Dogs in the Vineyard vs Pathfinder

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

	Dogs in the Vineyard	Pathfinder
Genre	Historical, Fantasy	Fantasy
Tags	Narrative, Fiction-First, Character-Driven, Tag-Based, Corruption, Drama, Improvisation, Roleplay-Heavy, Social Combat, Strong GM Support	Tactical, Crunchy, Character Building, High-Fantasy, Dungeon Crawl, Lore-Heavy
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 d20 + modifier against a DC. Four degrees of success: critical success (beat DC by 10+), success, failure, and critical failure (miss by 10+). Each turn grants three actions to spend freely on strikes, movement, spellcasting, or other activities. Multi-attack penalty (-5/-10) discourages repeated strikes and encourages tactical variety.
Dice	d4–d10 dice pool	d20
Complexity	Medium	High
Accessibility	Very Low	Very High
Runnability	High	Very High
License	Proprietary	ORC
Third-Party Publishing	No verified route found	Commercial publishing allowed — Open and compatibility licenses
Summary only, not legal advice. Check current terms before publishing.
Cost	Unavailable	Free
Publisher	lumpley games	Paizo
Year	2004	2023
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 deep character customization, tactical grid combat with meaningful turn-by-turn decisions, and a richly detailed fantasy setting with free rules.
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.	The three-action economy gives every turn the same three actions to spend on strikes, movement, or spells, so each turn is a fresh tactical decision. Characters customize through ancestry, class, skill, and general feats gained at nearly every level, letting builds diverge sharply within a single class. Four degrees of success, set by beating or missing the DC by 10, turn each roll into a range of outcomes rather than a binary result.
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.	New players must learn the trait system, conditions, and four degrees of success before combat runs smoothly. Multi-attack penalty and numerous combat actions can slow turns for indecisive players. Character creation draws feats from ancestry, class, skill, and general pools at every level, making each build a slow step.