DitV Conflict Tips?
Maestro:
Hey all.
I mentioned in another thread, I am a huge fan of this game and the system. However, and I'm sure this has been written about before, does anyone have any tips as to how to keep the game from breaking down with multiple players? My conflicts run super smooth with one player, somewhat less with two, and once three or more characters get involved it just all starts going to hell quickly.
Thoughts and advice as to how to keep conflict scenes with multiple characters getting out of control VERY welcome. I just signed up some friends to play a 4-character DitV mod, and I kind of feel like I'm stretching the limits of the system by including a 4th character. What are some techniques I can use to mitigate the highly negative affects of combat? I'm a pretty creative guy so I've got some ideas of my own, but I want the input.
Also: Do you guys generally prefer to SHOW the DM's roll results to your players? Or do you keep the rolled scores SECRERT behind a DM screen? What are the overall affects that change has on tactical calculations and combat? I want to minimize the amount of time people spend focusing on their rolls, but also don't want to completely discourage them.
I have thought a fair compromise could be, I tell my players what their current dice pool rolled is (i.e. 2d10) but I don't tell them the scores (i.e. 2 and 7). Keep them sweating a little about the challenge level but don't take advantage of their blindness. It also leaves me as storyteller lots of room to fudge things in case rolls turn out making the story less interesting (never a good thing!)
Your thoughts welcome!!
Noclue:
I prefer all the dice out in the open for everyone. Part of the fun of the resolution mechanic for me is knowing what the other guy is holding. Secret rolls change things for no good reason as far as I can see.
As for multiple Dog conflicts, there's been some good discussion of that on the forum lately. Do you have any examples of the problem from your games?
RPL:
Hi there,
I’m also a big fan of this game and the system underneath and in the games I’ve played or GMed this
Quote from: Maestro
It also leaves me as storyteller lots of room to fudge things in case rolls turn out making the story less interesting
never happens :)
A great part of the juice of the stories in DITV, revolve around the resolution of conflict and since every move of that resolution is discussed between players and GM everyone is always making contributions that are in agreement with the definition of “interesting” for the group.
Have you ever had a situation where you thought you needed to fudge the outcome of dice?
Also, yep dice always in the open.
All the best,
D.
Maestro:
Part of me is concerned that dice behind screens will seem inherently unfair. But it's also easy to "gamble" when you can see the other guy's hand. A savvy player should never have his blows reversed - which can in turn make it difficult for Bad Guys and NPCs not only to win their conflicts but sometimes to even inflict Fallout. And that's kind of the heart of the game. I don't want my conflicts to be too easy or predictable because the PCs are comfortable with the numbers game.
Yes, I have had circumstances which have required fudging the rolls, but most of the time it has had to do with my miscalculating the bad guy's dice pool. I'm not saying that I'm a control freak who refuses to let the game deviate and walk other paths, believe me. But what has been problematic for me sometimes, especially when there are multiple characters involved in the conflict, has been judging the appropriate number of dice which the villains should be rolling. There are some guidelines for this in the book but I have also found it somewhat inadequate. Giving my villain groups of mooks and adding to their dice pool that way seems only a halfway solution.
One of the big problems specifically seems to be the flow of combat.
Ex:
Villain NPC raises against the PCs.
PC 1, 2, 3, & 4 all block or dodge to See.
Then PC 1 raises.
PC 2... etc.
And the villain ends up having to see 3-4 separate attacks. Pretty soon their dice pool is depleted, even if they are a sorcerer calling on some heavy Demonic Influence. Am I just doing something wrong here in general? I try to keep the characters in pairs or separate groups to traverse separate story arcs, but a least once a game there has to be some kind of larger showdown. It would be nice for a change if I could get that large scene to flow smoothly and naturally.
Paul T:
If you look at my last couple of threads on this forum, you'll see that I just ran a Dogs game for four Dogs, and it was a bit of a challenge. Some quick notes:
* Definitely play with the dice out in the open. This is very important: having the dice out in the open prompts and encourages escalation on everyone's behalf.
* Reversing the Blow is not a common thing anyway, but you can get it to happen by holding back dice and rolling them in later. Use the NPCs' Traits and your Town Dice for this, as well as props and other helpful NPCs.
* To mitigate the problem of a number of Dogs ganging up on one NPC, Vincent had come up with a rule for use with his Dogs mod Afraid, where you can reuse the dice you push forward to See until your next turn. It doesn't work terribly well, so we adopted a slightly less efficient version, which DID work very well:
When the GM is Seeing multiple Raises in a row, he/she can reuse any of the dice pushed forward to See, so long as each See uses at least one new die from the GM's pool.
This can be handy, for example, for Taking the Blow: grab a bunch of the dice you've used up already, then add a "1" or "2" from your remaining dice. The NPC has taken a severe beating, but their dice resources aren't hurt all that badly.
* I could definitely see letting a NPC opposed by several Dogs take their turn more often. Especially if there's a group of NPCs involved. I'm not sure how best to do this, however. Some guidelines would be helpful here, I think.
* Design your NPCs and your Towns as much as possible to be interesting to the Dogs, as opposed to challenging for the Dogs. If they're aligned on issues, they can always win. Don't make it easy for them, though: have some violent NPCs who are in the right, have some NPCs they aren't willing to use violence against. Scene frame aggressively, if necessary.
If you make sure the Dogs have relationships to people in the Town that are meaningful to them, it will seriously change the nature of the game, and alleviate this problem. I had my players create NPCs they cared about, which I then plugged into my Towns; a friend of mine puts little pictures of his NPCs onto the table before a Town, and asks the players, "which of these people do you know, and why?"
Adds a whole 'nother layer of Situation onto what's happening, either way.
* Multiple NPCs within a conflicted situation can mean several separate conflicts, rather than pushing everyone into one big mess. Have that little scrawny kid try to steal the nearest Dog's gun while the others argue with the Steward.
* Given all these things, it might take a Town or two for the situation to develop enough to get truly interesting--let the game build with some early successes, and see where that leaves the Dogs turn out a little later...
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