My Dogs game ended a few weeks back when the Dogs were killed trying to evict some railway men trying to get the rights to put a line through town. They gunned down the Faithful mayor who was negotiating the deal but died from wounds during the gunfight with the railway men’s hired goons. It was awesome.

So as was always the plan we moved on to playing Burning Wheel. It took a couple weeks to make up characters and then a couple more to get used to the mechanics, but the characters have hit a town of their own where they’ve been instructed to build a temple by their patron. To help get the setting to pop, I used Dog’s town creation rules, tied it in to the characters’ Beliefs and got a cool little village ready to interact with the PCs.

Sure enough, the PCs show up, the town slams up against their Beliefs and we’re off and running. But then there was this moment… the local lord had shut down, he just couldn’t deal anymore. The PCs were getting ready to move on; his wife was distraught as they bid their farewell. And a voice whispered in my ear, “escalate, escalate, escalate…”

So the wife came at them, both barrels. “You call yourself a man? Yet you’re going to leave me and my daughter alone and defenseless in a house with a murderer*? And you! You’re a knight, yet you’re leaving this town with no armed men and a bandit camp four miles away in those woods? What kind of knight does that?”

We didn’t even break into the system’s social conflict rules—the players just gave and started making plans for the defense of the town.

Now, to be sure, I didn’t care if the characters stayed or went. There’s plenty to do one way or the other. That’s not for me to decide, after all. But my first instinct (as usual) was to have the woman roll over and get out of the player’s way.

And oddly enough, getting her into their face is making for a better game.

So, once again, thanks. After running games off and on for 25-years, Dogs in the Vineyard has made me a better GM.

Wow!

Thank you.

-Vincent