[Sorcerer] Desire and Need

[Moreno R.]

Hi Ron!

This is not a question about how a rule works, but about why it works that way.

Quoting from the sorcerer wiki
"Desires are not actions, things or goals (such as "Burn Las Vegas"). They are one-word principles: Competetion, Corruption, Ruin, et cetera; the direction the demon will take a situation, either as a means of resolution or a desired condition. They may be achieved, perceived, or experienced in a wide variety of ways; they are not limited to particular people, places, or things.

Desires tend to illustrate:

    What the Demon is about.
    What direction the Demon will take events, if possible.

[..]
A demon's Desire is not associated with any specific thing, place, or action. Instead, it tries to bring about its Desire with whatever it encounters. Whether it fulfills the Desire itself, influences others toward it, or simply wants to be around that particular Desire in action, is up to the demon at the moment - any of these are fine.

It does not crave its Desire in a drug-sense. It likes its Desire and thinks the whole world ought to tend that way, and might need a little help to get there. If the demon is a conversational type, then it will always bring a dialogue around to its Desire somehow.

The demon's Binder is not responsible for satisfying its Desire and Binding strength is not affected by how much the demon is getting its Desire stroked. Doing things in accord with the Desire might give a bonus die to interactions, but again, that's not a matter of Binding strength. Failing to satisfy a Desire does not incur penalties to interaction or ritual rolls, nor will it lead a demon down the path of rebellion. A demon will not lose Power by missing out on its Desire as it will with its Need.

Desire is ideology, personality, taste, and preference. Need is addiction, payment, and power.


From the annotations:
"The text unfortunately cites Desire as a mechanically significant item regarding the demon's path to rebellion. That text should isolate Need as the primary mechanic in that process, with Desire being more of a coloring, dialogue-based accompaniment.
Since I didn't set this point up too well in Chapter 3, it's doubly misleading here."

From the reading of the manual, annotations, the wiki, a lot of forge threads, etc the image I get is of demon that, during the "normal, boring life of a successful sorcerer-bound demon" is well-fed in his need and is obsessed about the desire.

Then, when the kicker kick and things get more... complicated, the demon increase the requests for "need feeding" and if he doesn't get it, the demon gets more and more and more like a junkie.
But a Junkie desire only one thing: it has no other "desire"...  The image I get of the demon without his need "feeding" is of a demon that care only about its need and at the moment doesn't care for his desire.

I think about this and I don't get it: why having the demon change the obsession during the game session? Why it wasn't enough a need that was the desire, too? What is the reason for this rule?

[Ron Edwards]

I don't see why you think a demon getting more obsessed with its Need (or rather, being called upon a lot and therefore in Need more often) has anything to do with the intensity of its Desire.

Always play the Desire as the demon's primary interest or better, orientation. What it likes to talk about, think about, see, and do. What this has to do with the Need is ... well, nothing in particular, necessarily. This image of a demon who abandons its Desire simply because of its state of Need is completely of your own invention and as far as I can tell, represents you trying to interpret things to generate maximal confusion.

The Desire and Need do not exist as competing variables. They are not equivalent. This is a non-question.

[Ron Edwards]

OK, I'll try it again in a practical way, hope it helps.

Play the Desire as a constant "dull roar," or background noise if you will. Think of it as a political party, a sports team, or a geeky hobby the demon is more or less willing to talk about or participate in whenever the opportunity arises. Anyone or anything eligible can be observed or participated with, the sorcerer or not, and it doesn't matter.

Whereas the Need is, as you have correctly said, an addiction. If it's not urgent, then the demon waits with some nervousness; if it's urgent, then the demon pesters or sulks; if it's dire, then the demon is weakened and obsessive. The sorcerer is absolutely the center for the demon's supply of Need.

You could think of it like a calculus graph, with the Desire being a straight, flat line, and the Need being a sine wave that sometimes goes positively exponential.

All this does matter to role-playing the demon, because you are characterizing both the Desire and the Need, but you don't have to think about or depict anything about them in conflict. Just where they're at.

Best, Ron

[Moreno R.]

I think I am starting to understand what was the problem: I did read the Desire as a verbalized thing for the demon, something that had to be shown, over and over and over, to the players during the game (and so it's naturally in competition with the need for the "GM's time" on the spotlight), but from your reply and other old threads I am reading... it's more like a guide for the GM in playing the Demon, right? It's not secret (the demon will talk about it if asked or if there is an occasion for doing that, and will obviously show it in his behavior), but it inform and guide the demon's actions even if the GM don't "lose" a single minute in talking about it in character...

And I am reading again the list of Desires...  I didn't notice in the first readings, but they are not tied to a kind of setting as the descriptors are...  they are, themselves, "demons", in the sense that these are the obsessions for which it's usually said that someone is "driven by inner demons"...

I am going too far in saying that the list of chosen Desires for the PC's demons define not a kind of "personality" for a specific demon, but a list of the kind of things the demons represent in the setting? And it's for this reason that for demons created in play it's chosen by the GM? Or I am reading too much into it?

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Moreno,

Your first paragraphs are a much better way to look at it.

For your final question, I hesitate to answer fully. For you, the only possible answer is, "Stick with demon personality and don't try to extend into larger issues like that."

Best, Ron