[Sorcerer] Watery Karma pt 1 - GM and players gather for character creation

[Joshua Bearden]

Our game finally began last week. None of us have played before but we're extremely enthusiastic. I'll write about the AP details etc. on the scene blog here: http://higs.motd.org/campaigns-2/sorcerer-halifax/ . But here I'll try to hash out some of the grittier issues as I struggle to master the system.

When making up their demons I asked the players to give me their wishlist of final effects/colour without reference to the rules and list of abilities.  Now I'm trying to see whether or not I can produce demons made to order without breaking the rules or diverging too far from their requests. The players knew only about about the demon types and the rule against mind control.

That said, two still requested demon powers that tread close to the line. One, a driven homicide cop, wanted her demon to allow her to identify a lie, and know the actual truth if she could make eye contact with the liar. I was surprised to note in the fine print under 'perception' that there is a rule against mind reading; her request seemed to run directly afoul of that.  My plan then is to offer her a demon who gives her:  +perception-accelerated (to be able to observe micro expressions),  +perception-smell (for minute perspiration), +perception-hearing (to detect breathing and heart rate); +hint (what is he hiding?); and finally just for kicks, +shadow (get it?).  This basically turns her into a bad-ass human polygraph.  I think I'm well within the rules and she should be pretty happy.  She suggested her demon's need was to right injustice,  my response will be to suggest that 'Justice' is a valid desire in our setting and its need is 'to extract confessions'. (As a public defender in rl my blood runs cold just thinking about her out there on the streets, violating my clients rights in ways they'll never even understand. So like, a totally interesting character from my POV!)

The other requested demon didn't even trigger an alarm for me until I was trying to stat it up.  The player's character is a deranged homeless person, a mad adept with tremendous stamina and a will of only 1.  His demon is a parasite which he hopes will give him 'insight on supernatural matters' and a kind of glamour or presence which makes him temporarily extremely charismatic and unrecognisable.  The first might be hint, or it might be a simple boost to lore. The later is tricky.  He clearly wants to be able to exert powerful and persuasive influence on other people at certain moments. But the rules don't allow 'jedi mind tricks'.  Charisma could simply be a boost to will, but we're starting with a will of 1 (primarily due to his mental illness). But I'm thinking of offering boost will plus daze and confuse to give him a good chance of overwhelming people with persuasive momentum. Finally shapeshift should provide him the 'unrecognisable' feature. Instead of it "all being in the targets mind", he will actually look completely different for a few minutes.

As I finish this paragraph I'm still not sure I like it or that the player will be happy.  I think I need to discuss the kinds of situations he's looking to apply the demon powers too.  I noticed that his suggested demon's need is sex. This suggests he'll need to be pretty seductive at times. He also explained he would use this power to convince a prison guard to take a bribe and release the object of his vengeance. Helpful but I feel I still want more to work with.

[Joshua Bearden]

Reviewing the previous post I've identified the ugliest flaw in my thinking:

... to give him a good chance of overwhelming people with persuasive momentum.

This is the kind of crap I absolutely hate when I see it in Hollywood movies, so why am I inviting it into my game?

[Ron Edwards]

Some notes on the homeless guy and his demon ...

1. Not Hint. Boost Lore is what you've described.

2. Boost Will - not a good idea. The demon is badly impaired while Boosting, a mechanics feature no one seems to understand initially. Daze and Confuse are a pretty good idea toward the describe aim - as would Psychic Force, a rather good softener-upper defined in certain ways.

3. The demon will not aid its master in fulfilling its Need. If the Need is sex, the demon will absolutely not lend its powers toward doing so. That would mean the demon is working toward its own Need, which is exactly what they will never do. The character as conceived seems about as unlikely to get regular sex as one might imagine, so he's basically built as a train wreck.

This is a very typical thing: making up a sorcerer who has no idea what he's doing and is completely doomed to fail. It puts a burden on a GM to take care of the character, particularly one who is not too sure about this whole Story Now in play stuff when it's not canned and pre-heated as a "story game." The player can merely go thespian and rely on the GM to shuffle him from scene to scene, and if I'm reading this one, to rely on min-maxing to carry him through conflicts by wielding the biggest hammer.

Sorcerer as written will kill this character in less than a session. In practice, the GM wimps out and succumbs to playing 1990s White Wolf with a couple of Sorcerer trappings.

I'll tell you what I don't see: a sorcerer. A person who uses that demon to get what he wants, period, and however dysfunctional their personal relationship might be, the ends of the relationship are being met for both.

Nor do I see a demon who has a single thing to do with the Color of the game as you've described it.

---

For the first demon, I think you're going way off on a weird bend. "Perceive a lie" isn't bad at all, although "spot the truth" is nothing but mind-reading. That's all there is to it, with a single Perception ability doing the job for the lies. I really can't see the benefit of all that polygraph thinking, it makes things complicated without solving any of the "no mind control" violation. It strikes me that you're trying to solve that problem by making it cost more and more likely to fail, which is not a working solution.

[Joshua Bearden]

Cool. Thanks! Your advice about the cop's demon really helped me out. I think said perception, plus hint, plus psychic force or maybe special damage (non-lethal & leaves no marks) will turn her into the devastating interrogator she wants to be.

As for homeless dude, you've helped me spot the bigger issues with his character.  I'll get into a more detailed discussion with him and see what we can come up with.

But there's this statement that really throws me for a loop.

3. The demon will not aid its master in fulfilling its Need. If the Need is sex, the demon will absolutely not lend its powers toward doing so. That would mean the demon is working toward its own Need, which is exactly what they will never do.

On one hand I'm pleased with the particular ruling.  I'm not interested in role playing all the ways this psycho uses his creepy mind powers to get laid so I was going discourage or even veto this need anyways. Not that I mind characters having sex. I hope they do, but the whole "my demon needs me be a serial date rapist..." um, no.  (I trust the player doesn't actually want to play this way either.)

But the general principle you've explained troubles me because I really want their to be some synergy between demons powers and needs in certain cases. For example the cop's demon needs to extract confessions, its powers will help its master do that. I like this because it sets up a tension whereby as long as the cop is closing cases in the interrogation room everyone is happy.  But if legitimate police work takes her in another direction her demon still needs those confessions - from somewhere.  The demons power/need synergy I'm thinking of invokes the old adage about how someone with a hammer sees every problem as a nail. (Stormbringer?)

From examples in the book, I don't think I'm off base - Harry's object demon Woo needs blood.  Helping Harry shoot people seems like working towards its need. If a demon's need is to kill... can it not use its special damage powers to kill? 

The way I want to interpret your stricture above is that the demon cannot ever take matters into its own hands or exercise significant initiative towards getting its need. The master must set up the need fulfilling situation and/or give explicit permission. I think this interpretation is still compatible with the example in the Annotated (in which a Sorcerer's friend intrudes into his apartment without permission and his demon interprets this as licence to fulfill her need) as long as its all based on the demon's perception.

Can I get your blessing for that?

[Ron Edwards]

Nope. I say again, the demon will not use its abilities nor do anything really proactive to obtain its Need. In the book, Harry's gun needs blood dripped down the barrel - shooting people won't cut it.

As a suggestion, think of things that might be related to the demon's + sorcerer's joint activity but are not automatic outcomes of it. So Harry might shoot someone with Woo, then get some blood from the body and drip it down the barrel. But if no shooting or bodies are available, he can also cut himself and use that blood.

In the case of the detective, consider "hear sobbing" as a Need. That may well occur during confessions, particularly if the sorcerer character angles the discussion in certain ways. And the demon might help with such confessions - but the demon's help doesn't guarantee sobbing, so the detective has to take a hand in trying to make that happen. And the demon might hear sobbing under many other circumstances too, which would still count.

You see, in such a case, say the demon was off on its own one day and hurt someone, and that person cried. It wouldn't count to slake its Need. Nor would hearing someone cry at random on the street. The demon considers the sorcerer responsible for its Need and must consider that responsibility upheld, period.

I think you'll end up with much better characters that way. Also, since you ultimately make up and play the demons, you don't need player approval for these - just say, "This is the demon's Need," and that's that.

Best, Ron

[Joshua Bearden]

Cool.  We agreed her demon in the ring needs to be 'bathed in tears'.  This was probably easy early on, after his death.  But over time, it got harder to bring up the waterworks on demand. That's when she realized what a resource she had in the interview room...

This also inspired a partial solution to the other character's demon.  His parasite demon needs frequent immersion in sea water. All times of the year.  We're still working on his character but he's definitely on board with suitable adjustments.