[Sorcerer] Traveller: Holy War
jburneko:
I went back and reviewed the material in Sorcerer's Soul and there's a lot there I had forgotten. For some reason I had it in my head that Option 1 was simply "treat them like demons" full stop. And only Option 2 got into all the stuff about addressing the higher good and new powers and all of that so it seemed like you were mixing the options. Turns out I was wrong.
This is the first time I've ever seen anyone attempt Angel play. I will be curious to see how it goes.
Jesse
Callan S.:
I can't quite see the threat in that description of angels, myself. It's only a threat if you want human diversity not for any particular purpose but just for the sake of having it. A grander purpose for diversity is that its a weapon against an uncertain universe. If the angels don't really offer peace, or you have uncertainty about whether they do, and perhaps you'll all become harmoginised and picked off by a single virus or something, then I can see the threat in the angels there.
But really, it seems contradictory to value friends/the differences in a friend, when other differences in people can lead to that friends death or harm. It's valuing something that's self destructive.
And if you've chosen it regardless, then the angels aren't a direct threat, they're just a choice declined.
I'm not jabbing at the text - quite the opposite. It's prompted me to question the idea, which is probably the overall intention.
AnyaTheBlue:
This is incredibly fascinating, but...
I think your "play the setting vs. play the story" dichotomy is a false one.
I think what you are seeing is real, but is more a question of how you have defined Traveller inside the context of the Sorcerer rules.
For example, you could easily make the character's starship a demon. It's got an AI, it's got 'Travel' (Jump drive + Maneuver drive).
You could make Psionics into a kind of possessor/parasite demon.
You could make Robots be Object or Passer demons.
You could make Aliens (ie, Droyne, or Aslan, or Vargr, or whomever) be demons.
You could make Ancient Artifacts into demons.
You could make worlds themselves into demons, and have the characters be rulers of those worlds.
You could do all of those things at the same time.
I guess what I'm saying is that I think you could map the Traveller setting onto the Sorcerer mechanics that would still let you play Sorcerer AND Traveller at the same time.
It might not be what you want to get out of the exercise, but I think it could be done, and be done well...
Christopher Kubasik:
Hi Callan,
Great questions! I'm actually very excited to discuss this topic. It's one of the reasons I posted the material above.
Before we go any further, however, could you go read this thread: http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/index.php?topic=15415.0
The thread is called, Sorcerer Doesn't Scare Me. What's Wrong With Me? It's one of my favorite threads on this board, even if it does flip over the guard rail at the end.
When you're done, let me know. I've got a bunch of stuff I want to talk about from the actual game, as well as thought about this stuff in general regarding Sorcerer.
Christopher Kubasik:
Hello Anya,
I'm going to respond to your post. At least I think I'm responding to your post. I know I have something I want to say. But it might be at cross-purposes to your post, and I missed your meaning. And if so, I apologize. But I think I'm on track, and I think what I'm about to say is interesting. (At least to me!)
So, here's a thing about me:
I'm a writer. Specifically a writer steeped in the traditions of TV and Film and Theater. That means I'm coming to Sorcerer (and all RPGs) with certain traditions and habits of thought filling my head. (Just as everyone approaches anything with whatever traditions and habits of thought are in their head.)
One of these traditions and habits of thought in my head is this: "Whatever the biggest thing is you name in a story, until that thing is resolved, that's what your story is about."
By that I mean, in Star Wars rescuing the princess might matter, but until the Death Star is destroyed, her safety is still up in the air. In the Matrix, once Neo finds out the life he's been living is actually an artificial construct, the issues of getting chewed out by his boss in the fourth scene of the movie really don't matter anymore. In The Dark Knight, Batman might have his hands full with lots of petty criminals wandering Gotham, but once the Joker shows up, none of that other stuff matters as much as the Joker.
Dramatic narrative (TV, Film, Theater) are very compact forms in many ways. (For example, the script of The Matrix, despite the movies big concepts and jangling styel, is a mere 100, with not more than a hundred words on most pages.)
Most dramatic narrative is focused because of this: it is a core conceit or idea that is focus of the audience's attention. "This is the story of a warrior who murdered his own king to fulfill the prophecy of his power as predicted by three witches." Lots of events will orbit this core conceit... but pretty much, that's the story and that's what the events are about. Same with Batman vs. The Joker, or a New England beach community threatened by a giant great white shark, or terrorists taking over a sky scraper, or whatever. There are lots of reasons for this (unlike prose lit, you can't go back and find out all the complications you forgot about while watching a movie or a play, for example), but that's pretty much it.
So! In Sorcerer, when I play Sorcerer, the fact that there is a weirdness in the universe alive in the moment in the lives of characters IS what the story is about. There's no getting around it. It's not, "So, there are these characters, and they're all involved with these cool stories, and oh... they happen to be sorcerers and have demons." It is this: "This is a story about people who are sorcerers and have summoned and bound demons..." Because I can't imagine anything bigger happening in a tale involving people who have distorted the nature of reality in this way. There will be lots and lots of other things that happen. But they will all orbit and be affected by this central, core conceit.
This is not to say that other people don't play differently, or shouldn't. It's to say, "This is how I see this."
Even looking at Sorcerer & Sword, where the players' characters might not have bound demons -- where, in fact, the protagonists are "the battler of things" -- the fact that there are demons in the world, that there is other in the world that is wrong -- is central to the tale.
Howard's "The Tower of the Elephant" looks, at first blush, like a story about a wandering adventurer and a thief on an impromptu heist. But it's power comes from Conan's interaction with the Old One who he frees. "Red Nails" is a cool adventure story -- but there is not denying that the engine of the tale is the ritual lore of sacrifice that has kept the war within the ancient, dark city for so long. The biggest, coolest conceit of each of these tales is the wrongness alive in the acts of the sorcerers, and until that wrongness is resolved, the story cannot end. Those things are what the stories are about. (You'll note I'm referencing short stories here, which are as compact in many ways as dramatic narrative.)
Now, you're list of how to incorporate demons is really, really cool. And, when I was preparing the Traveller game I considered many of them.
But the thing is, when I thought about them (and this is perhaps a failing in my thinking, and only how I think about them) I saw them as using demons as tools within the Traveller setting... the same way you would use a laser rifle or a powersuit. Yes, there's a way to mechanically use the Sorcerer rules to plug demons into being such tools. But, for me, that misses the whole point of demons -- Someone is dealing with things that just plain threaten the nature of Humanity. And the moment that happens, that is what the story is about. It is what the story has to be about.
And this is what I meant about playing the setting versus playing the story. The moment demons -- as defined in the context of all the Sorcerer books -- are on the table, then they are the central conceit of the story. The rest of the Traveller universe falls by the wayside. Nothing, I mean, nothing, can possibly be as important as the fact that those demons exist and people are interacting with them.
Because, remember, I'm approaching this from a story-centric perspective. That means I care about the character meeting the setting meeting the situation. Boom. That's it.
The book Dune has notes about elaborate empire and political structure at the back end. But in the tale, what do we actually read about? We read about the most important shit happening in the galaxy. And that's it. Yes, within the culture of fandom we can start elaborating and dreaming about all the "unfiled in spaces" that are not Arrakis. But in terms of a discrete unit of fiction -- a story -- what matters is the control of Spice. Everything -- the battle of the Fremen for their freedom, the sandworms (that help make the spice), the political struggles and back stabbing among nobles -- all of that circles the core conceit that there is this thing that lets you navigate the stars in an unimaginable way.
Once I introduced demons, they became the "Spice" of my setting, if you will. If they were not to be "tools" -- which, by definition, they can't be -- they would have to be the center of the story.
Now, the demons could have been starships. Or psionics. Or whatever. But still, at that point, the Traveller's Third Imperium would no longer be the Third Imperium. Something new, and so vital as to not be ignored in story after story, would have been added. The introduction of the demons would be as vital and central to any tales told as the revelation that reality is a computer constructed virtual reality or the discovery of an imprisoned Old God during a heist in a wizard's tower. Outside of the character's interaction with this world altering fact, nothing else could matter as much.
Hence, a revelation that if I introduced demons in the Third Imperium, the Third Imperium could simply be not as important as the interactions between the players' characters and the fact of demons. Moreover, that that the introduction of demons, narratively, utterly redefined the Third Imperium, and that anything in the Third Imperium could be knocked over because of the interactions of the players' characters and demons -- like King Kong and Godzilla knocking about Tokyo. The story is about King Kong and Godzilla. Tokyo is just there to show us how the fight is going.
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