[Sorcerer] The Cold and Bloody Northland
greyorm:
We played Sorcerer again for our last game night, session ran for around an hour and a half or so. I whipped up some sorcerer and demon character sheets for the game, which the players really liked and I received some nice comments over the design of, and we also filled out the back of the sheets, which they started using right away: marking down notes and using the names there to push on the story.
For example, one issue I was mulling over earlier is that the characters don't really want anything, but now PL's character is definitely out-to-get Patricia--the leader of the coven, the head of the Teacher's Association, and apparently the person who set him up with the dead kid in his alleyway. He already knew she hates him, and now he wants her dead, and he's using a demon they believe she summoned to do it...a possessor they fought, then bound, and stuck into the detective assigned to investigating the kid's murder...killing him.
Given how much I bumbled around with some of the mechanics, though, I've decided I need to sit down and read through the book once a day to get some of the damn rules straight. MJ is also going to give me some of his sticky tabs to mark important sections in the book for easier rules referencing (I swear...I know where all the things I'm looking for ARE in the book, but then I can't seem to find the section they're in! "The demon abilities are in the demon section! Where is it?! ARGH!").
I also definitely need to print out some aides for during play for both the players and myself (hrm, didn't someone around these parts write up a short rules summary handout some time back?). Play should also prove easier once I have a second core book I can loan out to the players between sessions and have on hand for them to reference themselves during play.
For this session, they ended up facing off against a big, nasty possessor demon--a 6 Power, incorporeal thing with Daze, Confuse, and Hop (and maybe more)--trapped in a Contain someone had worked around a long-abandoned barn (1 success on a Lore check, I only told them it was a Contain, I didn't say how strong it was or what it had been made to hold). So they successfully figured out the barn was a Contain, but went inside anyways. After a few moments, the demon coalesced as a red miasma with a devil's face and started trying to Confuse Thomas to make the possession attempt easier (no action, no squirming away).
Keller, Thomas' demon, chose that moment to act up and start rebelling--Thomas hasn't made any kids cry the whole time we've been playing, and Keller isn't too happy about it. Buku has been in love with his master, though, and didn't need to be ordered around. It knew what was expected of it once bad things started happening, and was happy to oblige.
They managed to fight the thing off and escape the barn, after Thomas demanded Keller use his ability to get a bunch of birds to help attack and distract the possessor (I used its Stamina to deal with physical attacks as temporary damage). Unfortunately, in escaping, the Boosted Doug accidentally ruined the the Contain when he shut the barn door a little too hard and took it off its hinges (allowing the demon another chance to escape from the already weak Contain). He literally brought down the barn, and the possessor rose from the dust and attacked.
They didn't do at all well after that. Six dice against what they had (2-3, sometimes just 1 for some snapshots they attempted) meant most things did not end in their favor. They weren't using roll-over tricks or really pouring on the role-playing juice to ramp up the bonus dice, and it hurt them. I'm going to need to mention that when we discuss the game later.
Eventually, Doug managed to grab the Confused Thomas and escape into the woods, but all his Boosting caught up with him then and he stumbled to a stop, Confused himself. At that point, Thomas just let the demon possess him, fought a Will battle for control of his body, and made a pact with the thing, promising it a new host, the chance to kill, and free reign afterwards, so Binding it...though he doesn't know how well.
The host? The detective investigating the murder. Thomas claimed to have found what he thought might be new evidence in his garage, and once they got the detective in there, he put his arm around the guy and let the demon Hop out of his body and into Patrowski, killing the poor guy but giving Thomas' new demon a host.
Both that act and the Binding entailed Humanity checks for PL's character, who lost both rolls and is now down to 1 Humanity. PL asked what happens if he goes below 1, and we talked about what Humanity meant in our game. I'd decided on "sanity" earlier, where 0 means you drift so far into the world of the surreal and of magical correspondences that you lose touch with reality; you can't tell fantasy and reality apart, can't even function because you see connections and magical correspondences everywhere. They compared it to what happened to John Nash, which is pretty apt.
But he was thinking that he could just gain a point back by buying a bunch of teddy bears for the sick kids at the hospital (or similar); I'll let him know next week that Humanity gain can only be achieved by a true, heartfelt act of compassion or meaningful rejection of demonism and magical thinking, something that makes the other people at the table say "DAMN".
Though, hrm, the whole teddy bear thing work, if he ignores Keller's demands to make those kids CRY, allowing the demon to slip further out of his control. Especially with a second very nasty demon in the mix who may demand even worse.
Next week I may be introducing two more players to the game, meaning I'll eventually be running Sorcerer for four players. I think that's around my limit for number of players, so we'll see how it goes.
Ron Edwards:
Hi Raven,
When designing that part of the system, or rather, when seeing how the system played out in those circumstances, I found that this effect:
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Six dice against what they had (2-3, sometimes just 1 for some snapshots they attempted) meant most things did not end in their favor. They weren't using roll-over tricks or really pouring on the role-playing juice to ramp up the bonus dice, and it hurt them.
... is best understood as the player-characters basically panicking. Every action becomes a fright-based single thing, not far from flailing, and every individual is operating in isolation even though they are standing next to one another. Given a foe like the one you designed, which is a nasty fucking thing, isn't it, it'll stomp them. I absolutely love the outcome as you've described it - a great example of what sorcerers have to deal with when relying on their powerz and baseline scores, which is to say, coping now with a ramped-up version of the basic sorcerous problems.
If I were advising this group, I'd remind them that I as GM have no, zero responsibility to take care of their characters.
Best, Ron
greyorm:
Quote from: Ron Edwards on May 26, 2009, 08:01:08 AM
If I were advising this group, I'd remind them that I as GM have no, zero responsibility to take care of their characters.
Yep, that's something I'll be mentioning as soon as we play again (various things have delayed our playing again, should be next week now).
But I can't help feeling part of the issue is squarely my own fault. I'm not sure how to explain to them what they can do instead, that is, what they can do that would net them pre-rolls prior to making the conflict roll. I'm wondering if I may be stuck in a task-resolution mindset and not seeing certain actions as pre-rolls serving the actual conflict, nor sure how to explain that idea clearly.
Ok, let's say the player says, "I quickly scratch a circle in the dirt marking it with the demon's secret name and controlling sigils, praying to the four heavenly archangels that I finish before the demon overwhelms me. I'm trying to trap that thing in a Contain!" Cool and ballsy: 2 extra dice. Still 3 dice against 6?
So, roll-overs, like a Lore roll against Will to see if you recall the names under pressure, and then a Lore roll against Stamina to see if you write them correctly while rushed (unless I'm hosing something up, those are legal/valid/appropriate either as requirements from me as GM or suggestions from the player, correct?). And even, " 'Like the red-fanged mouth of hell looming to swallow you whole' ? I'm chemically heightened! I've seen worse on bad trips, so I'm not scared." to try for a Will-based roll-over (though that may be stretching it?). And then the actual snapshot Contain roll.
So you could pump up a snapshot that way, with a basic minimum of 3 dice, and more from other roll-overs (or less if you screw important bits up).
How do I convey things like the above to these players? How do I convey the concept of roll-over dice to the players for things that aren't actions and aren't Cover (ala the examples in the book) for newcomers to this game and its style? Should I push the roll-overs in play myself (ie: "You leapt over the fence, so Stamina..." or "You're a pirate so Cover..."), or should I wait for the players to say, "HEY! I want to do a roll-over for this bit, please! Based on..."
Ron Edwards:
Hi Raven,
I think there's two ways to answer. One is the designer/theory way, and the other is what actually to tell them and what to do as GM. I think I'm going to do the second, although I've painfully found that in talking about Sorcerer, whichever way I go, someone screams pitifully about how they don't understand how that applies to the other.
OK, here's the point: you're starting in the middle. Let's back up to before the action is announced. My advice is to say, contribute to the imagination as you play. The system is there to be that imagined material in terms of game mechanics. You don't say "I scratch a circle" to get dice, you say it because that's your sorcerer and he turns to his Lore in this instance under stress. Is it uncharacteristic of him to do so? Then we know that, and you role-play accordingly. Is it characteristic of him to do so? Then we know that instead, and you role-play accordingly, i.e. differently than the first case.
What I'm saying is that it's not about whether a given description is worth enough or is good enough or appropriate enough, it's about whether that description is getting into everyone's heads and (either way, off-type or on-type) working to generate a feeling of this is this guy, here, acting in a particular way. It's anything that makes the imagined situation not be a bunch of talking heads taking turns making desultory motions.
(You've been in those role-playing situations. Although the characters are allegedly a bunch of colorful fantastical guys and although they are allegedly fighting a heinous and mystical monster, for all that's actually said and imagined, they, the fictional entities, might as well be standing around silently until their turns come around, then raising one arm and bringing a weapon down in a falling motion, or saying "I dodge" or something like that.)
It's not about earning dice. I can say that until I'm blue in the face and no one believes me. The point is that if you do it, the dice are there for you. And since "do it" is nothing more nor less than what we came to do in the first place (play fictional characters in fictional crises), then it's not like I'm asking anything. Instead of thinking of the Sorcerer bonus dice rules as bonuses, extras, add-ons, special things, we should be thinking of playing in such a way that you don't use them as being ... well, pretty limp and un-imagined and halting play. If play isn't limp and un-imagined and halting, then the dice should be piling on routinely.
Now for fiddly details, none of which should be read in isolation, but only as aspects of what I wrote above.
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Ok, let's say the player says, "I quickly scratch a circle in the dirt marking it with the demon's secret name and controlling sigils, praying to the four heavenly archangels that I finish before the demon overwhelms me. I'm trying to trap that thing in a Contain!" Cool and ballsy: 2 extra dice. Still 3 dice against 6?
Better than 1 against 6.
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So, roll-overs, like a Lore roll against Will to see if you recall the names under pressure, and then a Lore roll against Stamina to see if you write them correctly while rushed (unless I'm hosing something up, those are legal/valid/appropriate either as requirements from me as GM or suggestions from the player, correct?).
Sure, with no time constraint involved (i.e. in cinematic time the 10-seconds-left allows room for a one-minute conversation and kiss).
Regarding your parenthesis, the GM shouldn't require stuff like this in a "you can't do this unless you do this first" way. But suggesting it, yeah, especially not "do you want to" so much as in a "can you" way. The degree and method of how you do this is a matter of social contract; in some groups, it's OK for the GM literally to say "So you try to remember the names" and simply carry on without need for confirmation, and in others, that'd be dirty pool. Depends on the emotions and histories involved.
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And even, " 'Like the red-fanged mouth of hell looming to swallow you whole' ? I'm chemically heightened! I've seen worse on bad trips, so I'm not scared." to try for a Will-based roll-over (though that may be stretching it?).
Whoa. Too much justification. You're depicting a player whoring for dice. Imagine instead the player bringing his hand to his nose in a snorting notion and sneering at you, then saying, "I step up to it." He probably isn't even thinking about extra dice, although if he is, that's OK too. The point is that you go, "Yeah, that is so you, baby" without even thinking about the dice either - so the goal is for you to recognize it when it happens and pound a couple onto the table for him.
Indiana Jones gets a bonus die for body-languaging "oh come on" and just shooting the guy running at him twirling the sword. The guy gets nothing for whirling and posturing with his sword.
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And then the actual snapshot Contain roll.
So you could pump up a snapshot that way, with a basic minimum of 3 dice, and more from other roll-overs (or less if you screw important bits up).
Yeah.
What I'm saying is that if you focus on "if you do this you get a die, if you do that you get two dice," then all you're doing is telling them to whore for you with windy descriptions and that contributes nothing to the imagined situation and action. In fact, it's boring, stupid, and tiring.
But if you say, look, you are playing a sorcerer who is absolutely nothing like anyone on this Earth either before or since, and you are in a situation where he or she is either suddenly able or suddenly unable to get What He Wants. And this "thing" right here in the room with you is why. Play him accordingly at all, by saying what he actually does and says, and I'll get it. My job is enjoy that, and in this game, I enjoy it by putting more dice down for you.
The only alternative to getting bonus dice is to play your character absolutely against concept, and I don't mean descriptors, I mean the baseline concept of being a sorcerer in crisis - lacking in drive, lacking in color, lacking in decision, lacking in imagination, lacking in raw imagined presence. Practically not even there. I would say that this is a silly thing to expect except that for decades a lot of people have been trained to play in exactly this horrifically nasty-nothing way, covering for it by using stupid accents and gestures and postures.
Let them know that you are jazzed about their characters and want to see them in all their driving, colorful, decisive, imaginative presence.
When and if that happens, then all you have to do is remember to whap those dice out. When it comes to the roll-over pre-action actions, then you'll discover that they're doing that already - you simply say "that's a pre-roll" and basically turn it into a free action. (Remember that such rolls carry no penalty for failing, too.)
I hope that helps. Let me know.
Best, Ron
greyorm:
Quote from: Ron Edwards on May 28, 2009, 01:04:45 PM
I hope that helps. Let me know.
Immensely.
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My advice is to say, contribute to the imagination as you play.
That's perfect. Not as an isolated guideline, but as a guideline in light of the rest of the explanation -- remembering that "contributing" is not equivalent to "earning" or "deserving", and the GM's job being to remember to put those dice on the table for the player (not to act as a judge). If I've not gotten that right, let me know, but it is making sense to me right now.
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Regarding your parenthesis, the GM shouldn't require stuff like this in a "you can't do this unless you do this first" way. But suggesting it, yeah, especially not "do you want to" so much as in a "can you" way.
Right. Exactly.
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Whoa. Too much justification. You're depicting a player whoring for dice.
Ahhh, yes. It felt wrong when I typed it, though I couldn't verbalize why, so I'm glad I left it in there for review.
Quick question: Quote
(Remember that such rolls carry no penalty for failing, too.)
Clarification: do you mean they create no penalty dice? I understand it can't stop the action itself from failing or becoming impossible, etc, but based on the swinging pirate example on page 104, I had thought it could result in penalty dice based on aesthetic discretion.
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