Frequency of "Fast Wrap"?
David Artman:
We had our second session of Tea Creek last night, which generally went quite well, I thought (AP to follow, prolly from GM). There's was, however, one thing that seemed... I dunno, off?... to me. This was the setup:
After a potentially life-threatening conflict, our three Dogs had captured one of the three False Worshipers--the one that nearly killed us last session, and who had killed her own husband in that conflict (via a Block that I narrated!). We take her back to town and lock her up. On to farm #2.
Another rather juicy conflict--mostly talking, the second woman was genuinely convinced that she was following a righteous path by proclaiming herself an Oracle and thereby "worthy" of the blessing of an unnatural harvest in winter. The conflict was won by us when our newest Dog--dangerously dabbling in "shamanism"--exorcised the demon from her orchard, literally showing her the "sexy dryad vampire demon" that inhabited her orchard, to make it bloom. BOOM! An instant return to the Faith, my Aunt Grace.
One last farm to visit, this time with the repentant Grace in tow... the third and last False Worshiper gives on the spot. We look around the table a bit, there's some neigh-perfunctory narration of rounding up the whole town to witness us exorcising the farms" and to generally demonstrate that the town is "clean." What to do with the attempted murderess (and second-degree murderer of her husband)? We all-but-blow off a possibly prideful fellow who's insisting that we kill her as an example--I believe I was the one to dismiss him from our sight.
Two of us argue a bit for clemency--she never intended to kill her own husband and was demon-addled when she tried to kill us (now "cured"). The other Dog figured some public, physical punishment was warranted. We other two Dogs figured a life as a childless, guilt-ridden widow in Faithful society would surely punish her enough.
Then I had a flash of insight (The King speaking?) and I realized we could kill two birds with one stone: The steward was (I felt) deserving of reward for his suffering (he'd had a severe stroke, which we cured with ceremony). The widow needed some public punishment. OK, she would serve on the Steward's farm as a field laborer for one year, after which (if both agreed) the Steward could take her as a second wife. Not incidentally, this put her into the household of Aunt Grace, providing a bit of punishment for her as well (daily reminder of her own fall; possible 18-year-old hottie rival wife). Neat as a button; everyone calls, "awesome" and it Is So. We ride off into the sunset.
My point? OK, all of the above after the second conflict (with Aunt Grace) took place in, like, fifteen minutes. Three Dogs, backed up by a convert, actually showing off high supernatural dial ceremonies was virtually a "forced give" for our GM; he knew there was virtually no way, mechanically, that he could put up any kind of resistance to Three In Authority, with a town full of NPC "things" at their heels.
Does this happen often, with other folks' Dogs sessions? Is the typical denouement of Dogs often such inevitable victory?
Should a Gm resist/avoid "divide and conquer" tactics by his Dogs, as they can pick apart even the most sorcerous townsperson when cooperating?
I'm not critiquing, rather I am wondering if we are missing something in conflict pacing to keep the tension higher.
Thanks;
David
JamesDJIII:
That is a good question, Dave.
Aunt Grace, she didn't seem (to me) to be the sort to put up any more resistance, at least not physical, to the Dogs. She beat you once, at the first conflict - but this time you had a lot more firepower, in terms of Dogs and what you had done to bring in the other "oracle".
That being said, Aunt Grace was the lynchpin of the oracles. Once she gave, no other oracle was going to resist (Adelia was *probably* the only one to start shooting first). Of course, if your punishment had been, say, summary execution of the oracles, then son, husbands and fathers would push back hard.
It might also be that even the most Sorcerous townsperson, with demons and hellfire at his command, might still not provide a good fight if I roll crap, and don't dig deep for the conflict at hand.
I wold be really curious to hear from other people who run dogs a lot, too.
5niper9:
Hi.
As you said, there is no chance that you can stand against sucha united front of Dogs who are willed to force a certain outcome.
What I would try is to sprinkle the town with relatives and big groups.
The relatives help you to pull the Dogs apart from another. Imagine the cousin of one Dogs telling him "Hey, you got a minute? Let's talk face to face." or something like that. Then you could try to start a conflict and when one of you escalates you say stop and play along the other Dogs while steering it towards conflicts and so on.
Big groups give you more dice. So this is a simple technique to make conflicts more interesting (if the Dogs do the 3-on-1 thing again and again). I always think of "Once upon a time in the west" when the protagonist is "welcomed" at the train station.
Hope that helps.
Greetings,
René
David Artman:
Quote from: 5niper9 on January 17, 2008, 01:07:17 PM
The relatives help you to pull the Dogs apart from another.
Some things I did consider, but didn't post about: your notion (isolate the Dogs) and my own expansion of it (foster disunity of the Dogs' individual motivations). The former is fairly easy; the latter would rely a LOT (seems to me) on the players actually becoming invested in the Relationships--one of my own weaknesses in play. (Hell, the last time I met a relative in a town, I was dragging her into the street and accusing her of consorting with demons before we'd unloaded the mail bags--she wasn't gonna have much chance to get between me and my Dogs.)
Hmmm... but that puts some heat on the GM to seriously ratchet down on the Dogs, to make actually hard choices (rather than pat choices based on clear violations of dogma). Sorry, James! ;)
Quote
Big groups give you more dice. So this is a simple technique to make conflicts more interesting (if the Dogs do the 3-on-1 thing again and again).
Yep, don't let the Dogs divide and conquer. Have more of the rabble in Town around to "assist" the wicked (accidentally, I am sure!). If there's a Final Showdown, have it be posse-on-posse, not dragging each perpetrator, one-by-one, out of their bolt-holes into the light.
Anyone else run into a "fast wrap" and come up with other general techniques or stratagems to counter it and keep the town tense right up until the final shot echoes off the hillsides?
David
Thomas Lawrence:
Co-operating Dogs are super powerful! Whether this is a bad thing or not depends on your perspective and the particular scenario. For instance, if the Dogs are still winning all their conflicts, but they're still having to make difficult decisions and junk and you're still enjoying the game, then great. If it's making things boring for you, you have a few options.
1. As mentioned, use relationships to try and test the Dogs' togetherness. Will Dogs betray their own family members etc. for the other Dogs? Either way it's interesting.
2. In general, try and make your towns so interestingly tangled that there's a good chance the dogs might actually disagree on what the right course of action is. You had some of this already, when you guys were disagreeing about best punishment! So, more of that stuff. Look for divergences of opinion and apply weigh to them. Don't be afraid of using the conflict rules to settle arguments between Dogs (although don't do it if you aren't willing to place the results of the argument as stakes).
3. The GM can make NPCs really deadly if he so chooses. Two effective ways are: sorcerers and groups. A town that's really far gone, with demon possessed mobs of people roaming the streets, can put the fear into even three Dogs acting in total unison.
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