Ain’t it great when Vincent gets all passionate about Dogs in the Vineyard?
There’s this thing that happens sometimes when people see Dogs. They go “holy FUCK, the characters are effective! I gotta put a stop to that! How can this possibly go well if the characters run around accomplishing all their goals all the time?”
It’s nonsense. The meaning of the game, now look I’m talking about the MEANING of the game, depends on the characters being effective and accomplishing their goals. Your job as a GM isn’t to keep them from accomplishing exactly what they want to accomplish, it’s to design good towns and then play the townspeople fully and with passion. I promise, the Dogs can win every single conflict easily and the game still works, it’s still challenging morally and it’ll still engage you and your players. Losing a conflict once in a while is a spice, not a staple.
It makes me want to just shout amen.
