Quote from: SethwickOkay. You say this, despite the fact that Pundit, a pretty high profile poster on this site has said in this thread that he wouldn't say it was an RPG.

Actually, he only said that when you forced his feet to the flames, metaphorically. He even caveated it by admitting that it IS an RPG, if only a craptacular one, and that by NOT calling it an RPG he was doing it a favor.

YMMV.

Yeah, it's an rpg. A story focused rpg but an rpg all the same. Some games focus on different elements - gm authority, player autonomy, story,...whatever - Dogs just happens to be more collaborative and story focused than most other rpgs.

Regards,
David R

Quote from: TonyLBOut of interest ... have you read the book?  Played the game?

Holy fuck, you guys really have to come up with new material.  Y'all are pathetically unarmed for these rhetorical battles.  At this point, you're not just going into a gunfight with a nerf bat, you're going into it with a nerf bat whose foam has crumbled into an unwieldable gravel...

RPGPundit

Quote from: RPGPunditHoly fuck, you guys really have to come up with new material.

You're hardly one to criticise on that front.

Quote from: Levi KornelsenYou're hardly one to criticise on that front.

My rhetorical weapons work.

RPGPundit

Quote from: RPGPunditMy rhetorical weapons work.

Your rhetorical weapons convince you that you've won the argument.

As we all know, there have only been two types of functional roleplaying game. The 'DnD' or 'Kill Things And Take Their Stuff', and the 'Vampire' or 'Lets All Dress Up And Act Petty!'.

In the former, there is a mission and the players work togeather against the world created by the GM. In the 'Vampire' the players scheme against each other, with the scheming arbitrated by the GM.

And Dogs is pretty much a straight 'DnD'. The GM makes a Dungeon (disguised as a Town), fills it with Traps (disguised as Moral Dilemas) and Orks (disguised as Cowboys). Coupled with the mechanics from Heroquest.

Whats not to like? It is a roleplaying game. Like CoC and Cyberpunk 2020 it's a spin on the classic dungeon crawl.

http://hunting.about.com/od/blackpowder/l/aa_loadcbrev_a.htm

You can also take out the cylinder and replace it with a pre loaded one. Clint Eastwood does it in Pale Rider, and it looks badass.



Easier with a remington style pistol though.

Oh, and those big Walker and Dragoon Colts are horse pistols - you don't wear them on a belt but keep them in holsters over the neck of your horse.



Walker



Dragoon



Navy



Army

Obviously, this is the West That Never Was, so they arn't actually Colts, but thats the kinda look you are going for.

Not

Quote from: TonyLBYour rhetorical weapons convince you that you've won the argument.

Actually the rhetorical skill of the pundit is much more subtle. It isn't so much about winning (nobody ever really 'wins' an argument- the win is in having the argument in the first place). I think TheRPGsite is brutally efficient at scoring wins. After all, here you are.

But there's also making the other guy lose, which can also be done. And Pundit manages that one too, from time to time.  

As for Dogs in the Vineyard: it seems like an RPG to me, in general terms.

 Basicly all you do in this game that I can tell, is 1) Your characters stroll into a 'troubled town', 2) conduct interviews, 3) have "conflicts" regarding the trouble. The 'trouble' of the town is usually involving some form of sexually degrading thing- often something like infidelity or incest (as per the authors advice), and then finally 4) the characters invariably murder civilians (often including women and infants if actual play reports are to be believed) or possibly each other-- in order to illustrate the author's feelings about religion and morality. The end result is reportedly full of heavy themes and issues.

So at one point some of these guys tried to rename 'fun' as meaning 'having heavy themes and issues', but that kind of revisionism didn't stick.

So yeah, it's an RPG. It's an RPG for people who basicly hate themselves, but sure. RPG.

So it IS an RPG! You win! (Did you see what I did there?)

Finally: I love Erik Boielle's answer!

Quote from: Abyssal MawActually the rhetorical skill of the pundit is much more subtle. It isn't so much about winning (nobody ever really 'wins' an argument- the win is in having the argument in the first place). I think TheRPGsite is brutally efficient at scoring wins. After all, here you are.

Heh.  That's a cute argument.  You're basically saying "If you convince somebody to disagree with you then you've "won" by having an argument," right?  I will certainly concede that the Pundit is very good at saying things that people disagree with.

And yay!  I won the argument!  

Well, your'e close... But your'e a bit off.

Certainly many people do disagree with the Pundit. Undoubtedly. If your'e some kind of forgie choad, it's pretty much guaranteed. We all know this going in, it's a precondition- we fully expect you to disagree.

But then to draw you in and get you to actually engage on the topic- thats a win, because the audience isn't you. When we argue on forums, the audience is everyone else.

DitV is a roleplaying game. It's even a moderately traditional roleplaying game.

-Marco

So it's a win for both of us?  We get to play to the audience?

Cool.  Again, I agree that Pundit's rhetoric is very good at creating such discussions.

Quote from: TonyLBSo it's a win for both of us?  We get to play to the audience?

Cool.  Again, I agree that Pundit's rhetoric is very good at creating such discussions.

Our part in the audience (as the audience for each other) is actually quite minor.

But again, the win is that we have the argument, and by this vigorous exchange, people become aware that there is no monoculture here. At that point, even if someone- some unknown third party-- shows up to read and sees his side isn't represented (maybe he has a third point of view), he can be emboldened by the fact that all authorities are challenged, all assertions can live and die on their own merits. And sure, he can join in too.

Quote from: Levi KornelsenHow about this.

If I "game the system" in Dogs as hard as I possibly can, while still keeping to the letter of the rules, I will become unbeatable in short order.  I do this by creating a list of dump traits, broadly useful, at 1d4.  I deliberately eat as much low-end fallout as possible, driving added d4's onto those traits.  When the first one hits 5d4, I start jumping up the die type and adding dice to the next one; I spend as much of my fallout as possible in this fashion.  Within four or five high-conflict sessions (and I will call for conflict ALL THE TIME), I have a nice stack of six or so traits at 5d10 each.

As a gamey-game, the rules do not stop me from doing this.

I don't do this because that's boring as shit.  See, Dogs mainly entertains me in ways that are not about being a gamey-game.

...

...And that's where some people latch on and start jumping up and down.  That last sentence:

See, Dogs mainly entertains me in ways that are not about being a gamey-game.

But, see, this is a ruse.  Because the idea of the Forge, if I get my GNS dogma correct, is that in a truly inspired GNS game, you wouldn't be able to play it as a gamey-game in the first place.  That makes DitV Incoherent.

Ironically, this, in my mind, makes it a traditional RPG right out of the chute.

Amusingly, a game that is incoherent (you could play it as a gamist or a narratavist) and follows most of the traditional RPG memes (dungeon/town, player/gm, adventurer/Dog) is the most successful production linked to a forum that pushes a theory that claims this is the incorrect way to design a game!