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Susano-wo
2010-06-15, 08:17 PM
I hope this does not turn into a massive flame war, but I felt I had to do this game some justice.

In a previous thread about indie games it was described as basically evolve or die, in response to another poster's complaint that it was too deadly. The second poster essentially, it seemed, claimed that in dogs, the GM must escalate events to the point where you must either change your beliefs or die.

I really don't think either of these are accurate, though I do have to admit I have only played one session, and observed some play reports, etc.

But just from the book itself, the deadliness of Dogs is really not necessarily that high. The only way you can die is if you escalate to the third tier of conflict, which the game warns you you should only do if its "worth it" (obviously, that's a player determination). Basically the game sets things up with verbal conflict, which can escalate to physical conflict (basically fist-fighting), which then can escalate to weapon conflict. Only during weapon conflict can anyone die.

So its basically a matter of be careful how quickly you escalate to upper levels of violence, because that's when serious "fallout" (penalties from a conflict)happens.

The game is about making tough moral decisions, as Dogs are roving Judges, with more or less absolute authority from the church. The GM advice that the poster referred to in the last thread is about making sure that you test your character's beliefs. It has nothing to do with dieing or not dieing.

SO though Dogs might not be for everyone, Its a game that is designed to be about touch moral choices, and who's deadliness is largely dependent on player actions.

Really, it stands above a lot of indie games in my esteem, in that I see the emotional and narrative content that is adjudicated by the rules as being naturally flowing from a scene, rather than feeling arbitrary or forced.

erikun
2010-06-15, 08:40 PM
I haven't played Dogs before, but I believe that the primary gameplay point revolves around conflict and how the characters choose to resolve it.

In particular, there will eventually be an NPC who chooses to die for their belief/course of action, and thus there will be a PC who has to make a decision on how far they are willing to escalate things to stop them. You aren't going to die if you always back down from weapon combat, but just how much will you let the NPCs get away with? You may have a high weapon skill to ensure success in most weapon combats, but how many opponents will you face against before you back down?

Dogs in the Vinyard is based more on character-based storytelling, and so is more concerned about following what the characters are doing and looking over their personality rather than exploring and saving the world.

wadledo
2010-06-15, 09:49 PM
It's an interesting and dynamic game that's well worth the paper it's printed on.

I myself though, have always wanted to play something like Dogs Among the Cherry Blossoms.

GoodbyeSoberDay
2010-06-15, 11:16 PM
The only way you can die is if you escalate to the third tier of conflict, which the game warns you you should only do if its "worth it" (obviously, that's a player determination).Of course, this gets thrown out the window when you're facing a possessed character. Them demons can kill you with one unkind word. What may be more important, however, is that the moral choice is generally obvious: exorcise demon/die trying > run away. So the standard fallback of "well, you could just decide to lose" doesn't work.

Aside from that, one person's "rules naturally flowing from a scene" is another person's poor abstraction.

Ravens_cry
2010-06-16, 12:15 AM
I heard about it on Fear the Boot and played it at a local Con. 'Twas brillig my beamish lad!
I doubt I could run it myself though.

MickJay
2010-06-16, 05:23 AM
I played one session, practically no conflict went beyond the verbal phase (the scenario wasn't too dramatic, though). One thing that irritated me a little was how your dice pool determined the strength of your arguments. It's a system where a player can make brilliant arguments, but if he rolled poorly, the npcs are able to "refute" them with generic replies (even worse when the DM himself becomes convinced with player's arguments, and struggles to reply). What's worse, if you rolled well, you'd be also forced to come up with new arguments, even when all logical options were exhausted. You can always "save" the extra dice for a later phase, but I don't find that satisfying.

Having said that, the game seemed to have a lot of potential, and I'd give it another go. I guess whether it's "evolve or die" depends on the GM.

Susano-wo
2010-06-16, 01:12 PM
Wadledo: That sounds very awesome. I also heard of someone doing an Old Republic Jedi game with the system that went quite well.

Goodbye: hmm, I'm not very familiar with the demon rules, but I thought they followed the normal conflict? just that the demon has its own dice pool to add to the possessd's?
And yeah, natural flow is very YMMV (heck, I had a hard time making it through the manual for Bliss Stage, and some people love that one :P)

Mickjay: Yeah, the strength of the argument thing was a worry of mine, but it seemed to play out smoothly...though that might end up being a critical weakness if I played more games (which I would like to ^ ^)

Ravens_cry
2010-06-16, 02:21 PM
If I remember correctly if a GM finds an argument convincing, or (in combat), a description cool enough, they can 'fold' or put forth their worst dice just as easily as the player.

erikun
2010-06-16, 02:52 PM
What may be more important, however, is that the moral choice is generally obvious: exorcise demon/die trying > run away.
I think that one of the big points of the system is that not every moral choice is "obvious." If it is a mass murderer on death row that became possessed and is running around shooting people, how many would walk into the open unarmed and try to exorcise the demon, as opposed to simply shooting the guy in the head from cover?


It's a system where a player can make brilliant arguments, but if he rolled poorly, the npcs are able to "refute" them with generic replies (even worse when the DM himself becomes convinced with player's arguments, and struggles to reply).
This would annoy me as a DM or as a player. I prefer having the option of simply saying "it works" or "it doesn't" when it obviously should or shouldn't. I can understand rolling if there is some question in the NPCs response, but rolling otherwise kind of forces the NPC to randomly begin acting paranoid or irrationally.

It makes the game more interesting, I guess, but that's just something I would prefer to decide on my own.