Having some fun with Dogs!

But a few questions came up during our first session:

1. How do the Faithful refer to two wives who are married to the same husband? Is there a term for this, like "sister-wife"? Is there a convenient word that would go in the following sentence?

"Oh, yes, I'm Brother Abel's first wife. And Sister Adelia is his second wife. That's right, she's my _________."

2. Initiation/accomplishment hiccup!

We had a player whose Dog had been assaulted a long time ago by some ruffian. He said he'd like the scene to take the form of him confronting the ruffian and possibly beating the crap out of him. What he wanted to be at Stake would be, "Can Brother Clyde learn to forgive a man?"

We decided to do it as a growth conflict, with him taking the side of the character is he is (unforgiving), and me, as GM, taking the side of pressure on him to be forgiving: in this case, my Raises were proofs of the ruffian's currently miserable existence, or justifications for his earlier actions.

However, it didn't quite fly. I got the impression that the player really wanted to *find out* whether his character would forgive the guy or not. However, this being a growth accomplishment, he could just Give at any time, so he had the ability to decide how it turned out, which was at cross-purposes with what he wanted to learn about his character.

Is there a better/different way to handle this? Or should he just have put his blinders on and tried to play the dice as hard as possible (which is more or less what we did)?

3. One-sided Conflicts

We had a Dog threaten a townperson in order to get information out of him. He said he was physically pushing the guy around--fine--so we went into a Physical conflict. However, the townperson wasn't willing to fight back, so his Sees and Raises took the form of talking back at the Dog.

The way we handled it was to have the townperson escalate to Talking on his very first See or Raise, then keep playing it out with the Dog making (mostly) Physical Raises and the townperson making Talking Raises.

How do you handle conflicts where one party is pretty clearly participating in one arena and their opponent is acting within another?

Re: the physical vs. verbal, I am not Vince Baker, but my first instinct would be for your PC to roll Physical (Heart + Body) and the NPC to roll Verbal (Heart + Will) at the outset.  I mean, the townsperson was talking from minute one, so I don't think that counts as an escalation from physical because he was never in physical.

That said, I confess I like the way you handled it, because if eventually your Dog calms down and starts talking (escalation to Verbal, roll Will), I don't think he should necessarily have the advantage.  The opposite could be argued, too:  the townie just had the crap kicked out of him, so he may be more willing to submit.

Either option seems within the spirit of the rules, which is more important.

Re: the growth conflict, I think you guys did the right thing.  Clyde has a vested interest in not changing; the narrative is best served by your player trying his damnedest to roleplay Clyde's inertia -- i.e. resisting change, and only giving when he's been proven wrong (out of dice).

I believe the arena was set by the Dog on his first go. It's a physical conflict and the Dog rolls Heart + Body. The townsperson is perfectly justified to escalate immediately to talking on his go, rolling (Heart+ body + Will) and narrate talky things in response. I've seen some posts where the GM decides not to roll Body at all to make a statement about the character avoiding getting physical, which is cool and probably what I would do in the situation. I think it's technically drifting, but it would play nicely. I think Vincent has responded that it would be okay on a previous post, but I may be wrong and he'll smack me when he gets around to it.

I like rule questions!

1. "Sister-wife" is the one, yeah.

2. Forgiving someone is pretty much just something you can decide to do. There's not really any sensible way to go to dice over it, in Dogs. I think you probably did as well with it as you could.

3. You did it exactly correctly. Don't mix and match arenas.

What Noclue describes -- choosing not to roll body [or any given stat] in order to make a statement -- isn't in the book, but works fine in play, when that's what somebody wants to do.

-Vincent

*bows to Vince's superior opinion*

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I recall the idea being bantered about that escalation doesn't have to be two-sided; that is, one person could escalate to physical to push past the other guy who was still talking, but he didn't have to counter physically himself.  That's where I got the notion of "mix[ing] and match[ing] arenas".  So the intent is for the conflict to start in one arena for both (or all, in multi-sided conflicts) participants, but from there forward they can take it anywhere they like, assuming it makes sense?

Thank you for the great response, everyone!

However, hmmmm:

lumpley wrote:
1. "Sister-wife" is the one, yeah.

2. Forgiving someone is pretty much just something you can decide to do. There's not really any sensible way to go to dice over it, in Dogs. I think you probably did as well with it as you could.

If you haven't forgiven someone, can I punch you until you do? Not really.

If you're swearing too much, can I punch you until you knock it off? Sure.

-Vincent

Ah, yes. Makes sense! Of course.

I'm still curious about the "sister-wife" thing, if anyone can confirm or deny it!

Here, Google can help me out. As I gather:

"Sister-wife" usually means "both sister and wife"--something people are generally not too keen on these days. But it can also mean "two sisters married to one man", which also not encouraged by ancient texts (such as Leviticus, for instance).

And according to this book:

2008, Miriam Koktvedgaard Zeitzen, Polygamy: A Cross-Cultural Analysis, page 97:
"The concept of 'sisterhood' was popularly applied to the official organizations for Mormon women, and Mormon co-wives were and are still known as 'sister-wives'."

So, that answers that.

OK, wait--I though you rolled an arena based on the type of fallout you want the other to take. The Dog pushing the talker NPC around is trying to get him to take d6s when he Takes the Blow, while the talker NPC in NO WAY wants the Dog to take d6s (d4s, for Just Talking) in Fallout. Thinking in terms of the mechanical results of a Raise is how I've kept such stuff straight for some time. And, yes, it means a conflict can start in two different arenas.

But Vincent says No. The initial roll is set by (it would seem) the side with the highest escalation (in terms of Fallout dice): the Dog wants d6s, being physical, so the talker NPC has to throw physical THEN (de)escalate to Talking to be sure it's only d4s.

Or am I bungling something--maybe the general notion that "The details of the Raise dictates the Fallout, not the Raiser's current arena"? Is this a corner case of "I wave my gun in your face" not being a d10 Fallout Raise, in Talking arena; while "I drop my gun and it goes off, hitting you" is a d10 Fallout Raise, in a Physical arena?

(Aside: Any chance for a v2 of DitV, to get some clarifications of these routine questions into the published rules?)

The starting arena is set by the action of the character launching the conflict. The details of the raise always dictate the fallout.

Ah, maybe this is what you're bungling: seeing a physical raise also means escalating to physical. Dodging a gunshot also means escalating to gunfighting. My first raise is physical, in the example; if you're to see it, you see it physically, and thus roll body+heart.

There is no de-escalation. You can be rid of that parenthetical notion right now.

-Vincent

A good way to look at it is if you have escalated from talking to gunfighting and you verbally rebuke someone. They don't take d10s. They take d4 fallout from that go.

lumpley wrote:
The starting arena is set by the action of the character launching the conflict. The details of the raise always dictate the fallout.

Ah, maybe this is what you're bungling: seeing a physical raise also means escalating to physical. Dodging a gunshot also means escalating to gunfighting. My first raise is physical, in the example; if you're to see it, you see it physically, and thus roll body+heart.

There is no de-escalation. You can be rid of that parenthetical notion right now.

Oh, no, the opposite. You can escalate from gunfighting to talking, of course you can. But it has to be a genuine escalation -- "she never loved you!" or "I am your father!" -- not de-escalation.

-Vincent

These are some example of how I play these things in DitV. I think this is DitV "by the book". Vincent, correct me if I misunderstood something.

1) John (NPC) is talking to Derek (a Dog) across the street. It's a talking conflict (Derek intimate to John to give up his gun). Then, as a raise, John shoot Derek. If Derek jump behind a barrel to protect himself, even without shooting, he get the dice for the escalation to shooting. But his words still do only d4s fallout (talking)
2) Same situation, but Derek stay still. He ignores the bullets, and "parry" with words (he prays, or say something to John that make him miss the target). Derek doesn't get the escalation dice.
3) In more difficult cases where it's difficult to judge if someone escale or not, I let the player decide. Sometimes they want to win a conflict without escalating, as a sort of "faith" statement.

Same situation, but they start shooting without talking.  So they both are in a shooting conflict and do d10s fallout . When it's his turn do do another raise, Derek stop shooting and call John across the noise of the other's guns. "John, if you surrender, I will be merciful. But if you will shoot even one more time your guns against the Lord's justice, I will kill your entire family in front of your eyes before putting you out of your misery!"  This is a escalation, Derek gets the dice for the escalation, but the fallout he inflict drop to d4s (talking).

Same situation, but Derek say instead "please, surrender". It's not an escalation, it's not even a valid raise, John can (and will) ignore it. Derek must do a valid raise or leave the conflict.

Close enough! I don't play with your #2. When I play, acknowledging the gunshot at all -- seeing the raise in any way -- counts as escalating to gunfighting. But the way you're doing it won't break the game, so that's fine.

-Vincent

It seems like number 1) makes the choice to escalate more meaningful.  The opponent(s) always get the dice, too, so there's always both narrative and mechanical risk to escalation.

Yeah, that does make much, much more sense.  I like your take on it, Moreno -- puts things into perspective.