Dogs in the Vineyard
Written by D. Vincent Baker/lumpley

• I'll See Your Rules, and Raise You. . . Something. It took me two tries to get through the rules description. It really read foggy/fuzzy the first two times through, and left me confused. I kept reading on, and later went back. That time, it clicked into place a bit more. I'm not really sure why I had such trouble the first time. I suspect it has something to do with two possibilities.
  
  
  
  1. The overall formatting of the book (in places, I wanted smaller line spacing, for denser text; my eyes felt like they were darting around too much).
     
  2. The uncomfortable style choice for the example text. The examples are written in this weird mix of first and second person: "I do this," "You do that," "Then I do this." Kind of distancing and off-putting. I would have preferred straight third person throughout the example text.
     
  
  
• Brother Zachary is a Mess. Baker uses the name "Brother Zachary" most often in examples I believe, but there's no consistent single "Brother Zachary" character. Here he's a this, there he's a Steward, over there he's something else again. Baker mixes the example names up fairly well elsewhere, and keeps mostly consistent, but Brother Zach always seems to be doing something wildly different each time he's mentioned. I mean, it's not like Baker didn't include a substantial list of other names to pick from in the back. . .
  
• Where's the Art? The only art we get in the book is the cover piece. I really, really, really wanted to see some art of Dogs doggin' it up, their Coats, guns, spiritual showdowns, all that stuff. I got nothing.
  

• See and Raise Mechanics. Despite the problematic presentation to my eyes (see above, I'll See Your Rules, and Raise You. . . Something), the "See and Raise" mechanics -- along with the Escalation and Fallout -- mechanics are just brilliant. These rules help generate and support the story of the game as it's being written, rather than forcing adherence to something outside the situation or (worse) interfering with what's going on. They are very, very nice.
  
• Let's Recap. Baker includes a short recap of every section as he finishes talking about it. This works surprisingly well (though I wish he'd graphically set these off with textboxes or something).
  
• Creating Towns. The rules and suggestions for how to generate new towns, rife with conflict (and thus, adventuring opportunities), are fan-damn-tastic. While I probably wouldn't buy the book for the "See and Raise Mechanics," I would definitely buy the book solely on the strength of the Creating Towns rules. Well done.
  
• A Nice Conversation. The tone of Baker's writing throughout this game is conversational, without being false-chatty, and flavorful without sounding like a bad dialect joke gone on too long. Barring a few Quirks (see above), it's solid work.
  
• Striking Idea Gold. DitV is one of those games that just starts your brain-juices going. I have plenty of ideas on Towns and conflicts I'd love to set up, as well as pondering how to adapt various Westerns I like into adventures. I also have these fevered thoughts of "re-imaginings" of DitV, modifying the basic rules into strikingly different games. My two favorite heretical DitV re-imaginings (which someone must have come up with already) are:
  
  
  
  • Foxes in the Henhouse, where the whole ethical cosmos is overturned. Instead of holy Dogs protecting their congregation, you'd have super-slick con artist Foxes fleecing the marks. Sort of The Grifters by way of Jim Dodge's Stone Junction.
    
  • Bats in the Belfry, which can be played in two modes, where the Bats would patrol the neighborhoods of Gotham to dispense justice. "Bright" would replace the Dogs with Batman's various sidekicks and support characters, and take place in the generic Gotham Knights era; "Dark" would replace the Dogs with the Sons of the Bat from Miller's The Dark Knight Returns and take place in that era. Interestingly, a Dark Bats in the Belfry game would be pretty damned close to "vanilla" DitV.
    
  
  

• As a player or GM, this game is worth purchasing if you can accept the underlying strictures of the Faith for game purposes. If you can't set aside distaste for elements of the Faith as written (picking at random, the appropriate gender roles for men and women), the game will bother you. However, I don't think that should be a game-stopper: with a little thought and attention, these things can be excised from the Faith -- just pay attention how society, sinning, and the effects of both on the game world change, and you should be golden.
  
• As a game writer, you must buy this game. While it has some rough bits, the last half of the book should be required reading for anyone who wishes to write RPG adventures or gamebooks. Why? A fantastic grasp of how to set-up conflicts in an game, without railroading.
  

Tags: batman, gaming, underkoffler's overviews
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