[Sorcerer] First Session -- unnamed as yet

[stingray20166]

Finally got to try Sorcerer!  I've been trying to set this game up since March and various issues kept interfering.  In a way this was good because it gave me time to get a few questions answered and get some suggestions from Ron.  I still have some questions, but they didn't get in the way of the game.

This game was played 4 weeks ago.  Tonight is the second session (although I had one player cancel due to work).

The three players are:  Harry, Rick and Rob.

I went with the Yizor house scenario, with the dead owner of the house being named Robert Schau (rhymes with how – it's a play on Rob's name 'cause Rob throws a massive Halloween party every year) -- for next time we will be generating "real" kickers but for this time the kicker was "why are you at the house?" – which led to a couple of rather dull kickers which I was pleasantly surprised to find were easy to spike.  

Initial characters were set up via email exchanges with all players.  I made the point that this was a cooperative endeavor and that everyone's sheet was open to everyone else.

Harry played:
Smokey – a 'Nam vet who is providing security and meeting his drug supplier.  His demon is Wuju, a tattoo of a Vietnamese alphabet character  whose desire is mayhem and whose need is to feed from Smokey's "witch's tit" – a third nipple that is Smokey's telltale.  He bound with Wuju when he killed Wuju's former master in a firefight in Vietnam.  Wounded himself, Smokey had to bind Wuju to survive (confer protection from fire).

Rick played:
Dr. Richard Albert Cross, professor of philosophy, who as a solitary adept found an ancient book that contained the formula for forming a philosopher's stone.  The ritual bound Anthracite, an object demon of the stone who desires corruption and needs to be bathed in blood.  Formerly engaged to Meredith Anne Solomon.

And Robb played:
Dr. Hobbs, a professor of folklore whose stamina and will are "fueled by bourbon."  Dr. Hobbs bound Gorn, an inconspicuous lizard with glowing red eyes who needs to eat small animals and who desires knowledge.  Has two teaching assistants, one of whom, Larry Grue, takes part in this story.

"So, why are you at the party?  Did you have your demon turn you invisible so that you could get hob-nob with the rich and famous?  Are you here to kill someone?  Did someone just try to kill you?"

That was the question I posed to generate the kicker.  The response:

Smokey – hired as a bouncer and is meeting his drug dealer there to get his next stash
Dr. Cross – "I got an invitation"
Dr. Hobbs – "I got an invitation"

Groan!  OK, let's see what what we can do with that – begin Actual Play!

Dr. Cross and Dr. Hobbs both received invitations.  But why?  It was decided that Dr. Hobbs had recently published a book of folklore which Schau wanted to talk to him about (Planting a thread here that the book contains sorcerous knowledge that Dr. Hobbs didn't realize at the time – may never use it but I threw it in as a plausible reason for Schau to invite the Dr. to the party).

And Dr. Cross  was invited by Yvonne.  Yvonne has been teaching Dr. Cross's ex-fiancée Meredith Anne Solomon sorcery.  Through Meredith, Yvonne found out about Dr. Cross and deduced he was a sorcerer, so she sent him an invitation but put Meredith's name on it.

(At some point, Harry asked what Mr. Schau did for a living?  My response: "What DOES Mr. Schau do? He's rich, he's powerful, but he doesn't seem to work anymore. He's not on Google. He's not on any public companies' financial reports. Hmmm.")

So, we started with "Smokey."  "Ummm, I'm sure Miss Yvonne doesn't call him Smokey."  "She calls him Mr. Smith," contributes Rick.  Grins around the table – of course she does!  So Mr. Smith arrives a half hour early to check out the place and meets Yvonne and the two passer demons,  Alfonso and Alfredo, who are dressed as butlers and appear to be identical twins (and who also appear like Bela Lugosi) – rember that my take was that this was a costume party, so this wasn't as unusual as it first reads.  It was decided that Yvonne and Schau had used Mr. Smith before so she left him to his arrangements.  She shook his hand as she turned to leave the room and Smokey's demon let out an internal shriek at the coldness of her touch.  

We then established the general layout of the house through Mr. Smith looking around and setting up a velvet rope barrier across the grand stairway in the central hall leading up to the second floor bedrooms.  

Dr. Hobbs, dressed in pith helmet and explorer costume, arrived right on time and after passing Mr. Smith's security check he headed for the bar (his stamina description – "fueled by bourbon").  He noted the unusual sculpture which was not recognizably from any culture he had studied.  He resolved to ask Schau more about it when he saw Schau again. (Bwa-ha-ha! goes the GM)

More guests arrived – many are in simple, elegant costume.  More Mardi Gras ball than Halloween party.  One of the chauffers discreetly approached Smokey and was admitted despite his name not being on the list.  This was Larry Grue – Smokey's rich college kid drug supplier and (bang!) one of Dr. Hobbs' teaching assistants.

Finally, Dr. Cross the Musketeer arrives, says hello to Dr. Hobbs (they knew each other through the academic community) and heads over to talk to Meredith.  She seems startled to see him, despite the fact that she sent him the invitation.

"Hello, Doctor Cross," she emphasizes the "doctor" to let him know that she has at least kept up with him since breaking up.  He had not yet earned the degree when she left.

"Hello, Meredith.  Thanks for sending me the invitation."

"I didn't send you an invitation."

Meredith decides that Yvonne must have sent the invitation.  As GM, I decided that Yvonne had let Meredith know that "something special" involving sorcerers was going to happen tonight.  Meredith also makes a crack about how "Yvonne has been teaching me the things I really wanted to know – the things you wouldn't".

Yvonne makes her entrance and Meredith goes off to join her.  Smokey takes the opportunity to conclude his drug deal with Grue and notices that 1) Grue then goes off to talk to Yvonne and appears to make a similar deal and 2) his demon has gone missing.  Smokey attempts to link to Wuju  but just gets back confused emotions of fear and being lost and being chased by something hungry.  Really hungry.

Dr. Hobbs meets Yvonne and kisses her hand.  When he does so, Gorn the Lizard starts shaking and his bowels loosen "tinkle, tinkle" on Dr. Hobbs' sport jacket.  After Yvonne moves off Dr. Hobbs says, "What the HELL is wrong with you?" "That woman, boss, she's a sorcerer!"  "AND? So am I!"  "But she's on the edge, boss!  Haven't you ever seen a sorcerer who has lost control of her demons?  Stay away from her, boss, please!"  

At this, Dr. Hobbs decides to take a look upstairs.  His goal is to find a book of magic in the library – to increase his demon lore by stealing from Schau.  Smokey stops him from going up and they note Meredith heading down the hallway to the bathroom.

Thwarted, Dr. Hobbs joins Dr. Cross in examining one of the sculptures.  They are surprised to see that someone appears to have drawn on the wall behind the sculpture.  And the ink is getting darker.  At that, Smokey's tattoo demon flies out and past them.  It smacks into Smokey's arm and trembles in fright.

Hobbs sends Gorn the Lizard up to look in the library.  He loves it, since his need is information!  Smokey sees him head up the stairs and follows after making a quick check that everything is OK downstairs.  

I casually mention that there seem to be less guests in the ballroom than there were.  "Are they leaving?" asks Rob.   "You haven't noticed anyone leaving."

Dr. Hobbs decides to start watching the door.  "I wonder if the whole house is a demon," Rob says.  Bang again, but this time for me, the GM!  I didn't expect that so soon!

Smokey arrives in the library and hears rapid page flipping.  "Is anyone there?" he calls out.  "Oh, shit!  Tinkle, tinkle, tinkle" he hears. Smokey rounds the bookcase to find a precarious pile of open books and a wet spot on the carpet.  (Already Gorn has a great personality and a predilection to wet himself at the first hint of trouble – he was really fun to play.)  

"So, did you find anything in the library, Gorn?"
"Yes, boss – there was this great book on British colonial warfare!"  
(Aside -- I'm toying with the idea that Gorn has a photographic memory, unknown to his master.  I'd like to lead to a "Why didn't you tell me?" "You never asked!"  moment and the glowing red laser eyes telltale just seems to scream out for a scene where Gorn produces a photocopy of something he's read.  But we'll see – you can see he's become the comic relief which means at some point when something serious happens he's going to be fun to "monster out" and kick demon butt!)

And then a scream – Meredith's scream – from the bathroom.  Smokey runs downstairs and nearly collides with Dr. Cross rushing to the door.  They pound on the door and hear sounds of a struggle.  So we roll the first dice of the evening as Smokey kicks the door down – he gets one less victory than needed so I decide he breaks the door down but it takes several kicks.  Smokey ain't as young as he used to be, you know.

(Aside -- The way I handled this "marginal failure" was totally driven by my reading of how to handle marginal failures in Heroquest from here on the Forge.  Thanks, everyone!)

They get the door open and the room is empty except for a mirror, razor blade and a line of coke on the mirror.  It looks like a couple of lines have already been snarfed.  

They decide to look around for Meredith.  Smokey heads for the back door.  "It doesn't appear to be where you left it," I tell him.  Rob asks if he has seen anyone heading out the front door, since he was watching it.  "What door?" I ask.  They're trapped!

Dr. Hobbs begins to draw a magical circle for protection and asks Dr. Cross for help.  "Shouldn't we make it bigger so that we can protect everyone?" Dr. Cross asks.  "I don't care about everyone, I care about me!" replies Dr. Hobbs.  Humanity check!  Dr. Hobbs loses 1 humanity.

Meanwhile, Smokey has headed back upstairs and is checking out all the rooms.  He hears breaking glass and opens one bedroom door to discover a bloodied Yvonne fighting with one of the passer demons.  Schau's skinned face blankly looks on from the ceiling.  "Help me!" she screams and Harry rolls Cover (former soldier) and Stamina for an astounding number of victories (10, I think) and knocks the passer out cold.  

I hadn't yet decided how to play Yvonne until this moment.  As it ended up she explained the situation to Smokey, told him that she had invited him here to feed him to the demon but realized that she would never break the cycle of abuse if she gave in to Yizor again.

The other passer meanwhile is downstairs attacking Dr. Hobbs, trying to bite his fingers off.  I give Hobbs a bonus die for the magical circle, but the passer still manages to wallop him pretty good.  Hobbs ignores the attack to try to banish the house demon, but fails.  Dr. Cross lands a weak blow on the passer.

Smokey leads Yvonne back into the room and sees the other passer demon still trying to kill Dr. Hobbs.  Smokey attacks the passer, the passer attacks Hobbs, Cross tries his own banish and Hobbs assists Cross.  Smokey gets his attack off first and the passer goes to full defense.  But Cover plus Stamina plus the damage Dr. Cross gave him is enough to finish him off.  I give Yizor a couple of penalties for the pentagram plus the fact that he has (rather suddenly) lost his two spawn.  With that plus a really horrible die roll for Yizor, Yizor is banished!  

We decide as a group that the house should fall apart in good horror movie style, so there is a quick race to the door (which reappeared upon Yizor's banishment) and the characters arrive outside to see Yvonne and Meredith squealing away in Schau's silver Rolls-Royce.  

Finis.

We had a blast with this game and everyone was eager to play again and on a regular basis.  So the second Friday of each month should see another game for us.

We had a couple of glitches with the mechanics, but everyone was understanding and I think we got everything straightened out.  Rick and Harry also have the rulebook and will read it before next time, so the mechanics should be clear to everyone.  I wish I had reviewed some of the combat discussions here before play, but I improvised and it turned out well.

Now to generate new kickers for next time!  And to work on the relationship map for the background story.

By the way, someone here on the board recently wrote something like "This was the kind of play I've always been looking for and never found."  Yeah.  That's it exactly.

[Yokiboy]

Hey stingray20166,

That was a fantastic read and will help myself through the Training Run.

Keep posting,

Yokiboy

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

Hooray! Thanks for posting about this. I'm gonna blaze through it really fast with lots of comments, so strap in.

Initial characters were set up via email exchanges with all players.

I suggest that this is exactly why the Kickers were bland. When all participants are creating their Kickers in one another's presence, they ramp up without being poked by the GM specifically. I do like your spiking, but to over-use the analogy, it's more fun to spike grape juice than tap water.

Most of your account about what happened doesn't tell me much until ...

"I wonder if the whole house is a demon," Rob says. Bang again, but this time for me, the GM! I didn't expect that so soon!

The nice thing about Sorcerer working is that you don't have to feed them anything or hide anything. They just get it or not, and play is OK whichever way, and there are lots of "its." And really, the house being a demon isn't supposed to be a mystery, just a situation. So good!

I love the incontinent demon.

(Aside -- The way I handled this "marginal failure" was totally driven by my reading of how to handle marginal failures in Heroquest from here on the Forge. Thanks, everyone!)

H'mmm. That's the sound of my eyes narrowing. I'm not big on overriding the fundamental point of the success/failure system in Sorcerer. As I see it, a failed roll means a failed goal. But OK, not a big deal, and arguably, the whole door situation wasn't a conflict. The way I'd have handled it is this: can Smokey get through the door in time to take an assertive action? Since he failed, I'd've said, "You get through the door," but then assigned the victories of the roll against him as a bonus to the next thing that did something nasty to him, reflecting that he didn't get through the door in a timely fashion.

They get the door open and the room is empty except for a mirror, razor blade and a line of coke on the mirror. It looks like a couple of lines have already been snarfed.

What? You included drugs in your Sorcerer game?! I am horrified. Shocked, I tell you.

Nice Humanity check on Dr. Hobbs, the stinker.

"Help me!" she screams and Harry rolls Cover (former soldier) and Stamina for an astounding number of victories (10, I think) and knocks the passer out cold.

Screeching brakes. Cover and Stamina? Did you add them together and roll the total number of dice? That is incorrect. Only one score is ever used as a base for a roll. The other score may augment through a preliminary roll, but that's all. Is there something else about this roll that I need to know?

Smokey leads Yvonne back into the room and sees the other passer demon still trying to kill Dr. Hobbs. Smokey attacks the passer, the passer attacks Hobbs, Cross tries his own banish and Hobbs assists Cross. Smokey gets his attack off first and the passer goes to full defense. But Cover plus Stamina plus the damage Dr. Cross gave him is enough to finish him off. I give Yizor a couple of penalties for the pentagram plus the fact that he has (rather suddenly) lost his two spawn. With that plus a really horrible die roll for Yizor, Yizor is banished!

H'mm. Why is Yzor trying kill sorcerers? It eats demons, but what it really wants is a master. Why didn't it start negotiating with player-characters for a new boss?

Best,
Ron

[stingray20166]

Initial characters were set up via email exchanges with all players.

I suggest that this is exactly why the Kickers were bland.

[Nods]  Probably so -- this was the launch of a new group and I wanted something to work with.  The email exchanges were all "reply alls" so they went fairly well, but I agree nothing beats face-to-face.

The nice thing about Sorcerer working is that you don't have to feed them anything or hide anything.

Yeah, and you've said that elsewhere so I was trying to fight my simulationist background "feed them clues until they get it".  I still need practice.

The way I'd have handled it is this: can Smokey get through the door in time to take an assertive action?  Since he failed, I'd've said, "You get through the door," but then assigned the victories of the roll against him as a bonus to the next thing that did something nasty to him, reflecting that he didn't get through the door in a timely fashion.

Lightbulb!  And groan that I didn't think of that!  OK, I was thinking the "can  he get through the door in time part -- but I wish I had thought of assigning the victories to the next action.  For instance, he could have witnessed the NPC getting pulled into the wall and tried to help her out.  

Ah well, next time.  

Screeching brakes. Cover and Stamina? Did you add them together and roll the total number of dice? That is incorrect.

No, just me being unclear -- and writing too long after the event.  What happened is that we rolled Cover with planning to roll the victories into the Stamina roll -- cover augmenting stamina.  

Now in fact Harry rolled a Total Victory on the Cover roll -- the only one of the night.  So that's why he was rolling all the dice.

Why didn't it start negotiating with player-characters for a new boss?

Good question.  I could have handled that better.

We did discuss that Yzor could be bound.  However, Rob was dead set against that (he's found of quoting "Do not call up what you cannot put down" so I think he was afraid to try to bind something so big -- I'll ask him before the next game) and was determined to banish him.  

I was going to have Yzor beg and plead a bit more after its second spawn was put down -- I was thinking that until then he was a bit arrogant.  I would probably play that differently now that I think about it.  For one thing, I should have made it more obvious that Yzor wanted the demons, not the sorcerers.  The attack against Rob's Professor Hobbs was dramatic, but really it should have been against his demon.  

Hmmm, maybe I could have had Yzor threaten to kill them unless they summoned more demons for him to feed on.  

That's good -- what I learned here is that I needed to have a more fully developed personality for Yzor.  I was concentrating so much on the PCs' demons that I left him out.  Have to watch that for next time.

Thanks for the questions, Ron.  And thanks for the compliment, Yokiboy.

Nick
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