[Sorcerer] Urban Squalor Character Gen (long)

[Michael S. Miller]

Well, we made our Sorcerer characters. I started off with the following:

Sorcerer One-Sheet
[Note: I've double-spaced this because nothing here is set in stone. Any ideas, questions, or concerns you have are most welcome.]

Humanity
Humanity in this game is defined as Empathy, the ability to imagine things from the perspective of another and thus showing concern for the well-being of others. Some actions that will trigger Humanity rolls are as follows:
Humanity Checks
* Causing pain to another living being
* Ignoring pleas for help
* Contacting, Summoning, or Binding a demon
Humanity Gains
* Acting in the best interests of another at one's own expense
* Banishing a demon that you didn't summon whose Power is greater than your Humanity
Humanity can also be rolled to determine the needs of another human being, or to appeal to another's empathy. A character who hits Zero Humanity is incapable of empathy—a sociopath.

Demons
Demons in this game seek to undermine humans' capacity for empathy. They fall into two broad types:
Demons of Cruelty
Appearance: horns, claws, tails and the like   
Naming convention: Long, Latin-sounding names
Demon types: Inconspicuous or Parasite
Typical desires: Mayhem, Vengeance   
Prices: Cynical, Scarred
Lore type: Apprentice, Mad
Telltales: Sulfurous smells, Spoiling milk, etc.
Ritual methods: heavy on the blood, chanting, and dusty tomes
Demons of Indifference
Appearance: almost plastic in its perfection
Naming convention: formal, but monosyllabic (e.g., Mr. Bronze, Ms. Rock)
Demon types: Passer or Possessor
Typical desires: Creation of Great Things
Prices: Arrogant, Still in denial
Lore type: Naif, Coven
Telltales: Inappropriate emotional response
Ritual methods: involve items of personal importance to victims who suffer

Here's the characters they crafted:

Chris:
Che Escamzua
Stamina 3 Scrapper
Will 5 Social Competence / High Self-Esteem
Lore 2 Apprentice
Cover 5 Gangster student
Price Prone to Rage –1 to all rolls when someone disagrees with him
Telltale: Scars from ritual

Che is a 15-year-old high school freshman, returning from a summer with his grandfather in Costa Rica. His parents sent him there to discourage his attraction to the gang lifestyle. While he was there, his grandfather initiated him into "the old ways" and he is now bound to Tixotopli, a being of local worship. (Chris, were you looking for a name of an authentic MesoAmerican diety? If so, I found the most amazing resource on names: Kate Monk's Onomastikon.

Tixotopli
Parasite (Cruelty)
Telltale: Insects are attracted to the area, but do not land on Che
Binding Strength: -1 in Tixotopli's favor
Need: Experience Pain
Desire: Hedonism? (Chris, does this question mark mean you're not sure? If so, would Competition (with other Demons) work for you? Or not...)
Stamina: ? — On the one hand, this kinda doesn't make sense for parasite demons of this conception, but game mechanically, it will provide a limit on how many times abilities can be used before the demon feels fatigue, so there's no mechanical reason not to set it equal to Lore.
Will: 10
Lore: 9
Power: 10
Abilities (all conferred except where noted): Cloak; Armor; Command Birds; Link (communicate w/ Che—not conferred); Perception (tell when someone is lying—Power v. Cover or Will); Travel (as a Cloud of Vapor); Transport; Fast; Boost Will (not conferred)

Kicker: He just returned from Costa Rica and found that his sister has been hospitalized after being beaten.

Kat:
Detective James Roseti
Stamina 3 Works out
Will 4 Determined
Lore 3 Coven Member
Cover 4 Police Detective
Price Narrow-minded –1 when dealing with sorcerers and demons outside of the coven
Telltale: coven-member ring & chest tatoo (of bound demon)

James is a cop in his mid-30s. He works hard to bring in the scum and the rules of the system and corruption doesn't make it any easier. A friend of his (an assistant DA) introduced him to a group that had found ways around the problem. They have a very strict conception of what beings can be summoned and do their best to keep their members from experimenting. The demons the coven deals with are considered useful and "good." Any other demons or sorcerers would be "evil." Life's looking up for James. He's got a hellhound bound to him that helps him on the job, and he's started dating a doctor who runs a clinic in the bad part of town (Michele's character, see below).

Demon: Canus Diablique
Parasite (Cruelty)
Telltale: Shape of the tatoo on James' chest
Binding Strength: -1 in Canus' favor
Need: Fear
Desire: Terrorize Humans
Stamina: 3
Will: 5
Lore: 4
Power: 5
Abilities (all conferred except where noted): Hold; Perception (Bloodhound-like sense of smell); Link (can communicate with Demon); Boost Stamina (not conferred)

Kicker: Has just discovered that his girlfriend's colleague at the clinic may be one of those "evil" demons.

Michele:
Doctor Liz Goodman
Stamina 3 Clean Living
Will 4 Belief System (Hippocratic Oath)
Lore 3 Solitary adept
Cover 4 Doctor
Price Paranoid (about getting caught) –1 to all actions unless under physical attack
Telltale: demonic-shaped scar on chest near heart

Liz is a doctor that runs a free clinic in the bad part of town. In the early days, while still struggling to make the clinic work, one of her patients died. His mother made an elaborate show of cursing Liz for her failure. As Liz's bad luck became worse, she took the curse seriously and and researched all she could about the occult in order to dispel the curse. She performed one of the ceremonies she discovered, and Dr. Ashe came to her. He said he could make the problems of the clinic, and the curse go away. He just needed some patients to "treat." Things have been going well since then, and Liz has even started dating a police detective, but she's having some second thoughts about the deal.

Dr. Ashe
Passer (Indifference)
Telltale: Does not bleed (or have blood)
Binding Strength: -2 in Dr. Ashe's favor
Need: Live humans to torture
Desire: Sensual gratification through torture (especially involving blood)
Stamina: 4
Will: 5
Lore: 4
Power: 5
Abilities: Cover (free: medical doctor); Cloak; Shapeshift (can appear as other people); Daze (this affects one perception roll, rather than "Power in minutes" as it can be used to stymie outsiders investigating the clinic); Confuse

Kicker: Liz has been approached by another demon, Doug Berg, who has offered to get her out of her deal with Dr. Ashe

Scott:
Darryl Johnson
Stamina 3 Youthful Vigor
Will 4 Survivor
Lore 3 Solitary adept
Cover 4 Student
Price Socially awkward –1 when having to socially interact with people
Telltale: self-tattoo on the back of left hand—Latin word for "Control" Scott, check out [url]http://catholic.archives.nd.edu/cgi-bin/lookdown.pl?control[/url and get back to me.

Darryl is a high school senior who has never fit in. He lives with his mom in the bad part of town, and they're about to get evicted. While cleaning out his mom's closet, he came across these old books describing rituals. He grabbed a little kid from down the street and bullied him into submitting. And then the little imp arrived. Things are looking up

Demon Name: Latin word for "Control" (again, Scott, get back to me)
Inconspicuous (Cruelty)
Telltale: smell of unwashed person
Binding Strength: +1 in Darryl's favor
Need: Verbal submission of others to Darryl
Desire: Power
Stamina: 3
Will: 4
Lore: 3
Power: 4
Abilities (Scott, we didn't note who the user was for these. See page 49 of Sorcerer & get back to me): Cloak (free); Psychic Force; Hold; Perception (read body language)

Kicker: Darryl's mom just found out that he's summoned a demon!

As you can see from the One-Sheet, I was very light on Color in getting things started. I basically said "Modern day, we're all in the same urban/suburban area, so that characters stories can cross." Then, as soon as the concept of "the bad part of town" got started, everyone shaped their characters around that. Thus, I'm calling the game "Urban Squalor" for the moment.

During the session, Chris started a good discussion about Lines: "What would make anyone too uncomfortable to play?" We decided to draw a Line at victimization of children.

The players have given me a lot of story stuff to work with. I'm crafting the R-map from the NPCs they provided rather than picking it up from somewhere else. It'll be a bit of a challenge to get them all on the same map, rather than multiple little ones, but I have some cool ideas.

Che is all about Latino gangs and MesoAmerican godlings (Power 10? That barely rates the term "demon" anymore! More like "Sir!"). I kinda wanted to make his a very violent story with lots of guns, gang wars and dripping fangs.

James has the responsibility of the badge versus his secret life as a sorcerer and the demands of his coven versus his budding romance. He's in a really tight spot, with everyone making demands upon him. And if a gang war erupts at the same time....

Liz has been doing the wrong thing for the right reason for some time now. Then this new guy comes along and offers her a way out. Or at least a different deal. I haven't crafted Doug Berg yet, but I need to make his offer compelling and repulsive at the same time. Plus, James will be sniffing around.

Darryl's back of sheet diagram has his mom dead center. She's a character that fascinates me. She used to be a sorcerer (which means she still is, mechanically), but she locked her books in a closet and, despite being broke for almost twenty years, hasn't pulled them out again. Who were her associates & enemies back then? What did she do? Why did she give it all up? I think my biggest challenge is going to be not protagonizing her—keeping the focus on Darryl.

Prep on my part is progressing slowly but surely. More on that later.

[Christopher Weeks]

Stamina 3 Scrapper
Will 5 Social Competence / High Self-Esteem
Lore 2 Apprentice

Stamina 3 Works out
Will 4 Determined
Lore 3 Coven Member

Stamina 3 Clean Living
Will 4 Belief System (Hippocratic Oath)
Lore 3 Solitary adept

Stamina 3 Youthful Vigor
Will 4 Survivor
Lore 3 Solitary adept

I think the similarity of the stats is fascinating.  I recall a post from Ron that specified a very limited set of stat-arrangements that saw much use, but this makes me wonder if our experience is exceptionally narrow, or if it's even more tight than the post I'm remembering suggested.

Chris

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

Those scores are indeed a little tightly concentrated, merely as an observation and comparison with games I've run. But I don't think that indicates any possible problems at all. Score values in Sorcerer are mainly a means to characterization, and only secondarily a niche issue, except perhaps for certain rituals conducted over many hours of imaginary time.

I tend to look across the Will descriptors, and from what I see in this bunch, you have tons of great opportunities. If two or more characters can ally to achieve a shared goal, they would be an extremely formidable force. If two or more desire incompatible goals, then they would bring about an extremely explosive confrontation.

Which of these gets going among which characters, and for how long, and about what, is what play will show us.

Mike, if you're interested in any prep advice, my call is to create veritable hordes of (what in other games would be called) minor NPCs. Not only should you make up a bunch, but also keep a huge name list by you and cherry-pick from it when you need another intern, a fellow cop, patients, fellow high school students, gang members, etc, etc.

It's hard to explain what I intend by this advice. I emphatically do not mean coming up with complex situations and plot hooks into prepped conflicts regarding these characters. I'm simply suggesting populating the imaginary world with them, insofar as the players are concerned. These characters will have their issues - totally mundane (medical, school, cop-stuff) - and those are just going on all the time. They will be present, directly and indirectly, in every scene.

Unless I miss my guess, you will see a number of them "adopted" by players and become seriously important participants in the interactions among player-characters, Kicker-important NPCs, and demons. I have never seen a role-playing game achieve such emotional intensity regarding "minor" characters better than Sorcerer, especially in a modern day setting, when the GM provides this kind of material.

And yeah, Mom, Dave Berg, and whoever you decide beat up the sister all represent the opposite concern: you have to adopt them, as if they were your star favorite NPCs, and play them accordingly. Think of these characters as the players' primary means of telling you what you can do for them, as story bass-player.

Best,
Ron

[Lisa Padol]

Looks good. Any odds of your running a Sorcerer game at GenCon or Origins?

-Lisa

[Mike Holmes]

That Tixotopli, that's my kinda demon. Way more than the character can handle without getting creative. I hope the cowards with the wimpy demons get thrashed thoroughly.

:-)

I second Ron's idea for prep. For me the idea would be that some of the NPCs are going to have to be disposable in this game - the people who do not recieve empathy (or, rather, who the players get egged on into making humanity-check-producing actions against people). Some will stay, some will flee. It'll be interesting to see who sticks, who dies, and who remains unscathed. NPC-wise.

Should be a name for that. Shotgun NPC Pattern?

Mike

[Michael S. Miller]

I tend to look across the Will descriptors, and from what I see in this bunch, you have tons of great opportunities. If two or more characters can ally to achieve a shared goal, they would be an extremely formidable force. If two or more desire incompatible goals, then they would bring about an extremely explosive confrontation.

Yeah, I just had a Eureka moment about Descriptors when I was rereading the rules in prep for the game. I realized they are, more or less, changing the name of the Score, thus work kinda like skills in Unknown Armies or descriptors in Theatrix or Over the Edge. Each character may only get one Action in a complex conflict, but playing to their descriptors can help them get more rolls.

Probably obvious to everyone else, but it just clicked for me.

Mike, if you're interested in any prep advice, my call is to create veritable hordes of (what in other games would be called) minor NPCs. Not only should you make up a bunch, but also keep a huge name list by you and cherry-pick from it when you need another intern, a fellow cop, patients, fellow high school students, gang members, etc, etc.

Cool. My prep was already going this way (which led me to find the name list I cited above--it's massive and everyone should check it out).


Lisa
I won't be running scheduled Sorcerer at GenCon or Origins (Munchausen & Orkworld @ Origins and Excelsior! @ GenCon), but my arm is always twistable for pick-up games.

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

I realized they are, more or less, changing the name of the Score, thus work kinda like skills in Unknown Armies or descriptors in Theatrix or Over the Edge.

Nail hammered home. The direct parent of this feature of Sorcerer is Over the Edge.

Best,
Ron