[Sorcerer] If at first we don't succeed...

[Trevis Martin]

So my recent game of Sorcerer didn't go so well.  I had pushed to play it after we had finished with Vampire and gotten through a several month period of people having babies and adjusting their lives around that fact.  I wanted to play it because I like the game and I wanted my friend Mike, who joined us for Vampire, to play it.

I was the GM.  Mike is a friend from work, and Dennis my housemate were the other players.  This is the first time Dennis has decided to play with us in a while.  He is mostly into mini wargames (his favorite right now being GW's LOTR, and right now Battlelore.)   Mike is a player who clearly has discovered story now, and loves it.  He really like the Vampire game, aside from the textual system.  When I pitched the game, I used the work I had done on my Undead one sheet some time ago.  Which is here

The one sheet we used (more or less) can be found here...

http://wiki.trevismartin.org/pmwiki.php/Undead/OneSheet

I wanted it set in the east coat.  We kind of agreed on Boston, but we kind of ignored the specific color for the most part with the characters more or less being in "the city"

Mike made a guy who was a drug gang lord named Carlos.  Not a low level street guy but high end, in charge.  He became a sorcerer b/c his brother betrayed and killed both Carlos and his girlfriend for power over the gang.  Carlos came back after a NDE for payback, waking up on the slab as the ME was about to cut into him. 

His demon's name was Gabriel, the need was pain (for anyone) and the desire was Power and Mike played it as Carlos believing Gabriel was an angel.  Gabriel talked to carlos through sensory hallucination.  Making it seem as if other people were saying his words etc.  If you've ever seen Star Trek DS9 where Sisko talks to the wormhole aliens, you get the idea.

The first thing Carlos finds in the morgue is his girlfriend Maria's body on a nearby table.  He picks her up and escapes with police after him all the way.  He takes refuge in a church where he has a friend in an old priest who has known him since he was a kid.  The priest doesn't know what is wrong with him but agrees to help him out, insisting that the body must be returned to the morgue.  Carlos goes through the whole Demon summoning ritual as soon as the priest leaves (which involves killing himself again), and  brings back a possessor to inhabit his girlfriend, driving his humanity down to one in the process.

Anyway, Mike goes on, confronts his brother.  Gets disturbed by the acting out of the demon in his girlfriend.  Decides he needs to banish her.  Gabe is unsympathetic. etc.  Mike really did very well.  Carlos was the interesting one and I was interested in seeing him play out.

Dennis on the other hand, the game didn't really work for so well.  He made a hereditary to sorcery rich kid, named Addison Westlake.  He belonged to a coven of which his  father was also a part.  The coven wanted to bring all sorcery into 'responsible' hands.  Mostly theirs.  Which means they were out to find and eliminate these non-traditional sorcerers.  The medical ones particularly.  He wanted to become a power in his own coven.

I'm trying to remember the specifics of his kicker but it was along the lines of "something happened during a ritual, where I died again, but I don't remember what happened."  Something like that.  His demon was a parasite (they both were per the one sheet) who needed escapism (via online vid games) and wanted knowledge.

When we did his opening scene he woke up in the river with a broken rope and a nasty ligature mark around his leg.  He discovers in short order that he's been dead for a year, the coven has fallen apart, his dad is out because his mom left him for his mentor (also in the coven.)

Commence hunt for the Truth.  He uncovers the backstory I have pretty quick which is from my notes

born 1922?

Roger was originally an NDE.  His father's (Dr. Eugene Riley) death in the 20's when he was 6 years old was traumatizing.  His father was a scientist and atheist. and worked for the government.  One day, men showed up to tell his wife that there had been and accident and his father was dead. From that moment he was afraid of death, because his father had always believed that was the end. 

He and his mother moved from the army base in New Mexico back to the northeast. The next year they were in a terrible car accident and were both pronounced dead on the scene.  Except that Roger was too afraid to die.  So he made a deal with something to bring himself and his mom back.  Roger soon discovered that he could now do strange things.  More than that he began, on occasion to see people who felt "hollow"

Roger got older but his mom didn't. She physically stayed at the age of 25, the age when the accident occurred.  Roger too, stopped aging somewhere in his early 20's

Experimentation with death sorcery, possibly to bring back his dad, drove Rogers' humanity down to 0 once, and his demon upgraded to a possessor.  Trick was, the demon was in his mom.  Roger never wanted to banish it because then she would die.

Roger founded the necronauts as Dr. Benson Riley (his original name).  A horrible experiment wiped out the original group so he decided to "die" and reappear as a younger self.  (Demon has shapeshift to let him appear older than his normal 20 year old self.)

Once the original necronauts were wiped out, he changed to a younger self and joined the coven, hoping to learn the more traditional knowledge of sorcery.

His mom-demon wanted to experience the flesh, - had and possibly still has weirdo,sick physical relationship with Roger.  Roger couldn't risk her involvement with anyone else.  Roger had her join the coven as another Sorcerer, and covered for her parts in the rituals.  The demon decided it wanted the experience of having a child so Roger set up the relationship between Addison's dad and his demon-mom, claiming her as his first cousin.

Some of it is told to him by his mentor.  The deal was that the leader of the coven had discovered Roger the mentor's past and was going to destroy him so he altered a ritual  to summon something uber-powerful (and way out of his league) which damn near killed everyone involved (including Dennis character.)

Dennis wasn't digging it.  The scenes were lackluster for him.  He tended to hedge back and generally not be too excited about it.  So I brought it up that it didn't seem like it was working for him.  He said it really wasn't.  He didn't have any agenda for the character at all.  He didn't care for modern setting games (which I didn't know.)

But it was more than that too.  I was having fun with Mike but it was definitely harder when I was working with Dennis.  One of the problems for me is our humanity definition just didn't seem to work.  I've been really wanting a sorcerer game where the tie in really has power to it.  Like Chris mentions in this thread.   This game just didn't have the juice that our earlier two had (Dennis was a part of both earlier games, but pulled out of the second one.)

I've been vaguely dissatisfied with my one sheet on this one too.  It seems to broad, to inclusive and too scattered.  Mike suggested it just be pared down to the Medical practitioners.  no 'traditional' sorcery mode.

Anyway, Dennis said he wasn't having fun.  And we had avoided the game on a couple of nights due to being 'tired'  Which I knew was a bad sign but I was hoping it would improve.  Two of us have added new children to our lives so there really is an extra drain on energy.  So we called it .

I guess I'm still a little puzzled though.  I'm not sure of what else to say about it.  I don't know if anyone can help me see it more clearly or not.  We clearly made some mistakes when putting it together.  I'm inclined to take responsibility for it too.  Bleah.  Anyway.  It doesn't change my fondness for the game.  I just wanted it (the experience)  to rock even more.  I didn't expect it to rock less.

Here's my attempt at another one sheet which draws some on this one.  Ever since I read that thread of Chris Kubasiks' with Ron's responses I've been thinking about how setting, sorcery and humanity fit together.

Questions or thoughts?

[James_Nostack]

Trevis, I'm reading this gradually; I'll try to provide more feedback later.

First of all: I really like your one-sheet.  I really like dying to do sorcery, and the "schools" of sorcery are clever and plausible.  I agree that the humanity definition is a little under-baked as written, but sometimes a bit of time in the oven of play will solve that; it may have helped to include an example of this from your own life.  (I've found that a helpful way to figure out Humanity is to list the people I admire, the people I feel ambivalent about, and the people I despise--and then figure out what the common thread must be.) 

Second: it's clear that Mike "gets" the game; it feels like maybe Dennis either wasn't passionate about the game to start with, or it didn't quite gel with him.  One of the things I've noticed when I ran Sorcerer is that having a character sheet isn't enough: you've got to have the look in your eyes.  From your description, Mike's character has gusto; Dennis's doesn't.  (I don't want to be unfair to Dennis, maybe something was lost in the transition into the Internet.)

That bit with Dennis's character's family disintegrating after his botched ritual: did you supply that, or did he?  Because that's very strong thematic stuff.  The impression I got is that you supplied that, as a way of spiking an extremely vague kicker--and that if Dennis wasn't having fun, it might have been (in part) because he didn't provide enough fuel for the game to get going.  But if Dennis supplied that stuff, then I dunno.

Was this just the first session?  Sometimes the first session is just people setting things up and might fall a little flat.

When you say you made mistakes, what did you mean?

[James_Nostack]

Hey Trevis, one thing I noticed: there's nothing on your original one-sheet suggesting what the game is "about."  Like, as a conceptual constraint on the characters, or as something for the players to think about, or whatever.  If you notice Ron's "Live by the Gun" sketch on Christopher's Shudder Thread, the quoted material and text suggests that the game is very much about the role of violence in the modern world, and what happens when you begin to see the consequences of violence. 

Dunno if it would help, but it might put each run into sharper thematic focus.

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

I took a couple of days to look over the thread. James has things right, and I don't have much to say beyond focusing on one of his points.

It is: Dennis simply doesn't seem to want to play this game. So basically, you're playing his character for him and now you're wondering, "gee, why isn't he enjoying playing him?"

A quick question: did he fill out the back of the character sheet?

Best, Ron

[Trevis Martin]

Hi guys, thanks for posting.  Sorry I didn't get back to it sooner.

James,

One of the things I've noticed when I ran Sorcerer is that having a character sheet isn't enough: you've got to have the look in your eyes.  From your description, Mike's character has gusto; Dennis's doesn't.  (I don't want to be unfair to Dennis, maybe something was lost in the transition into the Internet.)

That bit with Dennis's character's family disintegrating after his botched ritual: did you supply that, or did he?  Because that's very strong thematic stuff.  The impression I got is that you supplied that, as a way of spiking an extremely vague kicker--and that if Dennis wasn't having fun, it might have been (in part) because he didn't provide enough fuel for the game to get going.  But if Dennis supplied that stuff, then I dunno.

I supplied the family bit.  It was a way to spike the kicker like you said.  Yeah, I think he didn't have the fuel, I'm not sure why I let that go, or why I didn't see it.  He didn't have the 'look.'  Just not something he grooved on I think.  I guess I was hoping to entice him into it.  Recipe for failure if he wasn't invested.

It wasn't the first session.  It was the third or fourth.

Ron,

Yep we all did the backs of the character sheets.  It was why I pushed the kicker the way I did.  basically the cult, his father and his mentor all ended up near the center of the diagram.  Anyway he didn't dig it, and I didn't bring up the lack of engagment early enough to fix it.  Not the game's fault.  I pretty much knew the problem.  But I wanted to post this as an object lesson to others, as well as a reminder to myself.  I'm sure it's known by everyone, but if you've got a player not engaging, and you don't do anything about it, the game will be in trouble.