The first game I played with Erica and Aaron was Primetime Adventures, and though it was fun, there was the conspicuous lack of dice that both of them really wanted in a game.  So we decided to give Dogs in the Vineyard a try. 

They were very nice to let me record the session on tape, which really helped this AP report.  Making notes in game was causing me some distress, as my hands tended to ache when writing more than a few lines.  I also found using a laptop to be a little too distracting. This was a useful method of recording events for later listening.

By the way, so long as your players are cool with it, I highly recommend recording a session.  There are some awesome quotes I was able to include that just made the game for us, and would have been forgotten otherwise. You really learn a lot about how sessions work and the neat social stuff that happens when you listen to it a second time. I've done this before here, with a different group, to the same effect.

I made use of Orchard Plains, discussed here and with the alteration that Ralph Mazza suggested in that thread, that Alden was aware of the fungus on the apples, and intended to sell them to the Eastern Territories.  It made me angry that he knew the truth yet let his daughter take the blame.  And if made me angry, then it was the way to go!

I also made use of two rules modifications.  One was the list of NPC escalation dice found here, which was awesome.  No more putting together characters!  I also used the Afraid rules method of group conflicts, which worked out well.

I totally screwed up demonic influence by forgetting to roll it.  That was a rookie move on my part, something to remember in the future.

Erica was pumped about this game, having studied religion and ethics in her University career.  Aaron was also interested and happy with the setting.

Erica created Lilith, who chose the background of complicated history.  Notable traits included “Being a Dog is my calling and my Salvation (1d10)”, “Hand of God (1d10)”, “Remorseless (1d4)”.  Erica had thought of this character when I first talked about the setting of Dogs in the Vineyard a few weeks ago, and as a result the character was made in record time. 

Her achievement was “I hope that I prove a woman can do anything a man can” and I framed a scene involving sandbagging an area to prevent rising waters.  The men carried the sandbags, the women filled them, but there weren’t enough men to get all the sandbags moved in time.  She did a physical conflict to carry sandbag after sandbag, as I raised with “your knees buckle” and “the sandbag feels like it’s full of lead”.  She ended up escalating to talking, threatening the rest of the women to help with a drawn gun.  She won, and took “I lead by example (1d6)”. 

Aaron created Gabriel, who chose a well rounded background.  Notable traits included “I didn’t ask to be a dog (1d4)”, “I can survive in the desert for days (1d6)”, “I can smell the damned (2d6)”.  Aaron struggled a little bit with traits, he didn’t have a clear idea of his character in mind, which made things a little more difficult for him. 

His achievement was “I hope I overcome evil”.  I framed a fellow dog inviting him to a den of Vice, where he was offered strong drink, women and the opportunity to gamble.  I used raises like “How can you fight against alcohol if you don’t know what it tastes like?” and he got used to the system of blocking and raising.  He won, escalating to physical to walk out, and got the trait “I overcame Evil (1d6)”. 

I wanted to pull in some blood relations for this town, so I told them “One of you is related to Brother Alden” – Erica picked Alden and made him her Uncle.  I then told Aaron “you know the Steward, Brother Josephus, as he is your...” Aaron filled in with cousin.

I started out by describing the Apple Orchards they are traveling through, the apples heavy on the vine.  Erica jumped right in and interacted with the scene, having Lilith grab an apple, take a bite, and offer it to Gabriel.

Aaron laughed and said “That’s so wrong!  I look at the apple with the big germy bite in it, and give it to my horse when she’s not looking.”

This kind of stuff is great, it means that they’re settling into the characters and enjoying the SIS.  I decided to ramp it up and dive into the town’s problems.

I have them hear screams for help, and they come upon the fallen brother Josephus, gut shot by Alden, and being frantically tended to by his daughter Sister Grace.  He’s struggling and bleeding everywhere; Grace is screaming and poorly trying to staunch the blood.

Lilith immediately wants to know who did this, but Grace begs them to save him. 

Lilith steps up and we begin the conflict number one:  Does Brother Josephus die?

Gabriel decides not to get involved, but I let him know if he wants he can be used like an item by Lilith should she need some help.

Lilith brings in her “Hands of God” trait in the healing conflict.  I rose with her faith wavering, and she saw it and then rose with her authority as a Dog.  He coughs clotted, gooey blood in her face, which she ignores and then channels her faith into his body.  I gave, and he was healed!

Initially the raises and sees were slow.  Erica and Aaron were learning the system, and they were still very unsure of how things worked.  However, by the end of even the first conflict, they began to get a feel for it.

Josephus, healed, thanks the Dogs, welcomes his cousin, and begins to angrily rant about Alden shooting him.  He tells them about Alden’s daughter Felicity, and her pride-cursed food getting the people sick. 

Me as Josephus: “I simply wanted to correct sister Felicity, Alden’s Demon possessed daughter.  He declared my corrections to be too severe, and shot me.” 
Me: When he says corrections he puts his hand on his bullwhip, soaked with blood.
Aaron: Oh man.

Sister Grace pipes up about Felicity, and talks about how Brother Meshach was courted both of them, but Felicity tempted him with her apple pie, and now he suffers because her food is now tainted with her declarations of being the greatest baker.  She proclaims that Brother Meshach would have chosen her, and Felicity likely knew this and poisoned him on purpose!

They say that the pie still sits, covered with cheesecloth, in the town square, where the barn raising party was celebrated.

Awesome quote from Gabriel:
“I don’t think we should eat the pie.  You already ate an apple.  Oh god.  My horse!”

There was an amusing moment where Gabriel checked to make sure he didn’t now have a demon horse. I didn’t think that a conflict was needed, and said that the horse was a little sick, but not evil and possessed.

I had Josephus mention that Alden’s apples are all sold to the Eastern Territories, and other orchards provide the town with fruit.

Lilith decides to crack open the letter she’s supposed to be handing over to Brother Alden, which congratulates him on last years sales of apples to the Eastern Territories being sufficient to buy the town materials for the barn, and hopes that this year’s apple sales will purchase a schoolhouse.

They decide to confront Brother Alden, who I framed washing the bloody whip wounds on his weeping daughter’s back, his blood spattered rifle nearby.

Alden tried to defend his actions, but Lilith ignored him and spoke to Felicity.  She wanted to know what happened. 

Felicity told them about her proud declaration at the barn raising, and how sorry she is to have caused such strife.  She apologizes for getting everyone sick, but then mentioned “I’m sorry, daddy, you told me not to use the apples.”

Alden swoops in here with “That’s enough girl, she’s sick, and she’s hurt, and tired, and she should rest, and be silent!”

Lilith then asks “what’s wrong with the apples?”

Conflict number two, does Alden reveal what’s wrong with the apples?

Alden then raises with “The apples are fine!  Fine!  Nothing wrong with them at all!” That gets blocked quickly.

His next raise is “Sister Felicity’s pride infected the apples with sin!  When Sister Grace said this I knew it to be true!”  Gabriel escalates to physical and puts his hand on his shoulder, giving it a bit of a squeeze.

The next raise was a high one on my part.  I wanted them to take the blow for this one.  “Don’t you see that the bastard Josephus took my daughter and whipped her in front of everyone, and when I saw her bleeding, I knew someone had to bleed too.  And who the HELL are you to tell me otherwise?” Both are forced to take the blow for it. 

This escalates Lilith to physical, she shakes him roughly.  Gabriel then smacks him with his hat. Alden then folds, and reveals the fungus infection.  He tries to defend himself

“The Eastern Provinces can have a few bad apples!  They ARE a few bad apples!  Who cares about them!  If I reveal that the apples are bad, we don’t get the money for the Schoolhouse!”

Lilith makes an awesome judgment “We have to do the only thing that needs to be done.  We have to burn your orchard down the ground.”

Me: Wow.
Aaron: That is AWESOME.

That was an awesome moment.  I didn’t want the conflict, I said hell yes.  I narrated the smell of cooked, then burning apples as the orchard burnt to the ground.  I had Alden watching with horror and sorrow, his bandaged daughter holding his hand with tears in her eyes.

We did a fallout roll, and they both gained some experience from rolling ones, and some short term fallout.  They thought the experience fallout seemed weird, but liked to add stuff to the sheet!

The townsfolk arrive, Brother Josephus and his daughter Grace at the lead.  Grace screams “Felicity’s work again!”

Lilith wasn’t done judging, she marched right up to Grace.  “Judgment has been passed on Alden, but not yet on you.  You were the reason that your father beat Felicity.  Your words against her poisoned everyone.” 

Josephus stepped in front of Grace, angrily calling down Lilith and appealing to his cousin Gabriel to stop Lilith from saying such things to his daughter. 

Aaron got a little confused here “Why are we angry at Grace? Did I miss something?”

I realized that Aaron was genuinely confused here, so I paused game play. Erica briefly mentioned why she thinks that Grace should be punished. 

“Grace has some kind of love tryst between Felicity and some guy.  So she’s going ‘Felicity’s evil’, ‘the baking is evil’ to get a hold of her man.”

And Aaron opposed it! “But the apples are evil, and the Dad told her not to use them.”

I put the game back on; we had a three sided conflict.

Conflict Number Three: Gabriel tried to keep the peace, Lilith was pronouncing judgment on Josephus and Grace, and Josephus was trying to protect his daughter. 

It got a little bit confusing, as Gabriel would sometimes raise against Lilith and sometimes against Josephus, but it made for a pretty intense conflict.  Again, the Afraid rules helped here.

Gabriel’s raise to everyone “It’s ok, it’s done.  The apples were bad, the orchard’s been destroyed.  Problem solved. Let’s leave.”  It gets blocked.

Lilith’s raise to the Steward “Felicity’s punishment was beyond justice, and not deserving.  Someone needs to take responsibility on this side, who will it be?  If one of you steps forward, it would a noble choice.”

The Steward’s block “Felicity deserved every lash, one for every man, woman and child she made sick with her sin!”

Gabriel escalates to physical and scatters his jar of earth, blessing the soil of the charred orchard.  He says “The orchard can be rebuilt, and grow again to start fresh!”  Again trying to placate everyone, but gets blocked by both.
The Steward reverses the blow on Gabriel “You are my flesh and blood, and her judging my daughter is a judgment on yourself!  Reign Lilith in!”

Gabriel is forced to take the blow. “I didn’t ask for this shit.” he grumbles.  He pulls in the “I didn’t ask to be a dog” trait in for his next raise. 

Lilith escalates to physical.  She uses her black onyx cross, and uses her authority as a Dog to remove Felicity’s voice until the crops come back.  I was unsure about the legitimacy of the raise, but I decided that it was far too awesome to say no to.  I absolutely took the blow on this, and her voice was gone, she silently screams as his father looked on in shock.  I also had the cross burn a brand to her forehead, which was met with approval.  Again, maybe not legit, but still awesome.

Gabriel pulled guns at this point, and fired a warning shot into the air, yelling “stop this!”  Again blocked by both Lilith and the Steward. 

The Steward escalates to fighting, attempting to slap Lilith.  Lilith escalates to fighting, blocks by catching his hand, and then raises with “those who follow the dictates of the king of life, and receive his blessing, know that this blessing can be taken away”.  She then says “I want to sicken him”. 

I take the blow, and have his face contort in agony, as his form grows frail, and I have his hair fall out of his head, in clumps on the ground.  Probably not exactly legit, but hey, she wanted to sicken him, and I took the blow, so it’s got to hurt, right?  And it’s cool!

Gabriel shouts out “You just destroyed the whole fucking place!  This is insanity!  You’re all sinners now!” as he escalates to gunplay, and shoots at both Lilith and the Steward.  He wanted to shoot to wound, and raised 11.  I then I advised him to raise with a smaller amount of dice, warning him “it’s difficult to wound”.  He raises 4 instead.

Lilith stops the bullet with her coat, and the Steward escalates to gunplay, pulling out his own gun and dodging the shot. 

The Steward points his gun at Gabriel screaming “Felicity has poisoned your mind, and I must put you down!” and raising with a 10.  Gabriel blocks by shooting the gun out of his hand.  He initially wanted to blow his hand off, but I ruled that would be a separate raise.

We start laughing at this point.  Between laughing, Erica said “This is stupid!  Things have gotten way beyond anything I wanted!”  Aaron said “You’re the one making people mute and making the old guy sick!”  I realized, at this point, between laughing bouts, that it got a little silly, so I decide to end the conflict.

The Father then gives, taking full blame, begging for the Dogs to give his daughter her voice back.  Lilith says “You had that chance, and you passed up on it.  When the crops return then so shall your voice.  Until then give some thought on how a wagging tongue can be more harmful than helpful.”

Josephus says “what of brother Alden?”

“Brother Alden has also learned his lesson, that gain at the cost of wellness of others is not profitable, and that he must now learn to grow healthy fruit.”

She turns to Alden and Josephus and says. “You two better work this out.  You both have an invested effort in allowing the crops to return.  You will work together to regrow this orchard, and regrow your trust in each other to live properly.”

I was utterly thunderstruck.  It was just awesome.  Understand this was their first time ever playing this game, and we got the whole thing done in just 3 hours of playing.  They agreed that it was a great time, and look forward to another town. 

Awesome.

Clarification...was it Grace who's voice got taken away?  I was confused at first, but from context I'm betting that's who you meant.

Oops!  Yes.  I suck, SISTER GRACE's voice was taken away, not Sister Felicity.  That's a really embarrassing error. 

That's totally awesome!  I'm glad the town, complete with suggested mods, worked well for you.  It fills me with even more confidence that it will work for me when the time comes to run my first game.

After reading this Actual Play report, I think I might well go with Alden having prior knowledge of the fungus.