[FitV] First impressions using the Dogs in the Vineyard System
Altaem:
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Had the mercs actually fired?
Absolutely not. They also had not pursued and shot down the player firefly even though their own ship was equipped to do so.
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Assuming the mercs hadn't fired, this sets the scene for the PC's to talk, yet get increasingly tempted to shoot. But the players have brought along characters who are inclined to not talk
What I get in table chatter is Donnie's player asking "can I shoot something" and Gabe's player holding him back.
As soon as Gabe decides someone is a bad guy bullets will fly.
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On a side subject - the higher moral ground!?!? If what differentiated the mercs from reavers was they were without the killing and eating, what differentiates the PC's from reavers?? Only that they didn't eat the mercenaries that they killed!? The PC's are fifty percent closer to reaver than the mercenaries who were the 'badguys'!
I like this comment. The PCs are't rapists, while the opening scene established it part of the merc culture to help themselves to the townsfolk women.
One direction I had been thinking of pushing was have the townsfolk making those same comparisons. Much as they dislike even hate the mercs, they've got to credit them with successful defence of the town.
This never eventuated in play due to the player's very heavy handed use of their latest asset. Namely the only gunship on the whole world.
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1- it always starts at talking. Escalation should revolve around the players' choice to do so, not the actions of NPCs.
We've been escalating in all directions. Most often shooting to talking or vice versa. Both players and NPCs have equal option to escalate rather than give.
Noclue:
@Callan one thing that does come throughh in the OP is that the game handled the firefight just fine and that experience, where the PCs just started shooting was one of their better conflicts. That's actually not surprising. Dogs handles gunfights fine.
@Altaem your statement that "the Pcs aren't rapists," while the mercs were is interesting. In Dogs it is quite possible to come away from the game with the firm belief that your Dogs will all their lofty ideals are actually worse than the demons they're trying to defeat.
Callan S.:
Quote from: Noclue on May 31, 2011, 07:57:56 AM
@Callan one thing that does come throughh in the OP is that the game handled the firefight just fine and that experience, where the PCs just started shooting was one of their better conflicts. That's actually not surprising. Dogs handles gunfights fine.
Yeah, but that kind of highlights the dysfunction in how well it works if they just get their gamist shoot-on. I mean equally the riddle of steel RPG handles sword fights just fine as well, without spiritual attribute use at all.
Altaem,
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What I get in table chatter is Donnie's player asking "can I shoot something" and Gabe's player holding him back.
As soon as Gabe decides someone is a bad guy bullets will fly.
I think in a gamist game I'd love to play next to Donnie, he sounds an enthusiastic team player!
But in a narrativist game where he's playing a judge - but he's out of game handing over his judge power to Gabe? He'll only shoot if Gabe judges he should? I think that's a problem.
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Both players and NPCs have equal option to escalate rather than give.
Yeah, it just seemed that the player(s) skipped the talking phase with the mercs and went straight down to the gamist tactical/gamble of shooting. The talking is where the nar fun happens, as I understand it. It reminds me of a game I was in where some ritual to cause/summon a big evil was happening and a baby was a pivotal part of it. The instant one player gets in the room, he shoots the baby (with a mega damage blaster - it was Rifts). He was occams razor incarnate. I never saw it coming and even the GM thought there would be some hesitation. He had no interest in questioning the morality of the situation - he simply executed the move that would win. Which is fine - as long as as GM you don't keep squeezing genuine moral quandries from yourself looking for narrativist play that isn't going to happen.
Anyway, I've said alot. Have you ever done any gaming with these guys where between them they have actually had a discussion (from their characters point of view) about what is the right thing to do? If so, before Gabe gives the red flag to shoot, perhaps remind them of that gaming and suggest hey, perhaps such a discussion would be cool now? I'll leave my contributions at that - good luck! If you ever have a chance to try dogs with another group in the future, I hope you give it a whirl as it might be quite different.
Altaem:
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Have you ever done any gaming with these guys where between them they have actually had a discussion (from their characters point of view) about what is the right thing to do?
Sure have. The most memorable one was a case where Johnson (Donnie's PC) was offered easy money to participate in a slavers raid on an unprotected town.
Gabe (same character and player, different world) tried PvP to get Johnson to refuse the offer and failed.
After the raid Gabe tried again. This time to make Johnson feel remorse for his actions. This time he succeeded.
I had thought it was covered in our play report, but there's only a vague reference.
http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forge/index.php?topic=26840.msg255545#msg255545
In FitV there was discussion too. The problem was I'd set the magnitude of the problem too high.
All the characters agreed that staying to fight reavers and protect the town / world was suicide.
They were in total agreement that saving a ship full of innocents was the limits of what they could hope to accomplish.
Note to self; To create an ethical dilemma, it has to be within the characters power to pursue all options.
Altaem:
Just a quick summary of the story for the session as it's not really what I want to focus on.
The players secure the merc ship as a follow up from the previous session.
The pilot is interrogated and they quickly discover the bulk of the merc forces are not here. They've just made enemies of a powerful organisation.
Having a pressing need to fly their 2 ships out of the area Gabe talks the merc pilot into switching loyalties and joining their crew.
Gabe decides they need to “legally” own the new ship so they fly to the space port looking to capture the merc leader and with him the ship's papers.
They discover a riot at the space port with refugees storming the grounds from all sides trying to force their way onto any available transport. Among the chaos they spot the mercs about to steal another ship.
They swoop in dominating the port with their gunship. A furious gun battle is fought out in which the merc leader is shot and the surviving mercs surrender.
Much to their disappointment they discover the mercs gunship has no papers, it's thoroughly illegal and very dangerous to take into Alliance patrolled space. Unwilling to suffer such restriction to their movement they elect to sell the ship, conveniently to the people who had offered them big money to more their cargo.
Now well off, if not rich they choose to risk staying on Lilac to train the locals to fight off reavers.
We're just assuming that goes smoothly, next session will be set on a whole new world.
Conflicts of interest:
Does the pilot spill vs Does he resist?
I decide this should be a single player against the pilot. Gabe volunteers as he's the one with a tone of talking traits. Koji wants to stand in on the interrogation adding his fearsome presence.
I disallow Koji's stats and traits, but allow his 2d8 katana to be “leant” to Gabe.
Follow up conflict; Does the pilot change loyalties to our crew vs does he fool us and play along?
Gabe's talk dice pool massively swamped the pilot's.
With the threat of Koji still in his mind I have him not risk escalation and instead have him give.
Everyone at the table agrees Gabe won that too easily for the stakes requested.
I agree but I'm struggling with the rules on this point. It didn't seem appropriate to bring the pilots extensive piloting skill traits into play.
Maybe a mistake on my part? Something as significant as changing someone's loyalty should allow them to bring in every trait regardless of relevance. The sum total of a character's traits are in essence their soul.
Despite awarding Gabe the victory here, I think we'll all be calling for follow up conflicts on this issue. The pilot is now a permanent addition to their crew.
The action scene:
Do the mercs escape on a new ship vs do we stop them (preferably by capture).
On the whole this played out fairly well. I think I made a mistake in treating the merc leader plus his entire band as a single NPC entity. This made life difficult for the players as they wanted to apply gunshot fallout to the merc leader while inflicting morale fallout on the remaining band.
In the end I made 2 piles for fallout inflicted and let the player's direct where they wanted their fallout to go. In future I shall separate any NPC characters from their cardboard cut-out goons giving me 2 distinct dice pools to work with.
One action I like was my large raise “The mercs rush up the loading ramp using the ship to block your line on sight.”
Followed by the player's block “Our ship swings around hovering just above the ground, nose guns pointing into the heart of the other ship”.
What other game than DitV allows diving for cover to be an “attack” and sighting through a scope to be a “block”. We're definitely enjoying the free narration of our raises and sees.
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