Dogs in the Vineyard
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''Dogs in the Vineyard'' is an independently published role-playing game loosely based on the history of the Mormons. It was written by D. Vincent Baker and published by
Lumpley Games Lumpley Games is an American game company that produces role-playing games and game supplements. History Vincent Baker began using "lumpley" email addresses and URLs in '' kill puppies for satan'' (2002); he had used the name on various online sys ...
. In the 2004
Indie RPG Awards The Indie RPG Awards are annual, creator-based awards for Indie role-playing games and supplements. They were established in 2002 by Andy Kitkowski, and are the most sought-after awards in the ''Indie RPG'' community. For the purposes of the Award ...
, ''Dogs in the Vineyard'' was awarded Indie RPG of the Year and Most Innovative Game. In 2005 it was nominated for a
Diana Jones Award The Diana Jones Award is an annual award for "excellence in gaming". The original award was made from a burned book encased in lucite. The award is unusual in two ways: first, it is not an award for a specific class of thing, but can be awarded t ...
for Excellence in Gaming. It generally encourages
narrativist GNS theory is an informal field of study developed by Ron Edwards which attempts to create a unified theory of how role-playing games work. Focused on player behavior, in GNS theory participants in role-playing games organize their interactions ...
play.


Setting

The game is set in "a West that never quite was"—loosely based on the
Mormon Mormons are a religious and cultural group related to Mormonism, the principal branch of the Latter Day Saint movement started by Joseph Smith in upstate New York during the 1820s. After Smith's death in 1844, the movement split into severa ...
State of Deseret The State of Deseret (modern pronunciation , contemporaneously ) was a proposed state of the United States, proposed in 1849 by settlers from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) in Salt Lake City. The provisional stat ...
in pre-statehood
Utah Utah ( , ) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. Utah is a landlocked U.S. state bordered to its east by Colorado, to its northeast by Wyoming, to its north by Idaho, to its south by Arizona, and to it ...
. Players are "God's Watchdogs" ("Dogs"), who travel from town to town delivering mail, helping out the community and enforcing the judgments of the True Faith of the King of Life. This may involve anything from delivering new interpretations to the town's Steward to executing heretics. Dogs have absolute authority within the Faith, but not within the laws of the Territorial Authority, and so their actions can lead to conflict with the government in the East.


System

The game features a form of conflict resolution in which die rolls are used in poker-style bids. Characters' statistics and traits are represented by
dice pool In some role-playing game (RPG) systems, the dice pool is the number of dice that a player is allowed to roll when attempting to perform a certain action. Mechanics In many RPG systems, non-trivial actions often require dice rolls. Some RPGs ro ...
s. At the start of a conflict, the
Gamemaster A gamemaster (GM; also known as game master, game manager, game moderator, referee, or storyteller) is a person who acts as an organizer, officiant for regarding rules, arbitrator, and moderator for a multiplayer role-playing game. They are m ...
and other players decide what is at stake, determine which pools are applicable, and those are rolled ''at that point''. The character with the
initiative In political science, an initiative (also known as a popular initiative or citizens' initiative) is a means by which a petition signed by a certain number of registered voters can force a government to choose either to enact a law or hold a ...
puts forward a "
raise Raise may refer to: Music *''Raise!'', the name of a 1981 album by Earth, Wind, and Fire * '' Raise'' (album), the name of a 1991 album by Swervedriver Place names * Raise, Cumbria, England * Raise (Lake District), the name of the 12th highe ...
" of two dice, while
narrating A narrative, story, or tale is any account of a series of related events or experiences, whether nonfictional (memoir, biography, news report, documentary, travelogue, etc.) or fictional (fairy tale, fable, legend, thriller, novel, etc.). Narra ...
a portion of the conflict which is beneficial to their character's position in the conflict. The opponent must respond by putting forward one or more dice whose total exceeds the total of the dice which were used to raise, or "give"—i.e. lose the conflict. If three or more dice are needed, the opponent suffers "fallout"—a negative outcome to be determined at the end of the conflict. If only one die is needed by the opponent, the attack has been "turned against the attacker" and the die can be reused to raise in the next round. The opponent now begins a round by putting forward two dice which the first character must match, and so on until one player or the other gives. Players may bring in new dice by "escalating" the conflict, from non-physical (discussion) to physical (running away) to brawling and then to gunfighting. If the conflict didn't start with non-physical, players may de-escalate from gunfighting to discussion, though it occurs only rarely. The GM's set of rules in conflict is very simple: "Say yes, or roll dice." During the "Town Creation" segment, the moral landscape of the town is laid out in the form of characters, their desires, and what they've done to each other which allows players to engage in the town without making wins or losses the only object of play.


Reception

Shannon Appelcline comments on this game
A story of God's Watchdogs, trying to preserve the faithful on the hostile frontier of the 19th century. This was one of the first indies to be notably successful, both financially and sociologically. It introduced the idea of 'say yes or roll', where GMs either went along with player suggestions, or gave them opportunity to occur through a die roll. ''Dogs'' was also notable for its revolutionary game design and for its existence as both an adventure story ''and'' a morality tale, all backed up by those mechanics. It truly captured the imagination of the indie field following its release.


Out of Print & Derivatives

''Dogs in the Vineyard'' is no longer available for sale, in either print or digital formats, because of Baker's dissatisfaction with the setting. Baker indicated that he has considered a new edition or sequel that would extricate the system from the setting, but work has not begun. In 2019, Baker gave tacit approval for KN Obaugh to publish a setting-free version of the game's system, DOGS (the Dice pool and mOral predicament based Generic roleplaying System!)


References

{{reflist


External links

* Lumpley Games' home page fo
''Dogs in the Vineyard''

Lumpley Games Forum
on The Forge, mostly concerned with ''DitV'' Historical role-playing games Indie role-playing games Role-playing games introduced in 2004 Latter Day Saints in popular culture Historical Western role-playing games