[Sorcerer] Also spielte Zarathustra, thoughts
Ron Edwards:
Hi Jaakko,
Here's an example of a handout I used a few years ago to open the discussion of a game The Dead Are Too Much With Us. The PDF is 6 pages, but I only used the first four for the initial handout.
I chose this one for you because it's quite detailed, designed for people who didn't know much about the game and did not own the rulebook. You'll see that the Humanity definition is very clear, but also very brief, and is open to a fair amount of discovered application as I tried to explain above.
Best, Ron
edited to fix a mis-typed number
Jaakko Koivula:
Thanks, inspiring stuff! I got a group together and we're meeting in some weeks to kick up a campaign. We're going into sort of Paranoia (without all the slapstick) and Fallout -direction. Contaminated surface, people living in tunnels, etc. Have pretty solid idea about the visuals, humanity and types of demons, so I think I'll actually make a handout for this. I usually can't be bothered really, but I can see how a detailed handout with some rule-pointers and the basic stuff about the game and some material for everyone to start riffing, could be pretty vital for this game.
I'll maybe post the handout here on the Forge once it's done. Thanks again!
wholeridge:
Quote from: Ron Edwards on July 22, 2011, 11:06:50 PM
It might interest you to know that Sorcerer is written explicitly from a particular slant on existential philosophy. That slant is best understood not through technical philosophy itself but through literature and film, which as I see it have been as solid a medium for that philosophy as any treatise, or perhaps more so. To the extent that any technical philosophical writings were involved, the only ones I'd point to would be Schopenhauer and Camus.
The slant I'm talking about has two parts: first, the experience of alienation, and I want to stress the experience, as opposed to analysis or especially as opposed to any conclusive analysis; and second, the experience (ditto) of doubt and frustration that even free will itself, upon inspection, is subject to the same disappointments and "cosmic silence" as rational/cosmic guidance.
I'm not sure whether any philosophical writings and treatises ever dared step far into that latter topic, aside from the religious context of predestination. Most existential philosophy that I've read is very firmly rooted in the Romantics and would not dream of violating the sacred (and I do mean that term) Self as a concept. I think Nietzsche's work displays this feature quite prominently. The two I mentioned came the closest, again, in my reading-experience anyway. But literature and later film, on the other hand, has a long tradition all the way back in our oldest still-recorded legendry of questioning whether the self, whether in action or even at the very heart of the concept of personhood, exists, or if it exists in a technical sense, really matters. The Epic of Gilgamesh is about nothing else but, as far as I'm concerned, and it sure as hell offers no comfort about it.
So certain older works, but especially literature and film of a certain edgy, romantic-but-bitter, heroic-but-grim, tragic-but-struggle-on quality all feed into Sorcerer quite directly. It so happens that I outlined it just the other day to add to the annotations for the anniversary edition, and the major elements include:
- pre-modern literature such as Medea and Doctor Faustus
- early twentieth-century pulp-intellectual stories, including Howard, C.A. Smith, and the best of Lovecraft (and the material for The Sorcerer's Soul fits square here as well)
- the sixties' revival of such things in a more acid-drenched, countercultural sense, for example Moorcock and Wagner
- the eighties' retro- and relatively punky revival of such things as found in the diverse work of Salmonson, Vachss, Jeter, Garton, and others; and especially in comics like Grimjack and the early Hellblazer
- and in parallel to the above, a trip through slightly marginal U.S. film such as Exorcist III and Twin Peaks, and in non-U.S. film through directors like Argento and Almodovar, Hong Kong films like The Bride with White Hair and A Better Tomorrow, and some older Japanese films like Onibaba.
It makes a little more sense in my diagram with circles and arrows, but I hope that the list conveys my point regarding the experiences of alienation both from the cosmos and from the self. Perhaps it's also worth pointing out that I have little interest in and consulted no sources from the occult traditions or fashions.
All this is to say that referencing Nietzsche, particularly based on a solid reading and not the stupid caricature of the man and his work that persisted in English-speaking circles until Kaufmann's translations, poses interesting problems. Given all that I wrote above, I think that I'd turn more toward the experiential, responsive, and above all simultaneously enraged-plus-humorous aspects of the work, and less toward developed models of either society or humanity.
Thanks for bringing this up. It's interesting.
Best, Ron
At the risk of being off-topic, I'd like to say that I found this a very illuminating post. I have experienced -- do experience -- both the alienation and the "doubt and frustration" that you describe. I find them very unpleasant experiences. While it is necessary to face them and deal with them in real life, I find no pleasure in wallowing in them through literature and film. This, I suspect, it why my reaction to Conan, Elric, etc. is so radically different reaction from yours. I don't find this a barrier to enjoying Sorcerer itself, but it may explain why I have not been attracted by what I've seen of the supplements written for Sorcery and Sword.
Sincere thanks for the bloodless intellectual stimulation,
Dan (Wholeridge)
Ron Edwards:
Hi Dan,
You're welcome! I enjoy comparing personal experiences of the issues without confrontation. I'm also curious to see what take you'd bring to the Sorcerer rules, as it's hard to see them from outside my own philosophical perspectives. Or at least those which informed my creativity at that time.
Best, Ron
The Dragon Master:
Jaakko,
Thanks for posting this. It's probably been 10 years since I last read Nietzsche or Sartre (or for that matter, anything more philosophical than Hitchhikers Guide), but I always got a kick out of Nietzsche's work and was drawn to his idea of the Overman. I'd definitely like to see what you get worked up for the handout, and I'd love to see an AP if you get the chance.
Incidentally, if you need a 4th player and don't mind running it through Skype, I'd love to get in :-)
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