I ran Fall Valley for the same group that played through West Cotton Fields Branch. The town had been altered to fit in line with the themes from last time:

- I played up Zacharias’ sin. He wasn’t just speaking death and judgment, it was “coincidentically” appearing, sometimes as a result of his judgment. Rats appeared by other of the townspeople, sometimes after he claimed they had sinned. He had also been accepting donations of grain in order to “pass word of their faithfulness to the king”. I did this to put it in contrast with his wife. I wanted no doubt that he was a sinner. But what about his wife? Would it be fair to kill him when she would suffer even more?

- Zacharias wasn’t the steward. Brother Edwin was. I did this to follow up on the theme from last time where the steward was judged harshly for his incompetence. This time, he was no less incompetent. But he asked for help.

- Turned Samuel more towards the “someone had to stop the crazy bastard” argument. First, the purpose was to stress the “the steward did nothing” part of it. But the fact that he had somehow been justified in his actions acted as a VERY important part of the Dogs’ discussion.

The town played out allright. Still a couple of humps. They arrived in town, talked to Zachary, healed the kid, talked to the steward and then they were already pronouncing judgment. Did seem a bit quick for my liking. It’s hard to present different viewpoints if they’re already judging after the first two. They talked to Samuel a bit later, but they never got to Daniel. Just didn’t happen untill at the last moment of the game, and just as a by-thought.

Judgments:

- The first to go was Brother Zachary. They were on him from just about the first moment. Especially because the steward said that he had gone way over what was justified by Daniel’s actions. When Samuel told them he had even been taking grain donations, it was … well, that’s where it got interesting. Because the Dogs got into a free-for-all discussion about what to do about it, with Dolph going for mercy and teaching him the error of his ways, Jossiah going for the quick death and the other two Dogs taking, surprisingly, the point of worse-than-death torture-like punishments which only differed in whether he was supposed to survive. In the end, Dolph won it and they tried to break him down and teach him the errors of his ways. As they did however, he had a few of his cult-followers possessed and things got nasty. Once he pulled his gun and started firing at them (with a raise that they couldn’t block), they all gave. Dolph wanted mercy, but not to the point where he was willing to take bullets for his views. They launched a followup conflict which was basically about killing him. And they did so, even if it had to happen in front of his crying wife.

- Next was Samuel. They started by assessing that not only had he burned down a house with children. He regretted nothing. Only one of the Dogs went against the flow here and suggested that he be punished harshly (“Burn him!”). The others were surprisingly merciful. They ended up supporting their view with a conflict and discussed what to do then. Making him steward was talked about for a moment, because he was the only one taking responsibility. But his sin was too great. They ended up telling him to take care of Zachary’s widow, and that was it. Surprising part here was how it wasn’t as significant in the end that he had knowingly murdered children with his arson when he had been “justified” in doing so because he had to.

- Finally, the Steward. This one’s interesting because it was in a way a follow-up on last town. This Steward was incompetent, but wasn’t trying to hide it. During the first part of the session, they planned to strip him of his title. But that changed, and by the time they got to him he got a stern lecture about taking responsibility, and how failing was worse than death. But he got to keep his job.






Mainly, what I'm curious about is what you think about the way I changed the town. Do you think it was a good way of doing it? Do you do the same things in your games? Do you have any suggestions to how I could further the effect. Personally, I think it worked pretty well, at least in the steward case. I also had another issue, with the way conflicts ran, but I'll start a thread on the Lumpley forum about that one.

This is sort of an out-of-left-field one, but did any of the Dogs have blood in the town?

Did any of the Dogs befriend any of the townspeople?

I don't have any kind of diagnostic purpose here or anything like that, I'm just curious.

Also, remind me if you've told me already, how's the supernatural work with this group?

-Vincent

lumpley wrote: This is sort of an out-of-left-field one, but did any of the Dogs have blood in the town?

Did any of the Dogs befriend any of the townspeople?

Also, remind me if you've told me already, how's the supernatural work with this group?

As one of the players, my character ended up having blood in town. Good old "no wonder he started the trouble, he IS my cousin afterall"

And yes, it all went a bit quick with the judgement.

On Samuel, my character really did want to kill him, but didn't argue for it for a couple of reasons. He didn't think it would be a good thing to kill even more, the town had suffered enough, and most important reason, he had a damned good reason to do what he did. And the punishment to take care of the widow and her son wasn't going to be a light one, they have no house, so he has to figure out something there, and he has to deal with her not liking him.