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Author Topic: [Actual play] Dogs in the Vineyard + Warhammer 40k  (Read 2107 times)

hgjs

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[Actual play] Dogs in the Vineyard + Warhammer 40k
« on: July 06, 2009, 01:18:40 AM »
As you might guess, we are using (more or less) the rules for Dogs in the Vineyard, except set in the Warhammer 40,000 universe.  The characters are Inquisitors: the PCs are a Catachan ex-guardsman, a fairly young Inquisitor, and a more-machine-than-man priest of the Adeptus Mechanicus.

Today was our first session.  It was brief, because it was interrupted for food and because some of us had dinner arrangements, but it was long enough to explain the premise and get through character generation (including everyone's flashback conflict).  I felt that the flashbacks were a good way to get people familiar with the system in a way that just a description might not, and I'm letting people make changes to their sheets based on their experience before we start for real next week.

The Catachan guardsman's flashback scene was trying to hunt a Catachan Devil (opposed by the Devil itself).  It was a rather straightforward fight: the guardsman tracked it through the jungle then chopped it apart with a chainsword while avoiding the monster's claws.

The Adeptus Mechancius' flashback was trying to put down a rebellion.  The central event was trying to overrun a factory the rebels had seized control of before they managed to start churning out armored vehicles.  The rebels sabotaged the troop transports; the adept repaired them.  The adept refitted the transports with reinforced frontal armor to withstand fire; the rebel leader's spies learnt of this, and deployed IEDs along the various routes to their factory-base.  Then the adept used his robot servants to sneak ahead and disarm the land mines: the rebel leader was out of dice at this point, so the Imperial Guard offensive reached the factory unimpeded and slaughtered the unprepared rebels.  I thought it might have been cool for the rebel leader from the flashback to have lived hideously scarred and bent on revenge, but the player explicitly killed him off in his victory narration.  (Killing the leader was definitely within the stakes he initially declared.)

The Inquisitor's flashback was a first contact incident with Tau.  His goal was peaceful negotiations: I decided that his opposition wasn't the Tau negotiator, but the commander of the ship he (the Inquisitor) was on.  The commander ordered his men to open fire on the Tau ship while it was attempting to communicate.  The Inquisitor countermanded the order and tried to pull rank as a member of the Inquisition, saying that overriding his authority would be heresy.  The commander was unimpressed, and pointed out that negotiating with xenos was blatantly heretical, and threatened the Inquisitor himself with the ship's Commissar.  (In game terms he "turned the blow," which is rather bad for the other player.)  At this point the player was running out of dice, so he allocated one of his unspent Relationship dice to the commissar, and declared that the two of them went way back.  ("You know me, and you know that I know what I'm doing.  By the way, say hello to my sister for me when you see her.")  The Commander then pointed his pistol at one of the gunners, and told him to fire or he would burn him down on the spot.  The Inquisitor's player didn't have high enough dice to stop this outright, so he was able to interpose himself between the crewman and the controls and cause him to hesitate, but the Commander then shot the crewman in cold blood.  The Inquisitor then finally drew his own weapon (gaining more dice) and pointed it at the Commander, ordering him to stand down.  Since the Commander was out of dice, he had no choice but to acquiesce, and the Inquisitor was able to answer the Tau ship's hail and conduct peaceful negotiations with the ambassador.
 

Halfjack

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[Actual play] Dogs in the Vineyard + Warhammer 40k
« Reply #1 on: July 06, 2009, 10:12:32 PM »
That is very cool indeed. Please keep us updated! And if you have more system details, that's okay by me.
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hgjs

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[Actual play] Dogs in the Vineyard + Warhammer 40k
« Reply #2 on: July 07, 2009, 01:40:51 AM »
Here are the house rules we have going so far.

Traits
"I am a Dog", page 25
Obviously, instead of either having "I am a Dog" as a Trait or a Relationship with the Dogs, the player character substitutes an appropriate organization ("I am an Inquisitor").

Belongings
The word big is replaced with oversized, and the word "excellent" is replaced with "covered in spikes."  This is intended to produce a desired aesthetic.  (Also: crap items do not count as crap if being used by an orc.)

The d4 bonus for "guns" instead goes to all weapons capable of fucking up someone in power armor.  So not knives or hunting rifles, but yes to chainswords and bolters.

Instead of having a 2d6 coat, the player characters have some 2d6 item that serves as a symbol of their authority and position.  (This could be an Inquisitor's robe, a very large hat, etc.)

Ceremony
We're still determining appropriate ceremonies to replace those in the book.  To an extent we'll play it by ear: if someone comes up with a 40k-ish sounding ceremony, we'll just say "that's a ceremony."  We're not trying to necessarily make a one-to-one correspondence with the ceremonies in the book; we're just trying to get a few predetermined ceremonies for flavor.

So far we have calling on the name of the Emperor, reciting sacred texts, and making the sign of the Astronomican.

Conflicts
Instead of the most serious level of fallout being for Guns, all weapons capable of fucking up someone in power armor (i.e. all weapons that get an extra d4) count as guns.

Demonic Influence
This is the section that isn't entirely firmed up yet.  I'm thinking the progression would be,

Doubt: Chaos Influence zero d10
Failure: Chaos Influence 1d10
Chaos Attacks: Chaos Influence 2d10
Heresy: Chaos Influence 3d10
Witchcraft: Chaos Influence 4d10
Planetary-Scale Chaos Incursion: Chaos Influence 5d10
 

boulet

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[Actual play] Dogs in the Vineyard + Warhammer 40k
« Reply #3 on: July 07, 2009, 01:12:57 PM »
Just out of curiosity : is it a case of players who want to try DitV but don't care for the "West that never quite was" or a case of Warhammer lovers who wanted to try a different game to explore their favorite setting ? (I guess, it may be more subtle than that)

hgjs

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[Actual play] Dogs in the Vineyard + Warhammer 40k
« Reply #4 on: July 08, 2009, 09:10:34 PM »
Quote from: boulet;312344
Just out of curiosity : is it a case of players who want to try DitV but don't care for the "West that never quite was" or a case of Warhammer lovers who wanted to try a different game to explore their favorite setting ? (I guess, it may be more subtle than that)


Basically, after discussing the game the feeling was that if it could do mormons with guns it could also do wandering Inquisitors, and we found the latter more interesting.

None of us is hugely familiar with the Warhammer 40k setting, although we have all played the wargame.  It was somewhat on our minds due to the recently announced sequel to Dark Heresy from Fantasy Flight.
 

Hairfoot

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[Actual play] Dogs in the Vineyard + Warhammer 40k
« Reply #5 on: July 10, 2009, 04:05:09 AM »
Quote from: hgjs;312689
Basically, after discussing the game the feeling was that if it could do mormons with guns it could also do wandering Inquisitors

Laughing out loud.
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Raddu

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[Actual play] Dogs in the Vineyard + Warhammer 40k
« Reply #6 on: July 15, 2009, 10:31:24 PM »
This is a really interesting idea, I had the same one, but I think I'm going to try it over PBP or PBeM.  I'm eager to hear more about the game and the hack.

Halfjack

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[Actual play] Dogs in the Vineyard + Warhammer 40k
« Reply #7 on: July 15, 2009, 11:36:25 PM »
Quote from: Raddu;314278
This is a really interesting idea, I had the same one, but I think I'm going to try it over PBP or PBeM.  I'm eager to hear more about the game and the hack.


Let us know how that works out -- Dogs seems to be about exactly the worst possible choice for PBP/eM because of the give-and-take dice mechanism. And if you drop that, you pretty much dropped the whole game. I played one Dogs game like that and it was still-born after the first two weeks of a single encounter.

Related note: I wrote up a simple hack to do gangsters a là the Coen brother's film, Miller's Crossing. It was wickedly fun.
One author of Diaspora: hard science-fiction role-playing withe FATE and Deluge, a system-free post-apocalyptic setting.
The inevitable blog.

boulet

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[Actual play] Dogs in the Vineyard + Warhammer 40k
« Reply #8 on: July 16, 2009, 09:46:35 AM »
Yeah, sluggish conflicts on PbP seem a real issue. On IRC should be much better.

Raddu

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[Actual play] Dogs in the Vineyard + Warhammer 40k
« Reply #9 on: July 20, 2009, 08:07:56 PM »
After reading Dogs...you're right...I'll need another resolution system for the online DH game.

However, I'm still interested in the Tabletop version of Dogs in the Imperium