Last night, the Dogs rolled into the town of Cut'n'Shoot and found themselves in the middle of a lynching, with four Dogs talking, and then shoving and eventually punching, Bros. Jeremiah and Gabriel, the ringleaders of the hanging, to keep them from completing their work.

We ended up with a bunch of questions about how the rules worked, but the one I have for this thread is "what about the rest of the lynch mob?" I decided they would wait to see what the result of the conflict between the Dogs and the ringleaders was before doing anything.

That may not be the case in the next conflict, though. I don't want to write up 20 or 30 NPCs even with the generator. What would y'all suggest for dice for the mob? Somehow 4d6+4d10 didn't seem like much of a challenge against 4 Dogs.

I would just create the mob as an NPC Group. See pages 84-85 of the rulebook.

Of course, that'll make groups of 30 people quite powerful (with 60 stat dice and all those traits), so that should be taken into consideration. Maybe you can make a group of subgroups (e.g., farmer Bob and his boys count as one entity, giving 2 stat dice and one trait, and so on).

Or maybe not the whole mob will participate in resisting the Dogs--their authority will only be questioned by the ringleaders, a smaller NPC Group, with the mob as a couple of supporting trait dice (or improvised belongings).

OK, yes, missed that. *notes to go back and reread rules again immediately before combat and have the rules monkey check that too*

I've got 4 Dogs and they pull out a lot of dice really fast. It may take a mob of 20 or 30 with ringleaders to challenge them physically. On the other hand, the subgroups idea is really useful.

Thanks!

See now, here's my take..

A group of Faithful people, no matter their numbers, should be able to stand up to 4 Dogs united.

That's the full power and authority of the King of Life undivided.. The competition should be blown away.

The fun stuff happens when they're not united.

Wolfen wrote: See now, here's my take..

A group of Faithful people, no matter their numbers, should be able to stand up to 4 Dogs united.

That's the full power and authority of the King of Life undivided.. The competition should be blown away.

The fun stuff happens when they're not united.

Either way, not all crowd scenes are going to involve Faithful.

Riding into town to see a lynching for bringing the evil that's stalking and killing women and children and finding out that the Steward isn't presiding is a pretty good sign that the lynch mob's Faith is under severe stress.

The Chinese railroad scenario somebody (Clinton?) ran immediately came to mind, too. I don't remember whether there was a mob or not, but that would be another kind of scenario that could involve a mob that the Dogs would have to confront physically.

They'd have to confront on the basis that Dogs could Raise just-talking (because non-Faithful are under no obligation to listen)? Or some other reason?

Exactly. Non-Faithful don't have to listen to Dogs, and may not be overawed by their sheer Dogly presence in the way the Faithful, even those whose faith is imperfect and needs correction, are.

I was also thinking about the question of the mob and fighting in terms of the lynching scene. It was pretty easy for the Dogs to keep the conflict with the ringleaders verbal for a while, because they were still at least nominally in the Faith. A non-Faithful lynch mob trying to hang one of the Faithful--a situation I can see in a Dogs game--would escalate pretty quickly and things could get ugly fast.

Alright.. Different tactic, then; Four Dogs united, guns, the mantle of authority resting on their shoulders (literally and figuratively), with all of the confidence of having a mandate from GOD, tell a mob of unfaithful to stand down.

Political sciences and history have shown that mobs are typically easily swayed; their emotional and intellectual strength is somewhere less than that of an individual.

I say the mob will stand down, 9 times in 10. That tenth time.. Well, if a couple people, especially unfaithful, need to be shot to keep the peace, well as God wills.

Basically.. I just don't see a problem. If the characters unite, then it's a pretty clear statement of desire from the players that they want to win this conflict. The tension in Dogs doesn't come from challenging them with dice, but challenging them with ideas. So let 'em win.. but exact a price.

For a variety of reasons, I'd like the tension of the conflict to be a little higher than "you blow through it". I appreciate your input. Thanks, Lance.

If the Dogs know who they are dealing with, I suspect that they could use Call by Name on every member of the mob. That's a lot of dice, but they are all D4s, so there could be heavy Fallout.

It gets easier - maybe too easy - if the Dogs can use Three In Authority against every member of the mob who recognises their authority - which should be all the Faithful. I'm not sure if this is actually allowed in the "official" rules, but it's not a huge stretch.

Doug,

Elements of Ceremony don't give you dice. The dice listed by the Elements of Ceremony are fallout level, when you use them against demons, souls of the faithful, etc. The only way you can get dice by using ceremony is item dice, or dice from traits which relate to a given element.

Immlass,

Tension is great. I love tension. The point is.. Tension is not granted by dice. Use the narration to up the tension, and don't sweat the dice. The Dogs may blow through it with dice, but that's not what matters. But if you're bound and determined to get more dice to roll, there are plenty of suggestions here for it, and I'll leave you to it.

Lance, thank you again. I didn't ask about tension. I asked about dice. As you point out, the tension doesn't come from dice, so I'm glad to clarify that's not why I asked.

Sometimes having a dice rule in your back pocket is useful even if it never comes up. I have some good rules (particularly the subgroup idea) if I need them now.

Wolfen wrote: Doug,

Elements of Ceremony don't give you dice. The dice listed by the Elements of Ceremony are fallout level, when you use them against demons, souls of the faithful, etc. The only way you can get dice by using ceremony is item dice, or dice from traits which relate to a given element.