Look at me, joining the hip crowd and posting an AP for a Dogs in the Vineyard game. I figure it's worth it for two reasons. First, I so rarely play or run games other than BW, I figure it's kind of an event when I do. Second, the game was intensely problematic. And I loved it.

We played from 4:30pm to 9:45pm. The game included character creation, town creation and initiation and a full session of play. We had five players plus the GM. Ryan, Jason, Ravi, Dan, Chris and me. This group had never gamed together in its current form. Ravi had never played a published pen and paper rpg before. Chris, Dan and I have gamed together for years. Ryan and Jason have been playing together for a six months. Only Ryan, Jason and I had played Dogs before.

I offered to run this game earlier in the week. Therefore I felt responsible to inspire and drive the conflict. So I sat down and reread the Dogs rules the afternoon before the game and jotted down some notes about what I wanted in the game. I wrote: Mountain Folk, Murder, Genocide, Paganism, Conversion and "no active supernatural."

During character creation, I started working on the town with the players. I asked if it would be cool to have the town be way out on the frontier and for there to be problems with the Mountain Folk. I proposed the conflict using the above keywords, but stayed vague on the exact nature. I asked if that was cool and everyone agreed. And armed with that knowledge, I had them make their characters. As they made traits, I jotted notes for scenes like, "lifesaving scene" or "scenes from the past." When they came to their Relationships, I tried to get folks to chip in some of their Relationships to the setting. Ryan, Ravi and Jason offered a couple. Chris and Dan stayed out of the way. Then I asked for ideas for other figures in the town. Everyone proposed a few and before play began we had a list like this: Beaver Fur Trader, Steward, Chieftain, Bravos, Ranch Owner, Ranch Foreman, Itinerant Preacher, Former Army Captain, Sister (relation) Missionary, Amputee Soldier, Undertaker and The Girl Who Took His Virginity.

Then I drew a little relationship map and brainstormed. I wrote four words in the middle of the map: Land, Cattle, River, Tannery. Four areas of mundane contention over which sins could be wrought. Then I wrote the various relationship characters in a circle around those words and drew arrows to show which of the four they were after or which other character they were after.

The initial conflict turned out to be the townsfolk arming themselves to go kill the Mountain Folk. Apparently the Mountain Folk had killed and eaten the Sister/Missionary. The townsfolk were all drunk and buying weapons when the Dogs arrived. And they were being egged on by the retired army captain and the amputee.

The conflict focused in on the amputee. Jason had a relationship with him -- he'd performed the amputation. And the Sister. She was Ryan's character's sister. She apparently had been recently killed. She and the Amputee Soldier had been betrothed to marry when she disappeared. The Amputee claimed she was murdered. Now the whole town was going to take vengeance.

At this point, we were exploring. We had a few minor conflicts to determine who was lying or to  elict reluctant information. Also, Ravi was immediately playing munchkin: "We have to kill all these people," was one of the first things he said. He kept at that and I pretty much ignored him. However, Dan is a master of righteous indignation and showed him how it was done with some excellent roleplay. Suddenly, Dan and Ravi were teamed up to bring punishment upon the whole town.

Shortly, the Dogs headed up to the Mountain Folk to get their side of the story. And suddenly we had doctrinal differences emerging. Dan took the position that they were pagan, sorcerous heathens who had to be put down. Ryan kept trying to explain to him that that's not how the Faith worked. I intervened. I said Dan was in the right. He could interpret the Faith as he saw fit, as could Ryan. I encouraged them to play out the doctrinal conflict. That went south fast.

The Dogs quickly discovered that Ryan's sister was still alive and with the Mountain Folk tribe. In fact, she had called off her betrothal to the Amputee, and swore herself to the Chief. That's some serious sinning.

At this point, the characters are all outside the tribal seat. The Chief is there with five bravos. The sister is talking to Ryan. The other four Dogs are parleying with the Chief. Everyone else within eyesight was armed. They were, in fact, waiting for the townsfolk. And all their weapons were shiny new. Someone armed them.

Dan attacked Ryan for being weak in the Faith for not confronting his sister for her sins right there. Ryan was clearly knocked off balance. Dan kept at him, trying to instigate a conflict. He wanted Ryan to bring his sister to justice. Ryan wouldn't engage in a mechanical conflict. He seemed (and correct me if I'm wrong) to be uncomfortable with PvP action.

Jason jumped in and tried to force the sister to come along with a verbal duel. I won. She vowed to stay. She said God would protect her and the tribe. At that point, Dan flipped. He excommunicated her on the spot.

A detail I added in pushed the conflict over the edge. The sister and the chief were both wearing matching silver crosses. The chief wore his among a slew of other totems. Dan ripped the cross from Ryan's sister's neck. Ryan actually signalled his sister to give in and let him have it. Then Dan turned on the chief. He demanded the cross. The chief refused. Ravi jumped in and went for the cross. Conflict! Ravi and the chief went at it and we saw the true might of Ravi's character. He must have had 15 dice for a Fighting conflict. He bested chief and gave him some serious fallout. At this point, the Bravos jumped into action. We had a rollicking gun fight between Dan and Ravi and the bravos. Chris, Ryan and Jason withdrew. Ryan grabbed his sister.

Dan took some serious fallout from the conflict. He got shot in the face. Ravi took none. And he executed the chief as they made their escape.

They rejoined their brothers and sister further up the trail... and Dan was dying. Jason, miraculously, had made a young surgeon. He barely managed to save Dan's life. Interestingly, when we were determining the evils of the town, Ravi fought for merely Injustice. Everyone else at the table fought for Murder because Ravi had just murdered the chief in cold blood. He howled, but I enforced the decision.

By this time, the militia were marching up and preparing for battle. Jason took the reins and dragged the sister in front of the drunk miners and started a conflict -- "She's alive. Go home." The captain responded, "She's been defiled. Her honor must be avenged." Ravi sided with the captain and ended up tipping the balance and winning the day for the miners and townsfolk. They would go on to fight! However, Chris did step in and confront the Amputee. He blamed him for starting the whole mess with his lies. The Amputee shot him with a Winchester. But Chris won the conflict and caused him to breakdown sobbing and admitting his guilt. (Once again, Jason saved the day as Chris nearly died from his injuries.)

Ravi was on a tear at this point. Anyone who confronted him got threatened with the sword. He had caused all of the bloodshed thus far -- nearly got one of the Dogs killed. But they wouldn't stand up to him and confront him. Not even after the miners were all massacred by the Mountain Folk waiting in ambush.

Which pretty much ended the night -- Ryan, Chris and Jason fled the defenseless town with the women, children and elderly. Dan and Ravi stayed to mount a defense.

We had serious problems with PvP conflict. It seemed like Chris and Dan -- who had played with me before -- were cool with it. Jason and Ryan seemed a bit taken aback. Ravi played to win. And once he understood the gist of things, he gamed his traits and gear very well to make sure he won every conflict. Which made things very problematic when he went after another player. Which he did on at least two occasions. Also, it may seem like Chris wasn't a big part of this based on my write up. He was the meditator between the various factions during the game. He roleplayed most of it , and was crucial for keeping things moving.

The other problem I had was a mechanical one. I didn't grok the group conflict and helping rules. I had read that 5 Dogs on 1 sinner was an easy victory. So I tried to make the conflicts challenging. But I really, really didn't get the multiple participants stuff. I think that hurt the game to a fair degree.

The thing that I liked? I loved the fact that players were uncomfortable with the conflicts at the table. Even if it was impeding play a bit. I still enjoyed it. Chris noted that that is definitely my style as a GM. This is not necessarily a good thing.

Also, I realized that I dropped the ball on a few occassions. I downplayed some relationships that I should have emphasized and I blew a few conflicts because of bad resource management or poor escalation. That sucked.

We talked about the game a bit afterward. I'd love it if folks would post their thoughts. I thought it was an interesting and noteworthy game.

thanks all!
-L

Hi everyone. I'm Ryan, playing Sr. Obedience. This was my first time playing a female Dog, or a female character for that matter. There was some brief discussion, as I was trying to make sure that I wasn't playing a female in an unconscious attempt to be that one "special" player that needs to be different, as well as the obligatory warnings of "get ready for not getting taken seriously" and "rape's a factor" etc. But whatever. Female dogs seem to be able to avoid most of the social restrictions that are placed on regular women in the setting, and I was confident that my ability to make the stakes suit my tastes would keep things alright. All of these things ended up being completely and totally irrelevant, though. We never really "played the town." We played each other.

Holy shit, man. If a social contract does exist, and it can fuck with some players' ability to play the game the way they would prefer, then this session was incredibly valuable to me as a learning experience. I've never seen things go quite so wrong (almost, though. I don't claim to only play "the correct way.") Everyone likes different things, but how can we look back at a session where only one player had the ability to shape the course of events as "functional." Oh sure, I could have done something. But it was basically certain death for one player, odds on me. More on that later.

The material of the town was great. The relationship map really impressed me, and I was excited to tie in relationships and make the game personal and driven. I was eager to see how others approached Dogs and its premise. But looking back on the town, we don't know much more of what was going on than what we heard in the initial entrance. The Beaver Fur Trader? What's his deal? The Steward? Nope. Ditto ranch owner, ranch foreman (my uncle), itinerant preacher, and undertaker. It wasn't that we weren't interested. It was that a rather arbitrary extermination of a people tends to make talking to people somewhat problematic.

Player creation went pretty well. But I also think that a lot of our problems once the game got going had to do with gross imbalances during character creation. I'm thinking specifically of a section in the BW Character Burner, page 37. The section on players min-maxing, GM veto power, the Heckler. Luke, I'm assuming some of this might seem relevant, right? It became obvious once play had begun that Ravi had built a power-house, good for absolutely nothing but killing (I doubt he would disagree). Er... whatever. Those guys are always valuable when the NPCs get a little too uppidy. If I had known that the game was going to be PvP, and that all decisions to be made in the town would boil down to which player could threaten the other players into doing what they want, I might have had a few ideas on how to level things out a bit.

I was definitely shocked the first time the PvP stuff reared up. It's never been a part of what DitV has been about, for me. I've always imagined Dogs as a game of complex moral puzzles, where the answers (and actions) are formed by group discussion. If one player wants a sinner dead and another player doesn't, they can discuss it. If that sinner is a relative of one of the players, you've got to give that player time to figure out if they're %100 beyond redemption since, hey... they're kin. I've always seen the Dogs as representatives of a religious order, first and foremost. But there was obviously a disagreement on what kind of faith we were representing. On the one side you've got the Al Qaeda style of "join us or die." Then there's the other side. The, er, Mormons (or Mormon-esque, at least). See the issue? In a game like Dogs, without some ability to compromise on this divide, play comes under strain. Throw in PvP, and where does it go? It goes fucking predictably.

(I'm not kidding about "join us or die," either. The Mountain Chief, my sister's fiancee. He got executed. For being a pagan, and for not giving Dan's character a faithful trinket that was given to him by his betrothed. I was tempted to allow my sister to take Dan's life when Jason was saving him, but then what? Ravi kills her, and me. Everything was clear as day. Awesome. So I went with trying to save as many lives as possible without getting chopped in half by another Dog. I am a wimp, make no mistake.)

I'll gladly play a PvP game if it's tied into the concept of the session, or rooted somehow in the game. Otherwise... what, we can't engage in adult discussion? Let's play Risk. Or Mortal Combat, for that matter. I dunno. I got turned off, to the point of wavering on whether or not to see the session to the end.

I felt like I wasn't living up to the group expectations. No effort was made at any time to bring us together on how we'd like to play. I'd love to play with the group again, if they'd have me. Maybe things will go smoother. I'll GM a town if anybody wants, to show another side of the coin. Maybe we can, like, save some sinners?

Apologies for being so negative. Luke, no disrespect, seriously. I figured it wouldn't help to lie about my view of the experience.

Peace,
Ryan Theodores
--
"I'm Batman"
Batman- from Batman

If some of you wanted to address the moral issues through discussion, and others wanted to do it through violent conflict - the first going for depth, the second for, say, impact - that would certainly be a problem. And if one of the players wanted to 'win' without caring for the moral issues one way or another, the game would be certain to break down, as it seems to have done. But this breakdown seems to me purely a result of different expectations, not of a power imbalance in the characters. Never mind how strong one of the characters is as a fighter, there is simply no way he can stand up to three of the others joined against him.

Interesting session.

I'm not clear as to why you didn't just crush Ravi's character like a bug?  If he was that loaded up on gunfighting conflicts he probably couldn't have withstood a 2-3:1 theological debate where the stakes are set up such that the net effect is "no one is going to die today".

In Dogs players don't have 100% complete control over their characters...not when those characters are the subject of Stakes.  So if another PC is playing bull-in-the-china-shop just figure out the behavior you'd rather the PC take and make it the stakes of a conflict.

"So what's at stake is: will Ravi agree to keep his gun holstered"
"So what's at stake is: will Dan forgive sister missionary's transgressions"
"So what's at stake is: will Ravi sit down to a pow wow to discuss the spiritual life of the tribe"

IMO those kind of stakes are the very engine of Dogs play.  If you keep them to talking you should be able to keep any munchkined gunslinger in line because once he's given on stakes like that, he has to follow through.  If he's willing to pull out his gun and start blasting his fellow Dogs to keep from giving on stakes like that...well...that's certainly an interesting direction in itself.  But the neat thing about Dogs is that a min maxed negotiator can have just as many dice as be just as brutally effective as a min maxed gun slinger...so even IF he draws iron...that doesn't necessarily guarentee he'll win.  The only thing it does is make you suffer higher fall out.

Hey Luke. Interesting and problematic. I have a few questions.

Did Ravi create his character to have any desire to actually improve anyone's life, to make things better for people?

Did you do initiations for the characters?

How come you didn't follow the town creation rules in the book?

-Vincent

Valamir wrote:
Interesting session.

I'm not clear as to why you didn't just crush Ravi's character like a bug?  If he was that loaded up on gunfighting conflicts he probably couldn't have withstood a 2-3:1 theological debate where the stakes are set up such that the net effect is "no one is going to die today".

In Dogs players don't have 100% complete control over their characters...not when those characters are the subject of Stakes.  So if another PC is playing bull-in-the-china-shop just figure out the behavior you'd rather the PC take and make it the stakes of a conflict.

"So what's at stake is: will Ravi agree to keep his gun holstered"
"So what's at stake is: will Dan forgive sister missionary's transgressions"
"So what's at stake is: will Ravi sit down to a pow wow to discuss the spiritual life of the tribe"

IMO those kind of stakes are the very engine of Dogs play.  If you keep them to talking you should be able to keep any munchkined gunslinger in line because once he's given on stakes like that, he has to follow through.  If he's willing to pull out his gun and start blasting his fellow Dogs to keep from giving on stakes like that...well...that's certainly an interesting direction in itself.  But the neat thing about Dogs is that a min maxed negotiator can have just as many dice as be just as brutally effective as a min maxed gun slinger...so even IF he draws iron...that doesn't necessarily guarentee he'll win.  The only thing it does is make you suffer higher fall out.

Valamir wrote:
Interesting session.

I'm not clear as to why you didn't just crush Ravi's character like a bug?  If he was that loaded up on gunfighting conflicts he probably couldn't have withstood a 2-3:1 theological debate where the stakes are set up such that the net effect is "no one is going to die today".

b_bankhead wrote:

Valamir wrote:
Interesting session.

I'm not clear as to why you didn't just crush Ravi's character like a bug?  If he was that loaded up on gunfighting conflicts he probably couldn't have withstood a 2-3:1 theological debate where the stakes are set up such that the net effect is "no one is going to die today".

Once again we see that exposure to 'normal' rpgs makes it more difficult to 'get' Indie rpgs.  I bet a group of roleplay 'virgins' would have a lot less trouble making this  realization.

abzu wrote: Town creation rules..... They also seemed pretty straight forward. Create a town boiling with strife and sin.

lin wrote:
I certainly take a lion's share of the responsibility for the fact that I didn't have my character literally fight for her right to control the situation. I think it was partly a matter of me not really being very interested in those kinds of conflicts. Any situation where players are having their characters battle for their lives over their respective in-game authority... I just shut down. How should this even be a question? 5 players, 20% authority for everyone (let me save Luke the trouble of calling me a pinko traitor.) Obviously nothing can ever be so clean and practical, but I do think that everyone has the same right to play the story how they'd like without having to contend with other players.

Also I felt I had an un-ignorable in-game reason for valuing my character's life; her sister Sarah. It was clear the way the wind was blowing, and that her life was on the line. Looking at my character sheet and trusting in the inherent balance of the game, maybe I could have taken him. But it was a choice between that and escorting the woman, children, and elderly away from the encroaching Mountain war party. I sympathized with the Mountain People throughout our entire session. I figured survival was more important at the moment. If it weren't a one-shot, revenge would have been my next highest priority. It's moot, however. The dogs that triggered the slaughter made a final stand in the bell tower of the small church in Red Creek. It was set on fire and they were killed. And this point was hilariously argued. "Dude, they can't light it on fire. We'd shoot them. All of them." It was like watching little kids argue over cowboys and indians.

Sydney wrote:

abzu wrote: Town creation rules..... They also seemed pretty straight forward. Create a town boiling with strife and sin.

Aha.

They seem straight-forward because they're so beautifully written. (Yes, I am a Vincyncophant. So sue me). But in my (admittedly limited) experience, the relatively simple steps create complex emergent effects as you layer on the consequences of the consequences of the consequences of the town's original sin. And "a town boiling with strife and sin" is just part of the result -- in fact, it doesn't necessarily have to be the result.

We're all used to roleplaying scenarios where there's a Big Problem and the party goes and solves it: e.g. the party rides into town, sees massively armed mobs spoiling for battle, and thinks, "well, we better make peace or make sure the right side wins." But in Dogs, the party rides into town, sees massively armed mobs spoiling for battle, and thinks, "well, we'd better find the guy who's not letting his daughter get married." It's a bit like the difference between, say, an Agatha Christie mystery and Raymond Chandler noir: Both start with a stack of corpses, but in the former (like, say, D&D) the stack of corpses is the problem, and getting the guy who done it is the solution, whereas in the latter (like Dogs) the stack of corpses is just a symptom, and getting the guy what done it is just the beginning of your problems, because then you need to figure out why he done it, and once you figure that out you have to figure out the why behind that why, all the way down to the nasty little sin that started it all. By making every problem evolve step-by-step from the seed of someone's Pride -- with some generally small and mundane manifestation of human wickedness -- the town-creation rules ensure that The Big Problem that's obvious when you ride into town is almost never The Real Problem that you need to solve before you ride out of town.

abzu wrote: Ravi had never played a published rpg in his life. This was only his second rpg experience. His primary experience was with this own sui generis homebrew.

No, Ravi gamed this all completely right. He'd start with words and take his debates to physical or threaten fightining. He played to win. And interestingly, no one would stand up to him.

Ralph, I called Ravi a bully to his face. And told the other players that they had to stand up to him. I'm well aware of the brilliant power of the conflict resolution mechanics. I knew that they could frame conflict that would stop Ravi. But Ryan was at the center of the conflict. And often he was getting it from two sides -- from Dan and Ravi. Chris and Jason looked to follow his lead. As he clearly stated in his post, he wasn't interested in the game going in that direction.
::snipped::
As I said, when Ryan would explain the "right way to play" I would back him off and paint his stuff as doctrinal interpretation. Therefore I deliberately fomented moral arguments between the players. It is, for better or worse, part of my GMing style.

Ryan,

I must have been unclear. Ravi was the bully. But when Dan confronted you on doctrinal issues, from what I remember, you disagreed OOC. You tried to explain and interpret the game text to Dan. I stopped you. Citing that Dan's interpretation of the game text was as valid as yours. I encouraged you and Dan to bring it into the game and play it out. I'm not faulting you for anything. The blame for any disconnect rests squarely on my shoulders.

As a side note, I talked to Ravi after the game. While he didn't really do anything wrong, I chided him for being an uncharitable and aggressive player and for trampling on other people's fun. I asked him to be a bit more open to suggestion and to other folks' priorities next time. I also got him to admit, "Yeah, I did play to win." Which made me heave a big sigh. I tried to explain to him that there's no winning, per se. But I think that's going to take a while to sink in.

And lest I be seen as a pansy GM, I made a concerted attempt to give Ravi some major fallout after he attacked the chief. Five Bravos with guns came at him. Here's where the rules failed me. Or I failed them. I had no idea what I was doing. No idea how to play the group conflict. No idea how to incorporate the Bravos into the initial conflict with the Chief in order to give them overwhelming weight of numbers. So Ravi and Dan blasted there way out of the tribe's grounds. Which was kind of cool, really. Doubly so because Dan was shot in the face. Which could have been interpreted as Ravi's fault. But no one took him to task on it.

-L

abzu wrote:
As a side note, I talked to Ravi after the game. While he didn't really do anything wrong, I chided him for being an uncharitable and aggressive player and for trampling on other people's fun. I asked him to be a bit more open to suggestion and to other folks' priorities next time. I also got him to admit, "Yeah, I did play to win." Which made me heave a big sigh. I tried to explain to him that there's no winning, per se. But I think that's going to take a while to sink in.

abzu wrote:

b_bankhead wrote: Once again we see that exposure to 'normal' rpgs makes it more difficult to 'get' Indie rpgs.  I bet a group of roleplay 'virgins' would have a lot less trouble making this  realization.

Mr Bankhead,

Allow me to pop that balloon. Ravi had never played a published rpg in his life. This was only his second rpg experience. His primary experience was with this own sui generis homebrew.

lin swimmer wrote: Oh, c'mon man. This is bullshit. I'm not going to get painted as a bully player telling others how to play the game just by being strongly opposed to not engaging in the seriousness of the premise. The whole game it was, "Let's raze it to the ground. Anything, everything, I don't give a shit." This isn't opinion or exaggeration, and not acknowledging that is making this tiresome.

TonyLB wrote:

Yea, I played it as a bully and for all aforementioned reasons should have been stopped.  Ryan, I'm sorry if i made the experience any less fun, but as everyone has said you should have just stood up to me and stopped me from killing everyone that I did.  Not only this, but I didnt have that much of an advantage in combat.  It may have seemed like I had a huge advantage because I pulled all my dice out at once, but if you think about it you would have the same amount of dice that I do if you started with talking and escalated up.  If you remember you guys whipped my ass when the conflict was verbal, so if you guys escalated with me you would have had some dice left over from the verbal.  Anyway, I do take responsibility for playing the bully, but if you look at my character sheet I'm sure you would agree on my choice of actions.  My character was angry, hotheaded and violent.  Oh, and by the way Luke, you never checked my belonings until I pulled out my sword in combat.  Had you said something I would have toned it down a bit, even though it was my only excellent item aside from my cloak.  Oh well, next time I'll play a "gentle giant" instead of the agressive ogre-type character that I did.

abzu wrote:

TonyLB wrote:

Wow, Luke... why are you complaining to the one player in the game who actually got how to play it?

Tony, come on. I'm all for playing to the hilt. But not at the expense of another player's fun. As Ryan has made explict, he didn't enjoy the session because Ravi was being aggressive and uncharitable. There are ways for Ravi to play hardball and for everyone to enjoy the game.

I've played with folks like Da_Killah (Ravi?), and I have to recommend hard-line confrontational narrativism for playing with them. Luke, you can see the justifications and recriminations you folks have going on here, and I say that the best way for not having them is playing it hard, playing it fair and accepting the resulting story. This kind of player usually accepts that if he's playing high-risk, fast and hard, then his character might be the one feeling it in the end. Problems only crop up when the hard play is taken as an excuse to back down by the others; the other players let the situation look like the one player is abusing the social contract, when he's really just pushing the situation to come to a head. My experience with this kind of play comes from a lot of Dust Devils (I've not played DiV outside short demonstrations), and I like to say that the key to answering brutal and insensitive play is not moping, but engaging with the situation all the more harder. He kills somebody, you stress it. He kills many people, you stress it more. Show the consequences and dwell on them. Encourage other players to take a stance towards the action. Don't punish the action in an Act of God manner, but let the consequences of straight-edge, hard violence occur naturally in actions of NPCs and other player characters. With time they will be felt, and when the line is reached, the player will back down because he knows he can't anymore have what he wants. And that can result in some really strong narrativist play. This kind of play is NOT gamism or false play or whatever, it's just quick, crude and brutal stories about violence. The player's forceful actions cause the story to be about those actions, with all the other characters taking a stance towards the action. Such a character is very much "principal" in the way Ron's been telling me, not a protagonist. And that's fine.

Ravi: I think that there's no problem in having excellent belongings and high combat proficiency. Those are just fine choices in this game. However, I also don't think that your character as written is cause for anything in the game. It's all well and good if your character in his previous life was angry, hotheaded and violent. And that will certainly affect his current action. But you're still in the helm of the ship, and in Dogs in the Vineyard, as in some other games, nobody else can judge your chosen action in regards of "realism" or whether you're "playing the character". That's just not the issue. So stand bravely behind your character's actions; you have the right to choose them.

Ultimately you'll need to play more and see whether Ravi's character is ever backing down, or if he's ready to go and die when for the first time he's faced by a superior force on the way of his victory. In the best case you'll have a situation where the prize to be won is relatively insignificant, so it really becomes a question of whether the player really thinks that victory is the only option. Even if the character dies, I think that the process will help illustrate that winning is not the important thing, but the statement. Let Ravi kill a couple of characters, and you'll begin to see if he really thinks that it's only interesting to play for the win. At this point it just looks that he has a more... forceful approach to dramatic pacing than the other players. The potential problem I'm seeing is that Ravi has a too one-sided dramatic sensibility, not that he's playing somehow wrong.

Of course, this has nothing to do with the local house rules and social situation. If you aren't communicating efficiently during the game and all that, it's possible that any one of you is the culprit to causing problems. Just try to be more careful in the future, eh?

Let me clear up some things.  Eero, I had two traits that would make my desicions less simple.  They were "2d6-I will go to the ends of the Earth for the faith" and "2d8-I back my word with my fist".  Not to mention "d6-Angry", "d4-Hotheaded", and "d6-I don't know when to stop".  So if you can seriously tell me that not "playing the character" is a feasible option, then I cannot reason with you or take your opinions seriously.  The fact that those traits make my character good in combat and I used them alot, then there would be no way I could stop being violent without betraying my characters personality.  Since we are Role-Playing how I can not play my role.  So, my character was not nescecarily combat proficient(though I did put 7d6 at Body) as much as adrenaline fueled from other personality traits.  I do think I hold some responsiblity for what desicions I made, but had I not made them I would be "killing" the person that I had created.  Besides DitV allows me to be stopped without dieing, although I would have let him die since that falls under "going to the ends of the Earth for the faith".  It all had to do with interpretation, and since my character was violent then thats how he would see the faith.

Da_Killah wrote:
Since we are Role-Playing how I can not play my role.

Sydney wrote:
"I'm just roleplaying the character" explains nothing at all.

What Sydney said. However, I don't think that this particular discussion is on the thread topic. I'm sure Luke can tell you all about the distinctions in detail if you're interested in the theory. I don't even think that it's such a big deal; if you want to think that your decisions are inevitable considering the character you made, I think that's cool. The game won't break by that, it just means that your decisions in the game are not subject to out-of-game discussion, as they're non-negotiably caused by the character. And certainly nothing in DiV requires players to discuss the events in any other than character terms. Although I AM left wondering where you got the idea that a player has to or should instate such incontrovertible laws of behavior for his character during chargen, not to speak of sticking to those facts during the game. I'm not sure that it's coming from the rules of DiV, at least. Perhaps you should discuss that before the next session you play?

I hope I didn't derail the thread here. Be nice to me and get back to discussing the actual play events, instead of hashing out whether a player has to base his decisions on preconseived facts of character. That's a theory topic if something is, and handling it usefully will require recognizing that there's plenty of different games out there and they expect a wide variety of behavior from the players. Takes a while to get the groundwork done, if you know what I mean.

I'm curious as to what the initiation conflicts were for each character.

Whoa there, tiger. Let's take a step back. And look at this logically.

What is "your character?" It is a series of numbers and descriptions you wrote down on the character sheet. Your character has no personality on his own. He can take no action on his own. Your character doesn't exist as an independent entity. He exists solely in your imagination if at all. He can't make decisions.  

However, you can. You are the player. You're a person. You've got personality and priorities. All the stuff on your character sheet, you wrote it there because you thought it was cool. You, Ravi, thought that it'd be cool to have those numbers and priorities. You, Ravi, thought it'd be cool to play them in a certain way. You, Ravi, played them to the hilt -- unrelentingly. You made those decisions. Not your character. You could have made other decisions. You could have played those numbers in a different way. You could have fought against the brutal nature you outlined on the character sheet. You could have made decisions that had nothing to do with what's on your character sheet.

In fact, now that I think about, you did. No one plays in a vacuum. You let yourself be inspired by Dan's righteous indignation. There was no roll. There was nothing on your character sheet that said your character was righteous or holy like Dan. You wrote that he was violent, hot-headed and determined. You also chose not to be swayed by what Ryan was saying. That was a decision that YOU, Ravi, made. Not your character. You could have decided "to give" on whatever conflict Ryan proposed. But you didn't. You wanted to play it a certain way, so you made certain decisions. But your character didn't make any decisions at all.

You dig?

This is just basic game theory, Rav. I'm not trying to attack you or anything. But the sooner you step back and take this all in, the better you will game.

crossposted with Eero
-Luke

Well said, Luke. Let me add one more DiV-specific thing before letting this particular question rest. Traits.

You see, traits in Dogs in the Vineyard are not inherently about what your character has to be like. They're more like inclinations or former experiences (as is the case very much with attributes that are added through play). You could say that traits are you yourself bribing yourself to act in a certain way. So if you have "d6 - Angry" as a trait, that doesn't mean that you've promised to other players that you'll play your character angry. Actually, there's no promise at all; the sole effect of the trait is that you've made it so that you can only get at that d6 by accepting angry action from your character. You the guy who generates that character are bribing the future you, who has to make all those in-game decisions, into making those decisions in a certain way. By choosing not to, you would be forfeiting those dice in that particular situation, but that's a player's pregorative and choice, not a way of breaking the rules. It's a valid and acceptable option. In some situations the cost of not having that die is less for the character than the cost of getting angry would be. What a fine situation!

Now, if the point of the game were to be winning, then forfeiting dice purposefully would very much be letting the other players down. Then your responsibility would be to make the best showing you could. In that case not getting to use those dice would be a penalty levered at you for not playing properly. But that's not the case in Dogs in the Vineyard, because it's not a game that's about winning. You can see this if you think about it for a bit: it's easy to win in DiV, because the tactics are so simple. Just take lots of big guns and use them sequentially until your dice overwhelm the opponent, for example. And even if you lose, that just makes you stronger in the long run, so there's no risk at all. And the GM can bring out an overwhelming force whenever he wants to. So if you look at the game from the viewpoint of winning, it's just not a very good game. Which is understandable, because the game is not about trying to win and get your way, but about having to choose what that way of yours is going to be. It's more "play" and less "game".

So that's why I'm saying that you always have a choice, even in the middle of the game. The most interesting situation is not necessarily when your character acts like you said he would at chargen, but when he chooses to act differently. Will your character ever understand the dangers of not thinking before acting? Will he encounter things so sacred that he chooses to let go of his gun? Those are the things you're finding out in DiV!

abzu wrote:
Ralph, I called Ravi a bully to his face. And told the other players that they had to stand up to him. I'm well aware of the brilliant power of the conflict resolution mechanics. I knew that they could frame conflict that would stop Ravi. But Ryan was at the center of the conflict. And often he was getting it from two sides -- from Dan and Ravi. Chris and Jason looked to follow his lead. As he clearly stated in his post, he wasn't interested in the game going in that direction.

abzu wrote: You, Ravi, thought that it'd be cool to have those numbers and priorities. You, Ravi, thought it'd be cool to play them in a certain way. You, Ravi, played them to the hilt -- unrelentingly. You made those decisions. Not your character. You could have made other decisions.

Tony,

We're in complete agreement here. Perhaps Ravi will back me up -- I never said he did anything wrong. I explicitly told the other players he was not acting wrongly. I was enjoying his play very much. I called him a bully because he was playing a bully. Should i have called him a diplomat? I also called him out because there's only one thing you can do to a bully -- stand up to him.

The disconnect, and I don't know why you're having trouble with this, is because Ryan was OOC visibly very uncomfortable in the game. He obviously wasn't enjoying himself. Trampling on other player like that in the name of playing full throttle ain't cool. Ryan admitted that he almost quit the game! In my book, that ain't cool. It's all of our responsibility to make sure we're all on board. But it's the aggressive player's primary responsibility.

I'm not talking about a hippy love in. I'm talking about stuff like this. One of the other players, Dan, IM'd me last night. He said:
"I felt like outright saying to him, unless you take some initiative, alot of people are going to die."

That would have been very cool. It would have been a strong player to player move. Dan obviously understood where the conflict was headed and what was at stake. Unfortunately, he was too old school to break out of character. I've played with too many bully players who have ruined WAY too many games to accept excuses like, "I was just playing my character" or "I was just doing what i was supposed to do." Bullshittttttttttt.

And let me reiterate: I had a blast last night. I really enjoyed the game, problems and all. But I think there's shit that could use fixing, that's all.

-Luke

abzu wrote: The disconnect, and I don't know why you're having trouble with this, is because Ryan was OOC visibly very uncomfortable in the game. He obviously wasn't enjoying himself.

:::OOPS::::posted this as it's own topic by accident...(first time poster here...sorry)

Hey guys-
I'm Jason.  I played Br. Phillip in Red Creek.  Anyways...Yeah so, it was kind of problematic.  Luke, your town was brimming with all sorts of cool shit.  There was the steward that was in over his head (Ravi's uncle); there was the amputee who hated me, despite the fact that I saved his life; the runaway bride, and of course lies, lies, LIES!!!!  YES!!  only, well....we didn't really get to all that.  The place I saw shit go completely wrong was when Ravi and Dan started hacking up mountain people.  Here's my problem:
I've read the posts here, and seen people say that all this conflict is what makes DitV interesting.  Sorry, but I have to disagree.  What's interesting, to me, are the difficult moral situations the game puts players in.  Now, I know....THIS situation COULD be seen as a difficult moral situation.  "You let him do the dirty work,"  "Why didn't you stand up to him?" and so on, and so on...Sorry.  Let's just be realistic about all this.  Ravi was playing to "win."  Plain and simple.  He said this.  He built up a powerhouse and just wanted to kill things (and quite possibly....take their stuff...heh) .  At least that's the way it seemed to me.  As soon as they saw that there was a tribe of mountain people it was "Well, they're Pagans...let's kill 'em."  Wow, what a compelling story.  What about all the other RAW, JUICY, MEATY shit?  What about the amputee who felt so INJUSTICED that he got this whole ball rolling to begin with?  How about making an example out of him?  What about Ravi's uncle?  Wait, you want PvP?  Make it count.  Call Ryan's sister a sinnin' slut, and drag her into the middle of town and put a gun to her head.  THAT's dramatic.  Not Johnny Cavalry Sword hacking up a bunch of mountain people.  There was just SO much other shit that was SO much more important than some mountain folk.  THIS is what went wrong for ME.  Everything just seemed so irrational.  It didn't make sense, and quite frankly, I didn't wanna play into it, because I felt it was...well...boring.  And not what makes DitV interesting to me.  And sorry, I'm not gonna get my guy killed so that a powerhouse character can "win."  That's just dumb.  And at that point, one character IS running the game.  Regardless if you stand up to him, you still HAVE to stand up to him.  ME? Jason/Phillip?  In my mind, I didn't wanna kill a brother Dog. 
No, I didn't expect Luke to hold my hand and step in when necessary.  Fuck all that (we did have some cool conflicts--and I think I even lost every one...).  But what about when my bookwormy guy came out of his shell and stood in front of a bunch of drunk, gun-toting fucks?  I made a stand, and it didn't amount to shit.  I think this was possibly a mechanics issue (not necessarily the game's mechanics, but our misunderstanding of them ) as I was in a conflict with the group leader, and then Ravi decided to jump in as well.  It was when he threw in his 800 or so dice that I gave.  But fuck it.  I played my guy, and in the end, as Dogs, we failed.  Because of some irrational behavior, which to me was just completely unwarranted, uniteresting and completely beyond my control.  Someone said that Ravi's guy made a damn fine Dog?  That's funny.  He kind of got an entire faithful town slaughtered.  Yeah.  Smooth.  It was only Chris, Ryan, and I that made any attempt at saving ANYONE at ANY time.  These guys were out for blood.  We were out to save some faithful people, redeem a few sinners, and -if need be- deal out death and judgment.  At least I was.
Look...sorry if I'm sounding like a dick or whatever.  I just wanted to chime in with my 2 cents.  In the end, it's only a game.  Of course I don't hate anyone, and no hard feelings or any of that horse shit.  I just feel like we completely missed the point of what makes Dogs different.  It was played like a hack-n-slash, when (to me), it's so much more.  Luke, thanks for having us over.  I'd still love for you to run a BW demo for us (PvP and all).  Ravi, Dan and Chris, it was nice to meet you guys. Maybe we can play again sometime.  Take care.
JX

Thor
Thanks for that. I knew the "20% for everyone" was stupid as I wrote it, and fully expected someone to take issue with it. I think that, simply, I was trying to state that every player has the same right to have a good time. As soon as a player steps on another player's toes in this regard, I say screw the mechanics. He's sitting right there, looking at me. Let's talk. If I go into a PvP situation, it better damn well be absolutely necessary to the story. (Hey, this isn't really the place; but we should, like, play something together sometime. [Vague enough for ya?])

Luke
I want to clarify one point that I feel we're divided on. Yes, I tried to talk to the other players on my perception of what DitV is like. This was not me, as a character, trying to manipulate situations to suit my personal tastes. This was me, a player playing a game that I love. I've read the book about six times. I know it pretty well. Others didn't (perhaps including yourself, no offense intended). I wanted to make sure that our differences of opinion on what the book says stem from opposing interpretations of the text, rather than unfamiliarity with same. If anyone wants to say that I was telling people how they should play the game, frankly that's incorrect and a little insulting. I realize no one here really knows me, as I'm a nOOb, but give me a break. I wouldn't post here if I wasn't seriously invested in playing RPGs to the absolute best of my ability. Hey, I play to win, too! But at the table, not on my fucking character sheet.

Valamir (Ralph, right? Hello, btw.)
Excellent points regarding my expectation that the GM will step in to mediate. I'm taking your comments very seriously, and will certainly examine that trait in myself as a player. I've given it a lot of thought, and I think if I had known going in what kind of game Luke is known to run, perhaps things may have unfolded differently. Live and learn, and I'm still game.

Ravi
Don't change on my account. I'll change to accommodate you, not vice versa. Next time I'll happily shoot your character in the head (dice willing). My only issue in the way you played the game was that there was no consideration of why? Why burn everything to the ground? Dan came up with some good bullshit justification (and it was steaming and paper thin, to thoroughly mix my analogies), which I'm told is his specialty, but I got the feeling you just wanted to play Kaiser Souse (spelled atrociously, I know). And please don't say, "my traits" because I think that's been addressed already. My view of it was "kill as many as possible, and look cool doing it" (hence the, um, cavalry saber). I was sitting there saying, "What about the guys kids?" I don't play games full of mooks, and certainly not DitV. It goes against the entire point. Vincent, am I missing something?

Tony (Hello as well)
C'mon, man. I'm straining at etiquette over here. This is straight-up insulting. First, read my posts, please. Second, I'm standing (or sitting) right here. I'm not a petulant child, and I don't appreciate this shit. Obviously you need clarification of how the session went. Have you read DitV? The town was, in the end, by most standards, a raging clusterfuck. This was achieved through pointless and thin player choices. You wanted me to step in and draw a gun in game. I wanted to talk in my big boy voice. That's the kind of gaming experience I'd prefer. If the group isn't interested in that, maybe I'm not right for the group. But I'm not a broken machine in need of diagnosis. So, third, I may end up buying your game eventually. I'd like to like the author. Work with me here. Thanks.

Yeah. So.
Peace,
Ryan Theodores

jason-x wrote:
But what about when my bookwormy guy came out of his shell and stood in front of a bunch of drunk, gun-toting fucks?  I made a stand, and it didn't amount to shit.  I think this was possibly a mechanics issue (not necessarily the game's mechanics, but our misunderstanding of them ) as I was in a conflict with the group leader, and then Ravi decided to jump in as well.  It was when he threw in his 800 or so dice that I gave.  But fuck it.  I played my guy, and in the end, as Dogs, we failed. 

We ran into some issues with how to handle group conflicts as well recently.

This Thread was pretty useful.

Interesting. This touches on some of the issues I was worried about in my [DitV] Choosing traits thread. Instead of just taking general "I'm awesome" traits, Ravi optimized his character for combat. And it seems like this stepped on the fun for the other players. From that same thread, Vincent gives advice on "problem" trait choices:

Vincent, in a different thread wrote: If it's anybody's problem it's the whole group's. If everybody but you is cool with it (whatever "it" might be, not only bogus traits), then it's your responsibility to chill and go along. Especially as GM. If this were a democracy, the GM would only get to vote in case of a tie.

lin wrote: As soon as a player steps on another player's toes in this regard, I say screw the mechanics.

lin wrote: So, third, I may end up buying your game eventually. I'd like to like the author. Work with me here. Thanks.

Well, when you're prepared for Game A and it suddenly starts playing like Game B, I'd be a bit miffed too.
Were I to sit down ready to step on toes, take names and dice and all that good stuff, awesome. If I sat down to tell a morally compelling story that ended in bloodshed for no appearent reason other than "My character/the mechanics made me do it", its another.
From what I can see, Dogs isn't a D&D/Capes-milk-the-system-for-all-of-its-mechanical-worth. Even Fallout is a specialized, personal, story-based system, unlike damage in D&D. Capes, dunno too much about that but I do know you can milk the system as such and everyone can have a blast doing it. Dogs, I just don't see it.

If I might ask, WHY did you, Ravi, choose the traits you did? Why did you engage in the conflicts you did?? Was there a reason for doing so?
Stepping on toes occured. Cool that is not. If there were some reasons within the context of the game, a "well, back off a touch and let the other folks offer up some material" is warrented and everyone could still have their fun. If the player were gaming like a 19th Level Fighter in D&D booking for that Level 20 in a game about tough moral choices and its personal and emotional effects on everyone, yea...

Tony,

Would you mind terribly if I asked you to back away from this thread? I think you, Ryan and Jason and I are talking past each other. And it's not constructive at all.

Thanks.

-L

H'okay.  Best of luck!

Hi all,

It sounds like the folks who were involved in the session are a bit frustrated, and it's understandable. Mismatched expectations are something that can get ugly. But I wanted to say that as an outside observer, I think you're all doing a good job of expressing where you're coming from, which is actually kind of rare. I've heard and been in these kinds of arguments a lot, and typically they were all getting expressed in terms of the fictional activities at the game table. You folks are mostly talking about what you were feeling as players. That's a good sign, to me; the only time I've ever had any luck getting these kinds of things resolved was after we moved to that step.

I also wanted to say that I see the potential for a similar situation in the game I'm currently running, and listening to this conversation has made me realize I want to have a group powwow about expectations, to head it off. So I for one am really glad you're having this conversation in public.

Sorry for the digressinon -- now the questions.

Ravi, could you speak some to your expectations of what the game was going to be like? How you expected to act, and how you expected the other players to act? I got the "This is what my character would do" thing, but what did you go into the session wanting to accomplish? How did Luke describe the game and the scenario to you?

Ryan, I totally got your point about "why burn everything to the ground?" and I'm wondering whether you were able to express it during the game. What's your take on how the "why" in a game should be established, and by whom? Was there a time you wanted to raise that question during the session, and did you? Were you expecting Luke to do it?

I hope those questions don't sound leading or judgemental. I guess you can sum it up as asking both of you, "What was the 'why' of the session, how did you decide what it was, and how in general would you like differing 'why's to be resolved?"

Some more interesting AP data:

Ryan and Jason both had played the game before. And the group definitely looked to them for cues at the beginning of the game. Ryan helped us  out with a lot of rules questions and offered a lot of good input on the town.

Socially, Chris was being an affable middle man, trying to get Ryan and Jason comfortable and make them feel welcome. Ravi was talking about killing shit. Dan, interestingly, turtled up in the beginning of the game. He wouldn't participate in the town creation. He wouldn't build any of his relationship into the story. And for the first half hour, forty five minutes of play, he wouldn't even say anything.  He just gave the classic, "No, I just hang back and wait."

The conflict, at this point, was centered mostly around two relationships, Ryan's sister and Jason's former patient, the Amputee. However, once the Mountain Folk Chief entered the scene, Dan and Ravi started to get a little agitated. And after a bit of roleplay with the sister, Dan jumped into the scene all fire and brimstone, preaching hell and damnation for the sinners. Dan focused this furor at Ryan, actually. This is where the doctrinal war began. And I dare say, Ryan, you seemed taken aback. Dan was bulldogging Ryan to bring his sister to justice. Dan was saying that if Ryan failed to do so, Ryan wasn't a Dog.

It was a fairly intense burst from Dan. And I think it changed the tenor of the table. Because things pretty much went south after that. Ryan, Jason, you guys pretty much tried to ignore Dan and focus on the sister and chief NPCs. I understand now why you did that, but I felt like our dear readers deserved a bit more info.

Also, let's try not to get too emotional in here, fellas. As Andrew pointed out, this is a great AP thread, full of good juicy bits.

-Luke

abzu wrote:
It was a fairly intense burst from Dan. And I think it changed the tenor of the table. Because things pretty much went south after that. Ryan, Jason, you guys pretty much tried to ignore Dan and focus on the sister and chief NPCs. I understand now why you did that, but I felt like our dear readers deserved a bit more info.

Hrrrmmm... the interaction between Ravi's and Ryan's play... let me ramble for a bit and see if anything clicks.

Play isn't moving in a direction Ryan wants it to.  There is an aesthetic conflict there.  Those can be brutal.  I wanted chinese food, but here I am at Tortilla Marisa's and this salsa is going to give me the runs.  Thanks for the gastrointestinal torment, jackass.  Ryan feels he has no power to change it, because his character is mechanically inferior to Ravi's.  If he steps up to fight, he'll almost certainly loose.  So, if I was Ryan (which I'm not), I'd say there isn't much choice between "playing the game I didn't want to play" and "being dead and just watching the game I didn't want to play".  Trapped.

I always play to the character's strengths when I play (if the mechanics will support it).  This leads to certain other players (some are fooled, some aren't) coming off with an inflated perception of my character's actual effectiveness.  This illusionary effectiveness can trap them in the way above.  It's not ever really a PvP problem, because I'm very mindful of where the breaking point is between character personality conflicts and forcing a player's hand - kind of short on the "violence is the answer" characters anyway.  Pops up fairly often when either I'm GMing or in relation to when another is GMing, though.  Well, at least with those who give into the illusion.

Somehow, whether true effectiveness or not, this causes people to try and play directly against the character's strengths.  If my effectiveness is double for wrestling than avoiding getting shot, what do those players do?  Try to out wrestle me!  Hence, they create their own damn trap by choosing the same methods and criteria for victory that I do.  I'm playing to my strengths and so are they.  I'm reinforcing my character concept, and they are weakening theirs.  Nice of them and all, but...

Anyway, I might eventually have a point.  Oh wait... I think it's coming.  Don't be fooled.  If Ryan's character can't beat Ravi's character in a gunfight, then he shouldn't try.  Stage your side of the conflict in a way that favors your traits and you'll end up reinforcing your character concept in the process of winning (because that's what winning is in this sort of game, after all).  I don't know specifically what would have been possible in that situation, or for a Dog in general, nor what would have favored Ryan's traits.  Perhaps Ryan's character could have turned on the two bloodthirsty Dogs because of her sister, claiming them corrupted by the power over life and death that steel has given them, and convinced the mountain folk to redeem their pagan ways by helping the righteous warrior purge the fallen angels, and hence received a mighty number of bonus dice from all those braves.  I'm certain that sentence could have been longer.  Or perhaps fled with her sister through cover of tipi (chiefs have tipis right?) and letting the other Dogs have to make the choice of whether to shoot one of their fellows in the back.

I'm going to ask everyone to not bother engaging me personally in this conversation if they're not going to read my posts. I put a lot of thought into the friggin things, and I not going to quote myself. Also, please don't quote me out of context. I'm trying to wipe my feet off as I'm in someone else's house, and I appreciate everyone's assistance and valid engagement of the subjects at hand. (Me <3 Forge)

Back on topic.

Nate (Hi)
You very much summed up my feelings of what went wrong on the highest level. I believe that we weren't playing DitV as written. The entire premise of the game was tossed as being somehow irrelevant. I've tried to bring this subject up explicitly several times, but no one until now seems to think this is a point worth discussing. Trying to discuss the premise of the game was interpreted as me telling people what dogma to play. They're fundamentaly different, but unavoidably tied to one another. If I played a game of Sorcer where my only interest was having my demon eat random people's eyeballs, and having my PC engage in sexual intercourse with as many attractive NPCs as possible, without caring about why I wanted these things to happen, I think others would be justified in saying, "You're not getting it." It's not about them trying to tell me that I can't ever play a game like that in my life. It's more about engaging and melding with the material, to me. Agree, disagree?

Andrew (Hi)
I'm extremely happy that others out there are gleaning useful material out of this. I'm trying to step outside of my personal feelings regarding the session and learn something as well. It's been a while since I've had so much food for thought. I guess problems can sometimes do that more powerfuly than a mediocre session.

I definitely felt that I tried to make everyone know that I didn't understand the motivations for quite a few player actions, and that I'd like to before we irrecovably start tilting the situation. It was frustrating to have the answers always be, "They're pagans." So? How are they affecting the body of the Faith, our whole reason for being here? Are we going to ride East out of the Faithful territory and kill every person we see, coast to coast?

In some cases players were pointing at the book and saying, "See, it's right here. Three followers constitutes a false priesthood. They're sorcerers." But in the instance of what must be done about my sister, it was like, "Has anybody read the section on stewardship?" Ryan, don't tell people how to play the game. Er.

Frankly, that's incorrect manipulation of the text within the book (Vincent, take me to town if I'm off base.) Wait, I can see the problem with that statement already. Hang on. Rebuffering.

Okay. It's not incorrect manipulation. The game allows that kind of manipulation. But at least acknowledge that you're deviating from default. Don't point at various examples of the extreme sides an issue can have, and claim that since it's written here, how can I play it any other way? There was a lot of denial of responsibility with players not owning up to even the possibility that things could go other ways. Hence my desire to step OOG for a minute to check what people were doing. This, as Luke stated, was unallowed. No discussing the fact that we're playing a game. Any confusion can be settled with a gun, in-character. Since this was a first time Dogs session for the players I had issue with, this seems unwise to me. I've GMed two towns, and run two more. I don't claim to be an expert.

Did that address your question? If not I can buckle down and focus a bit more.

Thor
The Dan thing was just confusion. I was operating under the assumption that since it's my sister, it's my stewardship. But I didn't feel that I was allowed to talk about those kinds of things. Refrencing game text was frowned upon. Plus I don't know Dan at all. He's pulling a gun on my character. He hasn't said 10 words before now. I'm confused.

Cruciel (Jason)
::nodding:: Complete aggreement.

End transmission
Ryan Theodores (I worked on this all day.)

lin wrote:
You very much summed up my feelings of what went wrong on the highest level. I believe that we weren't playing DitV as written. The entire premise of the game was tossed as being somehow irrelevant.

Certainly some of the issues in Dog's in the Vineyard require a certain amount of investment in whether the fictional characters live or die. A lot of the time the question is "are you willing to kill this man for, I dunno, adultery?" If you're willing to kill a guy for living, it's not as interesting a question, and I can see how Ryan would feel that this detracted a lot from gameplay.

A side comment on a specific point, though: familial Stewardship is trumped by Dog stewardship. You have Stewardship over your family, but the Dogs have Stewardship over you and over each and every one of them individually; they have Stewardship over absolutely everybody. A Branch Steward couldn't mess with your sister without your say-so, but the Dogs can do whatever the hell they like. This is a specific feature of the Dogs' Stewarship: nothing is out of their jurisdiction, and there's no local chain of command, which foregrounds the issues again.

Lastly, I'm a little confused by the whole "unbeatable character" thing. Barring very poor dice rolling, any two Dogs shoudl be evenly matched, more or less, and any two Dogs should be more than a match for any one as long as they open the conflict (that is, define it as starting with something they've got strong dice in). So if you start talking to Ravi, and he immediately escalates to fighting, you still have all your talking dice, and he's going down. However, conflicts between PCs can be very tense and unpleasant, especially if the players don't know each other well, so I can see how people would want to avoid this.

James wrote: However, conflicts between PCs can be very tense and unpleasant, especially if the players don't know each other well, so I can see how people would want to avoid this.

GB wrote:

James wrote: However, conflicts between PCs can be very tense and unpleasant, especially if the players don't know each other well, so I can see how people would want to avoid this.

We had PVP conflict in the game I ran in Paris and it was a strong feature of the game. Dogs gives a way of settling this kind of conflict and if the players realise that its part of the game and nothing personal then I'm all for it. In some groups that's a big if.

As for combat-wombattry, as James says, everyone has roughly the same dice, although perhaps equipment might play a role if a player chooses big quality swords as well as guns. But even if other characters have a hard time standing up to a bullying character, I think that in Dogs, more than any other game, it's the GM responsibilty to show that PC the consequences of his actions and give that PC some tough moral choices based around their character concept.

Once again I try to clarify and defend myself.  When I read the rules for DitV I thought that the Dogs were an organisation dedicated to the preservation of the faith as a whole.  Once I read that I thought that it was up to each Dog to take it upon himself(or herself) to interpret that as they wish.  Personally I thought that the Dogs could be very effective in instilling a fear of God into people by killing sinners with no questions or chance for redemption.  I thought that this would be the way for the Dogs to opperate so they could effectively lessen sin.  When I created my character I imagined an angry and violent person that does not wait for a sinner to redeem themself, but rather roots out all sin and blows its brains out.  The moment we walked into town I was talking about burning the thing down and killing all the people that were drinking to make an example of what comes of sinning.  So Luke I don't think you can say I started my killing based on Dan's religious righteousness.  Thank you all for putting down the rediculous claim that I have a massive advantage over everyone.  As it has been said we all have almost the same amount of dice.  I think that the psychological effect of pulling out 75% of my dice at once may have made a difference, but that is not my problem.  Also, i'm not changing my character because of you.  I wanted to try a less violent person because while I think that killing all sinners is effective, it's not the only way.  It seems that most people have forgotten why there was a conflict with the mountain people.  To refresh everyone's memory, Dan excomunicated Ryan's sistier and takes the cross that she is wearing.  When the chief refuses to forfeit his cross I try and take it from him with force.  He punches me and we start fighting.  After I defeat the chief and take the cross his Bravos attack me.  Note that I did not yet kill the chief.  Only after Dan and I defeat the Bravos do I kill the chief for not stopping their actions.  Besides the mountain people were all preaching to a false preisthood and as head of the tribe the chief is responsible.  Anyway, with hopefully corrected information maybe I won't be the scapegoat anymore.  And Ryan while I am truly sorry that you didn't enjoy yourself, you really should have just teamed up with someone and talked me out of my killing with little fallout all around.  O well.

Hello,

All the really important stuff in this thread got posted by page two.

People are now posting not because they want to develop their understanding, but because they feel they are not being understood - so they post louder and more forcefully, especially with that "barely restrained trying to be polite" tone.

That means the discourse is over and that the thread cannot continue.

Unless the people who played in this game can actually attempt to sympathize with one another's views, and quit hugging their own views and excuses to their chests, then they'll have to remain unhappy with each other.

And never mind all the bullshit disclaimers about "it's only a game" and "of course we're not mad at each other." You guys are fucking enraged with one another; it's painfully obvious.

Try to settle some of that emotion through honestly airing it before you think you can contribute here.

Best,
Ron

I think there's so much going on in this game that its impossible to actually come to any single item and say "there.  there's where it all went wrong".

Clearly people had different levels of understanding of who Dogs are and their role in the faith.  If all of the PLAYERS had been on the same page then those sorts of differences between CHARACTERS are super sources of wonderful in-game grist.  But when the players are conflicted there's a problem.

I also think not following the Town creation rules was a mistake.  Unlike other games that offer scenario creation advice the town rules aren't just there to provide ideas when the GM is creatively stuck and can't come up with anything.  They are rules that should be adhered to pretty religiously (pun intended). 

Also as Luke indicated above some of the conflict resolution rules weren't handled mechanically correctly.  This statement of Ravis'

I think that the psychological effect of pulling out 75% of my dice at once may have made a difference, but that is not my problem.

Hello,

I may not have been 100% clear. Closed thread means closed. No more posting here.

Thanks,
Ron