[DitV, hack] Suggestions from the author

[Paolo D.]

Hi to everybody,

I like very much this game and these days, after playing (and making) some cities, I'm working on an DitV hack based on Battlestar Galactica. When I was watching it on tv my mind was always on something like "Hey, it's like DitV, they have to choose between the bad and the worst!... Look, they're escalating!... Cylon are like demons!" and so on.

Here on this forum there are many hacks that I can take as examples. However Vincent, have you got some suggestions about making DitV hacks?
In this case: about responsabilities, do you think that the "King of Life said it to me" matter is foundamental for the game?

Thanks and sorry for the english, I'm italian "^^

-Paolo

[lumpley]

I'm no good at Dogs hacks. My advice is always to change as little as possible - just make towns and play towns, using Battlestar Galactica words instead of Dogs in the Vineyard words.

Hey everybody, anybody else have good experience to share?

-Vincent

[Paolo D.]

Ok thanks

Another question: in your manual, you say that a good hack for DitV could be about mafious families. In this case, how would you handle the absence of the religious/faith component? I mean: in the original game, god, faith and doctrine are EVERYTHING: they legitimate the dogs and their power, they are the culture, the society and the law, and god suggests people about stewardship and responsabilities.
Of course I write without any polemical intent, I'm only searching suggestions about the BSG hack that, like the mafia hack you mentioned in the manual, is not "god-based" in the strict sense

[Falc]

The important part is not that there's religion or faith, it's that the Dogs derive their legitimacy from it. Staying in roughly the same setting, you could easily replace the Dogs with a sheriff and his deputies and there would be very little else you'd need to change.

Now, okay, the fact that the Dogs have moral authority rather than worldly is an important part of the feel of the game and that's not always easy to find in other settings. I think you could find something like it in BSG's last season, with the Cylons in the fleet. How people respond to that becomes very much a moral question. However, mechanically speaking, the game doesn't need this, but you might end up missing a little 'something' during play.

I think. Never ran a DitV hack myself, to be honest.

[Teataine]

I'm stealing this from David J Prokopetz, who I think summed it up nicely:

1. Replace the hierarchy of sin with a "how did things go South so fast?" progression more suited to your game's genre.

2. Replace demonic presence with a "how deep over our heads are we?" ladder more suited to your game's genre.

3. Replace the symbols of authority with a list of "how can we get folks' attention?" actions more suited to your game's genre.

So for a BSG game...humans splitting amongst themselves, terrorism, religion, racism, strikes, low morale, paranoia...identify what makes it easier for the Cylons to kill us all and put in in a ladder of "sin". Sin is antagonism, in this case threat to human survival. The survival of the fleet is "faith", everything else is heresy.

Demonic presence is how much have the cylons infiltrated the society.

Symbols of authority...hrm, you should probably switch this to military rank or something.

Does that sound alright?

[Paolo D.]

So for a BSG game...humans splitting amongst themselves, terrorism, religion, racism, strikes, low morale, paranoia...identify what makes it easier for the Cylons to kill us all and put in in a ladder of "sin". Sin is antagonism, in this case threat to human survival. The survival of the fleet is "faith", everything else is heresy.

Demonic presence is how much have the cylons infiltrated the society.

Symbols of authority...hrm, you should probably switch this to military rank or something.

Does that sound alright?

Ok about "demonic presence = cylon presence", that was the way I intended it. But I have some doubts about "human survival = faith":

(from here, Vincent, stop me if I'm wrong;)

In DitV, the survival of the minority (the believers) is the "goal", in some way: the people and the characters (the Dogs) tries to save the community by the Faith. And when Faith is not enough, the Dogs have to choose (and generally they start shooting each other ^^).

In BSG, the survival of the minority (the survivors of the Cylon attacks) is the "goal", of course: the people and the characters (the Agents of the indipendent court??) tries to save the community by... by what? Culture+democracy+law? In DitV that is the Doctrine (social rules and laws), not the Faith.
In BSG, the only thing I found in which all the community believes (like Faith or God) is: the quest for the Earth.
People believe in Earth, and they can't be sure of the existence (like God). People have to find Earth for salvation (like heaven or hell). And the quest for Earth, together with the situation of emergency in the fleet, legitimate the power of the characters (the Agents of the indipendent court, like the Dogs).

In this way maybe it could work, but I miss one thing: "God talks to you about your stewardship".
In BSG, the quest for Earth and the Cylon presence inspire visions (precognition or madness? How knows... ), but is it enough?

(I'm SURE that in some way I offended the english language with this post... Sorry...)

[lumpley]

I think that in BSG, the Faith would be the military, and the civilian government would be the Territorial Authority. The civilian government, civil rule, is much more vulnerable to Cylon infiltration than the military is (at least so says the military).

You know those episodes where marines landed on civilian ships? Like that.

-Vincent