The town of Five Crows is in the middle of a very hard winter.  And many of it's people want comfort in that hard winter despite the steward who wants them to have faith that the King of Life will get them through.

Last night was the first time we've played DitV with four Dogs.  The most we'd done previously was three.  I was afraid that the extra player would make things difficult, taking too much spotlight time away from the other players.  Boy was I wrong.  The cast of PCs and players is at the bottom of this page.

The first scene was basically a quick intro where B. Zebulon, Steward of Five Crows asked the Dogs to give the Last Rites to B. Noah, dead from a slip on the ice, and oh yeah, he had a bottle of whisky on him when he was found.  Zoom, players are ready to condemn the dead man for his sins.  Cool.  But that's not where the good stuff started.  We framed on over to the Ice House where Noah's body was being held 'till the ground would thaw enough to bury him.  I looked right at Lisa and informed her that there was no way a fall could cause both wounds that smashed B. Noah's head in.  Murder!
The immediate question between the players was; Did B. Zebulon cover this up and why?  It was a quick bit of discussion that I assumed would blow over fast.  Boy was I wrong!  Once the table seemed settled that Zebulon didn't miss anything on purpose B. Winthrop declared, with quite a bit of emotion, that Zebulon was lax in his duties as a Steward.  How could he possibly miss such a thing!?

Soon afterward it was revealed that many of the townsfolk had obtained blankets from a nearby city full of sin and faithless, Black Rivers.  Jason/Wintrhop went wonderfully apeshit.  Not only had Zebluon missed the obvious murder he also had his townsfolk disobeying him and purchasing goods in a place that Zebulon himself had said that everyone was banned from visiting!  Winthrop gave Zebulon a good verbal tongue-lashing, no dice for the conflict, and Zebulon agreed to get his shit together the very next day when the entire town would be called to the temple to hear his sermon.

At the sermon Zebulon was true to his word.  He called out those that were sinning under his nose and chastised them openly.  When S. Adah could take no more she stood up and started chastising Zebulon in return.  All the players smiled.  That's what they were waiting for, a culpret to stand up and identify themselves.  So, S. Harmony marches right up to put S. Adah in her place.  We settled on the stakes of "Does Adah publicly defer to the authority of the Steward (and shut the fuck up)?"  When I rolled for Adah I got HUGE dice.  My Demonic Influence came up almost entirely 9s and 10s.  Lisa folded in the first round!  I was shocked!  So shocked that it took me a moment to register it.  I had to have her repeat it to me!

But that didn't deter the Dogs.  Harmony had her chance and dropped it.  B. Winthrop and B. Zachariah stepped up and physically dragged Adah from the Temple!  Picked her up by arms and legs!  We dug in deep then with the conflict of "Does Adah repent her ways?"  Jason was concerned that those stakes would be a little... much I supposed.  He said that he'd probably negotiate them down.  But I smiled and said that I was happy, and there was so much left to do in the town we wouldn't regret getting right to the point with Adah.  Oh yeah.  Adah owned them!  I was using one of those random NPC sheets that some cool Forgite (who I cannot remember) created.  I looked only at the Stats I wanted for Adah before I discovered that her Traits were 2d6, 2d10, 2d10, and 2d10!  Yikes!  Plus 5d10 for Hate & Murder Demonic influence and it was ON!  Winthrop and Zachariah got right to sermonzing, but Adah's repetitive high-rolls on her d10s ate them right up.  She was just too imposing.  So the Dogs escalated.  And she owned them again.  Then there was a fist thrown.  Adah gave Zachariah a look like he was a small child and she the imposing mother... then dropped her head on the bridge of his nose, breaking it and bloodying his Coat.  Oh yeah.  And I was still sitting on a 10 and a couple nines at that point.

Now, Jason kept looking at his dice, and looking at Adah's dice and dispairing.  He didn't want to go to gunplay so he didn't think there was any way he'd be able to win.  He didn't have to think about it too hard. Zachariah pulled his gun and cleansed Adah's soul with a bullet.  Oh, I was pretty well out of dice by then.  7d10 fallout.  Yikes.  I narrated Adah 'flumping' into the crunchy snow and Gave.  When I rolled Fallout... 19.  Yikes.  Lisa decided that Harmony would try desperately to save Adah's life.  Once again my d10s came up golden.  Lisa took one look at her dice and one at mine before Giving.  Sister Adah died.  With her last breath, she repented "I was wrong..." and the cold crisp air carried it to the Faithful that were standing nearby.

Whew. 

There was more, but that was the really really good stuff.  We left off with a triple cliff-hanger, which I think is a nice way of making sure that there's zero-chance of anyone not being interested in next week's session.  If any of my other players want to chime in with their favorite moments, I invite them.

Other Thoughts
I put together the town of Five Crows over the course of the afternoon before we got together.  If you'd read my last DitV Actual Play thread you may remember that I ran into a reacurring problem where it takes me way too fucking long to create a town.  I think I realized why and was able to solve that problem.  See, when I write up a town it's almost too easy to just write and write and write.  I create the Pride and Injustice and the Sin and Demonic Attacks just flow right out of my fingertips.  Then, I'm at or near the end of the process and I come up with a better idea for something towards the beginning, or I just don't like where I've ended up (not grabby enough usually), so I go back and re-write an early bit of the process, which causes me to want to re-write everything after that step.  Then it happens again.  I end up really writing a dozen parallel possiblities for the same town.  Yesterday I solved that issue by taking one step at a time.  I wrote the Pride & Injustice then went and did the dishes, all the while pondering where I'd go from there.  Basically I did all the revising in my head before devoting it to paper.  Technically I suppose I really spent about 8 hours creating Five Crows, but I was doing lots of other crap at the same time.

Also, I'm in the habit of liking my game prep all typed-up and printed out.  Well, I ran a little behind schedule last night and hadn't quite gotten everything together by the time that everyone arrived.  So, I asked Lisa to run the Initiations for Jason and Lara while I finished prep.  It worked quite nicely!  Granted, I missed out on some of the good stuff, but it kept me from having to ask everyone to wait 15 or 20 minutes and twiddle their thumbs while I got my shit together.  All of which made me think that there's really no reason why the GM MUST run the initiations for new characters.  Any other player with a good idea of how to set the stage and fuck with the new character should be invited to step up and do a bit of storytelling.  Golden.

Cast
Lara, second indie game session.  B. Coy, called to the faith late in life, and an expert with the throwing knife.
Maura, second RPG session ever.  B. Zachariah, short-tempered lie-detector.
Lisa, habitual gamer and wife-lady.  S. Harmony, trouble causer.
Jason, oh you know him. B. Winthrop, youngun.  Hot tempered.  Quick to judge. 

Yes, brothers and sisters, It Was Good.  I've GM'd a ton and was very aware of the possibility of unsatisfying play with a bigger group (I have never played Dogs with 4 players), so I tried to keep a lid on my own histrionics and spread the goodness around.  I think as players we all clicked and there wasn't any need to worry.  I *really* enjoyed playing with Maura, who is delightfully free of "gamer stink", having played nothing but Dogs pretty much ever. 

When we set the stakes at "does she repent?" I felt sure that Eric would talk us down to something less drastic, but he knows his town and it all worked out.  I tried so hard not to get her killed but the system is relentless and awesome.  What the hell could we do?  Poor Winthrop actually never landed a blow on her, personally.

One interesting social observation - once we, as layers, had dealt with Adah and spilled blood, we all became unapologetic moral absolutists, and completely unified.  It was a little scary. 

Mixed feelings about letting any competent player run the initiation - it worked fine for Lara and I, with Lisa handling it, but I can definitely see the advantage, as a GM, of being a part of the characters really taking shape.  I think there were moments there that could be brought into later play that Eric won't have access to.  I'd still do it, but it is worth considering the broader implications. 

--Jason

Zachariah pulled his gun and cleansed Adah's soul with a bullet.

Just out of curiosity, why didn't Adah give when the guns came into play, thus avoiding the d10's for fallout? You already stated she was pretty much out of dice by that point. Why take the blow?

Good question Roger.

I have two reasons.  The first is that, as the GM, I want to avoid invalidating the choices that the players made.  The players at the table that night had a hard time coming to the point where they were willing to draw and fire on Adah.  If I immediately gave when the guns finally came out, without Adah ever taking the blow, then it might have felt I took that final choice away from the players after the fact.  A bit of deprotagonization there. 

The second reason is the reason why I was totally ok with going with the very final-feeling stakes of "Does Adah repent?"  And it lends alot to something I learned from reading Vincent's essays; I wanted the Dogs to kill Adah.  That was my secret little wish.  Because I have a host of ideas in my head about how Five Crows is really going to heat up now that the Dogs have gunned down one of the most respected members of the community right outside the temple.

I did the same thing a few sessions back when I was playing my PC, Divid.  Divid lunged to knock his horse out of the way of gunshot, taking something like 7d10 fallout.  It wasn't the first d10 fallout I took from that conflict but it was certainly the last.  I folded (I like "fold" over "give") immediately after taking that 7d10 fallout.  I could have done so when the 7d10 was on the table, so to speak, but I chose to deal with it anyway.  Because I felt that it was important for Divid to face the music.  Thematically speaking.  As it turned out, Divid survived.  Barely.  But he's different now.  Very different.  Not on that paper, but in my head.  He's died, met the King, and come back for more.  Now I can't wait to get into a situation where someone claims to know what the King of Life wants more than Divid.  Woot!  That'll make for good narration!

But if I'd just not taken the blow then there never would have been much chance of Divid going off to meet the King.  The guy is pretty tough.  So, taking the blow when I really didn't need to added to his story instead of taking away from it.  And, had Divid died, he would have died saving his horse.

-Eric