[Dog Eat Dog] Seeking Playtesters

[William Burke]

After seven months (most of it spent doing nothing), Dog Eat Dog is finally ready for outside playtesting.

Dog Eat Dog is a game of colonialist oppression and its consequences.  It takes place on one of the hundreds of small islands in the Pacific Ocean.  One player plays the Occupation, made up of a hugely powerful and capable military, an occupation government primarily composed of native quislings, and whatever jaded tourists and shrewd businessmen are willing to come to a not yet quite pacified territory.  All the other players play individual Natives, who lived a more or less peaceful and uneventful life until the Occupation showed up.  The game begins when the war ends.

Playtest copies can be downloaded at http://www.passengerpigeon.net/dogeatdog.pdf.  Games I've observed have taken between half an hour and 90 minutes, but of course I was there to help them run.  If anybody gives it a try, please post your experience in the Playtesting forum.

Thanks!
--wlb

[baron samedi]

William,

First impressions :

1) The introduction tone is heavy-handed : "Play a game to show how colonization is bad. I fail to see where the *game* lies in this premise. What are you trying to achieve in play with this game? Why are colonials bad? Are they really? Grey areas supporting free choice make for interesting dilemmas, e.g. "Is colonization bad when natives do human sacrifice? Is it bad when it is done to support a sick population elsewhere?" Your premise does not seem to support questions. It brings undisputable answers, which are thus nut negotiable in play, thus the game's very theme isn't negotiated in play - which seems a problem. Essentially, it looks much like dualistic catechism, and a classical D&D-like alignment system (Good = natives and Evil = colonization).

2) I fail to understand how the game system fits the theme. It is, essentially, much like Capes, albeith "All Good against one Evil", and unrelated to colonialism. What are you trying to achive with this? What is the *gameplay* about?

3) I suggest you check out the POWER 19 and try to answer them to bring consistency in your design goals. It helped me a lot when I designed mine.

Good luck,

Erick

[William Burke]

Can you clarify a few things for me?

1) The introduction tone is heavy-handed : "Play a game to show how colonization is bad. I fail to see where the *game* lies in this premise. What are you trying to achieve in play with this game? Why are colonials bad? Are they really? Grey areas supporting free choice make for interesting dilemmas, e.g. "Is colonization bad when natives do human sacrifice? Is it bad when it is done to support a sick population elsewhere?" Your premise does not seem to support questions. It brings undisputable answers, which are thus nut negotiable in play, thus the game's very theme isn't negotiated in play - which seems a problem. Essentially, it looks much like dualistic catechism, and a classical D&D-like alignment system (Good = natives and Evil = colonization).

I'm not clear on where this comes from.  There's really only one thing that isn't negotiable, and in fact, that isn't essentially required to be negotiated in play -- the First Rule.  If you want to ask "What if the natives sacrifice humans?" just define "They sacrifice humans" as a Native Trait and play from there.  What in the game, exactly, leads you to believe that there are "official" answers to any of the questions that come up in the course of play?

2) I fail to understand how the game system fits the theme. It is, essentially, much like Capes, albeith "All Good against one Evil", and unrelated to colonialism. What are you trying to achive with this? What is the *gameplay* about?

This also really confuses me.  How is the game like Capes at all?  I see no real similarities.  Can you name some specific things that connect it to Capes, so that I may meaningfully respond?

--wlb

[baron samedi]

Okay...

I'm not sure I can help you with your design since we don't understand each other.

Let me explain :
1) Your game system is about taking turns talking and bidding for narration rights. It could apply to any theme, say the Masters of the Universe fighting Skeletor, baseball players against a single pitcher or JC Penny, Woolco and The Bay fighting together Wal-Mart for commercial supremacy.

What I meant is, I fail to see how this system enforces the colonization theme of your game. Since it's the game's purpose, to talk about colonization, the system should be about the process of colonization. How does your game system talk about colonization specifically? That's my observation.

Example of how I would see a theme enforced:
All players have 2 game values : Colonizator and Colonized. The Colonizator starts at X in Colonizator and 0 in Colonized. The Natives all start at 0 in Colonizator and X in Colonized. Each turn, Natives attempt to inflict Colonized points upon the Colonizator and the Colonizator attempts to inflict points of their own "colour" on one another. The game is won when a group converts the other, e.g. when Colonizator's X points < acquired Colonized points, and vice versa. That would support the theme, since narration would show attempts by the colonizator to acculturate the natives, and natives' attempt to subvert the colonizator to "go native".

I suggest you check out Paul Czege's MY LIFE WITH MASTER game for ideas on how to do this better than my suggestion. In essence, your game is very similar in intent to it (if not in actual mechanisms), since the Master is "the colonizator" and its minions "the natives".

2) Same thing, I fail to see the purpose of the sheet of paper that states the pretentions to superiority of the colonizator. That is what I find heavy-handed in the game. (My players would react very poorly to this element.) What is its purpose as regards to gameplay? Why does it exist at all, as regards to gameplay?

I suggest you check out discussions about the POWER 19 questionnaire to understand better what I'm talking about if this isn't clear enough. It's a very good design tool.

If my observation doesn't seem clear despite this, I'm afraid I can't be of much help. Perhaps others would better answer to the advice you seek.

Cheers,

Erick

[Bankuei]

Hi Erick,

I was lucky enough to playtest this game earlier this year.  In play, #2 is the answer to #1.  The first Rule sets up the focus on colonization.  Every other Rule, becomes a reflection of the understanding or misunderstanding between the Natives and the Occupation.  What's interesting is that instead of reading it as a literal, "Why the Occupation is superior", instead read it as "What the Natives -think- they need to do to assimilate", which may or may not be true.  It's not a list of truths, it's a list of defense mechanisms.

You might find it really interesting to see how different folks play the Occupation, and the different sorts of responses that happen from the other players.

Chris

[baron samedi]

Hi Chris,

Thanks for your precision, that I understood quite well, but ... I realize I really can't seem to express myself in a way to make my question understandable, and we're running in circles. Unfruitful for all. So I'll leave you designers to the expert hands of commentators better suited than me. :)

Good luck with your game!

Erick

[William Burke]

Thanks for your responses, Baron.  Even though you're ditching the thread, and even though I feel a little weird about discussing my own game like this, I'm going to try to give some useful responses to your queries.

1) Your game system is about taking turns talking and bidding for narration rights.

This is a great example of the kind of thing that's confusing me.  Players in Dog Eat Dog don't take turns talking.  They take turns framing scenes.  There's no bidding of any kind in the game; narration rights are explicitly doled out, except in the event of a conflict, which can be resolved in a few ways, but none of them involve bidding.  I appreciate this feedback, though, in that it's giving me a good idea of where my writing needs to be clarified.

What I meant is, I fail to see how this system enforces the colonization theme of your game. Since it's the game's purpose, to talk about colonization, the system should be about the process of colonization. How does your game system talk about colonization specifically? That's my observation.

Good question.

The narration mechanics in Dog Eat Dog are a little bland, but they're meant to be -- they have to take a backseat to the chip economy, which in turn works because of the threat of endgame.  Throughout play, two questions face each Native: "What do I want to happen to me?" and "What do I want to happen to my homeland?"  Natives can only actualize their answers to these questions by using the chip economy, which requires them to behave in specific ways, as defined by the Natives themselves in reaction to the behavior of the Occupation (with one exception, about which see below).  Frequently a tradeoff is required -- getting the Occupation off the island requires you to do what the Occupation wants.  Dying just isn't efficient.  In this way, the game system constantly presents Natives with thematic moral choices -- bend your neck and free your island, or grab your machete and become a territory.  At the same time, the Occupation faces constant pressure by the Natives and by the bank -- if they're getting chips, he's losing them, and whenever he leaves the Natives alone, it costs him.  If he wants to keep his chips and thus his sovereignty, he has to make it as difficult as possible for them to get chips, which makes the moral choices facing the Natives ever tougher (because they get chips by kowtowing to the Occupation).  The moral question facing the Occupation, then, is "What is it worth doing to keep my island?"  Like any narrativist game, though, there's nothing intrinsically stopping any party from being benevolent or stopping the group from working together to create a happy status quo without too much chip movement.  It's just hard.

(Well, maybe there is one thing.  See below.)

I suggest you check out Paul Czege's MY LIFE WITH MASTER game for ideas on how to do this better than my suggestion. In essence, your game is very similar in intent to it (if not in actual mechanisms), since the Master is "the colonizator" and its minions "the natives".

My Life With Master is definitely a seminal influence on this game, especially for the idea of an endgame involving restricted personal epilogues, without which this game probably wouldn't be much.

2) Same thing, I fail to see the purpose of the sheet of paper that states the pretentions to superiority of the colonizator. That is what I find heavy-handed in the game. (My players would react very poorly to this element.) What is its purpose as regards to gameplay? Why does it exist at all, as regards to gameplay?

Well, yes.  This game has one unslippable premise, without which I don't think the game will function, and so I wrote it right in:

"Colonization implies a contempt for the colonized."

If you can't accept this, at least for the duration of play, then you will probably have trouble with the game.  In fact, you'll probably have trouble with the rest of this post.

The Rules in general are a vital part of the chip economy discussed above.  They represent a series of attempts by the Natives to understand the requirements of the Occupation.  Every time the Occupation enters a scene (which is often), he's going to teach the Natives something -- but he can't control what.  Now, the worse his behavior is (and he's encouraged to be cruel if he wants to keep his chips, see above), the nastier the Rules are going to end up being -- and once something's a Rule, everybody has to abide by it to keep their chips.  In this way, each encounter between the Occupation and the Natives reverberates throughout play.

Even with all these forces and influences, though, a dedicated group of people can certainly attempt to get along and be friends -- but there's one Rule that makes it hard right from the start, and it's fundamental to the game because it's fundamental to imperialism.  Want to get chips as a Native? It's easy -- just act like you're not as good a human being as the Occupation soldiers.  Want to keep your chips as the Occupation?  No problem -- just make sure that no matter how they try, they can't be as bad as you.  Want to try your best to form one unified society?  Go ahead -- but after every turn, the Occupation has to get up on his hind legs and tell all the Natives whether, in his judgement, they were inferior to the people he represents.  See if you still feel the same way after a few go-rounds.  I encourage you to try.  Just remember -- if the Occupation didn't think they were better than you, they wouldn't be occupying you.  The first Rule ensures that the tension of a relationship in which every iota of power and judgement is on one side is consistently present, and that's absolutely necessary in a game about colonialism.

I hope this helps answer some of your questions.

--wlb

[Paul Czege]

Hey William,

I like it! Questions and suggestions in no particular order:

1. "The richest player plays the Occupation." Potentially fun, but how do you determine it? Hourly wage? Who has the best house? Least amount of credit card debt? I don't know many folks who could accurately quote me their personal net worth, and of the ones who could I'm not sure any of them actually would. Were I designing Dog Eat Dog, I'd probably come up with some scheme for tallying up a player's outward wealth indicators. Five points if you have an American Express card. Five points for having more than $100 in your pocket. Two points for having more than $50. Three points for having the biggest house. That kind of thing. Probably no more than eight items though.

2. In the Playing the Game section you write that the Native player should "aggressively frame a scene." What do you mean by aggressively? You mean right to the point of action/conflict? You mean the framer can create setting? Lots of folks would assume "aggressively" means you can include other characters, but you reserve that ability for the Opposition in Dog Eat Dog, right? And there are no NPCs in the game, so that's out too, right?

3. Later in Playing the Game you give Native players the power to narrate the actions of sympathetic natives. This seems significant, but I'm not seeing it referenced elsewhere in the rules. Are "sympathetic natives" NPCs? Or the characters of other players? And if so, how is the sympathetic status established? And how is it ended?

4. You also give the Occupation power to narrate the actions of members of the occupation. So, same questions: Are the members of the occupation NPCs? Or the characters of other players? And if so, how is the membership status established? And how is it ended?

5. In the Conflicts section you write that players roll an extra die "for each Trait they can call on that they can justify in one sentence as supporting their side." Does that mean every trait together in a single sentence, or one sentence for each trait?

6. I think your three steps of conflict resolution are awesome! I think they're perfectly structured for juicing your theme. Though I'm thinking you baked them on instinct, so I have some recommendations for exposing the full awesomeness of your instincts:

When I think of "first step" resolution, which is negotiated agreement, in the context of the Dog Eat Dog story it seems obvious to me that narrated outcomes from this should be considered the personal recollections of the involved characters. When my personal identity needs don't clash strongly enough with your personal identity needs, then we've agreed to go forward with our own personal views of what just happened.

When I think of "second step" resolution, it seems obvious to me that what we've achieved for an outcome is a common belief. Whereas "first step" produces an outcome that an uninvolved third party will have to take my word for, "second step" produces an outcome that an uninvolved third party has possibly heard about and on which he has a position.

And when I think of "third step" resolution, the outcome is clearly the official history.

Does that make sense? Because one of the problems designers have with "monologue of victory" style narration mechanics is restricting the scope of what can be narrated, and what I'm seeing in Dog Eat Dog's three step resolution structure is a gorgeous and functional way of restricting the scope of narration. Simply put, a narration must embrace and interpret the content of lower steps. What do you think?

7. In Ending A Scene, you specify that "discussion is encouraged" in creating a new Rule. In the prior sentence you say that the "Natives should collectively decide." If only because discussing and deciding are two different things, can you clarify whether the Occupation is prohibited from the discussion?

8. And damn, I do love the way new Rules get created. It's so painfully dysfunctional! It's black box. They're just guessing what they're supposed to do.

9. My gut is telling me that everything hinges on the Natives making an honest attempt to write Rules they think were actually suggested by the actions of the Opposition. Does the whole game break if the Natives write rules that are in their own interest? Then the Occupation is forced to pay chips to them for their adherence and for his own breaking of the rules.

10. Does the Occupation get a turn at scene framing?

11. "When a Native runs Amok, the Occupation must pay a chip to the pile." Is this paid when the Native loses all his chips, as per the definition of "Amok" in the first sentence of the Running Amok section, or not until the Native gets narrated into a scene?

12. In Endgame, if the Occupation ran out of chips he must narrate the how and why of pulling out and granting the natives independence. Presumably this could have happened from giving chips to good natives, or from losing them to the pile. If the pile represents the failure of the occupation, breaking perceived rules (or alternately, following rules it never communicated to the natives), and Natives gone Amok, then should the size of the pile play into whether independence is narrated to be the result of a failed occupation or a successful one?

Paul

[William Burke]

Hey William,

I like it! Questions and suggestions in no particular order:

Thanks a lot for your comments, Paul!  These are some really incisive questions, and I appreciate you pointing out so many things for me to think about.

1. "The richest player plays the Occupation." Potentially fun, but how do you determine it? Hourly wage? Who has the best house? Least amount of credit card debt? I don't know many folks who could accurately quote me their personal net worth, and of the ones who could I'm not sure any of them actually would. Were I designing Dog Eat Dog, I'd probably come up with some scheme for tallying up a player's outward wealth indicators. Five points if you have an American Express card. Five points for having more than $100 in your pocket. Two points for having more than $50. Three points for having the biggest house. That kind of thing. Probably no more than eight items though.

As currently designed, this bit is intentionally vague -- as part of playing the game, I want the players to have a nice engaging discussion about what it means to them to be rich.  This may be a bit too much social engineering, but in play it has worked nicely enough so far (but then again, I've only played with people who rent and don't have too many illiquid assets).  I'm open to the suggestion that this is a potential wall to players, but I feel that in practice people who really don't want to talk about money at all will either house-rule it out of hand or not be my target audience anyway -- and if Reiner Knizia can design a game where the most splendid player goes first, surely I can require you to quote your bank account balance.

2. In the Playing the Game section you write that the Native player should "aggressively frame a scene." What do you mean by aggressively? You mean right to the point of action/conflict? You mean the framer can create setting? Lots of folks would assume "aggressively" means you can include other characters, but you reserve that ability for the Opposition in Dog Eat Dog, right? And there are no NPCs in the game, so that's out too, right?

This is definitely a part of the text that needs clarification and expansion, but essentially, yes, you should frame yourself into a situation where you are about to or in the process of taking conclusive action to accomplish your goals.  Doing so will probably require defining setting to a greater or lesser degree, and that's okay.  You can't directly drag other players into your scene, but you can definitely invite them to be present in it (and this is something I intend to make more explicit) if you need them.  Yes, this means that if your scene requires members of the Occupation, you need the Occupation's permission to frame it.  I'm not completely sure how I feel about that yet.

(There are NPCs in the game, incidentally, it's just that they aren't run by a GM -- anybody on the island who's not a Native is an NPC, and narrative rights are granted as discussed in your next two questions.)

3. Later in Playing the Game you give Native players the power to narrate the actions of sympathetic natives. This seems significant, but I'm not seeing it referenced elsewhere in the rules. Are "sympathetic natives" NPCs? Or the characters of other players? And if so, how is the sympathetic status established? And how is it ended?

Sympathetic natives are just that -- other natives on the island, not played by other players (or they'd be Natives), who are currently sympathetic towards your cause, whatever it is.  Again, I feel as though the question of what exactly it means to be "sympathetic" is best settled in play.  The point of this rule, besides assigning narrative rights for everybody else on the island so that the game isn't totally empty, is that the Natives are the people on the island who matter -- when they want to influence other natives, they generally can without much trouble, and if they need to lead a mob, one will probably be available.

4. You also give the Occupation power to narrate the actions of members of the occupation. So, same questions: Are the members of the occupation NPCs? Or the characters of other players? And if so, how is the membership status established? And how is it ended?

A member of the Occupation is any non-Native (i.e., NPC) who has a vested interest in and works to support the Occupation's control of the island.  If this were Drifter's Escape, I might say that the Occupation can narrate anybody who is beholden to the Occupation. This will go into the text.  This can mean that occasionally a native is both a member of the Occupation and sympathetic to a Native's cause -- if they both want him to do different things, that's a conflict.  (This is also what happens with natives who are sympathetic towards two opposed Natives).  This rule, somewhat like the previous question's rule, serves to clarify who's in charge of the no doubt numerous NPCs who will be narrated willy-nilly into scenes as they become necessary.

5. In the Conflicts section you write that players roll an extra die "for each Trait they can call on that they can justify in one sentence as supporting their side." Does that mean every trait together in a single sentence, or one sentence for each trait?

One sentence per trait.  I'll clarify this.

6. I think your three steps of conflict resolution are awesome! I think they're perfectly structured for juicing your theme. Though I'm thinking you baked them on instinct, so I have some recommendations for exposing the full awesomeness of your instincts:

When I think of "first step" resolution, which is negotiated agreement, in the context of the Dog Eat Dog story it seems obvious to me that narrated outcomes from this should be considered the personal recollections of the involved characters. When my personal identity needs don't clash strongly enough with your personal identity needs, then we've agreed to go forward with our own personal views of what just happened.

When I think of "second step" resolution, it seems obvious to me that what we've achieved for an outcome is a common belief. Whereas "first step" produces an outcome that an uninvolved third party will have to take my word for, "second step" produces an outcome that an uninvolved third party has possibly heard about and on which he has a position.

And when I think of "third step" resolution, the outcome is clearly the official history.

Does that make sense? Because one of the problems designers have with "monologue of victory" style narration mechanics is restricting the scope of what can be narrated, and what I'm seeing in Dog Eat Dog's three step resolution structure is a gorgeous and functional way of restricting the scope of narration. Simply put, a narration must embrace and interpret the content of lower steps. What do you think?

I think this is awesome and brilliant and I want to make sure I understand it.  In the actual play that I've witnessed, a process very similar to what you seem to be suggesting tends to operate, keeping the consequences of a conflict pretty tightly controlled, and I've been agonizing over how to explicitly put it into the rules so that people don't have to come up with it themselves.  Here's a brief example from play:

Josh, playing the Occupation, narrates "A drunken sailor tosses a torch onto the roof of Native's hut."
I, as a Native, say "Wait, that's a conflict.  I don't want to let him do that."
In step one, I suggest after some discussion with Josh "I jog his arm and knock the torch into Native's goat pen, scaring away all the goats."  Josh thinks about this and instead decides to escalate.  In step two, I win the roll off.  In an attempt to come up with a resolution that Josh will accept, I narrate exactly the same thing I suggested in the discussion.  Josh goes ahead and escalates again.  He narrates "You attempt to jog his arm, but miss and hit him in the face, knocking him down, while the torch soars onto the roof."

Is this at all similar to what you're suggesting?  Could you give me an example?  I feel like what you're talking about is exactly what I want to be doing, I'm just not sure what it is.

(I did, in fact, come up with them on instinct.  Also, they're lifted from D&D.)

7. In Ending A Scene, you specify that "discussion is encouraged" in creating a new Rule. In the prior sentence you say that the "Natives should collectively decide." If only because discussing and deciding are two different things, can you clarify whether the Occupation is prohibited from the discussion?

Sure -- he is not.  In the same way that the Occupation is in charge of Rule enforcement but can talk about it with the Natives, the Natives are in charge of Rule creation but can talk about it with the Occupation.

8. And damn, I do love the way new Rules get created. It's so painfully dysfunctional! It's black box. They're just guessing what they're supposed to do.

:)

9. My gut is telling me that everything hinges on the Natives making an honest attempt to write Rules they think were actually suggested by the actions of the Opposition. Does the whole game break if the Natives write rules that are in their own interest? Then the Occupation is forced to pay chips to them for their adherence and for his own breaking of the rules.

Is he?  The force that makes him handle chip disbursement honestly is the same force that makes the Natives write Rules honestly -- a desire to play the game, plus a fear of retaliation.  If the Natives are writing Rules that are obviously not reasonable, the Occupation is free to arbitrarily declare them in violation of these Rules.  Now, I would not call this a non-broken game, but I think that at least it's a type of broken where nobody is going to be deceived into thinking that this is the way the game is supposed to work.  You can't design around dysfunction, but you can highlight it, right?

That said, yes, this is one of those places where the players can wreck the game if for some reason they want to. In practice I think there's some pushing either way; the Natives want to write Rules that are reasonable, but still good for them, and the Occupation wants to judge the Natives fairly, but still in a way that moves chips the way he wants them moved.

(In the first version of this game, I ENCOURAGED this sort of dishonesty, by saying that the Occupation and Natives had no responsibility to justify their decisions at all.  That, uh, turned out not to be a good idea.)

10. Does the Occupation get a turn at scene framing?

Yes.  Like everyone else, he gets to frame a scene where his character(s) are taking conclusive action to accomplish their goals.  By the time the game gets around to him, he'll probably have quite a few things he wants to accomplish.

11. "When a Native runs Amok, the Occupation must pay a chip to the pile." Is this paid when the Native loses all his chips, as per the definition of "Amok" in the first sentence of the Running Amok section, or not until the Native gets narrated into a scene?

As per the definition.  This could probably still use some clarification.

12. In Endgame, if the Occupation ran out of chips he must narrate the how and why of pulling out and granting the natives independence. Presumably this could have happened from giving chips to good natives, or from losing them to the pile. If the pile represents the failure of the occupation, breaking perceived rules (or alternately, following rules it never communicated to the natives), and Natives gone Amok, then should the size of the pile play into whether independence is narrated to be the result of a failed occupation or a successful one?

This is an interesting observation, especially about the size of the pile, which I'd never considered, but I'm not so sure.  Consider the American occupation of the Philippines.  From the perspective of the US, this was a failed occupation -- but looking at the islands, I think it's clear that a lot more of their chips ended up in Native hands then actually went to the pile.

Again, thanks for taking a look at my game.  I hope it's not too fanboyish of me to mention that My Life with Master was a pretty seminal influence on Dog Eat Dog, so I definitely appreciate you checking it out.

--wlb