The Dogs Defenders come a-marchin' in! Where do they come from? They must have a central Dogs Radar station somewhere....

"Captain, we have a Dogs Defense alert in the RPGSite Sector!"

"Send in Dogs Defense Squadron 114!"

"Captain, that's the RPG Site! They're rookies! Greenhorns! They'll get torn apart!"

"Better them than the Big Dog Defenders! Look what happened to Luke there!"

"Aye, sir! Sending Squadron 114!"

-clash

Quote from: Jeffrey StraszheimRegarding morality in Dogs, consider this: the rules tell you what the elders of the faith teach, frex that polygamy is OK.  The rules don't tell you, and will never tell you, and the GM may not dictate, what God actually believes.  If your dog decides that polygamy is false doctrine, then play it out in the game.  Local stewards will resist him; other dogs will get involved; the elders will get involved.   Sooner or later, bullets will fly.  Perhaps the faith will change, probably it will not.  Never will the GM say, "Actually, you were wrong, the King of Life approves of polygamy."

It is really this simple.  Get it?

Jeff is 100% right about this. The "word of the faith" in Dogs is pretty darn Mormon-ish--but it isn't right. Nothing is every determined "by God" to ever be right (since the person doing the speaking for God would be the GM which is prohibited in the game).

The brilliance of DitV in this regard is that the Mormon-like faith is pretty darn alien and pretty darn right-wing for most of America and the Western world (and even more alien outside it, I'd guess). It's an awesome springboard for conflict amidst modern players (one wonders what all-Mormon groups play like. I've seen some AP--but not in enough detail. I suspect Vincent's greatest joke is that he also wrote Kill Puppies For Satan--and most of his Mormon fans don't realize it).

So there is no part of the game that requires the enforcing of a static doctrine--the Dogs always get to decide ultimately. They can "break from the faith" all they want and if they hang together on it, they'll win in doing so.

This is a great strength. It's also moves the game a bit more, if you can accept my PoV, towards traditional-RPG-style play. Sure, the characters can get involved in debating whether homosexual union is acceptable since it is theorized that it would be recognized in heaven but forbidden on earth so it need not be punished since union between people who cannot get married (like a herto couple stranded on an island) is okay (one of the more interesting arguments I've seen put forth--and I'm mangling it). Or they can decide that the town elders suck, the young wiccans are alright, and that they can keep on doing their gothic pentagram ceremony ... so long as they ... praise the King of Life once a week or something.

If they decide on that, that's alright too. Then you just get a big battle with the townies. Ka-Blam.

(You can ask why you'd bother to play a Mormon-gunslinger game if that's the decision you were going to come to--fair question--but regardless of the answer, that kind of interpretation is explicitly not outside the rules).

-Marco
[ If that makes me one of the Dogs defenders on the radar, so be it. But I suggest that, if you know my posting history, you might want to recalibrate those sensors. ]

Quote from: Marco-Marco
[ If that makes me one of the Dogs defenders on the radar, so be it. But I suggest that, if you know my posting history, you might want to recalibrate those sensors. ]

Marco - I was referring to the "Post #1" guy who posted just above Christmas Ape - not you, and not Droog - People coming in here for the sole purpose of defending the game. I could care less about Dogs, personally, but it doesn't bother me the least that some people love it. Different tastes, y'know? I would have said the same about any game-defender swooping in to make his first post, no matter what game.

-clash

Quote from: WarthurOh, it's no problem for me either - we just don't play the game as written. It does, however, mean that the game as written doesn't actually do what it claims to do, which is to make the players the sole arbiter of morality in the game.

Warthur maybe I'm missing something but exactly where in the rule book do you get that the players are not the sole arbiter of morality in the game?

Regards,
David R

Quote from: flyingmiceMarco - I was referring to the "Post #1" guy who posted just above Christmas Ape - not you, and not Droog - People coming in here for the sole purpose of defending the game. I could care less about Dogs, personally, but it doesn't bother me the least that some people love it. Different tastes, y'know? I would have said the same about any game-defender swooping in to make his first post, no matter what game.

1. Give me a break.  Some post has to be my first.
2. Check my profile; I've been here a while.  I don't post on forums unless I have somthing to add, so my post count is never high anywhere.  I've thought a lot about morality in Dogs and had something to say.  I didn't swoop in.
3. Bite me.

I'm sure that you don't have to subscribe to Mormonism in order to play DitV. I'm sure the game gives you choices--but choices that arise within the overall framework of 19th-century American protestantism and its contemporary descendants, right?

So that to play the game is to enact a version of Vincent Baker's religious autobiography, and more generally the history of American protestantism.

You evaluate an ancient moral code and update it or reject it from the position of the present, as the case may be. Powerful factions in the gameworld abide by that code; you yourself abide by or at least have a stake in some modern version of it; and your PC is the site of the clash between the two.

Is that an accurate description?

Quote from: Pierce InverarityYou evaluate an ancient moral code and update it or reject it from the position of the present, as the case may be. Powerful factions in the gameworld abide by that code; you yourself abide by or at least have a stake in some modern version of it; and your PC is the site of the clash between the two.

Is that an accurate description?

Not in my experience.  In my games the players tended to adopt the received moral code with great gusto and left a swath of bodies behind them.

I think you're over analyzing it.

Well, all I need to do is add a third possible response: besides rejecting and updating the code, there's also embracing the past model without reserve, which is just another form of update really. Back to fire and sword.

Quote from: Pierce InverarityWell, all I need to do is add a third possible response: besides rejecting and updating the code, there's also embracing the past model without reserve, which is just another form of update really. Back to fire and sword.

It is frightening to watch.

Seriously though, what I think should be avoided is making too much of the game's moral content.  If you try to put it in the foreground, I fear it will become stilted and lame.  On the other hand, if players just play their dog, moral content seems to explode all over the place.  At least, that is my experience.

It is all very zen.

Quote from: Pierce InveraritySo that to play the game is to enact a version of Vincent Baker's religious autobiography, and more generally the history of American protestantism.

I seem to remember VB himself saying something like this.

Actually, interestingly enough while we are self professed Christians, we make no claim of being protestant at all, because we are, in fact, not.

Since we claim there was a restoration of the priesthood directly by Peter James and John as angels we don't claim any line of authority through the protestants or Catholics.

Language is a weird beast eh?

Well, I think Pierce is using the word more loosely, but the extra information is very interesting. Vincent put it somewhat differently, but I can't dig up the link.

I've got a question. When the dog go into a town looking for sin/turmoil, is it a set fact as to who did what, or do the dogs 'decision' as to who's guilty make it a reality.

So is it more like "The pastor is sleeping with the miller's daughter" and the dogs have to uncover it or "Someone is committing adultery" and whoever the players pick and roll enough success against becomes the adulterer?

It's more like this:

Quote from: Vincent BakerThe shopkeeper from back East? His wife isn't really his wife. He's the procurer and she's the available woman. Their marriage is a front.

Your brother's son, your nephew, is fourteen years old. He's been stealing money from his father, your brother, and taking it to visit this woman.

Your father is in a bitter rage, humiliated by his son's thievery and grieving his son's lost innocence. He's going to shoot her.

What do you do?

So in your example it's "Okay, you know all about the pastor sleeping with the miller's daughter (because I, the GM, have taken care that you do). Now, who's innocent and who's guilty? Remember, your decisions count, and just in case, you have a big gun."

Ah, I see now. Thanks droog