[DitV] Rationing screen time. Handling unexpected changes in cast.

[NickHollingsworth]

After a long period struggling to find players who will try an indie game I now have players for a DitV series. But there are a couple of problems

1) There could be 6 players. That's a lot of characters and I fear that there will be no challenge with that many dogs pulling down buckets of dice. Should I try to restrict the number of characters in a scene? Are there any techniques or mechanics that would help to share out screen time between the characters?

2) Jobs and life means that the players are likely to vary from one week to the next. I see this being a problem to a game like Dogs. Any advice?

cheers,
Nick

[lumpley]

My advice is: limit your game to three players, and only play when all four of you can make it.

-Vincent

[Filip Luszczyk]

Hmm, as I look at your post two things come to my mind that I think could be interesting to experiment with.

First, you could have a limited cast of characters circulating from player to player. E.g. you could have three Dogs and after each scene everyone would pass his or her Dog to the player sitting on the left. To keep the remaining players active, they could be given NPC's roles as needed.

Second, every Dog could be shared between two players, and the control could switch every scene or the like. However, one player would play the Dog's Heart, and the other would play Will. Good cop and bad cop, so to say. In conflicts the control could switch whenever there's an escalation to the arena based on Heart or Will respectively.

Of course, these are only loose ideas, and such solutions could be tricky in practice. They'd change the game a lot, for sure.

[JC]

After a long period struggling to find players who will try an indie game I now have players for a DitV series. But there are a couple of problems

1) There could be 6 players. That\\\'s a lot of characters and I fear that there will be no challenge with that many dogs pulling down buckets of dice. Should I try to restrict the number of characters in a scene? Are there any techniques or mechanics that would help to share out screen time between the characters?

2) Jobs and life means that the players are likely to vary from one week to the next. I see this being a problem to a game like Dogs. Any advice?

cheers,
Nick

here\\\'s my advice, after playing half a dozen towns:

1/ DITV doesn\\\'t work well with lots of players

either play some other game that works well with lots of players, or split the group into two and alternate

2/ I\\\'d say: make sure your towns are simple enough to wrap up in one session

\\\"simple\\\" means \\\"all the way up to hate and murder\\\" and \\\"just one or two sins going on at the same time\\\"

[NickHollingsworth]

I've had three sessions now. Each 2.5 hours long. The first session was character creation for 5 players and we just managed to squeeze it in including explaining background, rules and doing accomplishments (I could have pushed them harder if there had been less time). The other two sessions we played Coachwhip Cut-off which we just completed in time. We could have used an hour or two more; I think Coachwhip was a more complex town than I realized.

Here's the skinny:

The first of the two town sessions had three players and went well ...ish. I was unsatisfied with my handling of the rules which have their subtle points and I stumbled a few times. I started in media res with the townsfolk, burning brands in hand, trying to get the murderess Dinah out from the family homestead. This sped things up (but almost spelled disaster as the dogs were initially inclined to pass judgment in the confusion before the npcs had all got their opinions in). 

The second of the town sessions had six players and went really well. There was edge-of-the-seat arguing almost from the start to the end.

Six players was hard work. I explained to them that the game was designed for 3 or 4 players and they agreed to limit the number in a contest to that. I said that characters not in a conflict who wanted to help could invoke a trait or belonging and give the dice to the character they were helping instead of that character invoking a trait or belonging; but as it happened no one tried this. I tried to keep two scenes on the go and switch back and forth. And I tried to cross information between the scenes - though I felt under such pressure time-wise I missed a lot of opportunities.

The players dug the game - to the extent that they were still arguing in the street afterwards.

So six players - yep hard work, but worked well because of the variety of reactions the town provoked among that many people.

[JC]

wow, 6 players... congratulations!