Dogs in the Vineyard vs Fate Core
Compare Dogs in the Vineyard and Fate Core side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, and more.
| Dogs in the Vineyard | Fate Core | |
|---|---|---|
| Genre | Historical, Fantasy | Universal |
| Tags | Narrative, Fiction-First, Character-Driven, Tag-Based, Drama, Collaborative, Improvisation, Roleplay-Heavy, Social Combat, Strong GM Support | Narrative, Fiction-First, Character-Driven, Collaborative, Tag-Based, Toolkit, Worldbuilding, Rules-Light, Social Combat, Strong GM Support |
| Core Mechanic | 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. | Roll four Fate dice and add a skill rating to compare with the opposition. Spend Fate points to invoke a relevant aspect for +2 or a reroll. Accept an aspect-based complication to gain a Fate point. |
| Dice | d4–d10 dice pool | 4dF |
| Complexity | Medium | Low |
| Availability | Paid | Free core rules |
| Runnability | 4 of 5 book tools | 5 of 5 book tools |
| License | Proprietary | CC BY 3.0 (SRD) |
| Third-Party Publishing | No verified route found | Commercial publishing allowed — Open license |
| Summary only, not legal advice. Check current terms before publishing. | ||
| Publisher | lumpley games | Evil Hat Productions |
| Year | 2004 | 2013 |
| Languages | English, Italian, German, Polish, Spanish | English, French, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian |
| Best For | Groups who want episodic frontier drama built around difficult moral judgments and arguments that can escalate into violence. | Groups who want to build their own setting and follow capable heroes through personal complications and dramatic conflicts. |
| Highlights | 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. | Compels turn character weaknesses into story complications that earn Fate points. Creating advantages gives allies free aspect invocations to combine for decisive actions. Conceding a conflict preserves some control over defeat and earns Fate points for later scenes. |
| Considerations | 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. | Aspect use depends on agreement about which fictional details apply. Full character and setting creation can take an entire session. Magic and other extras require group decisions about permissions and costs. |