Sorcerer and Sword ... Conan?
Ron Edwards:
Hi there,
You've got the right idea. For further clarification, one of my views on role-playing is that there is no point to playing with people who do not share your own creative priorities, for this game, at this time, and with you personally. Those priorities are what I call Creative Agenda, and this agenda is the one thing that holds together everything else about play. I suggest that mere neutral compatibility among persons was not sufficient - genuine and reliable fun in play required active compatibility and ongoing person-to-person reinforcement.
When I first introduced this viewpoint in an essay in 1999, the response was overwhelming horrified - I had shot one of the most sacred cows of hobbyist role-playing, that social concerns were supposed to be irrelevant, that anyone could play with anyone, and that the first priority to bring to the table was that you had to get along with everyone and anyone, no matter what.
I remember playtesting early versions of Sorcerer; people would often say, "This is excellent, but you'd have to be playing with really good players." My response was, "Why would I play with anyone else?" Now, in that anecdote, "good" was a code-word, because it meant "plays for the same reason." But that clarification aside, my viewpoint has remained unchanged. My response to your (b) point is: That's correct. Being attentive to what you want and to what everyone else wants is a crucial behavioral requirement for enjoying any group, leisure activity, and role-playing is no different. And by "being attentive," I don't mean endless downgrading of everyone's expectations via compromise - I mean attentive in the sense of assertiveness, mutual support, and willingness to say no, either to one's own inclusion or someone else's.
Best, Ron
rabindranath72:
I have run a short Conan campaign using Sorcerer and Sword, and it worked perfectly well, especially if you consider that in this setting Pacts should be the main way of interaction with a demon. I had one sorcerer player (i.e. his character had Lore greater than 1; 3 IIRC) and he used Pact only twice in the campaign; most of the time he used Lore to perform mesmerism tricks and similar. The other players played a Nomad and a Thief, respectively, and they had higher scores in Will and Stamina w.r.t. the "true" sorcerer (which was, besides, an "inhuman" spawn of Dagoth Hill), and these higher scores made the difference most of the time.
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