The Slaughter at Corinthton, a Dogs in the Vineyard game
Queen_of_Kryos:
This was the bleakest RPG I think I've ever played in. I mean, DitV is supposed to be bleak to some extent, not rainbows and hugs and ponies (well, there are ponies, but, uh...that's different). Although the first encounter was a bummer (with Malvina), the second encounter was what really broke my spirit. The second encounter was with Leah, her stakes being for us to take on the Territorial Army, and ours being to bury all the bodies and take Harry away from Malvina, who was essentially torturing him. In the first encounter, I saw what the demons could do in terms of dice.
In the second encounter, you picked up another double handful of d10's and d8's and actually said, "I think the demons really want those bodies lying where they are." This proved to me that getting what we the PCs wanted out of that entire town scenario was simply impossible. Therefore, we were left with only a couple of sucky options: leave town altogether and forget the whole thing (which was the most desirable option, but this is an RPG, not real life, and you as the GM would have had to pull another town out of thin air and it was already, like, 11:30 at night) or involve the TA. The problem with the option that we chose was that it rendered us powerless as Dogs. We simply turned what would have been a massive bloodbath into a mini-bloodbath, with only 3 people dying. We learned a little later also, that the town leaders were spineless weaklings in terms of opposing Leah, which was why shooting her was not a viable option.
I had a long talk with Jeff this morning about the game. He had two points: 1.) that you have a tendency to bring a big conflict out early to give the PCs ammo in terms of Fallout for later, bigger conflicts (which can be fine) and 2.) that you roll uncannily well on demon-influenced die rolls. In terms of the 1.), it was a little too big, IMHO, although I can see how this strategy could work in other games. In terms of 2.), well, I think it's the demons thanking you for writing Dictionary of Mu, which is like their yearbook. "Stay cool, man!"
Callan S.:
I don't own dogs. What do demon dice do? Do they get spent once they are used? Or just kind of stay around as an infinite resource?
Could you have just had bad shit handed to you for a conflict or two and that would have depleted the demon dice? Thus putting you back on some game authorship controlling ground? Or are the dogs to remain clean and only go through a particular moral issue if it gets the nod from everyone (rather than it happening because someone used the rule set that was agreed to)?
Moreno R.:
Hi Judd!
Why did the demonic influence were so strong in that session? You were particularly lucky with dice that evening, or the players were not familiar with the rules about helping each other? Three dogs together should be strong enough to beat almost everything, if they can help each other...
@ Callan: the demonic influence dice are 1-5 d10 (in Judd's session, they were already at the max level, 5d10) that are added to the GM's hand in specific conflicts. From Judd's description I suppose that Leah is a Sorcerer in game terms, so she can add the demonic influence dice on every conflict. Starting Dogs have usually very few d10s, so if they have to fight against a sorcerer they usually can win the conflict by sheer mass of dice (if they are 2-3 against one), but have to take heavy risks if the Sorcerer rolled well. Are you ever played DitV even if you don't own it? It's not easy to explain in brief how dog's conflict resolution works...
Judd:
Quote from: Moreno R. on March 07, 2009, 09:47:51 PM
Hi Judd!
Why did the demonic influence were so strong in that session?
Looking back and looking over the text, I think I over-did it on the demon dice. I wrote down what the demons wanted in the town creation and it seemed like those first two conflicts were going right against what they wanted. But in my descriptions, I didn't narrate anything overtly demonic about it.
Yeah, I think I should've laid off the demon dice for Malvina's conflict but threw them on when Leah came-a-calling.
Looking back, that was my mistake.
Bret Gillan:
Moreno, I think all three of us rolled on both of the conflicts in question (though my memory is rusty, Ellen may have sat out of the second one because her dog was uncertain about whether Leah did wrong) and we were still boned. In the first conflict Ellen rolled all 1's and 2's and gave in the first round. We might have been able to win if we escalated but I don't think any of us wanted to shoot Malvina. I too thought that three dogs could take on anything. Having run and played Dogs, I know now that this is not the case. At least not Dogs fresh out of Bridal Falls.
The second conflict I know I was willing to escalate to shooting, but I did the math and didn't think even with escalation we would have enough dice to win.
I don't think you did anything wrong here with regards to use of the dice, Judd. But at the end of the session I know the feeling for me was that we didn't do our job as dogs. We tried, we failed, and we went to the Territorial Authority and asked them to clean up the mess that we couldn't fix. In the end Leah was waiting to ambush the TA, Malvina was torturing a gut shot kid, and we couldn't do a thing to stop either of them.
I know at the meta level any decision the dogs make is the right one, but it feels like we didn't even get to the deciding. Generally it's like: clean up mess, pass judgment, ride out, and we didn't get past the clean up mess phase.
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