[DitV] questions on Raises and Sees

[Nocker]

Hello there,

First question :
Can you confirm that when someone Escalates on his Raise, you have to Escalate just to be able to See this Raise ? It's either Escalate and See, or Give, right ?


Second question :
Can you esclate on a See ? If the GM Raises with "the wolves jump at your throat" and the arena was physical, can you See with "I command them to lie down, as I'm experienced with wolves", and thus rolling his Acuity dice ?

Third question :
How far can a Raise go in its narration ? Apart from settling the Stake, I mean, because that would be cheating ;-) Is a Raise that kill a NPC fine ? Is a Raise that push a PC off a cliff into the sea fine ?
Linked question :
To what extend a Block/Dodge can cancel a Raise narration ? Can it cancel anything, at least ? If it can't, and the answer on the previous question is "pretty much as far as you want", how can you Block/Dodge the death of a NPC ? It either happened or not.

And fourth question :
I am a bit puzzled by the including of Traits and Belongings in the Sees.
For Raises, I can totally see a player make his narration, roll the dice it opened, and then chose his dice for the Raise.
But the dice you chose for Sees allow certain kinds of narration. So narrate before chosing the dice seems odd. And yet, roll new dice before narrating is odder, because it create situations like "Ouch, a 12 Raise from a gunshooting, and I am low on dice. I roll Tough Guy 2d10. Oh shit... 1 and 2. I think I'll Take the Blow with 6 dice." What do you narrate in this case ?
To put it in a nutshell, I can't see the good pace and rythm with Sees and Traits, can you help me ?

[Christoph Boeckle]

Hello you

1. Yes: seeing a specific arena means escalating to it, and the details of the raise dictate fallout. (The rulebook is confusing on that point, because in the example, the player doesn't have a choice anyway since he doesn't have the dice to See.)

2. Yes, see page 60 of the rules, that's precisely what's happening.

3. I'll suggest a way of looking at things before answering your question. When you Raise, you do the IIEE thing. In particular, you state an Intention (for example: "I want to shoot the NPC in the face!") and/or an Execution (same example, "I draw the gun and I shoot the NPC"). You don't need to break it down formally and some of it can remain implied. However I'd definitely leave the Effect implied, but I guess people could go straight ahead and state it anyway, knowing that it is actually just colour which probably won't actually occur as events in the SIS. If the other player Sees, he essentially says how he cancels the implied Effect (Reversing the Blow, Blocking/Dodging) or mitigates it (Taking the Blow). At least, if he dies, he doesn't do so until the end of the conflict (but this depends only on Fallout, not on the actual description of the Raise). If you Give, you effectively cancel the last (implied) Effect, since you don't have to Take the Blow (p.64). Of course, a See doesn't cancel the IIE part of IIEE. So on a See you have to describe how you deal with the Execution in particular. It's just the Effect that doesn't turn out to be what it was announced or implied as. Maybe this is interesting to the conversation at hand.
Now, NPCs which aren't really the focus of the conflict... as a GM I might be tempted to just have some die in pure colourful description. But then the actual Raise wasn't really against them, but someone else, who has to See. For example you could Raise "I shoot NPC A dead to impress NPC B." and I might See with "NPC A does indeed drop dead, but NPC B doesn't flinch."
Of course, if you describe such a thing before a Conflict is launched, the GM always gets to say "Yes" if he doesn't care to roll dice.
That being said, each group will gravitate towards some more or less explicit norms concerning what is legitimate for Raises and Sees (I guess the point of leaving the Effect of a Raise implicit or explicit is an important one). Vincent tells you how as a GM you should be on the lookout for this: always follow the most critical player (p.77-78).

4. Decide what you want to say in answer to the IIE part of the Raise (ignore the Effect if it was stated). Roll appropriate dice. Describe the Effect (the one that was implied by the Raise, or a modified one if your group announces colourful Effects explicitly) depending on how you mechanically decide to See. So in your case I'd See with something like this: "My Guy just stands there. [Roll 2d10 = 1 & 2. I have to Take the blow.] And looks down on his leg as the blood starts to flow." (I strongly imply, since I'm taking some d10 Fallout, that this is a serious wound.) If I'd rolled sufficiently well I could narrate, for example: "My Guy just stands there. [Roll 2d10 = 10 & 4. I Block.] The bullet flies right through his leg." (I imply that this wound, since it doesn't generate Fallout, isn't too severe and can be healed without a Medical Conflict.) Or I could just Dodge and say "The bullet flies right past his ear." The important bit is that the first part of my narration doesn't depend on the result of my dice!

As you might see here, it's the See that really fixes the Effect of the action started by the other player in the Raise.


Don't forget to check out my (unofficial) French translation of the handouts and simplified NPC rules, they might come in handy!

[Nocker]

Oh great !

That pretty much solve all my problems. And I knew all that IIEE stuff, but for a reason didn't see its application on the Raise & See mechanics of DitV.

Yet, I have some fuzzy doubts on the 4) because some Traits implied a Block/Dodge in their application, and you can hardly include them in a narration of a Take the Blow, or sometimes you could but it would make your character look like shit.
For example, a man tries to hide his tracks by taking rocky roads, and you try to See this with "Read people 2d8" Depending on the dice results, you can have a pretty ridiculous narration where you say that your character reads people, but fails on this one. Same with trying to Dodge a threatening by rolling "Aura of Dog authority 1d10", a Taking the Blow could be paradoxical.
Or maybe all this "look fool" stuff has to do with failing because the opponent is stronger, not because you're weak ? Because of a complication, or a last-minute hitch, not because you're dumb ? And now you're not inept, but a hero facing stronger adversity than usual, am I right ?

But apart from these side cases, I got your point, thanks !

[lumpley]

Go back and do a do-over on the see, but don't worry about the dice. "Oh, crap, I was counting on those dice coming up higher. I guess I take the blow instead - he clocks me one solid in the temple," or whatever, and leave the dice how they are.

Now the dice are out of sync a little bit, but it's not a big deal. They already rolled too low to matter, so don't bother worrying about them.

-Vincent

[Nocker]

Ok, maybe I should not be so afraid of canceling something of a previous narration, as rare as it is.

Thanks you two, that clarifies it all.