This is one of those theoretical threads that aren't based in something I've actually experienced in play. In the Dogs rulebook, there's an example conflict on page 51-52 that describes and ambush. The example concludes that because the Dog won't be killed right away, the GM doesn't have to pull his punches. That it's not cheating because the Dog isn't dead unless the conflict is won by the assassin.

I've thought about that. And I disagree. Even in a Dogs game, I'd consider that a breach of the social conflict. Especially so in Dogs, in fact. Because whether he likes it or not, the player is now in a conflict that will, if he gives, mean that he is dead. And even if he wins, he will have to take lethal fallout when he's shot with a gun because he cannot give!

In normal conflicts, you can choose whether a conflict is important enough to take a blow with guns. But unless the players have made choices that they knew were likely to piss someone off to the point that a followup with their lives in the stakes was the consequence, then declaring a "You are attacked, do you die?" conflict is, in my opinion, going too far. I even think it's worse than the same thing done in games like D&D, because in Dogs a lethal situation is usually something the characters brought upon themselves and the GM isn't expected to put their lives on the line.

What do you think? Do you disagree here, or have I perhaps got something wrong and that isn't what the book says at all?

You're incorrect, but only because you're missing a rule.

If you give, or loose a conflict where your life is the stakes, you don't loose your Dog immediately. In fact, you only take 4 dice of fallout. It's easier to survive giving than fighting in most cases.

-Eric

[edited for clarity]

What if the Stakes are "I want to kill your Dog dead"? Wouldn't giving mean that the Dog dies?

EDIT: The "four dice of fallout" thing is making me think that there's a specific rule that I'm forgetting. Page number, maybe?

Vincent is right, as usual. Here's a bit from my last session. Some of the PCs were off in the wilderness with a band of runaway slaves, and the Territorial Authority and all kinds of bounty hunters were after them. The stakes of the conflict were, "Do the people hunting you capture and lynch you and all the ex-slaves?" So, this went on, with raises and sees being things like clever ruses and overwhelming numbers of searchers, and then one of the players made a Raise like this: "As the army closes in, I ride off alone and meet them, delaying them long enough for the slaves to flee our camp." At that point, everyone was like "Wow!", so I had the TA Take the Blow, and then on my next go I just Gave. So the slaves got away, because Brother Exhumations heroically offered himself up for capture to delay the army.

Remember that what actually happens in the conflict is determined by the raises and sees that people make. And that can change how badly you want the outcome to happen.

So in the ambush, a Dog can make a Raise like, "It's a red day, a bloody day for the enemies of the King! I ride into battle and each shot I take, takes a life, until the hammers of my guns fall on chambers as hot and empty as Hell." And if he's got dice to make me Take the Blow, then unless I Give a dozen ambushers are going to be dead. Do I really want him that badly?

Or the Dog can say something like, "I call out, 'Caleb, I know you're there. You and your men come in peaceful, and I swear on the Book of Life that I will stand beside you at your trial and take your punishment in your place.'" And now it's going to be so damn tempting to Take the Blow and then give, because jeez, this is a once-in-a-lifetime get-out-jail-free-chance.

Um... Sorry, I'm away from my copy of Dogs and my password to get a copy from the Forge Library, so page numbers escape me.

But yeah, that's why "Is your Dog murdered in her sleep?" a kewl conflict, instead of a crappy one. We've played that one. It's hot.

Um... Is there somebody who knows the rule and has their book handy who can get us a page number?

-Eric

Page 54 of the pdf:

"There’s another way to die than by taking bad Fallout. What’s at stake is: does my character kill yours? It’s possible for you to lose the conflict without taking any Fallout a’tall, let alone rolling a 16+.

When that happens, treat it exactly as though your attacker hit you with four dice Fallout, of the size appropriate to his weapon— d10s for a gun, d8s for an axe, etc.— and you rolled a 16. If you get medical attention, we roll over into this new conflict: are you dead? If you don’t, we don’t: you’re just dead."

So you're automatically at 16, but the four dice are used for the healing part, I believe.

Thanks Christian.

Heh. I realize we totally missed the auto-16 bit. We always just went with the 4dice of appropriate fallout.

-Eric

Check page 46:

When a character s critically injured but gets medical attention, I scoop up all of the Fallout Dice the player just rolled, add the Demonic Influence, and roll the lot. If the character s dying but didn t roll any Fallout -- if the character's life was named as what's at stake in conflict, for instance -- I roll 4d6 plus the Demonic Influence.

I think that might be a simple typo. I mean, you're referring to the 4d6 instead of 4d(appropriate), right?

I bet that's what Vincent meant.

Vincent?

-Eric

So, now that everyone is finding this rule, I highly reccomend this:

Is your Dog murdered in his sleep?

It took us two attempts to figure out how one can run such a conflict, but once we got it... golden. Fantastic. Brilliant.

-Eric

I think the rule Neel quotes only applies to the medical attention conflict; Which would mean that it's easier in general to recover from an "I kill you!" conflict that a genuine shoot 'em up conflict. Not sure if that's good or bad, but that's the way it's intended, I think.

It's 4d(appropriate) plus demonic influence, whatever the circumstances. The "4d6" is a relic.

Simon, if you still aren't convinced, give it a try.

-Vincent

The rule about being killed through stakes stating that it's "just" 4dX fallout had escaped me. I still can't find it in the printed version, do any of you have the page number?

However, that still doesn't change the question. It's less likely to end with the character dying. But I'd still feel that my position in Dogs, of all games, was violated if the GM declared an ambush scenario that I had in no way paved the road for. If the GM went "You're riding towards the town of jumping jack falls when suddenly a guy with a big black hat jumps onto the road and yells 'you're not entering this town, DIE!', starting a conflict with the stakes 'do you die?', I'd be all 'wait, nonono, you can't do that!'.

If I had brought it upon myself by killing the guys family, justly or unjustly, then that works for me. But without a cause of my making? No way!

EDIT: To Lumpley's simultanous post: Sorry, I don't play that often. "Giving it a try" and running a conflict that I believe will violate the way I want the game to run isn't an option. Could I get you to try to explain to me just how it works? And more importantly, how it stops the player from being completely deprotagonized if the conflict should result in his death (unlikely, I know, but still). If I'm killed, I want it to be my own damn fault!

Um...I think you've got to try it to believe it. I'm really of the belief that, if a Dogs player is unwilling to let their character go, then they will live. That's it. In the last session we played we got into a very bloodly gunfight. 17d10+4d4 fallout for my Brother Divid. It was close, but I survived it. I don't think that 4d10 fallout has any chance at all of killing any Dog. Period. You could skip rolling and just say that all the dice came up 10s. [edit: I was meaning in the follow-up healing attempt. If you give in the conflict, then you don't roll the d10s, you just have 16 fallout] The Dog will still live if the player wants it to.

I do not think that there is any way for the GM in Dogs to kill off a PC without it being something the player wants too.

-Eric

Technocrat13 wrote: Um...I think you've got to try it to believe it. I'm really of the belief that, if a Dogs player is unwilling to let their character go, then they will live. That's it. In the last session we played we got into a very bloodly gunfight. 17d10+4d4 fallout for my Brother Divid. It was close, but I survived it. I don't think that 4d10 fallout has any chance at all of killing any Dog. Period. You could skip rolling and just say that all the dice came up 10s. [edit: I was meaning in the follow-up healing attempt. If you give in the conflict, then you don't roll the d10s, you just have 16 fallout] The Dog will still live if the player wants it to.

Right. That's why I put that ineffective edit in there.

If you Give when the stake is your character's life, then the fallout is 16. You don't roll for it. I missed that in previous plays, but it's important. The character is not yet dead, and may not even need medical help. At this point, at worst you've got 9d10 on the side of the reaper to deal with. (4d10+Demonic Influence) I'm pretty confident that any Dog can handle that easily.

And if you choose not to Give, then you're saying that you're willing to risk your character even further to prove the point that you're not going to be murdered. :D

-Eric

Yeah, you're probably right. On the other hand, I've had dogs fail initiations against 4d6+4d10. I could see it happening, with a bit of aid from lady (un)luck, with 9d10 despite the player's attempts to avoid it.

However, the chances of success aren't quite relevant. True, risks of failure are close to zero. But still, it's a bit like "do I make it through initiation?". Just feels wrong to start a conflict with the mindset that you depend on a win to avoid a catastrophe, even if that win is virtually guaranteed.


And just a note to clear up misunderstandings I could see appearing at this point. I'm not saying that ambush scenarios are bad by definition. I'm just saying that they should only happen if the Dogs brought them upon themselves.

I (quite literally) started my last session this way, and the players loved it. See here for the setup.

It was completely an out-of-the-blue conflict where a PC would have been shot and dying if they'd given, and I even stacked the odds by letting them see the Hate & Murder to max out my demonic influence dice.

Nobody was deprotagonized, everyone was playing full to the hilt, and it was 100% pure Dogs.

Getting shot isn't a catastrophe. It's two picks from longterm fallout and probably some experience to boot.

James

Simon wrote: Sorry, I don't play that often. "Giving it a try" and running a conflict that I believe will violate the way I want the game to run isn't an option. Could I get you to try to explain to me just how it works? And more importantly, how it stops the player from being completely deprotagonized if the conflict should result in his death (unlikely, I know, but still). If I'm killed, I want it to be my own damn fault!

Hmm. I have a few comments to those. But I'll post them later, because I need to think about this a bit first.

Ok, here we go. I'm going to butcher your post a bit, because the point-to-point format calls for it.

lumpley wrote: a. That's not what deprotagonize means. You can't deprotagonize a protagonist by providing adversity, no matter how sudden or deadly.

b. If you don't want to ambush your Dogs, don't.

c. It IS the Dogs' own damn fault. They ride into a town full of sin, demons and murder like they're God's Own Judgement. Do they really think that somebody's not going to try to kill them?

d. No one...

e. It's okay...

f. What is with...

g. Point (b), where I said if you don't want to, don't? It's plain as day that you do want to. I think you should.

Blankshield wrote: I (quite literally) started my last session this way, and the players loved it. See here for the setup.

I'd have to play the game to figure it out for sure, but I think it's pretty damn hard to kill a Dog if the player doesn't want him dead.

The trick, you see, is to not use guns. Using guns are the only way to kill one outright, rather than have a "healing conflict" go on.

In light of this, personally, I don't see ambushes being an issue. Sure, they can get a _lot_ of Fallout Dice, but unless any of them are d10s (guns), then they're not going to die outright. With d8s, you'd have to roll 2 8's in order to get them to a "dying" stage. With d6s, you wouldn't even have _that_!

Howabout, then, having one of the Dogs wake up to someone strangling him? No Fallout immediately, and even if there is, it's only d6 (unarmed physical).

I saw that you were concerned about ambushes that you hadn't built up to - if the dogs are riding into town, and there is an ambush there, why not start with a conflict "Do you notice the ambush?" then a followup for "Do you subdue your attackers?"

Let your players determine what's at stake, and turn it on the GM characters - in almost all cases, I think I could find a way to get a What's At Stake that's not something like "Do the Dogs die?" - which would go into the funny "yeah, well, you really didn't" mechanics.

Laz, actually just got the book this week, so may be wrong about some things ;)

lazarus wrote: I'd have to play the game to figure it out for sure, but I think it's pretty damn hard to kill a Dog if the player doesn't want him dead.

The trick, you see, is to not use guns. Using guns are the only way to kill one outright, rather than have a "healing conflict" go on.

Let your players determine what's at stake, and turn it on the GM characters - in almost all cases, I think I could find a way to get a What's At Stake that's not something like "Do the Dogs die?" - which would go into the funny "yeah, well, you really didn't" mechanics.

Simon Kamber wrote: That makes it even less lethal. But still, are you prepared to accept the (unlikely) outcome of a dead Dog? I know I'd only be if the Dog's death had meaning

Brand_Robins wrote: Any of this sounding right?

Excellent!

Simon, can you imagine a Narrativist game where it's okay for a player character to be killed, apparently meaninglessly, in the opening scene or opening session?

If you can't imagine such a game, I suggest that your problem isn't with Dogs at all, but more general. I'd recommend that, if you care, you start a thread in GNS or comment in my open house about what PC death in Narrativism can mean and how it can work. For a pretaste, consider how a PC's early, sudden death might affect both the other players' characters and that player's next character. Consider how it might kick the game off fast, hard, and good.

If you can imagine such a game, I suggest that Dogs is one of 'em.

If that doesn't do it for you - if you're like, "I can see where a game could possibly work like that, but Dogs isn't it" - then my followup question. Can you imagine having a group whose social contract does allow Dogs to be it?

-Vincent

I can certainly see where you're going with that. I agree with you that Dogs isn't any different in that aspect.

I also follow you in that a character dying right off the bat is one hell of a kicker for the other characters. Their character has just dies in their arms, coughing up blood in the final part of a losing healing conflict.

Where I still don't see it working though, is for the player whose character has just died. As for that, I'll post it for further discussion where appropriate once I've had a chance to think it through.

Simon Kamber wrote: Where I still don't see it working though, is for the player whose character has just died. As for that, I'll post it for further discussion where appropriate once I've had a chance to think it through.

Simon Kamber wrote:

Blankshield wrote: I (quite literally) started my last session this way, and the players loved it. See here for the setup.

Yup. And I imagine that was one hell of a conflict. I like the "scarecrow" too. But, suppose one of the Dogs had died. Do you think that Dog's player would still have loved it?

I really like what both Vincent and Brand had to say on this topic, but it also reminded me of a question I had, so apologies if this should be its own thread instead.

What if a Dog dies, and his fellow Dogs want to resurrect him? Now, that sure turns the supernatural dial ALL the way up, and a case could be made that no player would ever want to do that, given that there's only one person who ever raised the dead and its unlikely he's returned as a Dog, but the rules are perfectly clear: "Say Yes or roll dice." So my question is, what dice do I roll? The standard 4d6 + Demonic Influence seems way too light for something that big.

I've seen several very nice writeups of folks calling the spirits of the dead back to talk to them. The souls of the faithful can't ignore ceremony, right? So what happens when a Dog tells that soul to get back into its body, the King of Life ain't done with you yet?

--Carl Rigney

I think something that's been missing here is an essential part of the Dogs rules. Everyone has to agree on the stakes of a conflict before you can drop the dice. The GM dosen't have the authority to set stakes that the players don't care for. So, if the GM calls for an ambush where the stakes are the life of a PC that the player dosen't want to risk so directly, then the player has every right to object and veto those stakes.

So, I'm willing to say that, without a doubt, there is NO way that a GM can kill off a Dog without the permission of the players. All of them.

-Eric

cdr wrote: and a case could be made that no player would ever want to do that, given that there's only one person who ever raised the dead and its unlikely he's returned as a Dog,

Plus, it can give the Dog a relationship with Heaven. Every conflict that happens after that resurrection has the potential to include things about Heaven directly in its Stakes, for extra dice.

"Do I save her soul, and give her a place in the Paradise I glimpsed?"
"Do I assert the Will of the King, or failing, do I lose my chance to return to Heaven?"

I'm with Brand... I want this now.

Form of -- a quibbling academic!

Brand_Robins wrote:

cdr wrote: there's only one person who ever raised the dead and its unlikely he's returned as a Dog,

Just as a note, this is untrue in LDS (Mormon) theology....

Ooh, excellent points from Brand and Sydney. I also like Tony's idea of a relationship with Heaven (as a place or an organization).

But mechanically, what sort of dice do I roll to oppose the Dogs calling their dead brother back from Heaven? 4d6+(demonic opposition) doesn't seem like enough. Do I take the next NPC off the list and call it The Angel Guarding The Gates of Heaven? :-) (And yes, I know I can do whatever I and my players want, but I'm interested in hearing other's thoughts.)

And once you bring ONE person back from the dead, why not more? Talk about pushing it further in the next town. :-)

--Carl Rigney

Ye olde standard answer: If all of the Dogs are in agreement that something should be done then it's the Will of the King.

But, really... what are the odds that all of your Dogs are going to agree to something this controversial? I suppose some groups might all agree to that as a matter of course. But others would see it as a wonderful opportunity for rich, fun-producing conflict.

Absolute first Dog I'd nominate to be against the ressurection would be the dead one, of course. As GM it's so easy... "So what does Ezekiel think of this whole 'Pull him back from heaven' plan, anyway? You gonna help 'em, hinder 'em, what?"

(If anybody's waiting for my stamp of approval on this matter of bringing Dogs or whomever back from the dead, consider it stamped. Yeah. Cool stuff.)

-Vincent

lumpley wrote: (If anybody's waiting for my stamp of approval on this

Brand_Robins wrote:

lumpley wrote: (If anybody's waiting for my stamp of approval on this

Stamps? We don't need no stinking stamps! ;)