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Marshall Miller
United States
Medford
Massachusetts
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Apocalypse World, Dogs in the Vineyard, and In a Wicked Age are simply too good to only purchase the .pdfs. Go ahead and order the print versions. You won't regret it. I promise.
[edit] Now that I think about it there may not be a print version of In a Wicked Age but it is very good.
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Lowell Francis
United States
South Bend
Indiana
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I already bought a print copy of Dogs in the Vineyard (my wife thinks its one the best rpgs she's read). I bought the pdf bundle-- I'll pick up print versions of the ones I like from those. The deal is too excellent to pass up!
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Marshall Miller
United States
Medford
Massachusetts
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I'm playing Apocalypse World right now and loving it. Not unlike a good novel, whenever I near the end of one of his rulebooks, I start wishing that the book wouldn't end...
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J
United States
San Diego
California
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edige23 wrote: and Mechaton which isn't in the system as an item yet!
it's on bgg, where I think it fits more than here anyway: Mechaton: Giant Fighty Robots
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James Lowry
United States
Sunnyvale
California
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So... (asked the ignorant one) what makes these worth picking up?
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Lowell Francis
United States
South Bend
Indiana
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At least in my case two factors made me pick this up. One, Dogs in the Vineyard is a really interesting game. He has some ideas about set up and story I like. The setting is intriguing and very different from anything out there. There's also a very different approach to story building and the GM/player relationship. I really enjoyed it. Second, I've seen a number of people on blogs talking about Apocalypse World. Some like it and others don't but it has clearly sparked some discussions. So I'm curious about that. At least for me, based on how much I liked Dogs, I wanted to read the other things he's done. I have a couple of other game authors (Laws, Wick, Hite, Stolze) that I try to pick up when I see something by them because there's either great setting material or some new ideas about RPGs in general.
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Eric Jome
United States
Milwaukee
Wisconsin
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Rindis wrote: So... (asked the ignorant one) what makes these worth picking up?
He's the Martin Wallace of role playing games.
Okay, he's more like the Martin Wallace of role playing games before Martin Wallace hit it big in board games.
On second thought, maybe this is kinda rocky as analogies go.
I dunno.
Mechaton is cool. You get to play with LEGO.
... and something something about vineyard dogs.
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James Lowry
United States
Sunnyvale
California
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cosine wrote: Rindis wrote: So... (asked the ignorant one) what makes these worth picking up? He's the Martin Wallace of role playing games.
Considering I've never played a Martin Wallace game, that means less than it might.
Now if he was the Francis Tresham of RPGs, or even the Richard Hamblen of RPGs....
edige23 wrote: One, Dogs in the Vineyard is a really interesting game.
But why is it interesting? It's the one I've heard mentioned around here, but I still have zero idea what it's like. What is the setting? Or at least the genre?
I have to admit, I'm not really sold on the entire concept of "redefining the GM/player relationship."
Assuming Apocalypse World is anything like it's name implies, that's pretty much an auto-pass for me. I don't care for most post-apocalypse stuff. (And no, during the apocalypse does not help.)
cosine wrote: Mechaton is cool. You get to play with LEGO.
Okay, now you're getting interesting.
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Chris Talbot
Canada
Fort Smith
Northwest Territories
Be seeing you... -Alphonse
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Rindis wrote: But why is it interesting? It's the one I've heard mentioned around here, but I still have zero idea what it's like. What is the setting? Or at least the genre?
I haven't picked up DitV, mostly because what I know of the setting makes my skin crawl, but I keep hearing the game mechanics are spectacular and can be ported to other settings (I remember reading something on RPG.net about porting it to a Jedi campaign). Something about setting the stakes and whatnot. Can someone speak to this?
Chris
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Lowell Francis
United States
South Bend
Indiana
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I don't know if I can speak completely to that-- but his games are more experimental and narrativist, so if you're interested in looking at those kinds of things, they might be worth looking at.
Here's a page with some actual play and review resources on DitV.
I'll be working on reading reviews for some of these for October.
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Marshall Miller
United States
Medford
Massachusetts
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Rindis wrote: So... (asked the ignorant one) what makes these worth picking up?
Rindis wrote: But why is it interesting? It's the one I've heard mentioned around here, but I still have zero idea what it's like. What is the setting? Or at least the genre?
Ok, so DitV is one of the games that got me back into RPGs after a long hiatus. The game, is about young men and women (about 18 years old) who are given intense religious training and then basically turned loose with a gun and holy book to travel from town to town carrying mail and solving each towns problems with absolute, god-given, authority. As written, the game takes place in pre-state Utah with a very conservative proto-mormon fiath.
Things that make it awesome for me:
1. The mechanics are set up such that everything about you gives you dice. When you get into an argument, you can spend dice to try and win the conflict. If you can't win you either have to swallow your pride and take "fallout" or escalate to get your dice that apply to fighting, this continues with armed fighting and finally guns.
2. The game is set up to constantly drive towards killing and players are constantly asked to decide "how far am I going to push this" and "is this worth killing over".
3. The game doesn't set out religious law, the players are the experts and what they say is canon law. This allows players to justify themselves all the way to killing if they so choose.
4. Religion is only as true as you want it to be - the game can be about literally exorcising demons and killing witches or about killing innocent women that looked like they might be witches and torturing epileptic children in the name of religion - you set the scale.
5. Reading the rules you feel like the author is explaining the game to you with really good advice and a conversational tone.
6. The game is totally appropriate to hack into any game where the players are mobile authority figures - CIA in Afghanistan, Jedi Knights, Texas Rangers, Roman Legionaries, nobles returning from the crusades, Tet corporation, etc.
* There are many more almost as cool elements but I can't gush forever.
[edit] I guess the genre is western. As for the setting, the book is mostly about how to play. A lot of the setting is implicit in the rules but, unlike a D&D campaign setting, it doesn't just lay out a world for you. As written, it only really names one "city" but gives good explanations on how to develop each of the other towns and their problems.
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Steven Robert
United States
Altadena
California
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ctalbot wrote: I keep hearing the game mechanics are spectacular and can be ported to other settings (I remember reading something on RPG.net about porting it to a Jedi campaign). Something about setting the stakes and whatnot. Can someone speak to this?
I think it's the escalation mechanic you are speaking of, which is the basic tool of conflict resolution. Any conflict gives each party a dice pool, all of which are rolled. You then choose two of them and narrate your action; the defending party must then choose dice from their pool that beat your total or lose; if it requires enough dice, they may suffer "Fallout" later on. Then they can choose dice to initiate their action, and on and on.
That's all pretty standard, but here's the cool part: if you look and see that you are going to lose, you can escalate by changing the terms of the conflict (though the same idea/action is still at stake). So if you are losing an argument but don't want to suffer fallout - well, pull out your gun! Then you get a whole new set of dice to play with, and all of a sudden you have an advantage...until your opponent does the same, of course.
This kind of thing makes folks from The Forge get all weak in the knees; it is really quite elegant and powerful.
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Kevin H.
United States
Crescent City
California
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Rindis wrote: edige23 wrote: One, Dogs in the Vineyard is a really interesting game. But why is it interesting? It's the one I've heard mentioned around here, but I still have zero idea what it's like. What is the setting? Or at least the genre?
The game is interesting because it's about the intersection of religious power, family, community, and our modern notions of freedom.
The setting roughly parallels early Mormon history: a religious minority that considers itself the One True Faith is persecuted and escapes west to set up a territory free of the influence and corruption of the east. There is one good-sized city but it's mostly sparsely populated with little towns nestled in the plateaus and valleys. In order to provide support and make sure everyone is living the straight and narrow, the church leaders sends small groups out to check up on things. These groups are made of young people who are called (by their local pastor, who is called by the church leadership, who are called by God -- so basically, they are called by God) to serve their church. That's the PCs -- members of The Order Set Apart To Serve and Protect The Faithful, or as they're colloquially known, God's Watchdogs. Or just Dogs. The Vineyard is the community of the faithful, so hence the title.
If everything is okay when the Dogs get to town, they drop off some mail, bless some babies, and leave for the next town. (But how fun would it be if everything were always okay?) If everything is not okay in town, then their job is to fix it. How do they fix it? Well, that's the interesting part. The dogs have absolute religious authority. But this is pre-telegraph, so you can't exactly get doctrinal rulings -- the nearest town is a few day's ride. You're on your own, but the community looks to you for decisions. And the community of the faithful is more important than any one member of it. So you HAVE to decide. Sometimes you have to cut off a limb to save a life.
Mechanically, the game reflects a common religious conservative idea, that small degrees of sin open a community up to further corruption.
Here's a brief writeup of a game I ran for some BGGers here.
Of course all the Dogs see when they ride in is a once-thriving community, with one beautiful farm, one okay farm, and a whole lot of food shortages, and winter is coming. If they don't do anything, then it will be food riots and murder.
So basically, it's paladins in the old West. Kind of.
The system is poker-ish. When you get to a point where you and someone don't agree, you roll a bunch of dice and so does the GM. He bets two dice. You have to call with two dice, and their total must meet or beat the total of the GM's dice. If you can't call, you must fold and lose the conflict. If you can call, then you can raise with two more dice. Then the GM must call or fold. Each bet, call, and raise is an action. E.g.:
GM: "I shove you backward and tell you that I don't care if you're a Dog and my cousin, it's between me and my wife!" (Bet)
"I brace myself so I don't fall (call), then quote scripture about how authority is only meaningful if it's loving and respectful (raise)."
GM: (out of dice, folds) "I hang my head and admit that you're right."
But, if you're out of dice but can't stand to give up, you can get more if you escalate the conflict. I.e. if you're losin' an argument, you can punch someone. If you're losin' a fistfight, you can pull a knife. Or a gun. But if you pull iron, folks (including you) are likely to get hurt or killed. Is it worth it? Will you gun down your kin for only a small indiscretion? Folks are only human, after all.
The games I've run have had arson, cold-blooded murder, public humilation, telling bright young girls they can't go to college but have to get married and be a homemaker. Families have been split up. People have been exiled. People have had their livelihood declared public property. And that's just what the Dogs did.
Their players are all modern Americans, free speech/religion live-and-let-live types. But in play, they do things that wouldn't be out of place in modern Iran.
I don't think it redefines the player/GM relationship. But it does play a lot with people's preconceptions. Power is an interesting animal, especially when you give people a lot of it and tell them that God approves of how they use it.
This game is not for you if:
- you want long-term campaign play (it's only good for one-shots or short campaigns).
- you are uncomfortable with the idea of reasonably-realistic treatment of religion and religious people in a game (as opposed to fantasy religion, Pelor and all that).
- you think that religious fundamentalist/conservatives are all stupid subhumans as opposed to real people.
But if you're okay with the above, I think it's a great game and I encourage you to check it out.
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Dan Maruschak
United States
Eugene
Oregon
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dysjunct wrote: The games I've run have had arson, cold-blooded murder, public humilation, telling bright young girls they can't go to college but have to get married and be a homemaker. Families have been split up. People have been exiled. People have had their livelihood declared public property. And that's just what the Dogs did.
Taken out of context, people can read things like this and come away with the impression that the Dogs are horrible people and that playing the game is about wallowing in a fundamentalist caricature. Usually, you're playing people who are genuinely trying to do good and solve the problems for the people of the town, but are faced with problems for which there aren't easy solutions. The extreme results tend to stick out in people's memories, but they end up being cool when you get there organically rather than assuming that's the goal you should be aiming for.
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James Lowry
United States
Sunnyvale
California
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dysjunct wrote: This game is not for you if:
- you want long-term campaign play (it's only good for one-shots or short campaigns).
 But-but-but... why...? (twitch, twitch)
dysjunct wrote: - you think that religious fundamentalist/conservatives are all stupid subhumans as opposed to real people.
Of course not. But anyone who the media is going to pay attention to these days naturally is a characterture of a real person....
Personally, I think I'd much rather play a Federal Marshall sent to figure out what the hell these yahoos are doing.
In general, the mechanics sound interesting, but I don't think they're worth enough to me to worry about it for that alone. (So many other things to spend money on....)
I am regretting getting rid of all my Legos years ago.... 
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Eric Jome
United States
Milwaukee
Wisconsin
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Can someone who has played it give a good example of a nuanced situation that players might typically encounter that isn't easily resolved by direct reference to religious dogma and authority?
I don't really understand how there can be nuanced decisions for players to make in the cut and dried setting of static dogma. Aren't all NPCs who don't directly agree to what the Dogs say automatically heretics?
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Marshall Miller
United States
Medford
Massachusetts
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Rindis wrote: Assuming Apocalypse World is anything like it's name implies, that's pretty much an auto-pass for me. I don't care for most post-apocalypse stuff. (And no, during the apocalypse does not help.)
Apocalypse World is sort of like DitV in that much of the setting is implied in the rules but all the details are up to you.
There are a number of ways that Apocalypse World brings the awesome:
1. As a resolution system, AW has players performing "moves". This means that the MC (otherwise known as GM) doesn't do a lot of dice rolling. Moves cover all kinds of things (e.g. Read a person, Seize something by force, Go aggro, etc.) and you just do them.
2. Custom moves are even better - basically, just like in computer programing, when you want to make a rule you just make it - you solve the problem once and keep reusing it (e.g. When you drink from the river, When you find yourself alone in the fog, When you show up the alpha, When you get bitten, etc.). They become tools the MC can port from game to game.
3. The game has a really concrete approach to campaign management. The rules lay out a system for thematically linking threats into a number of fronts and keeping track of the fronts as they all move, incrementally, towards their boiling points.
4. The rulebook is written to the MC, everything the players need to know is on the front and back of 2 sheets of paper (character sheet and a moves reference sheet). That means only one of you needs to have the book. You could almost run the game w/o the book.
5. The author encourages hacks of the system and a few already look very promising (e.g. Dungeon World).
The game flows really well with both the MC and players adding details and descriptions into the game (the MC asks questions constantly to create a shared world).
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Marshall Miller
United States
Medford
Massachusetts
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cosine wrote: Can someone who has played it give a good example of a nuanced situation that players might typically encounter that isn't easily resolved by direct reference to religious dogma and authority?
I don't really understand how there can be nuanced decisions for players to make in the cut and dried setting of static dogma. Aren't all NPCs who don't directly agree to what the Dogs say automatically heretics?
Its not so much that people break a religious rule and you kill them. Its more that the dogs are trying to solve the problem.
If someone is sleeping with their brother's wife, the dogs should try to rectify the situation.
-How can you get everyone back in the right bed?
-Maybe a demon is causing the problem, would an exorcism solve things?
-Is the person in charge of the town not enforcing the laws - does he need to be replaced?
-The husband isn't not one of the faithful and has a job as a topographer for the local railroad company - will he cooperate or do you have to mediate with the county judge?
-What about the wife's sister who knew about the situation but didn't speak up?
-What happens when the man's wife finds out about his mistress - when she pulls a gun who are you going to shoot her or let her kill her husband's mistress (and let an outsider kill one of the faithful?)?
-What if the husband's OK with it - if he tells others about it is he preaching heresy?
There are lots of gray areas to explore.
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Kevin H.
United States
Crescent City
California
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Rindis wrote: dysjunct wrote: This game is not for you if:
- you want long-term campaign play (it's only good for one-shots or short campaigns). But-but-but... why...? (twitch, twitch)
Everytime you "call" in the mechanics, you get a point of "fallout," e.g. consequences. After the conflict resolves, you roll XdY, where X is your points of fallout, and Y is the level that the conflict escalated to. For arguing, Y=4, for physical stuff (horse race, firefighting, etc.) Y=6, for fighting without guns Y=8, and if guns are involved Y=10.
You take the two highest dice and add them together. Depending on the total you either learn something, get a temporary disadvantage, a long-term disadvantage, get mortally wounded and possibly die, or (on 20) die.
The result is that Dogs get powerful fast, beyond the point where the town generation mechanics (NPCs get X dice, etc.) can really challenge them. You could tweak it to slow down the rate of advance, but I've never felt the need.
cosine wrote: Can someone who has played it give a good example of a nuanced situation that players might typically encounter that isn't easily resolved by direct reference to religious dogma and authority?
I don't really understand how there can be nuanced decisions for players to make in the cut and dried setting of static dogma. Aren't all NPCs who don't directly agree to what the Dogs say automatically heretics?
In addition to the things Marshall mentions, Dogs speak with divine authority but they are not infallible. They make mistakes, or can let their own biases influence their decisions. There are plenty of modern-day churches who believe that (a) they are the one true church and (b) their representatives have special divine authority. And their societies are not bloodbaths. Much of the enjoyment of Dogs comes from the fact that Dogs aren't just supposed to gleefully execute everyone who gives them lip, they are specifically called to serve the community and do what's best for it. Sometimes, yes, that might mean killing an incorrigible heretic. But how do you know they're incorrigible? What if you can call them to repentence? Wouldn't that be better than leaving fatherless children, a widow, and a town without a pillar of its community?
Furthermore, for all the rigid structure of the Dogs' (the characters') worldview, there is little dogma in play. The actual contents of their scripture ("The Book of Life") are not specified, other than you can refer to it to bolster your arguments (in game terms, it adds dice to your pool if you whip it out). So in actual play, the Book of Life is used to justify whatever the Dogs want -- kind of how modern-day religious people use their scripture to argue different sides of many issues (capital punishment, divorce, abortion, etc.). The religion is traditional and conservative (i.e. no adultery) but it doesn't really go into detail.
And it gets really interesting when Dogs disagree. I had a Dog tell her mother yes, go get a divorce and marry your lover. Another Dog was not down with it AT ALL. Who speaks with divine authority then?
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James Lowry
United States
Sunnyvale
California
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dysjunct wrote: Rindis wrote: dysjunct wrote: This game is not for you if:
- you want long-term campaign play (it's only good for one-shots or short campaigns). But-but-but... why...? (twitch, twitch) Everytime you "call" in the mechanics, you get a point of "fallout," e.g. consequences. After the conflict resolves, you roll XdY, where X is your points of fallout, and Y is the level that the conflict escalated to. For arguing, Y=4, for physical stuff (horse race, firefighting, etc.) Y=6, for fighting without guns Y=8, and if guns are involved Y=10.
The real point is I just have problems with the concept of not running a campaign.... 
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Kevin H.
United States
Crescent City
California
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Rindis wrote: The real point is I just have problems with the concept of not running a campaign....
Do you refuse to watch movies or read books unless they have somewhere between 5 and 500 sequels?
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James Lowry
United States
Sunnyvale
California
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I'd consider a one-shot adventure closer to a short story. And I have a lot more novels than short story collections....
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Marshall Miller
United States
Medford
Massachusetts
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Rindis wrote: I'd consider a one-shot adventure closer to a short story. And I have a lot more novels than short story collections....
It depends on what you think of as a campaign. I hear Dogs is good into the double digits number of towns.
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Eric Jome
United States
Milwaukee
Wisconsin
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Mease19 wrote: If someone is sleeping with their brother's wife, the dogs should try to rectify the situation.
-How can you get everyone back in the right bed?
-Maybe a demon is causing the problem, would an exorcism solve things?
-Is the person in charge of the town not enforcing the laws - does he need to be replaced?
-The husband isn't not one of the faithful and has a job as a topographer for the local railroad company - will he cooperate or do you have to mediate with the county judge?
-What about the wife's sister who knew about the situation but didn't speak up?
-What happens when the man's wife finds out about his mistress - when she pulls a gun who are you going to shoot her or let her kill her husband's mistress (and let an outsider kill one of the faithful?)?
-What if the husband's OK with it - if he tells others about it is he preaching heresy?
Just to follow up then on why I asked. The part of this game that I have greatly struggled with understanding is that all these questions seem to me to have religiously perscribed, precise answers. Further, all characters are on exactly the same footing with no inter party factionalization as brought on by alignments or such.
Get them back in the same bed? "What you are doing is adultery and a sin. Stop this instant. Seek repentance. Failure to stop will bring about judgement... now or in heaven. Repeat offenses corrupt your soul and the souls of those around you. We have only one solution for that; removing you from the body of the faithful, one way or another."
See? There's no escalating that. There's no valid response. In the eyes of religious authority, this entire issue is cut and dried with only one possible answer. The accused cannot defend their point of view; it is inherently automatically invalid. And the point of view of the characters is inherently automatically perfect. No moral ambiguity... no dramatic tension.
I wonder if this game only works when played by people who are totally divorced from the thought patterns of religious authority and dogma and indoctrination. That is, only open minded people unable to channel their inner religious authority find the game "interesting" because they see moral grey areas here. It's the player... the characters would easily find this a very one dimensional problem with a single solution.
The established body of religious orthodoxy always has simplistic, definitive answers for moral questions. That's its entire purpose - to be the answer. It's only only in questioning that absolute authority (something Dogs would never, ever do) that we see philosophical, intellectual, or moral nuances and relevance.
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