[Sorcerer] Sensing Humanity?

[W. Don]

Hello,

My friends and I are setting up a game of Sorcerer (about Greek myth & tragedy) and while mulling over our  proto-definition of Humanity we found ourselves anticipitating loss and gain situations. One of the questions that came up was: "How do you sense if someone's still human?"

Here's our preliminary Humanity definition: Humanity = Selflessness/self-sacrifice for another's sake. Self-sacrifice only counts (for Humanity gain rolls) in the context of human relationships. The city state isn't human. Demons aren't human. People with Humanity = 0 are not human.

The (theoretical) situation is: I'm loyal and devoted to my brother. He's been very bad.  Lately, his actions seem practically inhuman. I want to find out how bad it is, if he's gone completely over the edge or not. For some reason he's interested in keeping that from me. Conflict of interest. Roll dice. But what to roll?

Would my Humanity versus his Will work? Or is it Humanity vs Cover?

(It can't be my Humanity versus his lack of Humanity. That sounds like the way they play an alien version of some game that isn't Sorcerer on another planet that isn't Earth.)

Then again, if he's interested in keeping me from finding out, wouldn't that be a dead giveaway? Is my theoretical situation even worth worrying about?

Somehow, all this isn't resonating well with how I understand Humanity in Sorcerer. It's knots. The conceptual kind, but still knots. Please help. I can't seem to find any discussions about this on the fora.

Thank you,

- W.

[Ron Edwards]

Hello!

Here's a good link for you: Spartan Sorcerer. We discussed Humanity in the Greek/myth sense pretty thoroughly there, and it seems as if your group came up with some similar thoughts.

Now for your specific question - why are you even concerned with sensing Humanity in the first place? The reason I ask "why" is that any answer I can imagine is already accounted for by a Lore roll.

The exception is already in the rules, which state that a sorcerer can automatically tell when another person has lost Humanity in their past, which seems like a fair thing for a sorcerer to be able to know.

Best, Ron

[W. Don]

Spartan Sorcerer. We discussed Humanity in the Greek/myth sense pretty thoroughly there, and it seems as if your group came up with some similar thoughts.

That's a great thread. I went through it early on when the setting was just a little buzz in my head (said buzz began when it occured to me that the pass at Thermopylae was a demon, right after the 300 movie trailer blew my mind.) Now that I'm hammering out definitions and descriptors and getting lots of input from the players (they have begun throwing characters at me), it's time I revisited it.

Why are you even concerned with sensing Humanity in the first place? The reason I ask "why" is that any answer I can imagine is already accounted for by a Lore roll.

Aha. So: "Is he still human?" would perhaps be better rephrased (by myself to myself) as "Where's the demon here?"... Boink. Nice and crystal clear now.

In hindsight, I think I got tripped up by "any score can potentially be used in a perception roll, even Humanity" and was looking to fit a round peg into some hole, any hole, just because I had a round peg.

And for other stuff, this:

The exception is already in the rules, which state that a sorcerer can automatically tell when another person has lost Humanity in their past, which seems like a fair thing for a sorcerer to be able to know.

...ties thing up nicely.

I am now imagining some great "premise-addressing" moments where one of the players might go "To hell with it. He's my brother. Humanity or no Humanity,"  or alternatively, "He's not my brother anymore." And everyone at the table is going to flip. Good stuff. I'm off to massage my Humanity definition now.

Thanks for the help, Ron!

— W.