thread: 2007-01-31 : NPCs in my Dreamation Dogs game
On 2007-02-20, Jenskot (John) wrote:
http://www.lumpley.com/comment.php?entry=294
NinJ, Vincent, thanks so much for the responses!
I agree about escalation in general. I've run the same Dogs scenario over 13 times in the last 7 months for over 40 different players with players constantly and gloriously escalating back and forth. 90% of those involved have no problem escalating, giving, launching follow up conflicts and more. Escalation rocks!
But I don't want the lack of escalation in this specific example to cloud the playtesting issue. Although escalation is definitely a considerable part of it.
This is more an observation that the new NPC rules act differently than the old NPC rules in ways other than simplifying NPC generation (which may be intentional).
Respectfully, assuming I understand, I don't agree that a conflict where players are extremely resistant to escalate should always end as quickly as possible. It's very much a pacing issue that's highly situational. Some of our finest sessions have had conflicts just like these. They do a great job of building extreme amounts of tension. And we keep pushing it till it's about to burst which makes giving or escalating extremely dramatic. Cut away too quickly and you can rob a lot of that potential energy. I agree that a conflict that is going no where should move on. But the tension building to the point of knowing you are against a wall can be amazing. The dice lend themselves to pacing and tension. These variation rules offer less dice to build pacing and tension for NPC in specific situations. Although they do an absolutely amazing job for streamlining NPCs. LOVE it!.
I like the idea of using town dice. But I wanted to be clear on my intent above for playtesting purposes.
Rock,
John
