[Sorcerer] The Live Tattoo
Ron Edwards:
Hi Arturo,
Looking back at the Art-Deco Melodrama threads, I found that the techniques I described were vastly more complicated and clunky than I now think they should be.
Although the relationship map was suitable, I found that the back-story had too many complicated steps in it, and that I went to crazy-complicated effort to put the player-characters into specific situations. In real play, given an interesting relationship map, all you have to do is put the dynamic time-bomb that is a Sorcerer player-character into the situation at all, in any way that's relevant to that character (i.e. using the Kicker as the guide). Things will happen from there.
It is worth mentioning that the relationship map has to be genuinely interesting, and that means making a number of NPCs who have strong (and in this case, murderous) feelings about things. Therefore I simply play them fighting through their own desires and interactions as if I were merely a player myself. But it doesn't mean as much pre-planning about how the player-characters will fit into it - they will fit in, in the sense of carving out their own place through their interactions with NPCs, rather than fitting into a prepared socket.
Nowadays, I prep far fewer Bangs, and the ones I prep (a) affect player-characters directly and (b) do not depend on anything specific happening before they hit. I also no longer care whether a player-character is present when something important happens to an NPC, and let that be determined by whoever the player-character wants to be near through his or her own actions.
That also means that my efforts during play itself generally concern scene-framing, in the moment, and less about setting up specific conflicts. I get to use already-existing elements in the situation to help with that framing: for instance, in the Hamburg game, two of the player-characters were running after the mysterious woman, and I had them each turn a corner from different directions and run into one another - and the woman had disappeared. I wouldn't have done that unless each player had already stated that they wanted to pursue that woman ... and those decisions had each been (a) independent of one another and (b) non-obligatory. So nowadays, my scene-framing is very opportunistic and not at all aimed toward getting somewhere, so much as combining things that are already happening.
In many cases, that's really rock-solid already too, because the player has said something like, "I visit all the leather bars to hunt that guy down," or whatever. (H'mmm ... now that I think about it, I'm quite annoyed that I framed no scenes at der Rieperbahn.) So in that case, I am merely a humble servant and go to the leather bars with the player-character.
The only thing that the mix needs, after that, is to play the NPCs very very vividly. That's easy with the demons. In the case of the woman/angel character, I had her do sensual but non-manipulative things. In the dinner scene with Frank's character, in which she was obviously attending with his opponent, she squeezed his knee under the table in a reassuring way, and then there was that shower scene, which I'm proud of because she was very beautiful and naked and towelling herself off and all (and besides, every shower in the story so far had a skinned body in it, so this was a big contrast), but she was also not trying to make the player-character do anything either, which was a big new thing for that guy. As far as the regular human characters were concerned, they tended to be pretty extreme - the auditor guy was going to bust Frank's character's ass, and when Frank won the conflict with him, they entered into a highly criminal relationship. So you see, he never did "nothing." Then there was the dead artist guy, who obviously did something really extreme already and paid for it with his life, to give the woman he loved an angel, and the honor-killing brother who hated the woman.
It's fun and easy! I play the demons, I play the NPCs, I frame high-potential scenes (i.e. character combinations) based on what's happening, and along with the players, I cause conflicts. Resolutions always allow a tighter and more consequential set of further scenes to emerge.
To answer your direct question, Arturo, the good news is that the players have already done the bulk of the work, and all they need is some validation of the urgency of their Kickers in order to launch into furious action. The player-characters and demons are already ready to go, and nothing about making them has to be tuned or altered to "fit my plot" (because there isn't any). The principles for scenario creation outlined across all four books can be applied to taste: the three points in Chapter 4 of the core book, the Bang-driven and character-centric concepts in Sword Chapter 7, the relationship map stuff in Chapters 4 and 5 in Soul, and the conflict diagrams in Chapter 6 of Sex. Another such principle which is implied rather than explicit, in all four books, is the enthusiasm the GM must bring to the demons themselves. The important thing to remember is that even a little bit of effort along those lines, for only part of those principles rather than all of them, is all you need as a Sorcerer GM.
Best, Ron
Arturo G.:
Sounds really nice!
Advice and examples are great (along the whole thread).
I still need to train and learn to do all these things more naturally. Thus, I should play and try, more and more.
Thanks a lot for this thread,
Arturo
Per Fischer:
Quote from: Ron Edwards on May 15, 2008, 09:37:29 AM
The principles for scenario creation outlined across all four books can be applied to taste: the three points in Chapter 4 of the core book, the Bang-driven and character-centric concepts in Sword Chapter 7, the relationship map stuff in Chapters 4 and 5 in Soul, and the conflict diagrams in Chapter 6 of Sex. Another such principle which is implied rather than explicit, in all four books, is the enthusiasm the GM must bring to the demons themselves.
Thanks for this summary, Ron. The only thing I'm not sure about is the "three points in Chapter 4 of the core book" - what exactly are they? Do you mean the personal tweaks on Humanity, Sorcerers and Demons?
Ron Edwards:
Hi Per,
They seem pretty archaic now, but with some allowance for the time of writing, they still apply: the sorcery, the back-story, and the ending. (I may be missing the phrasing a little.)
I think I've developed the "sorcery" point pretty thoroughly over the past eight years in the Adept forum, and the "back-story" development begins with the Art-Deco threads and has been continued here and in many previous Actual Play threads.
Today, I'd refer to the "ending" differently. I'd emphasize that it was emergent rather than planned, and that it had nothing to do with solving a pre-planned problem or stopping a pre-planned villain. The aesthetic points I make in that section, though, still hold up well.
Best, Ron
Sven Seeland:
Wow!
After what must be about half a year of absence from the Forge I come in here totally at random because I was seeking some distraction, not expecting much at all and now I find our Sorcerer game from some time last winter at the top of the Actual Play forum!
Unfortunately I'm joining the discussion a little late and the thread has already strayed a little but I'd still like to express my views of the game.
First of all I have to say that I really enjoyed the game and I do regret that I wasn't more awake at the time (though there's nothing to regret, really - it's not as if I had a choice). I was really happy to meet the three of you and I would love to repeat this so if you should ever come toamburg again, Ron, be sure to let me know! But enough of the nostalgia...
First of all I have to say that was by far the most intense and emotionaly involving game I ever had the honor to participate in.
I think this has a few reasons. The more simple ones are the facts that the setting was "close to home" (if I remember correctly we decided not to use Hamburg. Was it Berlin? Or just an anonymous German city?), that the demons were human-looking and that Ron is simply a very experienced GM and author of the game.
However I also did something I don't usually do: I poured a lot of myself into the character. This character wasn't carefully constructed using certain criteria such as story potential or tactical fitness but it was dreamt up, so to speak. This character came from the heart, not the brain. My reasons for doing so were threefold, I think.
First of all: I didn't know any of you guys and it seemed highly unlikely that we'd ever meet again, so there was very little risk involved for me. I wouldn't have much to fear should you judge me by your character and I don't think you could make the distinction of where my character ends and my personality starts nearly as easily as my friends could. That way I wasn't really exposing a lot of myself.
Secondly, I was dead tired which mak my rational consciousnes take a backseat and let my intuition take over. Many of the "but"s and objections that usually pop up in my head just didn't appear.
And thirdly, Ron applied a good deal of pressure on us during character creation (and rightly so) which forced me to go with my gut feelings before being able to think them through.
This resulted in a character that meant a lot to me. Now, in hindsight, what I poured into that character and his demon was an interesting mixture of my own personality, things that I have experienced, hopes, fears, things that I have seen in other, read in books or watched in movies. Sometimes it was also the exact opposite ofthose, sometimes it was only an association that was triggered by a spontaneous emotion. Some of those sources become apoarent to me just now, as I'm writing this! This was a terrific experience and it sadens me that I would never dare to do this with my current group.
The result of all this was that I was very involved in the scenes my character was participating in. Some ofgthe scenes upset, frightened or challenged me so much on personal level that I almost couldn't continue playing because I'm struggeling with those issues in real life as well and sometimes I even did have to take break during play.
Howevet, thanks to the preassure Ron applied I was able to live through all those challenges, which felt great, almost cathartic! It probably even influenced my daily life a tiny bit, I believe.
Another thing I found interesting to observe was that first formative moment that Frank mentioned. I created my character as a really weak master to his deamon. When he punished his daemon and showed him who's boss I did this really reluctantly feeling it was bad roleplaying, but it was the only acceptable way out of the situation I saw.
Why did I see this as bad roleplaying? Because I have learned that it is considered to be "breaking out of character" if you portrait your character in any way that is not the same as what's written down on the character sheet. This made me realize that characters aren't allowed to change in the games I've been playing with my group so far! Even thoufh the changing of the main characters is what all good fiction is about, in my oppinion!
Right. That was a lot longer than I had planned but maybe someone might find it useful or at least interesting and maybe it'll spark some more discussion.
By the way I ask you to excuse any typos in this post a I asm writing this on my mobile phone which only has a really crappy touchscreen keyboard.
Greets,
Sven
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