Talk:Dogs in the Vineyard

--Jason 16:26, 12 February 2007 (MST)I think this is an interesting system idea, and Id like to try it out, but I dont want to commit to a campaign with it. For one thing, when ideas get too free form, I find it really difficult to make a compelling character.

--Edmiao 17:00, 12 February 2007 (MST) this sounds like an interesting concept (for a board game you might play with your grandmother or little cousin).

--Jason 17:04, 12 February 2007 (MST)Somehow Eds comment reminds me of Triumph, the Insult Comic Dog. This is an interesting concept FOR ME TO POOP ON. I loves me some Triumph.

--Matts 17:25, 12 February 2007 (MST)The thing I really like about it is that it puts more emphasis on creating a compelling story than on the ins and outs of what your character can do. I'd argue that your grandmother or little cousin wouldn't need any rules at all.

I'd like to try it for a one shot.

Why is it that a less numeric system makes it difficult to make a compelling character, Jason? I always find myself limited by Hero, because I have to think ahead-of-time about all the places a particular trait would be used or not. To me, at least, I come up with a concept, then try to cram it into a numerical representation, which inevitably shears off some of what made the concept appealing to me in the first place.

--Jason 17:34, 12 February 2007 (MST)When the rules are too freeform nothing is defined. This lends itself to a lot more 'playing favorites' in game. One guy who decides he wants to dominate all facets of game can do so by constantly finding ways to manipulate their dice pools with sketchy explainations that might be conceived as creative roleplaying. Inevitably this also leads to long drawn out discussions of why or why not some maneuver should be viable.

One aspect of abstracting the character into Hero is you are given a finite amount of points and a description of how certain rules mechanics work, and then given this framework you have to find a way to make a concept viable. Thinking about new and interesting ways to use the powers available forces players to really think about what their character can do, rather than just showing up to a session and deciding off the cuff that his dude should be able to do nifty trick A.

--Matts 18:06, 12 February 2007 (MST)I'd say the reason the GM is there is so that such situations don't evolve, but that's just my own feeling. The Dogs in the Vineyard system is (I kinda left this out of my summary) predicated on getting everyone involved; it's more about "wasn't it interested we reacted in this way to this situation" than it is about "it's pretty sweet I keep cutting people in half with my sword!!!!".

It's not that nothing is defined in this system, but that the things which are important to the characters (which is too broad a range to be accurately and satisfactorily descripted by any system really) are quantified.

Also, I've done this system a bit of a disservice by not posting how characters are created or what options for balance exist.

The thing is, that balance in this system is partly driven by players. I'd be interested to see if players could come up with balanced characters on their own (I think they could) rather than just giving traits like "Good at Everything 4d8". As a GM I'd enforce balance if neccesary, but ultimately, the Trait assignment is about what's interesting to you as a player.

If you assign Traits like "Good in a Fight", then, yeah, your character will be good in a fight. But if you assign a trait like "Stupid and Belligerent", then your character will probably be good in a fight but it also says something more about the character itself. Maybe that character's bull-headed nature will prove an asset or liability further down the line.

Just because I think our group has some people (and this isn't a criticism, it's just how we are) that like to optimize systems, I'm not sure this would fly, because any attempt at 'optimization' would probably knock the game way out of whack. It's just my hope that the reward of playing the character you actually want to play, warts and all, and the act of making the entire character interesting, would offset the desire to tinker.

--Jason 18:25, 12 February 2007 (MST)The thing is, I think that right now, when we play Hero, for the most part players already make the character they actually want to play. I think our guys could have a little more warts, but thats just me (which is one reason why I will be giving characters some disads). If we were to move to a system like DiTV, where you get relatively few traits compared to what we are used to, we would end up giving ourself more broad ranges for the traits themselves. I see this as an interesting idea, but didnt you say the Serenity system is very similar? Justin said that they were going to scrap that system and convert to Alternity because it doesnt work well at all. Maybe its not as similar as I thought you were saying. I want to try it with no commitments, sort of a gamers fling.

--Matts 18:27, 12 February 2007 (MST)I agree; I'd like to try this system out before using it for sure. The consensus online is that it's a hit-or-miss thing, but that when it hits, it really hits.

And the serenity system is like Dogs in the Vineyard minus everything interesting, so it's basically a subpar knockoff of cyberpunk.

--BenofZongo 09:54, 13 February 2007 (MST)Yeah...this system feels a lot like the low-dice system I tried to implement: in the end, you roll just as many dice, first of all. Second, make sure that when you run it, you consider the problem of "static" difficulties: ie, I want to fix the ship, what do I roll, since I'm not competing against anyone? Third, I agree with Jason that a system like this has strong openings for manipulation. That doesn't mean it won't be fun: could even be really fun. I guess that my personal preference is that if I'm gonna use a whacky new system, I prefer to write it myself.

--Matts 10:13, 13 February 2007 (MST)If a particular act ("static difficulty") is important enough to be a sequence of gameplay, I'd just assign the ship some dice for the scene, and we'd play it out - "I'm gonna duct-tape the carburetor feed," "ok, now the econo-flange is out of alignment, and it's making a horrible racket..." and if it's a really critical situation, then we can escalate from (in the example of fixing the ship) the ship not performing optimally, to the ship not working, to the ship actively falling apart.

I wouldn't go so far as to call this system wacky, and I'd also say that I'm not overly interested in designing my own system. This one has the benefit of some playtesting, and also gets right at what I want to see from a game, which is a focus on interactions over mechanics.

Maybe it won't work, who knows. I'd like to get a feel for it and see.

I mean, I'm not into this system because it involves less dice, or is somehow "simpler" than the other systems we use; I like it because it's designed to emphasize the things that I like in roleplaying.

--BenofZongo 10:53, 13 February 2007 (MST)Sounds good, let's give it a shot at the next "one shot" opportunity.

--Jason 11:02, 13 February 2007 (MST)I dont think this system emphasizes anything over anything else, there isnt inherently more interaction here by any means. The only thing it does differently over any other system is it resolves conflicts in batches and virtually ensures that nothing is accomplished easily or simply. This could lead to more interaction, or it could lead to 'I punch, I block' over and over until one person is out of dice.

--Matts 11:07, 13 February 2007 (MST)If that's what ends up happening, you're right, it won't be the best system for us. My hope is that it allows us to not think about specific mechanics like where to hit, but instead allows us to improvise memorable situations. I'll run it next one-shot, and we'll see how it goes; if it's a bust, then no worries, there's always other systems to use.

--BenofZongo 11:28, 13 February 2007 (MST)I can see it going either way: I think that for important events/encounters, it would be more likely to contribute, whereas for less important ones it might detract. For instance, in WHFRP, if we are fighting a dozen bandits, I don't actually even really want an extensive description for how my sword severs vital arteries, and his blood fountains, terrible and beautiful, over the rocky earth. I'm satisfied that he's dead and I can move on to the next bandit. When fighting von Teumar, I might savor such a description. The other thing I've thought about is that whereas I like being a bit flamboyant in my descriptions, and enjoy trying to do unorthodoxed stuff (such as dunking) with my character, I would say that not everyone else, even in our group, does: they'd prefer the "I punch, I block" because they really prefer just knowing that their character is the baddest muthafucka and that's what gives them satisfaction. But yeah, let's one shot it and see what happens.