Pôl wrote:
There's an idea in the game that I find problematic: that the Dogs can redefine sin so that it isn't sin anymore. But that's a larger issue, and I'll start another thread to discuss it.

Of course, you're talking about sin as a rules concept, not the in-game socio-religious one. Because that one is surely decided by the society at large, ultimately the elders of the Faith.

So, ultimately, the only thing the Dogs can decide is their own attitude towards events, just like any player characters. They just happen to have pretty much authority in the setting, on the local level. This isn't because of the game rules, but because the setting is defined as such.

I have a feeling this one's been hashed out before...

Eero wrote:
Of course, you're talking about sin as a rules concept, not the in-game socio-religious one. Because that one is surely decided by the society at large, ultimately the elders of the Faith.

Vincent: now I'm all confused. What then about all the setting-specific stuff you have in the town creation rules? Because there it says pretty clearly this:

Dogs in the Vineyard wrote:
Stewardship applies to interpreting doctrine! The King of Life tells the Prophets and Ancients the Truth Immortal. The Prophets and Ancients derive from Truth Immortal specifi c doctrines, as It applies to the here and now, which they tell to the regional Stewards. The regional Stewards apply the doctrines to the circumstances of their regions, and tell their branch Stewards. The branch Stewards apply these interpretations to their own congregations, and tell the families. The husbands apply the interpretations to themselves and their wives, and with their wives apply them to their children and other family members.

Ah.

Well, any and all NPCs and PCs can think whatever they want - strictly, think whatever their creators want them to think. They can have all kinds of opinions about what's sin and what isn't. That's fine.

Sin is only defined bindingly in one little place: town creation.

So let's say that the Dogs undertake an ambitious endeavor: they want to convince every single man, woman and child, every steward and elder, in the whole Faith, that stealing from your brother isn't a sin. They go through one hundred conflicts, ever-increasing in scope, and at last they decisively win: there isn't a Faithful on the whole earth who believes that stealing from your brother is a sin.

The GM sits down to create a town. She writes "Pride: Abe thinks that having learned to read makes him better than his brother Barth. Injustice: Abe bullies Barth into taking on the cattle drive without his help, so he can 'cogitate.' Sin: while Barth is away, Abe steals his watch. Demonic attacks: on the cattle drive, Barth is trampled and killed."

Totally, fully, 100% legit. The players have no objection and no recourse.

-Vincent

OK, I think we're good here. You're just talking about the rules-term sin, not the in-game conception, which is up for grabs under usual setting logic. It'd have been faster if you'd have just agreed to it in the first place, because that's what I said :)

Uh... actually, I think he's saying that in game there is a distinction between "sin" and "stuff that's wrong."

The GM decides sin.  The players decide right and wrong.  The two are largely independent, the same way they would be if you replaced "sin" with "contagion."

Is somebody who goes out in the winter without a jacket doing a Wrong Thing?  Maybe yes, maybe no.  Is he likely to catch a cold?  Yes.

Is somebody who steals from his prideful brother doing a Wrong Thing?  Maybe yes, maybe no.  Is he committing a sin?  Yes.

Well, that's a given, isn't it? The game quite explicitly says that there is no overall moral authority in there, anywhere. So the closest anybody can come in that regard is in-setting morality (as distinct from ethics). And that revolves around the concept of sin: define what's sin, and you define what's wrong according to the Faithful who believes in that sin. What's objectively wrong (as in "we the people playing this game" wrong) is explicitly left out of the rules.

So while I agree with you, Tony, I don't think that that's the point of contention in the original post where this was split. It seems to me that the original poster was puzzling the other extreme: if the dogs can do whatever they want with full moral authority, what happens if they decide to go against the Faith is laid down in the book? That's the question Vincent's answering, I believe.

That's not what I said.  In game, there is the concept of sin that is not wrong, and virtue that is not right.

Yeah, that's "sin" as represented in the town creation mechanics. Which is what I corrected in my first post. It seemed to me that the original poster was addressing sin as an in-game social concept, while Vincent answered about sin as the mechanical town creation concept. Of course I agree that the sin the GM chooses in town creation won't always be wrong, that's a big part of the game. On the other hand, something a character considers sin by definition is wrong, if he's of the Faith. That's what committing to a religious morality means, making your judgement of good and evil based on dogma. So for the characters sin=wrong, except for those rare moments when a character transcends his upbringing.

Look: the original post, if I understood it, was worrying that the game goes to foolishness when the players start redefining theology however they want. Vincent answered to this by pointing out that there is no game mechanical cross-purposes and it's all good. I tried to clarify that the GM's mechanical authority over town creation won't mean jack for the characters in the story, which will define what's sin and what's not for themselves. For the GM the doctrine of Pride-Injustice-etc. is rules mechanics, but for the characters it's "just" the dominant theology, to be ignored if they will.

It seems to me that we're all talking past each other. Better call this quits. I'm 99% sure that we're not really disagreeing on any of the interesting stuff.

I agree with Eero. Everybody gets the procedures of play, right? It turns out that in the real world - I mean actual play - this whole sin/not-sin thing isn't even a concern. Try it, you'll see.

We need to hear from Pôl, though. Nobody answer again before he does.

-Vincent

lumpley wrote:
I agree with Eero. Everybody gets the procedures of play, right? It turns out that in the real world - I mean actual play - this whole sin/not-sin thing isn't even a concern. Try it, you'll see.

We need to hear from Pôl, though. Nobody answer again before he does.

They [the demons] don't want the Dogs to pronounce that it's okay for the town to rob the store-- because if the Dogs say it, it's probably not false doctrine. That's what Dogs do, after all.

The GM decides what's sin. The society at large doesn't, the elders of the Faith don't, the Dogs don't, scripture doesn't, God doesn't. Just and only the GM, just and only at town creation.