Ok, so yesterday, I'm making sure I understand this whole DitV conflict resolution and chargen thing by making up a character up to, and including initiation.

My 'guy' Zeb is really simple, likes horses, and wants to impress the horseriding trainer at the temple as his first conflict. The trainers sends him out to a man who is known to be abusive of his horses - make him stop.

Zeb walks up, finds the guy whipping the horse, conflict starts. The horsebeater opens up with a 17, saying 'get off my property now, young pup'.

No way Zeb can match a 17, so he has to Take the Blow. I was really stumped at first on how to do so without having to follow the spoken command, but in the end I came up with a response along the line of "I may be a young pup, but..."

I guess that's how you Take the Blow, but continue anyway?

How is it determined - for this opening conflict - that the conflict doesn't quickly escalate to shooting - with Zeb getting hit by a big 17? causing big fallout?

The conflict played out in such a way that Zeb would lose (raise of 7 he could not match). However, till now, they had only been talking (Zeb did draw on some traits). Zeb could possibly escalate to fisticuffs or gunplay, but would the opposition get any fresh dice as well? How many? Do I quickly get to make up a char and add dice? Is it a loss for the horsebeater because no dice are possible to be gained by the horsebeater/GM?

Oh yeah, if the horsebeater is a Faithful, does Ceremony work on him (he's got a soul, after all)? I presume yes. Again - no way to respond/escalate above and beyond the 4d6 4d10 initial dice?

I think if I were Zeb I'd be throwing in all kinds of things to match that 17 - my love of horses, the fact that I'm a Dog, my coat, whatever it takes.

And you can escalate without resorting to violence, or escalate to talking from gunplay. This threw me for a loop, too. It seems to be a common confusion.

Rules questions yay.

In no particular order:

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For initiations, the GM rolls 4d6 4d10 and has no access to any other dice ever. Often, this means that if the Dog escalates, the Dog wins. Some initiatory conflicts, the Dog will escalate to win; some, never. It's all good.

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I raise: "get off my property" with a 17. You take the blow. Your character has to get off my property. And stay off, or whatever the implication of the raise was. You don't get to take the blow without taking the blow!

Then you get to raise or give. If you can't come up with a good raise - because, for instance, you're now far away from the action - you have to give.

But don't forget that you can play time tricks! "See: dang it, I get off his land. Raise: the next day, I see him in town..."

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How is it determined - for this opening conflict - that the conflict doesn't quickly escalate to shooting - with Zeb getting hit by a big 17? causing big fallout?

lumpley wrote: I raise: "get off my property" with a 17. You take the blow. Your character has to get off my property. And stay off, or whatever the implication of the raise was. You don't get to take the blow without taking the blow!

Then you get to raise or give. If you can't come up with a good raise - because, for instance, you're now far away from the action - you have to give.

But don't forget that you can play time tricks! "See: dang it, I get off his land. Raise: the next day, I see him in town..."

I'd say that's why you negotiate what's at stake. Hopefully, as a group, you'd reach some consensus on stakes that were interesting and not quite so black-and-white. Unless that was what everybody wanted...

Let's not forget that you can't resolve the Stakes before the contest is over.

Chris

Exactly.

How about this: if you make a raise that could win the stakes for you automatically, be prepared to give your opponent suggestions about how to take the blow but still stay in the conflict, in case that's what happens. If you can't think of any suggestions, make a different raise!

-Vincent

lumpley wrote: Exactly.

How about this: if you make a raise that could win the stakes for you automatically, be prepared to give your opponent suggestions about how to take the blow but still stay in the conflict, in case that's what happens. If you can't think of any suggestions, make a different raise!

-Vincent

Simon Kamber wrote:

lumpley wrote: Hmm, just a thought here. Suppose the stakes where whether the initiate could stop the guy beating this horse to death, right now. Wouldn't that mean that taking the blow automatically lost the stakes?

This is a problem I've had before. What if the nature of the Stakes is such that taking a blow makes you lose them?

What if: the stakes are, "Can I get out of this without any blood being spilled, and the raise is "I kill you IN THE FACE!!!" and you have to take the blow?

Just raise appropriately to the stakes. If the stakes are "do I convince him to give up his sinnin' ways," you wouldn't raise with "I convince him to give up his sinnin' ways," would you? So if the stakes are "is blood spilled," don't raise with "I spill blood."

Establish this for everybody in the initiatory conflicts, or sooner. "Don't make a raise that's the same as the stakes" is all you have to say.

-Vincent

How 'bout this?

Raise: Get off my property, now!: 17

Take the Blow: Alright, I'm going..
Raise: But you're coming with me. (escalate to physical but not fighting as you go to drag his ass off the property before you can settle the conflict.)

Sure!

-Vincent

Also a thing that has to considered, would anyone really force a issue so much as to raise with 17?

Same thing with gunfighting, don't raise with so much that they have to take the blow and get terrible fallout if you don't want to kill them. Had that option in our game (last, and so far only, hopefully more soon), to say "I shoot you, raise 19" forcing the character to take the blow with five, or six dices. I didn't. As he didn't really want to kill or even harm a dog (just kill the guy that has abused his daughter).

It's the same dillemma here, would the horsekeeper (or horse abuser as it should more likely be) really want to shove somebody from the church of the king of his ground without having a chance to say what he came to say? Besides that, i don't really understand why the horsekeeper opened the conflict, yes, he had the highest dices. But really, it wasn't him that was deliberately going into a discussion.

Morale of this little rant like post, don't always play the dices the way to win, but the way that the character would do!

lumpley wrote: Just raise appropriately to the stakes. If the stakes are "do I convince him to give up his sinnin' ways," you wouldn't raise with "I convince him to give up his sinnin' ways," would you? So if the stakes are "is blood spilled," don't raise with "I spill blood."

Oh.

I think the answer is that the game just doesn't support stakes where you're hedging like that. I'm pretty sure that the stakes are actually "can I get him to repent?" and we both know that coming up here you're going to have to make hard decisions about violence.

-Vincent

Yeah.. Vincent 'splained this in one of my Actual Play threads.

It's generally just a bad idea to put life, death, injury, etc. in the stakes, because then you're likely to catch-22 yourself into failure.

I had this same problem working out some narration-rights stuff for my own project. My solution was to require that the stakes for any conflict be a single clause. "Can I make him repent his ways" is fine, as is "Can I prevent blood being spilled", but "Can I make him repent his ways by/while preventing blood being spilled" is too much.

lumpley wrote: Rules questions yay.

In no particular order:

---

For initiations, the GM rolls 4d6 4d10 and has no access to any other dice ever. Often, this means that if the Dog escalates, the Dog wins. Some initiatory conflicts, the Dog will escalate to win; some, never. It's all good.

---

I raise: "get off my property" with a 17. You take the blow. Your character has to get off my property. And stay off, or whatever the implication of the raise was. You don't get to take the blow without taking the blow!

Then you get to raise or give. If you can't come up with a good raise - because, for instance, you're now far away from the action - you have to give.

But don't forget that you can play time tricks! "See: dang it, I get off his land. Raise: the next day, I see him in town..."

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How is it determined - for this opening conflict - that the conflict doesn't quickly escalate to shooting - with Zeb getting hit by a big 17? causing big fallout?

I don't understand this question. If Zeb shoots the guy, or if he shoots Zeb, it escalates to shooting.

"Get off my land," if you take the blow, inflicts d4 fallout dice no matter what.

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If the horsebeater is Faithful, ceremony doesn't work on him, unless it's his soul beating the horse. (I'm pretty sure it's not his soul, but his body, his arm, and his whip.)

Ceremony inflicts d4 fallout, unless you're inflicting it on a demon, a sorcerer, a possessed, or a soul.

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Those seem like maybe not the answers you were expecting! Let me know.

-Vincent

I like the clarification that stakes shouldn't be hedged, so "Do you get him to repent?" is fine, but "Do you get him to repent without spilling blood?" is not. Specify outcomes, not methods: very helpful!

Those seem like maybe not the answers you were expecting!

"Don't make a raise that's the same as the stakes"

If the horsebeater is Faithful, ceremony doesn't work on him, unless it's his soul beating the horse. (I'm pretty sure it's not his soul, but his body, his arm, and his whip.)

Ceremony inflicts d4 fallout, unless you're inflicting it on a demon, a sorcerer, a possessed, or a soul.

Those seem like maybe not the answers you were expecting! Let me know.

Oh and hey, always always always follow your group's lead, especially with regard to ceremony, the supernatural, and what's a legit raise or see. Carl, especially - don't sweat it unless it's not going well. The conversation I'll have with someone who's learning the rules will be necessarily different from the conversation I'd have with someone who's already playing. Particularly: Tobias doesn't have a group's lead to follow yet.

-Vincent

All too true! And as long as you're having fun, you're doing it right, AFAIC.

He can take the blow, stop and surrender... fall to his knees, give up, etc. The dogs get closer to catching him... and then he raises, and wow, the surrender was just a fakeout!

I'd consider that a valid raise. Is there a reason why it shouldn't be?

A fakeout, or.. something happens. Demons possess him, or he just plain changes his mind.. Or he surrenders by pulling his gun, and putting it in his own mouth.

There's a lot of things you can do to keep the conflict going when you have to take the blow.