(Sorcerer) Humanity Rolls

[Tom]

Here's something where I'm not sure if I missed something or it's intended this way:


When a player wants a new demon, that's 3 humanity rolls against the demons power.

In my group, demons typically have power values of 4, 5, some up to 7. That is easily reached: 3 demon abilities = lore 3 = will 4 = power 4 or more (depending on stamina).

Most of my sorcerers have humanity 2 or 3, one has 1. That means they have a more than 60% chance to lose that roll, they will - on average - lose 2 humanity for summoning a demon. When they banish a demon, their chance to re-gain even a single point of humanity is much less, so let's say they get - on average - one humanity for every two demons banished.

Isn't that a very, very rapid race to the bottom? Do I need to flood the world with small demons for them to banish? Or am I missing something?

[Ron Edwards]

It's not a race to the bottom if you're talking about a single instance of getting and binding a demon. Since you can't lose more (all permanent Humanity loss/gain is one at a time), then going in with Humanity 4 or higher is guaranteed safety.

It's a rapid race to the bottom if you retire to your sorcerous tower and try to summon up a horde of demons one after another.

In order to continue the explanation, I need some clarification of your point. When you say "most of my sorcerers," what do you mean? Do you mean player-characters in your game? Do you mean the NPCs? Your general concept for NPCs? Anyway, let me know.

Best, Ron

[Tom]

Hm, what is the typical humanity value for player characters (and yes, I'm talking about them, I don't micro-manage NPC stats) ?

Because if I told my players that humanity 4 or higher makes summoning danger-free, they'd laugh at me. I think one of them is in that area, and even he would say "yes, for the first one".

With "race to the bottom" I mean that the lower your humanity, the higher your chance of humanity loss. It's a positive feedback loop.

What I'm looking for is what I as the GM need to do. Maybe I am giving my characters too few opportunities to regain humanity? They've banished two demons so far (in 5 play sessions), resulting in +1 humanity, for one of them. I haven't handed out any humanity for other actions, because I don't think there were any worth it (i.e. "asserting humanity vs. demonkind").

[Ron Edwards]

OK, I see what's needs to be discussed. First, when I say danger-free, I do mean "for one demon." That's factual and I need to establish it into this conversation because it means you - and your projected image of your players - are strictly talking about sequential summons actions.

And yes, summoning sequential demons like that, with no other actions in between, and just pop-pop-pop, is a race to the bottom. For that, there's the bottom, and it's a race. Again: yes. On purpose, by design.

If your player-characters are genuinely not getting Humanity gain rolls, then effectively, they're a bunch of in-fiction dicks. And in this game, such characters are going to be facing this precise risk when they feel the urge to mass-manufacture demons. If you want to look at it as a "how sorcery works" question, which is actually not my favored model for argument but I'll do it for a moment here, then you can think of a "typical" sorcerer as having hit Humanity 0 long ago and exhibiting whatever in-fiction features that entails. I.e., over-the-moral-event-horizon bad guys.

The game is built for player-characters who might be or turn out like that, but who also might not. If it helps, think of them as the minority of sorcerers. Which is why I'm not criticizing players for playing characters like this; it's part of the freedom of the game, because if they weren't at least potentially total dicks, then there's no reason to see whether they're not. But the consequences are real. You can collectively play an all-villain, all-bastard game - but such stories do tend to be short and, thematically speaking, instructive.

So that means we have to examine my term "genuinely" two paragraphs up. It's the key. The question is whether what I've just described, the all-dick-all-villain game, is happening - itself perfectly OK, and indeed, a race to the bottom - or whether a whole realm of mechanics is being ignored and your players are effectively being unfairly screwed.

You've twice mentioned Banishing as a primary means of Humanity gain. In my experience and core to the design of the game, this event is comparatively quite rare. Instead, the primary means of Humanity gain is behavior toward other people. There is no upper limit on how often this can happen, per session. The chance for gain is always 50-50, the same as the chance for loss on the same grounds. And Humanity gain/loss on these grounds is not zero-sum; i.e., if you fail a gain roll, you don't lose any, and if you fail a check, you don't gain any.

Therefore I want to examine the grounds for Humanity gain and Humanit check in your game. Your phrase was "humanity vs. demonkind," which I think is ... only OK, for summarizing this behavior. The rolls in question don't really have to concern demons or sorcery at all. They have to concern simply and only what you, personally, Tom the real guy, think the character did that was notably decent, or conversely, plain shitty. Go with that, and significantly, whenever it applies. Again, there's no limit on how often; it all depends on what actions are being taken in the game.

Have you called for any Humanity checks or Humanity gain rolls at all, for non-sorcerous actions? How many sessions have you played?

Best, Ron
edited to fix italics format - RE

[Tom]

That was tremendously helpful, thank you.

It does, in fact, seem as if my fault was to define humanity gain opportunities too narrowly. Because in 5 sessions, I haven't given them even one.

My theme is that demons are from another dimension or plane or whatever you want to call it, intent on coming to and destroying this world. Sorcerers let them through every now and then, but they would love more of that. Basically, magic as an act of balance - it gives you power, but too much of it and you destroy not only yourself.

So I was looking for actions of the sorcerers to assert the human dominance over this plane. Now I realize that I need to widen my definition so they get more opportunities to make humanity gain rolls.

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Tom,

I suggest adjusting your views on this one more twist of wrench, and perhaps not in the direction you might expect.

I'm talking about your phrase "giving them opportunity for Humanity gains." That's my red flag.

These sorts of rolls in Sorcerer, specifically Humanity checks and Humanity gain rolls with no sorcery involved, have nothing to do with the GM giving the players anything. It's not a matter of opportunity, planning, or any other such front-loaded elements of play preparation. It's strictly and only about the GM responding to characters' actions. When and if a character does something really shitty - as you see it, period - then call for a Humanity check. When and if a character does something really decent - as you see it, period - then call for a Humanity gain roll. You will never, ever be able to "provide" such things. It is strictly emergent from what players say their characters do.

It might be interesting to look back over play as if you were a third-party observer and find moments when you could say, "Hey, right there's a moment when the GM was sort of impressed at that particular character's actions, you could tell he thought the character was a pretty good guy about right then."

So, again, it's not about prep. It's about attention to it during play. I suggest that you've been doing it throughout your entire history of GMing, perhaps always thinking of it as table-talk or private responses, not "real" play or "just metagame" or something like that. If so, then the Sorcerer rule doesn't require doing anything differently - merely acknowledging the moment and reinforcing its expression with dice.

Best, Ron

[Tom]

Got you.

I think I was halfway there. When I said "provide" I didn't mean setting up situations specifically for this purpose, but more something like "allow them to roll for humanity gains" when I didn't realize that many situations can allow that. I was more focussed on the big things and not on things like decency. Now thinking back I realize that there were a couple situations where I could've granted them humanity gain rolls.

You see, I've only run Sorcerer one-offs so far, this is the first time with a persistent group now in the second adventure. Humanity simply didn't matter so much before. And no, they aren't summoning demons left, right and center. In fact, I have to push them quite hard to summon demons, because they are quick to realize that the humanity cost is tremendous. After 5 gaming sessions, we stand at 2 demons summoned in-game (i.e. in addition to the starting demons).

[Ron Edwards]

Cool!

In my experience, two demons summoned in five sessions is actually quite a lot. I really like it and wish people I played with did it more, so I'm envious.

If you'd like you could start the session with retroactive Humanity gain rolls - say, one for every character you think deserves it, and making it clear that you're doing this because you missed it in the moment, and will be paying more attention to it (and loss checks) during the session this time.

I think it's kind of a big deal that such gain or loss is 50%, always.

Best, Ron

[Tom]

If you'd like you could start the session with retroactive Humanity gain rolls - say, one for every character you think deserves it, and making it clear that you're doing this because you missed it in the moment, and will be paying more attention to it (and loss checks) during the session this time.

Yeah, I think that would be best to send players the message that humanity is not as harsh as they by now think it is.