In which we head out into the Sorcerer's Solar System
Judd:
Bret,
I really thought that the mysteries solved were out-weighed by the mysteries that were suddenly kicked wide open.
We know why the corpses are making something and who is doing it but where exactly is the information going and to what purpose?
Let's start the game with some sorcery and see how it goes. I feel like we are still on the same kicker but if you aren't feeling it, we'll figure out something.
Judd:
There is an interesting thing when players are going back and forth, not directly involved in each other's scenes. The players kind of watch what is happening, digesting it all and form opinions about what is going on. Once they are unleashed into each other's environments, there is a kind of release.
Christine's R&D scientist, Vera, is given sway over a lab with a little boy who has an alien artifact just like her's. His is a synthetic vulture. Through experimenting with his demon, she is kinda experiment with her own, asking questions she hasn't fully asked about herself, maybe. Also, the boy's demon is in a state of outright rebellion and has, in its own non-verbal alien-synthetic-vulture way asked that Vera take over the binding.
Christine is skeeved out by vultures, as am I, which is good. The fact that they are creepy-looking birds is why I chose it as the boy's demon, that and keeping with the bird motif for certain alien tech.
Bret's character, Dr. Rong, is obsessed with using the alien tech to invent something that will allow humans to map their consciousness and imprint that on other shells (like a clone, for example). Funny he chose that, because it is exactly the tech that largely defines the Takeshi Kovacs books by Richard K. Morgan, the books that inspired this setting. I don't believe Bret has read them yet, just a funny coincidence.
Through a series of demon-less rolls, he does it...but now what?
Once he applies for a patent, the government folks roll in, bring him to the R&D facility where Vera works.
Bret failed a summoning roll after a successful contact. He wanted to imprint an alien technologist over his mind but failed the roll and got a vicious demolisher. He anted a Maker but failed the roll and got a nasty Destroyer. I felt like a bit of an asshole GM but the game kept flowing, despite the failure.
I asked Christine to make a Humanity roll when, after interacting with the little boy, kept locked up in an R&D lab, she had dinner with her lab assistant. She mused for a moment on the poor boy's plight and then launched into the exciting scientific possibilities.
Both characters have succeeded in all of their Humanity rolls, meaning that this third and last game will most likely have no alien first contact. That is fine with me, I think there's more than enough to deal with without the aliens showing up and I rather like them being in the background, mysterious and unknown.
Once the two PC's got in the same room, I really liked their interactions. I could feel the game shift up a gear at that point.
Next game starts with Dr. Rong being hired by the facility and Vera being asked to finish up her work with the boy and his demon so that she could be given a promotion to the scientists who have an overview of all of the alien tech in the building.
There have been some neat rolls to see who knows who is a Sorcerer, Lore vs. Humanity and who knows what about whom has tipped the balance of play in cool ways. The Facility Director, Khaza, knows that Dr. Rong is a Sorcerer but still does not know that Vera is and they both know that she is, either through rolls or through hearing directly from NPC's.
Bret Gillan:
By the end of this session, I was reluctant to let it end. Having Rong interacting with Vera was cool, and being introduced to this huge research complex full of things for him to examine and form theories about and come up with ideas for new creations will be great. I felt like there was a lot of "okay, now what do you do?" and I needed more in the setting for him to interact with and react to since I was floundering at points.
The demon summoning wasn't a big deal. I mean, yeah it ended up being a dead end but whatever, I failed the roll and he still had a choice. I think what turned it from an "Oh, crap," choice into a dead end wasn't just the fact that it was a destroyer, but it was both a destroyer AND it did not have the ability that Rong had summoned it for in the first place. If it had been a destroyer and still had what Rong needed, it would have left Rong with a much more difficult decision.
Judd:
Quote from: Bret Gillan on April 16, 2010, 09:34:20 AM
By the end of this session, I was reluctant to let it end. Having Rong interacting with Vera was cool, and being introduced to this huge research complex full of things for him to examine and form theories about and come up with ideas for new creations will be great. I felt like there was a lot of "okay, now what do you do?" and I needed more in the setting for him to interact with and react to since I was floundering at points.
I used some of the back of the character sheets for my initial bangs but I found it interesting that you and Christine never sought out any of those NPC's, unless I put them on the plate first and often then, once they were gone they were off-screen and seemingly forgotten.
I definitely did some some "what do you do now" and more than I would generally like but I felt like there were enough plates spinning and didn't quite want to add more.
Quote from: Bret Gillan on April 16, 2010, 09:34:20 AM
The demon summoning wasn't a big deal. I mean, yeah it ended up being a dead end but whatever, I failed the roll and he still had a choice. I think what turned it from an "Oh, crap," choice into a dead end wasn't just the fact that it was a destroyer, but it was both a destroyer AND it did not have the ability that Rong had summoned it for in the first place. If it had been a destroyer and still had what Rong needed, it would have left Rong with a much more difficult decision.
Yeah, I can see how I could have made that decision more difficult. Gotcha. Something for me to think about.
Ron Edwards:
Hi there,
Regarding Kickers, I think some of my comments in [Sorcerer]Sorcerers in Casablanca - AP may be helpful here:
Quote
"Resolving the Kicker" does not mean merely dusting it up with whatever immediate threat hopped into the character's field of vision.
Ninjas attack! I escape out the window.
My dog dies mysteriously! I bury him.
My wife has returned from the dead! I get her to sign the divorce papers (finally) and walk out the door.
All of these conduct a conflict with the most immediate elements of the Kicker. None of them resolve it, as far as I'm concerned.
I may be wrong, but Judd, it might be that you're holding hands a little too much in terms of "what happens next," leading everyone else to be a little too comfortable that the story will roll along and all they have to do is react. If I'm playing a sorcerer, especially one I've made up and who has demons like the ones they have ... well, if the GM doesn't hit me with X or Y or Z, you can bet that I'm off like a shot for whatever it is that this sorcerer is bound and determined to do. Your players should have this expectation conveyed to them.
"What do you do?" "I sit and wait for you to tell me what happens now. Because if I wait long enough, you definitely will." "No, actually, I won't. What do you do?"
Best, Ron
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