Thursday, August 27, 2009

Dogs Interview

I don't normally listen to podcasts, mostly because I don't have time, but I've been home sick with the Bacon Fever the last few days, so I gave a few a listen.

Since we're playing Dogs at the moment, I checked out this interview by "ninjas vs pirates" with Vincent regarding Dogs.

I was impressed with the interview. They'd clearly done their homework, because they asked a bunch of questions that had popped up in Story Games threads from the previous couple of weeks. Vincent was cogent as always (is it just my New Zealand ear, or does he sound just like Adam from Mythbusters?). I think what I found most interesting was how they asked about specific mechanics, and how that contributed to the way the game plays. That was interesting from the perspective of playing Dogs, and from the perspective of designing games.

For my own play of Dogs, the question about "what's at stake" in conflicts was the most relevant. In our last game, we'd had a conflict where it took us a long time to figure out exactly what was at stake. I think we came to the right conclusion in the end, but some of the advice in the interview would have helped.

I'm definitely going to check out part two of the interview.

2 comments:

  1. I've listened to that podcast too, Simon. Thought it was good. What advice in particular do you reckon we should apply to our game?

    Weirdest thing about that conflict you mentioned (I assume it was the one with Major Falk) was that the stakes we settled on were actually very similar to the one I originally proposed. We went with "Does he push his authority right now?", and I proposed "Does he back off?"

    Looking forward to next week. There are about three metaphorical sticks of dynamite with lit fuses in that town (and your character is one of them!)

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  2. I think the podcast covered the ground we've covered with the rules in the last month or so - remembering to push for small stakes, raises being actual events in the fiction, that kind of thing. I think we're good now.

    I'm also really interested in where this town is going. I was talking to Emma about it the other day, and some interesting stuff came up. I think the real issue of this town is "is there a justified killing?"

    I'm especially interested in the emotional fallout of the town, for the characters.

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