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Although I purchased Sorcerer last year and had my first play session now almost 1 year ago, I have been holding off describing my actual play of the game until the game really started to get going. However, after three sessions of play the game is flagging badly, and perhaps if I don't sort out the problems the game will never really get going and just be quietly shelved.

When I purchased Sorcerer (along with Sorcerer and Sword and The Sorcerer's Soul and Charnel Gods- with Hellbound ariving much much later) I was greatly enthused by the game (and still am to some extent). The main problem seemed to be whether to run a modern campaign or a Sword campaign, both of which greatly appealed to me. I settled in the end for a modern campaign. I decided to start it out set in the vicinity of Sydney, where my RPG group and I live, to help the players identify with the the characters. I thought that later in the game the characters could travel to less familiar foreign places when I wanted to up the general level of menance.

Although the issue never struck me as important as it was made out to be, I thought I better decide on what Humanity was. After much thought I decided to keep things simple and use a the most obvious (to me at least) definition of Humanity as being a combination of sanity and empathy, with Humanity 0 making a character an insane psycopath.

My next job was to sell the idea of playing the game to the players. This was quite difficult, as my players generally prefer to play games they already are well-familiar with. One by one, however, I persuaded most of the players to create characters. Getting them to create kickers for their characters was the hardest thing- there was great resistance to this. With the exception of one or two players, it seemed to be viewed as an unwelcome imposition of GM duties upon a player.

With most of the characters now designed in advance, I finally managed to engineer a play session of the game. Most of this session was, however, devoted to creating the remaining characters, placing all the characters in the game world, and trying to cobble together some sort of tenous link between their kickers to give them some sort of reason to meet one another. I should add that my RPG group tends to have from 4 to 9 people present on any given day, and this session was one of the larger ones, so at any given time most players were sitting idle as another character was in the limelight. The game sort of came together at the end with all characters meeting one another (each for their own diverse reasons) in a single room in which a major demon had appeared and attacked one of them. This seemed a triumph of organisation, but it was of little assistance in the long term because the characters had little reason to continue to associate and would inevitably all go their completely different ways.

At this stage none of the players really had any sort of feel for the game. Nobody seemed to care very much about their kicker, notwithstanding they themselves had wrote it. Nobody but me had read the rules, and nobody seemed to have any interest in doing so. The players seemed to be more tolerating the game than enjoying it.

Although that first session was a start, it was not too encouraging. I then withdrew to lick my wounds. I let many months go by, thinking about the game, re-reading character sheets, reading the Narrativism essay, thinking of more ways to tie together kickers etc. I then tried a second session, this time with only 3 other players. I could now concentrate more on the individual goals of the characters without too many other people getting bored. At least these 3 characters could get to know each other, I thought. And this happened to some degree- one character, a "naive" martial-artist sorecerer came to realise for the first time in his life that it was not just chi-power surging through his veins, but that he was a sorceror with a demon in his blood. He then apprenticed himself to a bookish PC sorcerer with higher Lore, which was a good device to tell the players about the sorcery rules under the guise of the master educating his pupil- remember nobody but me at this time had any idea about how the rules for doing sorcery worked. The game, however, was still flagging., with the characters still just shuffling around unsure of what to do with themselves. I threw in a criminal gang (that was related to several kickers and designed to be one of the unifying aspects of the games), but all that happened was the martial artist decided to fight, got a bad roll, and received a bloody nose, then the fight fizzled.

The third session had a couple more players involved. Things looked promising actionwise with some potentially intersting confrontations with hostile NPCs. The martial artist was now bent on tracking down the thus who had bloodied his nose in the last fight to get his revenge. After an interesting leadup, the encounter occurred, but even rolling about 13 or so dice using Cover, Stamina, Boost etc the character was again greatly unlucky, and rather than trashing 3 knife-wielding thugs with awesome demonic force, simply got slashed and had to use demon power to escape (although at least this was done with style). Meanwhile another character got bored of his self-imposed (via kicker) task of dealing with the grusome murder of a coven member) and went off to join the same criminal gang the martial artist was fighting. The player complained he didn't know what to do in the game. I reminded him of his kicker that he had wrote for himself as to what he wanted to do, but the player complained it was not interesting enough.

In quite separate action elsewhere, a PC surgeon was facing a moral dilemma being blackmailed into performing an illegal kidney removal from an unwilling donor. This bit of play worked OK, but it did little if anything to enrich the game as a whole- it was just one PC dealing with his kicker in a way only vaguely tangentially relevant to any other character.

So at the end of the third session, the game is really going nowhere. The players seem uninterested in their kickers, and are not much more interested in the action I attempt to inject. I think they are feeling the lack of a "genre" they can readily identify and which will tell them what is expected of their characters.

I think that the only way to save my game is to totally abandon all the kickers, come up with my own plotlines from scratch, herd the PCS into a party, and railroad the characters into some serious action. I have resisted doing this so far because that all seems so antithetical to the way the rules suggest Sorcerer is to be played. The play so far has, I suppose, served the purpose of defining the characters to some degree, as well as introducing them to some game mechanics, so at least it has not been entirely wasted. Defining characters through play is obviously important in a game where the charcater sheet of a character is little more than a 4 number affair, with the demons (through their powers) being far better fleshed out on paper than the PCs themselves.

Anyway, that is my experience with Sorcerer so far. Despite the game having rules I like and dealing with subject matter I like (and my players and I normally have reasonably similar likes and dislikes), it is not working out so far. A small element of this would be some natural early awkwardness with a new set of rules, and I admit I have not always run combat exactly right rules-wise. I think the greatest problem, however, is that my players simply don't want any responsibility for anything except for what their character does in some interesting situation the GM has contrived for them to be in. It appears they see the freedom offered by Sorcerer to players (if I am understanding the game correctly) to be a confusing burden rather than any sort of creative bonanza.


Marcus

Marcus,

Twice in the post you said that your players do not care about their Kickers.  That is why the game is falling flat.  They didn't care where the game started and thus don't care where it goes, it seems to me.

Kickers are the foundation of the story and if the players dont' care about it, the game is going to go nowhere.

What movie, or book or comic book or art is this game inspired by or invoking?  Did the players know what kind of story this was going to be?

How big was the original starting group and what was their gaming background?

Good luck.

Hello,

Marcus, what sort of feedback are you looking for? I have a number of observations about your choices as game-organizer and as GM; I think you've summarized the important points about the players already.

I'm hesitant to list what I'm observing about your choices, because if you're not looking for that, then it will come off as accusatory.

Another approach to this conversation concerns some of my recent posts about Sorcerer's audience, gamer-culture, and fun in role-playing.

So let me know what you're interested in talking about. In a thread like this, focusing the goals of the conversation is crucial.

Best,
Ron

Well, Ron can be diplomatic -- he's the game-designer.  Me, I'm gonna jump right in.

Keep in mind that none of this should come across as haughty or whatnot -- what I say here comes from my own mistakes and Ron-wristslaps :)

Quote from: marcus...had my first play session now almost 1 year ago, [...] after three sessions of play the game is flagging badly

Well, I'll be honest and say that my first reaction to this was "Three sessions in a year?!?"  Honestly, I think I'd have problems remembering my character's name with that much downtime, let alone their issues.

Quote from: marcusI thought that later in the game the characters could travel to less familiar foreign places when I wanted to up the general level of menance.

Mmm.  I get that your working a scenario out in your head -- but in my experience with Sorcerer... that doesn't really work.  At all.  If the players decide that their problems can (or 'must') be solved with some globe-trotting, that's cool, but beyond setting up Bangs and a Relationship Map for a campaign, I don't know that thinking in a traditional RPG 'module' vein will work within the Sorcerer framework.  YMMV.

Quote from: marcusAlthough the issue never struck me as important as it was made out to be, I thought I better decide on what Humanity was. After much thought I decided to keep things simple and use a the most obvious (to me at least) definition of Humanity as being a combination of sanity and empathy, with Humanity 0 making a character an insane psycopath.

I'm certainly not going to cast stones here -- my first campaign was simple Humanity = Empathy -- but yeah, defining Humanity is pretty important.  My question regarding this is: did you define, at least for yourself, the kinds of things that would cause a Humanity Check?  How about a Humanity Gain (doing 'good' with some personal risk involved)?

Quote from: marcusGetting them to create kickers for their characters was the hardest thing- there was great resistance to this. With the exception of one or two players, it seemed to be viewed as an unwelcome imposition of GM duties upon a player.

This is something of a warning sign for me, but I don't know that I have enough experience or information to comment on it much.

Quote from: marcusWith most of the characters now designed in advance, I finally managed to engineer a play session of the game. Most of this session was, however, devoted to creating the remaining characters, placing all the characters in the game world, and trying to cobble together some sort of tenous link between their kickers to give them some sort of reason to meet one another.

Ugh.  Speaking as someone who has made this mistake with Sorcerer SEVERAL times in the past, I cannot sufficiently convery how important I've come to realize some downtime is for the GM between character generation and actual play -- time to tie in those Kickers to the Relationship Map, if nothing else -- hell, time to create a Relationship Map (though I've also realized the R-Map should almost come first of all).

Anyway, doing it the way you did it hard -- VERY hard, and I speak from experience.

Quote from: marcusI should add that my RPG group tends to have from 4 to 9 people present on any given day, and this session was one of the larger ones, so at any given time most players were sitting idle as another character was in the limelight.

WOW that's a lot of people.  WOW.  Not for all RPGs, but Sorcerer... WOW.  Flip to Chapter 4 in the main book.  Look at the bit right at the beginning about recommended group size.  Realize that nothing in the book is filler or fluff in any way.  That size of group is... well, I wouldn't do it, and I routinely do things wrong with Sorcerer.

Quote from: marcusThis seemed a triumph of organisation, but it was of little assistance in the long term because the characters had little reason to continue to associate and would inevitably all go their completely different ways.

R e l a t i o n s h i p  M a p.  

PCs in sorcerer are individualists with their own network of support in the form of their demons -- they don't HAVE to hang out with other Sorcerers, and there's lots of good reasons not to.  At best, you'll have them bumping into each other and deciding ON THEIR OWN to ally for a few hours -- but only if there's a strong relationship map  that intertwines their personal "stuff".

Quote from: marcusAt this stage none of the players really had any sort of feel for the game. Nobody seemed to care very much about their kicker, notwithstanding they themselves had wrote it.

Here's a good GM litmus test for the Kicker that a player helped me devise:  "After the Kicker, could the PC logically go back to their life as it was before the kicker?"  If the answer's yes, it's a weak kicker -- the Kicker should be an event after which, even if the character IGNORES it, their lives will be changed irrevocably.

If your PCs don't have that kind of kicker, they can afford not to care about it.

Quote from: marcusone character, a "naive" martial-artist sorecerer came to realise for the first time in his life that it was not just chi-power surging through his veins, but that he was a sorceror with a demon in his blood.

Huge, blinking, neon warning sign here, because this sounds like the player made up a character who "didn't know" they had bound a demon... it happened by accident or something.  Radioactive Spider or Intense Training that Didn't Seem Demonic... either way, this just never works.

The character always has to know they bound a demon, and they had to have WANTED it.  WHY they wanted it is always different, but the bottom line is they wanted a certain kind of POWER and they were willing to do something Reality Altering to get it.

Quote from: marcusI threw in a criminal gang (that was related to several kickers and designed to be one of the unifying aspects of the games), but all that happened was the martial artist decided to fight, got a bad roll, and received a bloody nose, then the fight fizzled.

I'd like more information about this, because I think there has to be something amiss for a fight to 'fizzle' in Sorcerer.  I CAN happen, but as I said, someone's usually missing something if it does.

Quote from: marcusThe third session had a couple more players involved.

That's a shame -- I'd say you were at about the optimal group size with the second session.

Quote from: marcusI reminded him of his kicker that he had wrote for himself as to what he wanted to do, but the player complained it was not interesting enough.

Could he walk away from the coven member's death with nothing in his life really changing?  Yeah?  He's probably right.

My first response to the guy would be 'well, write something interesting', but I'd perhaps pose it to him in the way I mentioned above -- identify something that could happen that would make it impossible for you to continue, business as usual.

Quote from: marcusThis bit of play worked OK, but it did little if anything to enrich the game as a whole- it was just one PC dealing with his kicker in a way only vaguely tangentially relevant to any other character.

Humanity.  If everyone's dealing with the same definitions of Humanity, than everything has something to do with everyone else, because everyone has to deal with threats to their Humanity that follow a certain kind of theme -- in this case, empathy.  This little paragraph was one of the first wrist-slap/eye-openers I got from Ron, and it's a good one.

Quote from: marcusI think that the only way to save my game is to totally abandon all the kickers, come up with my own plotlines from scratch, herd the PCS into a party

Oh, then don't play Sorcerer.  Seriously, it just might not be for your group.  Sorcerer is damn near zero-point energy for the GM -- this kind of work you're talking about not only shouldn't be necessary, it runs contrary to everything from the conflict mechanics to character generation.

You said something about the demon's being defined better than the PCs.  I can only say this one way, because I'm strapped for time: PC's have descriptors.  Demon's don't.  PC's win in this regard.

Don't mean to be abrupt in any of this -- I see you've got a real desire to run this game and a sense that you'll enjoy it -- I think you CAN, and I think you're close -- there's just a lot of cruft being carried around from other games and styles of gaming.  Junk it -- it's no help to you here :)

Best,

Hi Marcus,

The thing that stuck out about your post for me is:

QuoteThis seemed a triumph of organisation, but it was of little assistance in the long term because the characters had little reason to continue to associate and would inevitably all go their completely different ways.

Sorceror depends a lot on the players driving the "action" of the game. You as the GM have designed (or in my case, stolen!) your beautiful relationship map and back story.

Now they players must come together (not necessarily as characters) with you to create a sorceror story, driven by the awful choices implied by humanity (however you've defined it).

Your players must accept this duty if they are to have fun playing sorcerer. I'm extrapolating from your quote that your players not done this - exemplified by the disjointedness of their character interactions.

If your players are not likely to accept this "duty of care" when it comes to building the story then sorcerer is not the game for them. I wonder if they know though, that they must sign up to this style of play?

Alan.

Marcus:

At the risk of piling on before receiving your point(s) of focus for this thread . . .

It sounds like you've taken on a number of challenges all at once: switching to a modern setting, a new system, a new aesthetic and a per individual focus (as opposed to troupe-style play). Don't feel too bad if it's not smooth, yet. You've got a lot on your plate!

I echo Doyce's comments and recommend that you tighten up your session pace. The variability in attendance you cite is worth addressing with your group as a seperate issue. Were I you, I would make it clear that I expect consistency. I think the best motivator of group behavior is respect for its leader; by building the value of your preparation and outlining their part in the exchange, you support their equity.

Quote from: MarcusI think that the only way to save my game is to totally abandon all the kickers, come up with my own plotlines from scratch, herd the PCS into a party, and railroad the characters into some serious action.

Sure, but you already know how to do that. Don't lose faith;)

Another thing: what is serious action? Do you mean combat? If so, that's a bias that you may benefit from escaping. I read somewhere (game text? postings?) that often the rituals become the biggest climaxes during play. And I remember thinking, Z'ah? Freaking how? But as I look back on the experience, I see some truth in that statement. I would also include Humanity checks as markers of intense game play. (Examples from my campaign: a five-year old girl wakes up at 2am and wanders about a mansion until she walks onto a balcony, overlooking a writhing orgy; a retired university professor cuts the heart from his adoring graduate student to bind a posessor that will confer eternal life.)

Quote from: DoyceSorcerer is damn near zero-point energy for the GM ..

I can't remember the last time I worked so hard as when I ran my Sorcerer campaign. But it was a different set of muscles.

Quote from: DoyceHuge, blinking, neon warning sign here, because this sounds like the player made up a character who "didn't know" they had bound a demon... it happened by accident or something. Radioactive Spider or Intense Training that Didn't Seem Demonic... either way, this just never works.

The character always has to know they bound a demon, and they had to have WANTED it. WHY they wanted it is always different, but the bottom line is they wanted a certain kind of POWER and they were willing to do something Reality Altering to get it.

So true. Players must be fully knowing, willfully choosing, in Sorcerer chargen. The one player I had whose narrative thread fizzled with the meekest whimper suffered from this very deficiency.

So you're convinced. How do you overcome player apathy? I guess there's no best answer. What I did was to praise success and encourage those who weren't getting it to "keep trying." Trust to synergy and how success can cascade inspiration across a group.

I had a range of reactions from my players. One guy totally got it. Everything he did was right in line with the aesthetic. (Even more so than my choices as GM.) Another guy was excited and fearless, but had some trust issues that hampered his effectiveness; I call this "Back-Story reluctance." Some came across the middle; they could role-play, but they caught some blind alleys and had some batshit frustration moments trying to grok the purpose of play (i.e. use bad for good and lapse into depravity.) And finally, I had a player who I just couldn't reach. We even developed his thread some, but it never rose above pulp fiction.

*******************

Also wanted to comment: I noticed that the demands on attention outside troupe play jump sharply. The payoff is the a-ha! of interrelatedness.

For players that have never experienced it, you may have to assure them that it's something to look forward to and stop play to point it out. After I noticed myself getting off on how things were revealling their interconnectedness, I started interrupting my non-limelight players' side conversations and saying, "Hey! Do you realize that Vinnie just killed Mellisa's only living relative?" or "You guys, Gerard just noticed camera equipment in his contact's torture chamber and a bookcase of reels marked 'Nefero.' (Silence.) Well?! He must've shot the snuff of Vinnie's wife's murder!"

Quote from: bcook1971

Quote from: DoyceSorcerer is damn near zero-point energy for the GM ..

I can't remember the last time I worked so hard as when I ran my Sorcerer campaign. But it was a different set of muscles.

Right.  Right, yes, damn... should have clarified.  I was talking about less effort in terms of setting up a Series of Unfortunate Events that Will Happen and all that kind of typical stuff -- your prep goes into tying things into the Relationship map and escalating things with Bangs that force people to make choices.  That said, once the R-Map is locked in in my head and the NPCs are all properly yammering for attention in my head, most of my pre-game prep amounts to writing down a couple Bangs for each character, in case I need them (usually I need half or less).

Thanks for the responses so far. They are the sort of think I was looking for, being diagnoses of what has been going wrong and suggestions for improvements. What I need the most, however, are some good suggestions as to how to kick-restart the game to save it from the a slow downward spiral I think will otherwise kill it. I trust this answers Ron's important question as to what I want to talk about.

Before I answer any other questions posed to me, I should say a little about my gaming group situation as this is useful background and may make some of my choices more understandable.

I have only one gaming group- together there are about 10 of us, if one includes seldom-appearing hangers on. Although there are some newcomers, most of us have gamed together for 20 years. We meet together on average for 1 day a fortnight, provided that at least 4 people are available to attend. The typical size of the group is about 5 or 6 people, although on some days almost everyone turns up. There can also be considerable fluctuation in attendance in the course of a day, as many people arrive late or leave early. I usually have some idea in advance as to who is coming or not, but I never know precisely. There are usually 2 or 3 sessions of play on any given day- usually, but not always, consisting of a different RPG being played each session. In recent times (for the last 10 years, after the other major GM moved to another state and now seldom plays) I have been the GM for the great majority of the games.

There are several time-honoured rules that make up the social contract of our games group, two of which are of relevance. The first is that games are never chosen for play in advance of the games day- one thus cannot announce, for example, that Sorcerer will be played on a given day, it can only be chosen on the day. The second is that before each play session is to begin, the players in attendance all play a short card game called "Bullshit Poker" ( agme with rules that have been augumented gradually over the last 20 years of play), the winner of which has a free choice of any RPG (or, rather, any RPG one of us owns or has written, which still provides quite a large choice) to play during that session, provided there is someone willing to act as a GM to run that game. Over the years we have played in, I guess, several dozen RPGS, with about half a dozen being popular at any point in time. Some games are played almost every games day, whilst others lie fallow for months or even years only to be revamped and revived.

It can be seen that the above rules create a considerable competition between different RPGS. Many players have their favourite RPG or couple of RPGS, and will strive to win to choose these games. Naturally players tend to choose games they are well familiar with, rather than games of which they have little or no knowledge. One can try to "sell" a new game to the other players in advance in the hope one of them will choose it if they win, but from experience this seldom works. Usually the best I can do is to persuade a few potential players to generate characters in advance, although many will not even do this unless the game has been first officially chosen by the approved methodology.

Thus in order for me to introduce a new game to the group, such as Sorcerer, what I usually need to do is to prepare it for play as best I can with only a few characters being created, win Bullshit Poker on the day, announce that Sorcerer will be played, and only then are the other players compelled by convention to create for themselves characters, listen to a brief explanation of how the game works, and start playing the game as run by me. I then must rely on generating sufficient interest in the game through enjoyable play so that other players may consider choosing the game next time they win Bullshit Poker. This I have not yet succeeded in doing with respect to Sorcerer- all 3 play sessions of Sorcerer have been my own election. This is one part of the explanation as to why there have been extensive gaps in play, although the principal reason is that after the first session in which all the characters were created I wanted to have a good long think about how to make the game work.

Now, to answer the other questions which have been posed in the responses.

Judd asked "What movie, or book or comic book or art is this game inspired by or invoking? Did the players know what kind of story this was going to be?"

The answer is that I wasn't particularly trying to invoke any comic book, movie or art, although I could think of several things, such as the movies The Ninth Gate and The Matrix, that I would be happy to see the game reflect. Rightly or wrongly, however, I thought that in Sorcerer I should not impose too much of my own views on the players, but let them set the tone, with my own input being nothing more than a subtle crafting of the play as it naturally evolved. So neither the players nor myself knew what sort of story it is going to be, and still don't. I am happy to formulate a vision and impose it on the players, however, if that is what is being recommended.

As for Judd's question about group size, I have answered that already. In terms of gaming background, as I have said it is vert diverse for the great majority of players. Space does not permit a complete listing of games played, but the most popular games played over the last 20 years would probably be Superhero 2044 (with rules now almost completely rewritten ion the course of play), Call of Cthulhu, Paranoia, Dr Who RPG, and several games written by group members, including one based on the Pliocene Saga of Julian May and one called "The Powers Game" set in the contemporary world with a variety of characters with different abilities and "powers".

Doyce asked" did you define, at least for yourself, the kinds of things that would cause a Humanity Check? How about a Humanity Gain (doing 'good' with some personal risk involved)?"

The answer is that I did define it to myself to at least a fair extent. Humanity checks would be required if people did things that placed them too far beyond the pale of conventional reality- this could be dealing too closely with demons (the antithesis of conventional reality) or violating accepted moral norms in too dramatic a fashion (such as kidnapping peoplke and sacrificing them). Humanity gain would flow from restoring reality (like banishing demons) or showing that the character cared greatlky for the conventional world (like doing particularly good deeds for the benefit of others).

In terms of kickers, I thought they generally sounded pretty good, but then again I'm no expert (as I have proved amply in my postings on this topic). I have mentioned the one about the hideously dismembered coven member. A sample of the others are as follows:

- I lost my job and returned home, only to find my house has disappeared off the face of the earth as if it had never existed.

- I discover the special amulet I had been wearing all my life came from another planet.

- I find that some of my university students have been mysteriously exploding.

- My demon discovers that one of my school students is inhabited by a very powerful demon.

- I cannot work out why this rival reporter always seems to get the story before me.

-I am reunited with my brother, who demands I give him one of my kidneys.

As for Doyce's enquiry about my combat experiences, I should admit here that I got the combat rules a little wrong, at least in the last 2 play sessions. The 2 combats in these sessions were very brief, and consisted merely of the 2 combatants throwing their dice in an opposed fashion as seeing who had the higher number and how many successes. After the Martial Artist's failure in the second game session, I decided to give him a roll on Cover to get bonus dice to add to stamina (by preparing himself with his martial arts training), to which his Demon's Boost was added. The charactert then rolled, I think, 13 dice against 4 for the baddy, but lost. I was using d20s, primarily because I had spent a small fortune buying about 50 of them for an abortive foray into Donjon and wanted to get some value out of this investment.

Bill asked "Another thing: what is serious action? Do you mean combat?".

I would answer that "serious action" to my mind usually involves some combat, but not always. What I am talking about is the sort of thing that tends to stop side-conversations and cause the players to focuss very much at what is happening. For this, generally one needs a direct threat (or at least a perceived threat) to one or more character, to which threat the players will feel there needs to be a rapid reaction to ameliorate. So combat fits the bill nicely, but not exclusively- phycological expense, for example, can also work if credible and not overused.

I think that answers all the questions so far posed directly, and several that were only implied.


Marcus

Marcus,

It is not that I have a problem with the Kickers.  It is not even worth reading them because you stated twice in your first post that your players are not invested in them.  Kickers must be something the players dig.  Kickers should be a neon sign, "I dig this!"

Also I don't think anywhere in the Sorcerer text does it say that the GM is not supposed to lead the game.  I always notify my players as to what kind of game we are going to be playing.  It can be more of a collaborative process with the group deciding together what Humanity means etc. but don't get that mixed up with an everything goes stew with anything any player wants as a PC thrown in because the GM can't tell them no.

The GM in Sorcerer is a leader and a strong one.

Hope this helps.

Hi Marcus,

I understand that your group has long established traditions for how a game day works and how rpgs get chosen.  If I understand correctly, you end up with different players and different numbers of players almost every session, you can't predict which game you will be playing, and it might be months before you return to a given rpg.  Such an environment does not lend itself to player investment in anything.

Sorcerer runs best in a short "story arc" of 5 or 6 weekly sessions, each of 3 or 4 hours.  The game should be restricted to the GM and two or three players (always the same players for a given story arc).

To achieve player investment and consistency I would suggest the following:

1) Invite the 2 or 3 players who are most interested in Sorcerer to play on a _different_ night.

If others complain you're being exclusive, tell them you'd be happy to run a story arc for anyone else  - as soon as this one is over.  Tell them sorcerer works best in small groups that can meet regularly for 5 or 6 sessions in a row.

2) Ask your Sorceerer volunteers to commit to attenting for 5 or 6 weeks in a row, to commit to showing up at a specific time, and to play for 3 or 4 hours.  

3) Follow the advice others have given you about game prep etc.

Don't be afraid to assert yourself.  It sounds like you do a lot of work for this group.  Your vision deserves some attention.

Quote from: Alan1) Invite the 2 or 3 players who are most interested in Sorcerer to play on a _different_ night.

That is great advice.

Good luck, Marcus.

I don't think this is going to work.

Because it sounds like Sorcerer isn't somthing that the players want to play. That is, Sorcerer shouldn't be played, unless every player says, "Hey, that sounds like fun, yeah." Now, sometimes you can get at least some committment by doing what they guys above have suggested. But, from what you've said about the whole poker thing, you're basically inflicting Sorcerer upon these people.

I don't think any RPG will hold up against that. No matter how potentially entertaining. You have to have buy in from the players to start. Period. No surprise to me that they keep coming back to the other games that they do have an investment in.

Which sounds pretty doom and gloom for old Sorcerer. There's another soluton - you note, "I have one gaming group."  Start another. Again, I'm betting that you won't find anyone amongst this group that's interested. And, if so, then don't worry it too much, just go back to playing what they want to play, and not watering that down with Sorcerer sessions.

Instead, ask some other friends if they'd like to play an RPG with you. When they ask what it is, tell em about Sorcerer. Play. Have fun.

I could be wrong about your players. Give Alan's idea a try - can't hurt. But if I were a player in this group, I too would always be trying to get back to the games in which I already had a huge investment in time. One other thing to try, possibly, is ending those other games. If you don't want to be playing them, bring them to some nifty dramatic conclusions.

If you do want to be playing these games, then I think that you're just trying to do too much at once with one group. How did this social contract get established? Have you considered rocking the boat, shaking it up, and seeing if something better would work?

Mike

I realise I could announce a separate set of gaming sessions for Sorcerer, but I am unwilling to do that for two reasons. The first is that to do so risks the destruction of the entire gaming group, as everyone will start demanding special sessions devoted to their own favourite game. Instead of the simplicity of 1 gaming session per fortnight, there will be consant debates as to which of the current half-dozen games will be played in the next session. Players will then start boycotting the sessions of their less favourite games and the whole structure will fragment overnight. I'm not prepared to do this for just one game out of many RPGs I'm interested in. The second is that Sorcerer has not yet built up a fan base in the group, and there is good chance nobody would come to the Sorcerer sessions.

Perhaps it seems strange, or even disfunctional, for every game chosen for play to be nominated by one person rather than be chosen in advance or by a group vote. This system has, however, served very well over the years, and I thing having a large group stay together over a space of 20 years under this system means that the ststem has something going for it. In the past, many new games have risen to popularity through this system, nothwithstanding the fact they were initially foisted on the group by only a single enthusiast- indeed, these games would proably never have been played at all if a majority vote were required, as the majority will tend to vote for a tried and true game for which they do not need to create new characters. What often happens is that although the players are initially reluctant to play, when they actually start playing they like the game and will choose it again next time. This is indeed what happened when I introduced My Life With Master to the group- although I cannot say it is the most favoured game, others in the group have chosen it for replay.

The problem is that this is not happening for Sorcerer. This could be that there is something special about Sorcerer that means the player commitment must come before the game in enjoyable, and thus my standard technique of selling the game to the players through actual play will not work. I think there is something to this, but that I could have minimised this problem if I had started the game differently. In retrospect, perhaps what I should have done was:

(a) As Judd suggested, based the game closely on a movie or comic book and told my players in advance what it was based upon, so they would have this to draw upon from the start; and

(b) Used the in media res technique at the start of the game to throw them all together into some exciting situation. The fun of this might have sold them much better on the game. The players could then write their kickers, and then choose either have their characters separate to explore their individual issues, or recombine as they saw fit.

To get the game going again, I think I should restart it. The next session should be set a year or so after the last session, in some other part of the world. I'll give them a few sentences as to what they are doing there, and then I'll throw them all straight into the action they should have had in session 1. The brief description and action will more closely identify the game with some established fictional precedent. I will then ask the players to rewrite their kickers now that they have a better idea what the game is about and what a kicker is for. If that doesn't do the trick, then I'll simply drop the game, perhaps to try again in a year or so with a Sword-style campaign instead.

Any further comments?


Marcus

Hello,

I've read over the thread to date in detail now, a couple of times, and here's my call.

1. Alan, Judd, Mike, and A.Neill are 100% on the money. Everything they have said is pure gold.

2. I am hesitant to speak in any judgmental way of how this group of people has chosen to role-play. Not even after some tequila. It does look as though you're saying "We have to play this way because it keeps us together, and we stay together because we play this way." I'm not at all sure where the value is coming from, especially for you, who seem to be the workhorse in the picture.

3. I have no personal interest whatsoever in helping you get a Sorcerer game going with these folks, in the context that you've described. That might sound really mean, but I do have a considerable interest in helping you play Sorcerer. Is there any hope at all of separating the two?

Best,
Ron

I think the answer to that last question is in the negative. If Sorcerer just cannot work in the context of my group  for some reason, then I will just have to give the game a miss.

This seems to me, however, rather defeatist thinking- my group's methodology never seems to have been an obstacle to RPG enjoyment with any other game, and we have played quite a fair number over quite a long time. I think I will thus implement the strategy I outlined in my last post, and see how that works out.

I think this thread has probably now come to its logical endpoint. Thank you everyone for your assistance.


Marcus

Quote from: marcusThis seems to me, however, rather defeatist thinking- my group's methodology never seems to have been an obstacle to RPG enjoyment with any other game, and we have played quite a fair number over quite a long time. I think I will thus implement the strategy I outlined in my last post, and see how that works out.

Perhaps I'm the last person to jump into this thread, because I am still struggling to "get" Sorcerer myself. On the other hand, maybe that makes me the most qualified to inject some thoughts.

1. One thing I have figured out is that Sorcerer is not a "typical" RPG. I've played dozens of them for almost 30 years and I can recognize that it's not like most others, so the notion that it would fit into a niche just like all of the other games Marcus' group has played is faulty.

2. Are the recent posts too negative? A game group has a rigid set of guidelines by which they play, a unique game requires a different set of guidelines in order to work (according to those who do "get it"), and so the two won't ever work out. Seems pretty logical to me, not negative.

3. As best as I can tell, Sorcerer is a game that requires a huge personal investment. If the group won't or can't try this game the way it needs to be played, the game won't work. If a player does not care, the game will not work. If a player won't work out a character, the game will not work. Most RPGs simply require some knowledge of rules and willingness to use them to tell a story or to work through combat or some such. Sorcerer appears to me more a game of the heart than the numbers, and thus requires more investment than just showing up and killing orcs. Even if I don't really "get it" yet, at least I can clearly see that those who do are playing in a game style very different from the usual.

4. I hope this thread is NOT at an end, because I have found it to be one of the most practical and informative among recent threads. Sometimes the group gets very theoretical and I fail to see the practical application, but this one seemed to be very concrete and helpful. Sorry if Marcus didn't like what the group had to say, but I know I did.

Thanks!

I think Sorcerer poses a special challenge to an experienced player of role-playing games to unlearn his habits; it's amazing how undetectable and entrenched they become. I've heard it said that players new to RPG's have less trouble with Sorcerer's approach.

Paka--whom, I don't know his familiarity with RPG'S--seems to swim in it like a fish, if his play posts are any indicatior. Speaking as an exclusive 1st ed. AD&D guy for many years, I had to really be still and let parts of my brain regain plasticity.

Quote4. I hope this thread is NOT at an end, because I have found it to be one of the most practical and informative among recent threads. Sometimes the group gets very theoretical and I fail to see the practical application, but this one seemed to be very concrete and helpful. Sorry if Marcus didn't like what the group had to say, but I know I did.

Pro'ly better to split. Don't worry; there are plenty of posters willing to dish application.

Quote from: marcusThis seems to me, however, rather defeatist thinking- my group's methodology never seems to have been an obstacle to RPG enjoyment with any other game

Marcus,

You buy a new electric car from a dealer.

You try putting gas into it and it does not run.

You bring it to the dealer's service mechanic and tell him the problem ("the car doesn't run even though I'm giving it gas").

The mechanic tells you that this is an electric car, and you need to charge the fuel cells with electricity or it will not run.

You argue that there must be some way to make this car run using gasoline, because all your other cars work just fine with gasoline.

You are told that won't work because it is an electric car, it requires electricity to run. He tells you you'll have to find an electric-fuel station in order to fuel and run the car.

You tell him you need it to run on gasoline because you don't know anyone with an electric-fuel station, and none of the gas stations you normally use are willing to convert a pump for you.

He suggests you could exchange the car for the same model, except with a gasoline-powered engine.

You tell him you bought an electric car because they run more cleanly, don't use up limited fossil fuels, and require less maintenance than gas-powered vehicles, so you want to stay with the electric car because of those features.

He tells you if you exchange it, or if he converts it to a gasoline engine, it won't run cleaner or longer than any other gasoline-powered car, and it will require the use of fossil fuels. The features you want require the car to run on electric fuel cells.

You complain that this is a defeatist attitude, and that he should be able to make the electric car run on gasoline because all the other cars you've ever driven run on gas.

The mechanic says, "So, you want it to run on gas...but act like it runs on electricity..? Um, ok, well, thanks for buying the car from us," and moves on to helping people he actually can help.

You feel sorry for yourself and upset with the mechanic's "attitude."

...but the mechanic can't help you: it is an electric car. He can't make the electric car run on gas; and even if he could, it wouldn't be the car you want any longer because it no longer has the features you specifically bought it for, and it won't do what you expect. It's an electric car.

You have two choices: charge the car at an electric-fuel pump, even though you don't charge any other car and you'll have to find a new fuel station; or be satisfied with a nice looking ornament you'll never drive.

You're with me here, or still disgruntled about the attitude -- in either case, the ball remains completely in your court. No one else can solve or deal with this problem for you, because it is solely about you, what you're willing to do, and which set of concerns you decide is the real priority.

The "value" of the decision can not be judged, nor is it for me to judge one-way or the other as good or bad...all this is about is that you have to make a decision.

Do you really and honestly want what the electric car offers?
Or is it too much hassle now that you look at what's involved?

I'm sorry if I offended any of the contributors to this thread with my last (or any previous) post. That certainly was not my intent.

There are two things I wanted commentary upon in this thread, The first was with respect to things I might have done badly in running my Sorcerer game to date. There have been a number of comments on this topic, and I acknowledge the general validity of those comments, although with the explanation of the circumstances in which I was running the game which was a limiting factor on some of my choices.

The second, and more important, question was this: given that my game has developed historically in the flawed manner outlined, what should I do to try and improve matters and make the game better. The advice on this score was, in effect, that I should start a new RPG group involving only keen Sorcerer players, and have them play Sorcerer regularly every week. I am not saying this was bad advice, but for reasons already explained I consider it unworkable in my circumstances- to run a separate session devoted to only one game out of the many we play would very likely fragment the group, and also that until I have sold the merits of Sorcerer to at least some of my players there would simply be nobody else to play the game with.

Given that the only suggested solution for my problem is impractical for me to implement, I was faced with the choice either of simply never playing Sorcerer again, or trying to discover a different solution. As I think it a shame to abandon a game that I find appealing, I decided to attempt to go for a different solution, being the concept outlined in my last post but one. I am sorry if that choice has insulted any of my fellow Sorcerer players. I myself would have thought that wishing to give the game another try would be less insulting than simply abandoning the game as hopeless.

Finarvyn noted the great degree of player commitment required to carry a game of Sorcerer. I can well believe that statement to be correct. There seems, however, to be an assumption being made that either my players don't invest any energy in their games, or perhaps in some obscure way the group methodology of selecting games for play somehow prevents anything more than a shallow investment in games, and hence the only solution is to find a new group of players with a bit more fire in their bellies. If such assumption is being made, however, it is wrong. My players can invest a huge amount of effort into their characters and into play. Over 20 years of continuous gaming, playing several dozen games, my players have spontaneously drawn up campaign diaries, created folders of character-based artwork, been reduced almost to tears with the death of much-loved charaters, and exhibitted many other signes of engagement wioth their characters and the various game worlds. I remember one player almost killing another at one time over a political issue that arose in the game world (fortunately, however, we dragged the two apart in time). And we are not talking D&D here- for the most part we gave up "dungeon hack" games in high school.

The problem is not that my players don't have the spiritual or mental depth to identify with their characters or have no sense of drama beyond the ability to express exaltation or depression at the results of the roll of a d20, but that the players don't invest a game with this degree of commitment until they are already sold on it through play! This is a real chicken and egg problem- in any game a degree of player commitment is necesary for a successful game, but strong commitment is not likely to be present until the game is already proving successful. In many previous games I have been able to leap this hurdle in some fashion with new games going on to be highly successful within the group, despite the fact that the players started out with no knowledge of the game or even, perhaps, any initial desire to play. With Sorcerer, however, I have still not cleared the initial barrier after 3 play sessions.

To make myself perfectly clear, my players are unlikely to make any special effort at Sorcerer until they are already starting to enjoy the game. Although they may become highly interested in matters such as kickers, theme, and general rules mechanics after they identify the game as enjoyable, before that point they are only going to go through the motions to indulge me. The key is engaging the players in the game without demanding to much prior commitment from them. If there is something inherent in Sorcerer that makes this impossible, then Sorcerer is almost uniquely unsuitable for my group, and I guess I have just wasted my cash. I am not over-anxious, however, to jump to that conclusion.

If people want to continue this thread, that's fine by me. In that case would particularly appreciate suggestions as to how to relaunch my Sorcerer game without abandoning either my players or our "social contract" (as I gather it is referred to) that has kept the group together for 20 years.


Marcus

Quote from: marcusmy players are unlikely to make any special effort at Sorcerer until they are already starting to enjoy the game.

Hi Marcus,

No one questions the value, quality, or committment capability of your players or yourself.  What we are saying, is that, given the circumstances which your group requires for play, getting players to the point where they enjoy a session of Sorcerer, as it is intended to be played, will be extremely difficult.

As someone else said, Sorcerer plays differently from many roleplaying games.  In particular, in the first few sessions, the intensity tends to be low, while players build elements into the situation.  At a certain point, these elements they add work with the game system and play intensifies.  These first few sessions can be ones of floundering around for players who are new to the game and haven't quite realized just how much input they can have.  (I know, it happened to us.)  And for the game to work, the GM also has to resist any urge to put the players on any specific track.

Now, one of the major factors for the period of development - particularly when introducing people new to the game - is the density of player contribution and direction.  For the game to take on a life of it's own, you need consistency and focus - this is best achieved by having a small group of players - and always the same players for a given story arc.  How you achieve that is up to you.

I suspect that you won't see first-time players enjoy this particular game until they reach a certain point of concentration - and you've indicated that they won't commit until until they enjoy it.  So you're caught in a cycle with no ignition point.

You've said that starting a separate game, just for four or five weeks to play Sorcerer, would fragment your group.  It sounds like you're afraid that the only thing that has kept all these people attending your fortnightly gamenight over the past 20 years, is your current format.  Don't the decades of attendance indicate commitment to more than just the format?  Aren't these people your friends?  

I'm part of a group of 10 or so roleplayers.  We routinely split into 2 groups and each group plays a particular game for two or three months.  At the end of this time, the whole bunch of us get together and decide what will be played next and who will play it.  We mix and match, but we always return to the big group afterwards.  As it happens, both groups play in the same house on the same day.  You could try this - or try different nights - I don't see why this routine can't work on different days as long as everyone is committed to a group meeting every few months.

Finally, if a change in format really does cause some people to leave - well, maybe your group is stronger without them.

Marcus, really interesting thread, thanks for starting it, and sticking to what you wanted out of it.

I think it's pretty clear that the way your usual gamer group organises and plays rpgs doesn't suit Sorcerer at all. You either have to skip the game - not a good choice, because you want to play, don't you? - pick out a couple of interested players and play with them on another night, and perhaps evenh better: don't associate playing Sorcerer with your current group at all, play it besides your group, with someone else and enjoy both.

I have moved forth and back between cities and countries a couple of times, and it's always one heck of a hassle to get some gaming going from scratch. It's so much easier to play with your normal group, but meeting new people with different rpg expectations can be a real hoot also.

Tomorrow I am playing my first FTF session for 2 1/2 years, with people I don't know yet and only have met once to discuss the game (we're playing Dogs in the Vineyard at my suggestion, but are moving on to Sorcerer later).

I played Sorcerer once, play-by-post, and I did a couple på basic mistakes and the game stalled too soon. Had the R-Map, Kickers and even Humanity, but failed to discuss Humanity and Demons enough with the other players, but else it worked fine.

I have a lot of people among those I have regularly played rpgs with in the past 15 years that I would never ever suggest to play Sorcerer - that's not saying I don't like them, they just wouldn't like it or understand it basically.

This might be beside the point, but you mentioned MLWM. Maybe you should try another NAR game alternative, maybe a game that works better with an episodic approach. Another suggestion could be Universalis, though I don't know that game enough the sure.

Per

I really think that if you want to re-launch this thing, you should, just bearing in mind that you may not be able to get it to work.  One thing that has been said, but probably hasn't been stressed enough, is that not every good game works for every good player.  Sorcerer is a good game, but it may not work for your group, and all that means is that it doesn't work for them.  It doesn't mean they're shallow players or anything, just that this doesn't jazz them.  But let's suppose you're going to re-launch.

First of all, let me ask, how many if any of the other players have read the game, cover to cover?  Do they know about things like relationship-maps and such?  Or have you worked primarily from an explanation generated yourself?

My suggestion is that you tell them how all this works.  If they're not going to read the book, which after all with that many players could take a hell of a long time, then lay it out in game time.

Now run a character creation session, and I mean run it.  You have characters already, but the Kickers don't work because the players don't care about them.  So maybe these are crappy Kickers for them, or maybe they're just not getting what a Kicker is.  Okay, so let's do this as play.

Explain that the point of the next few hours is going to be to inject a lot of nitrous into those Kickers and to build an r-map.  If anyone has a suggestion as you go along, especially if it's not the currently-focal PC, he should make that suggestion.  Revisions are allowed, even encouraged, if they make for powerful Kickers and relationships.

So here's this guy who got home one day and found that his house wasn't there any more.  Fine, that's a little edgy, but let's pick that scab.  What does he do for a living?  Let's tell the story: start with Dave at work, make him describe what's going on, how does he get home (does he drive? take a train? walk?), what's his house like, what's the neighborhood like, describe describe describe.  Have him do all the narration.  Whenever he flags a little, try to get other players to help.  

"Um, I don't know, it's just a suburban neighborhood."  "Anyone want to help out?"  "Hey Dave, like, all your neighbors have pink flamingos on their lawns and do tupperware parties, like that."  "Yeah, cool, and Dave, you're not married, right?  So, like, you don't get along with them well because you don't have a wife to run tupperware parties."  GM: "Were you ever married?"  Dave: "Um, yeah.  My wife left me a couple years ago."  Aha!  

As you continue this, find out what "my house isn't there any more" means.  Is there a crater?  Is there simply no house?  Do his neighbors recognize him?  Is there a house but someone else lives there and has for many years?

And, most importantly, try to make connections on that r-map.  Could the lady with the special extraterrestrial amulet be the ex-wife?  Could the professor with the exploding students be her brother?  Could the reporter with the amazingly effective rival be Dave's lover?

See, this means that when Dave just totally freaks about his house, he's going to go straight to his lover, who's another PC, who's having her own problems right now, and so on.

And all the time, constantly, be asking about those demons.  If Dave's demon's Need is something that was in the house, what's Dave going to do about it?  Remember that demons are what sets sorcerers apart from the rest of humanity -- and apart from Humanity.  They do this on purpose, not by accident; they have made pacts with demons.  This gets us to a really important thing about Kickers:

When Dave really freaks, because his life is changed drastically and he doesn't know what to do about it, one of his very first thoughts should be, "I bet my demon can help."

If you get everyone pitching in to complicate and intertwine everyone's stories together, you will end the character design session with:

• A very complicated relationship map that means characters cannot split up and go their own way
  
• A lot of characters who are now, willy-nilly, in the middle of big events that are about them, personally
  
• A lot of characters who are pretty complicated and pretty screwed up
  
• A lot of characters who, when the shit hits the fan, tend immediately to look for demonic help -- and this last means
  
• A lot of characters who are ready and willing to sacrifice Humanity because their lives are going awry[/list:u]
  I hope some of this helps.  I think the big trick to a game like this is to get the players into a situation they really can't just back out of.  Yes, the players.  They invent these characters, and these Kickers, and they think it's all just sort of back-story.  Suddenly they find that the entire game is about nothing but them; everything else is sort of incidental frills, in a sense.  That's what was meant about GM-ing Sorcerer being zero-energy.
  
  See, you might have in mind that all these Kickers are really about the alien sorcerers out to destroy Sydney or something.  Forget that.  If it works, it works, but it's irrelevant.  What matters is the characters, and putting them in situations where they have to make choices between Humanity and more apparently desirable options.  They're really tightly woven together through relationships, so that they can't even agree that things suck; instead you get, "This sucks."  "Yeah, that was always your problem, you're a whiner, and that's why you couldn't ever get it up."  "Oh, Lisa darling, maybe that wasn't Dave's problem, because you know, we have lots of fun in bed; maybe it's your frigidity, and have you talked to a doctor about that?  I just worry about you, you know."  "Listen, bitch, just because you're a slut who'll screw a table leg...."  Meanwhile Sydney is in flames and the demons are ready to fight it out.
  
  And when things really get bad, and everyone's really on edge, and you really have to get moving right now or else, and you see some hoodlum trying to drive your car away in this bad neighborhood, what happens?  "Kroork, kill him!"  Raarrrgh!  Muncha muncha muncha.  Because demons are not powerful like machine guns; they're insanely not part of this universe kind of powerful, and you didn't do this by accident, you did this on purpose.  What sort of person does that make you?  And when the cops try to put you in jail and your demon amulet has been taken away and you just really, really have to get loose because otherwise Sydney is going up in smoke, have you considered just summoning another demon?  Rrarrgh, muncha muncha muncha.  No really, that was justified, right?
  
  This is Sorcerer.
  
  Hope this helps!

Quote from: Marcus.. I would particularly appreciate suggestions as to how to relaunch my Sorcerer game without abandoning either my players or our "social contract" ..

Ok. Reviewing stated issues ..

Quote from: MarcusThe main problem seemed to be whether to run a modern campaign or a Sword campaign .. I settled in the end for a modern campaign .. to help the players identify with the the characters.

Opera composers briefly experimented with modern librettos before collapsing back into mythology. (e.g. Wagner.) The familiarity that modern lends may compete with a prerequisite of separation in achieving wish fulfillment.

Quote from: Marcus.. the characters [were] still just shuffling around unsure of what to do with themselves.

The characters should never be unsure that they are faced with a choice. If you haven't brought them to that point, you're just noodling, and it's your fault.

Quote from: MarcusI threw in a criminal gang (that was related to several kickers and designed to be one of the unifying aspects of the games), but all that happened was the martial artist decided to fight, got a bad roll, and received a bloody nose, then the fight fizzled.

This is a mess. The gang should be trying to accomplish something. Their objective should be related to the player characters' Kickers, causing one or more of them to have to choose whether to use their demons or sorcery.

Another thing: sorcerers are not pussies. They are the bad asses in this game. Even badder than the most foul and terrible demon you can construct. In a campaign I ran, a player sorcerer went down an alley looking for a vagrant to feed his taxi cab demon and stumbled onto a gang slaying of a drug dealer. They boxed him in with cadillacs and showered him with bullets. He killed all ten of them and wasn't even wounded.

In a later scene, the sorcererous leader of the gang (Freddy the Freak) used his parasite's conferred Perception: Smell in Shapeshift (Wolf Form) to track the player character sorcerer (Vinnie Dilberto) to his abode. He ambushed Vinnie in the hallway and nearly killed him before his cab demon crashed through the wall and knocked the wolf off his master's chest.

Sorcerers kick ass, pure and simple. If you're normal folk, you don't have enough bullets; go home.

Quote from: MarcusMeanwhile another character got bored of his self-imposed (via kicker) task of dealing with the gruesome murder of a coven member) and went off to join the same criminal gang the martial artist was fighting. The player complained he didn't know what to do in the game. I reminded him of his kicker .. but [he] complained it was not interesting enough.

The proper way to remind a player of their Kicker is with a Bang.

e.g. [Write in a scarlet sash found at the murder scene.] The sorcerer has a nightmare of screams, coming from shadows, and awakens in his bedroom. He hears the tapping of clawed toes and the flap of footpads. The moon's light streams in through the window. Wiry frames are outlined, surrounding the bed. The dark hues of a scarlet sash brim in the darkness across a throat of ivory skin. Above, pools of searing heat gaze in punishment. Then a whisper, "Kill him."

Tell me that's not interesting.

Quote from: MarcusThis bit of play worked OK, but it did little if anything to enrich the game as a whole- it was just one PC dealing with his kicker in a way only vaguely tangentially relevant to any other character.

Well, it's like looking for shooting stars and missing the spaceship, landing in your backyard. PC's dealing with their Kickers is what you do. It is a misplaced expectation that one Kicker should relate to another.

In one session I ran, a PC completed a sacrifical ritual to Bind a posessor, and it was the ultimate fulfillment of his character's story. I mean, the abilities the demon could confer were the grand prize. And the things the sorcerer did to reach this point were gory: catching volunteer firemen off guard in the break room and burning them alive, deceiving and murdering his devoted student and entering the service of a murderous, gentleman sadist. So, sure, they paid attention to the lead-up, for as much as it involved hits and damage. But when the climax came, all the other players at the table thought that dishing about the action at Quake Con was far more interesting. I assume this point extends to your group, as well: the fact that they're boobs doesn't mean you're off target.

My only advice on this point is to emphasize to your group what is relevant.

Quote from: MarcusA small element of this would be some natural early awkwardness with a new set of rules, and I admit I have not always run combat exactly right rules-wise.

I struggled mightily with certain aspects of the rules. And I, like you, sort of worked them in as they arose in play.

Another GM in my group will hold mini-sessions devoted to playtesting combat prior to campaigning with a new system. He tends to get better results them me.

Quote from: MarcusI think the greatest problem, however, is that my players simply don't want any responsibility for anything except for what their character does in some interesting situation the GM has contrived for them to be in.

The extent of a sorcerer player's responsility is to identify material as potentially investing. It is the GM's responsibility to deliver situations, related to that material, that cannot be ignored without grave consequence.

[Edit: cross-posted. Chris makes excellent points. And he's funny:)]

Alan said:

"You've said that starting a separate game, just for four or five weeks to play Sorcerer, would fragment your group. It sounds like you're afraid that the only thing that has kept all these people attending your fortnightly gamenight over the past 20 years, is your current format. Don't the decades of attendance indicate commitment to more than just the format? Aren't these people your friends?"

The main problem with declaring a separate game session for Sorcerer is that then suddenly everyone will demand a separate session for any game they particularly want to promote. These separate sessions will then compete with one another for players and timeslots. Numbers will halve overnight as people only find the time to attend the sessions of their favourite games, and abandon all others- and most games I prefer to run with more players, not fewer. I suspect that after a couple of months of confusion, half the games we currently play will then die due to insufficient attendances, with only one or two games then developing a complete monopoly. One of the games most likely to be abandoned in this process would, ironically, be Sorcerer.

Although it might seem odd to outside observers, the Bullshit Poker process adopted by my group is, in my view, highly functional for a group with a wide choice of potential games before it. It is a very neat way to stop lengthy arguments about choice of game, and to prevent any one game dominating too much within the group to the exclusion of other games, especially new games to be introduced. The proceedure is not adopted because the group is so lacking in cohesion that it must invoke the shared experience of an ancient ritual to survive, but because the whole mechanism is simply so well adapted to a multi-RPG situation. Unless a group of players is interested in playing only, say, two or three RPGS, I cannot see a superior solution to the one we have adopted. It fosters group cohesion not so much by nostalgia, but by diffusing disputes that would otherwise probably have broken the group up many years ago.


Moving on to the suggestions related to relaunching the game, thanks for the time and effort employed in the various responses. In order to assimilate these reponses and make sure I understand, at the risk of oversimplification I will summarise what has been recently proposed:

Alan seems to be suggesting that things may not be so worring as I think, as Sorcerer games normally start with a little floundering and take a few gaming sessions to reach "ignition point". If I am correctly reading his comment, this is encouraging news. Alan also cautions me against directing the players down any particular path plotwise.

Per suggests that my entire Sorcerer enterprise is inevitably doomed, at least with my current group as it is, and suggests I try another game instead.

Chris seems to be suggesting that my Sorcerer game should be more like a post-modern soap-opera, with a lot of attention paid to the minutiae of the characters lives, and their personal relationships with one another, but with the twist that there are bizarre and dark happenings in the background. Thus instead of a jilted lover reaching for a pair of scissors to stab her old beau, she reaches for a demon to blast the bejeezus out of him. Make the backstory drive the game, Alan appears to suggest.

I am not suggesting that Chris' advice would not and has not worked a treat in other Sorcerer groups, but I'm worried that a game run like this is not going to appeal to my group. In my opinion, they are going to find it difficult to care about whether their wives have tupperware parties, or whether their girl friends find them to be sexually inadequate. To them, this might some interesting background colour, but the real issue is likely to be whether Dr Demonovich can join the Three Tomes of Azrael before Jonothan Kane can penetrate the heavily-guarded Zaibatsu Corporation building and download the Tibetan Ritual of Rogation (or whatever). Does that mean Per is right and I'm doomed?

Bill seems to suggest that I should confront the players with choices more directly, and then let them do some serious ass-kicking. I can certainly identify with this agenda (which I am perhaps only wishfully projecting upon Bill), although I am not sure how well it reconciles with the "focus on the relationships, let the players drive the action" school of thought which to my mind was supposed to apply to Sorcerer.

Perhaps that is been my main problem running the game- I am divided between two principles, being "don't exercise any control, the players will drive the game and interesting situations will arise out of the adressing of the character's life issues", and the conflicting "take control, drive the players to the interesting bits, but then let them choose their own destiny by how they decide to act". To my mind, the latter will only work if I work out a plotline of some sort (or, rather, a series of branching plotlines with player choices to determine which path is in fact followed), but I fear that I am then violating the principles of Sorcerer by doing this. I am concerned, however, that the former strategy is not going to work at all.


Marcus

Environment matters. There is potential to sharpen your game by making changes at this level.

I express your Bullshit Poker as a fun, slightly random way to enforce "I sit for you, you sit for me." Sounds functional to me.

Quote from: MarcusAlan seems to be suggesting that things may not be so worring as I think, as Sorcerer games normally start with a little floundering and take a few gaming sessions to reach "ignition point".

That was my experience. I was nearly overrun by contentious input during my group's fourth and last session. (I mean that as a good thing.)

Quote from: MarcusChris seems to be suggesting that my Sorcerer game should be more like a post-modern soap-opera .. but [my players' interest] is likely to be whether Dr Demonovich can join the Three Tomes of Azrael before Jonothan Kane can penetrate the heavily-guarded Zaibatsu Corporation building and download the Tibetan Ritual of Rogation (or whatever).

Sorcerer can accomodate either.

Quote from: MarcusPerhaps that is been my main problem running the game- I am divided between two principles, being "don't exercise any control, the players will drive the game and interesting situations will arise out of the adressing of the character's life issues" ..

Well, it's like having a party. On the one hand, you don't want to say, "You may be seated. We will now discuss work. Begin," or "And now you will dip the baby carrots in the ranch dressing and eat them." On the other hand, you do want to say things like, "So, how's work?" and provide snacks.

Quote from: Marcus.. and the conflicting "take control, drive the players to the interesting bits, but then let them choose their own destiny by how they decide to act".

It's friendly control, like when a server brings bread to your table to get you started. And you don't drive the players; you drop them in. Let them get out however they can manage. There's your free will;)

Quote from: MarcusTo my mind, the latter will only work if I work out a plotline of some sort (or, rather, a series of branching plotlines with player choices to determine which path is in fact followed), but I fear that I am then violating the principles of Sorcerer by doing this.

(Hear the Beatles.) All you need are Bangs.

I guess, with a plot tree, you're thinking: A leads to B which could lead to C or D, depending, right? Well, let me say, you do need A. But cut everything forward of that. Your work must shift to making sure that A is full of leading-to-ness.

Quote from: Marcus.. I am concerned, however, that the former strategy is not going to work at all.

I agree. That would be like not even having A because you think making choices is against principal. Well, the player's choices, sure. But you are authorized and mandated to choose for the NPC's; furthermore, the NPC's choices must pose a choice to your players. That means it's a good idea for them to meet.

Hope this is helpful. Others, slap my hand or otherwise clarify if necessary.

Hello,

Marcus, if you're interested, check out practically any threads begun by Jesse Burneko (jburneko) in this forum. I also suggest contacting him by email or PM.

Everyone, let's give this thread a rest for a while and come back to its topics in new threads. The actual topic (Marcus' Sorcerer game) seems addressed, as there really isn't any said game, and now we seem to be moving into issues of general principles.

Best,
Ron

Although I don't agree with Ron's comment that I don't really have a Sorcerer game, I do agree that discussion on the problems I raised has pretty well run its course.

Your collected responses have given me food for thought. As Ron suggests, I may take up some of the general issues raised in new threads.

Thank you all.


Marcus