I had an idea for a town pop into my head, and I'm wondering how viable it would be.

Okay, I know 99% of the towns the Dogs visit should have Pride and Problems, 'cuz otherwise, why are you playing this all out? Is that right, so far?

But, at the same time, I thought it might make an interesting change if, after a bunch of towns, there was one where folks weren't (yet) doing anything wrong. Supposing Steward Artex asks the Dogs to visit on account of he's worried that young Sister Sarah is trying to go beyond the bounds of what a woman should do, riding and shooting and unwomanly stuff like that, when she's supposed to be marrying Brother Benedict.

And say Sister Sarah's feeling just terrible about this. She wants these desires to stop -- she knows she ought to be all feminine and she's not being proud. Nope, she's relieved to see the Dogs, and wants them to pray with her so she can stop wanting this stuff she oughtn't to want.

Thing is, if Sarah is sincere and all, one logical answer is for her to become a Dog. Female Dogs are supposed to ride and shoot, aren't they? Maybe the King of Life is sending a message here.

Now, one can go the route that the Stewart's at fault for not seeing this, but is this necessary? And what if Benedict isn't a bad guy either? He loves Sarah, but feels that somehow, it just ain't right to marry a woman what doesn't want to marry him. But he's doing what his father tells him, and he's courting the woman he loves. Sarah's doing what she ought to, being receptive to a suit and trying to stop wanting something she's not supposed to have.

Is this a terrible idea for a town? Is it mandating an ending? After all, if the GM isn't saying at any point, "Gee, you know, female Dogs get to ride and shoot", the players might never think of this. They might pray with Sarah and oversee her marrying Benedict. Maybe they drive these desires out of her, figuring its the result of demons. Whatever.

It can be complicated further, of course -- say Sister Wilhemina loves Benedict, but wouldn't think of standing in his way of marrying Sarah, and, though brokenhearted, accepts the will of the King of Life as interpreted to her by her father and her Stewart. And so on.

The point is, I've got this town where I'm doing my best not to have Pride be there at all. Along come the PCs, and they're free to do whatever they want, and they actually could make everyone happy. This is done as a once-in-blue-moon thing, and that's presuming the group doesn't decide there really is Pride, in which case, well, I suppose there is.

Does this work? Is it something one should try?

-Lisa

Hi Lisa

That´s a very interesting idea. I am not enough of an expert to judge whether it ought to be done, but I can certainly speak for myself. We are just starting, but after we´ve gone through a few more towns and the players become accustomed to methodologically rooting out the Pride, your Good Town will be a refreshing change of pace. Of course I hope that the players do not become too used to the Problem Towns either.

The only thing that concerns me is that you seem perilously close to having a "right" solution all thought up, as indicated by your "what if they never think of making her a Dog?" I would not trust myself with such a town, even if I were dead determined not to steer the players towards "my" solution. A prerequisite for a Dogs town, Pride or no Pride, seems to be that the situation is complicated enough that I, as a GM, am not completely sure what I would do if faced with the town´s problems.

Cheers,
+ Mikael

Indeed.

That's not to say that you don't have the foundation for an interesting town there... but I would be sure to use it as an unusual change of pace, the cracker between the pinot noir and the liebfraumilch.

I think it'd be fun to see what the dogs do about it. Throw it at them and follow their lead, right? Do they soothe everyone's worries, or do they start stirring everything up and make it boil over?

I think it will bore people.  They will believe (rightly) that their presence is not required by the story.  Yes, they can take their place in it, but the story could equally well turn out fine without them.

The question "What would happen if the Dogs hadn't come?" is an important one in town creation.  It's the overall stakes that drive the Dogs.  "If we don't help, these people will all be dead and damned before spring."  This town lacks that drive.  "If we don't help ... the Steward will feel uncomfortable, but he'll get over it, and everyone will adapt."

I think that I'm mostly in disagreement with Tony. A town like this would be less spectacular, but it would definitely be nice for those who'd like to explore the color of the setting a bit more. In my experience playing the game, the "normal" things that Dogs do, blessing babies, performing marriages, delivering mail, interpreting doctrine, etc. are rather underplayed. Sure, these things usually happen in towns, but they're usually in the denoument of the town, and are frequently thrown in as afterthoughts ("Oh yeah, and we marry the problematic young couple that next Sunday, before things can get all weird again") A session spent exploring these aspects in greater detail would sit just fine with me.

Now that isn't to say that it couldn't be a bit more interesting. Basically, I'm seeing this as more of a proto-town, in that it doesn't have the complicated twists that usually make up town creation. What it needs to have is plenty of potential for it. What if the Dogs never came? Pride, leading to Injustice, Sin, etc. Basically, if the Dogs didn't come now and stop it in it's tracks, it would become a normal town setup, rife with conflicts for the Dogs to solve on their next loop through.

I think every Dogs campaign should have the occasional town that's really quite okay, and at least one that is a complete and utter sin-fest, burn the whole mess to the ground and salt it to make sure the filth perpetrated there never rises again. It keeps the PCs on their toes, keeps the game fresh.

To a certain extent, I agree with Tony. It sounds to me like you're talking about a session that is almost purely color,  with very little conflict. Some players might find that boring.

But! Some players might really enjoy it. So, ask them! "Are you all interested in visiting a really low-key town next, where there's a lot of exploration but not a lot of conflict?" See what they say.

I can't see doing it more than once for any particular group of players. But after a particularly hard, blood-and-death town, maybe they'll want a breather. But at least warn them first! You don't want them to come expecting a normal Dogs game, only to get frustrated by the slower pace.

(By the way: Another good low-key scenario could be the Dogs returning to the Dogs' Temple. Maybe not a lot of conflict, but you get to meet the Dogs' teachers, old school friends, old rivals, etc.)

- Pôl

Does Lisa´s idea really mean that there is no conflict or that things would be "slow"? Life is not fair, and the life of Faithful even less so, so there can be plenty of non-Prideful conflict like the ones described by Lisa, even if they are unlikely to escalate to guns. (But they could, if the Dogs are bumbling and very heavy-handed fools.) I could imagine that these conflicts would be extra challenging for the average Dogs to handle, as there is no easy hierarchy of sin to fall back on.

That said, some could see this as breaking some kind of contract with the players. I wouldn´t, though, if the conflicts are interesting and relevant to the players.

Cheers,
+ Mikael

I urge everyone to use the town creation rules in the book! If you don't, all bets are off and don't come crying to me!

-Vincent

I'm not actually certain that the town described doesn't follow the rules. I mean, when I read the description, it seems to me there's a whole lot of Injustice going on. Sarah who's torn between her desire for adventure and her desire to be a good woman. Benedict, similarly torn. Sounds like Injustice to me.

So where's the Pride? Something must have caused all this, and you seem to have skipped over it: who put these ideas into Sarah's head?

Maybe it was her father, who led an adventurous life and told her bedtime stories about it. He was Proud of his adventures and wanted to share them with his daughter. And now, if the Dogs don't interfere, well, either Sarah will marry Benedict but she'll always be haunted by the thoughts of what might have been. Or she does go off to become a Dog and Benedict loses the woman he loves. And you know what? If Sarah's father is dead by now, well then there truly is no-one left to blame.

Low-key, yes. Probably, little to no conflicts. Can it get pretty intense? Yes, if the Dogs start caring enough about both Sarah and Benedict.

I think it's important to note that having Pride doesn't have to mean that you are evil, that you want bad things to happen. From what I read, I think this is what you're really trying to avoid. You don't want someone to be the cause of it all. But there always is, and if this person had nothing but the best intentions, well that just makes it all more interesting.

Low-key doesn't mean there's no conflict.  You have Pride, with Sarah stepping outside her role as girl and daughter.  You have Injustice, with Benedict being forced to put his courtship on hold.  Are they the kinds of Pride and Injustice that will lead to Sin and Demonic Attacks?  Probably not.  But Sarah's regret and Benedict's understanding nature don't take away the fact that there are Pride and Injustice here.

Still, Lisa, I'm not sure the town is "grabby enough," as Vincent puts it in the rules.  I think maybe you're focusing so closely on this couple that you're ignoring other possibilities.  Your town makes me think of Little House on the Prairie, and that's fine.  But even that sleepy prairie town had a Nelly Olsen sticking her nose into other people's business, spreading gossip around, and stirring up conflict.  It had the occasional visitor from "back east" who brought problems in his wake.  It had misunderstandings which escalated into envy and resentment.  I'd keep working on this town.  You might make a decision at the outset that there will be no blood-and-guts backstory here, nothing like the snarled mess your players just came out of.  Still and all, you could have a few (rather than one) compelling sets of characters, each involved in their own "low-key" entanglements, with the potential for escalation "if the Dogs never came."

What do the other women in the town think of Sarah's gender-bending behavior?  What do the older men at Benedict's job site say about him behind his back?  What about that prudish piano teacher with her strict ideas of how young women should behave (and the ear of every young girl in the town).  What about the guy who lost out on work to the more capable Benedict, and who is now candidly discussing who will wear the pants in Benedict's future household?  Surely not everyone in this town is as patient and understanding as Benedict is, or as self-critical as Sarah is, and surely one or two are shocked at Sarah's behavior and dismayed at Benedict's passivity.  What sorts of issues is all this stirring up in other households?

I don't see any problem with a low-key town, so long as it has enough going on to make the players feel their roles in the town are important enough to justify their time and attention.  Lancing a slowly-festering boil of envy and resentment in a bucolic little town might just be "grabby" enough; holding someone's hand while she works out her own gender-role issues probably isn't.

I wouldn't do it, Lisa.

As Tony points out, the town you describe does not require the Dogs to be there.  Your players will feel like they aren't needed and are not the spotlight of the adventure.  I imagine it will come across as pretty limp.

Which is not to say that there aren't well-adjusted towns out there -- in fact I'd guess that a bunch of them are, and the Dogs visit them -- it's just that those towns shouldn't get screen time.  We don't ever see the bathroom in Star Trek for a reason -- it's not the focus of the show.  The GM and players can make references to the nice towns that they've passed through while they're hip deep in the conflicted towns, but making the "good"/unconflicted/boring town the focus of a game session is not going to be very interesting.

If you are looking for some counterpoint, something to demonstrate to the Dogs what they're fighting for, then I'd suggest starting up a game session with the Dogs leaving such a town and headed into the town with problems.  You might even shake things up (game-structure wise) and say "You were just in Pleasant Vale, a town without any problems at all, and now it's time to head up the road to Deadman's End.  Everybody say one thing that they did in Pleasant Vale before we move on."  That lets the players get a little involved in how things are 'supposed' to work without focusing too much attention and game time on the near-utopia.

Remember, the best way to examine the ideals of a society is when those ideals are being threatened -- not when they're working seamlessly in the background.

I just want to try a different angle with this.

Lisa wrote:
Okay, I know 99% of the towns the Dogs visit should have Pride and Problems, 'cuz otherwise, why are you playing this all out? Is that right, so far?

And say Sister Sarah's feeling just terrible about this. She wants these desires to stop -- she knows she ought to be all feminine and she's not being proud. Nope, she's relieved to see the Dogs, and wants them to pray with her so she can stop wanting this stuff she oughtn't to want.

Yeah, dig, Lisa, I think what you want here is a town where there's a lot of color, where the problems are personal. Go through town creation with that in mind and see what you cook up. If you can't cook up a town with the town creation rules and your ideas, it probably won't fly. But I'll bet you can.

Ben wrote:
Any town with something going wrong has pride.  You're trying to have a town with something going wrong that isn't anyone's fault.  This is impossible.

The town's steward is responsible for - and capable of - taking care of such a town. The Dogs show up, the steward says, "yeah, this and this are going on, but I got 'em in hand," the Dogs say "cool, carry on, here's the mail, any babies you want we should kiss?" and away they go.

-Vincent

Andrew wrote: I mean, a pride-less Faithful town never has someone fall off a horse?

No, it's still a bad thing. The fact that it serves the King of Life's plan doesn't make an unpleasant happening any more enjoyable, just more tolerable. When you break a bone, getting it re-set is a bad thing -- it hurts like hell. But it's ultimately for your benefit, so you deal with it. Still doesn't make it a good thing, except maybe looking back on it, with the rosy lens of hindsight. Of course, we might be just getting sticky with definitions here (bad = unpleasant vs. bad = morally wrong).

Gah!

People are attacked by demons all the time. Demons bite them and throw them off their horses and burn their fields, all because people fuckin' sin all the time! And sorcerers too! And your aunt's possessed BAD by rum and rock and roll, you just know she is.

For towns the Dogs visit, use the town creation rules in the book. For towns the Dogs don't visit, do WHATEVER THE HELL YOU WANT.

Or, if you want to get technical, the town creation rules are procedures you follow, not metaphysics, and towns the Dogs don't visit DON'T EVEN EXIST. Same as towns they DO visit.

"In towns without pride, do horses ever throw shoes?" My long-suffering ass.

-Vincent

Heh. Fair enough, Vincent.

I'm inclined to say that you could roleplay "between towns" as a town or two where nothing's wrong. Have some conversations with your fellow Dogs, a Steward or two, a wise old lady, and take your between-town fallout from whatever arises from the conversations. You might get to fill in some more stuff about your world, foreshadow some stuff that the players want.

It's really roleplaying the conversation that happens anyway. That might be fun. I wouldn't spend more than a half hour or so on it, though, either before or after a town with meat.

Lisa prefaced her post with "I had an idea for a town pop into my head, and I'm wondering how viable it would be."  I don't know whether or not she's satisfied with what she's read here, but I'm not, so I'll try to get this back on track by pointing a few things out.

First, my edition of the rules clearly states that the creation of a town begins with "something's wrong," and that translates, at the very least, to the presence of Pride and Injustice.  My edition also points out that Pride enters into gender roles when someone steps outside of those roles, for any of a number of reasons, and in any of a number of ways.  The Injustice that results depends upon the NPCs involved, but "Pride, enacted, leads to Injustice" is axiomatic in DitV.  So, where there's Pride enacted, there's Injustice, even if it never produces Sin.  And that sounds pretty much like the situation Lisa described.

In my response to Lisa's post, I tried to suggest ways she might fill in the blanks (as I saw them) with enough NPCs to give the Dogs something to do.  All of my suggestions were fairly low-key, deliberately Little-House-on-the-Priarie.  All of them pretty much stopped at the Pride/Injustice level, iirc.  The rules state, in Town Creation, concerning Pride and Injustice: "If the situation seems grabby enough to you, which it probably won't but if it does, you can stop.  Skip to step 6."

Step 6 in Town Creation deals with what each named person wants from the Dogs.  Lisa has made clear that her primary NPC has something she wants the Dogs to help her with.

Others replied subjectively that the town wasn't done yet, and that's fine.  Vincent even pointed out that the little things that afflict a congregation every day are the province of the Steward and aren't really things the Dogs need to concern themselves with.  That's fine, too.  But I'm not sure those responses are adequate to deal with the idea of a low-key town, as Lisa put it forward.

Lisa could create a low-key town that held her group's attention without ever once escalating the backmatter to the Sin/Demonic Attack level.  I think she could do so by multiplying and criss-crossing her Pride/Injustice conflicts.  And I think, if she's looking for a low-key town (more Hallmark drama than John Wu flick), that's one way to do it.  There are probably several others.

She would need to follow the Town Creation rules from beginning to end.  She would need to figure out what these named NPCs want from the Dogs, which ones had a claim on the Dogs' time, which ones couldn't ignore the Dogs' coming, etc.  She would need to figure out what would happen if the Dogs never came.  All that.  And she could do all that without a single ritual homicide, a single wife-beating, or even a single instance of harsh language.  The rules don't demand a hive of festering sin in every town, only that the GM push matters toward conflict once play begins.  That can be accomplished, it seems to me, anytime people are working at cross-purposes.  And if the Steward has his hands full, or is somehow prevented from being effective, that's a whole 'nother level of "what's wrong," isn't it?

I'd be willing to bet, if she played this low-key town to the elbows, throwing soap-opera problems at road-weary Dogs, her players would soon be eager to seek out the nearest heretical cult they could find.  But then, that's just based on my own experience with gaming groups, and it doesn't necessarily match up with Lisa's. 

And that's the point.  It's her game, her group.  I know she specifically solicited opinions, but she also laid down a basic idea for a "good town," and I think that idea has legs, if it's worked up properly.  Opinions (and more importantly, tastes) will vary, but the rules, as I read them, do support low-key towns.

I agree with Neal in full.

-Vincent

Neal wrote:
Low-key doesn't mean there's no conflict.
You have Pride, with Sarah stepping outside her role as girl and daughter.
You have Injustice, with Benedict being forced to put his courtship on hold.
Are they the kinds of Pride and Injustice that will lead to Sin and Demonic Attacks?
Probably not.
But Sarah's regret and Benedict's understanding nature don't take away the fact that there are Pride and Injustice here.

Brian wrote:
Get enough people feeling prideful and unjustly treated, and something else will snap somewhere.  Sin always seeks the weakest point.

I've been thinking about this and kind of worked it out as I typed.

Sometimes after a rough and dark road the players need a session to just process, to work out shit within the group.

I might give the players such a session, with a town where the sin of pride is minor and fairly easily solves, its a seedling of a problem and gives them the time to work out their own baggage.

Or I might not.  I might decide that the Dog's life is hard and it is their lot in life to push on and keep on keepin' on.

If they want to get off of the rough and dark road that the King of Life has put them on, they have but to take off the quilted coat that denotes their vocational holy mandate, go back to the Watchdog Temple and get set up as a respected member of a community.

Yeah, eff 'em.

The road's hard.

If you don't want to walk it, take off the jacket, put down the guns and go back to the Temple.  There are others to pick up the calling and take your place.  There is no shame in the act of retiring your quilted coat.

Neal wrote: The Dogs enter a town without Sin.  They find little instances of Pride and Injustice.  They push.  The town learns to Sin.

I like the idea, myself.

Judd, it was a thought experiment, a what-if scenario, an imaginative excursion,... not a plot outline to strait-jacket gameplay.  Players can do whatever makes sense to them, but some of the things they are likely to do would likely result in heightened tension, just as slapping a man in the face would likely result in his heightened emotional investment in a conversation.  I like heightened tensions and heightened emotional investment.  I like the idea that when Dogs push, things get more intense.  It seems to me that's what DitV is all about.  Don't hate, Judd; Escalate.

Also, looking ahead to the probable effects of probable actions is hardly judging the Dogs' actions themselves.  Their actions are their actions, and that's that.  Looking ahead to cause-and-effect is a tool to help a GM prepare for the otherwise unexpected.  Say what you will about what we should NEVER do, I find it quite impossible (and completely undesirable) to design a bit of game without looking forward to how my players will receive it.  In fact, refusing to look ahead is very disingenuous, considering it is that very process which permits a town to be created in the first place. 

All this is not to say those Dogs couldn't come into the town and not only fail to push anything to a crisis, but even find ways to salve the wounds of the proud and the resentful.  Hey, it could happen.  It would be pretty unlikely, from my own experience, but if it happened, it happened.  Like a little episode of Highway to Heaven, all forgiveness, shiny sunrises, and gentle lessons learned.  Probably quite dull, but not necessarily so, anymore than a low-key town would necessarily be dull.  Preparation needn't be the same as judgment, much less railroading.

Looking forward to how they will receive it and deciding that the very act that Dogs are supposed to do will push it into Sin are very different acts.

Playing dogs can make ya feel rough enough as it is without running a town where the Dogs very involvement is the straw that broke the camel's back.

To carry the camel metaphor too far: I like them to enter the town while the camel's lying on the ground, screaming in pain.

Its nothing personal; I just don't dig the idea.

Paka wrote:
Its nothing personal; I just don't dig the idea.

Lisa wrote: The point is, I've got this town where I'm doing my best not to have Pride be there at all.

I think it's a very interesting idea, and I'd purely love to see some Actual Play about it. 

It occurs to me that a low-key town like this might be perfect for some groups, especially if it tied into the themes of that game.  For example, if the Good Town is the hometown of one of the Dogs and they're going there for a little home cooking and to heal up after a nasty fight, that would immediately raise the stakes for the players (and bring a lot of relationships and maybe Accomplishments) into play. 

Another "hook" I thought of is to have the Dogs have a specific agenda going into this town. For example, a Dog from Good Town died recently trying to save a wagonload of pilgrims from a flash flood.  They never found the body, all that remains is his colorful coat, which he laid on the riverbank before diving in.  The PC's are given the awkward task of returning the coat and saying a few words to the missing Dog's parents.  So have them go in there with that job, and then  have the conflict with the tomboyish girl present itself, and the option of having her become a Dog is not so uncontroversial any more.  I think you'd have to be careful as a GM to not force the players' hands, but just add the business with the coat into the mix and then see how things play out as they do in any other town. 

dunlaing wrote:
One thing that strikes me about the discussion that followed is that it seems impossible to create a town without at least Pride. Lisa mentions not wanting the town to even have Pride, but even in her description of the town, it reads like there's both Pride and Injustice.

The question, of course, is whether these little things are the province of the Dogs, or whether they should be attended by the Steward.  As Vincent points out, it is the Steward's job to tend to his branch.  The Dogs shouldn't have to do his job for him.  So when they are obliged to do so, it probably says something about the competence of that Steward.

I remember reading X-Men comics as a kid. Usually, the X-Men were fighting bad guys and things were hectic and there was bad stuff going down. Every now and then, though, you got an issue where they were playing baseball.

If you can run a "good town" as a change of pace, and maybe as a way to relieve some tension, it might be a good idea.

Wolfen wrote:
I can't help but wonder why the Dogs wouldn't deal with this, one way or t'other. I mean.. it's not like Dogs are dispatched to a town specifically to deal with it's problems. Their main responsibilities are to deliver mail, news (including new interpretations of scripture, etc.) and just generally be celebrity priests.. Even in towns that you'd pass over, people will probably approach the Dogs with "problems" that their Steward could easily handle if they'd brought it to him, but there's a certain thrill in having a Dog suss you out (subtle pride, perhaps? Your problem is too important for a mere Branch Steward...) or perhaps you're too embarassed, and an outsider might be able to resolve the problem without it becoming the town's gossip for the next year.

Hmmm I may have to try to write up a town that starts with the Pride "Only a Dog is good enough to fix *my* problems".

Interesting...

Good call, Lance.

Please nobody post to this thread until we've heard back from Lisa. Lisa?

-Vincent