I'm terrified of my sorcerer

[Paul Czege]

So, as Scott has presumably described in the "Some More Cronenberg Inspired Madness" thread, we had our character session last night. And I'm terrified of my sorcerer.

His name is Steffan Solmama. He's a 31 year old political consultant working for a conservative senator who's campaigning for re-election. (Scott's concept for demons is that they're creatures of the digital entertainment media, so sorcerers all have some connection to that media.) Steffan's Will descriptor is "user/manipulative". His Price is that he's political, which translates to a -1 on social rolls and Humanity rolls with the political opposition and anyone in a special interest category represented by the political opposition. His telltale is his elaborate dental work, exotic steel crowns on all but his frontmost teeth, through which he can hear the Legion-like, cacophonous voice of his demon. I was inspired by stories of people being able to hear radio stations in their fillings. His demon is a parasite whose Desire is to become powerful by giving and taking influence. The demon's Need is for inappropriate sexual relations with the family of Steffan's client. When the Steffan was hired by the Senator and presented the terms of the agreement, he asked for involvement with the man's 15 year old daughter. The Senator counter-offered his wife, and Steffan agreed.

The demon's primary power is the ability to Boost the Cover scores of other people. He can Boost the Senator's Cover of Politician and enable him to handle difficult questions during a Q&A with the constituency. He can Boost the Senator's speech writer's Cover and it'll make for an awesome speech. He could Boost a journalist's Cover and slap the Senator down with an uncomfortable investigative story if he gets out of line.

All in all, he's a fairly distasteful guy.

But then there's the Kicker. One of the other players came up with it for me during our character roundtable, and the group liked it so much that they overcame my initial hesitation. Suspicious of the Senator's wife's doctor appointments, Steffan used his influence to get copies of her medical records. She was just tested positive for HIV.

And I'm scared to death of this Kicker.

Am I scared of the chance that he might have contracted HIV and that he's basically doomed? Not really. I suppose I am in a residual sort of way. Gamers tend to play to keep their options open, to keep open their ability to continue to play. So even with games like Call of Cthulhu that are ostensibly simulations of source literature that prominently features the death and derangement of the protagonists, gamers play careful and try to survive rather than truly embracing the source literature and playing to go mad. I think that any thoughts of Steffan being doomed is entirely me as a player having residue of that mentality of playing to continue to play. But it's truly a non-factor compared to what's really scaring me. Sorcerers don't worry about that shit. I can summon another demon and cure myself if I have to.

What I'm scared of is that Steffan's a distasteful guy, a manipulator who objectifies people, and now he's in the position of not being able to meet his demon's Need. If he's HIV-negative, he's not so reckless as to risk needing to implement a subsequent sorcerous solution to HIV as to keep sleeping with the wife, so he'll need to manage the situation to start with the daughter. If he's positive, it's still likely the wife is wigging out and won't want to maintain their carnal involvement anyway. And then he'll have to decide if he's going to start with the daughter despite his own HIV status. Ugh! The truly scary thing is that I could play this horribly distasteful guy for the duration of the scenario and that it'll just be a monstrous spiral downward; I could fail entirely to redeem him or to otherwise create a compelling narrative maybe where he gets his comeuppance. Yuck.

Still, I'm excited as hell about the game. There's opportunity for awesome narrative wrapped up in all the risk. Maybe that's a nice rule of thumb for a Kicker. If it doesn't scare the shit out of you, you're not doing it right. Whaddya think?

Paul

[ This Message was edited by: Paul Czege on 2001-06-21 15:54 ]

[james_west]

That is, truly, darned horrifying. I'm not sure I could play a guy as thoroughly unpleasant as that; I like dystopian settings, but I really prefer the protagonists to be fundamentally good guys.

            - James

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Paul,

I'm with James. He and I are going over HERE to OUR end of the bar, now. You can stay over there, you sicko.

Seriously, though, you have a great opportunity for role-playing here. From a narrativist perspective, you have two distinct options:
1) redemption - this is pretty hard if you don't want to re-script it. You'd have to play this from the gut, being a jerk to some extent, but nonverbally waiting for the right moment to pull a turnaround that would make everyone at the table cheer.
2) dickweed - and here we go back to the thread on GO, in which we all dissected how a protagonist who is a Bad Person may contribute to a Good Story.

Side note for the GNS-interested: it is perfectly good Narrativism to play a PC without planning or by using a lot of "from the gut" improvisation - what makes it Narrativist are the very deep goals in question, which act as a doctrine within which these play-strategies are employed.

Best,
Ron

[Paul Czege]

Hey James,

I'm not sure I could play a guy as thoroughly unpleasant as that; I like dystopian settings, but I really prefer the protagonists to be fundamentally good guys.

I'm totally with you on this. I think the rest of the players looked at their drug-addicted and craven sorcerers in comparison with my cocky and confident sorcerer and conspired to truly monsterize me with a horrendous Kicker. It took me completely unawares.

Seriously...it was an awesome, collaborative character creation session. I think each of our character concepts benefited from the roundtable format we fell into, with every one of us electing to reconceptualize and incorporate substantial suggestions from others. It was a lot of fun.

But as far as playing a monster is concerned, the idea of wanting protagonists to be fundamentally good guys is the main reason Kult never appealed to me. I think there's a simple reason that I'll be able to play Steffan...hope. With the way Sorcerer works, and with the group's attitude toward story, I feel like there's every reason to anticipate that the narrative can be about human triumph over the dehumanization of their condition. With Kult I never had that feeling. I think there's every reason to expect that Steffan's part of the narrative will either feature him getting his comeuppance in a dramatic way, or his awesome personal redemption. And in my mind, either of those things will be great.

Paul

[ This Message was edited by: Paul Czege on 2001-06-21 20:23 ]

[james_west]

Paul -

On a slightly different note, could you elaborate on the collaborative character creation theme? Perhaps this is a common methodology to others, and while I can sort of imagine what you're talking about, could you tell me more specifically how y'all go about it ?

If you think it best, you might do so in "Actual Play"

              - James

[hardcoremoose]

Don't be scared Paul... :evil:

It's kind of ironic really...if you look at my posts under More Cronenberg Inspired Madness, you'll see that my original idea called for characters who suffered from certain monstrous disfigurements.  Paul had some concern about whether the players would be able to identify with characters who started out so obviously inhuman, and he made such a good case for his point that I scrapped almost everything I had been working on up to that point and started from the ground up.  Paul was right, of course...it wouldn't have been fair to force that kind of inhumanity upon the players right from the get-go.

So what does he do?  He makes this monster of a Sorceror.  Nothing in my worst dreams could compare to this bastard...this thing that wants to sleep with his client's fifteen year old daughter.  

Of course, I loved it.  Not because I think the character's beliefs or actions are "cool", but because he drips with dramatic potential.  Can he overcome his Fatal Flaw and be redeemed?  Or will he proceed onwards towards certain tragedy?  This is Shakespearean stuff, man (maybe not good Shakespeare, but at least Titus Andronicus)!

I loved it, too, because Paul (and the others who contributed to his character's Kicker) has helped to prove a theory of mine: That Narrativism is the best means to convey real Horror in a RPG.   I'm a horror movie nut, and for years I've struggled to find a way to truly scare players within the context of a game.  It's difficult, because you have to touch the players (as opposed to the characters) on some emotional level.  That's hard to do in a Simulationist or Gamist game, where the players aren't encouraged to bare their personal fears.  If you do manage a scare or two, it's usually by accident (unless you know that player very well).  But Narrativist games use a whole different set of tools.  It's all about asking players what's important to them.  In this case, I've goaded Paul into coughing up some really unsettling stuff...stuff that disturbs him and makes him uncomfortable.  He's done all the work for me.

Of course, none of this would matter if I didn't have a personal philosophy on why people like to be scared, and why horror is a good thing. But that's a whole different discussion...

And I should point out now...if Paul wants to activate the Dickweed Character, he's more than welcome to do so. :wink:

Take care,
Scott

[ This Message was edited by: hardcoremoose on 2001-06-22 01:16 ]

[ This Message was edited by: hardcoremoose on 2001-06-22 01:18 ]