game report: Dogs in the Vineyard

[cellio]

Recently ralphmelton ran a game of Dogs in the Vineyard. For those unfamiliar with it, here's the opening paragraph from the Wikipedia article:
The game is set in "a West that never quite was" - loosely based on the

Comments

[woodwindy]

What a funky system! I'm really fascinated by this. Hmmm, gotta go talk to my Sunday night gaming group about checking it out...

[cellio]

It's an interesting system. I wrote more about the mechanics in earlier posts with this tag. To an extent, you figure out what's going to happen with the dice and then role-play to match that (lame attack, really effective block/reversal, etc). It's the closest thing to pure roleplaying I've done that still involved dice. It was fun. (Perhaps ironically, I loathe games like Nanofictionary and Once Upon a Time, which one would think would be in a similar mental space. Nope, not for me.)

[ralphmelton]

Did I really have Sister Wilhelmina say "Demons are just misunderstood"? :-)
Of course, we were pretty far into Sister Wilhelmina being opposed to normal society, so I might have.

One thing I found interesting about that game is that though I was trying to emphasize the poisonous effects of Sister Betia's pride and trying to push out Sister Edie, that never really got any traction with the players. (There were certainly lots of things higher on the ladder of theological decay for the Dogs to deal with, of course.)

[cellio]

Did I really have Sister Wilhelmina say "Demons are just misunderstood"? :-)

I wrote it down. I don't think I made it up. :-)

One thing I found interesting about that game is that though I was trying to emphasize the poisonous effects of Sister Betia's pride and trying to push out Sister Edie, that never really got any traction with the players.

I found myself picking up on it late (with the last case when I was transcribing these notes). I think if we hadn't felt pressed for time we might have pressed her on her competitiveness more, maybe. It was pretty obvious that she was trying to sideline Edie and that she was jealous; I didn't make the pride connection per se right away, and by the time I did the moment had passed.

[starmalachite]

Just reading the notes was quite enjoyable. I'd defintely be interested in trying the game if I ever get the chance.

[ralphmelton]

Editor's meta-comment: character-generation sure does take a long time. It's a rich process, but by definition sequentially solitary, which at the beginning of a session can leave people itching to get involved.

I'm not completely sure I quite agree... or maybe I agree but think that it's worth it.

It's certainly true that we arrived around 3pm and were done with character creation around 6pm. But at 6pm, we had completely statted characters, and every character had had a bit of spotlight time and some emergent character traits.

In the GURPS game I'm playing in, I probably took two hours alone creating my character, and in three or four sessions of play, I still haven't had enough spotlight time for emergent traits to develop.

[cellio]

I'm not saying I object; I like the rich characters. On reflection, I might have been more keenly feeling the vibe of "all but one of us have role-played together a lot; I don't want the one who hasn't to be excluded". But while as a player I should be mindful of that, it's kind of your responsibility as the GM who invited us, and I know you wouldn't have assembled a group you had doubts about, so I was likely worrying over nothing.

And I do love having some characters we can all see as more than numbers on a page. Some came together more quickly than others, but if we play more games with these characters, that'll fill in.