DitV - Rules Clarification - "De-escalate"
carshow2:
Durn - I searched the forum for "deescalate" and "de-escalate," but not for "de-escalation"....thanks for pointing out that thread, Moreno. Any ideas where I can turn in my Junior Webelo Web Searching badge?
My assumption had also been that escalation was one way. My thought was that it might help foster followup conflicts and provide more pressure to call on the demons once somebody had gone all-in on gunfighting and had still come up short. In future games, I suspect I'll allow escalating from gunfighting to words provided none of the other players call bullshit and that it is in fact a bonafide escalation. I assume that will be the exception rather than the SOP.
Thanks for the input, all!
Moreno R.:
Quote from: carshow2 on May 30, 2011, 04:31:17 PM
In future games, I suspect I'll allow escalating from gunfighting to words provided none of the other players call bullshit
The general rule in the game manual is even more strict than this.
From page 77-78:
"— As GM, you should always follow your group’s lead. A big part of your job in the first couple of sessions is to figure out, mostly by observation, your group’s standards for legit Raises and Sees, invoking traits, valid stakes, using ceremony, the supernatural, and so on.
However, the thing to observe in play isn’t what the group’s doing, but instead who’s dissatisfied with what the group’s doing. The player who frowns and uses withdrawing body language in response to someone else’s Raise, or who’s like “that’s weak” when someone reaches for dice — that’s the player whose lead to follow. Everyone’s Raises etc. should come to meet the most critical player’s standards. As GM, it’s your special responsibility to pay attention, figure out what those standards are, and to press the group to live up to them.."
The way I usually explain this, is the "eyebrow rule": if even one player raise an eyebrow hearing a raise or a see, that raise or see isn't legit. Even if that player didn't complain openly.
It's a utopia, of course. The GM has already so many things to do during play that asking him to become a sort of Carl Lightman (Tim Roth in "Lie to Me") at the table, and be able to detect even unspoken problems, is a little too much. And it open him to the risk of becoming too much of a Mother Hen, worrying too much about some body language that maybe has nothing to with the last raise. (and I personally dislike any rule that make the GM responsible for the entire group enjoyment of a game. The players have been given a mouth by the Lord of Life, they should use it) But if you don't fall in the mother hen trap, it's a good way to empathize the fact that the rules, in DitV, don' tell you what is acceptable or not in a raise or a see. The rules only say HOW raises and sees are to be played, brought into play, their numerical and mechanical effect, but the range of acceptability is decided by the entire group. And not by a majority vote, but by the fact that every raise and see has to be acceptable by every single player at the table.
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