Dogs in the Vineyard

by D. Vincent Baker

You stand between God's law and the best intentions of the weak.

You stand between God's people and their own demons.

Sometimes it's better for one to die than for many to suffer. Sometimes, Dog, sometimes you have to cut off the arm to save the life.

Does the sinner deserve mercy?
Do the wicked deserve judgement?

They're in your hands.

DOGS IN THE VINEYARD
Roleplaying God's Watchdogs
in a West that never quite was.

Genres: Role Playing Games, Gaming, Fantasy, Games, Westerns

152 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2004

Reviews

[Jose Brox · Rating 3 out of 5]

Resumen: Una ambientación original aunque poco atractiva y una redacción demasiado informal, pero un sistema de juego genial.

Redacción (3 estrellas). El autor redacta en primera persona, como hablando con un amigo rolero en una mesa, de manera inaceptablemente amateur en ocasiones (ejemplo: la primera frase del apartado "Ambientación" es "¡Simplemente me la invento!"). Introduce los conceptos clave mediante ejemplos en lugar de usar definiciones, lo cual lleva a ambigüedades y errores. En ningún momento describe de manera satisfactoria conceptos clave como "Rama" (¿es un pueblo, un conjunto de pueblos?) o "La Fe" (¿es una doctrina o es un área poblacional? ¿Tienen jurisdicción los Perros sobre alguien que no es de la Fe?).

Ambientación (2 estrellas). Para algunos lectores es lo mejor del juego, a mí me resulta altamente desagradable. Presenta un mundo dominado por una fe religiosa en el que el comportamiento ajeno al normativo por parte de los ciudadanos produce que los demonios se infiltren en el pueblo causando caos y muerte, y en el que los actos de los PJs son ley y doctrina. El autor pretende que cada partida plantee un dilema moral a los jugadores, que supuestamente pueden tomar decisiones relevantes, pero esto no se corresponde con lo estipulado en el manual, que deja clara la siguiente evolución del mal dentro de un pueblo, en la que cada paso lleva al siguiente:
orgullo, injusticia, pecado, ataque demoníaco, falsa doctrina, culto corrupto, falso sacerdocio, hechicería, odio y asesinato.
Hasta aquí puede parecer interesante, pero el orgullo y el pecado están basados en la sociedad mormona, con los comportamientos problemáticos explicitados y tabulados en el manual de juego, e incluyen por ejemplo que una mujer se salga de su rol de género: Es un ejemplo válido, y nada extraordinario en este juego, que la trama principal de una partida sea que una mujer quiera comportarse de manera menos servil, y como eso es orgullo, se producen injusticias... que al final, si nadie para la bola de nieve, acaban en posesiones demoníacas y asesinato; así que los jugadores tendrán que decidir si matar a tiros a la mujer, ahorcarla, o encontrar alguna solución menos expeditiva, si es que descubren el problema a tiempo y consiguen reconducir a la oveja descarriada. PUAJ.

Mecánica (5 estrellas). Sin duda lo mejor del juego es su original mecánica de resolución de conflictos, inspirada en el póker y en los juegos de guardar dados tomados de una reserva. Para seguir activos en un conflicto, los demás jugadores deben ser capaces de "ver" el resultado de la apuesta del jugador que empieza el conflicto y "subirlo", describiendo a la par la reacción del personaje (ya sea en positivo o en negativo), y además los conflictos se pueden modificar y avivar usando rasgos, relaciones y pertenencias. Uno siempre puede rendirse en un conflicto y encajar los golpes, y cada reacción tiene consecuencias diferentes para su resolución. Además se pueden encadenar conflictos.

De este juego me quedo con el sistema, para aplicarlo en alguna ocasión a otra ambientación menos repulsiva.

[Dave · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ever wondered what it might be like to be a gunslinger for god? This is Vincent Baker's revolutionary game about "The King's Dogs", young initiates to the faith who travel the Deseret Territories in the old west; carrying mail between settlements, keeping an eye out for mountain folk who might corrupt the faithful; oh, and meting out the justice of the King of Life on the Brothers and Sisters of the faith- with the Book of Life in one hand and a six-gun in the other. As emissaries of the King, the townsfolk have no higher authority to appeal to than the King's Dogs, so rest assured they will seek you out with their concerns and problems, putting their very lives in your hands. Are you ready to pass judgment? And are you ready to enforce that judgment in the face of gunfire, sorcery, and the tears of the mothers whose sons you've shot down?

Highly recommended for experienced role-players, as well as those to whom the "kill things, take their stuff" or "mope around in the shadows and suck blood" sorts of games never appealed.

[Jules · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really like the setting of DitV but I'm doubtful about the conflict resolution system - I'd need to hear an AP to get a good handle on it and see the added value. We've played a small 'nine sins' campaign of a Christian type of Dogs, and it worked really well. The settlements easily lend themselves to a 'one settlement per week' schedule that makes sessions really tight. Our game was fully impersonal though, which I think is the most interesting feature of the book (and most newfangled Indie Games). Setting up those moral quandries and hammering on them relentlessly and personally really seems to be the way to go to get the full Dogs experience. Oh, and it's a nice read as well!

[Stuart · Rating 4 out of 5]

D. Vincent Baker's indie darling RPG about the moral and physical tribulations of young "keepers of the faith" in a demon-haunted 19th century Utah is very worth the accolades it has received.

My overall thoughts are: "Awesome concept but too complicated for people new to the genre, would make a few tweaks."
Here's a somewhat unstructured review based on notes I took while reading:

Character creation is cool and the introduction to the system as part of it makes a lot of sense. I think this would still scare off people new to gaming/new to storygaming though.

The setting is where the game really shines, so much background and purpose built in. I especially like the “spiritual intuition/predestination” element coupled with the moral ambiguity of the characters actions later. The background material on every Dog's coat was chill-inducing and I think a perfect encapsulation of the game's purpose and the players' relationship to the gaming universe. SO GREAT. Builds a perfect backstory that instantly connects players to their characters.

The whole “how your life is different as a dog” is well-written and interesting and plays nicely with power structures, which was unexpected if not entirely necessary for gameplay. Ditto the “subtler, kinder racism” for Mountain People (noble savage, etc).

Dice mechanics: ”Things your character is interested in” is interesting (ha), I would need to play with this more to really get a feel for how fast/smooth it works. I can see an alternate conflict-resolution system using playing cards that would be easier to learn and more closely replicate the feel of wild west poker.

The focus on relationships between characters, objects and ideas while maintaining dramatic tension and action is a pretty spiffy thing to pull off, and I think Baker does a great job of it.

The Demonic Influence/Ceremonies material is vague and understated in the best possible way and adds to the feel of the game tremendously. I especially like the "sliding scale of supernatural" that allows for gritty or fantastic play.

The character's roles, that of “Guardian of the faith and general helper” feel is cool, focused and relatively unique. The slow and deadly introduction of the supernatural adds just the right edge.

Story games looooove that “when your character is done it’s done” thing. Which is ok I guess. But the samsara-ish roll up a new character w/ same stats plus 1d6 in each pool is interesting. I would probably add a weariness/corruption mechanic to represent the trials and tribulations of the Dogs' sacred duties that would result in characters retiring, losing faith or becoming heretics. Might fall outside of the strict canon but I think it would provide more of a "grim crusading knight" feel to the game.


Fallout: I like the idea. I would want to see it in action, you could theoretically powergame it though by picking traits that give you an extra 1d4 anywhere. Not sure it’s a great negative fallout thing.

Controlling tension through determining stakes (and that being collaborative) is an interesting mechanic, which pairs well with "following the group". However, “following the group” (i.e. the most critical player) to determine appropriate raises/sees/stakes/etc seems like it would require a level of trust and a lack of ironic distance that I think a lot of gamers would have difficulty achieving.

Two really awesome things about conflict resolution:
1) Breaking conflict into split second sub-conflicts seems really fun. Will bog down the overall pace but should create enough excitement to pull it through.
2) “Montage” raises: conflict managed through concrete scenes across like a month of game time. THIS SHOULD BE ADAPTED FOR ALL CHARACTER ADVANCEMENT THINGS IN ALL GAMES.

I should tell you, in an early playtest I startled one of my players bad with this very conflict. In most roleplaying games, saying “an enemy sneaks into your room in the middle of the night and hits you in the head with an axe” is cheating. I’ve hosed the character and the player with no warning and no way out. Not in Dogs, though: the resolution rules are built to handle it. I don’t have to pull my punches!

(You’ve GMed a bunch of RPGs before, right? Think about what I just said for a minute. You know how you usually pull your punches?)

CLUTCH. Arguably the best part of the conflict resolution rules.

The game flow chapters and recap chapters were useful, but should’ve been closer at the beginning.

TIME TO DELVE INTO THE UBIQUITOUS “HOW TO GM SECTION”
Every book has one of these, and they're usually not that great. Baker's is fantastic however.

I like that each town is a discrete entity for a session or two with no other sandbox shit. Keeps game focused, you could play it out for weird/unusual things.

The germination for each town as “what’s wrong” allows for quick creation of scenes and it’s also integral to the way the game works/the game's feel. The town/plot generation allows for some really deep, rich conflict and the setting allows for everyone to be tangentially related. Very juicy. All conflict is going to be sex/money/power, which is fantastic.

I think NPC creation (equal to PCs) is onerous but not terribly so. The proto-NPC rule is cool and you can do it quickly between sessions (during session let’s be honest).

Group-as-a-single-NPC is an interesting concept. I’d want to play with it before I settle on it being good or necessary (fast though!)

Drive play toward conflict

Every moment of play, roll dice or say yes.

If nothing’s at stake, say yes to the players, whatever they’re doing. Just plain go along with them. If they ask for information, give it to them. If they have their characters go somewhere, they’re there. If they want it, it’s theirs.

Sooner or later — sooner, because your town’s pregnant with crisis — they’ll have their characters do something that someone else won’t like. Bang! Something’s at stake. Launch the conflict and roll the dice.

Roll dice or say yes. Roll dice or say yes. Roll dice or say yes.

ALSO CLUTCH

Overall, I’d be willing to play it, which is more than I can say for most of the rules I read. I don't know if my regular group would be into it though. At first, at least.

[Alexander Lenz · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a fantastic way of revealing the subtle and often terrifying assumptions and lies people told themselves. Great concept game.

[Krzysztof · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked it, but I have the same issues with it that I found with Apocalypse World by the same author. "Dogs..." are the weird RPG that's clearly very narrative-focused and can potentially be a sublime experience, but at the same time it's saddled with very unintuitive mechanics which - after the first read-through - seem like they detract from the narrative more than support it. I'm sure that if you play a session or two of the game, you'll find that those mechanics are not a big deal after all, but they just don't make the best first impression.

It doesn't help that the setting is very specific, and while that's a strong point of the game on one hand, it requires a lot of previous knowledge from both the GM and the players to work. I'm sure that with a dedicated group the world of Dogs in the Vineyard comes to life, but finding a group that's this determined might be a challenge.

I hope I get to play this game in the future. For what it's worth, its mechanics are still less "narrative-driven but very rigid" than it's the case with Apocalypse World.

[Liam || Books 'n Beards]

What a wonderful little system! I can't wait to have a crack at running this someday.

[Jason · Rating 5 out of 5]

I discovered indie RPGs in late 2015 when I finally played my first game of Fiasco. Since then I have been educating myself on what has been going on in RPGs for the last 15 years. Dogs in the Vineyard is of course on every indie RPG shortlist, and given how much I loved Apocalypse World, I knew that I wanted to read Dogs as well. I was lucky enough to find a used, affordable print copy of Dogs on the Half-Priced Books website, and I couldn’t be happier that I did.

I am a big fan of not only Baker’s design aesthetic but of his writing and of his ability to present complex ideas both simply and thoroughly. Dogs is a mere 155 pages, and while that may sound like a lot to some, it is a pretty slender volume to detail every aspect of a game, and an historical game at that. Since Dogs is about Mormon culture in the mid-19th century, Baker has to impart not only the rules and the basics of the setting, but the particulars or Mormon culture which is the basis of the entire dramatic center of the game. It’s a pretty amazing feat. The details are enough to spur the imagination and to give a solid foundation to let you run the game while at the same time being loose enough to avoid suffocating the player and putting them into a panic about what they *don’t* know. I have never been a part of the Mormon Church (or any church) and I have not studied the American West extensively, but I feel perfectly capable of GMing this game.

The conflict resolution mechanic is a thing of beauty. I understand that it can be a bit fiddly to get used to, and if you are a player who likes an immersive environment, this will probably not be your game. I am much more interested in the story at a higher level than in immersive play, and I love how this mechanic allows you to play out a conflict beat by beat. That you can then escalate the conflict in order to get new dice at a chance to gain ground in the conflict is gorgeous. I love that he includes an additional chapter on the ways the resolution mechanic can be used to solve a number of initially troublesome circumstances as well as ways to stretch the mechanic for more flexible storytelling. I am not usually a fan of games with dice pools, but I love how Dogs uses them.

Vincent Baker makes Dogs in the Vineyard a model of how an RPG text should be written. Sadly the book is no longer in print, but you can get the PDF from lumpley.com for $15. If you are interested in game design, indie RPGs, or an awesome game about judgment in a wild west that never quite was, this is the book for you.

[Kirsten · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm so excited to try playing this game sometime. It's very different from Dungeons & Dragons and really from any other RPG I've come across. It's set in something roughly approximating the American West in the 1800s, but with a twist to it -- your character is a member of God's Watchdogs, and it's your job to travel from town to town and make sure that people are keeping the Faith. You're basically a religious zealot with a gun, although how you want to play it (are you the good guys, saving the townspeople from demons? Or the bad guys, fanatics who'll shoot anyone who disagrees?) is up to you. If I were to run this, I think I'd do it Gunslinger style -- Knights of the Cross with cowboy hats and six-shooters in a post-apocalyptic wasteland. Hot.

[Mike Montesa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dogs in the Vineyard changed the way I approach roleplaying games. It's intensely character and situation focused, and the way it works out sets up some very cool and often agonizingly difficult role-playing situations. It's the leading edge of RPG design that breaks away from the traditional RPG design tropes in a big way. If you're a veteran gamer and maybe a bit tired of the same ol' thing, playing DitV will be like a bucket of icewater over your head. If you haven't played an RPG before, or haven't played in a long time, DitV is a great way to get back into the hobby of creating cool stories with your friends.

[Ryan Aech · Rating 5 out of 5]

Every RPG game should have a dice or card game at their center which would be fun to play with all the fiction and acting stripped away. Baker's Dogs in the Vineyard has that in spades. It's core mechanic is basically a complex poker game with dice. The fiction is affected by who wins, often resulting with the winner getting way more than he bargained for.
The setting is pseudo-mormon paladins in a West that never was. It is both utterly original and incredibly challenging.
This game is one of five or six which kicked off the true independent revolution in RPGs.
Read it. Learn it. You will be a better gamer for it.

[Geoff · Rating 5 out of 5]

I haven't played it much, but I did write-up a town that I tried to run a small local convention. It was rough, but fun. I'm planning to play this again, hopefully in the not-too-distant future.

I'm currently reading (listening) to Orson Scott Card's Seventh Son, which seems like a really good fit for the Dogs setting. I'll be coming back to it for inspiration, I'm sure.

[Shannon Appelcline · Rating 5 out of 5]

An entirely fascinating RPG. I love the setting and its very conservative ideals, because I can see how they'd cause great conflict and great roleplaying. The mechanics offer up interesting narrative possibilities, and the emphasis on player interest and direction is revolutionary.

It's easy to see why this was a groundbreaking RPG.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very interesting game well worth taking a look at if you're looking for something with mature themes and interesting mechanics. Set in a fictionalized version of pre-statehood Utah, but has been adapted to many different settings.

[Tuula · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you love good conflict and drama, this is your game. Dogs in the Vineyard is hands-down the most interesting and original (published) RPG I've played in years, and I can't say how delighted I was to finally find it at our local game store.

[Stacey Chancellor · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fun book about a game with gunslingers and religions. The rules are fairly simple and pokerish, and the one time I have played it...I had a blast.

[Chris · Rating 5 out of 5]

Would love to play DITV, just need to find some people who were up for it.

[Jim Sensenbrenner · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rated based on reading only. It is hard to see how conflict resolution will play out at the table. Setting is very engaging.

[Mark · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting premise (but one I'm not entirely blown away by) and great concept for a system.