How can I best run a game of sorcerer?
Lance D. Allen:
I think one of the most important points you've mentioned in your last post is the wants/needs thing.
These can't be half-assed. They can seem easy to fulfill, but if you can't think of some way to put the thumbscrews to the sorcerer with their demon's wants and needs, they're weak.
I've only really played the game a few sessions, as a player. I don't recall all the details of my demon, but I do remember its want. It wanted pleasure. My dude was a college-jock turned cop after a weird college incident made him wind up with a parasite demon. We drifted the rules slightly and allowed the parasite to communicate directly with my PC... by using the PCs own lips. The GM put this to wicked use a few times. My character was proactive about feeding his demon's need.. regularly eating the best foods, buying the most luxurious clothes, bedding and housewares, and frequently went clubbing so as to find himself bringing home some young thing.
But the demon was never satisfied. My PC went to the bathroom, where the demon used his lips to proposition some guy. My dude wasn't all that interested in the idea of man-sex, but the demon's ideas of pleasure were different. We didn't play long enough for me to really rub against the strictures, but that beginning was enough to make me realize the cost of consorting with demons. I'm dead certain Alex (my GM) was going to have all sorts of fun in store for me.
jburneko:
Hello.
Ambition is VERY important to Sorcerer. It's probably one of the bigger beginner mistakes. People create characters who "stumble" into demons or some how have demons thrust upon them. The game doesn't really support that. In many ways the game is about arrogance. So one of the questions you should ask your players is WHY did your character summon a demon. What was SO important that violating the laws of time and space seemed like a "good idea at the time."
I'm struggling with this a bit in my current Sorcerer & Sword game. I have a player who is having trouble keying into this. Her character is very "Whoa is me. I never asked for this! I must suffer the burden of my demon!" And I have to keep re-orienting her. I say phrases like "Demons are a means to your ends. What are your ends?" I also said something like "Imagine what percentage of the population are CEOs of fortune 500 companies. Now what percentage of THEM are willing to rip holes in the fabric of existence to bring forth a Thing From Beyond to help them get there? That's the kind of person your character should be."
That said "ambition" here doesn't have to be world shattering. For example "settling down to a quite life" isn't all that bad *if* the character yearns for that solitude so badly that they're willing to summon a demon to get it. So it's more like "God, if I could only have some *fucking* peace and quite!" Here, demon, clean my house! Go to work for me! Take care of me! Notice how one is sort of reasonable and the other borders on an childishness. The key word there is *borders.* It may not be and play should look at that point carefully.
Does that make sense?
Jesse
weaselheart:
Quote from: jburneko on May 04, 2009, 12:22:15 PM
Hello.
Ambition is VERY important to Sorcerer. It's probably one of the bigger beginner mistakes. People create characters who "stumble" into demons or some how have demons thrust upon them. The game doesn't really support that. In many ways the game is about arrogance. So one of the questions you should ask your players is WHY did your character summon a demon. What was SO important that violating the laws of time and space seemed like a "good idea at the time."
...
Does that make sense?
Yes, that makes a lot of sense. I have lightbulbs going off in my head at the moment, because I've just realised that one of the players took a weak demon so as not to be beholden to it, while another chanced upon her demon instead of summoning it deliberately.
In fact this resolves another of my confusions about the game, which was - why should I be constantly hitting the players with demon needs and desires? They felt like a diversion from the story, rather than the actual meat of it. I was always asking internally:
why should I keep tormenting the character with this demon?
whereas I think now the question I should be asking is more:
What do they want so badly that they are prepared to put up with all this crap to get it?
Strangely enough, I've just been back through the rulebook and it's all in there. There's advice about making a character with arrogance and playing demons to the hilt. Like most things in life, though, I guess it's hard to see the subtleties the first time round, so thank you for that. Now I need to go talk to my players about playing arrogant and willful characters :D
jburneko:
Quote from: weaselheart on May 05, 2009, 01:55:40 AM
Strangely enough, I've just been back through the rulebook and it's all in there. There's advice about making a character with arrogance and playing demons to the hilt.
That isn't strange at all. That's a normal experience. Around here we frequently make the joke that the book IS a demon and rewrites itself when you're not looking. I've been playing the game for around eight years now and have read the book cover to cover numerous times. Each time I find something I swear wasn't there before.
Jesse
chance.thirteen:
So what is it you want so badly that you summon Sorcerer?
Experiences like with the rulebook are what make me really enjoy reading essays where the author tries to take you from a typical RPG approach or experience then mold it to the newer ideas that have been discussed here and elsewhere these many years. I see where they are coming from and where they are trying to get to, so all the little decisions build nicely into a larger change and you fell like you have it all down.
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