Daggerheart vs Dogs in the Vineyard
Compare Daggerheart and Dogs in the Vineyard side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, and more.
| Daggerheart | Dogs in the Vineyard | |
|---|---|---|
| Genre | Fantasy | Historical, Fantasy |
| Tags | Narrative, Collaborative, Fiction-First, Character Building, Character-Driven, Drama, Combat-Heavy, Resource Management, Fear & Stress Mechanics, Strong GM Support | Narrative, Fiction-First, Character-Driven, Tag-Based, Drama, Collaborative, Improvisation, Roleplay-Heavy, Social Combat, Strong GM Support |
| Core Mechanic | Players roll two d12s, add a trait and modifiers, and meet or beat a Difficulty to succeed. The higher die grants the player Hope or gives the GM Fear, even when the action succeeds. Matching dice produce a critical success. Adversary attacks use d20 plus a modifier against Evasion. | Roll a d4–d10 pool from relevant Stats and Relationships. Players Raise with two dice and See by spending dice that match or exceed the Raise. Traits, belongings, and escalation add dice as they enter the conflict. Seeing with three or more dice earns Fallout. Giving concedes the stakes. |
| Dice | 2d12, d20 | d4–d10 dice pool |
| Complexity | Medium | Medium |
| Availability | Free core rules | Paid |
| Runnability | 5 of 5 book tools | 4 of 5 book tools |
| License | Darrington Press Community Gaming License (DPCGL 2.0) | Proprietary |
| Third-Party Publishing | Commercial publishing allowed — Community gaming license | No verified route found |
| Summary only, not legal advice. Check current terms before publishing. | ||
| Publisher | Darrington Press | lumpley games |
| Year | 2025 | 2004 |
| Languages | English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese | English, Italian, German, Polish, Spanish |
| Best For | Groups who want fantasy campaigns built around character relationships and changing ability loadouts. Battles suit tables that share the spotlight without a fixed initiative order. | Groups who want episodic frontier drama built around difficult moral judgments and arguments that can escalate into violence. |
| Highlights | Hope can activate character abilities or add a backstory-based Experience to a roll. Players share the spotlight freely until a failure, a Fear result, or GM intervention shifts it. Each class combines two domains into a loadout of up to five active ability cards. | Escalation supplies fresh dice at the risk of harsher consequences, making continued opposition a choice about what the stakes are worth. Fallout changes Traits and Relationships to carry conflict consequences into later play. The town-creation ladder builds crises from interconnected grievances without prescribing how the Dogs should resolve them. |
| Considerations | The spotlight has no fixed turns or action allotment, requiring the group to share opportunities to act. Recalling inactive domain cards outside a rest can cost Stress. Resting restores resources but also gives the GM Fear to spend on further threats. | The Faith's patriarchal theology supplies concrete grievances in the town-creation rules and needs deliberate rewriting for another religious framework. Conflicts abstract range and movement into narrated actions rather than measured positioning. The GM must challenge the Dogs' judgments without preparing a preferred solution. |