"Same World, Different Dimension"

[breibrei]

I've been thinking about the Dogs in the Vineyard system and I'm pretty sure it's really well suited to running Sliders. For those who are not familiar with it, Sliders was a 90's sci-fi show about people visiting various parallel dimensions in search of their home universe, and generally attempting to fix the problems of the universes they visit

Comments

[illessa]

Very interesting, I'll have to read it again when I'm functioning a little more...
I'm not sure the changes to stats are such a great idea, it feels... I don't know, giving a vast array of different actions set stats seems overly complicated, making it entirely GM's discretion seems too vague; it all just seems like it would stilt the flow of conflicts that makes the Dogs system so awesome. Also, how would you work moving to different types of action? Would you be using a modified escalate mechanic or something? Or would it be initiating a new conflict?
That was just the thing that stuck out for me, otherwise I think it's a cool idea, and I'd love to play.

[breibrei]

hmm, for some reason I thought conflicts against situations was specifically covered by dogs, but flipping through the rules, I can't find mention of it. I may have been thinking of Initiation conflicts, or maybe I'm just blind.

Anyway, that's made me think about it a bit more, and I think it may actually have raised some more questions, so I'll run through an example (from "Post Traumatic Slide Syndrome") quickly, to see if my ideas plan out, and to give some context to the questions.

The timer has been taken by taken by an alternate version of Arturo and put in a museum, so Quinn and Wade attempt to steal it back.

What's at stake: Do we get to the timer without being detected?
The Stage: Its late at night the museum is dark, save for the dim glow of the signs above the emergency exit doors, and the light from the torches of the patrolling security guards. In a room near the center of the building, the timer waits in a glass case, its display flicking ever downwards towards the departure time. Not hearing anyone around, you

[breibrei]

continued...
(first time I've gone over the LJ comment length limit)

Of course, that could have gone differently. If the GM had managed to reverse the blow at any point, they would have been caught, at which point another conflict would be started. This may be "can we stop him from sounding the alarm?", which would start as a bluff, and could be escalated to fighting, or "can we get away before they catch us?", or something else entirely.

Another example of a conflict could be trying to get past a locked door which would start as attempting to pick/jimmy the lock, can be escalated to attempting to force the door (physical), then to breaking the door down (fighting).

Okay, stopping now, because this is getting too long and I'm forgetting what I've said and what I meant to say and wether or not I've actually answered your questions. I'll reread this tomorrow and add some more stuff if I haven't actually answered what you were saying.

[davechan]

I believe the stuff on Afraid (lost all my bookmarks, unfortunately, and can't be arsed googling right now) has quite a bit on conflicts versus situations. Also, you may want to consider the Afraid conflict system, which is mostly the same but with a couple of minor tweaks:

Observation (or something...): Acuity
Talking: Acuity + Heart
Physical: Heart + Body
Violence: Body + Will
Murder: Will + Acuity

I think I'd agree with Clare on changing the way stats work together - I think a large part of the appeal of the DitV system is its simplicity and elegance. The ability to scale up from one sort of action to the next is key to how the system works, so I'm not sure how good an idea adding peripheral actions is. As you point out, you can adapt the actual concept of the action to fit with an challenge versus the environment. Otherwise, looks pretty good.

[tehexile]

sounds interesting, i might want to join in if there is a game.
i'm not sure whether the time limit thing would work - is it possible to end up in the same world twice? if so, you could have that randomly happen if the plot in one world finishes too early

[breibrei]

I'm still a little unsure about the time limit, but I think it should work. Some/most/all (yes, my memory is that bad) of Alex's Exiles sessions have had time limits, and it always seems to work out fine. So long as you're flexible with it, rather than time running 1 for 1 with time outside the game, I think it should be fine.

I think in the later (read, crappy) series of Sliders, they do manage to make it so they can choose to go back to worlds they've already visited, but the original timer is described as "spinning a roulette wheel with an infinite number of slots", so I wouldn't bet on it.

I'm not actually sure what you're referring to with the last sentence there, but that could just be because I'm tired...

[infinidimincorp]

I think you should play the game through atleast once in its original setting and set up. The good and bad of these mods will seem obvious after that. Also, if you ask around on the Lumpley games forums they will probably have a better idea than we do what would work.