I hadn't realized that DitV invades Southern Illinois was intended just to discuss the specific actual play and scenario that was introduced in the thread, and I contributed to some drift in the direction of general chit-chat & criticism of DitV.

Of course much of this is old territory, but if you'd like to continue the digression, this is the place for it. I'm going to pull some key quotes. Note that I'm editing to make the dialog "flow" better for reading in a single gulp. I also take responsibility for editing out what I think are distractions and misunderstandings, to focus on the issues I think are of most interest.

J Arcane: My distaste for the game has everything to do with finding the concept and driving theology of the game morally repugnant.

joewolz: In a way, that's the point. Like any good RPG, there is a thematic component, a push for story. Castles & Crusades, my favorite game ever, pushes for a heroic story of epic deeds. DitV is made to make you squick yourself out, it's a game about judgment, after all.

J Arcane: So why is being a Mormon lynch mob and shooting people in the head for such horrid crimes as adultery an acceptable pasttime, but RaHoWa isn't? I don't happen to think either are, but for some reason, while both are no less based on noxious belief systems, one is somehow "edgy cool" and "pushing boundaries" or whatever mindless platitude used to describe it on any given day of the week.

Elliot Wilen:Or rather, you can ask: is it the fault of DitV if players have their characters shoot people in the face for adultery? Regardless of whether DitV is "at fault" for allowing this sort of behavior, is it ever okay? Like, if the players believe their characters are bad people? Or if the players themselves feel bad about it afterwards?

J Arcane: The basic theology of the game makes it morally right for you to do such a thing. And expressly says that PCs are always right. Sin is corruption, and you sleeping with your best friend's wife is why the crops are all dying and the well dried up. The Dogs are chosen by God and are essentially Judge Dredd with ex cathedra rights. That's what the game is about. You may as well have asked if it's D&D's fault if the players go into dungeons and kill dragons.

TonyLB: Yes ... if you decide that shooting the guy in the face is what God wants then that's what God wants. It's your fault that your story-universe has a vindictive bastard God. Contrariwise, if you decide that forgiving the guy and convincing him to mend his ways and lead a blameless life, even if that seems really hard (or even impossible) is what God wants then that's what God wants. It's to your credit if your story-universe has a God of mercy and compassion. I've never found that having that burden on your shoulders ... that mandate to define God ... made the enterprise less morally challenging. To the contrary, in play, I find that it makes everything far more difficult. People don't want to stop at the good-enough answer ... they want to figure out what they really and truly believe to be Right.

droog: Going into holes in the ground, killing critters the cosmos assures you are evil and taking their stuff; that's all right. Having the power and responsibility to judge by your own discretion, in a world where good and evil are hard to find and separate; that's not all right. That is very strange.

Elliot Wilen: Here's something bizarre about the game that touches indirectly on what I think of it (in terms of the questions I raised). On p. 68, the GM is given the option of either assigning Fallout normally to NPCs after a conflict, exactly as if they were PCs, or "if nobody cares about the NPCs' fallout", the GM can simply give the NPCs' two highest fallout dice to the players for a followup conflict. What this means, I think, is that the GM has the option of either exploiting Fallout in a tactical manner--the way that players are encouraged to do, using "warmup" conflicts to improve their dice--or giving the players an advantage. It strikes me as completely arbitrary, allowing a GM who plays "all out" (which is encouraged elsewhere in the book) to frustrate players by having the NPCs get more and more powerful as play goes on, but at the same time giving an out for the GM to "go soft" on the players...with no real guidance as to when it's appropriate to do one or the other. This screws up the player's effort to advocate for his character through the system, since the player now has to second-guess the GM when deciding what to do in the middle of a conflict. (If you're inflicting a lot of Fallout but you're going to have trouble winning without escalating, you don't know if you should drop out and pin your hopes on a followup, or go all-out to neutralize the issue before an adversary gets buffed up.)

And... that's where I got called for threadcrapping. I was also invited to raise my rules issue with Vincent Baker, but I'm more interested in finding out how other people understand the game, why they like it (or not), and how they deal with elements that I (and I think others) find problematic. If I read a book and I want to understand why other people received it differently, or if I want to learn something about other people because of how they received it, I'm not going to go to the author who after all is just one person.

Elliot maybe you should link to the threads Warthur started because a lot of what you have posted here has been discussed on those threads. Just makes this kind of complete IMO

Regards,
David R

I enjoy it from a mechanical standpoint.  The thematics in the game are only as relevant as you make them in your story.  They are two seperate arguments game setting vs. game mechanics and in this particular game, like almost all others they are easily separated.

I simply think that the bidding mechanic makes for an interesting meta game to what going on.  Despite what some people claim DitV is a very gamist game.  There is a lot of strategy going on in the mechanics of the game.  It's not the tactical battle map style strategy that D20 provides.  But there is a gambling strategy going on here.  You are just using the story as a way to justify your results.   You can min/max a DitV character as surely as you can any other, you just do it more creatively and without the burden of 100 splat books to sort through.  

In terms of play you I like the mechanics because you can abstract a situation as surely as you can micromanage it.   If you want to have a discussion turn into a debate, and escalate into a shootout you can very easily and generically.  You can, however, just as easily do a blow, by blow, turn by turn knock'em down combat.  The best part is that in either situation you don't have to worry about what modifiers your actions are going to cause.  You know you've either countered, succeeded or failed by the roll result and you get to describe your actions accordingly.  This allows for some fantastic flexibility with the system.

In terms of the vagueness of what a GM can do with NPC fallout issue that is a trust factor.   If you trust your GM you will have an enjoyable experience if your GM is a cheating bastard that things it's a game of Him vs You, then you should stick to wargames.  Yes the rules are vague in that area, but it doesn't make them ineffective.

Quote from: David RElliot maybe you should link to the threads Warthur started because a lot of what you have posted here has been discussed on those threads

Yep. That would be this: New review of an old whipping boy...

Edit: fixed URL

On your specific rules issue:  Can you get me the phrasing in your edition (I'm still back in first ... I like Vincent, but not enough to buy the game twice) that convinces you that whether the NPC takes fallout or not is a GM decision?  Because from the bit you quoted, it looks to me like it's asking whether any of the players are interested in that NPC.  That's a bit different from a GM fiat sort of deal, but you're the one looking at your copy of the book, so ....

Section on Followup Conflicts. Starts with defining what can be considered a Followup Conflict, describes Cutting Your Losses, then

QuoteAs the GM, I get an extra option, and it’s a good one. If nobody cares about my NPCs’ Fallout, when I roll my Fallout Dice, I don’t calculate and choose Fallout. Instead, I simply give you the two highest dice to add into your side of the new conflict. You don’t reroll them, just put them straight in with your own dice. They’re the advantage you carry into the follow-up.
If anyone does care, I roll and assign Fallout as usual.
Later on, I have your character’s brother hire some thugs to go burn down the shopkeeper’s store. We play it out as a conflict and your character fends them off and manages to corner one in a nearby stable. There’s lots of hitting and even a couple of shots fired during the conflict, so I have some ugly Fallout Dice: 6d6 and 3d10; when I roll them the two highest are a 6 and a 9 — but nobody really cares whether this thug is hurt or killed, nobody’s going to keep track of his Traits or Relationships.
You launch a follow-up conflict; what’s at stake is whether this captured thug reveals that your character’s brother is behind the attempted arson. So instead of giving the thug his due Fallout, I give those two highest Fallout Dice to you for the follow-up conflict. You roll your character’s Acuity and Heat and then I pass them over.
Frankly, an extra 6 and 9 for you to Raise me with? I don’t like my odds.

Note that in many cases this rule can't be invoked at all, which means a tactically skillful GM who plays all-out will be more likely to have the NPCs get stronger & stronger. Maybe this is a product of inept players, but I was under the impression that "getting into minor conflicts and using Fallout to improve your chances for later ones" was a standard tactic.

Edit: note it says the GM has the option, provided the players don't care about the fallout. Well, as a player, I'll say "I don't care about the fallout" whenever it's of a type that can be used to improve the other person's dice. Now the GM has the option.

Thanks!  That does make it more clear.

And, yep, I see and agree that it's the GM's option.  Only reason not to do it (really) is if you don't like the paper-work.

So what's the long-term downside?  If the GM uses this at every conceivable opportunity ... isn't he, at best, not losing ground?

What I mean to say is, yeah, great ... an NPC gets fallout.  That will hopefully balance the benefit of at least one Dog also getting fallout from the same conflict.

What's your worst-case scenario here?

So I'm running a Dogs game right now, and I end up using that fallout rule quite a bit.

Simply put: I don't care to track the NPCs stats too closely.  Does it make the game a little easier on the Dogs? Yes. That doesn't really matter, though. If I want to make life hard in a mechanical manner, I'll throw a demonically possessed hating-and-murdering sorcerer at them, roll 5d10, give on my go, keep the 10, then get one of the Dogs alone and start a new conflict, farming that 10 into it, with a fresh 5d10 and (from the possession) super-sized fallout to go with it.

Admittedly, that's not a set of techniques I'd expect everyone to get right off the bat...

yrs--
--Ben

I've played about 2 dozen sessions of Dogs now, and I have always found that rule contrary to the spirit in which I "don't have to pull [my] punches" as GM.  I don't exercise the option to give the PCs my fallout, because I care, and I'm a player too.

Quote from: TonyLBSo what's the long-term downside?  If the GM uses this at every conceivable opportunity ... isn't he, at best, not losing ground?

What I mean to say is, yeah, great ... an NPC gets fallout.  That will hopefully balance the benefit of at least one Dog also getting fallout from the same conflict.

What's your worst-case scenario here?

That the Dogs don't gain ground. Basically, I feel I've been misled by interpretations/analyses of the game which suggest that the way to "win" within a scenario is to first engage in some smaller conflicts and use the fallout from those to boost your dice.

And actually I think the Dogs can lose ground, especially if the conflicts aren't framed carefully and the Dogs "win" while handing the opposition a bunch of fallout without getting much themselves.

I'm thinking especially about a situation in the last game I played, where we were confronting a man who regularly beat his wife. I argued he wasn't being a good steward of his family, that he needed to get things in order, and regular beatings weren't "order". Don't remember how far it escalated, but the guy eventually gave in. Then the next conflict, announced by the GM: "Okay, he stops beating his wife. Does he kill his wife?" Now if I recall correctly, we won this pretty easily (basically going straight to violence; I don't remember if the GM played the conflict all-out or gave quickly for whatever reason), but in principle a player could be wrong-footed by not properly timing a switch from "playing to get 'good' fallout" to "playing to win the conflict".

I'd have to separate the mechanics, which seem very cool, from the setting and implied morality.  You can talk all you want about player choice and how you play the game, but repetively reinforcing the morality of the Dogs by making them the center of attention raises questions for me.

I could say the same thing about playing evil character's in D&D depending on how they are played.  What crosses the line for me, and these things are certainly matters of degree not of differences in kind, is that the mentality and extreme punishment "morality" expressed in Dogs is still very much alive in certain Mormon sects in the southwest US.  Where raping a 12 year-old girl is not considered rape but a just punishment for her disobediance for not marrying as told.

To set up a game where you are one of these "Dogs" (a historical group very much idolized by said same sects) associates a real present day evil with a "cool" and "edgy" game.  It serves to legitimize it by presenting it as anything less than totally unacceptable.  Read Under the Banner of Heaven and you may see that the morality in Dogs is not so harmless.

I'd also ask you to imagine what you would say to one of the victims of such sects if they found out your were playing a game where you take on the role of a Dog.    

To someone who grew up in the southwest US and knew a girl in highschool that had grew up in one of these sects, such things are no game to them, the fear and violence are real.*  I know I'm very new here, but if you got to know these people and hear the horrors they live through, I just can't see how you could play a Dog.  

(*it was mainstream Mormon familiy that got her away from all that)

Quote from: XantherTo set up a game where you are one of these "Dogs" (a historical group very much idolized by said same sects) associates a real present day evil with a "cool" and "edgy" game.  

Can I have some info on that?  I thought the Dogs were made up.  Links would be nice, but books and articles are good, too.

Is Jack Chick on to Indie RPGs now or what do you make of Xanther?

I for one could never get behind the "faith-west" setting of Dogs, but I ran a couple of sessions of The Princes Kingdom and also a short campaign in a Mafia/Untouchables setting with it (with the PCs as members of the Family).

But those are not DitV. There are very specific claims made about the way that Dogs works, which don't necessarily apply to variants.

Hmm...characters doing stuff, which is always considered "morally right" and in tune with the ethos of the setting...

How is it different, if you do it one time in the name of religion and the other in the name of The Laws of the King or Omertà?
I don't see the difference.