[DitV] - in space, again

[Matt Smith]

So, this is no doubt the umpteenth time since Firefly came out on DVD that this has been brought up, but here we go:

I'm running a space game, of the wander-the-stars variety, and I'm gonna try and adapt DitV to it.  I've never run Dogs before.  I did take a look at the Firefly/Ditv thread, but I wanted to discuss more elemental traits of the game.

My question is, does the moral code that gives the players authority need to neccesarily be quantified?  I've noticed in many westerns, and Firefly as well, while the characters don't neccesarily actively pass judgement, the morality of their actions is a central part of the drama.  Most western heroes have unspoken codes of honor and a sense of decency, and the best westerns get really good drama out of the conflict of a characters actions with that morality.

So, my thought was to make the players wandering space freemen, the crew of a ship struggling to get by.  When visiting towns and the like, they have a certain amount of authority accorded to them on account of the fact that they've got a big honking spaceship, and more importantly, that they get around, and are a vital source of news, trade, assistance (shady or otherwise) - a connection to the rest of the world for the people living in isolated communities.  But it's not nearly the level of authority accorded to the dogs.

So, if I remove that hard-wired judgement element; if I remove the players authority, replacing the imperative to seek out sin with a hook that neccesitates player involvement, and replace the sin in the town with complications to that hook, does it sound like something doomed to failure, or something that stands a chance?

[Falc]

I think that the difference would be small enough to be ignored. I don't believe that regular Dogs really need to be reminded of their duty to root out sin. Most of the time, when they arrive in a town, it is perfectly obvious that something is going wrong. At this point, it's not the in-character duty of the Dogs that starts driving them, but rather the player's agreement that this is what the game's all about.

In fact, removing the duty means your freemen have an extra option: just walk away. It's a common theme in westerns, the saviours turning their back on people that need help because they consider them to be unworthy of help. Of course, the true heroes always come back. Han Solo, Star Wars IV, right?

Anyway...

Write up a good town/planet. If it is good, it will catch your players' attention and that's all you need. All that the Dogs' duty could get you is that players feel obliged to play out an uninteresting town, 'cause it's their characters' duty. Now if your town isn't good enough, they'll just walk away, leaving you as GM in a pretty sucky position. So for your own sake, make sure your town rocks.

[Tim M Ralphs]

I think what you'll miss is the hooks in "What people want,"

Part of the ease of GMing dogs comes from having a pool of believable, reasonable NPC's who want utterly conflicting things from the Dogs, and often expect the Dogs to solve all their problems. There's a really significant relationship already in place between the PC's and the NPC's and the story just pops out.

Which is not to say that you won't be able to create engaging NPC's and situations and hook the players in, just that you can't rely on the game to do it for you.

[Matt Smith]

That's more or less what I thought.

By way of preparation, I'm running a feet-wetting session with the players as policemen, coming to arrest an infamous, flamboyant robin-hood type.  Unfortunately, he's also the town's major source of income ever since their mine got poisoned by a corporate misstep.  I've developed relationships between several NPCs at this point - the woman who runs the town bar and has a long on-off relationship with the criminal, the guy who runs the town's store and is always labelled a corporate stooge, the sherrif who's barely holding on to law and order and is terrified of making a move, etc.  Honestly, the town-centric gameplay of Dogs liberates me as a GM, since I don't need to think about continuity or 'what might the players do' or whatever; I just need to make sure there are enough interesting relationship extant in the town, and enough sticky bits to keep the players from scooting.

For the game proper, with the players as the crew of a ship (as in not lawmen), I'm thinking it'll be their relative freedom that brings people to them.  They'll have an unstated (to the characters, I'll make sure the players know) duty to circulate news, and their need for work will bring them in contact with all sorts of unsavory types.  I'm also looking forward to some sessions with the ship and its latest problem as a sort of town, where the players need to explore their characters' relationships to each other as well as the thing that grants them their freedom.

Thanks a bunch for the input!

[ffilz]

Just because the PCs don't have formal authority doesn't mean the NPCs won't want things from the PCs. The NPCs may still be looking for outside advise. Or they may want the PCs to do underhanded things to solve the problems. As long as the NPCs have conflicting wants from the PCs and the situation is loaded with things the players care about (as revealed by their PC's traits and relationships), things should go fine. The relative isolation of the the colonies will generally mean the PCs don't have to answer to some external authority (and when they do, just write up the situation like a Dogs town).

As long as you create a compelling situation (which the town creation rules lay out how to do so - though you may want to re-define the ladder) and you have four arenas of conflict that make sense, it should be possible to use the basic Dogs mechanics.

Frank

[Cyclopeus]

I'm going to run a Dogs game in this setting too.  But I wanted to know is the ladder all that necessary?  I never really grokked the psychology of the progression.  Can I just not worry about it and make up a bunch of cool wild terrible stuff?  Those of you who've played Dogs before let me know what I'd be missing if I ditched the ladder aspect of the town creation process. 

I was going to have a few job offers available, of the illicit variety.  And then any town they happen to stop at would have some wild stuff going on like your traditional Dogs town.  So the players would decide which thread to follow by what they are more interested in.  They could complete the job and move on, or get into it with the townies as they work the job. 

Also I was going to have a Body stat for the ship.  The pilot would roll his Acuity + the ship's Body.  The ship would have traits too to bring out each ship's personality.  Is that too much?  I'd like to have a few ship vs. ship scenes.

[ffilz]

What the ladder does is help you create a situation where everyone in town believes they are acting reasonably, yet, in the end, the town is all fucked up.

Then the dogs ride into town, see the hate and murder, and wonder how the hell you get to hate and murder from the pride. As they investigate the town, it all falls out, and the dogs start making their judgements.

Frank