Last weekend my friend’s invited me over to play a game of Dogs in the Vineyard. I must admit I was skeptical about the setting at first. You are “God’s Watchdogs” in the wild west, specifically in the early days of Mormon settlers. It is sort of like a Mormon Inquisition, only there still is a US sheriff around to deal with as well. As I am not particularly religious, I rarely play religious characters. On the other hand, role-playing is about being something other than yourself, so I was willing to try it out.
I can say I’m very glad I did. The system is very unique and refreshing. If one of my complaints about 4e Dungeons and Dragons is that it doesn’t support much for role-playing interaction, then Dogs in the Vineyard is exactly the opposite. All conflicts are resolved with a unified system. You start with a pool of dice using two of the four statistics. What pair is used depends on if it is a non-violent conflict, physical brawl, lethal fight, or a gun battle. You have a number of traits for your character that can be anything you can think of. Some of the traits I had were “Knife Fighter” and “Afraid of God” to give you an idea of the variety available. If you can find a way to apply a trait to the given situation, you can roll those dice and add them to your pool. You only use two dice at a time until someone relents or runs out of dice, so each conflict takes a little while to resolve. This lends itself to an action then reaction, back and forth feel. It really encourages creative role-playing and narrative development. Conflicts can always escalate from one form to another. If you are having trouble convincing the town hooligans to back down, roughing them up may do the trick.
Another interesting aspect to the system is that conflict leads to experience. You don’t even have to win to get some. Physical fights can also lead to damage, but most of the consequences of non-lethal engagements are actually good things. Sometimes you might gain new traits, or build new relationships. Damage usually comes in the form of reducing the power of one of your existing traits. Either way, you really get the sense that your character develops over the course of the story.
The setting of the game has the potential to either be very silly or very serious. You are dealing with faith and morality in a potentially lawless area, so which you get depends on the disposition of your group of players. Our story involved the murder of a man in a small town. He lost a lot of money gambling and made a few enemies around town. We soon learned that a group of brothers were the likely suspects, and they even admitted to giving him a beating before his death. The widow was quick to accuse them of the murder, and after a near brawl during a church service she eventually admitted to the crime. It turns out that the man had been taking his frustration out on her, and she finally couldn’t take it any more. In the end we decided that it would be up to her if she turned herself in to the law, for we felt she truly regretted the crime and was driven to it besides. She turned herself in and we left town quietly.
So if you want a story driven role-playing game, I definitely say give Dogs in the Vineyard a shot. I know I have a soft spot for independent games, but we had a blast playing it. It was an engaging experience for all involved and nobody at the table got bored. All in all we had a great experience and in the end that’s what counts the most.
Edit: Now that the final version is released, here is my second look.
I’ve had a chance to look a little closer at the Pathfiner RPG Beta. I then proceeded to write a review that was over a thousand words long. After looking it over I decided to start all over again. I realized that while I was examining the differences between it and 3rd edition Dungeons and Dragons, the resulting review would only be useful to those who have a nuanced familiarity with the 3.5 rules. The target of this review shouldn’t be nearly so narrow. If you are that interested in the minute rules differences, go read the Beta rules yourself. What I took away from the exercise is that I really care about the Pathfinder RPG product, and know that I will purchase the final rules when they are out next year.
So I can’t write a review of the Pathfinder RPG without looking at a little history. Dungeons and Dragons is a fantasy role-playing game that has been around since 1977. The game has evolved quite a lot since then, and in the year 2000 the 3rd edition was created. On the one hand it changed the way a lot of things worked from the earlier editions. It added a much needed skill system. There was a new method for playing multiple classes, allowing a character to mix and match its skills and abilities from different careers. Other things remained much the same. The structure of wizard spell casting, having to memorize spells from a list, isn’t much different from the original version. As always, there was some grumbling from older players that it was no longer the game they wanted to play. But for the most part it brought a new group of people into the game, and many players back. I myself had skipped over the entirety of 2nd edition, having many years before moved on to other games like Palladium Fantasy Roleplay or Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay. When 3rd edition came out Dungeons and Dragons was great again and I, like many others, returned to it.
Another interesting experiment that Wizards of the Coast did was to create the Open Gaming License. The idea was to allow any company to produce material for Dungeons and Dragons. Anything that was created under this license could be reused in other products using the same license.This created a new industry of companies building supporting products. Quality of these products varied, but there are certainly some remarkable supplements and amazing adventures out there. When 4th edition was released, and a much different licensing scheme was introduced, publishers of these products had a choice: Continue making products for the open version of Dungeons and Dragons, or try the new version with a more limited license. What I find interesting is that because of this license there will be some form of 3rd edition available for as long as people are interested in playing it. So when Paizo decided that they would continue to produce content for the game they already love, they also decided to print a rulebook so that anyone interested in their products would have a source for those rules. The Pathfinder Role-playing Game was born.
Paizo has certainly put a lot of work into it. It weighs in at 410 pages, and is a complete fantasy adventure role-playing game system. It is an evolution of the d20 3.5 SRD, so I look at it as an off-shoot of Dungeons and Dragons. Many things are slightly different though, so the biggest difficulty existing players will have in learning it are the subtle changes. I will admit my players still surprise me sometimes with rules changes from 3.0 to 3.5, so there is no way I will find all the differences anytime soon. I do appreciate that all of the rules are in one book. It doesn’t include monsters, but you don’t have to hunt in another book for rules on traps, poison, magic items, creating monsters, or creating encounters.
First impression is that this is a well thought out product. This is written by people very familiar with original rules. They may not have made all the changes you were looking for, but the system they have created is designed to still be reasonably compatible with existing OGL 3.5 adventures and supplements. The first thing that stands out is that all of the basic classes and races have a little more power than they had before. The idea is that many of the existing supplements have made the base classes and races under-powered in comparison. This is probably the biggest change that might keep existing players using the original rules. I like the changes as they allow a little more freedom when creating new races. I am a fan of Planescape, and it would be relatively easy to convert many of the races from the planes into something more balanced with the new core races. I would move some of the more powerful abilities into racial specific feats, and build a set of playable races that way.
They also tried to make it more appealing to stay in the base classes longer. There is something new you get from each class at every level. Classes also have some very hefty abilities added at 20th. I’ve heard them described as ‘near epic’, but I can’t really judge as I’ve never played that high level. On the other hand, 20th level is fairly close to epic anyway, so I don’t think it really matters. One thing that is still being debated over at the Paizo boards is whether or not Fighters and Wizards are balanced. One of the common complaints about 3.5 is that at high levels, the wizard becomes extremely potent compared to the fighter. It is true that the fighter has always dominated at low levels, but eventually a wizard is able to use such powerful magic spells that the fighter becomes merely a bodyguard that gets in the way. So with all of the classes getting a little more power, the casters are no exception. The question of whether the casters still overshadow the melee characters is still debated.
I find myself liking the Pathfinder RPG. It isn’t a finished product yet, so I wouldn’t recommend it to beginners. If you are interested in being involved in the development of a game, or have ever liked the 3rd edition of Dungeons and Dragons, I highly recommend you give it a look. Now is the perfect time as the rules are available for free. I realized that customizable characters is what I’m missing from 4th edition. I expect I will continue to play both versions of the game for years to come. I definitely look forward to next year when I will likely be able to recommend the finished Pathfinder RPG to newcomers and old hands alike.
I know previously I promised a review of the Pathfinder RPG Beta. I still plan on reviewing it but it is a fairly large book (400 pages plus a 60 page web enhancement) and I want to do it justice. So instead I will start with another Paizo product: Pathfinder 13: Shadow in the Sky. For those of you who aren’t familiar with Paizo, they used to be the publishers of Dungeon and Dragon Magazines. When Wizards of the Coast decided to publish the magazines themselves in an online format, Paizo had to find a new direction for their business. They decided to continue doing what they do best: publish monthly material for Dungeons and Dragons. Every month they produce a 90+ page booklet that contains several adventures in a campaign series. Each campaign comes in 6 installments, and takes a party from level 1 to about 15. Shadows in the Sky marks the beginning of their third adventure path, Second Darkness. When 4th edition Dungeons and Dragons was announced Paizo decided to continue publishing adventures for 3.5 instead, and began developing Pathfinder RPG so that some form of 3rd edition would remain to allow anyone to play their adventures.
So first I must touch on the production value of the book. Each page is glossy and full color. It is much nicer quality than most adventure books I’ve seen. The price is a little high for such a slim book, but if you get a subscription you get 30% off and a free pdf of each book. I definitely appreciate the pdf, as I always like to print out copies of maps for reference during games. An active subscription also gets you 15% off all other Paizo products, which is a nice bonus if you plan on buying any quantity of Paizo products. They certainly put their experience in the magazine industry to produce a very nice product (actually now they have other complementary product lines as well) every month.
The first half of the book is the adventures for the story arc. Being the first adventure of the path, it takes characters from first level and leaves them just getting to 4th level at the end. The book takes place in Riddleport, an old pirate town turned trade hub that contains a mysterious runed archway across the harbor mouth. These beginning adventures begin by pitting the players against the criminal underworld of Riddleport, and end with them facing what will become the villains of the overall campaign, drow. The outline of adventures to come sounds very promising, as any epic quest against the drow is always a favorite of players.
I have only the first part to judge though, but it is a well thought out beginning adventure. It is almost entirely urban in nature, which I’ve always found to be both challenging and rewarding to run and play. They do a good job of making suggestions for alternatives for when the players inevitably deviate from the primary path. By the end they will have a number of enemies and allies in the city. I also appreciated that the adventure is well suited for both good and evil parties, even though they of course are slanted toward at least a modestly good group. The climactic end battle looks very fun to run, and should feel rather cinematic for the players.
The second half of the book includes supplemental material that would be useful for any game. There is a description of Riddleport and key important figures. A number of key locations are well detailed and can be added to any city. Four gambling games are described which can add flavor to any tavern encounters of any game. Included is a stand alone adventure, to be used if the group needs a little extra experience in the campaign, or just something to add to any existing game. There are four new monsters to add to your DM’s toolkit as well.
Overall I was impressed with the product. Even though I don’t know when I might be able to run the adventure, I am certainly glad I decided to purchase it. My only regret is that it took me a year before I got a subscription. Even if you don’t like running a scripted campaign, I recommend checking out their other product lines. If you plan on continuing to use 3rd edition, Paizo is the company to watch.
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