We all know the basics of how a RPG works. You make up a character, that character does stuff. Dice are rolled. Your character is suddenly
horribly burned, scarred deep in their soul, and suddenly deprived of those very things that you loved most about them.
Oh wait, you're saying
that doesn't happen to every character? you mean that isn't the inevitable end of the next session? That this only happens to me because I've a
complete bastard for a DM? Shocking. Or should I say, flaming. Because fire is apparently the cure to all my characters.
Returning to the
original point, it always seemed to me that there is a simple truth to games: Either you're rolling dice, or role playing. When you are doing one,
you're not doing the other. Many times you're roleplaying so that you can minimize the damage you take from your dice (because they do hate you.
Not people in general, you) or maybe even to explain why you are rolling dice. But in the end Dice are Dice and RP is RP and never the twain shall
meet.
In part, this is why there is such a vast range of game styles. You have the ORPers that almost never want to role dice. Then you have
the rules lawyers who manipulate the way they role for maximum advantage. And then what I've heard called "right wing gamers" to whom bluffing a
guard is just a matter of rolling dice. In traditional gaming, each style of play is just a matter of how they are managing the relationship between
RP, and dice. This in part is because dice are there as part of the simulation of the world: they are supposed to be moderators of what you can or
cannot do,dependent on the structure and feel of the world/system you are playing in.
This however is not necessarily true of gaming in general.
And here we then get to the purpose of this (already meandering) review: Dogs in the Vineyard (DitV). DitV has in some ways one of the more unique
systems that's been seen, in that it treats dice in an unexpected and interesting way. It does this by making them storytelling devices, rather than
arbiters of gameworld physics. Details will follow, but let's get some background on the game.
Setting and Concept
DitV is
superficially a western game, but at it's heart it's a morality play. The setting is that of the pre civil war west, but specifically aimed at a
religious state much like that of the State of Deseret. Yup, that's right, Mormons.
Don't worry, this is neither a diatribe against the mormon church, nor is it recruiting material. Rather it makes for a very febrile setting. The
world is made up of stunning western landscapes, dotted with small towns, villages, cities. All of them are linked together by a faith, the
Faith, the faith in the King of Life and his holy prophets, which provides them with direction and purpose. And maintaining that faith, the law of
heaven, are the King's Watchdogs, just called Dogs. Chosen from among the Faithful by the King himself, they ride from town to town bringing the
mail, handing down the latest tenets, blessing babies and marriages, and routing the demonic influences that strike at the people. Gun in one hand,
holy book in the other, the Dogs are there to protect those who cannot protect themselves, to lead those who have strayed back to the true path, or to
excise the sickness from root to branch.
Each session is meant to encompass one town in an episodic fashion. The players arrive, the stage is
set, gunfights ensue, rousing speeches, exorcism, great hooplah, and off the players ride in to the sunset. And here's the lynchpin of it: the Dogs
are the chosen of the King of Life. This means, in essence, anything they choose to do is right. Oh, the terrestrial government in some places may
not like what you do, but they are all a bunch of faithless sinners anyway. Should a Dog walk in to town, look around, and decide the entire thing
needs to be burned to the ground, then that is the King's will. A man sins, and by sinning allows demons to attack the town; you could talk him in
to repentance, or you could just blow his brains out. It's up to you which you do.
In the book, Vincent D Baker (author, game designer, former
Mormon and all around awesome guy) explains that this is the focus for the DM. Present the characters with a dilemma, watch how they choose to solve
a problem, then next time push them. See how far they are willing to go. You're willing to kill that man? really? what if it's a woman? a child?
what if the sin isn't as much? still? The characters are not limited by what they CAN do, but rather by what they are willing to do. After all,
great power, you know the rest.
And it's important to note: because of the mechanics, most of the time the player really can do anything they
want. They have more dice than any NPC's they run in to, and unless there's some serious demonic activity already going on, they are going to be
far more uber than any environmental effects that are going on. This means the onus is not on the DM but rather on the players to decide what they
will do.
System
Conlicts
Now that it's come up, let's talk about the system. Dice in this game are used to resolves
conflicts of any type, be it man versus environmnet, or player vs npc(s), or even player vs player. It is one of the firm rules printed in the book:
either agree or roll dice. Your character thinks that the thief needs to be convinced to repent, but brother Abraham over there thinks an example
needs setting? well, you and he will pick up your dice and figure it out that way.
The way dice are used is pretty simple: you roll dice (soem
combination of d4's, d6's, d8's and d10's), and then you wager using two dice at a time. Baker uses a lot of the vocabulary of card gambling.
These dice are used as back up for statements. So, in the scenario above, you might say "Remember Brother, the King asks only that sinners repent
their sin, and they will be accepted once more in to his light. Knowledge of ones own weakness and failure is penance enough." Backing that up might
be a Raise of two dice of combine value 10.
Brother Abraham's player now has to See those dice with his own, either matching that value or
exceeding it before he can come back with a counter. The number of dice it takes him to do this defines how good or bad his response will be. If he
Sees with only one die (Turning the Blow), then the argument doesn't hold any sway with him. He get's to keep that one die he used and use it in
his following Raise (that his opponents are now going to have to answer). If he can See with two dice, then no harm, no foul. But if it takes three
or more dice (Taking the Blow), then your Raise got through. For talking, maybe you made an argument he can't really dismiss it, or maybe it touched
a nerve. If you're fighting, maybe you knocked a tooth loose, or bloodied him up some. Gunfighting, things get even nastier. The players will
figure out how much damage later, but for now it's just marked down that he used x dice to take the blow.
Once everyone who's involved has
used their dice, those are all discarded (unless someone turned the blow, as mentioned above) and it's someone elses turn to Raise. The important
thing to remember is that every time dice are used, they are used to back up some statement: either an argument made or and action or something. I
rebut his argument. I dodge behind a barrel. Sweat drips in her eyes, blinding her for a second just as she pulls the trigger. The better the
narration, the cooler the story.
Which leads to one of the cooler elements (I think) of this whole system: players are encouraged to give up if
it makes sense. Someone makes a particularily swaying argument? well, sure, I could stay in. Hell, I could even go from talking to punching him in
the throat, but I actually kind of agree. In those cases, whoever lost the argument get's to hold on to one of his dice, to be use in a later
conflict. This is important: in conflicts, the descriptions are just flavour text, they really are the heart of what's going on. People respond to
the description first, dice second. You always have three choices: lose graciously, keep fighting or up the ante. After all, you can pull out your
gun at any moment. Don't like that smart-alec kid but he just keeps wagging his tongue? Time for some tough love, off comes the
belt.
Characters
But where are these dice coming from? Why, from your characters, their backgrounds, their relationships to the
community and their stuff. Character creation in this game is, hands down, the most fun of any system I've ever run in to. Choose your background
paradigm to get your starting dice, and then assign them not to skills and abilities, but to things that are cool or interesting about that person.
The first part is the only part that requires looking stuff up in the book. Dependent on whether your character is more focused on themselves or on
their place in the community, and whether that focus is a strong or complicated aspect, you get a set of starting dice. Those dice are assigned
between three things: attributes, traits and relationships.
Attributes are the most familiar, and are all d6's. Split between body, heart,
acuity and will, they make up the simulation of who your character is. How physically fit they are, how empathic/charismatic they are, how good they
are at noticing their surroundings or reading things, and just their basic inbred stubbornness.
But after that things get really personal.
Traits are assigned not to specific listed options on the character sheet, but to whatever you like about the character. Got a limp? think
that's a defining characteristic? give it dice. If it's likely to cause you trouble, give it d4's. If it's a source of great personal strength,
give it d10's. The player is encouraged to make these points as particular or as general as they like. I personally like to make them personal,
since you can really bring anything in to play whenever you like. Constant five o'clock shadow:2d6. On his 8th birthday faced down a wolf: 3d8.
Mother's favourite: d4. just think them up, and put them down. Do the same for relationships, which can either be to people or to groups or even to
concepts.
Then do the same thing for stuff, whatever you want. The difference here being, there's no limit to the stuff you have or what
quality they are. Just take whatever you want. I cannot explain how much I love this. I get really tired of the strict budgets and endless list of
stuff that you have to keep up to date. Better to just list the really important things: ragged coat, big fur hat, that enormous hand
cannon.
Now that you have these dice, how do they come in to play? Simple. When a conflict begins, you roll some combination of two
attributes: heart and acuity for conversations, body and heart for physical but not fighting, body and will for fighting, acuity & will for gunfights.
On top of that, grab all dice for any relationship thats involved in the conflict. If you're fighting with your brother, grab the dice (any blood
relative you have is automatically a d6, even if you haven't listed it on the sheet). Once you're in the conflict, you can use traits to increase
your dice pool on the fly: you need more dice. Narrate in how you scratch the stubble on your chin, and boom! roll 2d6 for your 5 o'clock
shadow.
Fallout
Once the dust has settled, it's time to count the teeth and figure out who's going to die. Every time you had to use
more than 2 of your dice to match someone, there're repercussions. You're going to grab a number of dice based on the amount of excess you had to
use, of a size dependent on the kind of conflict (d4 for conversations, d6 for physical, d8 for fisticuffs, d10 for gunfights) and roll'em. grab the
top two, add them together. The bigger the number, the more likely you just died. Beyond death, every time you take fallout, you change something on
your character sheet: change an attribute, change a trait, add a relationship, change dice pool sizes, add a die to a dice pool, there's a lot of
options. And each time there's fallout, there's a chance of some positive experience. It's the only XP in the game, so you sometimes have to take
risks in order to develop yoru character.
Final Thoughts
I honestly think Dogs in the Vineyard is one of the most enjoyable games I've
ever played or DM'd. Part of it is that it moves around something that isn't usually so core to a gaming session: why characters act the way they
are. The PC's spend their time exploring their alter ego's motivations, really playing out what it means to believe this rather than that.
I
have heard complaints about how the DM works. The role of the DM is much more constrained than it is in a more traditional game, in that he is not
loading a situation to lead the PC's to their death. This I think is the real difference. A lot of times, the DM takes an existing world structure,
then piles on trouble after trouble, and the PC's need to fight their way clear. DitV is not like that at all. Instead, the DM is asking the PC's
again and again what are they willing to do. After all, with no limitations on them beyond what they want to do, this leaves the PC's with all the
power. Also, Vincent Baker has put in a lot of rules as to how to develop a story, mostly emphasizing doing things on the fly. The game really is
designed for the PC's to take the lead on a lot of things.
And that leads to another point of concern: you have to have players who are willing
to police themselves. We've all run in to players for who winning exceeds any type of rational behaviour. If your players just want to "win" then
they are going to miss the point of the game. It may still be fun, but it'll be kind of soulless.
That being said, I rate this as one of my
favourites, mormons and all. It's interesting to note that the setting is in many ways less important than anything else about Dogs. it works just
as well in any setting where the players take a role of power over everything around them. Quick examples are Jedi during the time of Peace,
inquisitors during the Spanish Inquisition, I've even played around to adapting this for Mages in the World of Darkness. All you need is characters
with a hefty dose of power, and someone willing to make them face the consequences of that power.
Comments: 3
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