[DitV] Questions! 2. About rules
Filip Luszczyk:
Quote
I'm curious how often Dogs GMs end up rolling several pools of dice at once in a game? I've never done it, thus far, because unless the NPCs are at odds, I just frame them as one source of opposition (and my Raises can come from any NPC's mouth, as appropriate).
We used to do this in our early games - because that's how you do it in trad - and for the whole time, I've been wondering why the dice math breaks in group conflicts, silly me. Only once I've found a clarification on the matter in some old and dusty forum thread, things started to make sense and the purpose of crowd rules became clear. It's the first time since then I see anyone mention this.
However, that's funny how we've been discussing that initial misinterpretation again in our group just a few days ago. While the manual doesn't say it's "one character = one pool = one Raise", it also doesn't state that it's "one person at the table = one side = one pool = one Raise" explicitly, though there might be examples implicitly illustrating that. With gaming background in systems like Exalted or 7th Sea, it seems especially easy to read group rules as extras rules. I wonder if the mistake is more common out there, outside the indie ghetto.
lumpley:
Paul, okay!
1. Yeah, that'll happen. To challenge 4 Dogs working together you need a sorcerer leading a mob of possessed people. Don't be shy, the game's designed to have villains.
2. When that happens to me, I always point out the least raise I can't reverse -- with your example dice, an 8 -- and more or less tell those players to raise with that. Play fast through those raises. Yes, the dice made those players irrelevant this round; that's fine, but there's no reason to linger on it. Get on to the next round.
3. Use the simplified NPC rules for mobs, if you can.
Decide how many people are in the mob at the beginning of the conflict, at the latest, so you can roll the correct number of dice right then. You can look at your town writeup -- it might be good practice to only count people in the mob whose names you know. Ultimately, though, you just decide. It's not hand-wavy, it's your decision. Stick to that number and let the dice fall where they fall.
Next time, consider splitting the big mob conflict up into individual conflicts:
"Okay, so there's Brother Bowers, the ringleader, and his two sons; there's the little clump of sister-wives; and there's the Granson family off to one side. Any one of those groups might become the core of a violent mob. So Dogs, each of you, which group are you taking on?" Play out all three conflicts. You can play them simultaneously if you want, if you feel like managing three pools of dice in front of you. The simplified NPC rules will make this possible, I wouldn't try playing them simultaneously with the full NPC rules.
That'll be much more challenging.
-Vincent
Paul T:
Thanks, Vincent. That's some great advice. Still two questions, though, before I'm satisfied:
2. How do you keep this from feeling flat and lifeless? If the objective is to get through it as quickly as possible, one might just throw away those dice and move on to the next round. In our case, though, this came up pretty much every round. Maybe because of the seating arrangement, I dunno, but in any case, with four players involved, the odds that the last guy is going to have any chance of making a meaningful Raise are pretty low. It's too bad, because the balance feels really good.
A mid-way point might be: "The NPC can reuse those dice, yes, but must use at least one new die for every See." A little weird, but might fix the problem. What do you think?
The only other solution I can see would be to have the Dogs Raise in order of lowest die pair, instead, or something.
3. When you use the simplified NPC rules with a mob, how do you do it, exactly? Do you take the basic dice and then add some for additional members, or what? (That's what I did here, but I'm not 100% clear on it.)
lumpley:
1. Every round is awfully often. In our group it happened maybe once a session. I'm playing with 3 players, though, and obviously that means it'll happen less.
Honestly I'd recommend making some non-rule fixes before trying to change the rules. Do try splitting conflicts, for instance -- it's fun and good for its own reasons, plus it happens to solve this problem too.
3. The dice as listed, plus 1d6 per additional mob member, at each stage of escalation. So for this guy -- 7d6+3d4, 4d6+2d4, 5d6, 2d6+1d8 -- plus 6 additional mob members, you'd roll 13d6+3d4, then 10d6+2d4, then 11d6, then 8d6+1d8.
It's a lot of dice. It teaches the Dogs that they can be outnumbered.
-Vincent
Paul T:
Vincent,
The mob is cool, and easy to apply, thanks. I'll do that next time!
As for the "pointless Raise" situation with that rule, if you're only seeing it once a session, I'm not even sure we're talking about the same thing. As I see it, it happens any time that a Dog makes a Raise and the NPC Sees, AND the next Dog to Raise cannot make a bigger Raise than the previous Dog. And even with three players, it seems to me like that would come up at least half the time, no?
In-game solutions like splitting a conflict into two or more are great, but this problem happens just as badly when it's three Dogs ganging up on that one old lady, so I need to figure out how to fix it before I use it again.
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
[*] Previous page