Sorcerer and Sword ... Conan?
Ron Edwards:
This thread has fallen into two minor traps, or actually three.
1. The dogpile. Let the guy talk before jumpin' on. As you all know, despite the fact that we are all different people participating in a discussion equally ... it doesn't seem that way to a new poster, it can seem more as if one is being confronted by a united phalanx.
2. No connection to actual play in the points being made. The concern here will not be addressed by abstractions or psychology, but by example.
3. Failure to distinguish between two levels of an issue. We have to concern ourselves with whether (a) there is a legitimate issue which Sorcerer contains a solution for, or (b) there is actually no legitimate issue and therefore the "lack" of a solution is not a problem.
I'll be back to it when I can.
weaselheart:
No problem. Let's see ...
Quote from: Ron Edwards on March 17, 2010, 03:41:35 AM
1. The dogpile. Let the guy talk before jumpin' on. As you all know, despite the fact that we are all different people participating in a discussion equally ... it doesn't seem that way to a new poster, it can seem more as if one is being confronted by a united phalanx.
... Thank you for the consideration. At the moment I'm ok with the responses given. I appreciate people putting the time into some very in-depth answers and don't feel overwhelmed. I came here thinking that it was my understanding that was off, rather than Sorcerer. I'm hoping some phrase or point of view will help me to get it -- by which I mean feel comfortable about my ability to run a Sorcerer and Sword game.
Quote from: Ron Edwards on March 17, 2010, 03:41:35 AM
2. No connection to actual play in the points being made. The concern here will not be addressed by abstractions or psychology, but by example.
I have no experience running Sorcerer and Sword. This may be the problem; I might have to find out what to do empirically. My concern is that if I run with the wrong mindset, I'll be setting myself and my players up for frustration.
I do have some small experience with Sorcerer which may be relevant. I ran a game last year that I felt went well, although I missed a number of the subtleties and hit people with a more external plot than I would do now. I got that issue cleared up by another thread a couple of months ago, where I learned to look at the back of the character sheet.
So what do I think may be the problem next time? Simply that Sorcerer and Sword is a different game. Mechanically, the biggest difference seems to come from the idea of demonless characters. I guess you could do that with Sorcerer, but it feels invited in the Sword system.
Here's my interpretation of one small element of the game we last played: before the game, a number of us had come off another game (white-wolf), in which sorcery was highly punished. As a result, one of the players chose a very weak demon so he'd be more in control. He also usually plays non-wizards in other games. During the game, I noticed he seemed to feel underpowered at a couple of times relative to the others. By noticed, I mean he commented on it. Now, we were Sorcerer novices, so although he could summon one, he may not have known this -- or not have fancied it in any case due to a desire for control. This was noticable with only a few points difference in demon strength (hence 3 or so less powers), and a demon that wasn't really cut out for fighting. It wasn't that I placed a non-combat character into a combat scenario, though. The character was a good fighter and had a decent combat background, just his demon was weak.
Of course, I may have exacerbated the situation by being a plot-heavy gm. In times when I wasn't sure what to do, I did the Raymond Chandler move of having two guys with guns burst in, for example. Naturally, they could be dispatched easier by characters with more combat options. Also, the characters tended to stick together as a squad -- something I again encouraged after the first few weeks by giving them a clear enemy they wanted to go for. Partly I did this because I wanted to make sure everyone was involved, and I didn't want players to spend ages sitting around waiting for their turn. I do understand this may be the root of my problem, and will do it differently next time, but even if I run a more disparate game, sometimes the players may like to get their characters together, I think.
Quote from: Ron Edwards on March 17, 2010, 03:41:35 AM
3. Failure to distinguish between two levels of an issue. We have to concern ourselves with whether (a) there is a legitimate issue which Sorcerer contains a solution for, or (b) there is actually no legitimate issue and therefore the "lack" of a solution is not a problem.
This is an interesting and enlightening question for me. I honestly have no idea if I just ran it a bit too traditionally, or if we had a mechanical problem due to someone's desire to be demon-light. However, I am concerned that if they go demonless it will be even more obvious.
So, at the moment, my thinking is:
a) I think this will be a legitimate issue in my future game, but I don't know if it's
b) because I'm running the game wrong.
However, if I could add a
c) A lot of the posters appear to think it's a non-issue. But I don't need it to be -- I don't feel like I currently have a zero-fun game. The last one was a blast, with some great intense moments. So although I'm open to the idea of thinking differently about playing Sorcerer, I don't currently see why I can't play the way I intend to but with a bit of better gm'ing. I.e. if it came to this being a legitimate issue which Sorcerer has a fix for, I'd be perfectly happy. In fact, learning that was my intention when starting the thread.
Here's where I think the difference between a) and b) is most pronounced:
Quote from: greyorm on March 16, 2010, 09:20:27 PM
To put a different spin on it: you're thinking about D&D when you're being offered Tolkien, and you're confusing them because of this.
Consider: the Fellowship in LotR isn't all well-matched in terms of power, are they? Not at all! Heck, it is the two weakest characters in the entire group, in a D&D-kind of measure, who are the ones who destroy the One Ring and defeat Sauron. It is not the destined uber-warrior heir, the godling wizard, or the supernatural elven archer...all of whom had abilities and powers and skills far beyond a couple of run-of-the-mill midget farmers.
... I remain to be convinced of this, for two reasons:
a) That may be partially true of LotR. But is it true of Conan? I may be misinterpreting, but I don't think so.
b) I'm not even sure it's true of LotR. Perhaps this is my fault in misunderstanding how fantasy works, and narrative roleplay in general, but it seems to me that stories are about characters struggling to overcome conflict, and in that pressure revealing who they are. So we have Sam and Frodo wandering into Mordor in order to destroy the ring. I agree that the story works despite them being underpowered relative to Gandalf. But, and this cuts to the heart of what I said earlier about feeling comfortable now playing a Sorcerer and Sword one on one, is it true when they group up? I don't remember the hobbits being much use on weathertop, for example, or Moria. They didn't kill a cave troll, for example, or stop the balrog.
Imagine the story wasn't Frodo and Sam, but Gandalf and Sam trekking into Mordor. If Gandalf had fallen, could Sam have stopped him? Could they have had any trouble with Faramir, or Shelob? In my reading of the book, Lord of the Rings shows me that even the smallest can be important - providing the story takes care to separate them from the biggest and gives them their own isolated subplot. Take the video I linked above. I'm not convinced bmx bandit can really pal around with Angel Summoner for any length of time in a story revolving around international terrorism. A story about bike-racing, perhaps, but that's not analagous to the story I get drawn to fantasy by.
At the moment, from the threads above, I'm thinking there may be a number of possible solutions to my (admittedly hypothetical) concerns:
a) There isn't really a problem. If I play it, I'll find it just works out in any case. I'm not convinced, but I'm willing to give it a go on this assumption.
b) Keep the characters apart, and hence pitch their stories at the level they are competent to deal with. Conan fights snakes, Bob fights Gods.
c) Give the non-demon character a few more points to put into stamina/will/lore, for the length of time he has no demon.
d) Give Conan a "demon", just don't call it a demon. Call it Crom, or Tribal pride, or fury. I'm leaning towards this option, but it seems to me that if this is the solution, then the answer to the question "can you play a demon-less character with a highly-demon-powered one?" is: no = and that doesn't seem to be the concensus above.
e) Learn to think differently as to how to run the game and what it's about. I'm happy to try, although I am, as a couple of people have noticed, mentally stuck with the idea of "game balance" at the moment, probably due to my history with other games.
jburneko:
From the description you gave of how you've been playing the game it sounds like you may be having a more general issue with the structure of a Sorcerer game. May I suggest you take a look at this post by Christopher Kubasik that does an excellent job of breaking down the flow of a Sorcerer game, very very well.
http://story-games.com/forums/comments.php?DiscussionID=11710&page=1#Comment_261789
Maybe if we clear up some of the larger conceptual issues, it will shed light on this issue.
Jesse
Noclue:
Yeah, I find myself thinking that the Balrog wasn't Frodo's bang. It was Gandalf who had the kicker about leading the fellowship through Moria and wakening the sleeper within.
Frodo's kicker is about not killing Gollum because of the bond they share and taking him with him into Mordor.
greyorm:
Woah, guys, slow down. What whose Kickers were if they were Sorcerer characters is not at all helpful (especially if it is going to sow further confusion by confusing plot arcs with Kickers, and gods know what else). I'm sorry to have brought it up since it is causing this kind of confusion: the idea was solely to showcase how characters with vastly disparate power levels are not an issue because Sorcerer is not D&D and the ways in which it is not. It was apparently poorly thought out on my part, and it should be removed from the discussion table: no more talk about it, please.
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