For some reason, it is late and I am fascinated with turning Dogs into some kind of mutant fantasy heartbreaker clone.

Something is effing up the community and this evil is gestating in a dungeon that is under or near the town.  All adventures begin in town.

Accomplishments: Players say a conflict their character went through to help the party obtain information concerning the dungeon.

Equipment:  Magic items, ten foot poles, forty foot of rope, you name it.  The GM sets the dice value for it, the players name it and the table may veto.  All magic get's a d4, just like a gun.

Escalation goes talking, fists, weapons, and then magic.  (Magic = ancestors, gods, spells, scrolls, dragon-breath, balrog whips and magic weapons)

Coat = the PC's journey to the dungeon has been long and hard.  Show what the PC looks like that reflects this journey.

Tweaks: 1's during fallout dont just give you experience.  They also allow you to make a Directorial Conflict.  This means that you can call a conflict with an NPC or a piece of scenery that wasn't necessarily narrated.  This conflict can skip scenes or come from nowhere only to be explained later.

If two players want to make a Directorial Conflict, whoever got more fallout wins, if they both took equal amounts of fallout, whoever has less dice in equipment wins.

Traits can be henchmen, followers, magical steeds, familiars, etc.

Relationships can be with setting elements, hence the world is made.

Every room and hallway should have a conflict from what does the bas relief mean to the orc in the 20 by 20 room defending his pie to the slumbering dragon.

After the players get out of the dungeon, they define their accomplishments again and begin on the next dungeon.

Wow, this cheapens the shit out of Dogs in the Vineyard.

It turns a game that is about something, from its die mechanics to its concept to its cover and just puts it in the wash until it looks like just another game.

Ech.

I think the conflict res mechanic is so cool that it'd be fun even as a stand-alone game of dice for two players. But still, I prefer the meaningful stuff.

- Frank

You could Mountain Witch it:  Give each person a conflict-inducing backstory, to which their Magic links (ancestral whosiwhatsis, and all that) and then escalation leads to ongoing issues of trust, and fallout + experience naturally deepen and nuance relationships.  The question under judgment becomes the adventuring group itself.

I've had enormous success with fantasy Dogs but it wasn't fantasy heartbreaker Dogs.  It did have some interesting relationship with D&D, though -- the setting was a former D&D setting and thus there was some hold over in terms of spells and effects.

"The stakes of the conflict are 'do you fall in love with her' and I'm starting at Magical" is just *way* more emotionally charged then "make a saving throw against 'charm person.'"

I should really write about that game.

yrs--
--Ben

Paka, you are taking the conflict out of the conflict resolution.

I blather about that here.

Ben wrote:

I should really write about that game.