Dogs in the Vineyard vs Shadowrun

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

	Dogs in the Vineyard	Shadowrun
Genre	Historical, Fantasy	Cyberpunk, Fantasy
Tags	Narrative, Fiction-First, Character-Driven, Tag-Based, Corruption, Drama, Improvisation, Roleplay-Heavy, Social Combat, Strong GM Support	Crunchy, Tactical, Heist, Character Building, Faction Play, Lore-Heavy, Skill-Based, Mission-Based, Urban Fantasy
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 a pool of d6s equal to attribute + skill, counting 5s and 6s as hits. Meet or exceed a threshold to succeed. Situational advantages generate Edge points rather than modifying dice pools directly; Edge is spent on tactical effects like rerolling dice, adding successes, or imposing penalties on opponents.
Dice	d4–d10 dice pool	d6 dice pool
Complexity	Medium	Very High
Accessibility	Very Low	High
Runnability	High	Very High
License	Proprietary	No open license
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	Catalyst Game Labs
Year	2004	2019
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 cyberpunk-fantasy heists with deep mechanical subsystems for hacking, magic, and combat.
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 setting fuses megacorporate intrigue with magic and metahuman races, so a single team mixes street samurai, mages, and deckers. Distinct subsystems model Matrix hacking, spellcasting, drone rigging, and astral space, each carrying its own rules depth. The Edge economy converts situational advantages into a spendable resource for rerolls, extra hits, or penalties on opponents.
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.	Matrix hacking runs on its own timescale and can leave non-decker players idle during a run. Character creation spreads across attributes, skills, magic or resonance, gear, and lifestyle, making the first build long. Dice pools grow large at high skill, so counting hits on a fistful of d6s slows resolution.