model. To me, that's cool; the game can be a teaching tool, in a way, because it so perfectly models exactly that stupid argument with the girlfriend over the toilet seat that eventually destroys the relationship.

[DevP]

The last session of our game was just like that too. I had a town planned and everything, but I promised to give them some time to have some arguments IC first, to resolve some issues, just because there was *so much* that went unspoken for a while. So the camped a day away and we had the Big Discussions in scenes between the characters, and they hammered things out to a final conclusion before they ever reached town. (Final conclusion was that two Dogs give up their coats and walk the land together in exile, while the other two split up, disgusted with each other.)

I did a little bit of work on my part, particularly interactions between one player and the NPC/romantic interest, but for the most part I just let the players drive it and blow it up, and they did.