[DitV] Raising / Seeing question

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[DitV] Raising / Seeing question
« on: February 03, 2012, 05:03:02 PM »
Let's say Alice and Bill are in conflict against each other.

Alice: (raise) "I charge through the blinding rain on my horse! It's a bad storm, near-impossible to see through, everything's just shadows to you."

Bill: (see) "I struggle along trying to find you for a long time, but then the rain lets up, so now I can see!"

Can that happen? Can players take control over outside events as part of their dice-setting? Here, Alice says she's going through this rain storm, but when it's Bill's turn, he transforms it. Nobody in particular owns the rainstorm, and I'm sure you can use it the way Alice did, but can you just change it whenever you like, as Bill had?

Or what if Bill had said, "Your horse hurts his leg. He's not out of it, but he slows down enough I can track you through the rain."

Here's another one. Say Alice wants to get out of having to go stand for judgment in front of the other Dogs. They're saying to her, "We really need to talk to you, and we're trying to be nice about this. You've wasted enough time, let's go." So Alice says, "I totally can't, because I'm too sick. I need bed rest for days!" which will hopefully buy her enough time to think of a plan to escape judgment.

Alice: (raise) "My nausea is so bad, my fever is going up, my vision is blurry - if I leave the bed, it'll be really bad." (This isn't the character speaking, this is the player saying something about her character. She's not faking it, either, she's legit sick.)

Bill: (see) "It's not that bad. You can come out here. It might be unpleasant, but we can still do this."

Here, Alice has invented something about her character. Can Bill do what he just did, and modify that property as part of his See? I see a distinction between this and the first example.

"(raise) I take the Steward's gun and blast holes through the wall!"
"(see) No way, turns out it wasn't loaded!"

or even,

"(see) Yeah, but it's a crappy gun and the walls are thick, so you just make little small holes."

Can the PCs control the weather, the setting, inanimate objects, the sun, etc.? Can they weaken, bolster, or otherwise transform an event already stated? (It's raining, but now it isn't. But now it is again! I'm sick! You're not sick enough!)


Re: [DitV] Raising / Seeing question
« Reply #1 on: February 04, 2012, 03:34:59 PM »
This is potentially a tricky one!

My tentative answer is that the game makes most sense if the players' authority to make stuff up doesn't change from free play into conflicts.

If you're allowed to make up details about the walls while you're "just roleplaying" a scene, I don't see any reason not to in conflict, and vice-versa.

But, at the same time, I suspect conflicts could get a little weird if your Raises and Sees are not about the actions of the characters. Sister Abigail saying she's sick (an action a character is taking), with us understanding that she's also made up a detail about her character we didn't know before, probably works just fine. But if her See involved another NPC getting involved on her behalf or something like that, you could run into weird situations (e.g. a conflict getting resolved without either of the characters taking action at all).

Re: [DitV] Raising / Seeing question
« Reply #2 on: February 22, 2012, 12:22:51 PM »
Nah, but that's part of the fun of the game!  liek a gun fight where one of the raises or see's is "sweat drips in your eyes."

Using description of the environment and activity AROUND the PC's makes the world come alive, rather than having the rest of the world go grey around some technicolor characters.  As long as you're building on the fiction so far, and you are continuing to satisfy the most demanding player, you should be fine.
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