[Sorcerer] Curtain on the carnival bizarre
Christoph Boeckle:
Hello
Last saturday we played the last session of the Carnival Bizarre. It was the second instalment after this report.
Story
In two sessions, the player characters essentially got together, captured and tortured the clown. To make sure that he wouldn't turn against them, they inserted a parasite demon into his stomach, with the order to start nibbling its host whenever it was necessary to protect the master. The whole ritual to summon and implement the demon was so disturbing that I shall not describe it here (but it was a cool three-sorcerer ritual)
This was happening in the context of nomads camping outside of the city, asking that they be paid for their services contracted in the past. Something about providing the city with all its needs. The Scarlet Jester (the mysterious master mind behind the people subtly controlling the city) was in deep shit, because of course, he didn't have the money and what's more, his organization was basically dismantled. He revealed himself to the player characters: a child sorcerer (tell-tale: he has the look of an old man in his eyes), always pulling a little wagon around for his teddy bear. He proposed a peaceful deal with the player characters. Together, they could have dealt with the situation. He only seemed to be accompanied by an adult.
Arthur essentially thought that this was bullshit and that the Jester was in no situation to negotiate. Locke tried to grab the child, and suddenly a spectral form appeared with blades for arms (yer twisted invisible friend) and hit him with the flat on the head (quite hard actually). The child and the adult set to leave the scene.
Arthur and his demon Alyssa tried to run after the humans, while Goete called back his linked possessor demon who was fooling around in the opera hall outside of which the discussion was taking place (a lucky turn of events). The intermediate result was that Arthur almost spilled his guts on the streets, Alyssa got hurled to the ground by the adult, but the fat opera-goer grabbed the child. As the bladed demon and the adult ran to free the child, the Goete's demon hops into the Scarlet Jester, just before an unholy blade perforates the kidnappers belly.
The protagonists let the trio leave (the possessor demon was cloaked and managed to fool the adult and the demon into thinking the child is just under shock).
The next day, they found out the defeated Scarlet Jester's hiding, and devised a stratagem to get a letter to the still possessed child (which of course was a command for the demon). The Jester's deadly demon was sent on an errand to check out what the nomads were doing. Alyssa "travels" (she is good at finding doors that lead to the appropriate places) with her friends and they stabbed the child to death.
As an epilogue, the players decide that the nomads are welcomed into the city as the only form of payment. However, to sustain the needs of the city, a mandatory period of work is imposed for all inhabitants every month. The party is over... real life takes over.
Reflections
Indeed, with the Scarlet Jester dead and cold and the other elements of the organization basically neutralised (the clown committed suicide, I decided the torture had been too great on him), all kickers could be considered resolved. Arthur finally understood how the city could operate for so long a time (exploitation!) and decided to put an end to it, integrating the nomads (clearly Arabic in appearance, when all the city was populated with western European people) and imposing community work. Goete could leave without fear of being murdered or having his property burned down again, he decides to sail out to sea. Locke had taken advantage of the situation to become a major player in the city's food distribution system and as such had resolved his kicker as well.
I am left with a feeling of not having played out the game's potential to the maximum, or rather to have been to monopolizing in the way the setting was created. Everything gravitated around the mysterious Scarlet Jester and his hidden organization. The best thing to do was to destroy him. End of the story.
Clearly, Thomas (Arthur's player) was not quite into the kind of experience I wanted to offer through Sorcerer. During the debriefing he said that knowing me as he did (extremely well for a lot of things, but we haven't played a lot of RPGs in the recent past), he was expecting a cool mystery to be revealed as he played his character in the most optimal way. J?r?me didn't feel too concerned with actively defending his character (and he was right, I only tried to assassinate Goete once and basically tied his security to dismantling the hidden organization, a thing the others were after as well). Julien pushed a bit harder for his goals, as they were somewhat orthogonal to the main plot. He summoned a demon for that very purpose, which again was a quite gruesome but interesting ritual.
I could have pushed much harder on the grey points of the characters, but socially I felt it wasn't appropriate. Thomas had made it clear that he'd rather like the game to end sooner than later and we were having difficulty finding regular chances to play. I think I learned a good deal about how to communicate more clearly with him and the others about my desires in role-playing, and I hope such a situation will not arise again.
In the end, all the characters had clearly compromised their Humanity (in technical and ethical terms), but prevailed nonetheless. Cold blooded child murder! But was the Jester really a child?
I'm also a bit ashamed to say that I still don't master the rules of the game (I kept having to search the relevant scores for demon abilities and rituals). It's much more fiddly than some games I've played recently (Zombie Cinema, S/lay w/Me, some French indies) and I think I'm becoming lazy. I want to try some one-shots of Sorcerer again, perhaps of the Sword & type, or why not the Sex &. I'll have to prepare rules reminders for myself and the players. As a first shot, I'm pleased overall, but as Ron pointed out in a previous AP, this was an ambitious series, probably too much so given the context.
Ron Edwards:
Hi Christoph,
I appreciate you taking these threads all the way through to the conclusion. At the most simple level, I think you ran into a slight contradiction between character-centric and setting-centric play. I think that this contradiction arose not from anything you did, but from the people you played with. I wasn't there, so this is merely a guess, but it seems to me that Thomas isn't interested in playing Sorcerer of any kind, and so you found yourself effectively maintaining his interest in the game as one of your tasks. That led to the interesting situation in which, when Julien played his character toward that character's interests, the effect was to go orthogonally to "the plot," instead of becoming plot in and of itself. This is not intended as a criticism of Thomas but simply identifying (or trying to identify) a significant dynamic among the people.
My suggestion, if you're interested, is to be reasonably certain that others are playing Sorcerer with you because they are even more intent upon the game than you are. I can only describe this as taking the phrase "Play my character" in a very different light from the traditional RPG meaning ... perhaps we might be able to arrive at a good phrasing for this here in this thread.
Best, Ron
Christoph Boeckle:
Hi Ron
I think your last paragraph sums up the conclusion I have come to very nicely, though I'm not sure I'm getting what you're hinting at. More than half of my gaming experience (in terms of volume) is directly influenced by the Forge, especially you, sir! I started playing sometime in the beginning of 1999, first AP post here in the beginning of 2005. So the term "traditional", used between us two probably needs to be discussed.
I'd also be very interested in any development of the features of character- and setting-centric play. It's a thing I've read about, but could use some help in sorting out the different ideas, using this series of AP posts if that seems appropriate.
Ron Edwards:
Hi Christoph,
I should apologize for being overly obscure. I began typing what I thought with be a pithy and clear point, and realized it would have to become a more complex and considered paragraph in order to make sense, and I didn't have time. Also, I'm glad you pointed to the Shadow of Yesterday thread, which serves as a decent starting point.
Before I go on, though, I will indicate that by "traditional" I'm referring to what I'm sure you mainly encountered before your Forge history, in other words, the less-than-half, earlier phase of your role-playing experience. Also, my text that you reacted to concerned your friend Thomas (or guessing about him), not you. In the context of that previous phase of play experience, I will continue to guess that your friend Thomas' assumption:
Quote
Clearly, Thomas (Arthur's player) was not quite into the kind of experience I wanted to offer through Sorcerer. During the debriefing he said that knowing me as he did (extremely well for a lot of things, but we haven't played a lot of RPGs in the recent past), he was expecting a cool mystery to be revealed as he played his character in the most optimal way.
... would have been a reasonable expectation regarding play. That viewpoint toward "play my character" is what I was referencing with the problematic term "traditional." I'll try to summarize it as follows, based on my own experiences.
- Play optimally concerning character survival. The game system is perfectly capable of killing your character, and at least some GMs are invested in making this happen or in not doing anything to prevent it.
- Play optimally concerning your own ego. The GM is very invested in making his story happen, and if your character needs to be overly gullible or stupid for the story to work (often the case), then the GM will take him over and make him that way, making you look stupid and basically stripping you, personally, of social and creative power at the table. Such a GM is not a player-killer like the ones I mentioned in #1, but in some ways, he's worse!
If "play my character" is construed from these parameters, it results in the following tactics (I've stated them a little bit extremely):
a. Come up with as colorful a concept as possible, preferably somewhat irrational, so that you can carry out the following safety-measures from "in character" and blame the character for "making" you role-play in this way.
b. Safety-measure - treat all GM characters as hostile, treacherous, and of no emotional importance whatsoever.
c. Safety-measure - avoid rolling the dice or otherwise engaging in the resolution mechanics as much as possible.
d. Safety-measure - create as much minor strife or minor friendship for your character with the other player-characters as you can, because such interactions carry no risk, take up time, and
I don't know how much of what I'm talking about actually directly concerns Thomas or you or anyone else you've played with, but at this point, I want to stress that I'm not claiming to diagnose or characterize any of you or them. I'm talking about that particular mode of playing one's character and how it is not the same as doing either of the following.
1. Beginning with a fairly sketchy but perhaps interesting portrait of someone, in full knowledge that the setting, i.e. its local manifestation in that precise spot, will spark a dynamic set of reactions for both the character and for everyone else, and the development of the character will proceed spectacularly in the context of those reactions. In other words, the whole setting is very big, but we're interested mainly in this one spot, and beginning with a clear idea of how this one spot is full of explosive tensions. This is what I was trying to talk about in the Shadow of Yesterday thread, and it also applies well to The Riddle of Steel, and a couple of others I just forgot because my mom came into the room and bugged me. (She's visiting.) Both of those games are very strong on motivational mechanics, but a role-player should be aware of how easily the content of those mechanics may radically change in those games.
2. Beginning with a fairly rich and unstable moment in someone's life, usually rife with intense relationships, with only enough setting information to support that portrait, in full knowledge that the setting will be filled in as play proceeds, particularly in terms of specific back-story but also if necessary expanding the scope of attention outwards for more stories. In other words, here, it's the character who's full of explosive tensions and the immediate setting, as well as the overall setting, has to keep up with that. This is what Sorcerer is built to do, and the techniques in Sorcerer & Sword show how it may be applied to adventure fantasy.
The nuances in The Sorcerer's Soul and in Dogs in the Vineyard give rise to a certain tension between #1 and #2; I suggest that both games are more like #2 but draw on setting (or back-story) to as much a degree as #2 permits.
OK, now take someone who's well-trained in those defensive character-play tactics that I outlined above, which are effectively the only way to stay sane in the not-especially-functional end of the Illusionist swimming pool. Put them into a game that is either #1 or #2, and tell them, "This is totally about playing your character!" ... and then watch them not like it. They won't even know what they're looking at. The wide-open behavioral opportunities will seem like traps. The situations will seem like railroading. The reward system will be too-numbersy, which they fear. The NPCs will look like more railroading.
I'm not saying Thomas exactly matches the most extreme forms I've observed of this disconnected reaction to Sorcerer and other games. But perhaps there's some element of this issue at work. Let me know what you think.
Best, Ron
Christoph Boeckle:
Hi Ron
Your reply is making me think in all sorts of directions at once! I need to take some time to analyse our five sessions, try to recall some salient points about the older campaigns and process your insightful post. Your distinction between the patterns you describe in the abstract and Thomas's (or mine for that matter) actual way of playing is well-taken.
I'll get back to this thread as soon as possible.
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