Dogs: Session 1

Finally got started with [[http://www.lumpley.com/dogs.html|Dogs in the Vineyard]] today. We only got through character creation, which we don't normally do "in person"... my groups tend to create characters with a lot of time to think them over and discuss them with the GM in email and in person. But folks on The Forge insist that folks should try playing Dogs exactly as the rules are written, because it's not always clear why the rules work the way they do. So I'm following them to the letter to see what effect it has.

(Recall that in Dogs, the characters play "watchdogs" of their religion in the Old West, riding among the towns of the Faithful, making sure everyone is on the straight and narrow. This is more than rigid control... demons are real, and sinning allows the demons to attack the town. So one man's "little sin" can escalate to hate and murder if it's not nipped in the bud. And being God's right hand on Earth, the Dogs dispense mercy and justice... sometimes with a bullet.)

Character creation isn't quite so straight-forward as with most other systems. At the end, each character goes through an "initiatory conflict".... The characters have just finished their training and initiation at the Dogs Temple when they start the game. These hoped-for accomplishments are flash-backs to some defining moment in their training, to determine how the moment went. They are presented in the form of, "I hope I (did something important)."

The first one was pretty straight-forward. The hope was, "I hope I exorcized a demon." The character is pretty spiritual (which contrasts nicely with the city-trained doctor who doesn't really believe in demons or faith healing, even though he's of the Faithful), and fighting demons is what he expects to do in the field.

So we, mostly me and the player, but everyone else can through in their thoughts, devise a scene in which we get to find out whether his hope is fulfilled. This was easy... I just stole the example out of the book. The teachers have encountered a man possessed by a demon, and the PC enters the scene when he's led to a room and locked in with the possessed man. Experienced exorcists are standing outside in case it all goes wrong, of course. And we play out the conflict using Dogs conflict rules (slightly altered, because the GM never gets to escalate). And the conflict went pretty smoothly... Brother Silas whips out some Ceremony, calling on his "I'm very spiritual 2d8" Trait to handily banish the demon. Now he gets to put the Trait, "I exorcized a demon 1d6" on his character sheet.

At this point, we've been debating about how to frame the conflicts for their accomplishments. Their desires are not quite so concrete, but the conflict has to be a concrete representation of their desired accomplishment.

The city doctor wants to prove that he's not like all the city folk back East (where he's from), because the Faithful believe those back East are all decadence and sin. Problem is, if he's been accepted into the Dogs Temple, he's been called by God and his call has been confirmed by the Elders... he's already been proven that he's not like those other folk. So here we punted, and fell back onto something more concrete... "I hope I save someone's life." That's an easy one... while they're out doing target practice outside the town, someone from a near-by farm comes running up. His little sister has been mauled by a dog and is dying. I was kind of mean... Brother Benjamin's "excellent doctor's bag 2d6" was back in his room and there was no time to go get it. He had to save the girl's life without his tools.

This is where Dogs' conflict is fun. This isn't just "roll against your First Aid skill, -3 for how badly she's hurt." It plays out like any other conflict... the GM gets a handful of dice to challenge your attempt with, and you do the whole bidding war thing.

Brother Benjamin doesn't have a lot of dice against the default I get to roll for these initiatory conflicts. And I rolled mighty fine... and I make the first Raise with a pair of 6's, and blood sprays from the wound in her neck as she thrashes and the man trying to stop the blood slips. He can't match that without Taking the Blow, and he's going to take minor some psychological Fallout after it's all over. We're looking at our dice, and I'm seeing that I've got the upper hand... she's going to die if he doesn't have any tricks up his sleeve. And he's got one. At the moment he sees her wounds, he yelled for boiling water, clean bandages, and needle and thread. Just as the girl's pulse is fading (my last Raise), he gets his needle and thread... which gives him another 1d6 to throw for bringing an Item into play. It's a close one... but he rolls just high enough to See my last Raise (he's sewing up the wound), and he's got one die left over to Raise with, a 1... but I'm out of dice and have to Give. He wins the conflict by a hair, and her life is saved. Whew. That was fun, and it was nothing like "roll against your First Aid skill at -3." New trait, "I saved a girl from dying 1d6."

Back to the last player. She's got this older brother who is a Dog, and he's got a great reputation at the Dogs Temple. While she idolizes her brother, she also lives in his shadow... everyone in the temple is comparing her to him, and she feels she's coming up short. Her desire is, "I hope I live up to my brother's reputation." This was really hard to find some conflict to represent, because we first had to put her brother's reputation into concrete terms... just what was it he was so admired for? "Being a really great guy" is nice, but why, exactly, do people think he's great? We finally decided on shooting... her brother taught her to shoot, and she's a great shot, better than her brother. So they're out on the practice range, and one of her teachers says, "See that tree way out yonder? Your brother shot a limb off of it when he was out here." And there it became very concrete... can she shoot a limb off that tree? Sure she can... she's got a lot of dice she can throw into this one. The neat thing is, we do the whole bidding thing, Raising and Seeing, over one pull of the trigger. I go first, with a pair of 8's... "There's a mighty strong breeze today, and those limbs are swaying in the wind." She couldn't beat sixteen with just two dice, so she had to Take the Blow. (Two dice is Block or Dodge, three dice is Take the Blow, and you get Fallout.) We had some trouble deciding just what "taking the blow" meant here... it's easy when the Raise is, "I punch you." Sister Maggie says out loud, "I bet it wasn't this windy when Daniel did this," and accepts that she's going to have to live with the wind. "But I bet I could hit that farther tree if it weren't so windy." I have to Take the Blow because I don't have high enough dice... and the wind dies down for a moment. Sister Maggie shifts her aim to the far tree, and I Give... I don't have enough dice left to even pretend to put up a fight, and she handily lops off a branch.

Any different than "roll under your Sharpshooting skill?" Mechanically, not terribly different. But the mechanics force us to play things out with at least a little roleplaying, and made it feel like something was happening beyond some dice being rolled. It added flavor, and I think that flavor is what my games are usually lacking the most.

That's where we ended. Didn't even start in on my lovingly-crafted town of Creekside. That'll have to wait a couple weeks.