[Sorcerer] Compiling the diagram

[Mauro]

Hi all!

I'm checking a PC I created for Sorcerer, and while checking the diagram I got a doubt: when I made it with Ron, we put the elements according to pertinence, like "My kicker is 'I got pregnant'; the father is a colleague of mine, which is part of my cover, so I put it somewhere on the diagonal between Cover and Kicker, since he belongs to these two quadrants". So, I can have an element (that colleague of mine) on a diagonal in a quadrant, without any other element associated/linked with it in the other quadrant.

By reading the rules, I got a doubt about this:

2. Hypothetically, every item gets placed into its quadrant at the outer edge and dead center of that quadrant, i.e., as far apart from the items in the other quadrants as possible. Then pull together the ones which are physically or socially associated with one another. Pull them toward one another, not toward the center as a default. Therefore if two things are in adjacent quadrants, and if they are related to one another but to nothing else, then they travel toward the diagonal boundary line, not toward the center.

3. Two associated things will go toward the center only if they are (i) in Lore and Kicker, or (ii) in Cover and Price. Often, when this happens, one of the items will drag other stuff with it, either in its own quadrant or from an adjacent one. If things from three quadrants are associated, then they will necessarily pull one another toward the center.

From 2, I understand a different thing: first, I put each element on the outer edge, then I move it near the diagonal only if there are some "which are physically or socially associated with one another"; if an element hasn't any association with another, it simply remain on the outer edge, so I can't have an element on a diagonal without another somehow associated.

As for the center (point 3), to have something there I need to have two associated things, one in Lore/Cover and the other in Kicker/Price; if this is true I can move those things toward the center, and those can in turn drag other elements with them towards the center. If I haven't any such association, I can't move anything toward the center (in the diagram I made with Ron, I had a person in the center in Lore, with nothing in Kicker).

So, to recap:

1) If one element is linked with more than a quadrant, put it somewhere near the quadrants it is linked to, also if it's not associated with elements in those quadrant.

2) You can move two elements towards the diagonals only if they are physically or socially associated, and toward the center only if there is such an association or if a moving element drag them (so you can't have, let's say, an element in Cover on the Cover/Kicker diagonal without having another associated one on the same diagonal in Kicker).

Which one is true?

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Mauro,

I see the problem. To answer simply, the second option is correct, as described in the annotations. Also simply, you misinterpreted what I was doing during our game in Bertinoro. But neither of those are as important as explaining what you need to do to make a good diagram.

The essential point lies in assigning the father to a quadrant in the first place. It really doesn't matter which one, although based strictly on your post, he belongs in the Kicker.

Insofar as the Cover has people, places, and things in it, and insofar as the father is associated with one or more of them (and if he isn't, then "colleague" is meaningless), then he and that other item (or more than one) will be dragged toward one another. If any of these related items are similarly related to anything in Price or Lore, then the whole complex will be dragged to the center; if not, then they will cluster on either side of the diagonal line between Cover and Kicker.

Don't put things directly on the diagonal line. Again, you are not writing individual things onto the diagram as isolated units. You are putting them into quadrants, one quadrant per thing (always), at the outer edge, and then letting them pull toward one another gravitationally. If something seems to you to belong to more than one quadrant, then this process will slam it right up against that line on one side or another, which is where it belongs.

Best, Ron
shoot! I used the wrong name - now corrected

[Mauro]

Ok, thanks! I'll update the diagram.

[Moreno R.]

Hi Ron!

So, if I have understood what you are saying...  you don't worry about placing a single element near the line between neighboring quadrants, even if it could have good reason to stay in both (for example, the guy who did teach you sorcery is now trying to kill you: BAM: he goes in Kicker or in Lore?) because it will go there anyway, when you "move" that element near connected element in the other quadrant?

And if there is not a connected element in another quadrant? In practice, does this mean that (1) I am doing it wrong, if that element (the teacher) is tied to both quadrants, there will be other elements tied to him in both, if there isn't one, I am not thinking hard enough, or (2) choose one diagram, put the teacher right to the far side, and shut up?

[Ron Edwards]

In your last paragraph, I think #1 is a reliable principle. I'm not able to imagine a contrary case.

[Mauro]

I was thinking... the same is true also for elements in the same quadrant: if two elements in Kicker are socially or physically linked, then they move together (if one moves, also the other does), so moving one towards the center moves also the other; am I right?

[Ron Edwards]

Correct.