[DITV] White Rock Crossing, my new town
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Both games had three Dogs. I don't think I would change the write up at all. One thing I do like is that there's quite a few folks with sins needing judgement besides the sorceress. Interestingly, in both games the Dogs were merciful on Solomon, talking him into hanging up his coat for good and moving on.
In my home game, the Dogs had a major throw down with the Council and ended up turning the Sorceress into a disfigured mass of burns and wounds by throwing a jar of sacred earth in her face. After that, I gave and the demons dispersed, leaving them with the now whimpering and all too human form of Sister Leah. There was this interesting interchange where the character with heresy in his background pulled his pistol to put her down, the poor, tough street urchin PC wanted to save her and the loud mouthed, meddlesome know-it-all took one look and decided to have no part in the decision. I liked the tension there.
Andrew-UK:
Ran this town this week pretty much as written with the only a few little changes:
They arrived in the middle of a torrential down pourThe dogs found Sr Elianna hanging from the coat before anyone elseSr Leah later possessed Sr Hannah as a way to drive the dogs out
Something very unexpected happened, three of my dogs died and the final one decided he should retire and stay in the town as the new steward. As an ending to a game we all actually really enjoyed it (was very cinematic to have one of the dogs stumble out into the rain and collapse in the mud).
In the final scene the dogs found Sr Hannah in the full throws of demonic possession and between her claws and inflicting fallout one d higher then normal she killed two dogs outright (both players were very unlucky with their fallout rolls). The third dog did a little better but didn't survive the follow up.
Personally
This brings me to one of the problems I am having with the system (its all me its not the game) and this town exposed it for me. There is a lot going on in this town, and communicating that effectively is hard. I have embraced the idea you must not have an outcome in mind (I couldn't have predicted the outcome of this town), but I do think you need to have a number of encounters you can draw on when no clear path is presented. Just so you can keep the pressure up and move the story forward. The ideas I am coming up with on the fly are working but I don't think they are as engaging as they could be. But perhaps I should just let the game stall, and see what the dogs come up with on their own.
I am looking to run Apocalypse World at some point soon, but with its much more open world I think I need more practice.
Conclusion
This is an interesting town, but perhaps there is too much back story. Entirely depends on what your players are looking for. I think mine got a little disinterested and ultimately did something they shouldn't have. But that is part of what this game is all about.
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Hi Binney (do you have a real name that I can call you?). Thanks for running my town. It sounds like you had fun. So, neat!
The town does have a lot going on, but I think the key is to play the town wanting the Dogs to learn about it. I struggle with this in the first parts of the session, but it gets easier as things go forward. I get someone in front of the Dogs who wants to tell them lots of stuff. Someone who has opinions, strong opinions about what needs fixin'. Then I make sure to get someone else in front of them who has other opinions, but is equally active in telling the Dogs what they think.
If things flag, I have tried to remember to look down at what the NPCs want. Rather than have set pieces prepared, I try to just reach for an NPC, look at what they want from the Dogs and figure out how they are going to try to get that right now. I think this has helped me with pacing, but it's still a skill I'm improving.
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I just realized that your name might actually be Binney. If so, Hi. Otherwise, it's nice to have a real name here. My name is James, like in my sig. :)
Andrew-UK:
Actual name is Andrew. Binny is something I picked up, and really should stop using :P
I know just what you are saying about it becoming easier to run as the game goes on. Towards the end of the night it was flowing much better. Totally agree when I am stuck I just look down at what each of the characters wants and go with what feels right for that moment.
Seems I end up with a character coming in, getting angry, shouting a little then storming off to find someone. Normally that is fine, just need to mix it up a little. In this one Boaz was one of the first to see Elianna. Being totally drunk he started shouting and my Dog initially tried to calm him down then let him go. This one worked out nicely because as the Dogs were riding back into town with Solomon, Boaz started taking pot shots at them.
My Dogs loved Solomon. Were prepared to do anything he wanted, to the point they were more than happy to just stand back and let him kill the Elders. That is when it turned bad and Dogs ended up in a shooting match.
On the whole a lot of fun! Got another group starting out soon, going to run this one past them after they have tried a few simpler towns.
Andrew
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