[Sorcerer] What strategies keep needs in play and interesting?

[Joshua Bearden]

Last week we played our 3rd session of sorcerer.  I'm seeking ideas on how best to play demons' needs honestly and interestingly.

Here are my characters and their demons and their need:
Tasha Garien(a driven detective in the local PD): Petrus (an object demon in her wedding ring with the power to detect lies) NEED - to be bathed in tears.

Shake (a schizophrenic can collector): Dominic (a possessor demon who 'time shares' his body) NEED - regular immersion in the ocean (even in winter).

Vincent King(a fantasy/occult novelist): Kenneth Smith (an object demon in a severed toe) NEED - regular medical attention (to be cleaned, disinfected and protected etc.)

Stephen deMoine (an adjunct computer science professor): Kyoteh (an inconspicuous demon dwelling in its masters shadow) NEED - to suck up the breath of living people.

Session 1 was character creation.

In session 2 only Shake and Tasha called on their demons. Shake let Dominic try to daze & confuse some thugs prior to a fight (Failed). Tasha's demon Petrus detected quite a number of lies over the course of a day. Vincent brought Kenneth along with him to a public event to satisfy it's desire for celebrity but refrained from calling on its powers even when he was jumped and kidnapped along the water front.  Stephen did not acknowledge or interact with Kyoteh at all.

By the end of that session no demon needs had come into play. Between sessions I ask players to think about things their characters would plan to get up to during the three days following the last session.  I explain I'm free to interrupt any of those plans with scenes depending on my NPCs and demons actions and plans.

Tasha began session 3 with a request to narrate her morning routine.  She cuts a bunch of Spanish onions and makes an omelette every morning. The onions sting her eyes and she cries letting the tears run over her ring. Hmph I think.  Fine, but I definitely want to find a way to subvert this sooner or later.

Shake wakes up, three days have gone by with Dominic in control, indulging his desire for sensuality with bender: sex, drugs, and alcohol. I tell him that Dominic has gone into need and thus relinquishes control of the body.  Shake ditches the exotic dancer in a hotel and hikes down to the waterfront to dive in, risking hypothermia of course.

So here's my thought. The principle of "aggressive scene framing" means that demonic needs are not a strict OSR style resource management issue. It's possible to let time pass in the game and agree that the demon's need was met during the interval without role playing exactly how that happened. On the other hand the annotations say on page 57-i:

There is no ambiguity, ever, about whether the demon received its Need and when the last time was.

My challenge is how and when to honestly bring the NEED to the foreground in ways that may very well frustrate a characters plans and agendas but don't escalate into either railroading on one hand or excessively 'gamist' quibbling on the other.

Here's a case study:  Of the four characters above: Stephen's demon Kyoteh hasn't been a part of play in two sessions. (Session 2 the player was away). It's need is to suck the life breath from a human.  We haven't decided whether this means it has completely suffocate a person or not.  The Sorcerer's kicker was that he recently ordered Kyoteh to kill a suspected 'evil' sorcerer (coincidentally a classics professor at the same university). This involved sucking holding and suffocating a human.  I deem this definitely fulfilled its need once. 

Play opened with Stephen facing some of the first consequences of this action. (1) the campus is alarmed at the mysterious death of a professor. (2) Stephen's lover, (a post doc fellow) invites herself over indefinitely (3) an inquisitive coroner calls him to ask some questions about his possible connection to the victim. 

If Kyoteh needs to kill to satisfy its need, then I feel it needs to space out its 'feeding' sufficiently to prevent a spate of murders from taking over the entire story. We're playing in the 'here and now' and we max out at about 12 homicides a year. On the other hand, if its need is met more easily is it significant at all?  I'm thinking the demon might ask to take "just a little" of Stephen's lover's breath while she sleeps.  Maybe she wakes with a mild headache and thinks of moving home soon. Maybe Stephen himself habitually shares his breath with the demon, resulting in a burden perhaps comparable to having serious sleep apnea. (This can be life threatening!) 

I'd like to hear others talk about how they as players or GM's dealt with NEED in interesting and FUN ways. I'd also welcome brainstorming type suggestions about how to play with the needs I've described above.

[Ron Edwards]

JOSHUA

Hi Joshua, I'm glad you brought this up.

Your big problem is ...

My challenge is how and when to honestly bring the NEED to the foreground in ways that may very well frustrate a characters plans and agendas but don't escalate into either railroading on one hand or excessively 'gamist' quibbling on the other.

No it's not. Your challenge is learning how to forget all that nonsense.

Hypothetically, there is nothing wrong with every player-character meeting their demons' Needs without problems arising, throughout play. Need is not there to create new Bangs. Instead, it's merely one of the many things operating in play which might lead to Bangs, on a purely case-by-case basis.

I agree with you that your session 2, which I'd call session 1, seems a little thin in terms of using demons. On the other hand, the first session of genuine play does tend to seem a little staid to the GM. That's apparently normal and strangely the players don't have the same response at all.

OK, to the point: after that session, all the demons should be tagged in your mind as deeply in Need. If the sorcerer doesn't take action in play, then they didn't serve the Need, case closed.

Tasha's player did exactly the right thing, Shake too, and you should be happy, not hmmfy. Just as you should be happy that "Kenneth Smith" and Kyoteh are now pissed off and wondering where their Needs are. All you need, no pun intended, is to know what the demons' current Need situations are, so you can role-play them properly, and you do. So, happiness!

If you're not getting confused by mixing up some unrelated things, then I am in reading about it, so let's dissect them out with care.

How Need was handled in time that was skipped during play
How Need was handled in time that was actually seen in play, but no mention of Need was made
How Need was met in ways that you aren't seeing as "useful"

The situation with Kyoteh seems to have disappeared down a rabbit hole of mixing these things up.

First, there's the definition problem. It's not trivial whether a Need is lethal to someone or not, that's not something you leave hanging for two whole sessions of play (!!). You're right that such a serious event is not to be considered routine, and if it is, then you and the player have just made the character into a serial killer and quite dubious for being eligible to play at all. Don't forget: you, not the player, are the authority over defining demons' Needs! You keep saying, "we, we," "We haven't decided," and I don't know why. If you think it is a problem for the Need to be necessarily lethal (and if you do, I agree), then it's not, if you say it's not. That problem is solved.

Second, there's the Kicker problem and a bunch of subsets in it. (i) I trust that you have worked up some personal understanding of who this other person was, whether he was a sorcerer, if so what he was doing, and so on and so forth. (ii) The next thing I see isn't so bad, although you should keep it in mind as an issue. Typically, a demon does not fulfill its Need while serving its master's interests. However, there is a bit of a grey area there, which is solved in your case if you make the Need non-lethal. See what I mean? If the demon's Need is to kill people, then it's not satisfied by telling it to kill people. (iii) Don't concern yourself about Needs prior to active play. If the demon killed the professor prior to the opening act of play, then never mind whether the act fulfilled its Need or not; start de novo.

...  On the other hand, if its need is met more easily is it significant at all?

You're really stuck in this whole "Needs must be onerous" problem, aren't you ... OK, remember – the whole point of character creation is that prior to the Kicker, this whole arrangement is working for the sorcerer. In the usual course of events, Stephen gets what he wants and it works out great! So conceiving of the Need as something that must destabilize and problematize and generally goose the sorcerer into action is simply wrongheaded in the first place.

After the Kicker, the Need may become a major factor in the stresses on the sorcerer, it may become an amusing or significant momentary plot point, or it may remain something the sorcerer can handle in the middle of everything else. Quit trying to make it into the first, or indeed into anything at all.

I'm thinking the demon might ask to take "just a little" of Stephen's lover's breath while she sleeps.  Maybe she wakes with a mild headache and thinks of moving home soon. Maybe Stephen himself habitually shares his breath with the demon, resulting in a burden perhaps comparable to having serious sleep apnea. (This can be life threatening!) 

Problems everywhere. First, demons don't routinely ask for their Needs, they expect them. If the demon doesn't get this from Stephen, it'll be pissed off (she's right there, for Pete's sake) , and as I mentioned above, this demon should be pissed off already. It will damn sure demand its Need when Stephen wants to use it – think of a bitchy, entitled dysfunctional romantic partner saying, "You're just going to make me ask for it, aren't you?" – and the first sign of incompetence on its master's part at this late date should be its cue to start thinking about betrayal.

Frankly, this player sounds like a dead loss. Not proactive enough for you to get settled into the Kicker more clearly during the first session, not interested in his demon's Need enough even to ask or know whether its Need is lethal, doesn't do anything to feed it, doesn't even use the demon for some unknown reason, not even there in the second session ...

Best, Ron
edited to remove some legacy text from Joshua's post - RE