[DitV] What else have you got?

[Ranxerox]

After hearing DitV mentioned in a favorable way several times a Dundracon, I decided to pick up a copy.  So I take a copy home and am reading it and then my wife did something that she does not usually do with my rpg books - she picked it up from the coffee table I left it on and started reading it herself.  She was not happy.  My wife is a religious woman (Adventist not LDS in case you were wondering) and in her opinion DitV trivializes religion and faith by making a game of pretend out it.  When she confronted me about this I argued back that it didn't trivialize faith but instead provided a vehicle for people to explore it and talk about.  Well, my wife has a 2d6 relationship with her faith while I have more of a 1d4 relationship with role-playing so as you might imagine the conversation did not go well for me.

Vincent Baker gave some suggestions for alternate settings for DitV in the Design Notes of the book but none of them grabbed me. This brings me to my question, what not overtly religious setting have people at this board come up to use with the DitV rules?  I like the exploring of moral choices aspect of the game and the fact that it allows you to model thing like the argument that I had with my wife over the game. I would like to keep this moral dimension in whatever setting I use, but the setting needs to be secular so as not to offend my better half.

Thanks in advance for all suggestions.

[opsneakie]

Take a look into Afraid, if you haven't yet. It's DitV in a horror/monster hunter setting. I've run it a couple times with incredible success; it's probably my group's favorite system.

If that's not really doing it for you, there are plenty of other good choices. Te best I've heard is Jedi in the Old Republic. It's not exactly totally non-religious, since you could argue the Jedi are a religious group, but I suspect it will work for you. You could do the same kind of thing with Starfleet officers, if Trek is more your speed. The sci-fi stuff is the first that comes to mid for me, but there is much, much more out there. I think I remember someone using the Dogs rules or some kind of Cthulhu game, really the sky's the limit.

All in all, I can't reccomend Afraid enough. It's very elegent and a blast to play. It's here: http://www.lumpley.com/comment.php?entry=201

Good luck,
John

[Ranxerox]

Thank you for your reply, John.

Looking at Afraid and Lovecraft in the Mausoleum I don't see the dimension of  moral discussion that I found so appealing in DitV..  Am I missing something?  I was impressed by the section in Afraid on monsters and victims.  I can see how by personalizing the victims so much and giving so much thought to the monster's relationship to its victims could make for some terrifying role-playing.  Some example monsters to show the whole process would have been nice though.  How does the whole "say yes or roll the dice" philosophy of DitV work with horror?  One would think that giving the players so much narrative control would undermine the fear factor.  You say that it is a blast so this must not happen, but why doesn't it happen?

Jedi morality is too strange for me ever to want to play the Old Republic mod.  Falling in love is bad and it's okay to condone slavery, but somehow they are suppose to be the good guys.  IMHO Jedi are great for an action game, but not so great for a game of moral questioning.  That is unless you are planning on turning them into Siths and showing that the Siths are actually better.

A Starfleet campaign sounds like it would have great potential.  The structure of Star Trek of having the Enterprise go to a new planet and solve problems there is very close to Dogs and towns in DitV.  If I ever get a chance to GM a game of it, I will probably file the Star Trek serial numbers off of the idea so players aren't having to live in the shadow of Kirk and Spock.

Reading about other peoples mod gave me an idea for a mod of my own.  In the spirit of giving back, I will post my ideas next week.

[Ranxerox]

No, offense meant but you guys lurk the hell out this forum.  One-hundred and two views to this thread and there has been only one reply by someone other than me. 

This is your community and it can be a quiet community if you like.  However as someone who normally hangs out a "noisier" board (Hero Games Forum if you are curious) it seems strange to me.  Based on what I'm used to, at 102 views someone would have directed me http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forge/index.php?topic=17107.0 on page three to answer my original question, someone else would have told me why DitV is a great system to run horror games, and a third person would have either flamed me for speaking ill of Jedi or joined in dissing George Lucas.

Well, that is my 2 cents as someone new to this community.  Take it for what it is worth.

[Gordon C. Landis]

The Forge has always been, and I expect will remain (for the rest of its' winter , a different sort of forum - slower paced by choice.

I'd add for your consideration The Princes' Kingdom , which I'd love to see more actual play posts about. I haven't managed to play it myself, but everytime I read it, it strikes me as a wonderful adaptation.

[Ranxerox]

Is The Prince's Kingdom based on DitV?  Your link didn't mention DitV, and the thread I found purporting to be a comprehensive list of DitV variants didn't mention The Prince's Kingdom.

[Gordon C. Landis]

Yes, The Princes' Kingdom is a DitV variant - check out the inactive CRN Games forum over in archives for details, or the review over on RPG.net for some more info.

[Ranxerox]

Very cool. 

Unfortunately my own princess is now out of the target age for this game.  Still, I may download the game just in case I ever have to watch a group of kids.