Last night I had the opportunity to play Dogs in the Vineyard.  Present were myself, Collin, James and Will.  James was GMing.  Now, when I play Dogs a) I like the supernatural dial fairly high and b) I like playing with the Sorcerous Dogs options.  Originally I was going to create a character that started out with a relationship with demon but Will pointed out that strictly according the book you start with relationships to people only.  I'm glad he did because that provided an opportunity later in the game that was very awesome.

James was running Blackboot Ridge: http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/index.php?topic=17472.msg185155#msg185155

Which is an AWESOME town and I'm glad I hadn't read it before.  One of the relationships I had was, "my missing sister" which James mapped onto Eliphal in that town.  Now at one point I found out that Eliphal was one of the women who was in a death trance.  I immediately went to wake her up while the other two dogs were dealing with bleeding Clemence.

I called for a conflict to wake Eliphal up and ended up sucking the demonic power out of her by carving the demon's name into her belly.  That's when I took a relationship with the demon and added the trait: I have a demon in me on my sheet.  I had a lot of fun role-playing my character as very ill and stumbling around sick after his supernatural battle.

While that was going on the other two Dogs had managed to drive the demons out of Clemence.  Also the relationship between Nahum and Eliphal had come out and the Dogs agreed that they should be married immediately.  At this point the Dogs split up.  I stayed with Nahum, Will's Dog went to fetch Elphial and Collin's Dog went to deal with his brother Silas who was likely going off to kill Sister Hazel.

Will's Dog discovered that the demon that had been driven from Clemence had taken possession of Elphial.  The two fight and Will's Dog gets thrown through a window, losing his stakes, and landing in a pile of glass at my feet.  Also the other "comatose" women had all come out of their towns like demonic zombies covered in blood and were converging.

And.... I suddenly had this idea.  I described how my character was clearly possessed himself.  White skin, glowing red veins, black eyes.  I walked over Will's Dog's broken body and slowly upstairs to where Elphial was.  I said that I realized that Demons, the crying ghost children, all the other dark forces at work needed to be made a family.

I narrated how I intended to incestuously embrace my sister in an effort to consecrate a familial marriage AMONG THE DEMONS thus sealing them away forever.  The GM loved it and didn't even make it a conflict, just gave.

I carried my sister down and handed her over to Nahum still intent to marry them.  We healed Will's Dog and Collin's Dog at that point had killed his brother and executed Hazel as her absolution.

Now I must admit that, that was probably the most fucked up thing I have ever done in a Dogs game.  And I wanted to use the example as a way to reinforce the often discussed issue of the supernatural in Dogs.  The often iterated fear that "Doesn't the existence of the supernatural in dogs affirm the morality of the situation."  I think my character's actions in this game demonstrate why that isn't the case.

In this situation the specific question is, "Doesn't the tangible existence of crying baby ghosts prove the immorality of abortion?"  The answer being no because ghost babies as a metaphor underscore a *question*.  The more overt and obvious the metaphor the darker and more heavily pronounced the highlights around the *question*.  And because of the way Dogs is setup the players are empowered to respond with an equal overt and metaphorical *ANSWER*.

Consider the difference between what I did do: Give the babies a new family to tend to them in the otherworld because their presence was unwanted here.  And what my original idea was before it was revealed that Elphial was possessed: I wanted to marry Elphial and Nahum and have the Dogs perform a ritual that bind the spirits of the babies into the child conceived from their wedlock.

What do those two ideas say about me and/or my character's ideas on abortion?  Frankly, I'm not sure.  But I find them both pretty damn emotionally evocative.

It was a lot of fun.

Jesse

That's pretty damn awesome, and right fucked up. 

It reminds me of an interview Ron was in recently. Part of what he said, if I understood it correctly, is that with a difficult subject, particularly an iffy one, people will often have a strong opinion and arrive at it rather quickly. But with roleplay, there can be more deliberation involved before arriving at a conclusion. Abortion is a pretty strong issue, but your seeing more deliberation here. Sure there's alot of supernatural fantasy stuff, but that distances you from the issue a bit, which helps with perspective.

Err, this is probably a bit of a low content, thumbs up post. So....THUMBS UP! :)

The game rocked. Thanks to Jesse, Colin and Will for bringing teh awesome. For a moment, I felt a little guilty stomping on Will's character like that since, I created one monstrously powerful demon-possessed sorcerer with a 4d10 relationship to the demon and the dog's were split up. Then I realized that Will could give at any time and just through out a 19 and tossed him through the window. The violence fit his character to a T, since that Dog had a mean streak and wasn't much of a talker.

When Jesse told us that the demons just wanted to be a family, there was no way I was going to roll dice on that one. Demonic Brady Bunch for the Win!

The conflict between Colin and his brother Silas was also completely cool. After he shot Silas, we framed a conflict between Colin and the demonic influence where the stakes were if the demons won he would heal Silas and if he won, he would consecrate his brother and walk away, leaving him to die. Nice. Twisted, but nice. When Colin then went on to kill Hazel in his brother's stead that was a surprise, but felt completely right.

Hello,

I'm a little interested in the rules-use and the principle of authority in role-playing.

Jesse, basically, the only rule you used was the business about taking a relationship with a demon, right?

What confuses me a little was authority over "what the demons want." It's hard to tell from your post, but if I understand correctly, you as the player posed the family-solution as a potential conflict during play. Which is to say, you didn't usurp the GM position of playing the demons*, right? He had all the authority to play them as disagreeing (with the Dog, basically), and he chose to give.

If the answers to my two "rights?" above are both "yes," then I'm really excited about this thread. Sure, it was great to have a ton of fun, but in this case, it would mean that you used the relationship and demon rules to their full potential. And that's a boat I like to see floating.

Best, Ron

* For clarity's sake: "demons" in this game are always manifested, by the GM, as bad luck. Or bad luck is called "demons," however you want to say it. This principle applies even if demons appear as fanged, humanoid, glowy-eyed beings. I know you guys know this, but in the current cultural confusion that surrounds Dogs in the Vineyard, I thought it should be stated clearly.

Hi Ron. When Jesse said that his character had this revelation about what the demons really wanted and proposed the whole demonic marriage situation, I definitely felt that I could have made him roll for it. However, I thought the fiction was better with the idea succeeding and I didn't want to oppose it. The game was working toward a close, so that might have colored my thinking, but I really thought his plan succeeding was better story than his plan failing. Given that, I didn't want to set stakes and I just said "Yes, tell us how it happened."

Hi James,

I understand! What I'm enthused about is that the Dogs rules were right there for this interaction to occur, and you guys didn't have to abandon the system in order to play. This is what giving is for.

Best, Ron

Yes. That is pretty cool, isn't it. It's one of the reasons I dig this game.