So, my pack of Dogs has only made it through half a town so far, so I'm not expecting this to come up any time soon, but it's been worrying me somewhat and I'd like to be ready for it when it does.

The rules say that, when the Dogs are done with a town, they can choose to go on to a new town, go home, or revisit an old town on their route. If they revisit an old one, the GM is responsible for "updating" the town.

So what's this "updating"? Is it meant to include generating a whole new set of conflicts starting from a whole new instance of Pride, or working out what happened after the Dogs moved on last time around, or what?

Whichever of these it is, here's my worry: if the Dogs go back to a town, the GM has to decide what's the state of affairs in that town now, days or weeks or months after the Dogs' previous visit. And that means working out what the eventual effect of the Dogs' actions was -- and doesn't that mean the GM is judging the Dogs' actions, in exactly the way that no-one but the Dogs is supposed to do?

(Or do I have this wrong, and the distinction I'm missing is something like "it's ok for the GM to say that what the Dogs did is going to be bad for the town, but it's not ok for the GM to say that what the Dogs did makes them sinners or bad Dogs"?)

When the Dogs choose to re-visit a town, the players are asking you, the GM, to re-evaluate the town.  They're putting it back in your hands.  They're saying that they feel there is something more to be explored there.

The simple rule for updating towns is:

Make the town again, pride->injustice->sin etc.

The pride CANNOT be the Dogs'. "The Dogs done wrong," no; "Sister Elsa thinks the Dogs done wrong," yes.

-Vincent

Right. And presumably, make sure that any named NPCs from last time have a what-do-I-want agenda that'll force the Dogs to start making decisions again as soon as they get back?

Thanks for clarifying!