Hello,

I am starting up a Dogs game after not running it seriously for a year or so.  After reading through the rules to remind myself of how things work, I remember a few questions I have:

1.  Can a scene be framed so as to exclude certain types of escalation?  For example, a high-noon draw - what is at stake is who draws first and the conlict takes place in just a second or two.  Does that mean fighting and gunfighting escalation is out of bounds?  Or can you escalate to gunfighting without actually shooting if you're using gunfighting raises like "I tap my fingers on my revolver, psyching my opponent out". . .or are all raises here non-physical because you aren't actually inflicting more than 1d4 fallout during the conflict itself?  To me, that implies that you can't escalate past "just talking." 

2.  Can you refuse to escalate?  Joe escalates to shooting.  You just stand there and talk and let the bullets fly past.  Is that legal if you have the dice to beat Joe?  What if Joe punches you?  What if Joe shoves you?  Do you need a plausible See to stop him?  It seems, if Joe says "I shove you", you can't say "I keep talking" unless it makes sense.  Could you say, "I take the shove and stagger, but keep talking" without escalating to physical?  It seems to me that accepting that you have been moved physical requires you to escalate to physical.  If Joe swings a chair at you, could you See with Just Talking thusly:  "I know he's coming up short on that swing, so I don't even flinch and keep reciting from scripture."?  . . . although again, to me it seems to become a bit implausible if Joe says he grabs you or shoves you or something to narrate "Nope, he misses and I keep talking."  I am curious how others handle this.

3.  Is it proper to have a conflict for a dying person to be between that person and their own sickness, or is a healer required?  I ran one (inspired by this forum) where the Angel of Death came to the dying man and a conflict ensued for his life.  That seems to open up some possibilities, since suddenly he could escalate to fighting (or shooting!) to save himself.  Right? 

4.  Can players bring personal relationships into play themselves, or is the GM responsible for dictating whether or not a person is present?  What does it mean for a relationship to be "at stake"?  For example, say you have a 1d10 relationship with Joe and Joe dies.  In the next town, a sorceress confronts you and starts a conflict.  She says Joe died hating you.  You say she's wrong.  Is that an okay conflict?  Is your relationship with Joe at stake?  If you lose, what happens to those dice?  Mechanically, it seems like nothing happens, but it seems like the sorceress winning would require you to accept her ruling on the stakes and to start believing that Joe died hating you. (Nevermind what the point of all this could be.)  Finally, can you drag Joe into this?  For example, what if the Sorceress tells you to leave town because everybody hates you.  Can you, the player, say, "Sweet!  My relationships are all at stake.  I'm gonna bring 'em into play as rebuttals."  Is that right? 

5.  What constitutes a raise that can't be ignored when it comes to talking?  My guess is that it must be something that the victim does not want to accept as true.  Beyond that, I am not sure.  Say the Dogs raise with:  "Let her go."  It seems the person could just ignore that.  What makes a Just Talking Raise something that people can't ignore?

Thanks, and I'm sorry for the stream-of-consciousness questions. :)

-Ben

Here's the simple answers - I wrote a longer reply but I realized that in many areas I indicated best to get Vincent's expert answer and among those are many areas I believe are up to the group consensus, but I don't want to mislead you - so here's the simple ones, to spare Vincent a little time if he reads this before responding:

- a Conflict cannot explicitly preclude types of escalation, but as you indicate it might be difficult to make certain escalations in certain situations.  I would just caution/ask you to remember never to attach a "how" to Stakes, the "how" should always come out in the Raise/See rhythm of the Conflict - e.g., "Can I get him out of town without hurting him" is no good, "Can he be removed from town?" is good.

- you can refuse to escalate, definitely; typically/often, you'll still escalate even if just by dodging something or steeling your muscles to take it even as you do other things, for example in a physical escalation

- whatever happens to your Relationships, they don't change dice and the dice aren't eliminated; of course you can always apply Experience, Fallout, and Reflection results to Relationships

Also, when someone escalates to shooting, go ahead and escalate along with him and use the extra dice to duck for cover in your response.

Trying to not get shot is covered by dice from Shooting.

Then, when it's your turn to raise, you don't have to shoot back at him, even though you just escalated to shooting. You can go back to trying to talk some sense into him.

Just because you escalated doesn't mean you can't go back to a previous type of activity.

Much appreciated.  That answers a few of my questions.

phargle wrote:
3.  Is it proper to have a conflict for a dying person to be between that person and their own sickness, or is a healer required? 

5.  What constitutes a raise that can't be ignored when it comes to talking?  My guess is that it must be something that the victim does not want to accept as true.  Beyond that, I am not sure.  Say the Dogs raise with:  "Let her go."  It seems the person could just ignore that.  What makes a Just Talking Raise something that people can't ignore?