A Dark And Quiet Room

Introduction

There’s a man goin’ ’round takin’ names.
An’ he decides who to free and who to blame.
Everybody won’t be treated all the same.
There’ll be a golden ladder reaching down.
When the man comes around.

–Johnny Cash, “When the Man Comes Around”

Recently I decided that, to further my design efforts, I really needed to have some of the classic indie RPGs around. That way I could play them and perhaps absorb some of the design lessons from those games. Plus, I could find out what everyone else has been raving about. I’ve read a number of these games, but that’s no substitute for playing them.

One of the games in the Happy Box of Goodness that I received from Indie Press Revolution was my very own copy of Dogs in the Vineyard. I tried running this when it first came out, and it just didn’t go well. Since then, I’ve gotten a better handle on the game, and I wanted to give it another shot.

There are a couple of reasons for this. First was my designing Dirty Secrets and really absorbing the noir detective genre. Along the way, Ron commented to me that Dogs in the Vineyard was a direct descendant of Trollbabe, which was directly inspired by Ross MacDonald’s crime fiction. (I discuss some of this here.) The lightbulb went on in my head. Dogs in the Vineyard isn’t a Western game; it’s a noir game.

The second reason was my realization that, without polygamy, the Faith in Dogs in the Vineyard is just a conversative Christian-ish religion. I’m a conservative Christian. Many of the values put forth by the Faith are ones to which I’m sympathetic. The Faithful are my people.

Suddenly, Dogs in the Vineyard ceased to be a fantasy game about mystical paladin gunslingers. Instead, it became a noir game, set in my home religion, about issues that lie close to home for me.

Awesome.

So, I’m going to create towns of the Faithful, each with their dark noir-style secrets that need to be revealed and addressed. And then, we’re going to take idealistic, barely mature young people, armed with guns, Bibles and a couple months training, and set them loose on these nasty, dark, complicated situations.

Even more awesome.

Selling Gabrielle on this was easy. She had good memories of our previous go at Dogs in the Vineyard, and she was willing to try again. Crystal…well, she tried it again because she loves me. I assured her that I was confident that this would be a better experience than before.

Boy, was I right.

Dramatis Personae

Gabrielle played Brother Daniel Brooks, an honest farmboy who grew up in the Faith. He’s armed with his daddy’s shotgun and all his daddy’s wisdom. He has a girl back home who he’s going to marry when he gets back from being a Dog. Well, they aren’t exactly engaged or anything, but there’s always been an understanding between his family and hers. You know what I mean?

Acuity: 3d6
Body: 3d6
Heart: 4d6
Will: 3d6

Traits
Honest Face 3d6
Been shootin’ for years 3d8
Good old fashioned farmboy 1d10
Carryin’ all my daddy’s wisdom 2d10
I’m a Dog 1d8
“That just ain’t right” 1d6

Relationships
My daddy 1d6
Temperance James 1d8
Self-righteous 1d6

In contrast, Crystal played Sister Content Green. Her original name was Hazel, but her teachers at the Dogs’ Temple renamed her at her request. Her past is murky. She’s a relatively new convert with a dark past. Crystal knew some of the details of this dark past going into the game, but we’re elaborating as we go.

Oh, I should note that Crystal actually drew her Dog with her coat, including all the symbolism of the design. Content made her own coat; she didn’t have a town to back her up.

Acuity: 2d6
Body: 5d6
Heart: 3d6
Will: 5d6

Traits
Violent temper 2d10
Brutally honest 1d6
Fanatically faithful 1d6
Fearsome fist 4d4
Not totally alone 1d6

Relationships
I’m a Dog 2d4
Domestic Abuse 2d6

I was the GM, so that means I played the town.

Snowy Canyon

Town creation is brilliant. I hate doing game prep, so any tools that make it focused and simple are immediately my friends. Town creation is all that and more. I said it once, and I’ll say it again: town creation is the genius of this game, even more than the dice system. Yeah, it’s that good.

For those interested, here’s the town:

Snowy Canyon

Townspeople
Dorothy McCullen
Elias McCullen
Keziah McCullen
Lavina Culver
Aaron Culver
David Cooper
Abiah Cooper

Pride
Elias wants a child of his own. Keziah is Dorothy’s from when she was a whore, and so she doesn’t quite count. However, they haven’t been able to get pregnant.

Injustice
Elias obsesses about this lack, leading him to neglect Dorothy and Keziah.

Sin
Elias pays David to impregnate Dorothy. Both Dorothy and Abiah (David’s wife) agree, at least at first.

Demonic Attacks
Dorothy gets pregnant with twins, and Lavina (midwife and wife of the Steward) finds out the identity of the father

What do the townspeople want from the Dogs?
Dorothy McCullen—make Elias love her
Elias McCullen—bless the birth as legitimate
Keziah McCullen—be allowed to live alone with her mother like they used to
Lavina Culver—just move on without messing anything up
Aaron Culver—mediate the Cooper/McCullen feud
David Cooper—be able to divorce Abiah and marry Dorothy
Abiah Cooper—be given custody of the twins

What do the demons want?
Destroy both families over this issue

What do the demons want from the Dogs?
Side with either the McCullens or Coopers

What would happen if the Dogs didn’t come?
Abiah would murder Dorothy after she gives birth and would kidnap the children.

In looking this over, I think that I skipped a couple of steps. It’s arguable if I should have pushed the situation down to False Doctrine and Corrupt Worship. The “what if the Dogs didn’t come” doesn’t really take False Priesthood into account, either. Doesn’t really matter, though. It all worked out well.

What Happened in Snowy Canyon

The wind was whipping down the canyon as the Dogs rode into town. We established that the town was laid out like a West Virginian “holler”, with the town mostly winding along by the river that cut the canyon that the town lies in. So the Dogs went looking for the meeting house to find the Steward, Aaron Culver.

Both Crystal and Gabrielle established their characters fairly quickly. Brother Daniel was pretty laid back, using his folksy charm to ease into the situation. Sister Content started grilling the Steward immediately, looking for any sign of infractions. Somehow, Daniel managed to calm the situation and get everything moving towards the Steward’s house.

After dinner, Aaron started spilling his concern to Daniel about the McCullen and Cooper families, who had been feuding for the last six months or so. Content was helping his wife, Lavina, clear up from dinner, so she was only partially in the conversation. However, Lavina pulled Content aside and tried to persuade her that Aaron was blowing things out of proportion and that everything would blow over soon. I told Crystal, “She’s lying”. That’s all it took. Content accused Lavina of being a liar. We went to dice to figure out if Content could get the information out of Lavina. Eventually, Lavina confessed that she knew that David was the father of Dorothy’s babies.

Did Content share this information with Daniel? Of course not! So, early on, the Dogs were split up, which was actually quite cool.

The next morning, Daniel went to question Elias, while Content went to talk to Dorothy. There was some interesting crossing of scenes. Daniel and Elias were in one room, while Content and Dorothy were in another room. We played through Daniel’s conversation; when he finished with Elias, he left through the front door, politely taking his leave of the women who were there.

However, as we played out the other scene, we discovered that he had actually accidentally walked through a fairly intense conversation. Content confronted Dorothy about the babies’ true father, and we went to dice to see if Dorothy would actually confess. I rolled pretty well for Dorothy, and it looked like Crystal would have to escalate to get the information. But then we had this exchange. It went something like this:

CONTENT: What will you do if the children have red hair? (referring to David)
DOROTHY: I don’t know what you’re talking about. And, even if they did, what do you want me to do? Kill them?
CONTENT: I did. I couldn’t stand the idea that he would look like my father.

Gabrielle and I blinked at Crystal. I looked at my amazing dice, and I Gave on the spot.

Dorothy spilled everything, how Elias paid David to impregnate her. She looks up at Content and says, “At least, before, they paid [i]me[/i] money. But now we pay? What kind of messed-up religion is this?”

Meanwhile, Daniel had gone next door to question David and Abiah. David was gone on a business trip, but a very uptight, angry Abiah was there to greet Daniel. She didn’t really want to have a conversation with him, and she was about to enforce that with the loaded shotgun that she kept near the door. We played this as two conflicts. The first was “Does Abiah get David to leave?” and the second was “Does Abiah give up her part in the deal?” Daniel won the first conflict by suggesting that they move down to the meeting house to satisfy Abiah’s sense of propriety. Since we agreed that the stakes meant “Does Abiah manage to break off the conversation?” this satisfied all of us. So, down to the meeting house, where Daniel continued to press for information.

Things weren’t going well for Abiah, so she escalated very quickly to gunfighting. She raised the shotgun, and, when Daniel wouldn’t back down, she pulled the trigger.

At this point, I explained Gabrielle’s options to her. She didn’t have the necessary dice to Block, so she would either have to take the Fallout (3d10, in this case) and take the shot, or she would have to Give to block. She decided that the information was important enough that she didn’t want to give. So she took the Fallout, and Daniel was shot.

We introduced Content into the scene, giving Gabrielle a 1d8 Belonging die for Content’s intervention. Daniel Raises with, “I’m a Dog. I have the authority to ask these questions.” That was enough to force Abiah to Give. “My husband is a bastard,” she hisses.

Before the rest of the data dump, though, it’s time to roll Fallout!

Gabrielle rolls a 20.

We all blink at it. I say, “Daniel is dead.”

I nearly said, “Just reroll that.” But I firmly clamped down on that impulse. Gabrielle knew the risk; she had chosen this.

We worked it out. Content moves closer to Abiah, as she lays out what David has done. Daniel sits down on one of the benches, like he’s tired. Content hears what Abiah has to say, then turns to Daniel. “What do you think?” she says.

Daniel slumps and falls to the floor.

The shotgun clatters to the floor as Abiah turns to run.

Content dashes to Daniel’s side. If this were the movie, all the sound would have gone away. Just like Daniel. There he lies, clutching his beloved’s handkerchief.

Heavy stuff, mostly because it was so unexpected. A bolt from the blue.

They buried Daniel in the local graveyard. Content scattered consecrated earth on the grave before they buried him. Then someone came running from the McCullen’s house. Dorothy is in labor.

And a man rolls into town on a wagon. David Cooper is home.

(to be continued)