serious humanity, but shallow demons?

[James_Nostack]

I'm in the process of getting a game together, hopefully to play in the next couple of weeks; it's got me thinking about the kind of game I'd want to run.  Two things really interest me, and I'm wondering if I can squeeze them into the same game.

1.  For the first time, I get Humanity, in the makes-you-shudder-to-think-about-it, God-please-don't-let-me-lose-it way.  (I'm still having some trouble defining it in words; I'd be glad to thrash it out further down the thread.)  In prior games, I'd been unable to answer the question to my satisfaction and used some fairly conventional, flat ideas.  But this reaction is much better, and I can tell right now it will be a powerful game for me as a result.

2.  Dagnabit, I really like all the crazy occult stuff you can find on Wikipedia!  Tulpas, loa, qi gong, Goetic demons, qabbalah, all that stuff.  I don't take it seriously for a second, and would happily disregard historical fact for the sake of the game, but it's awesome color.  This guy looks cool!  I can fit this stuff into my Humanity definition without much trouble.

Here's the thing: I'm concerned that when Humanity's involved, everything will be all serious and intense, but the use of mythological demons might undercut that.  It's sort of like how Peter Parker can be involved in all kinds of serious drama about his dying aunt, his screwed-up love life, and impending poverty--but fighting threats to life & limb is kind of an escape for him.  Does that make any sense?  The demons would be cool, but I'm worried they wouldn't be relevant.  (This might be a matter of role-playing them well.)

[Ron Edwards]

Hi James,

Ultimately only you can answer this question. You knew I'd say that, didn't you?

The draw of occult color is extremely powerful. I was certainly inspired by the games Kult and Over the Edge, which dip into that material extensively. Although I think it's important that they do it in a kind of modern* way, meaning discovering elements of the grotesque, the absurd, and the human in unexpected places, with a strong existential or dissident foundation. That's very different from the more Victorian, hyper-serious occult tradition, which takes underlying order-in-existence as its starting point and is best represented in RPGs by the game Nephilim - which is very good at what it does, but emphatically did not inspire any aspect of Sorcerer.

So in Sorcerer, you can see all sorts of occult imagery, but I hope you can also see them integrated with the other parts of the image in ways that fit more with 1930s-1960s pulp fantasy ('sword-and-sorcery"), 1950s pulp horror, noir fiction and film before they became self-parody, and the best of Hong Kong film during the late 1980s and early 1990s. You guys know that I designed the illustrations in most of the Sorcerer books, right? My favorite images to illustrate this point are the woman dancing with the hoofed guy toward the end of the core book and the library/death scene in The Sorcerer's Soul. In both, occult elements are present, but not in a way that confirms or celebrates the Victorian tradition.

Here's the downside, though ... the very draw of occult imagery has become itself a genre, so chock-full of tropes and expected elements, that recapping the elements in a celebratory fashion often becomes the sole aesthetic expectation. In other words, it lends itself to Simulationist play so strongly that it's very hard to avoid. In fact, I've found that snippets or details that look like classic occult material are a lot of fun in Sorcerer, but that a full commitment to it as a driving aesthetic look & feel for sorcery tends to get people into a Sim-play frame of mind.

So it's not the shallowness of the demons that you're proposing that I'm concerned about (after all, my own strong-Humanity, shallow-demon setting is Demon Cops), but rather the specific subcultural, pop-culture expectations that they drag into the game-experience with them.

It really depends on the people involved. Speaking of brief convention play alone, I've noted that people who really get the modern** context for play will make use of the most traditional occult imagery without veering toward the direction I'm describing, but that people who don't will veer that way given the most minor possible detail like a pentagram or something.

Best, Ron

* Not post-modern
** Ditto

[James_Nostack]

In other words, it lends itself to Simulationist play so strongly that it's very hard to avoid. In fact, I've found that snippets or details that look like classic occult material are a lot of fun in Sorcerer, but that a full commitment to it as a driving aesthetic look & feel for sorcery tends to get people into a Sim-play frame of mind.

Cool.  I don't think we're likely to veer Sim.  Mainly I'm interested in it as brainstorming material, inspiration, or cute little details in rituals.  One example of this kind of usage might be a couple of issues in Neil Gaiman's Sandman, where the story being told is strictly about human beings, and human values.  There's fantasy stuff thrown in for the sake of metaphor, and I suppose Gaiman could have made these fantasy elements look like anything, but often he uses existing myths or historical figures simply for the joy of doing it.  But it's never slavish imitation, and there's never any attempt to create a coherent cosmology.  (What's Hellblazer like?  If it's like this, it's probably the sort of thing I should thumb through.)

It sounds like this sort of eye-candy (for lack of a better word) won't detract from the more serious themes of the game, though, so that's good.

PS.  From the Wikipedia article on "The Left-Hand Path"--this looks like pure Sorcerer to me:

Left-Hand Path religions are usually said to share the following properties:

• The belief that some people can, by attaining spiritual insight, themselves become akin to gods.
• The belief that selfless acts do not exist. Fulfilling one's desire is seen as a selfish act bringing the person satisfaction from accomplishing what they want. Altruism is seen as a myth created by conventional religions.
• An exoteric understanding of concepts such as karma, divine retribution, or Threefold Law, resulting in fluid, rather than strict, codes of morality.
• The belief that the individual self is preeminent, and that all decisions should be made with the goal of cultivating the self (though not the ego).
• The belief that each individual is responsible for his/her own happiness, and that no external force will provide salvation to reward actions which do not advance one's happiness in this life.
• The belief that the forces of the universe can be bent to one's personal will by magical means, and that power gained in such a manner is an aid to enlightenment.
• An atheistic or agnostic view of the existence of deities, or a Platonic view of deities as "first-forms." If deity is perceived as having a consciousness, then all relationships with deity are in the form of a partnership, an alliance which does not require subservience. The prideful deity likes prideful partners.

[crowyhead]

(What's Hellblazer like?  If it's like this, it's probably the sort of thing I should thumb through.)

Hellblazer was the first thing that came to mind when I read your post.  It's a bit like The Sandman, in that all of the gods and demons from all cultures exist, so you've got John Constantine pitting vaguely Judeo-Christian demons against an Aztec god of the dead, and such.  It's much darker and gorier than The Sandman, though.  Much of the series is about the themes that you're interested in exploring -- it's all about humanity, and the danger of dealing with demons, and the seduction of perpetrating a hundred small wrongs in the name of one big right.  It also combines elements of old school pentacles-and-candles magic with the modern world in a satisfying way, especially since Constantine tends to be fairly dismissive of the necessity of such things.  Some of the demons have adapted better to the modern world than others, and sometimes it's funny, but it's also grotesque and unnerving.

I'd recommend checking out the first collection, Original Sins, mainly for a funny-but-scary story about demons preying on yuppies.  My favorite storyline is probably Dangerous Habits, which is about what happens when John Constantine discovers that he has terminal cancer, and the kinds of deals he's willing to make in order to live.  And a more recent one, All His Engines, is a newer stand-alone graphic novel that concerns the aformentioned demons vs. Aztec god of the dead thing.

[Ron Edwards]

You nailed it. Original Sins and Dangerous Habits are the high points for me, and strong inspirational sources for Sorcerer. I think some of the other stories haven't been nearly as strong, and I haven't followed the book for a few years now.

Best, Ron

[Ron Edwards]

Hi there,

James, I thought I'd follow up on your post about the Left-Hand Path. Basically, I disagree with your point at such a deep level that I'm not sure I'll be able to articulate it. Let's see.

That list you quoted from Wikipedia is not and cannot be a basis for the mechanics and thematic issues in Sorcerer. Why not? Because it describes a set of notions about how things are, and acting in accord with them. Like all religious or metaphysical frameworks, it's about attuning oneself to the magical and symbolic reality underlying reality, and therefore functioning in reality more effectively.

In Sorcerer, the characters are breaking the rules, not excelling at them.

Something like that list might be expressed in Sorcerer play in a particular character concept using the descriptor Belief System. But you know what that descriptor is all about? The character's belief, not the way things work. That's why it's a Will descriptor rather than a Lore descriptor. In any and every Sorcerer game, "the way things work" is ultimately unknowable. A belief system is a coping mechanism for that state of affairs.

As a side note, that is also why Humanity changes are based on rolls rather than to some laid-out, step-by-step chart.

Best, Ron

[James_Nostack]

Hi Ron,

I'm not quoting that list as any sort of "official sorcery," but rather as atmospherics--an attitude or outlook, maybe as a snippet for a one-sheet to set the mood.

The idea of people vying for power by selfishly abusing, twisting, and breaking the moral laws of the universe, with no respect paid to religious or philosophical orthodoxy . . . .  Man standing alone against all the gods, demons, and idealized forms, with nothing more than skill, cunning and balls--and with the  fate of your soul resting, not on faith, nor dispensation from higher authority, but on what you do here and now...

I mean, isn't that what goes on in this game, more or less?

I want to distinguish between:
1. Things people believe in the real world (which I find mildly curious, but not relevant)

2.  Things characters believe in a fictional world (i.e., sorcerous traditions, which may function but are likely to be mistaken about a lot of metaphysics)

3. The "truth" of how the fictional world works (i.e., the metaphysical truth behind the sorcerous traditions--which the game encourages you to leave as a big ?, which is totally fine with me)

4.  Rules for the story to progress (i.e., humanity customization + the rules of Sorcerer)

5. Mood music and atmosphere, for the real people playing the game.

The "Left-Hand Path" stuff was solely intended for #5, with the possibility that it can influence #2 through color and Byronic posturing.  INo claims are made about #3.  If this is problematic, can you explain why? 

[Ron Edwards]

As long as #3 is emphatically not involved, then you're all golden.

Best, Ron