[Sorcerer] More Evil Is More Morally Taxing?
jburneko:
Ron,
Hmm.... That's very useful. It leads into an issue I've always had with Sorcerer in that what *exactly* does it mean to have a Kicker "resolve" when there's a lot of other stuff going on situationally.
I read the Kickers more or less as Rod pointed out. In the specific case of Morena it was very difficult to get her to the point of the "gooser." Morena's player is very good at describing her characters in terms of what they look like and how the world responds to them. Ask her what her character *wants* or *does* and she freezes up even at character creation. Which is why I say, the whole topic is kind of skewed to begin with but the problem seemed to *escalate* the more I tried to work with it. Every Kicker she wrote previous to this one I had to ask the question, "And this is problem for you character how?" and she'd think about it and go "Oh," and try again.
At least this Kicker had the implied, "...and I'm next!" as Rod pointed out. So, I tried to play Zenov as charming but possessive and manipulative. Very early on Morena and Zenov got into a fight, not a physical one an emotional one. Morena decided she needed help dealing with Zenov and decided to track down the former Sorcerer Bavmorda mentioned in the scrolls. That of course, leads her to Ivan. She makes a deal with Ivan. Ivan will let her "borrow" Bavmorda in exchange for the scrolls she found. Morena agrees.
Morena goes home and starts composing a letter to a friend of hers a the academy she works for. While she's writing this letter I have Zenov show up with roses and an apology for the fight earlier. Things go badly between them again and this time things get physical. In a moment of panic Morena tries to snap shot Banish Zenov... and actually succeeds!
So here's my question: Is her Kicker effectively resolved? My understanding is that a Kicker *includes* any crises which may have developed from the initial "kick." In this case, she's made an agreement with Ivan who fully expects her to follow through even though she no longer needs him.
(Her solution to this was to go to Lady Andrea and enlist her help. But Andrea wants the scroll as well. She made stops to several other NPCs trying to enlist aid as well, all of whom want something from her she's unwilling to give or resort to methodologies she's unwilling to participate in. This is what led to her eventual frustrated melt down).
Rand has the opposite problem. His Kicker focuses on Ivan. But the back of his sheet looks like this:
Four siblings(3 brothers, 1 sister), a city guard, a city judge, an orphan matron, Ivan, two named Ivan henchman, a professor at the school. All of these characters have a "stake" in Rand that is bigger than his Kicker. And I've had them ALL come down on Rand in various ways. Rand's solution in each and every case has been to act like someone in witness protection. He keeps moving himself and his family members around, constantly eluding pursuit, capture, harm etc. He's moving, but he's moving AWAY instead of towards. (I misspoke when I said, Ivan wants him dead. The stuff Rand stole is related to the ritual described in the scrolls and so Ivan is trying to get it back).
I'm less concerned about Rand because he seems on the verge of something. He knows that he needs to do something to get him and has family out from under these forces but like Morena he seems "stuck"; like he's waiting for a clear solution to present itself.
This whole sequence of games has been "odd." The players alternate between being very awesome and some of the worst turtle-ing behavior I've ever seen.
Jesse
James_Nostack:
Jesse, it sounds like your frustrated player has serious problems with player proactivity, and in some ways you're making things worse with the "Heh heh, you have no good options, now choose" approach. Not every player appreciates that style of play, and they see Hobson's choices as a screw job rather than an opportunity to make a thematic statement.
That said: not every bang has to be a Hobson's choice, and even if it is one it doesn't have to be brutal. It sounds like as a general matter this player wants a lifeline to a mission-of-the-week style of play where some NPC tells her what to do and leaves the question of how that's accomplished to her. I'd leave a couple open-ended, thematically relevant sub-plots spinning off the mission, which she nevertheless must resolve somehow for the mission to conclude, for her exercise agency. (The player would author kickers by describing the mission of the week as if the player were issuing orders to the character.) But I suspect Sorcerer isn't the right game for this player right now.
jburneko:
Hey James,
I've asked both of these players several times if this wasn't the game for them. Morena's player in particular really groves on the flavor of my setting. She's made little illustrations all over the back of her character sheet. She provides the best *passive* descriptions of things. I mean in terms of raw *vision* she's there 100%. Which is why I suspect she's reluctant to give up. She really digs the game's flavor pretty hard-core.
I also thinks it's unfair to categorize everything I've thrown at the player as Hobson's choice. With the exception of the Ivan-Andrea issue all the other NPCs have been quite reasonable. These are not lose-lose choices. The only common factor among them is that they all carry *risk*. I even had an NPC attempt to arrest Lady Andrea and Morena's player stopped him because she saw that things were about to get violent (indeed they did get violent for a couple of rounds).
To sort of get back to my original post (and Ron was right in side-stepping it in favor of pointing out a flaw in how I've setup/running the game) I am kind of amazed how *easy* it has been to spark basic empathy even when I've bent over backwards to make the characters as monstrous as I could. My Lich was "too human" to fight.
I am willing to entertain the possibility that I'm not being pro-active enough myself. As I said in my first post, that's a weakness I have as a GM. I sometimes forget to have the NPCs take enough action themselves.
Jesse
James_Nostack:
Oh, hey, I'm sorry if that post sounded critical or anything; sometimes I write in haste.
You obviously know your player a zillion times better than I do. But it's possible have a player who really likes the flavor of an RPG session--the atmosphere, the setting, the idea of certain Situations--while not quite digging the game or style of play. (As an example, and not to sidetrack: Nobilis is a tremendously evocative RPG, and I keep thinking I'd love to play it, but I have no clue how to even begin. Whatever the game's asking of me, I don't quite have it in me to produce: I'm enthusiastic but impotent.) So I think the fact that your player loves the setting is a necessary but not sufficient condition to enjoyable Sorcerer play.
Has this player had to choose between Cake and Ice Cream yet? By that I mean, two mutually incompatible good things? Because it might be that this player is very strongly risk-averse (but has no trouble making statements when the pressure's off), or it could be that the player really has a hard time making meaningful choices in play of any type (in which case Cake vs. Ice Cream would be as paralyzing as anything else). From my standpoint, a player who ingeniously maneuvers to have Ice Cream Cake is a valid statement, so if she pulls a Batman here to get what she wants that's a good sign.
If I'm understanding your OP, though, you've got a situation where:
* When the situation is slack-paced and morally murky, the players just kinda dither around
* When the situation is taut-paced and morally murky, the players just kinda dither around
* When the situation is taut-paced and morally stark, one player melted down in frustration
And you'd like to end up with engaged, non-dithery player(s), right? Is that what the players want too?
jburneko:
James,
I'm 100% with you on the Cake and Ice Cream analogy. I'm not actively trying to rob the player of ingeniously having both. But I think that's where the emotional issues of the one particular player ramp up the volume on the problem. She feels like she isn't "ingenious" enough to get Cake and Ice Cream. And so freaks out. But I still feel like that issue is simply magnifying something else particularly since I see a similar issue in the other player, just not on as a dramatic scale.
I'm also not 100% convinced the "problem" can be fixed as there are just so many other social issues and play assumptions and what not involved. I agree 100% that the game is probably simply a poor fit for these players and what they want. Yes, I think both players are to a degree risk adverse. And on player is risk adverse to the point of being crippled by it. That's why my original point focused on something that I think is noteworthy in parallel with the underlying unstable nature of the game.
In fact Ron pointed out this:
Quote
However - if such imagery distracts you from those mechanics and moral issues into maundering about in-game metaphysics, which it patently has done as demonstrated in many threads, then you're best off avoiding it.
regarding Dogs in the Vineyard. I agree with this completely and with his other comments about Dogs in the Vineyard. With regard to Sorcerer I find that this can be issue as well. There is a naive assumptive response that Demon = Evil. There is almost a certain underlying personality trait required to play Sorcerer at all. If a player can not imagine circumstances *for themselves* that they would summon a demon were such things possible then they are going to have a hard time understanding the moral dynamics of the game.
Jesse
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