This game has me excited about gaming in a way that I haven't been for ages.  Thank you for writing it, Vincent.

I have a few questions.

1.  If someone submits a Raise and I Take the Blow, does that mean whatever the Raise was happens?

For example:

"Y'all Dogs are liars and everybody here knows it."

And I have to Take the Blow.  Does that mean, win or lose, everybody now believes that we're liars in this town?

Secondarily, does this mean that all Raises must have consequences in and of themselves by forcing conditions and events upon your foe that he does not want?

2.  If I draw my gun but do not escalate to gunfighting - say I want to pistolwhip a foe with it - do I get its full dice?

3.  In a conflict, does each side say what it wants, or are the stakes singular?  For example, can my stakes be that Johnny tells me what he knows, and his stakes be that I leave and don't come back?

4.  A raise has to be something you can't ignore.  Well. . . who judges that?  In example #1, what if the dogs don't care if everybody thinks they are liars? Can they just ignore the raise, thus forcing the foe to come up with something else?

Thanks!

I'm not Vincent, obviously, but I thought I'd try answering anyway.

1. As I understand it, "Taking the Blow" just means that you didn't avoid or interrupt the action.  How you react to it is still up to you, though it should carry some evidence of effect.  If you get shot at and Take the Blow, for instance, you would describe how the bullet hits you, but you keep going.  Similarly, if called a liar, maybe your eye twitches at the sting of the insult, but you keep arguing.  What the player describes as his Raise pretty much happens, but that doesn't make what the character says magically true.

Secondly, I don't think you can really force conditions on anybody.  All you can do is do stuff to them to try to get your way.  Anything long-term is from fallout.

2.  I don't know.  Improvised things work that way, but I can't say for sure with listed belongings.  This might be one of those things where it's "as long as nobody looks grumpy about it" situations.

3.  That's confused me in the past as well.  The rules, by example, suggest that it's one thing, a "does this happen or not" kind of stake.

4.  Most "judgement calls" in the game seem to fall to group consensus and precedent.  In your example though, saying "Everybody thinks you're a liar" doesn't make it true, even if he Takes the Blow.  Although if the Dog is having an argument about something, then being called a liar is something that he'd care about, at least in that instance, because having your credibility questioned is a step toward losing an argument.

This is all just my thoughts on the matter.  I may be off on one or more elements.  Something to read until Vincent responds I guess. :)

Hi Phargle,

Have you played the game yet? Because a lot of these questions are quite subtle, and you might find the answers drop out of play.

But here are my opinions:

1)Taking the Blow means the raise is true. Now this is a bit tricky to discuss, because without an example and context things won't be clear.

Say you've got a Dog and a demon possessed girl fighting, and the girl raises with "I slash your face with a knife, I'm going to cut out your eyes." If the Dog takes the blow then her face gets slashed. There will be fallout. That is the very minimum that can happen. If the player chooses to interpret the fallout as loosing an eye, then the eye is cut out and there are mechanical consequences as a result of this. There is also the possibility that regardless of fallout some agreement is reached between you and the player that the eye has been cut out, but that will have no mechanical consequences. I don't think that whether or not you are happy reaching such agreements is something that can be prescribed, it's something that you will reach a working relationship on as a group.

Now your example is a little more complex.

Say you've got some Dogs and the steward arguing in front of the rest of the town, the stakes being "Does the Steward's daughter get punished for consorting with Demons?". The steward could raise with: "You Dogs are liars and everyone here knows that." Now if the Dogs take the blow it means the raise ‘hits’ and there will be fallout. The Stewards words will have had some significance to the Dog. How you choose to interpret the raise into the fiction is up to you. Maybe it’s enough that the Dogs look around desperately and the crowd starts murmuring about how bad the Dogs are.

It seems to me that you could expand on that raise a little and it would be just as valid. Your raise could just as easily be: “The Steward says that you’re all liars. The towns folk look to their Steward, who’s never lead them wrong, and you can see them drinking in his words.” Or you could say “The Steward says that you’re liars and that everyone knows it, he’s bluffing, but his words plant the seeds of doubt in you that maybe the whole town has fallen from grace.” They are still basically the same raise, but it’s a bit more obvious how to interpret taking the blow. Hopefully that should help you with the second part of your query.

2) I think mechanically you get a d4 for an improvised item. I’m fairly certain that you only get the dice for shooting, because that +d4 is meant to increase the likelihood for fallout when the bullets start flying.

3) In Afraid this is really explicit, you only have one thing at stake, the winner of the conflict gets to choose how to resolve the stake when the conflict is done. I think this is how Dogs is meant to work, one thing at stake and a conflict over it. If you want to win something else, give and call a follow up conflict.

4) The group, specifically the most critical person in the group, gets to determine what counts as a legit raise. Now in a lot of cases ignoring a raise is a really cool thing to do, so I tend to be of the opinion that if ignoring a raise says something about the character and the situation then both the raise and the challenge are legit.

In the example above, the steward calls the Dog a liar and claims the whole town doesn’t trust them. The Dog has to see that raise in dice to stay in the conflict, but maybe that see takes the form of them thinking back to their old mentor giving them one last piece of advice: “Your authority comes not from the trust nor regard of the townsfolk you minister, but from the King of Life himself.” And the Dog sets his jaw and carries on regardless.

IMO the mechanics work best when you play hardcore with the raises.

If the raise is "everyone thinks you're liers", then taking the blow should mean that yes, now everyone thinks you're liars.

If they really really don't want the town to think of them as liars then they can give.  Giving means that your raise absolutely does NOT come true...but the stakes are lost.

This puts the players in the position of having to make a choice.  Which do they care about more...winning the stakes and suffering the raise...or avoiding the raise and losing the stakes.

Now of course its very lame for the GM to always use the same raise over and over again, but this is covered by the blanket rule of following the aesthetic of the most critical person at the table.

I REALLY recommend not being wishy washy on the effects of the raise.  Raises are really the only sources of conflict.  9 times in 10 the Dogs will have enough dice to roll over your NPCs and most of the time they'll welcome fallout rather than avoid it...especially if "just talking".  So the only thing that will give pause to the juggernaut is a raise that they just can't stomach...timed to coincide with your best dice when you know they can't block it.

I love answering rules questions!

1. Taking a "just talking" blow means admitting that your opponent has a point, that's all. Even if you admit it just to yourself, that's enough.

Your GM already knows whether everyone thinks you're liars. The raise has no retroactive power over the townspeople's motivations.

"You're a liar, Dog! Everybody here knows it."
"You've got a point, ma'am."

Compare with blocking: "I cut her off at 'you're a -'" and dodging: "you wouldn't know a liar if it bit you." Blocking a "just talking" raise means preventing your opponent from saying it; dodging means making a counterargument.

So consequences, like "now everyone really does believe you're liars," with metagame causality? Not really. However, every raise you make should be you making a point against your opponent, and every raise you make should be something that your opponent would really rather block or dodge than admit.

2. If it's written on your character sheet, you get its full dice, no matter what you use it for. Yes, you get your full dice, even the d4, for hitting someone with your pistol.

This is a game where firing your pistol in the air can give you the dice you need to bring the room to order.

If it's not written on your character sheet, follow the improvised belongings rule.

3. Always, always, always single stakes. Here's what I wrote for Afraid, which applies in full:

Read "stakes" to mean the thing at stake itself, not the possible outcomes. "What's at stake is where I go," for instance; "what's at stake is my survival;" "what's at stake is her trust." The winner of the conflict gets to resolve the stakes: resolve where I go, resolve my survival, resolve her trust.

The people on each side of the conflict may feel free to name their characters' preferred resolution of the stakes. Strictly, however, you aren't committing to that resolution if your side wins. You're speculating how you might resolve the stakes if you win, that's all; idly speculating.

But now here's a nuance: you can name the stakes implicitly by only speculating how you might resolve them. "If I win, he chops your head off with his axe," for instance - what I'm really saying is that your head is at stake.

Once everyone in your group can read the stakes implicit in a declaration of intent, there's no need for any especial formality. Formally, explicitly naming the stakes is useful as a learning tool and when you require absolute clarity; otherwise, feel free to play casual.

4. Mm, how can I explain this.

It's your responsibility to raise with something you figure your opponent can't ignore. You judge this, not them. They can ask you to punch it up if they think it's weak, which of course you'll gladly do. It's in nobody's interests for you to make ignorable raises, not yours, not theirs.

Once you've put forward your dice, it's their responisibility to see the raise. Their see might be a two-die block or dodge, and they're like "I ignore it." That's fine. That doesn't mean your raise wasn't legit; the opposite. Their dice let them ignore it, you didn't.

Followup questions welcome!

-Vincent

Thank you very much.  Everything got answered perfectly.  We've played the game once and it worked pretty well - the questions I had were things that came out of that game.  It's too much fun, btw. :)

Quick question, Vincent:

lumpley wrote:
I love answering rules questions!
Compare with blocking: "I cut her off at 'you're a -'" and dodging: "you wouldn't know a liar if it bit you." Blocking a "just talking" raise means preventing your opponent from saying it; dodging means making a counterargument.

Well, as far as that goes, when you put forward a reverse's dice and say what your character does, I don't really care whether it's obviously a true reverse, or apparently just a clever dodge+raise.

Similarly, when you put forward a dodge's dice and then a raise's dice and say what your character does, I'm not going to make you do it over if what you say is really a reverse.

The vast most of the time, the difference between a reverse and a dodge+raise is in the dice, not in what you say.

-Vincent