Play Sorcerer: Narrative Tools and Techniques for Social Storytelling
Christopher Kubasik:
So, I sat down to start working on the chapter outlines from my notes... and found that Jesse (who is behind the project) asked a question on the Play Sorcerer blog.
So I thought I'd kick off the editorial discussion with my answer.
Jesse asked:
Christopher,
I’m curious about whether you’re intending to more or less preserve the progression of the supplements. On The Forge Ron recently reminded someone that a Relationship Map as defined in the Sorcerer’s Soul is an advanced technique with a very specific purpose that is not at all a requirement of *basic* Sorcerer play.
Do you plan on breaking those layers out and addressing how each layer builds on the previous one? Or is it going to be more a comprehensive approach assuming the reader is at least passingly familiar with the concepts across ALL supplements and understands where those devisions already exist?
Jesse
Here was my reply:
This is will be one of those spots where Ron and I disagree. (If there was no disagreement of any kind between us then I suppose I'd never have had the inspiration to write the book!)
I don't believe the Relationship Map is advanced. In fact, once I translated into my own way of looking at it, it's very simple. It takes work, but in execution it is simple.
More importantly, if you don't give Players the tool of the Relationship Map, what are they left with? How do they prep? Many methods of play prep are simply at odds with what Sorcerer requires to play. They simply will not function.
And if not those, what? Draw from Primetime Adventures? Dogs in the Vineyard? Without giving a clue to someone picking up the game as to how to get ready to play the players are thrown back on their own devices. Some will hit, some will miss. But why not give them a technique that works wonderfully well for the game right off the bat?
Is the Relationship Map the only prep one could use for a Sorcerer game? Of course not. Not by a long shot. But it is so smart and so useful that it is is an excellent choice.
The Game Master is going to have to prep somehow. In my view he might as well be handed the best tool available.
So, that's my specific response to your specific example. In general, Play Sorcerer will be use a similar methodology for what goes into the book and what doesn't. Is there something in the book or supplements that serves as a (in my view) a baseline for playing the game? Then I'm discussing it in Play Sorcerer.
That means pulling nuggets out of Sorcerer & Sword and Sorcerer & Soul and explicating. I mentioned this in passing to Ron, but I think most of the material in Sex & Sorcerer won't be touched on in Player Sorcerer. This, I think, is the advanced stuff. It will certainly inform the game, but it adds a great do the thematic layers of the content. It isn't part of what I consider "the bedrock" of game play.
And here's what I mean by the "bedrock":
You know "The Anatomy of Authored Roleplaying" essay in Sorcerer & Sword? As far as I'm concerned almost every rule and tool and technique found in the books is in service to Authored Roleplaying. That is the activity of the game -- just as every game (Football, Risus, Go) has a specific activity. Play Sorcerer is all about explicating how the rules, tools and techniques of the game work, how they work together, and how they bring this activity about.
So, no... no sequence through the supplements at all. I see it more like each section will be about gears that interlock with each other as they turn: Bonus Dice, Relationship Maps, Demon Needs, and all of it. Some are gears within gears, others are very big and move many other gears. But its how these gears all work in concert to make the game do the thing it does.
Making sure the text actually does what I'm claiming it is going to do, that is, explains how different rules and tools and techniques influence each other, I think will be one of the greatest challenges of the book. But it's very exciting to know I'll be giving it a try.
Christopher Kubasik:
So, I tried to organize my notes into something really clean and slick.... and failed. I've learned over the years that there's outlining, and then there's the words hitting the page. Only in the latter does the clarity really arrive.
Having said that, I did want to dump out the items I'll be addressing. So what I'm giving you is a bunch of outline notes gathered from across pages in my notebook. It's pretty sparse... but, again, I haven't started writing the book yet.
It's important to know that organization of the book is still gelling. Some times that look like they might only be a subhead of half a page in the "outline" below might end up being ten pages in length. But I did want to offer up where my brain was going with all this:
• Creating Socially
• Trusting the Creative Act
• Limiting Infinite Choices: The Chaos Theory of Improvised Storytelling
• Players at the Table as Audience AND Creators
• The Components of Setting: Demons, Lore, etc...; The GM’s Role; The Players’ Role
• The Components of a Character: Attributes, Descriptors, Price Goals, NPCs, Places, Lore... (The Front of the character sheet; the back of the Character sheet)
• The Kicker: what makes a Kickerl; how to use it; how it defines the game session; Kicker resolutions
• Bangs: What makes a Bang; how to use them; what isn’t a Bang; screwing with Players isn’t what Bangs are about.
• Conflict – what Conflict is, what conflict isn’t; how to spot it, how to use it
• Using the Dice in Conflict: when to use the Dice; how they produce twists and turns; how the wonkiness of the resolution is a metaphor for how the game plays
• Bonus Dice: how they work, what they mean for the game; how to use them effectively; Bonus Dice as social magnet during play
• Demons: How they function with the PCs
• Demons: How the GM uses them
• Demons: Abilities and how to use them for effective play
• Demons: Needs and Desires and why they matter to the game play; Demons as major NPCS because of RELATIONSHIP to PCs, not abilities
• Humanity: how it works, why it matters to play, what it produces
• Lore: How to set up effective Lore; how to bring Lore into Play
• Sorcery from both Sorcerer and Sorcerer & Sword: narrative and game implications of the activity for characters and players
• Sorcerer: An Intense Roleplaying Game – what the heck that’s about and why it matters
• The Setting: Lore, Demons, Humanity and more.... ; explain how each works by itself and how they all work together
• Inspirations for setting; digging into the setting
• The Relationship Map: how it works; why it works; a point of focus for play NOT a simulation of social interaction
• NPCs: building them; using them
• Backstory: NPCs, McGuffins; Narrative focus is vital for Players
• The PCs drive the story forward: how this works, why it works, the great effects it produces; GM: learning to toss bangs rather than build plot; Plot is what happened, story is what’s happening; the back and forth of PCs and NPCs
• Narrative Context: anything worth doing in Sorcerer only happens within a Sorcerer story
• Notes on notekeeping: how to organize all these characters and story elements!
• The GM’s Prep Work: what you do and why you should trust it; Prepping before the first meeting; prepping after the first meeting; prepping before each session
• Playing the Game: kibitzing, laughing, freaking out; stepping back, checking in, retrofitting story elements; taking time to clarify what just happened or what people want; encouraging the Players to go to town in their choices and descriptions
• Knowing when to stop: lines, veils, closing out a session, ending a story
Ron Edwards:
One clarification of the relationship map issue: if you use the backs of the character sheets, then the key aspects of relationship mapping are very nearly guaranteed to be already in play with the player-characters included.
The method described in The Sorcerer's Soul is more specialized, particularly the way that the sorcerer character is typically not part of the map, and particularly the way that much of the map's content is unknown to many of the participants.
I think that these two concepts have become blended in people's minds, such that my comments about The Sorcerer's Soul were taken to apply to any and all back-story that includes kin and sex ties. That is silly. Christopher, if you're interested, I think the method outlined in that supplement is in fact a much more specific technique than the basic concept, and I think that method is in fact aimed at bringing the sorcerer's Humanity into the foreground of play.
This also may be an example of something that has happened a lot, that a point that I make very specifically, and often in a non-nuanced way, to one person whose needs are clear to me, late in a discussion, is often picked up as a kind of generalized blanket concept that everyone is supposed to elevate as some kind of pronouncement for their games, indeed anyone's game, from that point on.
Best, Ron
Christopher Kubasik:
Hi Ron,
I take your point completely. The Relationship Map as outlined in Sorcerer & Soul is a specific technique. It is a very different activity than listing NPCs on the back of the character sheet.
I also think it is a specific technique that provides the GM with a flexible and workable backstory and world of NPCs that focus Player attention and let the the game play to the fullest extent.
And, as you say, it's aimed at bringing the sorcerer's Humanity to the foreground in play. So that's a good thing.
I don't know if you're trying to correct misconceptions I might have, but I know I never blended the back of the character sheet with the Relationship Map in my thinking, nor did I ever assume that the technique is supposed to shoe-horn all aspects of back-story that include kin and sex ties.
As for pronoucments -- of any kind -- I hadn't planned on making any, so I think we're safe on that front. I also don't think anyone will spot me elevating anything.
If somone doesn't want to use the R-Map, they are -- of course -- free not to use it. My only point is that I think play is improved on many fronts with a Relationship Map. I think it's a great technique, adds a lot to the game, and I truly believe that without it. But one can certainly play without it.
Best,
Christopher
Christopher Kubasik:
I just logged on and saw we're at $1250. Frankly, I'm awed. And excited.
I wanted to thank everyone who's funded so far.
Strangely, so far this week I met with Michael Eisner and pitched a show at SciFi channel -- but this is the project that has my heart!
As soon as we hit the funding, this moves to the front of my project plate. I'm pretty sure we'll hit the $1500, and I"m looking forward to it.
Thanks, everyone!
CK
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