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Author Topic: Dogs  (Read 3557 times)

WillInNewHaven

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Dogs
« Reply #30 on: July 28, 2017, 01:16:41 PM »
As Sotakss points out, it is difficult to keep this system independent.
Edgewise, you are running for a party of thieves. If your thieves are high-level, this might not be true, but the dog's perception might be better than theirs if it is dark and/or there is a lot of cover around. As an example from my own system, Awareness (the same idea as Perception) is rolled on % dice and rolling below your Awareness score is a success. This is adjusted by giving the character a number of rolls, depending on circumstances.

In the open when spotting someone or something on the horizon, a human might get three rolls, a human on horseback can see farther, so he gets four. The dog, being on the ground and not having such good eyesight might get one roll or might have to roll twice and make it both times. Generally, I would not bother rolling for the dog unless the humans had all failed and it would be tragic if no one saw what is there to see.

On the other paw, if some men and a dog are moving down a dark alley at night and what they have to spot is behind what looks like a random discarded easy chair, I would probably give each humans one roll and the dog three or four, four if the dog had been trained to alarm on the specific kind of being that was hiding there.

If your thieves ever enter residences where they aren't wanted, the Awareness/Perception of any resident dog(s) ought to come into play.

Skarg

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Dogs
« Reply #31 on: July 28, 2017, 05:06:04 PM »
Quote from: WillInNewHaven;978754
Yes, I wanted to talk about dogs in an RPG, particularly fantasy, environment.  I didn't think that the subject had been adequately and accurately covered already and I still don't. I thought I would get answers, critiques, accounts of reader's own experiences without specifically asking for them and I have. Several people have responded by talking about dogs and I find that helpful, even when we disagree. ...

I have played PCs with dogs, and have run games where PCs have had dogs. But I don't play D&D (I tend to play GURPS or TFT) so my context is different. In general I have seen no particularly problematic issues with dogs in those games, as the games tend to be about playing out situations with logical mechanics, so as long as there isn't a problematic gap in how to do that between player and GM, things are fine. The potential issues I've seen have mostly been mentioned:

* In an abstract combat system, how the dog is handled may be an issue for realism/balance. In TFT & GURPS, it's unlikely to be an issue because there are reasonable stats for dogs, wolves, dire wolves, etc., so almost any dog is going to stay where it belongs in stats if the GM knows what he's doing at all, and/or follows those stats.

* If a player wants their dog to be super-canine like Lassie or Rin Tin Tin, they may get disappointed if the GM doesn't want to indulge that.

* If a player wants their dog to be more formidable than a dog in combat, or not to be vulnerable and likely quickly killed in combat with groups of men with weapons, or monsters etc., they may be disappointed when they get killed. To me that's a feature, not a problem. As a player, I have tended to keep the risk to my dogs in mind and try to keep them out of the more dangerous situations. I also accept that the dog's liable to get killed sooner or later unless I leave it behind a lot.

* As with other animals in an adventuring party, there can be some issues of attachment and dangerous situations and how to handle them, which can either be interesting or annoying to different players. i.e. Keeping them alive may mean keeping them out of certain situations, which means making arrangements to split from them, etc.

* What you wrote about dog senses and behavior and the skill of training dogs and the skills of dogs is all a natural fit for GURPS. There are rules for their senses and skills and carrying capacity and so on. I am not aware of a great article going into detail on dogs (there is one for horses), but there may be one I don't know of. In the games I've played, the dogs who survive tend to get some detailed attention but the GM and player usually just collaborate on how that goes.

crkrueger

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Dogs
« Reply #32 on: July 29, 2017, 05:34:26 AM »
Dogs can see in the dark, but generally their eyesight isn't that great in the animal kingdom.  It's the dog's sense of smell and hearing that is far superior.

You look on youtube and you'll see lots of videos of people's cats sneaking up on their dogs.
1. Many "companion breeds" are not bred for senses and guarding.
2. The cat lives there.  The dog is used to smelling and hearing the cat all day long.
3. Cats are fucking quiet. :D

There is hardly any chance for a human to sneak up on a trained guard dog, from downwind...practically impossible.  There's a reason people have lived with first wolves and then dogs for over 30,000 years by some estimates.

Just think of what people use dogs for now, and apply to your PC.  But remember, working dogs die on the job, even today.
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crkrueger

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« Reply #33 on: July 29, 2017, 05:39:12 AM »
BTW, horses are incredible watch animals too.  If a horse smells something it doesn't know or like, it does like a sneeze to flush it's air passages to take in a deep breath.  That is loud.  If you've never been on farm before, in the middle of the night that shit will wake your ass up.
Even the the "cutting edge" storygamers for all their talk of narrative, plot, and drama are fucking obsessed with the god damned rules they use. - Estar

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Opaopajr

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« Reply #34 on: July 29, 2017, 06:52:05 AM »
One of the bigger challenges about pets of all sorts (this includes Charmed victims, henchmen, robots, & nowadays drones) is the aspect of Player Power Projection Without Risk. There's a temptation that these NPCs become seen as an extention of the PC's thought processes, all tactical rationality included. That's the GM's job to nip that in the bud with keeping the "pet" with a separate sheet and partially retained autonomy. (This partial autonomy is not really possible with mindless drones, but those are mitigated by sensory dislocation, "data noise," and parallel processing response delay.)

What helps GMs roleplay this is when you keep in the forefront of your mind: "outside of obedience to a current direct command, what would motivate me if I were a [insert pet here]?"

That headspace logic helps explore enough motive disagreement with the PC that "pets" no longer becomes a mindless extention to their PC's tactical power. It's system neutral and tends to shut down video game thinking dead on arrival.
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soltakss

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« Reply #35 on: July 29, 2017, 08:44:46 AM »
Quote from: CRKrueger;979264
BTW, horses are incredible watch animals too.  If a horse smells something it doesn't know or like, it does like a sneeze to flush it's air passages to take in a deep breath.  That is loud.  If you've never been on farm before, in the middle of the night that shit will wake your ass up.

Apparently, so are geese. They make a loud honking when strangers come close. My mother-in-law kept geese and you always knew when someone was walking up the road.
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Zalman

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« Reply #36 on: July 30, 2017, 02:43:28 PM »
Quote from: soltakss;979286
Apparently, so are geese. They make a loud honking when strangers come close. My mother-in-law kept geese and you always knew when someone was walking up the road.

And crickets, which shut the hell up when someone's near. As a bonus, crickets eat less and the intruder might not know an alarm is "sounding".
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Zalman

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« Reply #37 on: July 30, 2017, 02:47:57 PM »
Quote from: Edgewise;978851
Quote from: WillInNewHaven
I trained and owned dogs that would have been very useful on the right sorts of adventures but the dogs I have now, Samantha Shi-Tzu and Sophie Iguana's Bane would not be useful, unless chasing iguanas away from your mangoes is a big part of your campaign.


I'm listening...

Me too, I'd like to hear more about those Connecticut mangoes! :)
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RunningLaser

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« Reply #38 on: July 30, 2017, 05:10:20 PM »
Having been around hunting dogs a bit and watching them work, I could see where dogs could fit in certain situations.  I've hunted over some dogs (can't recall the breed, but a type of Italian bird dog) that worked quietly a good distance away and hold point til you got up to him, then flush the bird when you gave the command.  Have hunted over other dogs that would go bonkers and flush everything in a mad rush.  If you do some research, you can find dogs used in hog hunting- something I have no experience with.

Are the PC's using the dogs to find and root out stuff?  Are they looking for them to grab hold of larger creatures so those with stabby weapons can come in and finish the job?  Single dog or a pack?  I've read some hunting stories of guys who would go after big cats with dogs- the dogs did get killed a bunch it seemed.

Oh, and Will- fellow Nutmegger here:)
« Last Edit: July 30, 2017, 05:16:07 PM by RunningLaser »

Gronan of Simmerya

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« Reply #39 on: July 30, 2017, 05:40:35 PM »
Quote from: Coffee Zombie;978678
The issue will be that some players think dogs are sentient, wandering heroes who can fly balloons, deliver babies and understand the essential nature of humanity. They want The Littlest Hobo as their dog companion, and get very annoyed when the DM doesn't allow that.

This, pretty much.  Just like when players want a gunpowder weapon in D&D they want a Desert Eagle, not a "hande cannon," and when they want to play a dragon as a PC they want a full grown dragon with all its powers at the beginning.

I'd love to see players try to bring a dog into the dungeon.  Heh heh heh...
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Gronan of Simmerya

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« Reply #40 on: July 30, 2017, 05:43:26 PM »
Quote from: WillInNewHaven;978564
Did any of the people who have been 'splaining to me how useless dogs would be in combat read the initial post in this thread? If so, what about the dog's ability to sense danger and give an alarm strikes you as useless?

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Oh, wonderful, your dog's barking echoes throughout the entire level.

"Lunch!" thinks the kobolds.
"Lunch!" thinks the orcs.
"Snack!" thinks the ogre.
"Gloop!" thinks the Ochre Jelly.
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WillInNewHaven

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« Reply #41 on: July 30, 2017, 11:46:11 PM »
Quote from: Zalman;979602
Me too, I'd like to hear more about those Connecticut mangoes! :)


Moved to south Florida when I retired last May. We have a mango tree in the yard that produces and _embarrassing_ number of mangoes. I was thinking of running a session like Hitchcock's "the birds," only with mangoes. But I couldn't give figure out what attacks to give them and making them into chutney and salsa solves the problem.

WillInNewHaven

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« Reply #42 on: July 30, 2017, 11:53:37 PM »
Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;979635
Oh, wonderful, your dog's barking echoes throughout the entire level.

"Lunch!" thinks the kobolds.
"Lunch!" thinks the orcs.
"Snack!" thinks the ogre.
"Gloop!" thinks the Ochre Jelly.

That's why dogs trained to give the alarm without barking are so valuable, as I mentioned before. It isn't that difficult a job to train them to do that. The problem comes when you need the dog to bark because you aren't right there beside it and you've trained it not to.

Formidable wildlife has largely learned that a barking dog means "armed men," which is both good, when you want them to run away and they do, and bad, when they've been warned that you are there and they don't run away.

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Coffee Zombie

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« Reply #43 on: July 31, 2017, 06:56:27 AM »
Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;979634
This, pretty much.  Just like when players want a gunpowder weapon in D&D they want a Desert Eagle, not a "hande cannon," and when they want to play a dragon as a PC they want a full grown dragon with all its powers at the beginning.

I'd love to see players try to bring a dog into the dungeon.  Heh heh heh...


Precisely.

So having a dog companion is about setting and agreeing to the expectations. Or, like I suggested, game it up. Dogs are darned clever, a lot smarter than most people give them credit for, and they can be intelligent and caring companions, adept protectors and be trained for a wide variety of support tasks. But they just can't do some things, and training certain concepts into dogs is very difficult. Not to mention many of the "tricks" we can train dogs for do not necessarily work when you add martial combat to the mix. War dogs trained to stay in combat need handlers, they can't understand "attack the weakest kobold, but leave the ogre to the paladin". They can understand "attack the foe I'm pointing at!".
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Zalman

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« Reply #44 on: July 31, 2017, 12:53:22 PM »
Quote from: WillInNewHaven;979676
Moved to south Florida when I retired last May. We have a mango tree in the yard that produces and _embarrassing_ number of mangoes. I was thinking of running a session like Hitchcock's "the birds," only with mangoes. But I couldn't give figure out what attacks to give them and making them into chutney and salsa solves the problem.

Ha, congratulations. I grew up in South Florida myself, so I'm well-familiar with the Attack of the Mangoes. A miasma power wouldn't be far-fetched.
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