Now, I know (or at least, I think I know) that Dogs in the Vineyard isn't supposed to be "balanced" or support Gamism. But I do have a question. Why wouldn't a character put all his dice into traits like "I'm a Dog"? That can be used just about any time, because whatever the character is doing, he's doing it because he's a Dog.

Moreover, why not put dice into "I'm good at what I do" or "I never accept failure"? It seems like assigning traits is easy to abuse. Say you have the Strong Community background. What's to stop someone from taking:

"I'm a Dog" 2d8
"I'm good at what I do" 3d6
"I never accept failure" 1d4

Using these traits, they could use them all in just about any situation. While this character will probably be more effective, he'll probably be less interesting than a character with:

"I'm a Dog" 1d4
"I've got a sweet tooth" 1d6
"Large animals make me nervous" 2d6
"I don't think I could face down a demon" 1d8
"I couldn't shoot a woman" 1d8

So, I'm just wondering is there anything in the rules that affects this, which I might have overlooked? Or is just up to the GM to monitor this? Am I missing something basic?

I'm no expert here, but I'd try not to monitor anything. Just remind your players that if they put lots of dice in a trait, that that makes that trait very important to them. The Dog who has "I'm a dog 3d8" really identifies with being a dog. I would argue that you'll get just as interesting a character out of either instance of traits, they'll just be different. If you're worried, try coming up with conflicts that challenge the character's identifity somehow.

Ryan, I get that you're supposed to put dice into what is important to you as a player. But what I'm getting at is that there doesn't seem to be any reason (mechanically) for taking non-general traits.

As an example, you could take "I'm a good fighter" and it you could use it in any situation where you could use the trait "I can dodge a punch." But the reverse isn't true. So, mechanically, the first trait is superior to the second.

The same thing happens with the relationships "Brother Hezba" and "Brother Hezba thinks I should dress nicer." The first could be used in any situation where the second was applicable, but the second couldn't be used in all the situations where the first would fit.

Hey Andrew.

"Why wouldn't" questions are so weird. "Why wouldn't a character put all his dice into traits like 'I'm a Dog'?" The answer is: no reason especially. Or, a bunch of reason which individually don't have much weight but taken together are almost irresistable.

It just never really happens that way, is all. Try making a character without trying to prove the point, you'll see.

Anyway, as GM it's not your problem anyway. If it's anybody's problem it's the whole group's. If everybody but you is cool with it (whatever "it" might be, not only bogus traits), then it's your responsibility to chill and go along. Especially as GM. If this were a democracy, the GM would only get to vote in case of a tie.

-Vincent

Fair enough. I've never run DitV before, so I'm just trying to figure things out in advance.

(This is funny, I'm responding a post behind you.)

Ah!

As an example, you could take "I'm a good fighter" and it you could use it in any situation where you could use the trait "I can dodge a punch." But the reverse isn't true.

I could totally imagine somebody doing this for the first Dog they created: they'd have an expectation (from previous games they'd played) that the challenges they need to rise to in the game are measured by character-effectiveness, and so they apply their player-skill to the process of character-creation, in order to maximize their ability to rise to those challenges.

But, seriously, you don't win anything in Dogs by being massively effective. All you do is have a little less fun on the way to having figured everything out, delved every sin-blackened heart, uncovered every dirty secret crying to be known.

But you're going to get to that point, where you know everything and have to judge, whether the character is as optimized as possible or as sloppy as can be imagined. Everybody in the game (GM included) wants you to get there. What your character-effectiveness does is color the journey, not change the destination.

Okay, I think I get what you are saying. You can use any trait for any conflict, you just have to be clever enough to find a way to justify its use.

But, if that's the case, why not roll all your dice for everything, then? Just roll them all, then pick out the ones you want to use, and justify them at that point?

Well, for me, rolling a trait is making a statement that it's relevant. I can always make that statement. But sometimes I choose not to.

"Know my own sin", for instance. If I'm trying to get to the bottom of who sexually abused a mute little girl, do I use that Trait? Do I, in short, say "My sins go so deep that I can think the way this guy thinks"? For some characters, yeah. For some characters, no.

Say someone comes up and talks to me, just man to man, about a woman he loves... and he's trying to get me to tell him that she's a good woman, and I'd rather not (for a whole host of reasons). Now... do I roll "I'm a Dog 3d8"? 'cuz this guy didn't come here to talk to a Dog, so using that Trait is trumping his personal contact with my own authority. Which is a statement I alway can make, but often will choose to avoid.

You can use any trait for any conflict, you just have to be clever enough to find a way to justify its use.

Sure, but that just sounds like a difference in narration. Instead of saying, "I use X trait," you're saying, "This is how I use X trait."

I can't remember if you have to do that as you include the dice for the trait, or if you have to do it when you use the die/dice from that trait. If the former, then obviously, you can't do this, but if the latter, you could.

"Uh, what? I got a 10 on my 'Likes bunnies' die? Hmm, I notice that there's a bunny in the middle of the gunfight, so I dive wildly toward it, trying to scare it off so it doesn't get hurt. That throws of their aim enough that they don't hit me." Or something along those lines.

Andrew,

You roll the dice as you bring them into play by narration. Bringing a trait into narration should be considerably different than either "I use X trait" or "This is how I use X trait". Those are justifications.

A proper narration should invoke the trait in the minds of the audience without ever having vocalize the actual words written on the sheet. The narration should put the trait on display. The trait shouldn't be the narration.

Best,

Daniel

Um, wow, okay.

a) You roll a trait's dice when you say what your character does to bring the trait into play, not before.

b) Once you've rolled a die, you don't have to keep track of which trait it went with. It's just a 10 you have for any raise or see, not a "likes bunnies" 10.

-Vincent

Right, okay. I'd forgotten when the use of traits was described in relation to the rolling of the dice.

Whew. You had me worried.

-Vincent

The original post in this thread is something that I've been weighing in my mind before running a game. Most of the role-player friends I have are of the gamist type, strictly, and they'll argue for hours about how to apply a trait to a situation. This is a problem made all the more difficult in that we (before I stopped playing with them out of frustration) were using a system made up by one of the players that has all the inherent combat and mechanics of DnD, but a terrible stat system and none of the traits written down anywhere. Like GURPS, only made up on the spot.

In one case, a player made a very compelling case for the following: If he can use telekinesis, which requires no roll to use, to move a 10lb object at a rate of 20ft/minute, then according to physics, he can move an object the size of a bullet at mach 7 with his mind. The GM (and creator of the game) countered that by saying that he wouldn't be able to track the object in flight, but, oh! the player took the trait "omnipresent" at character creation. Well, then.

I've expressly forbid most of my friends from ever playing Dogs for so long as I am running it. This is the only solution I know to prevent them from breaking it. Dogs requires that you have players who are able to accept a narrativist style of play.

I've considered the problem for a while and have concluded that this is what at least one of the players would do as soon as they understood the system: They would pour every point of experience I let them have into adding dice to "gunslinging". Since guns are the highest that conflict can escalate, as soon as they want something to go their way, they would pull their guns. Everyone knows that they have more dice in guns than anyone else has in anything, so they'd relent or die. And the players would be fine with that because, for them, roleplaying is about them winning and acting out their violent fantasies.

I'm sure that there are situations that could be created where gunfighting wouldn't help. Sure, you could disarm them and they'd be SOL, but where's the fun in that? As a GM, I don't want to set up situations where I have to make them lose, but it isn't any fun if they just shoot or threaten to shoot every person they come across.

So, sadly, as I see it, if you have someone whose only intention is to make the best character by power-gaming his way through the story, all you can do is to ask them to leave or discourage them enough that they start to branch out their character or leave themselves. Either way, having that player in the group is going to bring the fun down for everyone else.

1) Powergaming in Dogs is all about the talking. If you put all your dice in Gunfighting, not only would you be dodging sudden death all the time, but it'd be kind of hard to use them against, say, your grandmother who asks you to stop being a Dog.

2) I've noticed that people tend to just not powergame in Dogs, even if they have a previous history of such. On the contrast, I've heard a lot about theoretical powergamed characters, which seems to be unfair to the game.

It's also important not to forget that a gunfighting conflict can be "escalated" to a verbal or physical conflict. In this case, escalation refers to adding extra dice to the conflict, not increasing the level of violence in it.

Percy,

I think you should take the worst of your power-gaming friends and set all of them down to play a one-shot of Dogs.. Just a one-off, no commitment. Let them take whatever traits they want, so long as it's justified within the setting. Don't even TRY to discourage them from pumping it all into gunslinging, or whatever.

Then face them with a conflict where guns aren't the obvious answer. Face them with a conflict where guns may very well be the wrong answer. If they still escalate to guns and shoot their way through.. Have your NPCs take fallout Take major fallout. Remember, a bullet must actually be fired at someone to escalate to guns. Have them kill people over minor disagreements..

Unless your friends are closet psychopaths, (which may very well be the case..) this will rattle them. Personally, if the conflict is framed correctly, I very much doubt that they'll escalate to guns without a lot of thought.

Dogs is hard to break, but I think it can break a lot of bad habits.

Andrew Morris wrote: "Uh, what? I got a 10 on my 'Likes bunnies' die? Hmm, I notice that there's a bunny in the middle of the gunfight, so I dive wildly toward it, trying to scare it off so it doesn't get hurt. That throws of their aim enough that they don't hit me." Or something along those lines.

PercyKittenz wrote: In one case, a player made a very compelling case for the following: If he can use telekinesis, which requires no roll to use, to move a 10lb object at a rate of 20ft/minute, then according to physics, he can move an object the size of a bullet at mach 7 with his mind. The GM (and creator of the game) countered that by saying that he wouldn't be able to track the object in flight, but, oh! the player took the trait "omnipresent" at character creation. Well, then.

I've expressly forbid most of my friends from ever playing Dogs for so long as I am running it. This is the only solution I know to prevent them from breaking it.

They would pour every point of experience I let them have into adding dice to "gunslinging". Since guns are the highest that conflict can escalate, as soon as they want something to go their way, they would pull their guns. Everyone knows that they have more dice in guns than anyone else has in anything, so they'd relent or die. And the players would be fine with that because, for them, roleplaying is about them winning and acting out their violent fantasies.

I'm sure that there are situations that could be created where gunfighting wouldn't help. Sure, you could disarm them and they'd be SOL, but where's the fun in that?

So, sadly, as I see it, if you have someone whose only intention is to make the best character by power-gaming his way through the story, all you can do is to ask them to leave or discourage them enough that they start to branch out their character or leave themselves. Either way, having that player in the group is going to bring the fun down for everyone else.