Dogs in the Vineyard vs Rifts

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

	Dogs in the Vineyard	Rifts
Genre	Historical, Fantasy	Post-Apocalyptic, Scifi, Fantasy, Horror, Superhero
Tags	Narrative, Fiction-First, Character-Driven, Tag-Based, Corruption, Drama, Improvisation, Roleplay-Heavy, Social Combat, Strong GM Support	Character Building, Combat-Heavy, Crunchy, Fear & Stress Mechanics, Gonzo, High-Power, Mana Points, Mecha, Superpowers, Tactical
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.	Combat and saving throws use a d20 plus bonuses, with high results overcoming a target number or opposing roll. Skills use d100 and succeed when the result is at or below the character's percentage.
Dice	d4–d10 dice pool	d20, d100
Complexity	Medium	Very High
Accessibility	Very Low	Medium
Runnability	High	Very High
License	Proprietary	All Rights Reserved
Third-Party Publishing	No verified route found	Noncommercial only — Palladium Books Internet Policy limited license
Summary only, not legal advice. Check current terms before publishing.
Cost	Unavailable	$$
Publisher	lumpley games	Palladium Books Inc.
Year	2004	2005
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 long-form science-fantasy campaigns that move from a ruined Earth to other dimensions. The game suits tables whose GM will decide which parts of the broad setting a campaign uses.
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.	Occupational and racial class packages assign distinct abilities and advancement tracks, giving each archetype a different role in the party. Mega-Damage places many supernatural creatures and war machines on a separate durability scale beyond the reach of ordinary Structural Damage Capacity attacks. Rifts and ley lines make dimensional travel a standing feature of the setting, letting campaigns move between devastated Earth and other worlds.
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.	Character creation combines rolled attributes with extensive skill selection, making first-time preparation lengthy. Combat asks each player to track an action economy, active defenses, and which damage scale applies. Magic and psionics use separate point pools and power procedures, adding class-specific rules to the shared system.