[Sorcerer] Cascadiapunk post-mortem
Joel P. Shempert:
So my Sorcerer game is dead. We only managed a handful of sessions, separated by delays of up to a month at a time, and in short never gained sufficient traction or player investment to give the game legs. Last night we met and talked it over, and decided it was best to end it and move on to other things.
This is the autopsy.
By the way, prep discussion is here, previous actual play threads are here, and here, The last time we played, we had a couple of interesting developments, but it was far from smooth. We only managed a couple of scenes, one in which Robin Last, coming to his Indian mentor pleading whatdoIdo, whatdoIdo, and surrounded by cops, pisses off the mentor and they fall out and disown each other, Robin goes out to ambush and demon-massacre the cops, gets himself horribly shot up and taken into custody in critical condition. The other scene was V and her pal Pigeon following their hospital getaway, heading out to her secluded Cabin (just across the valley from Robin and the Mentor!) while Pigeon explains that their employer wants them to steal artifacts from the Mentor for her ceremony.. They pass by the Flying J in flames from the grenade debacle, and V receives a Perception from her Demon that one of the ceremony ingredients she needs is in a car outside the disaster scene. She hops out of the car to go after it, attracts some police attention, plays some cat and mouse, and ends up escaping to her cabin via an underwater drainage pipe her Demon pointed her to.
There were a number of factors that killed the game. Any single one of them could possibly have been resolved (not "ignored" or "tolerated" but resolved) in order to keep the game alive and enjoyable. But all of them together were a death knell.
Difficulty coordinating schedules. This one was sort of a beyond anyone's control thing, on the surface. But I tend to think that underlying all that was a lack of commitment to the game to some degree. Not that I'm saying people's priorities were "wrong" or "bad"; I never, when I knew the reason for a conflict or cancellation, thought that they were unworthy activities to prioritize. It's just that bottom line, for whatever reason, people were more committed to other things than they were to the Sorcerer game.We spent a lot of time chatting and BSing. This was mainly because we all like hanging out and this is our only time to do so, so we get sidetracked easily (and we've determined that spending time together IS valuable to us, beyond the context of this game). But I think it's fair to say that lack of commitment to the game--such that it's impossible to say "OK, let's play now" and have everyone respect that--was also a factor.We had a massive mismatch of preferences and aptitudes for procedural frameworks in a game. We had one guy who loves to get under the hood of the rules and examine and tinker, one guy who loves "mechanics" (dicerolling, stats, etc.) inasmuch as they robustly support creative aims (that'd be me), and then three people who, in varying degrees, don't want to be bothered with rolls, scores, defined powers, math, what have you, and rather just want to more or less freely spin a story together, urged on by creative prompts. One player says, "at the mention of dice my eyes glaze over." Basically, if "roll dice equal to a relevant score, compare to an opposing roll for high die, number of victories rolls over into the next, relevant roll" is too much fiddly stuff for this group, then Sorcerer isn't going to work. Similarly, issues of when to employ the dice tripped people up, and someone would be spinning some string of narration about their character, and I'd have to go "wait, baaack up there; you know those police over there? With guns? Yeah, they're opposing you." The net result of all this was that I felt like a killjoy for constantly reigning in people's creative output, and everyone was kind of pushing and pulling over what kind of game we were playing.We also had a mismatch regarding imaginative content and what we wanted to do with it. Everyone had a set of expectations about what the game would be, and though I tried to transmit the Sorcerer paradigm clearly and communicate well in our collaboration over setting and theme we still entered the game with often very different ideas about what it would be and what it would be like. I think everyone had a general idea of Sorcerer as "the game of summoning demons and what you do with the power and what cost you pay for it." But within that rough framework everyone brought a different set of expectations regarding such things as the shape of the story (Jake said in our talk that he went in wanting primarily scenes and conflicts with other PCs, and our prep just didn't have much Positioning on that score), the particular dynamics between characters (Willem has stated that most of his character's relationships, as played by me, turned out totally different than he pictured them, in a manner that left him cold and left the PC with no direction or motivation), or the capability and methodology of specific capabilities (such as Willem thinking he could tear through a bunch of cops and getting creamed, or Jana struggling with what her Demon abilities could do and balking at the specificity of their operation clashing with her concept).
It's hard for me to discuss this issue precisely because I had different expectations from them; often I would be looking across the table at a player seeing all kinds of exciting potential for proactive motion for their character, while they shake their head and go "man, what a dead end." Couple of examples: Jake's PC hustles some stolen checks and gets some cash in hand, and goes "well, I guess my Kicker's resolved." (Really? really?! Getting a bit of cash (and acquiring criminal entanglements in the process) constitutes a sustainable situation for Mike? Whaaa. . .?) And then there's the latest development in Robin's story--the mentor bitch him out, and Willem just feels like the relationship is destroyed, not in a "great, dysfunction, emnity and fallout!" sort of way, but in a "poof! it's evaporated, as if it had never been" way. And then he felt that Robin's only reason for caring about the Mummy Kicker was on the Mentor's behalf, so now he just "doesn't care" and has nowhere to go. Whereas I feel that I entered into the game in the good faith that the player actually did care about his Kicker, and correctly (after some floundering) identified that it was the relationships surrounding the mummy that were the meat, put pressure on those relationships. . .and the player (from where I;'m sitting) just up and gives up.
Hmm. Looking over that, it's awfully judgmental; it just can't help but bubble up when I write about it. Now, I do feel that I'm entitled to my judgment, but at the same time I don't want to paint a picture like "I was the very picture of fairmindedness and creativity and they just wouldn't work with me." Anyway, I'll let the comments stand as the most honest assessment of my feelings at present.On the whole, I think we ended up rather at sea in a number of areas because of our careless approach to the game. I mean at every level: forming a play group, determining our aesthetic preferences, investing together in an SIS, learning the rules, etc. I posted up a Sorcerer game at a local game meetup, and simply assumed that those who signed up and came to my table would be the right people in my community to play this game. While I succinctly stated what the game is about, I don't think I was able to effectively communicate to the group what the play experience is like, or what creative and social duties would be expected of them. Also, I didn't go in with a planned thematic scenario of the "one-sheet" variety, figuring we would work it out as a group. And we did, but we ended up with some things ill-defined (esp. Ritual and Demons), and a lot of gaps for people to fit their disjointed expectations into.
As the months flew by and awkward sessions trickled in, it became clear that the group wasn't gelling and the game wasn't gaining the necessary traction. I was reluctant to quit the game, for a number of reasons: I didn't want to "fail at Sorcerer" or give up on the challenge of running a satisfying game, I didn't want to let down this friend group or leave them with an unfun experience, and I was invested in the fictional content we had created and wanted to see a payoff for that creation. Hell, I hadn't even gotten a chance to introduce the major NPC I had created, which was primarily what my own creativity was sparking on regarding the game. So that felt like altogether an unsatisfying place to leave off.
But in discussion we all made it clear that the game was frustrating and unworkable for us, and we need to move on (yes, even me, despite the above paragraph: my fellow players' unwillingness to continue merely clinched a difficult decision). But it wasn't all gloomy. I think a number of positive insights and observations emerged from the wreckage:
We've affirmed that we DO like each other and DO want to play games together. Now that we've got a better handle on the group preference and agenda, we can select games appropriately and have more fun. What the group preference boils down to is "low handling time, room for all players to participate and interact all the time, lots of collaborative fiction-building and narration, low commitment week to week to account for schedule conflicts." We're thinking about In a Wicked Age, the Pool, 1001 Nights, and some others. Hopefully this'll evolve into a cool, relaxing rotating-game group.I learned a lot about running a Sorcerer game; the campaign becomes a sort of dry run to work out the kinks. I believe I've honed my personal skills and my "radar" for potential pitfalls, and my ability to run Sorcerer in the future is enhanced, not diminished.And in that light, I know exactly what I want to do with the ashes of our game. I'm going to take wat really engaged me about the material (most of which I didn't even get to introduce) and lift it out wholesale to build a whole new "Cascadiapunk" setting/concept for a future game. I'll do up a proper one-sheet, with Sorcery and Demon definitions alongside Humanity, and zero in on exactly what in the "setting" I'm focusing on (our previous game was just sort of "eh, anyone from Portland is fine"). This way I can hit the ground running with my own investment and enthusiasm engaged, seek out players who can also invest in this same thing, and create some awesome together, with a firm basis for aesthetic judgment and procedural expectations.
So, yeah. I've got some lingering frustrations, to be sure, but I think there's a happy ending to the tale. I'm looking forward to the next step, both for this group and for Sorcerer.
Peace,
-Joel
Joel P. Shempert:
Over in [Dead of Night] Nice Mr. Fitzgerald, Ron said some stuff about handling aesthetic judgment calls as a GM that seemed to me to relate to my issues here with communicating expectations, particularly Sorcerer's Bonus Dice for Roleplaying.
The relevant bit:
Quote from: Ron Edwards on November 16, 2008, 07:49:18 PM
There's nothing in the text about cliches being silly or not silly, foreshadowed or not foreshadowed, or anything else. The numerous examples are generally descriptive and range from the very familiar to the thought-provoking. Graham's question was the right one - how did I, the GM in this case, organize "my discretion?" When the rules hand me the judgment call like this, I am a big believer in telling people what's on my mind, and finding out what's on theirs, because I don't like to start over case-by-case during play.
What I'm wondering is, how much and in what way does the statement quoted apply to Sorcerer? I'd imagine quite a lot. While I did try to communicate what my standards were in the midst of our conflict, by then it was already kind of too late, as everyone had already calibrated their individual expectations, and recalibrating turned out to be messy an awkward. Especially of note to me here is Ron's clause, ". . .and finding out what's on theirs," that is, communicating as a group, not just me the GM goin' "OK, here's the standard. Measure up, buckos." Which is I think how it came off when I tried to explain why a particular bit of narration didn't meet my standards for bonus dice.
The other aspect I'm looking at is how to establish this sort of aesthetic communication. David Berg chimed in and linked to a list of categories he uses to communicate an aesthetic baseline. it's an interesting list, but I'm not sure if that kind of methodical approach is the best technique with every group. Which leads back around to the question I asked him in the previous thread: what bits of communication do you focus on, and how much do you frontload into the game startup, as opposed to letting it work out as play progresses?
Peace,
-Joel
JoyWriter:
Taking control of other people's relationships is something we've had problems with in the past. Because those npcs tend to reflect something fundimental to the character, and playing them wrong can totally set things the wrong way.
The main trouble seems to be when players cannot express what it is about your portrayal that undermines their character, even after they see it, so veto doesn't work that well. It's too blunt an instrument, and our current GM is too sensitive and illusionist to take it well.
I wonder if there is some way for players to share control of a character, perhaps with one setting general boundaries and the other the specifics. I suspect though that that is no solution, as general boundaries can become more and more specific.
Another tack is to try to find ways to make the meaning of the characters explicit, perhaps through more gentle introductory or tuning scenes, so the GM can get a feel for how to play them, or via some question/answer method, with in character questions about that person. The first should have non-continuity status, depending on how strict that is, perhaps formulated as a dream or explicitly labeled as a trial.
Ron Edwards:
Well, for Sorcerer, the basic idea is that once you've generated an idea during character creation, then it belongs wholly to the GM to shape into whatever form it takes in play. That includes the Kicker, and everything else too. Just as the GM gives up all ownership of certain crucial parts of "where the story goes," every other participant gives up authority over any character except his or her sorcerer. By "give up," perhaps the best way I should say it is "give over," or "transfer." You have the idea and then you give it to someone else and accept what they do with it.
Joel, that sounds like one of the issues you ran into, but I think it's actually just a symptom. I'll be getting back to this rather involved thread later in the week, I hope, with the reply I'm slowly drafting.
As a contrast, Trollbabe is totally different. It has rules that are a lot like what you're talking about. If you, playing a trollbabe, designate a given character as a Relationship, then from that point on, you say what that character does. But the GM always plays his or her attitudes and spoken commentary. Each function belongs to the indicated person in full. It works quite well, actually.
I've found in many experiences that your basic advice is sound as well, even without funky rules of either sort. I think a certain jostling, or no-blood-no-foul period is often necessary when dealing with the shadowy, semi-defined, yours/mine character associated with you as a player. I might say, "OK, he's in his armchair, sunk deep in contemplation ..." and give one of those "is this OK" looks to the player who made the character up. There's a lot more joint play of characters than I think we acknowledge, and sometimes it even goes past this opening stage.
Best, Ron
Joel P. Shempert:
Hi, Joy!
Quote from: JoyWriter on November 29, 2008, 07:00:40 PM
Taking control of other people's relationships is something we've had problems with in the past. Because those npcs tend to reflect something fundimental to the character, and playing them wrong can totally set things the wrong way.
The main trouble seems to be when players cannot express what it is about your portrayal that undermines their character, even after they see it, so veto doesn't work that well. It's too blunt an instrument, and our current GM is too sensitive and illusionist to take it well.
I agree that this is a tricky issue. And it's worth paying close attention to who's got authority over what characters in the particular ruleset you're playing by (like Ron points out, there's a significant difference between how Sorcerer and Trollbabe handle it). I've had difficulty in groups where a certain "this is how to roleplay" mindset pervades; I might make an "NPC" type character (sidekick, flunky, cohort, etc.) which, by the rules (D&D, Big Eyes Small Mouth) I'm supposed to control, but the GM still tends to assume the NPC is hers, 'cause, y'know, the GM plays NPCs, right?
My stance (in agreement with Ron and the text) WRT this particular game is, it requires a certain amount of risk. If your concept is so brittle that it can't stand up to another participant freely monkeying with your supporting cast, then such a delicate flower is not Sorcerer-worthy. Now I'm more than happy to communicate and work with a player regarding what feels right, but in the absence of such communication I'm gonna barrel ahead using the components I've been given. I didn't receive any kind of "here's these NPCs and my relationship with them is like this," from the players. All I got was, Here's some names and roles. Not even so much as a personality descriptor. Which to me says, "I'm cool with whatever you do with these components." But apparently it meant something else entirely to the player.
Now we're getting more into that judgmental territory where I start justifying all my decisions at the expense of the players. Still not sure what use to make of that.
Ron,
Quote from: Ron Edwards on November 29, 2008, 09:50:24 PM
Joel, that sounds like one of the issues you ran into, but I think it's actually just a symptom.
Had a feeling you'd say that. I'l look forward to your reply.
Peace,
-Joel
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