Nephon Sector One-Shot

For the one-shot, the players will be Lawmen, dispatched by the Toko central government to patrol the Hero system.

We'll be using the Dogs in the Vineyard system; this is the trial run, so show up or be the loser who had to ask his friends what happened in those R-rated movies his parents didn't allow him to see!

The Role of the Lawman

Lawman Authority

• Lawmen are, by law and by the might of the Toko Authority's armies, allowed to bring to trial, judge, and punish those who break the Law.
• Lawmen may enter any person's property, provided they follow courtesy and notify the resident
• Lawmen may perform legally binding marriage ceremonies
• Lawmen may strip any person of their government post, title, and stipend
• Lawmen may award any vacant government post, title, and stipend to any fit person until such time as the next local elections
• Lawmen may use lethal force when defending themselves or interests of the Toko Authority

Lawman Duties

• Lawmen often carry express mail that has not yet departed for their destination system
• Lawmen carry current news, and are expected to dispense it in a public location for all to hear
• Lawmen are expected to hear petitions, and to either approve them with their patrol's fund, or bring them before their superiors

Lawman Training

Lawmen all go through rigorous initiation to prove their competence, judgement, and humanity. The Lawmen aren't blunt instruments. If the Toko Authority needed force, they'd send soldiers. Instead, a Lawman's job is to ensure that the social machine functions properly, and if neccesary, to determine to what extent Toko's law must shift to accomodate the changing environment.

Lawmen are ultimately responsible for ensuring Toko power; thus, while they're empowered to bend the rules to ensure compliance in a locality, they cannot break the rules. Punishments and pardons are expected to be carried out so as to maximize the impression (favorable or otherwise) of the Toko Authority as powerful, while still keeping the settlement and its people intact and productive.

The Test

Since the responsibilities put upon a Lawman are grave, rigorous screening is conducted to ensure that all Lawmen have the neccesary measure of judgement. Before gradutating the Toko Law Academy, candidates are put through "the Test": an amorphous, difficult examination. It has no set parameters, and no way to prepare for it; each Test is tailored for the individual Candidate. While politicking is common throughout the Nephon Sector, it is in this arena where personal grudges are strictly forbidden.

The Cast

The cast is simply the crew of the Bishamon, a low-level Toko patrol boat. The first one to arrive on the night of play will be the captain; we'll create characters and ties between them as people arrive, then we'll start into the scenario.

The characters will all be Toko Authority Lawmen, more or less the "Federal Marshals" of the Nephon Sector. How long they've been on the Bishamon, how long they've been Lawmen, and other particulars will be up to the group as we create characters.

The Mission

The Bishamon has been deployed to bring to justice a notorious criminal, Curtis Sunfield, wanted for several robberies of corporate and government interests across the planet of Hero V, the only habitable planet in the Hero system. Current intelligence places him at the town of Best Girl on that planet.

The Bishamon

The Bishamon is an older patrol boat; the fact that it has such a distinguished name is something of a joke among the Toko Authority.

It's rumored that the same joke is what keeps the Bishamon deployed to the reaches of the outer systems, instead of in the core.

Survey

I have a quick question, if everyone, or a few people at least, could answer, that'd be hot like bald britney:

Would you rather:

• Make characters from scratch to see the full power of DitV (I have no idea how this could go)
• Have me distribute concepts, then you guys assign dice to traits and play through initiatory conflicts
• Have me make characters for everyone, dice and all, and jump right into initiatory conflicts

Thank you for your valued input!

--Jason 18:02, 20 February 2007 (MST)Nothing could be less hot than a bald woman. That being said, I think you should make the characters and distribute them as we arrive. Once we know how the system works we will have a reasonable idea how to make characters, assuming we choose to use this.

--BenofZongo 18:56, 20 February 2007 (MST)I'm okay with any of the options, but from running one shots it's been my experience that time is always in short supply. My reading of the DitV rules does not in any way suggest that this is a "neat and quick" character generation system: ie, I would be very impressed if we actually started play before 10pm if we make characters on the spot. Even the initiatory conflicts for seven people are likely to take 30min-1hr total. I vote having you make the characters completely.

--Matts 19:15, 20 February 2007 (MST)My concern with doing that is that it sells the system and you guys short a little. Character creation is supposed to be a communal thing; people helping each other with the traits they want, etc. There's no math, and maybe 15 total things to allocate at the upper end. I'm not too worried about time.

I am worried about springing something on the group with scary enthusiasm, and putting people off. So I mainly want to get a sense for people's comfort zones, like, would people be really weirded out if the first thing they have to do is create a character?

The initiatory conflicts we certainly won't go without, since they're integral to getting your feet wet to the system and attached to the character.

Maybe we'll do it like this: Anyone who gets there earlier than X time can fiddle around with making a character; anyone who gets there later can take one I've made.

--BenofZongo 19:24, 20 February 2007 (MST)Look, if you want people to make characters, have us make characters, don't take a survey. Everybody loves making characters, it's the first thing that gets people psyched about a game, so nobody's going to complain if that's part of the game intro. I'm not sure what you mean by "helping each other with the traits they want..." so obviously I will need some guidance in terms of how characters are made. But frankly, it's your one shot, so spend it however you want, especially since your stated goal is to a.) test out the system and b.) introduce people to your game world.

--Edmiao 23:48, 20 February 2007 (MST) I'll be honest, i am not going to get around to reading the 160 page manual before friday. thus I will show up and have no idea what is going on. I'm gonna go out on a limb here and guess that this is true for some other people. If so, then you are already goijg to spend an hour explaining the rules to us. If we want to see the game in action, then we're gonna have to play it, and spending hours coming up with characters will slow us down significantly. Besides, the fun of making a character is coming up with a concept, personality, backstory, and secondly fitting that idea into the rules. The fun part takes time.

--Dieter the Bold 00:10, 21 February 2007 (MST) I vote option 2. Get a group together that will make the one-shot run smoothly, but baby-step us through the mechanics of putting together a character from those concepts. I've read the relevant portions of the rules and am still not clear how things work. Or, pre-gen everything, but then go through character creation with us as a kind of color-by-numbers exercise with the finished products sitting in front of us. That will go quicker than ground-up character creation, but still give us enough of a taste to make an informed decision as to whether we want to roll with this system for the forseeable future.

--Matts 15:38, 21 February 2007 (MST)Here's the deal. At the Bishamon page, I've listed the Bishamon's current crew. I'll print this out, and when we start, you're free to take one of those crew members, but if you like, you can come up with a different idea. It doesn't have to be complex with history and whatnot; we figure (enough of) that stuff out during the initial conflict. We'll then assign attributes, play through the initial conflicts with each one, and then you'll all be dispatched to the Hero system.

--Edmiao 15:48, 21 February 2007 (MST) Since Matt does not like the Hero system, I am going to hazard a guess that bad things are happening on Hero V. Things that can only be cured by letting lose the dogs into the "V"iniard.