In Utero - first Sorcerer session

[droog]

I ran Sorcerer on a rather impromptu basis last night at the game club. My players for HQ all had something else to do, so I took along a little grab-bag of games. I asked three unoccupied guys if they were interested in playing a one-shot of a new game, showed them the book and we were away.

I was so unprepared that I'd forgotten to bring character sheets, so the guys had to write their stuff down on scrap paper. It didn't seem to matter. One guy immediately grabbed the professor and there was a little tussle over who was to play Lucien, the foetus. But it all settled down and we got to the situation.

Ryan was unintentionally hilarious when having the Serious Relationship talk with Stephanie. He got his first Humanity check when he told her she wasn't being logical. He copped a lot of good-natured flack from his friends about his total lack of empathy and compassion for women. These academics.... He spent most of his time trying to establish just which of the lookalikes was his real wife. Poor Stephanie immediately got the cold shoulder, and stormed out of the house.

Ben did a great job with Jennifer, focussing on the 'Angry Love' descriptor. He spent a lot of time musing about just what sort of experiences she'd been having for ten years, and decided that her use of sorcery was largely unconscious.

Gary spent a lot of time trying to speak through 'Jen's' mouth and failing Will rolls; but in the end decided that she was hindering his progress, Punished her and Banished her from within the womb. Cue crying infant on the rug.

Ryan then decided that the other Jennifer was his real long-lost wife and Banished 'Jen', whereupon Jennifer finally gave birth to her son (who vanished from the rug).

We had no real system issues. I think I may have gotten a few minor things wrong, but it all went smoothly. The die mechanic was understood immediately, and applied without confusion.

The players said it had been a good game and we sat around and discussed it for about 45 minutes afterwards (including chatting about various alternative settings). I think that there were opportunities I could have played up more, but overall I was pretty happy.

One question I got from Gary was 'Was that what was supposed to happen in the module?' Interesting, huh? He was tickled pink to be the foetus: his comment at the end was that it wasn't something he could say every night he went home from rp club.

[droog]

One more thing I think is significant: I went outside for a smoke at one point (after the end of play). Not one of the three players smokes, but they all followed me out to keep discussing the game.


Another thing I noticed about playing at a club. At one point a fellow came over to the table and (rather rudely) interrupted to talk about another game they were playing (Vampire). Here's the thing: all that talk was about the powers their characters had and the politics of the various clans. All our Sorcerer talk was directed towards the situation and the characters. Significant?

[Ron Edwards]

Wow!

I am really happy to learn about this. Here are my questions.

1. All guys, right? I think it's neat that they found themselves concerned to any extent about representing the female characters' interests well.

2. What did you learn about the rules? Did you find yourself utilizing the unusual sequencing/ordering rules of Sorcerer in the way I described in that chapter?

Best,
Ron

[droog]

1. Yes, all guys. Ben has been playing HQ with me over the last few weeks and I think he's dying for narrativist play without knowing what it is he wants. He took to HQ like a duck to water. Last night, he really played Jennifer as angry and determined, but confused.

2. I've been feverishly studying the Adept Press forum and the wiki for the last three weeks, so I was pretty comfortable with the mechanics. I took the opportunity to explain several features, such as how important Kickers were in writing up your own characters.

We had one four-way contest where 'Jen' attempted to bash Jennifer, Jennifer used Warp to dissolve the vase she was being attacked with, Lucien tried to halt the action, and Robert tried to grab the vase. The free-and-clear phase established the situation, then the rolls resolved it (Jennifer went first and the vase dissolved, so the other actions aborted). The players understood the sequence perfectly, without extra explanation, as far as I could see. It was a bit surprising, but maybe I lucked out with some system-monkeys.

There's a few wrinkles I need to sort out, and we didn't really use the roll-over rules at all, but I don't anticipate any trouble once I read over the book some more. [Note to self: do not skim rules for Sorcerer].

So I'm not sure exactly what I learned (my head's a bit full at present), except that I need a bit more study and practice. But I was satisfied with it as a first run.

[droog]

The players understood the sequence perfectly, without extra explanation, as far as I could see. It was a bit surprising, but maybe I lucked out with some system-monkeys.

Another way to see that, of course, is that the rules are actually natural and intuitive. We crap on for a while and establish the scene, then we roll. Pretty straightforward, really. How else would you do it?

Similarly, the dice mechanic is easy to understand and kind of fun. Boy, were there a lot of d10s on that table.

[Ron Edwards]

Hiya,

Another way to see that, of course, is that the rules are actually natural and intuitive

Well, that's how I see it, but then again, I'd say that, wouldn't I?

Again, I greatly appreciate the posting. Do point out to Ben that female characters are often wonderful sources of drama and conflict in HeroQuest. Glorantha is just loaded with gender-based coolness.

Best,
Ron

[droog]

Here I am again after running In Utero, again, at the club. This time I gathered two boys and a girl, who brought her sister to watch.

I'm actually quite a bit older than all of them, being probably almost twice their average age. And the sister was in Year 9--that's about 14 here.

So, the game was quite different tonight. Lisa brought a gentleness to Jennifer that hadn't been there in Ben's portrayal. We had some great dialogue going between her and foetus-Robert. She and her sister talked about how cute the 'little baby demon' was and felt some genuine sorrow over its fate (genuine insofar as I am any judge, that is). Lisa is very new to roleplaying, having only played one other game; for which she felt the need to apologise up front. I didn't find it a problem, needless to say.

Robert might have been a bit of an ass last week, but this week Vu played him as such a bastard liar and manipulator (not to mention an idiot, at times) that the final scene was Jennifer taking her baby and Robert's Lexus and driving away. Vu managed to get so many Humanity checks that Robert was down to 1 by the end. I sincerely hope the boy was playing a role, and not himself. It was pretty interesting to have the girls watching this performance, because they commented quite a bit ('Why did you marry this guy?').

Sam wasn't very proactive as Lucien, so I had to prod him a bit. Actually, the whole game seemed a little slower-paced. It took about four hours as opposed to about two-and-a-half last week, and the game time stretched out over several days. Part of this was probably me not driving hard enough, but there was also a lot more anxious deliberation over the possible outcomes. While last week the three guys just went ahead with the ritual, this lot tried hard to puzzle out the logical solution first. It felt a bit as if they were playing in CoC investigator mode.

I played the demons slightly differently both in personality and mechanics. The final Banish ritual banished both demons at once, partly because there had been several failed rolls, partly because it was getting late, and partly because I kept a sharp ear on the players' conversations and that was what they were expecting.

Another win for In Utero. The players all enjoyed themselves thoroughly. I wonder how long I can keep this up?

[droog]

I've been thinking about the game for the last couple of days. What have I learnt? I'm still struggling to put it into words.

I learnt a few more details of the system, but at this point I'm not sure that that's the most valuable part. I'm not saying that system doesn't matter--that it does was something I realised long ago in transition from RQ3 to Pendragon.

What I did learn was more general. Lets talk about love. Ron was spot on when he wrote:

The key is not 'love itself', but rather 'what you do with it,' .... The terrifying problem is that one might well put a lot of power and energy into one of these aspects of love, yet perhaps fail at the others.

But even worse is over-idealised love, which fails at an even more crucial level because it lacks the empathetic element. It is the horrific reality of True Love: 'I'll do anything for you.'

See, I've been there and done that from both sides. In my gut I know that what he's talking about is true. But to see it in action, in a roleplaying game, with young players, simply through playing out the situation without any real machinations on my part, was something new to me.

I don't know if I could have run this game ten years ago. I doubt that my own moral sense was sufficiently developed; leaving aside my own illusionist style at the time. I was wrestling too hard with my own demons and humanity consciously to aim for such issues in a game. Any narrativism in my games was haphazard and partly unconscious.

Now I'm a high school teacher, and the other night I had at the game table a high school student. And she and I both learned or confirmed some things about men, women and love; in the same way that you can learn or confirm truths through literature. I took that responsibility pretty seriously, I can tell you. And yet ... it was all fun.

I think I might have learnt some things about my job.

[Ron Edwards]

High five to you, my friend.

"You've never seen role-playing like this before," says the back cover of the core book.

Best,
Ron