Okay, enough politics! Let’s talk about violence and religion!
Or, perhaps, about gaming.
Actually, not much to say, except that I’ve about 3/4 of the way through the Dogs in the Vineyard rules that Doyce loaned us (Margie’s already finished it), and it’s been a while since I’ve been as interested in both a setting (grim and gritty circuit-riding holy paladins in an Old West/Utah-like setting — think Valdemaran heralds without the magic horses and namby-pambiness) and a rules set. It looks like there’s plenty of opportunity for conflict and character, but in a setting with enough established tropes (every Western film ever shot, with a hefty helping of fire and brimstone) and a rules outlook that neither the GM nor the players have to go to extraordinary lengths to figure out what’s going on (coughNobiliscough).
I’m still a scosh concerned about how the (nicely built die-bidding) mechanic may get in the way of certain role-playing opportunities or pacing — but I think it will still work better than a similar “frisbee full of dice” workings of Sorcerer. It’s more intrusive, but also more understandable (and, I think, quicker to use).
The character generation was relatively painless, yet involving in the setting. Now I’m looking forward to some actual gameplay with “Suzannah” real soon now, and with more enthusiasm than I’ve had in some time for a new system.
It’s not quite appropriate, but I feel the need to cue the music …
‘splain more…
From your description it sounds like a cleric fest with Colt Dragoons.
What is the gist of the game?
The whole Utah reference is fairly unsettling, define.
Silverado, Kung Fu, Pale Rider, Hang ’em High, or High Plains Drifter?
“Utah” comes from the fact that the setting is closer to Mormonism than to traditional Christianity, though it isn’t exactly that either. It was modified to make for more value calls and grey areas, so the PCs have some hard decisions to make, for example, and to have a set of doctrines that are more easily summarized in a small game rulebook.
Conflict resolution in DitV is somewhat odd and unique… It calls for role-playing within tight limits each twist and turn of the conflict, based on rolls you’ve mostly already made… You choose which of your pool to assign to each stage, so you can build success/failure of the step into your play (intentionally describe a feint or gambit that fails, describe a Haymaker when you put those two big numbers in as your bid, etc.) This is different from most games where you describe intent and dice for task resolution on each step, but my experience with high-level conflict resolution is that the net result is a nice back-and-forth storytelling experience in place of the “I take a swing at him… do I hit?” exchange we’re all far too familiar with.
I couldn’t come up with a character I would like, so I came up with one I’d enjoy seeing suffer. So he’s more or less Tuco (Eli Wallach in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly), literate and after a conversion experience.
The PCs are the the “Dogs,” circuit-riding agents of the Temple, who roam the land, putting to right the troubles they find by whatever means seem necessary and fitting to putting the folks they encounter back on the righteous path (defined more by actions than by theology — we’re not talking Inquisitors here by any means).
There’s certainly a large “inspired by” feel to it related to the Mormon experience in Utah (a somewhat theocratic society, chosen by God, in an Old West setting, geographically bound, dealing with the confluence of outside authority, local natives, and internal struggles), though the doctrine involved is a much less specific (and is, in fact, in part defined by the players themselves).
Again, if you’ve read any of Lackey’s Heralds of Valdemar series, the setup is rather similar (though with a lot more dust and a lot less pixie-dust feel-good magical horsies sort of stuff).
Here’s some “official” bits:
Dogs in the Vineyard is about God’s Watchdogs, young men and women called to preserve the Faithful in a hostile frontier territory. They travel from town to isolated town, carrying mail, news, and doctrine, healing the sick, supporting the weary, and pronouncing judgment upon the wicked. One early playtester said what she loves about the game: a town welcomes you with celebration and honor, but what you’re there to do is stir up its dirt and lay bare its sins.
The setting is a fantasy inspired by pre-statehood Utah, the Deseret Territory, in the early-mid 19th century. Picture a landscape of high mountains, icy rivers and cedar woods, falling away westward into scrublands, deserts, buttes and swells. The summer skies are heartbreaking blue, but the winters are long and killing.
Picture religious pioneers, fleeing persecution and violence in the East. They’re trying to establish a society based on faith and righteousness out in this frontier. They’ve made the long trek westward but they’re still in danger: their towns are small and isolated, vulnerable to attack from without, sin and corruption within. Under pressure, their pride becomes sin, their anger becomes violence, their resentments become hate. Winter and the demons howl…
Picture God’s Watchdogs, holding the Faith together.
Never read any Lackey.
Still sounds inquisitiony though. Punishing the unfaithful and unbelievers, Kill them all and let the king of life sort it out.
I like the Tuco concept though, especially if you get the character down. Though it sounds as if that it might be a bit of game breaker to set up a character to suffer instead of the folks in the branch’s.
Ahh…
One of the examples of play list inquisitionors, so it is that. Sounds like too much religious indoctrination, and not enough western.
Still sounds inquisitiony though. Punishing the unfaithful and unbelievers, Kill them all and let the king of life sort it out.
Hmmm. Let me see if I can explain further.
There has been discussion how you can take the basic setting concepts and apply them to other “ideology police” sorts of setups — the Inquisition, Soviet Commissars, etc. I agree that those settings would lose quite a bit of the charm for me.
To what I’ve seen (both in what’s in the basic rules and how Doyce has approached presenting it), the Western setting is not all about persecuting those who don’t adhere to the right doctrine, or recite the correct creed (any Dog who simply shows up in town and shoots anyone not at temple on the Sabbath is likely not going to be very effective). Rather, it’s about dealing with the results of straying from the path of righteous *behavior* — of the discord and danger that occurs to individuals and the community as, to frame it a different way, folks fall into one or more of the deadly sins (pride, envy, wrath, sloth, lust, avarice, gluttony) (and, depending on how the campaign is framed, the demons that enjoy such things happening slowly take control of the local society). Your job, as a Dog, is to set it right — not to make sure that everyone’s going to church or reciting the right things while there, but that those who are acting badly to their neighbors and themselves are dealt with one way or the other (and not necessarily in lead).
Granted, someone who is preaching blasphemy or heresy to others is going to be considered a threat (and, in game context, they are). One could, I imagine, turn the game into a “root out the unbelievers and toss them into the auto-de-fe” sort of thing, but that’s not what I’m seeing in it, nor by any means the appeal it has to me. (Nor, I’d imagine, the direction Doyce plans to take it.)
I am interested in how the spiritual nature of the society and of the PCs manifests itself. Rather than the archetypal D&D clerics — basically spell-casters who tithe and wear funny necklaces — this feels much more like an exploration (from the characters’ perspective) of how faith bumps heads with (or works alongside) the viscitudes of life; of the difficulty of making both moral *and* pragmatic decisions, especially hard ones, and especially in what may be ambiguous situation; of how you keep power from corrupting, you and others, and the consequences if you fail.
That said, I can well imagine folks for whom it’s not their cuppa. YMMV.
Stan?
Pity’s sake, how have you managed to miss all the times I’ve mentioned this on my site?
Umm… lessee.
I was going to post something here, but it got LOOOOONG, so sorry for highjacking the thread, but go here, where I have the right to ramble on.
Also:
“Silverado, Kung Fu, Pale Rider, Hang ‘em High, or High Plains Drifter?”
Simply: Yes. With a little x-files, wild bunch, and Hero thrown in 🙂
Though it sounds as if that it might be a bit of game breaker to set up a character to suffer instead of the folks in the branch’s.
Actually, I don’t think that’s so at all. The relationship between a PC and his/her own past, sins, demons, etc., are part of what make the game interesting — especially as they affect his/her ability to perform their duty well (and to be able to sleep at night).
And, yes, please feel free to go over to a much better description than I’d come up with, over here.
Emphasizing something Dave mentioned — the character’s have relationships that affect scenes they’re related to — it’s possible to have relationships with anything: a person, a place, a group, a town, a particular demon… even a Sin.
A dog with a relationship with one of the Sins you’re supposed to stamp out? My first question: what’s the relationship? 🙂
Sure. It can even be multiple relationships. Consider the person who’s been brutalized by violence — and, in turn, is now more likely to use violence on others.
Dave
Rather than the archetypal D&D clerics — basically spell-casters who tithe and wear funny necklaces — this feels much more like an exploration (from the characters’ perspective) of how faith bumps heads with (or works alongside) the viscitudes of life; of the difficulty of making both moral *and* pragmatic decisions, especially hard ones, and especially in what may be ambiguous situation; of how you keep power from corrupting, you and others, and the consequences if you fail.
Wow…
You all certainly play Clerics a lot differently then I’m used to in D20. The Cleric isn’t in the party isn’t preaching about their god’s benefits? Withholding spells unless you worship their god with them (which works in a multi-theist society where characters other then the divine classes can worship multiple gods)? Vetoing group actions because they violate the teachings of their god? Or my favorite…Withholding healing to the rouge for sneak attacking anyone not known to be evil, or who hasn’t attacked the party first. Then when you get back to town informing all of the other godly types of the rouges sins.
Doyce
Pity’s sake, how have you managed to miss all the times I’ve mentioned this on my site?
You’ve mentioned it but not done any in depth discussion on it. The last one I remember was about doing a character for the boy. Which you and Dave have now provided a wonderfull write up of the system and the background for the game and have also provided a great many links to delve.
Which is what I meant — I’ve been talking about DitV in various posts since early August 🙂
Never ran in a classic fantasy D&D campaign where clerics behaved like that. Paladins? Well, yeah, but everyone expects them to be snots, and they’re usualy just crude televangelist stereotypes with swords.
But clerics? Aside from token cheerleading for their deity, worried Fr. Mulcahey looks at the plan, and chiding the rogue for being, well, a rogue, most of them I’ve seen have just been healing mages with Knowledge-Religion at high levels.
Dave…
Yes.
One of the reasons that I’m very very happy with the way that Randy is running his Cleric in ViD. In the Friday game the player running the Cleric is sort of the person in charge of alignment issues and Since the Cleric is LG, the Palidin is LG and of the same god, and both the GM and Player have Chaos issues (“Yes, you can free the prisoners that the party has taken because your CG, but you know you will be punished for it later on”), or (“Chaos is not evil light, so no you can’t just sneak attack the well armed giant down the hill from you, because it could be a good giant”). Basically the only things that I’m allowed to sneak attack during a surprise round are things that are immune to sneak attacks.
This is the Reason that my Rouge is a malee/combat rogue so that I can just hold action until whatever find attacks us and then I tumble to get a flank, and sneak attack in that fashion.
Huh. I can see where that would be annoying.