Quote from: Werekoala;363910That'd be the next system over from the OK Corral planet.

*Starts playing "Ringo"*

Quote from: Werekoala;363905I think that is the biggest misconception about DitV - that the players have a completely free hand to do whatever they want, using God's Will as their justification. Doesn't work that way (or at least, it shouldn't). They are given their authority by the Elders of the Temple who get THEIR authority from God (supposedly), and the Dogs are the "paladins" of the faith, if you will, who still have to answer to the Elders. I think they're supposed to go back once a year or something and make a report if I remember correctly (been a couple of years) - but at least in my recollection, there isn't a carte blanc to do what thou wilt.

That'd be WoD.

Sure, but again, how do you handle "answering to the Elders"?

The answer to that question is more academic (viz. "just how much don't the DitV RAW work as far as I'm concerned?"). How I'd handle Star Fleet is another matter. Which is: if a crew(member) did something which is questionable, or on which a point of fact is disputable, then a DitV-style conflict could be used to play through the legal-political wrangle. Although there would still be a lot of problems to overcome, from establishing the dice of the prosecution, to deciding when one side or the other simply ought to give regardless of what the dice say.

Quote from: Sweeney;363814Some people really enjoy a "tough moral choice" situation when it sort of just happens but would be weirded out at the idea of having that kind of situation actually represented in the rules, I think? If so, that's a fair perspective. I don't personally agree, but I understand where they're coming from.

Just a little detail, as far as I understand DitV (haven't played it yet), the tough moral choice is the direction Vincent Baker tells GMs to follow in his GM advice section. It's not implemented in a hard way by the rules but the game is supposed to be underwhelming if the GM avoids this angle.

Compared to the typical WoD game where immoral behavior leads to mechanical drop in moral/psychological trait(s) there's a clear difference. If I remember correctly "tough moral choices" in DitV are the original case of "fruitful void" which has become a story-gamers fad at some point. Though there is something titillating about this "not present in the rules but implied by it" meme. Especially if one observe other type of games like Diplomacy (no rules about trust/betrayal, but it's all about it).

Quote from: boulet;363918Just a little detail, as far as I understand DitV (haven't played it yet), the tough moral choice is the direction Vincent Baker tells GMs to follow in his GM advice section. It's not implemented in a hard way by the rules but the game is supposed to be underwhelming if the GM avoids this angle.

Compared to the typical WoD game where immoral behavior leads to mechanical drop in moral/psychological trait(s) there's a clear difference. If I remember correctly "tough moral choices" in DitV are the original case of "fruitful void" which has become a story-gamers fad at some point. Though there is something titillating about this "not present in the rules but implied by it" meme. Especially if one observe other type of games like Diplomacy (no rules about trust/betrayal, but it's all about it).

Try putting what you're saying into English, instead of pseudo-technical terms.

Quote from: Werekoala;363910That'd be the next system over from the OK Corral planet.

...and that was another terrible episode that now - doesn't happen!!.

I love running this TREK game in a Clean Slate Universe.

- Ed C.

Quote from: Narf the Mouse;363877As far as I can tell, Dogs in the Vineyard is "Mormonism" via Hollywood (Not literally)

Exactly. As far as I can tell there isn't a single thing in DitV that comes from actual Mormon doctrine, with the possible exception of a belief in an infallable church hierarchy. But a lot of faiths seem to have that issue...

For the record, I enjoyed nearly all of the TOS episodes, but especially seasons one and two.

Spock's Brain is certainly an exception to this. There is no excuse for that episode. No excuse at all.

Quote from: Narf the Mouse;363919Try putting what you're saying into English, instead of pseudo-technical terms.

Don't you see? He's speaking FRENCH! GHAH! Sometimes I think you aren't even a rodent!

-clash

Quote from: PaladinCA;363943Spock's Brain is certainly an exception to this. There is no excuse for that episode. No excuse at all.

"Brain and brain, what is brain?"

Quote from: PaladinCA;363942Exactly. As far as I can tell there isn't a single thing in DitV that comes from actual Mormon doctrine, with the possible exception of a belief in an infallable church hierarchy. But a lot of faiths seem to have that issue...

We don't believe our hierarchy is infallible. The closest we have is two specific beliefs - That the Prophet is always right when speaking through the Spirit and that if he lead us astray, God would remove him.

There are two related qualifiers for that: First, we are to pray to find out for ourselves whether the Prophet is right and whether he is a Prophet and two, the second only applies if the Prophet who said that was "speaking through the Spirit".

So no, we don't believe our hierarchy is infallible. We just believe they'll be corrected if they're wrong - And, of course, we need to "Think, ponder and pray" to find out for ourselves.


...But this is getting rather off-topic, so I'll close here. If anyone wants to reply, quote me in the Pundit's forum and send me a PM, so I know the thread is there.

Quote from: jeff37923;363723You know, you become more like this guy every day...

I don't care if you masturbate over the corpse of Gene Roddenberry. I just don't want you to hurt anyone when you rob convenience stores while doing your Klingon cosplay.

There are a lot of ways you could respond to Koltar's quote that do not involve insinuating that he's a criminal, Jeff. Please pick one of those other ways. This sort of thing crosses the line.

RPGPundit

Am I on Ed's IL list ?

Regards,
David R

Quote from: David R;363990Am I on Ed's IL list ?

Regards,
David R

No, I can still read your comments David.

 I just didn't have a lot of sleep the last few days and I worked a long shift yesterday.

Almost think the game session went as well as it did because I was functioning on almost less than 2 hours' worth of sleep on Sunday.


- Ed C.

Quote from: Werekoala;363905I think that is the biggest misconception about DitV - that the players have a completely free hand to do whatever they want, using God's Will as their justification. Doesn't work that way (or at least, it shouldn't). They are given their authority by the Elders of the Temple who get THEIR authority from God (supposedly), and the Dogs are the "paladins" of the faith, if you will, who still have to answer to the Elders. I think they're supposed to go back once a year or something and make a report if I remember correctly (been a couple of years) - but at least in my recollection, there isn't a carte blanc to do what thou wilt.

That'd be WoD.

That's exactly opposite from how Dogs does it, and, yeah, no wonder people think the game sucks at that rate. The deal is that while the Dogs enforce frontier towns, they're totally left to their own discretion as to how to do it. The Dog speaks with the moral authority of one whom God speaks to directly, but there is no God, there's just the player running the PC.

Once the Dogs become Dogs, no one can question their judgements. Or rather, they can question them all they want, but the Dog has the ultimate authority. And carries a gun. This being a Western setting (or Trek, right?), though, that authority comes from either convincing people to go along with your judgements,or forcing them.

As far as "the Scripture", the rulebook has a couple of basic rules that can't be violated. Except when a Dog thinks they have to be. And again these are rules that the townsfolk are breaking; Dogs are only limited by (a) their actual ability to get shit done, and (b) other Dogs.

So not exactly Trek in that sense, except I could totally see Kirk filing a report to Starfleet and just happening to leave out the part where he broke the Prime Directive six different ways.

Quote from: Narf the Mouse;363955We don't believe our hierarchy is infallible. The closest we have is two specific beliefs - That the Prophet is always right when speaking through the Spirit and that if he lead us astray, God would remove him.

There are two related qualifiers for that: First, we are to pray to find out for ourselves whether the Prophet is right and whether he is a Prophet and two, the second only applies if the Prophet who said that was "speaking through the Spirit".

So no, we don't believe our hierarchy is infallible. We just believe they'll be corrected if they're wrong - And, of course, we need to "Think, ponder and pray" to find out for ourselves.


...But this is getting rather off-topic, so I'll close here. If anyone wants to reply, quote me in the Pundit's forum and send me a PM, so I know the thread is there.

Personally, I prefer HBO's show "Big Love" for my Hollywood-ized Mormonism.

I mean, how can you beat Harry Dean Stanton for your prophet?