Dogs in the Vineyard vs Honor + Intrigue

Compare Dogs in the Vineyard and Honor + Intrigue side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, cost, and more.

	Dogs in the Vineyard	Honor + Intrigue
Genre	Historical, Fantasy	Historical
Tags	Narrative, Fiction-First, Character-Driven, Tag-Based, Corruption, Drama, Improvisation, Roleplay-Heavy, Social Combat, Strong GM Support	Career-Based, Cinematic, Social Combat, Social Intrigue, Heroic, Fast-Paced, Martial Arts, Ship-Based, Pirates, Theater of the Mind
Core Mechanic	Each side rolls a mixed pool of d4–d10 dice from applicable Stats and Relationships at the start of a conflict. A turn uses two dice to Raise with an action, and affected opponents See by spending enough dice to meet it. Traits, belongings, and escalation add dice as they enter play. Seeing with three or more dice causes Fallout, while Giving concedes the stakes.	Roll 2d6 + Quality (Might, Daring, Savvy, or Flair) + Career rank vs. 9 to succeed. In combat, Combat Abilities (Brawl, Melee, Ranged, Defense) replace Careers. Bonus Dice roll 3d6 and keep the best two; Penalty Dice keep the worst two. Fortune Points let heroes escape death, add bonus dice, invoke dramatic license, or press the Advantage in duels. Advantage tracks momentum in melee: characters start at 3 and lose Advantage when hit, becoming Defeated at 0. Nine Dueling Styles (Spanish, Italian, French, and more) each grant unique maneuvers and a Final Secret at mastery. Social Combat uses the same framework, targeting Composure instead of Lifeblood.
Dice	d4–d10 dice pool	2d6
Complexity	Medium	Medium
Accessibility	Very Low	Medium
Runnability	High	Very High
License	Proprietary	Proprietary
Third-Party Publishing	No verified route found	Not yet researched
Summary only, not legal advice. Check current terms before publishing.
Cost	Unavailable	$$
Publisher	lumpley games	Basic Action Games
Year	2004	2012
Best For	Groups who want episodic frontier drama built around difficult moral judgments, with a GM who presents each town's crisis without planning its solution.	Groups who want cinematic swashbuckling in the style of The Three Musketeers and Captain Blood: dashing swordplay, court intrigue, and sea battles with a fast, career-based system.
Highlights	Raise and See uses one exchange for words and violence, allowing an argument to escalate into gunplay without changing resolution systems. Fallout converts the blows a character accepts into lasting Traits and Relationships, tying conflict consequences to later play. The town-creation ladder turns pride into escalating injustice and corruption, giving the GM a crisis whose outcome remains open to the players' judgment.	Nine Dueling Styles with distinct maneuvers and masterable Final Secrets provide deep fencing differentiation. Social Combat and Repartee use the same mechanical framework as physical combat, targeting Composure. Over 30 period-specific Careers from Musketeer to Temptress replace skill lists. Includes ship-to-ship combat, battlefield rules, and a 17th-century gazetteer covering Europe, the Americas, and beyond.
Considerations	The Faith's patriarchal theology and colonial frontier frame are built into the town-creation procedure, so adapting the setting requires replacing more than names and imagery. Conflicts abstract range, movement, and weapon differences into arena and die-size choices, leaving little support for positional tactics. The GM must present moral crises without a preferred solution, which rules out plotted outcomes and prewritten answer keys.	No free quickstart or SRD available. Advantage tracking adds a subsystem on top of basic BoL resolution. The gazetteer and setting material assume 17th-century Europe as the default, limiting out-of-the-box use for other periods.