[Sorcerer] Write & Run Demons from the Hell-side of Town

[DannyK]

About the autistic younger brother:
I was just thinking of Rain Man, with Dustin Hoffman as the Sorcerer, putting up with his brother and taking advantage of his leet idiot-savant skillz.  

I'm always up for talking 'bout Nobilis, anytime.

[Judd]

I don't have many PC and Demon names so for the purposes of writing up these Bangs they are the Shrink, the Dealer, the Driver and the Moll.

* The Shrink sees someone dealing crank and she knows it is her Dealer's stuff...but his stuff was busted by the cops, right?

* The Driver is called by his Boss who wants to know where his son is, might ask to be driven around, not realizing the Driver was the last one to take him out.

* The Shrink is contacted by the local Mob Boss' son who is grief-stricken about the death of his brother.  Will it come out that he had him killed?

* The Driver is cornered by the Boss-Man's wife who wants to know where he was on such and such a date and time, when he was with his mistress.  The  wife knows and wants the affair put to an end.

* The Driver is given the number of the Shrink who is known to be people who knows people and might be able to help him suss out the death of the Boss-Man's murder.

* Those who whacked the Boss-Man's Son come looking for the Driver to finish it off when he get's some clues as to who did it and why.

* The police are after the Driver, who was left alive on purpose, so the hit could be pinned on him.  They are waiting at his apartment and a few of his known hang-outs the bartender will mention a plainclothes cop was just around to see him.[/list:u]

My heads full of cotton this morning but that's a start.

[Judd]

* The Dealer O.D.'s at a crucial moment.  

* The Dealer and the Moll are having a conversation in a dark corner while the Shrink and the Driver discuss the situation at hand.  Someone sees the Dealer has handed the Moll something...

* Word on the stree is that the Boss has Summoned Vitor "Vicious" to track down his son's killers.  Vitor just got out of the joint and is a known sociopath hardcase.  

(Vitor's Need, to kill other Demons and watch them die.)[/list:u]

[Judd]

I made up a character with Robert minutes before the game was set to begin.  This was rough on the pacing of the game.  The session worked but it makes a notable difference when I don't have a few days at least to mull over someone's character sheet and Kicker, thinking about where to go with it all.

Robert pitched a stockbroker who clawed his way out of the Hell-side of town and after his dad committed suicide his Ma, his Demon, came to live with him.  His Ma is a tough old, cursing, alchoholic bitch who always manages to find the roughest and nastiest thing to say to someone and break them down.

Telltale - Too immaculate, his suit never seems to get dirty and yet he is always compulsively brushing it off.

Stamina - 2 whip thin
Will - 3 Big Shot Ivy Leaguer
Lore - 5 Mastermind

Cover - 3 Stockbroker
Price - -1 Emotionally Disenfranchised (-1 to Will checks)

Kicker - He is on his way to meet a new client whose portfolio isn't made up of legally earned money.

Demon

Alchoholic Ma

Need - To be Pampered
Desire - Sensual Gratification

The Game

For brevity the characters and their Demons will be known as The Broker, Ma, The Shrink, the Dealer, the Driver and the Moll.

Rob's late entry made it rough and I jotted down a few Bangs and none of them seemed to move him.  I wasn't to hm playing such a dour character and silently grew frustrated with his stockbroker.

I started the game with the Bindings, always nice preludes.  In this game, where the Demons are actual people, the Bindings really set the tone for the entire game.

There were several Summonings and Contacts but I didn't feel, that with two Masterminds in the group, that enough was done or that the lines of Humanity were fussed with enough.

The Driver had all of the action sequences with tons of violence, really seeing how fast and furious the action turns bloody and ugly in this game.  Matt used thsi terrain to his advantage and did some neat stuff.  Hitting the breaks to get a goon with a garrotte off of him and driving a hitman over a fourth story railing to his broken doom.

My Bangs weren't precisely where I wanted them, as it came out during play that Kay, a local boss' son, was the one who killed his brother, Little Absolom, the man the Driver was driving around in his Kicker.

After three and a half hours of round-robin play I got everyone into a jail cell together, in a very Usual Suspects moment and they realized that Kay was behind the hit, the Boss' wife was the Sorcerer, the person behind the Demons and that they had to show that Kay was behind all of it somehow.

The game ended with a calculated scheme that amounted to a great Banishment Ritual, forcing Kay to lose his temper while his dad sat in the next room and heard him bragging aboutthe money he made off of his brother's hit.

It was good stuff.

Humanity was lost due to Summonings, when Joe Kelly tried to Summong Shamus O'Malley but instead got McLaren, his little dim brother (failed Summoning roll) and when Joe tortured one of the hitmen who tried to kill him.

Contacts and Summonings lost some humanity too.  Cynical's a nasty price.

The Shrink gained Humanity when she braved a cop's sting to give bail money to one of her clients whose husband was caught in her Demon's warehouse being busted.

Overall Thoughts

Making all of the characters together in advance makes a big difference.  It didn't kill the game but it dented it a bit.  

The action sequences were exciting, fast and brutal.  A PC was shot, noses were bitten and it all ended with a big stand-off with many guns pointing all over the place.

A good time was had by all and the game ended on a resoundingly positive note.  Everyone was interested in playing more Sorcerer, seeing what else the game could do.

Next time I play this game I will push for a character creation session, I'll ease the players into the idea of going to 0 Humanity as a fine outcome filled with as much drama and awesomeness as any other.

[DannyK]

Hmm, last one was a weak character with a weak Demon.  (Although that's a great idea, mother-as-demon.  Makes me think of that old Cagney flick.)

Sounds like a good game, though.  Did any Kickers get resolved?

[Judd]

All of the Kickers get resolved in a neat endgame final scene.  All of their Kickers were linked to Kay's move on his brother's territory.  It all worked out rather neatly, especially after everyone talked through the bars of their prison while the bail was being set.

That was when they put all of the pieces together and made their final plans.