Premise

This was our first time playing “Dust Devils” together, so we went with the scenario provided in the book called “The Hanged Man.”

Players: Ryan Reed (hereafter "Reed"), Jason, Dro, Mayuran, and Ryan T.  Ryan T was the Dealer.

I have this perspective that the first session of the game is about learning the system and not quite “playing.”

In the past, as players we had a tendency to go through character creation and jump right into a “campaign” without figuring out if the system is capable of doing what we want, or if we enjoy what the system has to offer.  When Jason, Ryan T, and I started investing in a lot of Forge inspired games, we talked about how we wanted to have these “learning” sessions partially to figure things out for ourselves before we start to create our own stories and then find the system or our tone in conflict.

Fortunately, most of the games already provide an easy form of learning the game while also playing (the con demos for BW, the initiation in “Dogs,” or the Prime Time Adventures “pilot episode”).

Group Background

Collectively, we’ve never played together as a group.  Jason, Ryan T, and myself have been gaming together for almost a year (all sorts of games).  Jason and Ryan T are roommates, and the three of us used to work together a while back.  Reed joined the group in the summer and has played a session of DiTV and BW with us.  Dro has never played with us before, but Ryan T, Dro, and I have been in a BW game together for about a month (3 sessions so far).

The Game

The “Hanged Man” is a relationship map with a little bit of back-story tying in the four provided player characters.  In addition to the Dealer, Ryan T, and Dro (the only two who owned the book), I might have been the only one who read the scenario all the way through.  That is to say that few of us had read the book (or remembered the rules that we read before), and having this session was a way for us to learn the rules and also recall afterwards the things we missed or failed to learn.

We played for about four hours face to face.  Dro took the character of “Gentleman Jim,” Reed played “Lucky Luke,” Jason played “Zeke,” and I played “Black Jack.”

Dro provided the suggestion that the winning narrator is also responsible for framing the next scene.  I think we attempted to do that and then stopped quickly for some reason, simply taking turns on whoever wanted to go.  We also all threw out suggestions during the narration stage, some of which were accepted by the narrating players, some of which weren’t.

The first scene went to Dro.  He had some interaction with the NPC Sheriff.  At some point the scene seemed to be over, but Dro called for a conflict “Does he see me as a wanted man?”  They played the conflict, and Dro won.  As a result, he inflicted lots of difficulty on the Sheriff NPC.  Ryan T decided that he didn’t want the Sheriff to have his devil in play and be taken out of the story in the next conflict, so he went back and folded, giving Dro a chip.  I think that some of us missed this interaction (as it was the first and only time the “folding” rules were used in the game, and this time in a revision that no one objected to).

A follow up scene involved “Lucky Luke” attempting to escape from prison.  When Reed asked “Is it a conflict if I can open the door of the jail?” Dro was quick to point out that he was asking for Task Resolution.  The conflict became “Of course you escape, but does anyone see you when you escape?” which had much more potential.  This was the last conflict of the game that didn’t involve PVP, by the way.

The next scene was the first to involve players invoking their Devils.  Dro, Jason, and I had our characters playing poker game against each other.  By invoking his character’s Devil, Dro basically said that it was time to reveal the element that would make the story dramatic (that his character was the real wanted man, instead of the Hanged Man.) Most of us would have stumbled on without much direction if this hadn’t been placed on the table. 

In purposefully losing the conflict (he declared his Devil working against him), Dro kicked the story into high gear.  At the same time, from this point on it turned into an extended sequence of PVP conflicts, as players had their characters trying to get revenge on the ones who'd wronged them.

I won the conflict, and at this point we made the first mistake in distributing difficulty.  Ryan T said that damage should be split up (of my four winning cards, two should go to each of the players – Dro, and Jason).  We didn’t know that all the difficulty went to every losing player (this, in the long run, stretched our game out longer than it should have stretched).

After I won the conflict, with Jason winning the narration, he narrated all his money (and Dro’s) going to “Black Jack” – his character (Devil – “Mean Drunk”) smashes a bottle against the wall in anger, and then sees the wanted poster and makes a connection that Dro is the wanted man.  At the same time, he narrated Sheriff coming in looking for “Black Jack” (who had lent a knife to “Lucky Luke” to help the guy break out of jail, with Reed wisely narrating that “Lucky Luke” left the knife, with Jack’s name on it, in the cell).  Dro immediately initiated a conflict with the Sheriff, where he aimed to humiliate the Sheriff for killing an innocent man.  Succeeding, he put damage on the Sheriff to lower him to 0 in one stat, thus invoking the Sheriff’s final conflict.  This became a conflict involving all the players, with Jason’s character on the Sheriff’s side, and Reed’s character entering and attempting to kill “Black Jack” (for breaking him out of jail, but failing to meet him at a rendezvous point – invoking his character’s Devil “Isolation”). 

I believe the Dealer won the conflict, and while the Dealer should have had narration rights (as it was the NPC’s final conflict), he allowed me to narrate (by spending a chip).  This involved “Luke” gunning down the Sheriff in his rage, the Sheriff shooting “Jim,” and “Zeke” being distracted so that “Jim” and “Jack” could escape from the Saloon.  I don’t remember how or if we distributed difficulty in this conflict – I assume it all went to Dro’s character.

From this point on, the game involved Jason and Reed  (who stuck together) sending their characters hunting down Dro and I (who stuck together), with varying success.  There was a “healing” conflict involving the Doc fixing up Dro’s character’s injuries, and a conflict about whether “Zeke” and “Luke” had the courage to burn down the Doc’s house with “Jim” and “Jack” inside (the Dealer won narration rights, but Reed won the conflict – the house burned, the Doc died, but the men got away).

The basic plot in the town, of the sexually needy widow and the abusive mayor was stuff that we had mostly ignored.  The only player whose character was that entwined in that plot was Dro, so eventually he decided to have his character hunt down the Mayor.  Otherwise we'd be stuck in the repetitive PVP cycle.  The GM won the narration rights and had us arriving at the Mayor’s house with a posse on our tails, we managed to elude them, but the mayor was not home when we arrived.  The conflict involved the Widow seducing Dro’s character to “kill the mayor.”  Because Dro lost, it also inflicted enough difficulty to put Dro into his final conflict.  A follow up conflict involved my character robbing the Mayor’s house, and finding information that implicated the Mayor in foul doings.

The final set of scenes was framed in a big dramatic showdown in the town square.  All the characters were presented.  Unfortunately, due to the mechanics, if Dro’s character was going to face off with the Mayor first, with the Mayor not in a “final conflict,” then there was no way fro Dro to succeed in killing the Mayor.  So I initiated a conflict with the Mayor to whittle him down.  Dro, making it easier for himself, declared that my Devil should be working against me, so I lost the conflict (Jason won, exposing my character in the crowd's eyes as a liar and killer of the Sheriff).  He framed the next scene as himself, the Mayor, and Reed closing in on my character.

This follow-up conflict ended up being the most mechanically confusing.  My intent was to throw all the stolen loot in the air to create a mob scene, and shoot the three bastards in the panic.  Reed’s intent was “shoot Black Jack,” Jason’s was the same, and I don’t recall the Mayors.  I won, but both Jason and Reed had strong hands.  The Dealer had narration rights and ended up saying “Mayuran shoots Jason, Reed shoots Mayuran, and Jason is tripped by the mob and shoots the Mayor.”  He then handed the cards around to assign the difficulty.  This wasn’t a rule that folks had read.  Ryan T said “I read it on the Chimera boards.”  So we accepted it.  I think it’s the first time in the game that the narrator specifically ignored part of a players intent (Jason’s and mine), and we also tripped up in assigning difficulty (the winning players hand should cause difficulty to all intended “targets” but other successful hands may inflict difficulty on the winner, if I am reading the board rules correctly).  I also definitely reacted with a “wait, I won, so why am I being punished?” reaction. 

Ryan explained that we were trying to “endgame” and that knocking characters down to zero was part of making that happen (we knew by the end of this that the Mayor, Dro, and I were going into our final conflicts).

Dro’s narrated a final conflict in which he killed the mayor and was shot down by the posse.

I followed up with Black Jack sneaking back to the Widow’s house, giving her back what was left her money, (Ryan tried to interrupt here that it looked like I was “trying to win,” before I concluded with…), and then crawl into the bathtub and die.  The Dealer said there was no conflict… In retrospect, an appropriate conflict might have been “Can you resist cheating the widow out of what little riches she has left?”  Instead, I opted for “Okay, before I sneak out, can I shoot down Jason and Reed?”  I won the conflict, with Reed narrating that his character jumped in front of the bullet intended for Jason (also, based on our misunderstanding of how difficulty was assigned).

With their players in similar “endgame” moments, both of Jason and Reed ended up narrating their players in conflicts (against the Dealer, as the posse) – with appropriately grisly endings for their respective characters.  Reed especially seemed unsure about what he, as a player, wanted to happen to the character.  He flipped a coin to determine how it ended up.

What worked?

Everyone seemed to enjoy the opportunities of narration rights, and the mechanics of playing with cards as cues instead of dice. 

It was a good session to learn the rules, because we did learn them (missing some, which we could remind ourselves of).

Having played some of the other, and more recent narrative children in the Indie game library (PTA, Dogs, Inspectres) we were able to see how these mechanics grow and change and build on each other.

What didn’t work?

The town itself, its plot, and the motivations for the characters were unclear and not particularly compelling.  The players jumped off and went in their own direction – but sometimes it was due to a lack of direction.  We’ve played in one-shots where the motivations are much clearer (as explained in the book, each character has one reason for being in the town – but only “Gentleman Jim’s” was one we found compelling).  It would have been great if some bangs were provided, or if the Dealer had written some down beforehand.

As a result, Reed especially had a hard time figuring out what to do with his character or with his Devil.  Later he expressed concern that he didn’t provide much to the narration.

Not knowing Poker rules made it difficult to figure out what strong hands were - and it took a while to sort through the cards in each hand.

Dro expressed that he didn’t think the game was intended for all out PVP, and that we basically house-ruled the PVP in. Dro engaged in only one PVP conflict, not due to discomfort, but because he had clearer goals as a player for how to move the story forward.  The rest of us may have focused too much on “get the other guy.”

Ryan T and I had talked beforehand about discussing “tone” before we played the game – what kind of feel do each of the players want from the game.  We forgot to do this, and this may have provided some direction for those of us who struggled with the openness of narration.

What did we miss?

Because we didn’t all know the rules, we forgot to try a lot of things (folding, or even “assigning difficulty” with non-winning hands – Only the Dealer used these things).

We got tripped up talking about “stakes” (in the DITV and BW sense) with “stakes” in the DD sense (chips from the Dealer).  The Dealer didn’t assign stakes to some significant conflicts, but did to others.

Problems at the table?

Other than me being bewildered about the “difficulty hand around” and Ryan thinking I was “trying to win” near the end, I don’t recall any conflicts between players.  I think these conflicts were based around rules confusion and misunderstanding of intent (ie: not clearly stating intent before) rather than actual tensions.

Comparisons?

In our Dogs games, folks were pretty hesitant to attempt PVP.  I think that is a descendent of a time when we played games without a social conflict resolution mechanic, and lingering actor stance.  The one time we attempted PVP in a Dogs game, one of the players seemed uncomfortable with it (initially).  However, in Dust Devils, everyone jumped right in and did okay with it (I think we are still struggling to find non-physical/combat PVP conflict resolution).

I also tried at times to “raise” with my Knacks, like Dogs (my gun is drawn, so does that involve my “shooting” knack – that sort of thing).

In Inspectres, we struggled with “tone” in the narration.  One player is going for “macabre mystery” in his confessional, while another is going for “stoner comedy” while another is going for “Buffy” and things didn’t fit together.  Dust Devils seems to require the same sort of conversation.

Wrap up

Jason, Reed, Ryan T, had an email conversation afterwards about the pros-and cons of the game.  Folks seem pretty keen about trying it again, but were unsure what that would look like.

I forwarded links from the Chimera forums clarifying us on some of the rules we missed. 

Ryan said he wasn’t on his A-Game as Dealer, having not prepped much or provided much “color.”  He also provided links to the info of the Chimera forum with the rules changes.  He said he lifted collaborative scene framing from My Life With Master (we all framed the scenes and the settings together).

I was concerned that it doesn’t seem playable for more than a few sessions, and without collective character and plot/town/relationship map creation, there may not be much to sustain it.  Being personally unimpressed with the relationship of the characters to the “story” in The Hanged Man, I wasn’t sure how it would be GMed.

Jason suggested that players collaborate together on the setting and the situation, with the Dealer playing the NPCs and the cards of the conflicts.

Ryan said a multi-session game could be done traditionally - group character creation where the players can create the characters and request things to the Dealer that they want.  The Dealer then creates a relationship map that pulls on the players Devils.  Also, with the narrative power, the players can create NPCs and settings that they want in-game.  He imagines 3 sessions, with Devils at 1,2,3 in each session.

Conclusion and questions:

In conclusion, I think we all learned the game enough to enjoy it amongst the many other games that we play. 

However I do have some questions:

How feasible have folks found DD for multi-session play?  (what’s the maximum length that folks have stretched it out?)

Does every final scene for the characters have to involve a conflict?

If a named NPC does not have a stat at zero, do we have to “whittle him down” in order to put him into the final conflict with his stated PC nemesis?

Who frames the follow-up scenes / narratives?  Should it go to the winning narrator (always) or rotate around the table in order?  We ran into the problem where some people felt they didn’t have an idea, where sometimes others had too many ideas.

Is there clash of stances in our gaming group?  I think I drifted from an actor to director stance.  The game seems to be suited for a players thinking in author stance.

To PVP or not PVP?  Did we house-rule this in and lose focus of exploring the Devils and driving the story forward through them?

Hey There,

I'm a big fan of Dust Devils, though it's been a while since I've had the opportunity to play, and I mangled a lot of it my first time through. I'm, sure Matt will chime in, but let's see if I can help you out any.

How feasible have folks found DD for multi-session play?  (what’s the maximum length that folks have stretched it out?)

Does every final scene for the characters have to involve a conflict?

If a named NPC does not have a stat at zero, do we have to “whittle him down” in order to put him into the final conflict with his stated PC nemesis?

Who frames the follow-up scenes / narratives?  Should it go to the winning narrator (always) or rotate around the table in order?  We ran into the problem where some people felt they didn’t have an idea, where sometimes others had too many ideas.

Is there clash of stances in our gaming group?  I think I drifted from an actor to director stance.  The game seems to be suited for a players thinking in author stance.

To PVP or not PVP?  Did we house-rule this in and lose focus of exploring the Devils and driving the story forward through them?

Well, I consider myself an absolute expert in DD after playing too much of it. So answers and comments forthcoming. Don't take my tone personally, I understand that you were playing your first game. I'll just try to make my points clearly.

The Hanged Man: I think the scenario is not really good, frankly. It can be made to work, but age is showing; especially for one-shot play the PCs are much too much outsiders in the situation, which usually means that it all devolves into a shootout and ignoring the social relationships at the heart of it. The scenario works much better if you play it as a part of a campaign with this "drifter" wibe going on, and lots of time for developing how each character ends up in town and gets to know the people.

Conflict resolution in Dust Devils: Note that the definition of conflict in Dust Devils is different from most games. The book explains it as whether or not there's a risk for the character in there, but it's also very much about whether or not anybody wants to challenge the narration you're trying to do. Ultimately, it's about violence, whether you're willing to risk harm and whether you're willing to inflict it. This is very different from the typical definition of conflict, to the extent that there's no conflict resolution in DD at all for non-violent conflict. What all this means is that viewing DD conflict as a matter of "framing interesting stuff" tends to not be interesting; instead, you should push for conflict if and only if the goals at hand are worth it to you.

I explain the above, because it seems to me that you had much too much consensus going in your game. Like the sherif scene you tell about: Dro is willfully going for a conflict against his character's interests, which is very rare in this game (you can do it, but only if you're willing to get your character killed). What's worse, the opponent doesn't apparently know whether he wants to risk harm and consequences in the conflict. I find it telling that he folds after the fact, after realizing the consequenses of conflict. How this scene should have gone:
- Dro narrates how the sheriff finds out about the identity of his character. The GM may contest, but only to not find out. The sheriff's goal would be "Can I not notice he's the outlaw?"
or
- Dro narrates how his character avoids detection. Again, the GM may contest, but now his goal is to find out the truth. "Can I ascertain his identity?"
or
- Players narrate whatever by consensus. As long as everybody agrees, nobody even looks at the deck of cards.
You'll notice that none of the above is what happened: you had players aggreeing about what should happen, but initiated conflict anyway just for I don't know what reason. This tends to bring about very weird resolutions in Dust Devils. Also, let's look at what the results mean: whenever you play a strong hand in Dust Devils, that means that your character just kicked the crap out of somebody (figuratively or for real). If you don't want this to happen, play a weaker hand. By playing a strong hand Dro is signalling that he's willing to carry the consequences of extreme violence towards the sheriff. It does not necessarily mean that he's skilled in getting what he wants, it just means that he's stronger and can force his way.

For comparison to how I play, I find "Do I escape from prison" a completely valid Dust Devils conflict, and would never as GM let the player out without just such a conflict (it's a great place to see what degree of violence the player is willing to commit for freedom). The point is not to ensure that every outcome is "interesting", because it's the narrator's problem to narrate an interesting or disinteresting outcome, as he chooses. The point is whether or not you're willing to go to conflict over the issue: are you ready to raise your gun to get out? The rules of Harm will ensure that the situation will very much get more interesting even if the character fails to get out: the harm he takes will probably mean severe damage and changed personal situation; if the character persists (another thing DD allows is a repeated conflict over the same issue), it might even lead to his death. How far are you willing to go?

Splitting harm: You're saying that for multiple opponents, each opponent takes the full amount of harm from a hand. Actually the narrator is the sole arbiter of whether the damage is split or multiplied in this manner. I regularly use both options in my narration: for gunfights and such I split the damage (to make the impact of the greater force a point), usually according to the wishes of the guy who's hand it is. For a mine cave-in, for instance, I would duplicate it and give everybody the same amount. This is all a part of the narrator's duties.

Invoking Devil: I think I don't understand why Dro could invoke his Devil for the card game. Were the goals somehow special? It reads to me like he just up and decided that his Devil is relevant because he wants to reveal his identity. This is not how it works. The relevancy of the Devil is judged based on the current situation in the SIS and especially comparing character motivations to the goals in the conflict. The "Outlaw" Devil is relevant when the character's status as outlaw is working for or against him.

Final conflict: From your description it sounds like the sheriff dropping to a 0-attribute initiated his final conflict. This is not how it works. The character can continue play indefinitely, and often does, even getting multiple stats lowered to zero before his final conflict. The conflict is final if and only if the player of the character chooses to use the 0-attribute in the conflict.

In general, I found your attitudes towards the final conflict confusing. If I'm reading you correctly, the whole group was intentionally driving their characters down to initiate final conflicts. I tend to get that now and then from single players, but that kind of group psychosis is new to me. Didn't the characters have anything to do anymore, and you wanted to get them all killed?

Narration and winning: your description of the big shoot-out tells me that you won the conflict, right? In that case, the narrator has to narrate how you accomplish your goal. If your goal was to "raise a mob and shoot the mayor", then that's what has to happen. (I wouldn't allow a two-part goal myself as the GM, by the by.) The narrator has the final say over what characters do, however; if he wants to tell the characters acting against their natures, he can. In practice this is never a problem, but it is a theoretical problem in Dust Devils. I myself would only narrate people shooting the wrong guy in pretty extreme conditions, but I would do it.

Some important things: There are some things you absolutely have to understand to get DD to perform:
- Folding is there for a reason, use it. Never stay in conflict if you don't think you can win with the hand you have, and can stand being considered a coward (or whatever light the narrator decides to color upon your actions).
- If you win narration but lose the conflict, use your losing hand for damage. Chances are that gives you greater control over the game, whoever your opponent.
- Never play a strong hand if you aren't ready to go all out on violence. Fold if you can't get your opponent to agree to not play a strong hand.
- Never use the conflict system just to have something to do. Only use it when there's genuinely something at stake.

mtiru wrote:
How feasible have folks found DD for multi-session play?  (what’s the maximum length that folks have stretched it out?)

Does every final scene for the characters have to involve a conflict?

a named NPC does not have a stat at zero, do we have to “whittle him down” in order to put him into the final conflict with his stated PC nemesis?

Who frames the follow-up scenes / narratives?  Should it go to the winning narrator (always) or rotate around the table in order?  We ran into the problem where some people felt they didn’t have an idea, where sometimes others had too many ideas.

Is there clash of stances in our gaming group?  I think I drifted from an actor to director stance.  The game seems to be suited for a players thinking in author stance.

To PVP or not PVP?  Did we house-rule this in and lose focus of exploring the Devils and driving the story forward through them?

Eero and Tim-

Thanks for the feedback.  Hopefully one of the other players from the session will get a chance to chime in.  I will address this point for the time being.

Eero wrote:
In general, I found your attitudes towards the final conflict confusing. If I'm reading you correctly, the whole group was intentionally driving their characters down to initiate final conflicts. I tend to get that now and then from single players, but that kind of group psychosis is new to me. Didn't the characters have anything to do anymore, and you wanted to get them all killed?

Hey Again,

Regarding how we seemed to fail to get how "Devils" are supposed to work.  Similarly, I think we had an element of thinking of like them like "Traits" from DiTV.  (In this scene, I'm trying to tell the truth, but my Devil is "Damn Cheat" so it works against me.  In this scene, I'm trying to get the Widow to give me money, and "Damn cheat" works for me).  Wrong?

Mtiru,

Tim has done a great job of explaining Devils. (Thanks, Tim!) This post has been fascinating, and so far you're getting spot-on advice from Eero and Tim, as far as I'm concerned.

Have their responses helped you?

Matt wrote:
Mtiru,

Tim has done a great job of explaining Devils. (Thanks, Tim!) This post has been fascinating, and so far you're getting spot-on advice from Eero and Tim, as far as I'm concerned.

Have their responses helped you?

mtiru wrote:
The responses have definitely been helpful.  I'm not sure how playing too collaboratively is a bad thing though.