Sorcerer at Phantasm -- adaptation of "In Utero" from Sex and Sorcery

[epweissengruber]

Points of Interest
- Adapting the Scenario
- Introducing Players to Sorcerer
- Humanity Rolls

Overview:
This was the most well-focused and intense scenario I ran at the con.  Play consisted of 4 adult players, one of whom played in my Sorcerer game last year, one very inventive role player, a woman who had played in my morning Heroquest session, and a new player who was mature and handled the role of Robert Scurlock quite well. 
The venue was a amazing, a wide open room with 1 glass wall looking over the city as the sun set.  On the wall were grotesqe pictues of vaudevillians who had perfomed at the town's opera (or "Opry") hall.  It really helped create a mood.

Sorcerer Veteran:

• Chose Lucien the fetal/boy sorcerer carried in the belly of a demon.
  He lept to this right away and knew when to employ rituals and team up with another sorcerer.

Female Player

• Chose the "real" Jennifer, carrying a demon in her womb.
  Did not know much about sorcery and rituals but played up the kicker of her character very well.
• Great dialogue with Robert
• She said that Sorcerer was the system she had been looking for and would love to run it next yeart

Inventive Role Player

• Usually GM's over-the-top games that riff on pop culture.  His GI Joe game is popular every year and this convention he ran both a "Smurfs vs. Gummi Bears" game and a "Gummi Bears vs. Smurf Game."
• I gave him the role of Steffanie to play, and wondered what he would do with a smart, female, graduate student sexually involved with her professor.
• He did an amazing job.  He played her as a reasonable and rational individual.  When Steffanie was blasted by the telekenetic force of Jennifer's demon and came face to face with the "Jennifer" bearing Lucien, the player made some amazingly smart decisions.
• As a player, he knew that there were 2 Jennifers, but reminded me that all Steffanie had seen was a wan, wasted woman wearing a Motley Crue tee-shirt and the same woman wearing a Cinderella tee-shirt.  The player chose not to make any perception roll to detect the tell-tale.  Instead, he role-played Steffanie's disgust with Robert's treatment of the woman and called for a cab.

Blurb
What rough beast, its, hour come at last, is slouching towards its home to be born? 

In this scenario, players take the role of victims of a sorcerous experiment gone wrong.  A university professor, his wife, a demon, and the professor's fetal offspring are survivors of the experiment who reunite for the first time after the disaster, and attempt to settle scores.  What shape will the "family" take after all dust has settled?   Sorcerer is Ron Edwards' groundbreaking narrative-focused indie RPG.  Player limit: 4. 


Adapting the Scenario
I wanted a 3 to 4 hour scenario.  I expanded on the original by making an NPC a PC and give her a sexual stake comparable to that of the original PC.  I didn't specify what the outcome of Steffanie's confrontation with Robert would be, I thought she might want to make their relationship more permanent or break it off entirely.  The player chose the latter.  She did, however, demand that Robert take some responsibility and help her deal with the threat posed by a graduate student who had discovered their clandestine affair.  The player's response to this kicker was to try to work out a plan of response that would save both their academic careers.
The session, bolstered by this complication, ended up lasting 4 hours.

Introducing Players to Sorcerer

• I made an error that might be useful for future demos or convention scenarios where I want to push the action forward and limit waffling.  The players picked up the dice mechanics, rolling Cover and Humanity very quickly.  I forgot to mention that characters could abort stated actions and revert to a full defence.  So we followed the loose declaration of actions.  But once the dice hit the table, there was no going back.  All actions resolved simultaneously, with penalties or bonus die applied to the next round.  Conflicts got nasty pretty quickly, but it worked in this situation.  I might very well repeat this practice in situations where I don't want a lot of waffling.

Humanity Rolls

• Players are used to separating inter-character talk from mechanics.  I put conversations into mechanics right off the bat.  This signalled to players that they would have to engage in a style of play that they were not used to.  When Robert rejected Steffanie's demands for help and guidance, and asked her to leave, BAM Humanity roll.  When he got through without a Humanity loss, I had the chance to explain that a Humanity roll is not punishment for doing something wrong, but is rather an indication that their action puts their Humanity at risk without automatically diminishing it.
• I gave all PC's confrontations in which they put their Humanity at risk.  Jennifer resisted the call to eat a person quite handily.  Lucien got ahold of some raw meat for his demon by frightening a storekeeper with "Jennifer's Travel ability.
• But he incurred a Humanity check when he let "Jennifer" steal some money.
  Steffanie's player kept pushing Robert for assistance, and I quantified her appeals to Robert's humanity as a Humanity contest.
• Unlike last year's game, this was NOT "angsty superheroes with demons" but what I would consider to be proper Sorcerer play.

[Ron Edwards]

Wow! Amazing.

This might merely be purism talking, but I do recommend practicing your cancel-action-fu in GMing and playing Sorcerer. It's right then that often constitutes the most significant moral decisions during play.

Announcement: "I blow that motherfucker's head clean off!"

[dice roll, action comes really late]
[various things happen that change everything about the situation]

Action when an attack's incoming: "Abort! I put up the gun and say, 'No. He lives. Touch him and die.'" (then roll full dice for defense)

That sort of thing happens all the time in the confused dust-ups that characterize Sorcerer combat. A player once described the combat rules as "like grabbing a live wire."

Best,
Ron

[epweissengruber]

I normally run the rules as is, and allow a default to Stamina for pure defence.

But I noticed how smoothly the simultaneous resoultion I accidentaly established actually worked.

[epweissengruber]

Final Tableau:

Robert in near shock, cradling what looks like a very premature baby.  Next to him there is a wan, wasted woman with busted lip and a self inflicted wound to her abdomen.  The knife is in her hands.  They are sitting in a fiery pentagram.  A member of the Chicago Police Department is standing in the doorway, gun drawn.  His partner is stammering into the walkie-talkie, asking the man's concerned girlfriend for guidance.  The man is muttering "save my family," the woman is muttering "save my baby," and the girlfriend is telling the cop not to shoot but to arrest the madwoman who attacked her and Dr. Sculock.  The baby is holding on for dear life, using the willpower it has developed in negotiating with a demon for 8 years to stay alive.  The cop retains his cool, and decides to take the woman to a hospital.

How Did We Get Here?

• The two Jennifers were at each other's throats, and the real Jennifer unleased a blast that ended up injuring her fetal son, carried inside the demon that was attacking her with a knife
• Robert had searched through his records and ran down to his ritual space to prepare a Banish on "Jennifer"
• Meanwhile, Steffanie had been heading home in a cab.  When the cabbie suggested that she should phone the cops to deal with the crazy woman in Robert's apartment, my WEAVING brought Steffanie back in the scenario, making choices about what should happen to her lover and to the woman who was threatening him.  Steffanie's player never went for the obvious.  Even when Jennifer, her child, and her husband seemed reunited, the player did not give into sentiment.  His character kept pushing to protect Robert from a madwoman -- but she never became so nasty as to tell the freaked-out cop to shoot Jennifer.
• Robert ran to the lower level of his townhouse and the Jennifers broke off combat.  The demonic Jennifer made it there first.  Robert unleashed a mighty banish on her, but it was not fully successful.  When the real Jennifer showed up, she unleashed demonic attacks, one of which ended up hurting her son.  But in the end, "Jennifer" was banished
• This left a premature baby dropping through the air from a height of about 3 feet.  This was kind of a grotesque image, a little comic even.  I had in mind a stark Frank Miller-style series of slo-mo snapshots, but there were a few giggles
• The demon in Jennifer, fearing for its existence, tried to persuade her that she would be better off with him and not her real child.  Jennifer took the knife "Jennifer" had brought and turned it against the demon inside.
• The demon, weak from Jennifer's assault, was handily banished by Robert
• At this point, I decided, the cops -- guided by Steffanie -- bust into the scene, unsure if they should arrest everybody, take them to the hospital, or just start plugging some satanists
• Note: Steffanie stayed outside of the condo.  But she was an integral part of the final confrontation anyway.  In fantasy games, such spatial dislocation can be bridged over with seeing stones, spells acting at a distance, etc.  Now we have hight tech cell phones, blackberries, etc.  In pre-tech and non-magical scenarios you would have to arrange Dickensian conincidences, whereby one character's actions carried out independently has an amazing coincidental effect on a person in another time or place.  Alternatively, you could have a well-timed Wilkie Collins-style letter arrive to clear up or add to a mystery.  If you follow the scenario's lead and do a flashback to some earlier conflict or ritual that bears on the situation unfolding in the present, you could have a character who has been pushed out of the present action engage in a conflict that ends up having a delayed effect that is only fully felt during the conflict now unfolding.  Imagine a player whose PC has been killed making a decisive contribution to the climactic conflict of a scenario by describing an emotional email left on an NPC's computer, or describing a sorcerous talisman going kablooie as the surviving characters enter into endgame

I love this hobby and I love this game.

[Ron Edwards]

I kind of like the way your post trails off into agrammatical raving-enthusiasm, but I really hope you never do anything that leads to a high-publicity trial ... it'll probably be evidence of some kind.

Anyway, great post! That's a remarkable outcome, because Stephanie ends up being more-or-less the bad guy, doesn't she? You mentioned how well the player went into Author Stance (my translation of your description). I'd also be interested in how Robert's player established sympathy for his character.

And Jennifer killing the demon in her own body? Yikes! I haven't seen that one before.

Best,
Ron

[epweissengruber]

This is what happens when the edit function is disabled.

And I type anything  before my first cup of coffee.

[epweissengruber]

[a revision of my previous, ill-phrased post]

This scenario taught me that a character who has been eliminated from a scenario can continue to participate despite the fact that that player's fictional protagonist has been eliminated or is spatially or temporally separated from the main action.

Sex and Sorcery recommends that a flashback moment be inserted into the scenario.  During play, the players can decide what happened at the ceremony 8 years ago.  Carry over bonuses or penalties from that ritual can be applied to events unfolding in the present tense, the tense in which the scenario began unfolding.  I did not flash back to that ritual, but the in-play experience suggested how flashbacks could be inserted at ANY moment of play and could be used to retain the active involvement of players whose protagonists were killed, had left the scene, or were otherwise not immediately present while a major conflict was unfolding.

Imagine a situation where player A's character, Mr. X, has been killed in a violent conflict that was unplanned by the GM.  How can player A be allowed to participate during the next 3 hours?  Perhaps the GM can create a flashback where Mr. X carries out some action that has an delayed effect on the conflict that other characters are engaged in.

[sample transcript]
A:  Damn, X won't be able to confront the business partner who cheated him!
B:  Well, Y continues his limo ride to Evilcorp headquarters after they call 911 and get Mr. X's remains picked up.
C:  Yeah, Mr. Z jumps in the limo and gets on the cell with the Evilcorp CEO:  "Ohmigawd, you killed X!  You bastard!"
GM:  Hey X, remember back in 2007, when X was fighting with his wife about whether he would get revenge on Mr. Evilcorp or if you would move to Nebraska with her?
A:  Yeah, why don't we pit my Will against her Humanity.  If I stick with my plan for revenge, I will write an email ...
GM:  And when Y and Z read X's posthumous email, they can use the information to blackmail him!
A:  Just what I was thinking!

[A and GM resolve the conflict with the wife]
[B and C set up a conflict with the GM's character, Mr. Evilcorp]

C: [lets loose with a vicious tirade about Evilcorp's ways and uses his "Liberal Activist" Cover to shame Evilcorp]
B:  "Hey, jerky boy, why don't you open up your email, you Blackberry toting yuppie scum!
GM:  "OK, Z and Y, cool your heels." [checks email]
GM:  "Damn you, damn you bastards to hell.  X knew about my plan to send out demon-tainted software with every one of the laptops we manufactured?  This changes everything!"
[C resolves his Cover roll with 1 bonus die from B's impassioned role play and 5 bounus die that represent X's venemous rage, a rage not cooled by his wife, a rage that has been sitting in a timed-delivery email for 2 years, waiting for the day when X failed to send in his security code.  Evilcorp loses badly.]
GM:  "X sent this to all of the papers?  The sattelite networks?"
A, echoed by B & C: "Damn right!"
GM: "Maybe I better cut you guys in on a deal Evilcorp is cooking up."

Perhaps a player in a medieval scenario could claim that her character left a secret curse in a spell book.  She sets up some kind of conflict, and the device sits around for a decade but comes into play just as her fellow players break into the library of an enemy and find the curse the first player decided to write in a flashback sequence.

A player cut out from the action can continue to affect it through Dickensian coincidences ("I happened to contact my aunt about Lord Evilfief's behavious and she happens to run into your characters down in Wapping") or Wilkie Collins-cum-Lovecraft influential letters ("If you are reading this, Professor Evilmind has slain me.  Know that I never gave up my love for him even as he delved into the utmost depravity").