Dogs in the Vineyard

Has anyone ever actually played this? If so, why?

I will admit that the system seems interesting, but the subject matter just isn't appealing in the least. Why would you want to play not!mormons in fantasy not!utah?

Other urls found in this thread:

1d4chan.org/wiki/Campaign:End-World
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mountain_Meadows_massacre
twitter.com/SFWRedditVideos

Those coats look bitching.

The Mormons were pretty fucking metal Midwestern religious zealot viking raiders at one point is why.

I actually played a session of this back in the day. It was really fun, but I think it's because that GM was very skilled.

We were in charge of delivering this book to an old hermit that lived beneath a dead oak tree in the desert. On the way there, we were attacked by bandits and "shadows" and all sorts of crazy things. When we almost arrived, a man calling himself "The Snake Oiled Salesman" told us that the book was "As blank as a blind man's bible" and that we were really sent in the direction in hopes that we'd get killed.

There was some argument and debate over the book, before eventually someone ripped it open to see that it was indeed just a blank journal. We continued to journey on and eventually came to the dead oak tree, there was no one there, but after searching the area we found a "harlot's trunk", which was a chest full of useless stuff. Among the junk we found a tarot card deck.

We started to head back to town, and decided to rest for the night. We sat down and were looking through the loot we retrieved from the trunk again. One of the characters looked through the tarot deck and found that the Hermit card was a picture that resembled the Snake Oiled Salesman.

All of it was really symbolic and esoteric. I don't imagine it could be used to run a campaign with, though.

I've always considered running it, but with samurais instead of cowboys
Instead of working for the church, they're working for the Emperor (giving them conflict with the laws of the Shogun, though they technically have primacy). And obviously instead of guns they have cool swords.

Yep. I'm honestly surprised that the Mormon Wars don't get used as the basis for more stuff.

I have played it. I like the standard setting because I think it leads to interesting role-playing based on ethical questions: You're literally sent out while you're still young enough to think you know everything, you're heavily armed, and everywhere you go you encounter people who have literally sworn their souls to the belief that whatever you do is the will of God.

And there's 3 of you if not more. And the questions posed by the system for creating Towns in the book results in really, really hard questions. Sooner or later you're going to leave a crater. But when the fall is all that's left, it matters very much.

With the right group in the right mood I am all about that, especially for a 1-shot.

That said, I've run the system in other settings more often than the standard setting. Once you get the hang of it it is so, so, so addictively easy to adapt anything. Favorites I've run include Star Wars, Hellraiser, Hellblazer, Charmed, Mage: the Ascension, The Dark Tower, the Paleolithic period, Changeling: the Dreaming, Assassin's Creed and House.

Seriously, it's the best $15 I've ever spent on gaming. The Charmed thing was a *dare* and ended up being an awesome campaign. Even if you never do Mormon Inquisitors, it's still a huge favor to yourself to have the system in your back pocket for emergencies.

And grab Microscope while you're at it. That's a sidebar.

>It was really fun, but I think it's because that GM was very skilled.
Not necessarily true or rather a big factor. Dogs works well with a mediocre GM as well - we played it for a bit and I was GMing. I was simply following the guide lines on how to set up the conflicts and how to create the towns were those take place. It was enough for a quite memorable session. The system lets you naturall offload some of the burden to the players (since one of the rules is that they only do something when they also describe it, which has kind of decreased in our longer standing group)
Sadly we only planned it as a oneshot and since most of the PCs managed to die, we decided to leave at that, but I can't wait to pick it up again.

Furthermore, reading what happened in your session, your GM definitely put in a bit of extra work, because it doesn't read like the regular playstyle of "go to town, figure out what's wrong, possibly kill everyone involved"

I want to make a murderhobo in this and see what happens.

Dpends on your group, but since Dogs supports PVP very well, if the others aren't down to that you're quickly getting dunked and forced to reroll

>not taking out your "friends" one by one until you're the only one left
:^)

Have you actually looked at the system? That's almost impossible to pull off, unless your group ignores the rules, but then what does it matter that you're doing it in Dogs?

Yeah, I saw the rules. Better than 5e or any d20 system, which is not saying much. They are 'meh' at best.

It is not a system I'd play really.

Care to enlighten me seeing as I'm not American and I can't say I ever remember hearing about those?

Ran it for about six months. Probably my favorite system.

What did you like about it? Please elaborate, I'm trying to understand.

How does it work out in a longer campaign? I've only done oneshots with it.
Do you go back to towns you've visited already to see how they turned out?

Any advice on running a dark tower setting ? I want to run a game and I think it would be an easier sell than the original setting. Was also thinking about doing it set in The Stand , maybe both at once come to think of it.
But basically I was struggling with how to build problems into the towns without the Mormon sins.

the 'wars' efer to conflicts between the mormon settlers and non mormons in each state they tried to settle down in. first and probably the biggest iirc was the missouri war.

btw forgive me for butchering spelling, working on a dilated eye here.

anyway, mormons had the most casualties by far, a lot of the incidents that compose these wars are basically just massacres on the latter day saint settlers. Things the mormons did that pissed off the other settlers included proselyting extensively among the native american tribes, building up a very strong economic powerhouse almost overnight and voting as a single large group. The last two gave them ton of power whereever they settled and is easily the biggest reason their neighbors despised them combined with the fact they beleived God had restored the power of a Prophet in modern day, rendered pre-existing religions as in the wrong. The polygamy is usually used as a reason to prove why the mormons were 'immoral deviant freaks' and thus worthy of retribution.

A lot of underhanded political tricks were done and the local governments managed to forcibly drive the Mormons out of their homes. They eventually tried to mount a tiny militia expedition to try and compromise with the governments to at the very least regain some of their belongings and recompense for their lost land.

Needless to say, it did not work in the favor of the mormons. they were hoping the Governor would be sympathetic but he instead was hoping for reasons to completely epell them from the region. Local militias were formed and sent to harrass the mormons which led to a full out battle. The mormons technically won the battle despite greater casualties because they did not flee. But this led to the governor signing executive order to exterminate the mormons in the state. So they left to Nauvoo Illinois. And that is wehere they ran into bigger issues.

Wait, if this was pretty much just the Mormons getting the shit kicked out of them in what way are they "metal" like that one user said they were?

>How does it work out in a longer campaign? I've only done oneshots with it.
>Do you go back to towns you've visited already to see how they turned out?

Well
>Any advice on running a dark tower setting ? I want to run a game and I think it would be an easier sell than the original setting. Was also thinking about doing it set in The Stand , maybe both at once come to think of it.

I ran my longest game in the Kingverse with a mixed bag of Gunslingers, Breakers, and Shawshank escapees. Here are the modifications to the DitV system:

1d4chan.org/wiki/Campaign:End-World

>What did you like about it? Please elaborate, I'm trying to understand.
I have to go to work so I'll make this brief: basically I really enjoy how intangible aspects of your character (like memories from their past, people they know, and their attitude on life) are mechanically significant in conflict situations. If you're dealing with someone who you have a history with, you might fare better than against a total stranger who happens to have an identical "statblock".

Really though what I love most is that the act of dealing with the conflict creates extremely memorable situations and stories that you don't get in traditional RPG systems.

>in what way are they "metal" like that one user said they were?
He's probably talking about stuff like this:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mountain_Meadows_massacre

That looks like it was a fairly isolated incident. At least, reading all the related links and see also's on Wikipedia is showing me only one other instance of Mormon aggression around that period. Seems to me they weren't very violent at all, just damn weird, and kinda got the shit kicked out of them a lot for the most part.