[DITV] Some questions from an old dog trying to learn new tricks

[Ludanto]

My answer, for what it's worth, is that the demons go away when the sin goes away.  Of course if the injustice remains, the sin will probably come back and the demons with it.  Correcting the injustice should take care of things, but of course if the pride remains there's a chance the injustice could return.

I could be wrong, but it looks like, unless the prideful characters or those enacting injustice in reaction to it are converted or eliminated, the problem could very well come back (though perhaps in a different form).

[lumpley]

Never, ever, ever have group discussions about what should happen. Poison!

The answer is easy, but difficult to explain.

You play a town. As GM, you do your job: you have your NPCs a) spill their guts and b) pursue their interests. Your players do their jobs: they have their Dogs judge and kick ass. Eventually they have their Dogs dust their hands and ride away.

Great! Done. Whatever the outcome was, in terms of who shot who and who punished whom and who was raised up and who was cast down, that's the outcome, you've done your job and they've done theirs, and now you move on to the next town.

But then here's what will happen, one of these two things.

1) As GM, you'll imagine them returning to this town, and you'll think about whether there might still be demons left, and you'll be like, "y'know, if I make these demons still be there, the players will feel like I've sucker-punched them."

2) As GM, you'll imagine them returning to this town, and you'll think about whether there might still be demons left, and you'll be like, "oh MAN, if I make these demons still be there, the Dogs will feel like the world has sucker-punched them, but the players will feel like AWESOME."

If the former happens, the demons are gone; the Dogs dealt with them. If the latter happens, the demons are still there; the Dogs left them undealt-with.

...And then in either case, if the Dogs return to that town, you write it up again fresh, following the rules for town creation. In the latter case you have a head start, is all.

What do you think?

(Oh and Ludanto's right.)

-Vincent

[Steven Stewart]

Vincent, et.al.

Thanks that helps a lot - I didn't know that there would be an option of (A) or (B), but rather thought it would be just one or the other, I didn't realize that either would be ok. I believe I understand "dicussion=poison", that is kind of like playing before you play, but do you think debriefing at the end of session like, "hey if you guys go back there and there are still demons is that going to be exciting or is that going to be a sucker punch to you?" is really that harmful? Some folks can really pick up on the unspoken vibe, others (like myself) don't do that so well so I wouldn't find out it was a sucker punch until after they went back there. Which could mean a session of no fun.

But all in all this entire thread has really helped me, I think that's probably about as good as it gets for pre-play understanding, and that the rest has to come from picking up some dice and trying it with the specific group of people and see how the group develops play within it.

Thanks,


Steve

[lumpley]

Very cool, and I think you're right.

-Vincent

[cydmab]

Never, ever, ever have group discussions about what should happen. Poison!

Hmm.. for what its worth, when I read the section on Reflection, and saw the lines "Did your characters do a good thing? Is the town better than when they arrived?" I interpreted the reflection period as the PLAYERS (but NOT the GM) describing what will happen to the town. Partly because I'm a bit of a consequentialist, so to ask and answer "did your characters do a good thing?" is in part to ask and answer "did we help the town."