I finally started a Dogs campaign. We only have a few hours each week to play and are in between the second and third sessions of our first town. Two of the players have never played before, the third player, Mike, has run one session of the game (with me as the sole player).

Parson's Hill has been suffering attacks from the Mountain People; they've been raiding and stealing/killing cattle. Mike is convinced that the people of Parson's Hill had to have done something to the Mountain People to have made them suddenly start attacking like this. I know, however, that all they did differently was to allow Pride a deep place in the town, ripping it apart. The new leader of the Mountain People has been possessed by the demons and driven to lead these attacks.

Now I've been taking the advice of the book to heart as much as I can, not keeping things hidden from the players. It's not a mystery, it's a problem. And Mike has read the book and knows the advice is in there (although he may not have read it recently), but he keeps pressing. Finally his character goes to the town's shopkeep (which all the Dogs instantly thought must be untrustworthy--he's a shopkeep, after all!) and says he wants to start a conflict. What's at stake? "He tells me everything about his dealings with the Mountain People."

From my point of view, he has. But Mike hasn't believed it. I'm not certain what to do. So I say okay, and write the shopkeep's name down on the proto-NPC with the most "talking dice".

They roll their Heart + Acuity, and Mike makes his first raise. The shopkeep immediately gives, taking the highest 6 he rolled, and tells the same storyt he told the last time. Then, just as Mike's ready to leave or move onto the next scene I say, "Hold on, he's initiating a follow up conflict," and proceeds to convince Mike's Dog that he should support making the shopkeep the new Steward.

The other players hooted and cheered this sort of game play, appreciating the shopkeep's and my game play, and Mike didn't seem to mind it all that much (he was a little put out at being out played, but accepted it.) In fact it went on to set up a fantastic set-up down the road where one of the other players did a good job of talking up the current Steward and making him sort of reignite his passion for leading the people of the branch just so Mike would be forced to take the shopkeeps side. But I keep wondering if I was a bit too gamey with the situation, using the rules to prove the point that the shopkeep was being truthful and manipulating the player's character like that.

Everyone seemed, mostly, to have fun, but I wonder what you all might think of the situation.

Oh, by the way, this may be the best game ever. I've never run a game where a character would knock down a man in front of his family to force him to accept his neighbor's stew because the man was too proud to.

Actually, this sounds great.  When a player is having his character try to dig deeper when there's no where else to dig to I usually just say, "Hey, there's nothing else to learn here."  But this turns the character's attempt to dig deeper into actual narrative momentum.  That's interesting.

Jesse

What Jesse said. That's an awesome use of the system to drive the story and set-up conflicts!

Too gamey? It was awesome in my book. Knowing when to give and having grabby follow-up conflicts is a good skill for a Dogs GM.

I agree with everybody. Well played, a move to be proud of.

-Vincent