[Sorcerer] Contacting/Summoning Object Demons
Ron Edwards:
Hi there,
The trouble is, we're doing this all backwards. I don't know anything about the look and feel of sorcery and demons in the hypothetical game we're talking about. I don't know the descriptor for Lore for the hypothetical character, or how it's expressed in the fiction of play. I especially don't know whether we're talking about the back-story of a beginning character, or an event during play, in which case it'd be good to know what the character's current or former demon is like. Given that information, all of your questions can be answered in a quick instant. Without it, I'm reduced to "if ... and ... but ... if ... then" multi-branched and monologuing answers.
That said ...
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Binding: Let's see if I have this one straight. It still seems to me that this one is based on proving to the demon that you can meet it's need. Is that accurate?
I don't think "prove" is the right verb. I think "demonstrate" or "commit" are better. Basically, it's formalizing a relationship. One individual feels he or she (it) cannot be real without the other's commitment to a real relationship. The other promises or demonstrates that commitment in some way which works. Of course, this is a horrible and fucked-up way to begin any kind of relationship, and it automatically creates a power imbalance. Either the needy one has the power because he or she (it) always holds sway with the "I'll die without you" card, or the providing-need one has the power because he or she can always withhold it. That's what the die roll is for. Remember, Binding always works. The question is, who is the subordinated partner.
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Visual: Setting aside the color of Sorcery in the setting, Darrel summons Bulc'nath. To keep some of the original imagery, perhaps he does summon him in the store. Bulc'nath wasn't there before this act, but it is now. He attempts to rob the store with Bulc'nath, but since he hasn't bound Bulc'nath yet, he can't command it. Having tried to hold up the store, and finding that Bulc'nath is "empty" he uses it as a club, pistol-whips the clerk (thus meeting Bulc'naths Need), and leaves "gun" in hand.
Whoa, have to stop you - there are some inaccuracies about the rules. First, any sorcerer can command any demon to do things; it has nothing to do with Binding (except for the bonus dice involved). So in this case, the character can certainly use the gun to hold up the store and the gun could certainly use or confer its abilities depending on how they are defined, as a way to Bind it.
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Naturally this isn't the only possible visual, but would that work? Or does the binding have to be a more... I almost want to say intimate, but don't see how to get more intimate than that with an entity of violence (comment specific to Bulc'nath and others with it's Need). How close am I here?
You're dead on target, but you can also open your imagination to any number of other possibilities. Buy the gun and take it out to the gulley, and use it to fire bullets into the portrait of the person you hate, saying his name each time, and ending with the demon's name. Drip some of your blood down the barrel. Set up a little shrine and burn incense around the gun. Whatever, as long as it fits the look & feel of sorcery in this particular game, and (typically although not required) as it suits the various descriptors of the character. This is also why any primary score (Stamina, Will, Lore) is available to be used for Binding. My first two examples in this paragraph go with Stamina and the third goes with Lore.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that sorcerers in the fiction always improvise and make up their sorcery. I'm saying that your particular group and game has set upon some standards for these things. In practice, the pre-game chat establishes some fundamentals, and those fundamentals undergo dramatic enrichening by the players as they make up their characters and describe how they Bound their demons.
One more thing: how explicitly the Need is referenced during Binding is totally up for grabs. It could be entirely unmentioned, just as I might imagine a neurotic real-world couple never mentioning or acknowledging sex in the complex dance of establishing their commitment to a relationship together. Or it could be absolutely explicit, like some kind of pre-nuptial contract or whatever. The thing is, just as in the reality of relationships, the Need as a problem is present no matter what: either it's never stated and always present in a high-pressure way, or it's explicitly acknowledged but somehow intractable to attempts to formalize and control it.
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Banishing: I'll try to simplify here, to get down to the basics. The initial binding strength is used here, because it represents the "anchor" of the Demon to Existence. If the Demon has the advantage, then it gets the dice, it controls its anchor. If the Sorcerer has the advantage, the he gets the dice, he controls the anchor (or maybe is the anchor). Am I good so far?
The Binding strength is indeed the demon's anchor to existence, expressed as that imbalance of power I mentioned above. It factors into Banishing as something to be overcome.
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Will faces off against Power because that is the battle being enacted, "Can the Sorcerer through exercise of Will alone, overcome the Power of the Demon, to bend it to his will?" being the question this roll answers (perhaps that question is answered every time the sorcerer makes such an attempt, every binding, every banishing, every command). Am I still on the trail?
Wait, we're talking about Banishing, right? I'm getting confused by what you're asking or saying. If you are talking about Banishing, then "bend it to his will" is inaccurate. Banishing doesn't give a fuck what the demon wants - it just removes it from existence.
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Visual: (Insert Sorcerous mumbo-jumbo-color here). Depending on in-game color, perhaps the ritual involves him yelling at Bulc'nath, perhaps it is a simple confrontation like in "The Labirynth", perhaps the "gun" disappears afterwords, or perhaps it is still there as a gun minus it's power and tell-tales. but all of that is color and I think I'm getting closer to a grasp here of what each ritual means in terms of in-game cause/effect.
Ummm ... yes. I'm getting the idea that this isn't question-and-answer any longer, but me watching a stream of consciousness in action. So I'll wait and see what the next exchange brings us.
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Punishment: (Reads the second paragraph I typed for Banishment). Hmm, this seems the same, only with a different end-goal. Instead of removing the Demon from existence, the Sorcerer is trying to make it more pliable to his Will. Good so far?
Off-base here, in a common mis-reading. Punishment affects Power, not Will. The demon is still armed with every ounce of Will it ever had, and if it thinks the sorcerer has Punished it wrongfully, it will be very pissed off. What Punishing does is weaken it. What I've seen in play is for sorcerers to Punish their Bound demons a tiny bit (remember, no roll is necessary) as a warning regarding egregious over-stepping on the demon's part, and for sorcerers to Punish other demons (which does require a roll) as an attack tactic.
Okay, I think I'm still with you, although it got a little bit like riding a mental bucking bronco for a minute there. Thoughts, comments?
Best, Ron
The Dragon Master:
Just got done with CopperCon. Still Digesting this post, but I'll reply soon.
The Dragon Master:
Part of the problem (as mentioned in your first paragraph) is that of definitions of Lore/Sorcery/etc. It may well be that the way I'm trying to come at this from is an akward (or maybe impossible) way to do so. I haven't GMed/Played-in a Sorcerer game before. I haven't even had the opportunity to see one in action (no one in my area plays it). And I've been given a chance to run a one-shot tomorrow. Reading through the book I found some points I couldn't work my mind around (big surprise right?) due to not being able to "see" what is happening. I'm coming at this the way I am hoping to get a handle on how these rituals are supposed to work out in play, regardless of color, so that when I run it I will know how to describe what is happening regardless of in-game color... may have just hit on something there, but I'll come back to it. I'm trying to nail down what the mechanics say about what is actually happening, when the ritual is performed. I'm looking for what I often describe as the "inclusive-exclusive definition", a thing which includes everything that is x while excluding everything that isn't x (almost a zen koan in and of itself). At this point though I doubt I have enough time to achieve that goal short of epiphany.
Describe... This may be a part where I'm missing something. Does the GM describe the ritual? Or does the Player describe it and then roll the dice? This could be one point where I'm confusing myself needlessly. I have it in my head that I as GM describe the ritual being performed, based on the demon being summoned, and I don't seem to recall anywhere that mode of play is described in the text.
I'm going to re-read the book before game tomorrow and hopefully that will straighten out any misconceptions. But I won't have time to post again before the game. I'll post again afterwards (which may well mean saturday) to post my reworked thoughts on those I figure out later.
All of that said, I do feel like this discussion is helping me wrap my head around it better.
Click.
And it just hit me what the answer to my initial question is. The original question was "What does punishing/banishing an object or other physical demon look like/how does it work?". The answer is "What does sorcery look like?". If sorcery is mumbling of words of power, then punishing is mumbling words of power. If sorcery is a physical contest with the demon (think of the biblical story where Jacob wrestles with the angel), then punishing may well be hitting Bulc'nath against the nearest wall.
Click.
Another one slipped into gear. What each one "means", and how the mechanics relate to the in-game fiction, depends on the "color" applied to sorcery. Hmmm. More to mull over.
If I seen to be a little all over the place, it's because this has been being written over the last 5 hours during downtime at work, then get's a quick preview before being posted, so some is written down when I have 10 minutes to just focus on it, and some is pieced together from notes I make when I only have time for a couple key words (whose meaning is often forgotten by the time I get back around to it, unfortunately).
I'll still post later since there are some things I'm having trouble getting my head around. But I'll mull over the book, and what is here on the board, and what happens at game in the meantime. And thank you again Ron for helping me "get" this.
Ron Edwards:
I think you're getting to all the right conceptual places. It's also good to consider that there are two meaningful levels of "what sorcery looks like:" (1) for the whole game and its basic setting-context, and (2) for a particular player-character. After all, the overall take on sorcery might be mainly about physical violence, and if there's a sorcerer who instead whispers love-poems instead, that takes on significance of its own. A character's descriptors for Lore and often Will play into the dynamic possibilities between (1) and (2).
Regarding who-says-what, the rule is that the GM can never say what the player-character feels, does, or says, or rather, not authoritatively. I might, when GMing, say "So you bite off the teddy bear's head," or, "When you spin around in this floor level sweeping kick," but it is always phrased with a spoken or an unspoken "... right?" that permits the player to have the real authority. The same goes in reverse for all NPCs.
Therefore, aside from I-say-but-you-really-say, the player describes his or her sorcerer character's actions, including the actions of rituals.
I'm looking forward to reading about the game! My big advice: don't try to wrap it all up into a classic adventure, or "get the team together," or any such thinking. Play the Kickers damned hard and really enjoy playing those demons. At most, place player-characters and NPCs into one another's scenes as you feel like it with no obligation for them actually to interact.
Best, Ron
The Dragon Master:
Haven't forgotten this. Ran the session last Friday (well, sort of but we'll get to that). I made a quick write-up, and have a few questions based on how things worked out (unrelated to this post). I'm planning to do an Actual Play thread in a day or so when I have time to enter it.
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