Notes
This post builds on the two previous play sessions of Dogs in the Vineyard that I have run with my group, Wisdom's Ghost and Whores and flapjacks.

Brief key to understanding players and characters:
Me = GM
Judson = Perseverance
Cat = Zebulon
Mischa = Jabez

There's been a lot of talk about Actual Play posts recently, so let me say up-front that I'm going to talk about what happened in the game. I know some of you don't dig that.

The finest role-playing session I've had in a long time
Seriously, this was one of the best sessions I've ever had the honor to be a part of. It didn't seem like it was going to be that way at first. The session had a couple of marks against it.


• We decided to play somewhat at the last minute.
• Last session, we left a town about thirty minutes from being finished. It'd been three weeks since then, and I was very afraid we'd lost momentum.
• I had to prepare a new town for after that one, without seeing the results of the first town.



None of these seemed to matter once we got started. We zoomed like a well-tuned engine.

Ending the problem in Broke Canyon
The first town was finished quickly, but dramatically. When we left it, there was a major cancer in town. A 28-year-old man and his mother formed a nasty cycle of disappointment for each other. She prevented him from marrying and he fathered a child with another local. The guy, August, couldn't stay in town. Hiram, the husband who'd been cuckolded, would kill him and everyone knew it. The Steward wasn't helping, as his spirit was broken. The session started with August trying to kill his mother - maybe. She OD'ed on laudanum. Whether she wanted to was kind of unknown. Two Dogs chased him down while the other tried to make the mother vomit.

The Dog with the mother, Jabez, has been really interesting to me. The game's supernatural elements have been pretty low-key except when he enters the room. His initiation, from "Wisdom's Ghost," involved him helping a girl pass on. Her spirit remains with him (he has a relationship with her.) So, the demons hate this guy. They fought like mad to kill this lady and almost won. He ended up succeeding, though, only to have the lady want to die. She pulled a pistol on him and he shot her down in mercy.

The other two Dogs solved their problem in an ingenius way. August was too old to live with his mom, he knew Scripture great (his dad was a Steward), and he was an ok guy, just screwed up. So they sent him off to be a Dog, with the Steward's permission. And they gave him his dad's gun, the one his mom just pulled on a Dog.

That was pretty awesome.

Reflections
My favorite part about our reflection time is we realized our three characters are three parts of a functional team.


• Zebulon is the body. He is tough, implusive, and makes things happen.
• Perseverance is the brain. He knows Scripture, preaches caution, and makes things happen.
• Jabez is the heart. He is emotionally scarred, carries the weight of the dead, makes the hard decisions, and makes things happen.


We also realized that our rules unfamiliarity in the first game matched our characters' unfamiliarity with what exactly they were supposed to do with all these people's problems. That was cool.

Little Horn, the land of strife
So, I really love the books of Oakley Hall. If you haven't read 'em, give them a try. Separations is one of the best, and it's about the exploration of the Grand Canyon and Mormons and Indian massacres and being a woman in the West. My favorites are the Ambrose Bierce series, though, where Ambrose Bierce and his apprentice writer solve crimes in San Francisco. It touches on a lot of social issues of the times. The Chinese railroad worker bit always gets me.

So, Little Horn Township, the new town I introduced is all about Chinese immigrants and railroads and San Francisco. To explain everything wrong with this town would take pages, but here's the big ones:



• The railroad's coming through Little Horn from SF. Little Horn's the only real way through the mountains. The Faithful shopkeeper in town hates this, as it'll run him out of business with cheap goods coming from the west. He's become an anti-Chinese bigot.
• Some of the town's women are preaching to the Chinese camped outside of town. The Steward's daughter is in love with a young Chinese man.
• Oh, yeah! The shopkeeper's son wants to marry the Steward's daughter. He is trying to frame the Chinese for theft, so he's been breaking into places and stealing stuff.
• Ruth, the Steward's daughter, has an unattractive best friend. She's in love with Joseph, the shopkeeper's son, but he accidentally killed her. She caught him thieving as she went to betray Ruth to him and he shot her and then really framed the Chinese by cutting her up with the "heathen alphabet."



And that's not all. So this place is really screwed up. It's so screwed up the demons attacked the Dogs outside of town. All of our demons are portrayed as unnatural winds and the wind tried to knock them out of the pass on the way in. This town is also fun because almost everything is obvious walking in. I mean, the Dogs knew who killed Felicity (best friend of Ruth, and cousin of Perserverance) about three minutes in.

So, what happened?

CSI: Deseret Territory

The men of the town want to go down to the railroad camp and kill those "yellow devils." (Man, we get to say some screwed up business in this game. Even the Steward's wife, who's great and tolerant and stuff, is condescending in the extreme. "Now, Dogs, you have to understand these people's lives are rough. They get treated about as bad as darkies back East." Seriously.) The Dogs are having to play constant defense, blocking these guys from doing so.

I fucking love the fact that the Dogs now know how to get things done. First town, they waffled around some. This town, well:

So, the mom of the Chinese kid that the Steward's daughter is in love with brung in a steaming batch of rice to the sympathy potluck being held for Felicity's family. Remember, Felicity is Perseverance's cousin, so her mom, Fidelity, is Perserverance's sister. (Favorite sister, Judson said.) This Chinese lady, Niu Ai-Mu, is standing all shakily outside the family's house as three burly white dudes stand on the porch, blocking her from entering. One's got a rifle. The Dogs help her out as she tries to explain how sorry she is in broken English. Jabez and Zeb take the rice from her and comfort her a little and she starts to leave. Rifle-guy lifts up the gun and starts to fire at her back. Perseverance comes down like a sack of rocks and takes the gun as it fires into the ground. "I was just trying to scare her off," rifle-guy says. "You're going to give me my gun back, Dog."

"You can get it back. From the Steward," Perseverance says. Man, he's good.

By the way, I got a tear in my eye running that scene. I have two or three now. That scene tore me up. That Chinese lady works on the railroad all day and can barely feed her family. That rice - that was three days' meals for them.

A Chinese ghost story
The Steward's daughter went missing. Guess where she is?

Perseverance and Zeb go to get her from the Chinese camp. They know not to let the posse forming to find her do it. They'll kill 'em all. They go to talk to Barth, the camp foreman (and ex-Faithful and ex-Dog, which they'll figure out) and see if Ruth will just come home.

Meanwhile, Jabez knows how to get the bottom of this. He's becoming fucking Ender Wiggin, Speaker for the Dead over her. He's like the Dog Abhorsen (from Garth Nix's young adult fantasy series. Read it; it's good.) He talks to the dead and solves their problems. In the first session, he helped a Dog die. In the second session, that dead Dog spoke to him. In the third, he talks back.

He decides to summon the ghost of Felicity and ask her who killed her. Remember, there's murder in this town. There's 5d10 Demonic Influence telling me that he's going to have a rough time of this. Mischa knows this and does it. He's in the basement of a funeral home with her body and lights candles and anoints the body with sacred earth and reads Scripture and mixes holy ritual with God-knows-what. It's powerful.

I've got a whole lot of big dice in my hand.

The Hungry Ones come. The room's filled with black wind, whispers of the dead begging for release coming out of it. The candles go out - and Jabez grabs them and uses the wax to build a protective circle. We've just crossed into hardcore necromancy. He drives them back. He can see their devil eyes barely and they want to eat his Faithful spirit.

And he can see Felicity in the middle of them, begging for release. And you know what? He reaches out for her. Cold teeth tear into his arm, needles of pain drawing into him, pulling him into death.

He's got a trait, "I know fire 2d6." He's out of dice. He remembers his town burning down, his family burnt up in that hell-blaze. And he is warm, so warm and pulls that poor girl out of there.

Oh, man. Oh, man.

Felicity tells her story. She tells of loving Joseph and wanting to tell him Ruth's secrets. She tells of him killing her. She thinks it was accidental. She blames herself. She asks, "Are you here to ease my way? Are you here to help me get to the King of Life?" He says yes, and bids her to go.

And I think he's lying. I mean, he's surrounded by the Hungry Ones, whatever devilry they might be. And, hey, why isn't she in heaven? Maybe things are more complicated than Jabez might of thought. And he's sending her back? I'm starting to think he's going to let me down.

She walks out of the circle and the Hungry Ones cover her, screaming. The wave of dark wind travels up the stairs, carrying her soul to be devoured.

And Jabez says, "Leave her alone." And they all turn on him.

Meanwhile, Perseverance and Zebulon can't find Ruth or Nui Kuong-Rong, her love. Nui Rui-Ning, his father, shows up though and confesses to the murder. They know he's lying, but what to do? Ai-Mu's crying and begging him to stop and everything's pretty rough. And Barth's wife steps in. Emiline reaches in to help and the firelight hits her face, and holy crap, it's Zeb's mom, who ran off eight years ago.

And that was the session.

The break-down
So, that was a lot of exposition. Sorry about that. It really got me. Seriously, at the end of the game, I was all tore-up.

Both as characters and as players, everyone really stepped it up this game. The players got the rules a lot more, and knew what was expected of them. The characters transformed into beautiful machines of faith and duty. We took turns making each other's situation rougher and we loved it. Even as GM, this kept happening to me. I'd describe a situation, and the players would add something brutal and I'd go, "Oh, man. Wow." Cat's face when I said, "Emiline reaches over to pull Ai-Mu away and she's beating the ground with her fists and weeping and by the way, Emiline's your mom and so what are you going to do with Nui Rui-Ning?" was awesome. That was major screw-your-PC action and she took it and loved it. I'm afraid Zeb's going to kill his mom next session, but we'll see.

The supernatural in this game is amazing. I've never had chills from the supernatural in a game. Afterwards, Mischa and I talked and got down to this: the supernatural in this game is never really there. It's Not There in a scary way. As an audience, we never know whether it's real or just what the characters perceive and that's terrifying.

Mischa gets a particular shout-out for that Hungry Ones scene. I was intentionally giving him a chance to let this game go real nihilistic. If he let those Hungry Ones take Felicity, well, that'd say that the Faith might be a lie. These demons are going to get the dead no matter what, right? He drew the line and said "No." I can't wait to see the showdown next session.

Oh, not to gush more, but here's some gonzo Dogs action.

In Broke Canyon, in his last conflict, Jabez gets laudanum in his eye when the demons blow crap around the room. It's a short-term Fallout and he takes "laudanum in eye 1d4" as a trait. We have a table rule: your short-term Fallout traits are there until you use them.

He doesn't use it until the Hungry Ones scene. He takes more Fallout, this time Long Term. He changes that trait into a permanent one. He's now got this freaky cloudy eye, scarred by laudanum, that he can look through to see things a bit differently.

Scary stuff, I say.

Hi Clinton,

Wow.

I think one of the things that makes reading DitV transcripts more interesting is that you know that each outcome and fallout was a direct result of choices by folks in the group- not just a completely random hit of the dice or a GM fiat from left field.

The racial issues are even more heart rending when you realize 1) miscegenation laws are in full effect and 2) immigration laws allowed very, very few chinese women into the country for fear of being "overrun by Chinamen" as it were. There's an entire class of chinese americans in their 80's and 90's who never got a chance to settle down because the gender ratio was about 1 woman to every 20-30 men. Yeesh.

Add in the fact that over 125,000 lbs of skeletons were shipped back to China for burial over the course of the the railroad building. Safe work, that was. There's probably more than a FEW ghosts floating about, or soon to be floating about.

Aiyah.

Look forward to hearing more,

Chris

Hey Clinton,

Cool! Friggin' way cool!

Can you tell us some more about the group and whether you guys have had similar experiences to this in the past? If so, when and how? Do you feel this was more a result of the dynamic of the group, or something about the game itself? Can you give us some sort of idea of the out of game stuff going on while the scenes played out, especially those scenes that were so powerful?

-Tim

Tim Alexander wrote: Hey Clinton,

Cool! Friggin' way cool!

Can you tell us some more about the group and whether you guys have had similar experiences to this in the past? If so, when and how? Do you feel this was more a result of the dynamic of the group, or something about the game itself? Can you give us some sort of idea of the out of game stuff going on while the scenes played out, especially those scenes that were so powerful?

Hey again,

I've got some followup questions:

Clinton R. Nixon wrote: This was our first session I'd say that hit this level or that I walked away completely satisfied with how I ran the game. We're still a bit of a new group. I think this was the sixth session we've had together total.

The out of game stuff is interesting. I can't help but going off into tangents. One thing I do a lot while GMing is I explain what I'm doing with the rules. For example, I might say, "Remember that initial conflict with the wind coming into down. Well, the demons took a blow, so they have this d4 Trait. Now, the rules don't talk about this really, but it makes sense that demons could have Fallout. So they get to use this in the basement, which helps them, but it increases the chance they'll have to take another blow."

We also talk a lot about other stuff, but I can't remember what right now. It's not Monty Python or some crap, but more like "This reminds me of this movie scene," or "this reminds me of this book." I think that helps us all solidify what the game looks like in our mind.

The only scene I'd say that had no real out of game talk was the basement scene. That had an intensity that pretty much shut us all up.

Tim Alexander wrote: Hey again,

I've got some followup questions:

...

Meaning six sessions of any game? Or six sessions of Dogs, but other games.

Are the other players engaging with this? What's the response, sort of a general nodding of the heads or something more interactive?

What do you think fosters the sorts of game relevent tangents you're talking about? Do tangents ever spawn that are distracting, if so how do you deal with them? Basically talk a little bit of how you (to steal Lisa's phrasing) "Game on purpose."

Well I'm just blown away. I can't wait to hear more. I can't wait to hear about Jabez and the Hungry Ones.

-Vincent

Clinton R. Nixon wrote:
1) We've managed to gel as a group and lose a lot of that self-conciousness we had.
2) The game really promotes this sort of powerful story. We are all so impressed with the system.
3) Um, I'm a GMing badass. (?) Maybe.

Clinton R. Nixon wrote:
We also talk a lot about other stuff, but I can't remember what right now. It's not Monty Python or some crap, but more like "This reminds me of this movie scene," or "this reminds me of this book." I think that helps us all solidify what the game looks like in our mind. I also bring up suggestions a lot. "You know, you guys could go talk to Barth."

Man, I'm glad you showed up, Judson. I really wanted to talk about this session more.

I'd have to say his best of many good traits is that he's completely affirmative. Won't let us get away with the completely weak, but he's rolled with everything we've thrown, praised it, and asked for more.

A lot of that "this reminds me of..." stuff helps me (at least) get a decent handle on what a room is like, or who we're talking about. It also makes the mood of a scene more vicerial. The easy example of that is Jabez in the crypt. If we hadn't been doing a fair amount of banter while ham-stringing August, the hushed silence in the crypt wouldn't have been as intense.

Cool, more stuff, so I'm back:

Clinton R. Nixon wrote:

I'd have to say his best of many good traits is that he's completely affirmative. Won't let us get away with the completely weak, but he's rolled with everything we've thrown, praised it, and asked for more.

Thanks! It's just me knowing that you know what you want to have conflict with even better than I do. I also follow my GM rule I've been mentioning over here. If I bring up a conflict, you guys determine how it ends. If you bring up one, you've given me a shiny toy to play with.

Tim Alexander wrote:
In terms of rolling with the punches, do you ever run into stuff brought up by the players that doesn't fit right to you? Do you have a technique you use to find a fit for things don't necesarily jive with whatever current version of the SIS you've got in your head, or do you find that just doesn't happen?

I don't mean to railroad the thread topic, but I've spent some time this a.m. nosing about The Forge, reading Clintonian's DitV posts and the Primeval Press interview, and I thought I'd add my two cents. (I'm playing Zeb, by the way, the scary pissed-off Dog who's mother r-u-n-n-o-f-t.)

I have a wholly different approach to role-playing than my compatriots, because I'm not really a gamer. I'm a writer. For me, role-playing isn't really "gaming", it's more like Live Action Creative Writing. So there are entire levels and sub-levels and subtle little intricate details about role-playing that Mischa, Judson, and Clinton are aware of innately, that I generally don't even consider/think about, unless someone points them out. I'm thinking specifically, as an example, of Clinton's tweaking and/or modification of mechanics; I prefer to be as oblivious as possible about mechanics, because mechanical stuff "breaks the fourth wall", for me.

My goal is to have fun inhabiting a character, to enjoy interacting with other characters, to experience character development. Because of this, sometimes Clinton's shocked exuberance in reaction to our characters' shenanigans takes me by surprise; his eyes'll pop and he'll go, "Do you actually say that??" Of course I actually say that! Calling Hiram's wife a whore while I eat her flapjacks is much more interesting than not saying it. And it allows for things to get even more interesting when Clinton, as inhabitor of the NPCs, has to react to me calling her a whore while I eat her flapjacks.

Since beginning play with Clintonian - first Demon Cops and now Dogs - Mischa and I have had lots of long discussions about authorial control and what that means and how it gets utilized, and I've honed my original The-GM-is-God stance to something more akin to The-GM-is-Novelist. The GM has setting and plot in mind, and maybe even has a rough notion of how the plot will (or ought to) unfold. The PCs - the "characters" in the "novel" - don't really know those things, they only know themselves and what actions/reactions are appropriate for them within the context of the plot as it happens. I firmly approve of authorial control as applies to character development, but I don't think that I should be able to say, ". . . and then alien spaceships descend from the sky and take us to Seti Alpha 6 where we all live happily ever after." I don't especially want a GM to say that either, but s/he could say it. Because the GM is Novelist. Again, this perspective has everything to do with me being a writer, and not a gamer. I'm certain there are plenty of gamers who'll disagree with me to some extent or another, (interestingly, Mischa is one of them) but that's simply my subjective approach to role-playing, and both Sorcerer and Dogs have been good anvils to hammer my perceptions against.

Well. That was probably more like three cents.

- Cat

Wow.

Of course I actually say that! Calling Hiram's wife a whore while I eat her flapjacks is much more interesting than not saying it. And it allows for things to get even more interesting when Clinton, as inhabitor of the NPCs, has to react to me calling her a whore while I eat her flapjacks.

Sounds like you guys really got inspired that day. Clinton, could you enlarge a little more on your GM style? Especially: How much detailed description and atmosphere stuff do you do?

I ask because the most inspired sessions I have had as yet were special mainly because of great atmosphere and extraordinary "suspension of disbelief". The few narrativist game sessions I have played, on the other hand, were all very focused on character developement and moving the plot along. In-character dialogues and setting description were very brief, in a "reduce to the max" way.

When I'm GM'ing WEG's d6 oder Eden's Unisystem, I really get into the atmosphere stuff and do a lot of acting and detailing, and my players keep telling me that they enjoy that big time. But as I GM'ed PtA and The Pool (with different players), I rarely found it fitting. Got any thoughts on that?

Frank T wrote: Sounds like you guys really got inspired that day. Clinton, could you enlarge a little more on your GM style? Especially: How much detailed description and atmosphere stuff do you do?