A Dying Sorcerer - newbie confused
jburneko:
This is a good thread for me to ask a follow up question and confirm something I've been doing.
Let's say a person has a Stamina of 4. At some point in the fight they have 6 lasting penalties. They are not a Sorcerer so they can't use the Will trick. When the fight *ends* they'll be at 3 lasting penalties. However, right-here, right-now mid fight they're screwed. They can't do anything.
At this point if the opponent wants to flat out kill them, they just do, so right? This assumes no other intervening forces such as someone trying to defend the helpless person. This seems in line with the idea that killing is a calculated moral act in Sorcerer. The person described can not fight back. If you're committed to killing them, do so.
Is this correct?
Jesse
Ron Edwards:
Hey Jesse,
Almost. In terms of announced action, absolutely, yes.
However, in terms of resolution, this is all still occurring in the context of formal combat rounds, so the targeted person still gets a single die (with a corresponding increase of the attacker's roll by a single die). If that die does not prevail vs. the attack, then you can treat those rolls pretty much as an ordering/sequence determinant. Also, the actual damage done should be calculated formally by the system, but (assuming the attacker is using the weapon in question in an especially nasty way) use one of the more evil weapon types for damage effects.
You may well wonder what it would mean if the defending die beat the attacking dice. Call that the vagaries of a heartless universe. Yes, you step up and slit the throat of the helpless person. But it's still in the heat of the kinds of moments which the Sorcerer combat system is built to reflect and produce. Things can go badly for you anyway. You may have to cut twice. And he may wake up (i.e. the temp penalties vanish) between cut #1 and cut #2.
Best, Ron
AXUM:
R:
The system is so nuanced (is that the word for a full spectrum of tones, options & surprising results?), yet incredibly simple. How much is serendipity & how much deliberate?
Ax
Ron Edwards:
Hi,
Thanks for the kind words about the system. I don't think I can answer your question, except to point out two things. First, I underwent a self-directed, very determined, focused re-orientation about the hobby itself in the early 1990s. A lot of it involved extensive play of a very wide range of games. Sorcerer evolved from its first notes in 1990 or so through its first real draft in late 1994, to its first published form in 1996, until its final form in early 2001, and every step was marked by playing its current form as well as other games.
All that is to say that every detail of the game was baked not only in direct experience, but also direct comparison to the games I'd played in the past and was playing at the time. I can fairly state that the process was probably 60 or 65% based on stripping off crap from my assumptions, and only 35 or 40% about what I would actually use. I can't think of any rule in the game that did not come from some specific, known instance of that experience, and I can probably also point to any number of assumptions that I had to recognize and strip down in reference to keeping or losing any part of the rules. (In fact, that's why I kept the Apprentice version available for so long; it was a good record of late-stage Sorcerer design that in comparison with the final version, showed what specific things were abandoned to make the rules better.)
However, it's also the case that every version of Sorcerer opened my own eyes in playtest, to the extent that through the course of those ten years, I often felt as if it were teaching me to write its next version. I was designing just ahead of my own competence almost throughout the entire process. So you can see that as an ongoing serendipitous element, if you like.
Best, Ron
AXUM:
Quote from: Ron Edwards on September 03, 2009, 12:14:21 PM
However, it's also the case that every version of Sorcerer opened my own eyes in playtest, to the extent that through the course of those ten years, I often felt as if it were teaching me to write its next version. I was designing just ahead of my own competence almost throughout the entire process. So you can see that as an ongoing serendipitous element, if you like.
Best, Ron
So... could the game be your own demon, it's desire is to be publicised (?), it's need to be published & be worshiped/talked about?
Da Ax
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