Yesterday was my first game with Jeff, Colin, and Kyle, friends who I'd role played with about 2-3 years ago. We've been communicating via Facebook to get together for role playing, and I offered to run a game of Dogs in the Vineyard. I wrote a bit regarding what it was about, linked the <a href="http://www.lumpley.com/games/dogsources.html">website, and they were interested. 

In order to offload some of the setting explanation at the game day itself, I linked the <a href="http://www.lumpley.com/games/dogcerpts.html#copy">excerpts.  I had hoped that it would help people get their heads around the setting.  That kind of both didn't work and backfired.

Jeff confessed that he didn't have time to read it, and Colin ended up having a rather long discussion with me about "A Dog's Authority" section (you can read it in the excerpts link).  He saw the Dog's actions as in the wrong, and kept asking how, if a Dog can do something like that, the society can survive.  He wanted to know if two Dogs could disagree, and if they did disagree, didn't that mean that one Dog was in the wrong, and if he was in the wrong, couldn't others be wrong?  Didn't that mean the entire order was fallible? And if it was fallible, why did the society tolerate them going from town to town, making judgments that may or may not be correct?

I tried to field these questions, but we were heading into an ecclesiastic debate I wasn't really equipped to handle.  What I did say was that the game was about men and women in their late teens and early 20's, given a huge responsibility, and having to make tough decisions.  I'm pretty sure I punted his question, but I was at a loss.  Could I have said anything different to clear up his concerns?  This was also the beginning of my feeling of worry for Colin, I wasn't sure if he was going to be comfortable in the game.

So game night arrived.  I ran Orchard Plains, with the alteration of Alden being aware, keeping secret the tainted apples.  I stood the whole time.  I was nervous, and paced a bit.  Colin and Kyle were seated.  We went through character creation, and halfway through Jeff arrived.  I re-explained character creation, as Colin and Kyle worked on their Traits. 

I explained traits as special abilities, and gave some examples from previous dogs in other games I've run.  I explained how they can be brought into the die pool, demonstrating how that's done, and the caveat that the raise/see has to somehow involve the trait in question. 

One thing that was really nice was that Kyle "got it" almost immediately.  As soon as I gave a few Trait examples, he was off to the races.  When he read off his first trait "Women were responsible for Original Sin (1d10)" and then said "my dog is a horrible misogynist". I was happy that he understood the interesting directions traits can flesh out a character.

As soon as Jeff heard Kyle's first trait, I saw the light go on, and Jeff began adding traits of his own.  He really picked it up, and his "I have the vision of an eagle, fast and true (1D8)" was a memorable trait of his.  I knew Jeff would be ok from then on. 

Colin was struggling.  He wanted to know if he should specialize with pistols, or just a general gun skill.  He wanted to know if he needed a riding skill to be able to ride.  Alarm bells were ringing, so I tried explaining traits a little differently.  I explained that the Dogs were skilled with all matters of riding, shooting, and fighting, and talking, and pointed at the stats Heart, Body, Acuity and Will as the "primary training".  And then explained the traits as being special things that single you out from those general skills.  Everyone can ride, but if you pick a trait that talks about your riding, it both describes the character and that specialty he has. 

I gave a few more examples of traits, and also explained to everyone that in conflict, your traits determine what level of escalation you want to get to.  So if you pick a lot of shooting traits, you'll need to escalate to gun play in order to use them.  I also made this very clear: if you want to be able to be effective in a conflict without fighting, then you will need non fighting talking style traits.  This was important for some of the problems later. 

The initiation sold Kyle completely on the system.  He wanted to get into a private party involving a group of older dogs and possibly a few of the Ancients.  One of his traits was "I begin as a Dog but I will die as a Prophet and Ancient" (so good!) and he wanted to get in and prove himself to these distinguished members of the faith, but had to get by the doorman.  He brought in trait after trait, and eventually escalated to physical with a hand on the shoulder and a stern look.  He got in!

With Colin, he gave a rather vague initiation conflict "I hope I do the right thing in a tough situation", so I suggested a few situations before we hit one he found interesting.  I reused the "caught a trainee stealing things from his cupboard" conflict, and initiated conflict.  The trainee explained he was desperate, that he was a compulsive gambler with toughs threatening to harm his sister if he doesn't pay up.  Colin was utterly lost, and I carefully explained the raises and sees, trying to compare it to a poker game. 

"I don't play much poker" was his response.  Damn. 

I go really slow, indicating each raise, and then asking him to try to stop my raise with an equal amount.  He stumbled through the process, he was really struggling.  He'd raise with four dice, and when I'd correct him he'd get confused with what a raise or a see was. I kept having to walk him through each go, and there'd be long pauses as he stared blankly at his dice.  Eventually he went from talking to an escalation to physical, blocking the door and crossing his arms.  He started to complain that he didn't have any traits to help him with conflict "when it was just talking", so I suggested he change some of his traits to assist with that level of escalation, or to consider escalating to fighting.  He didn't change the stats, which caused the same problems later on.

Jeff took to the system easily.  He wanted to "Be a role model at a dangerous time" and I framed a scene where these local toughs were trying to beat a boy's dog to death.  He interposed himself into the conflict, and immediately went to fighting. One of the toughs cut him with a wicked carving knife (this was his decision when he took the blow), but he beat down the toughs and defended the kid.  He took his scar as a trait "My Scar reminds me that I'm brave (1d6)".  I was really happy, and Jeff was just shining with glee.  Him and Kyle high fived.  Colin looked really uncomfortable.  My worry increased.

Colin brought up a concern.  "How does this system prevent people from min/maxing or twinking?" I have a response to this, because it's brought up in every RPG I've ever played.  "When someone is starting to do something that is decreasing the fun of others, like creating a ninja catgirl in a gritty detective game, or deciding to set all their equipments as amazing/awesome, the only effective solution to that kind of behavior is to look at them, and say 'dude, that's kind of lame'.  If we're friends, we can confront one another when we're doing something that's making the fun factor less for the other people at the table, and the person who's decreasing the fun can smarten the hell up.  We're all in this together, friends having fun at a table, and to bring the awesome, we need to make sure we make everyone else's time fun. 

Think about it.  If you make sure that other people have fun, and everyone else does the same, you have everyone at the table trying to show you a good time.  If everyone is concerned with their own fun, you have no one but yourself showing you a good time.  I'd rather have the three of you making my time awesome than just me making myself awesome.  And in an environment like that, you don't need to min/max.  You don't need to twink.  Because you aren't alone, your friends are there to add to the experience." 

I then winced, and thought "Fuck Jon! Way too much evangelizing, cut that shit down!", but happily they all nodded and Jeff High fived me.  Still, that kind of shiny eyed flag waving almost cost me some friends once, so I tried to cut it the fuck out. 

With only about an hour and a half left, I went with Orchard Plains.  That branch has some great moments, and having everyone be related to one side or the other created some great friction.  Jeff's guy was Alden's nephew, and Kyle's guy was Josephus' grandson.

The first scene is always great.  The old Steward crumpled under an apple tree, holding in his guts, while his daughter is screaming for help. "Brother Alden Shot my Pa!"  Jeff's Dog charges after Alden, holed up at home, While Kyle and Colin try to save the Steward.

The group conflict was problematic.  Colin was almost totally lost.  He kept trying to raise with 3 or 4 dice, so I tried a different tactic. "A raise is like an attack, and you use two dice in your pool to attack.  You're saying or doing something that directly affects the other person.  A see is a way to defend against that attack.  The less dice you defend with, the better the defense is!"  His response magnified my worry "But we're not attacking.  We're healing this guy." I then tried to explain how this worked, that his efforts are to "combat" his injury.  Kyle and Jeff got it, Colin just shook his head, and raised with three dice.  And I corrected him again, explaining the two die raise. 

One interesting thing about the healing conflict was how Kyle understood giving.  When the steward "coughed up blood" (I raised a 12 or something), then Kyle bowed out of the conflict with "The King guide you in your next life".  That was really neat, I had explained that they can end a conflict at any time by bowing out and accepting that they won't get what they want.  This actually made things a little easier on Colin, and I was able to step out of the group conflict and continue things one on one.  And he was able to let the Steward live, which made him considerably happier.  But again he said "I didn't really have any traits that would help me for this conflict".  I suggested he might want to change a few, and gave him license to alter any of his traits.  He didn't.

Another interesting thing was that Jeff started suggesting things to Kyle and Colin, but then immediately self corrected, saying "wait, damn, I'm not there. sorry".  I have a personal hatred of this kind of thing, and said "Jeff is here now, and can suggest whatever he likes.  I don't care if your character is on the Moon! Always suggest, help, advise, add your two cents of awesome.  Never feel you have to be quiet just because your character is elsewhere. Help each other out!" They were really surprised at that, but everyone nodded in agreement to it.  Thankfully.  I like participation, and it was really good to have Jeff helping out Colin with choosing which dice and how many dice to use, which traits he might like to work with.  Colin appreciated Jeff's help, as he himself seemed really upset that he wasn't having the kind of fun that Kyle and Jeff were having. 

Jeff's conflict with Alden was smoking hot.  He ended up shouting through a locked door, and then escalated to physical and broke the door down.  Alden gave and showed Jeff his daughter's lacerated back.  Jeff looked at his fallout dice total, consults the table, and says to me "I'm discarding my whip in horror for my fallout effect".  So good, so perfect.

The highlight of the evening had to be the conflict between Jeff and Kyle. Jeff finds out about the horrible treatment of Felicity that led Alden to shooting Josephus.  Of Alden's shameful hiding of the fungus.  Initially Colin was in the challenge, but he dropped out because, yet again "my traits don't let me talk, just shoot".  The purpose of the conflict is "how are the sinners punished?" and they negotiate through raises and sees, and at this point Jeff and Kyle are on their game, pulling in traits and belongings, saying some amazingly cool shit to each other, and with each taking of the blow acknowledging the other's point.  In the end, Alden is punished with the whip, and Kyle takes the discarded whip and presses it into Jeff's hand.

At the very end, I have Meserach come to Colin and ask him which lady he should marry, Sister Grace, who he didn't love, or Sister Felicity, who he did love, but was just poisoned by her evil pie.  Colin's response was "if you aren't sure, then it should be neither."  That got Colin to crack his first smile of the evening, and I was happy for that.  I knew that most of the evening was a lot of frustration for him, and I wished I could have done more to help him out. 

After the game I asked them what they thought.  Colin confessed that he thought there'd be more situations where he could draw his guns, and was concerned that he didn't create an effective character.  I stressed to him that other than the healing conflict, which they wanted to do, the other two conflicts could have escalated, or even started at gun play. I stressed that escalation is his decision, and if he wants to use guns or gun traits, he has to point the gun and pull the trigger. 

He looked unconvinced, but agreed to give the system another try next week.  We'll see how it goes.  What I'm looking for is some help!  What could I have done different to help Colin with the rules, with the system? There was some kind of disconnect there, and I really wanted to try and bridge the gap, but didn't know how to do that.  And since I have a second chance to get him to warm up to the game, what Town should I throw at them next?  What would help Colin with really getting his head around the system and how it works? 

Bear in mind that these guys have mostly played D&D and White Wolf games up to this point.  They're used to a very strict and authoritarian style of gaming, with the DM in the driver's seat.  They goggled at me when I asked for ideas when we were doing initiations.  One even asked "are you serious?" before eventually tossing out some suggestions.

First, I want to say thank you for the post. I really enjoyed working through it. I tried not to come off sounding like a pompous windbag, but I'm not sure how well I did that.

Second, give yourself some kudos for the response you got from two of your three players. DitV is quite a bit different from D&D and WoD and its cool that you were able to get such a positive response from Jeff and Kyle. Colin's mindset seemed to be in a completely different place from the start, which led to lots of the confusion, I think. But I think he will likely catch on in time. I think its great that he's open minded enough to give it a shot.

Glendower wrote:
He saw the Dog's actions as in the wrong, and kept asking how, if a Dog can do something like that, the society can survive. He wanted to know if two Dogs could disagree, and if they did disagree, didn't that mean that one Dog was in the wrong, and if he was in the wrong, couldn't others be wrong?  Didn't that mean the entire order was fallible? And if it was fallible, why did the society tolerate them going from town to town, making judgments that may or may not be correct?

Colin was struggling.  He wanted to know if he should specialize with pistols, or just a general gun skill.  He wanted to know if he needed a riding skill to be able to ride.  Alarm bells were ringing, so I tried explaining traits a little differently.  I explained that the Dogs were skilled with all matters of riding, shooting, and fighting, and talking, and pointed at the stats Heart, Body, Acuity and Will as the "primary training".  And then explained the traits as being special things that single you out from those general skills.  Everyone can ride, but if you pick a trait that talks about your riding, it both describes the character and that specialty he has.

With Colin, he gave a rather vague initiation conflict "I hope I do the right thing in a tough situation", so I suggested a few situations before we hit one he found interesting.

"I don't play much poker" was his response.  Damn. 

"But we're not attacking.  We're healing this guy."

This actually made things a little easier on Colin, and I was able to step out of the group conflict and continue things one on one.  And he was able to let the Steward live, which made him considerably happier.

But again he said "I didn't really have any traits that would help me for this conflict".  I suggested he might want to change a few, and gave him license to alter any of his traits.  He didn't.

Another interesting thing was that Jeff started suggesting things to Kyle and Colin, but then immediately self corrected, saying "wait, damn, I'm not there. sorry".  I have a personal hatred of this kind of thing, and said "Jeff is here now, and can suggest whatever he likes.  I don't care if your character is on the Moon! Always suggest, help, advise, add your two cents of awesome.

Initially Colin was in the challenge, but he dropped out because, yet again "my traits don't let me talk, just shoot". 

After the game I asked them what they thought.  Colin confessed that he thought there'd be more situations where he could draw his guns, and was concerned that he didn't create an effective character.  I stressed to him that other than the healing conflict, which they wanted to do, the other two conflicts could have escalated, or even started at gun play. I stressed that escalation is his decision, and if he wants to use guns or gun traits, he has to point the gun and pull the trigger.

Bear in mind that these guys have mostly played D&D and White Wolf games up to this point.  They're used to a very strict and authoritarian style of gaming, with the DM in the driver's seat.  They goggled at me when I asked for ideas when we were doing initiations.  One even asked "are you serious?" before eventually tossing out some suggestions.

I have only your post to go on, so if I've got it wrong, no surprise, and please ignore me! I'm just talkin'.

My advice is to keep Colin in the game just as long as you can, as long as Kyle and Jeff can stand it, but don't try to convince him anymore. He'll figure it out or he won't, just by watching and playing.

If he doesn't like the game, that's how it goes sometimes. I've been there. Then you get to decide as a group whether you're going to keep playing without him or bag it to play something he'll enjoy too.

-Vincent

I find this report interesting. A while back, a friend of mine went and ran the game for two players who were completely new to "non-traditional" stuff and posted it on a Polish forum. Other than they didn't get past the initiations, I find these two APs quite similar. One of the players immediately bought in, the other immediately bought out, and the problems were corresponding.

What really strikes me is how in both these reports it all seems to start from a noticeable lack of enthusiasm about the setting. I believe immediate buy in into the setting and the character's role in it is crucial for a successfull game of Dogs. Reading the friend's AP I got hit by this one thing that's at the very beginning of the book. I think it should have been written in bold, with a big-ass font actually:

You'll need to get your fellow players to buy into the game. If you tell them it's a western and they look at you like, a western? then it isn't their game.

Now, in my player's case it was even worse, I suppose, as we're not American so we lack the cultural context for fully getting westerns in the first place. However, many of our past games weren't as fun as they could due to us not being able to break from some connected cliches - and our best games used a radically different setting. Back then, I suggested my friend to actually change it for something everyone is immediately hyped about, based on the shared genre preferences. I still think it's something that can greatly facilitate the initial buy in, making the first steps much easier.

As for teaching conflict rules, attack/defense is my default way of explaining Raises and Sees, too, along with "And I'm attacking with the whole situation you're in rather than a single enemy." But then, I've never had a case of someone remaining completely clueless about how the conflict rules work after the initiation.

What's got me intrigued is how he came to the game with doubts about the Dogs and they're gunslinging ways. Then he makes a total gun dude character. And then he doesn't pull his guns out of the holsters. That's an interesting dynamic at work.

Thanks very much for the replies, all!  I lent the rule book to Colin to read, and when we hopefully play this Sunday (haven't gotten any replies yet when I asked if we were still on) I'll see how it goes.

In terms of my own enjoyment, I did have a good time portraying the town, and learning some neat stuff about Kyle and Jeff.  My big concern is that there's an element of discomfort and fragility to this particular gaming group.  One element of this is that I have not had much of a chance to hang out with them outside of gaming, something I'm trying to rectify.

I'm worried that since we had such an uneven level of enjoyment in the first game, there's a a possibility that the chemistry is off. It's been a while since I've played with these three, I'm still feeling my way along in terms of the social rules for the group.

Cool. I'm interested in hearing how it goes this time. Good luck!

(I also can't believe how many times I repeated the words "I think" in my post. Serves me right for trying not to sound like a pompous windbag. Hand wringing never makes for good writing)

Yesterday was the second game of Dogs in the Vineyard.  What an incredible difference!  It turns out that Colin honestly didn't understand the conflict system, and upon reading the book and doing a few practice runs with Kyle, he got a better grasp on things. 

The game went brilliantly.  I ran them through <a href="http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/index.php?topic=23603.msg232151#msg232151">Blood River Valley.  Colin was into it, and I noticed that now he understood conflict, he was eager to put forward raises and sees. 

What was even more interesting was that Kyle and Jeff had started to intuit the benefit of taking the blow during non-physical conflicts, and were willingly conceding points even though they had the dice to block.  Kyle's character was changing, in game, to the revelations he learned. 

One really telling piece was Kyle's conflict with Thelsa, to renew her engagement with David. He was taking the blow again and again, even though he could have pushed forward a block with his dice. When I raised with a massive 17, Thelsa blazingly declaring her sin of neglecting her duty to marry is a small price to pay for the Virtue of Love, Kyle looked at me, and says "I blink, nod, and walk away".  He gave rather than escalating!  And his fallout dice gave him the Trait of "Love is strong, it frightens me." Awesome.

In the end, Micah and Thomas faced off against the Dogs, ending up in a nasty gunfight.  One of my most memorable blocks was to have Thomas pull his own daughter in front of him, to take Kyle's bullet.  At that moment, all three Dogs took the relationship of THOMAS!!!!! and Jeff headbutted him into giving.  I had Micah take the blow with 7 dice, shot full of holes by Colin astride his horse.  When he yelled "Yes!  Eat it!"  I knew the game was a fun filled success. 

They strung up Thomas by his own mine, and in the healing conflict to save Mulvina, they married her to Thelsa, Kyle using a strip of his own coat to bind their hands together.  It was a great time.

Fantastic! I'm delighted to hear it.

-Vincent

Wow! That's made of win!!!

There are quite a few spots here that make me go wow. But I'd pay $10 for a recording of Kyle doing practice runs with Colin - it'd make a great informative text for everyone, I'm pretty certain. I mean, you can explain how something fun - but to have a transcript of someone who didn't really enjoy/get it, then seeing where they can have fun - a real life example not made up at all...that'd be gold.