Dogs in the Vineyard
Original Core RulebookBest For
Groups who want episodic frontier drama built around difficult moral judgments and arguments that can escalate into violence.
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.
Every conflict uses Raise and See with a visible pool of dice. Players must learn when escalation adds dice and how Fallout changes their characters. Town preparation links moral crises to NPC dice and demonic influence.
- Free to tryNothing freeNo free rules or starter
- Get it nowSold newIn print or as a legal PDF
- ✓IndexFind any rule by page number
- ✓GM guidanceA chapter on how to run the game
- ✓Examples of playRules shown in action at the table
- ✓Quick referenceCheat sheet or summary tables
- –Cross-referencesRules rarely point to each other by page
4 of 5 book tools found in the core book
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.
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.
No verified third-party publishing route found · Reviewed 2026-10-09 · Summary only, not legal advice. Check current terms before publishing. Rules license Proprietary A review of the original core credits and current publisher sources found no official third-party publishing route or explicit prohibition for this game.
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