[DitV] GM determined Sin
lachek:
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In Indy Pete's posts here:
http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/index.php?topic=25901.0
and here:
http://www.ukroleplayers.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=3343
he uses an example of a town preacher declaring the Apocalypse is coming and the sign will be the arrival of the Four Horsemen of the Adversary. Naturally, the four Dogs ride in shortly thereafter. In the posts, he's also stating that he, the GM, will have predetermined the Truth of this statement: the preacher is, or is not, prideful; is, or is not, a sinner; is, or is not, a sorcerer.
It was mentioned that if the GM decides that the statement about the Dogs being the Four Horsemen is true, he is breaking one of the most basic rules of Dogs - laying judgment on the PCs. This is important.
An underlying fact of DitV is that the Dogs are given ultimate authority to interpret the Book of Life. In the fiction, their word is law in the eyes of the King. It is possible for the Dogs to be punished by the Faith Elders, but the GM is kind of discouraged from doing this - the players should be encouraged to make their own judgments, not figure out what judgments are the correct judgments according to the GM's plan.
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Here's the important bit, and my question. By going through town creation and establishing demons and sorcerers, the GM is establishing the Truth about what is and what is not a Sin in the eyes of the King of Life. The Dogs could work against the sorcerer, and they would be right to do so - or the Dogs might be misled by the sorcerer and work with hir, and they would be wrong.
As far as I can see, this is non-negotiable fact - as non-negotiable as a Detect Evil spell in D&D. Does he have sorcerous powers? If so, he's a sorcerer, and thereby an agent of the Adversary. There is a moral choice inherent in what method to deal with the sorcerer, but the trail he leaves through Sin and Pride is still a moral judgment imposed by the GM. That preloaded judgment can in essence be an endorsement or a denouncement of the players' choices, when they get around to dealing with the sins.
Is this the way DitV is intended? It seems that by being flexible with Truth is a method of ensuring that the players always make choices that are sound in the eyes of the King of Life, and therefore they truly are His agents. On the other hand, that's a little like playing D&D with infinite hit points. It seems to me that if all choices you make turns out for the best, it won't make for any better play experience than if the GM maneuvers to have all your choices turn out for the worst.
Can someone clarify this for me, and how it [is supposed to] work?
lumpley:
What makes a sorcerer a sorcerer is the fact that he's promoting his own agenda against the survival of his community. What gives him sorcerous powers is that he's a villain, not that he's an agent of the demons. The demons follow him, remember; he doesn't adopt their agenda, they adopt his.
The Dogs don't always make choices that are sound in the eyes of the King of Life, because there is no King of Life. The GM is obligated to play the game as though there were no God (that's what "don't play God as an NPC" means). Accordingly, always, maybe working with the sorcerer is the right thing to do. Yes, he's objectively a villain, promoting his own agenda against the survival of the town. Maybe working with him is the right thing to do anyway! I don't know, and the game mechanics will never decide that for you, and in fact you will never know either. Nobody decides what's right and wrong. Instead, the Dogs do what they do, and we all get to have our own non-binding opinions about how it turned out.
So now. Once play starts and the Dogs arrive in town, all bets are off. The GM can't decide that the Dogs are the Four Horsemen - there are no Four Horsemen any more than there's a King of Life. What the GM can do is reveal the town in play, play the NPCs with passion, and drive toward conflict.
With that correctly in place, a town where the steward has been preaching that the Dogs are the bringers of apocalypse? Awesome.
-Vincent
oliof:
I'll write up that town.
lumpley:
Somebody do one where the steward's a sorcerer, and somebody do one where he isn't?
-Vincent
John Adams:
Quote from: lachek on March 11, 2008, 06:11:20 AM
Here's the important bit, and my question. By going through town creation and establishing demons and sorcerers, the GM is establishing the Truth about what is and what is not a Sin in the eyes of the King of Life. The Dogs could work against the sorcerer, and they would be right to do so - or the Dogs might be misled by the sorcerer and work with hir, and they would be wrong.
Vincent already answered this, but I think it's a deep and fascinating topic so here's my two cents.
You are a free moral agent. You decide what is right and what is wrong. You cannot escape this, you MUST choose. You can say "God said X, Y and Z are wrong" as a (debatable) fact, but you still must choose to accept God's values as your own and that is a moral choice.
In DitV, the book lays out a moral code and the GM creates a town full of people in conflict with that moral code. The Dogs show up and judge the moral code by interacting with these people and situations. Dogs live where the rubber meets the road: where the Truth Immortal gets applied to real people in complex real life dilemmas. That's where the judgment lies. The GM doesn't judge, he just sets up the board.
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