Dogs in the Vineyard at the indie-rpgs un-store.

“Appeal” for $500, Al— Scott. The thing with D. Vincent Baker’s games is the focus on the conflict. If you aren’t in conflict, get to one and you’ll have fun. That theme runs through both games. So, while resolution is different (and I think I prefer DitV over IaWA for that), the premise is the same.

However, I love the random start factor for IaWA. Hell, I use those lists in Burning Wheel just to see what I can come up with for situations/NPCs/places.

@BryanB – Thanks! I suspect mormons and non-mormons would come at it from a different viewpoint, but emphasizing the fictional/alternate history elements might make it comfortable for both. Or it could be ported to another setting… like Orklord’s Jedi in the Vineyard, or Dogs in the Verse.

@DocRyder – It probably wouldn’t work for an endless campaign, but if you did a series of short stories (5-10 sessions), I think it’d perform beautifully. In the end, I suspect it’s the people you encounter and the specific Dogs riding between towns that keep things fresh. On paper, a ship traveling to a new planet each week doesn’t sound suitable for long term viewing, but look at how long Star Trek has been around.

@deadlytoque – It’s a good strategy and probably works well most of the time… particularly if the NPCs let the PCs dictate the pace and type of conflicts. Levi’s done a great job of creating Dogs like guidance for the GM in The Household and Long Knives.

There is a basic “optimal” strategy of playing-the-numbers here. It goes like this:

1. Always start social, and use your crappy dice here early; take lots of social fallout, it’s good for you.
2. In conjunction with #1, escalate yourself only after you’ve run through your crap rolls. The GM will often do it for you.
3. Use social fallout to build a big trait (many d4’s); then later change the trait to d6’s, then d8’s.

Note that playing to the optimal strategy is completely in tune with the setup for play. But be aware that building a one-spell-johnny (Deadly Shot 8d8) is actually also an invitation for the GM to be a bastard to you, and throw stuff at you going “Is this bad enough to shoot? How about this?”.

I had the opportunity to play in a DitV game with Scott a couple of years ago and he did some amazing characterization, let me tell you.

I enjoyed the game that we played in, although I had a hard time grasping the mechanics at first. I think that I want to try the game again at some point. The conflict resolution was unlike anything I had ever experienced before.

The inspiration behind the game hits a little too close to home for me, but the author does a great job of fictionalizing his primary sources and making the “Dogs” concept work far better than one might initially expect.

(PS: Here’s a tonne of towns made by various folks. If you aren’t interested in creating them, you can do really well by that link.)

And here is a worksheet I made for creating towns (warning, I added a few details that aren’t in the book that help me improv as a GM):
http://www.sexandbullets.com/img/DogsProcedure.pdf

@Ed Healy – It’s probable best you didn’t– I kept thinking, “oh, I should really tell them more about X”. If you’d given me much longer, I dread how at how much writing I would have done. It would probably have wound up longer than the book itself.