Sorcerer and Premise...
Ron Edwards:
Hi Tony,
I think it's clear that some folks work better with a verbal articulation right at the start, and others work better with a 'feel it out and see' approach. Unfortunately I do well with either, so I can't really recommend one way as the right one.
I do know that if you, personally, cannot give an example of what constitutes a meatily-necessary Humanity Check during play, then you're not ready. Doing so doesn't mean that you know, fully, why it would be a good example. Nor does this one example have to nail down all conceptual corners of any Checks to come. All that matters is that you can do it this once.
Here are a couple of threads that show Christopher Kubasik working his way through this very issue:
Sorcerer Doesn't Scare Me. What's Wrong with Me? represents the more emotional approach (don't get distracted by the outside-reaction maunderings that were imposed on the later parts of the thread)
So, I'm Flying a Spaceship..., later, is more verbal (don't get distracted by the many interesting issues in this thread; the part about Premise in the first few posts is its own thing)
Best, Ron
P.S. I made up the adverb "meatily" for this post. I rather like it.
The Dragon Master:
I may well be over thinking the issue, problem is that I can't come up with any particular setting that I really get excited about. No books or movies I've dealt with lately have really sparked the fire for me, and I've just mentally been in the doldrums. Right now I'm at work and don't have the time/concentration to devote to those threads, though I'll check them out when I get home.
I did just have an idea for a game though, how does this sound:
I suppose I could do a more sci-fi game, premise being "technological advance is worth any price". In this game Demons would be computer programs, and other forms of high-technology. Lore would be programing languages (and other such knowledge). Sorcery would be programming and building bleeding edge technology. Not sure how you'd define Humanity, though isolation from others, and lack of social contact would likely be causes for Humanity loss.
Christopher Kubasik:
Hi Tony,
One thing I've discovered over the years is that the act of creativity is... weird. It's almost impossible to prompt it in a certain way. As Ron points out, some people are triggered by verbal articulation, others by look and feel. Like Ron, I move back and forth between the two of them. In other words, sometimes I'll see an image that "clicks" with me very strongly, and I'll have to backtrack and map out the words for Lore or Humanity. Other times I'll know exactly what I want conceptually for the Demons, and then have to figure out what the color will be to make that all work.
I can only offer this as the one dependable like of attack: Your actual, emotional passion for something. The first thing, always, is find something that genuinely excites you.
It seems to me that you are approaching this task in a fairly intellectual fashion. If this is the case, I understand this impulse! You want to get going on this endeavor and you want to "fill in the blanks" so you can get on with it. I used to approach even my writing this way. But the truth is one can only pull this stuff off if one is first genuinely passionate about the concepts/color/whatever.
So, really the first question is: What aspect of life do you really care about? What questions?
When you become impassioned about something in the news or in daily life, what is it? Or, even better, where do you get confused? At one points do you get confused about how to behave or which situations would you NOT know which way you'd act if a crisis hit? What do you spend your time thinking about in actual life? What subjects of ethics or science or biology or art do you read about?
None of this is specious or airy-fairy. I was pitching a project to a producer at Sony BMG records yesterday, and half-way through the meeting he said, "I want to thank you for being so passionate about this project. For bringing me a project that's something you care about."
Passion and actual concern is the difference between work that actual matters -- whether on TV or in a roleplaying game. Since Sorcerer is actually built to produce story it's vital it taps issues and subjects that the players really, genuinely care about.
So, I'll repeat the questions:
What aspect of life do you really care about? What questions?
The answers might be in the form of images or words or situations or whatever. But really sitting in those questions, I have found, is where the best play comes from.
Oh, and as an exercise I'd step away from the "premise" for a while. When you start answering those questions, just start thinking in terms of Humanity or Demons or Lore. As Ron suggests, especially with Humanity, when you start seeing those moments that's when you know you're on track.
rabindranath72:
Quote from: The Dragon Master on April 21, 2009, 11:05:52 AM
I may well be over thinking the issue, problem is that I can't come up with any particular setting that I really get excited about. No books or movies I've dealt with lately have really sparked the fire for me, and I've just mentally been in the doldrums. Right now I'm at work and don't have the time/concentration to devote to those threads, though I'll check them out when I get home.
I did just have an idea for a game though, how does this sound:
I suppose I could do a more sci-fi game, premise being "technological advance is worth any price". In this game Demons would be computer programs, and other forms of high-technology. Lore would be programing languages (and other such knowledge). Sorcery would be programming and building bleeding edge technology. Not sure how you'd define Humanity, though isolation from others, and lack of social contact would likely be causes for Humanity loss.
You might go for a Humanity definition as found in the old Cyberpunk 2020 game. Therein, getting too many cybernetics expansions reduced the empathy and, well, humanity of the characters, leading to madness and cyberpsycosis. It would work very well with Sorcerer.
Ron Edwards:
Those rules in Cyberpunk (the original, not 2020) were actually the direct and literal inspiration for the Sorcerer mechanic. The first draft version of Sorcerer in 1990 or so used the old Interlock system, the R. Talsorian term for those rules.*
However, I did tweak them very hard in a specific way: unlike those rules and their essentially-identical replication in Vampire, specific values of Humanity above 0 do not dictate specific ranges or modes of behavior in Sorcerer. A character may have Humanity 1 or Humanity 10,** or anything in between, and at any value he or she is still capable of the full range of moral or immoral actions.
Best, Ron
* As a point of historical interest for those who don't know, this initial version (which never saw play nor developed very far as such) was pulp fantasy. A fair amount of its prose and concepts found their way into Sorcerer & Sword later.
** This value does not imply a maximum; I'm merely picking a very big number.
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