[Sorcerer] Cunning Demons with Cunning Plans?

[Doyce]

From this thread: http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=8230#top

With a demon like this, they often become big villains. Veniamin in the recent necromancy game is a good example, and it's only Power 8, but with a real wham-bang combination of abilities. The reason is that they're usually very mobile and given their high Lore, able to assess whatever sorcerous hassles are going on one step ahead of the player-characters. By the time the characters meet Guy X or Thing Y, the big demon's probably already cut some sort of deal with it.

Emphasis mine.

In the current Sorcerer game I'm running (which I note Ron has flattered me by linking off the Actual Play pages at the Sorcerer site), I've yet to have a 'small' demon in terms of power and Lore, and this observation above seems particularly important.  Considering that, at this point, the players have already encountered a power 10 or 11 demon, who (possibly) destroyed his own master, and have themselves introduced three demons who all have at least Power 7 and Lore at least 2 points higher than the best PC's score...

... not to mention another newly-introduced Power-tripping, Power 10 demon very much in the mode of Monicus from the core book.

Lesse:
- Three PC-bound demons at somewhat high Power and Lore, all of whom seem to have some things in common with each other, even though the characters don't.
- Two truly high-end demons, both of whom seem to have developed a case of Dead Master recently.

It all seems to add up to a game in which the demons are 'playing' the sorcerers, always one step ahead and aiming for something definitively Bad.  I've been looking at who might have arranged for specific deaths to occur, focusing on humans and Sorcerers in the relationship map, but ignore the Bound Demons -- that's starting to seem like a silly oversight.

Has anyone else played through a series in which the player's own demons (or key NPC demons) were the power behind the plot?

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Doyce,

You are just full of questions. I'm considering introducing a "Jesse Burneko Motorboat Award" to the forum *, and you're definitely a candidate.

I suggest two things - one which is a big Yes reply, and one which is a big No reply.

1. Big demons indeed do big things. If they can travel around and do stuff on their own, they will. They'll have secrets, agendas, and lots of Power to act as a bank if they get hit with a Punish or if they have to do without their Need for a little bit.

2. The sorcerers are the protagonists. That means that the demons provide problems and opportunities, but do not themselves, make the climactic decisions which carry moral weight. Phrases like "always one step ahead" and "power behind the plot" seem, to me, to be going too far in terms of breaking this key principle. Bigger demons means bigger problems and opportunities, but not replacement or overshadowing the sorcerers in terms of story significance.

Best,
Ron

P.S. Motorboats go "but but but." It's an award, though, seriously - not a slam.

[Fabrice G.]

Hi Doyce,

actually I do. I've found it happens often with high power demons -- as you noted.

It went that way for my first Sorcerer game. To sum up, one of the player cam up with a Power 13 demon, that quickly became the main villain of the story. The demon was behind the illness of the character's lover, and it was about to kill her, out of *love* for the character.
As it comes from the player initiative -- HE created the demon, but I decided and played the demon afterward -- it didn't cause any problem, and led nicely to the conclusion that Demons were dangerous individuals with goals and meaning, not just tools providing their master with super powers.

From that game, and in all the other stories, all the demons always have been really important NPC -- baring one or two exceptions. So what you're describing : the powerfull demons "playing" the sorcerers, seems really okay for me. The point is : the more powerfull the demon, the more important a NPC he becomes in term of story impact.

The only problem I could foresee would be if that situation breaks some undefined but preset expectations of the player that their demons would be "at their order". Otherwise, just play it hard on them, they'll understand why it's bad to have Über-demons around. :)


Fabrice

[Doyce]

You are just full of questions. I'm considering introducing a "Jesse Burneko Motorboat Award" to the forum *, and you're definitely a candidate.

Hmm.  I think of my questions as more "tell me about what you did in your game" than Jesse's (albeit sometimes very useful) "how the hell did you intend this to work?" stuff (although I've done that too :)

My OCD just wants to see lots of people talking about the games I'm currently thinking about, and if I have to start the conversations myself, well... :)

2. The sorcerers are the protagonists. That means that the demons provide problems and opportunities, but do not themselves, make the climactic decisions which carry moral weight.

Re: Sorcerer protagonists -- absolutely.

Yeah, I should have just said "how have you used demons, even PC's demons as the bad guys?", except that demons are sort of designed to be bad guys most of the time anyway, and I wanted to focus on "Demons as Master Villain" things.

[Lxndr]

In my Sorcerer game Razing Arizona (a play-by-post game going on over at RPOL), two PCs have a Lore of 1, one has a Lore of 2, and one has a Lore of 3.  (a former PC also had a Lore of 1).

The initial set of PC demons were Lore 9, 8, 9, 9 (and the Lore 8 demon was boosted to Lore 9 after I rolled one extra die during the binding ritual 'cause everyone else was Lore 9 and I wasn't thinking, and the player said "don't re-roll, I'll just take an extra power").  The new PC, who joined after another one bowed out, made his demon with Lore 6, but by that point the four powerhouses had been throwing their weight around.

So, I've been juggling these massive demons from the very first story post, and they're not even necessarily the most powerful demons in the game (one of the characters summoned up a demon that he wanted, explicitly, to be a more powerful demon that'd scare his current Lore 9 monster... so he got what he wanted).  It's been... interesting, to say the least.

Also interesting was that, out of the original foursome, three were Object demons, two unable to move under their own power (the other was a motorcycle - Slade and Zed will be missed).  One was Inconspicuous, and the new PC brought in a Passer.  But I digress.

Yes, to one extent or another, the machinations of these demons are important to the story.  But high Lore, and high Power, aren't everything.

[Doyce]

Anyone ever had a PC's demon plot to rid itself of the pesky master? :)

[DannyK]

Wow.  It makes me think a little bit of the movie Angel Heart, where at the end (do I need spoilers for such an old movie? Here goes...








...that should do it.)

It turns out that the string of murders Harry Angel has been trying to solve were all committed by Angel himself, in the grip of his inner demon.  This kind of effect is hard to pull off in an RPG, though.

Danny

[Mike Holmes]

The only problem with demons getting rid of their masters is that they need the master to feed their need, else they go back from whence they came. Hence the dysfuncitonal relationship - the sorcerer gets power from a duplicitous and corrupt demon, and the demon has to refrain from killing the sorcerer to stay around, even if it hates the sorcerer.

What might be more likely is the demon arranging with another sorcerer to be "adopted" after killing the sorcerer (though, as I remember there are wierd logistics involved here). Or the demon does what it can to change the sorcerer to someone he can live with. Which is the parallel for the person who tries to change their mate. Always collosally bad results.

Mike

[Lxndr]

well, demons need their Needs fed.  there's nothing explicit in the definition of Need about requiring their sorcerous master to do it, but generally speaking that's the arrangement.  Obviously, YMMV depending on your definitions of demon, etc.  But the rules don't forbid a demon feeding its Need apart from a sorcerer.

And just because a sorcerer is dead, doesn't stop a binding from going on.  So some demons, those whose Needs they can figure out a way to meet without a sorcerous master (like those passer Demons who just want lots of nice, yummy blood), could justify getting rid of their Master (all the benefits of binding, none of the hassles!).  

Other demons' needs are either harder to get without a master (an immobile Object demon that needs to be fed blood) or impossible (a demon that needs to drink its MASTERS blood - can't do that without a master).  These probably wouldn't want to knock their master off unless they saw some greater good out of it (better master, etc.)

[Mike Holmes]

Check out this thread:

http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=4410

It covers all of these issues in quite a lot of detail. Ron's last post is particularly important.

Mike