This is Dogs in the Vineyard, by D. Vincent Baker (who also did the fantastic In a Wicked Age, which I profiled a while back, and the omnipresent Apocalypse World, which I will get to eventually). Published independently in 2004, it is one of the first narrative-focused indie games to make a big splash with players.

The setting is intriguing. Players take the role of members of God’s Watchdogs, enforcers of religious doctrine in a place that resembles but does not recreate pre-Civil War Mormon Utah. It is a game about ferreting out sin among the faithful and it is an excellent playground for roleplaying difficult moral and ethical quandaries. The Dogs travel from town to town as sort of six-gun inquisitors and exorcists, their word final in matters of faith.  

Character creation is keyword based – not unlike Hero Wars/HeroQuest – with every skill and attribute getting dice values. In conflict, the dice for the relevant skills and attributes are rolled and the values of the dice are cashed in to move the action forward, using a poker like mechanic of raises and sees (narrative-focused RPGs have a tendency to use novel conflict resolution systems) until one side either gives or runs out of dice.

There is a nice tension between how the system works, the setting, the moral requirements of the gameplay and the sensibilities of the players (I suspect the majority of players would be uncomfortable enforcing the religious beliefs presented in the game in the context of their own lives). Everything in the game arranged around aggressively interrogating what the characters do and believe, and how their choices change them. It’s a classic.