[Sorcerer] "storylines" vs "kickers resolution" in character development

Started by Moreno R., February 19, 2014, 06:55:50 PM

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Moreno R.

This is something that I noticed reading the game manual but I forgot to ask until now.

The game manual says (page 42):
Experience. Stamina, Will, Lore, and Cover are increased by successful Humanity rolls against the Score's current value. Improvement rolls are allowed after the conclusion of a storyline, not necessarily after every gaming session.

and

Story conclusion. If the character's Kicker is resolved, and if sufficient drama has occurred to illustrate the character's true colors to all concerned, the player should rewrite the character. This would almost certainly involve losing the old Price and choosing a new one, and might even include rewriting some or all of the score descriptions. The only thing that must remain
unchanged is Humanity. At this point the player is free to retire the character or, with the gm, to work out a new Kicker


So, there is a time unit, called "storyline", that is different from "story" (that end at kickers resolution). But these "storylines" are never referenced again, and there is no explanation about that in the annotations.

It's a relic from a previous draft, and the stat improvement roll is made at kicker resolution together with the rewriting of the score descriptors, or it's possible to have one without the other?

Ron Edwards

I intended storyline, kicker resolution, and story (better phrased as "character arc") to be synonymous. The vocabulary for such things was absolutely undeveloped in 1996 and 1998, when the majority of such parts of the rules were written, and not much better in early 2001, when I finalized the core book for print. I was also struggling out of the assumption that the GM ran a big story-arc independently produced and assessed by him or her - by early 2001, I'd eliminated that practice from the game, but the language of that practice was all we collectively had to work with.

I knew what texts I was working from, though: the Champions supplement called Strike Force, and the part of Everway I always liked best, the character's individual Fortune card set sideways, that could flip upright or upside down as a final climactic moment when and if that situation emerged organically from play.