Sorcerer demo play - Lincoln High 15th Year Reunion

[Clinton R. Nixon]

I got a group together this Sunday to run the new demo packet for Sorcerer. Ron's distributed this with the purpose of getting it ready to be used in stores.

The basic setup is this: 15 years ago, a demon masquerading as a high school teacher (Ms. Krogh) tried to eat five kids that managed to stop and banish the demon. The ritual cost the kids their memory of that night, though, and didn't actually Banish anything - the kids were all left with small demons of their own that they learned how to control.

Fifteen years later, all five kids show back up at the high school for their reunion - they all received invitations with the inscription "Remember Ms. Krogh."

----

We actually only had three players, so we threw out two characters. I considered using them as NPC's but decided it would quickly become complicated. I'm not going to recount things detail by detail, but hit high and low points:

- This was only my second time running Sorcerer, so I still had a learning curve. I quickly found out that setting difficulties in Sorcerer has two aspects: the one listed in the book - the actual difficulty of the task; the unspoken one - how important is this task to the story? I gave out plenty of bonus dice for roleplaying, but forgot to give out a lot of dice for adding to the story. One character, a street poet, tried to compose a poem on the fly twice and failed because of too high of difficulties.

- Players need to be proactive, not reactive, in Sorcerer. This was our biggest problem. Traditional RPG play lends itself to a very reactive sort of game.

"You see a monster." "I attack!"
"You find a clue." "I follow it!"

In Sorcerer, it's perfectly ok for a player to say, "I'm going to find out who's behind this," roll, and the GM and player figure out who's behind something and get the character there. That didn't really happen. Because the players were great role-players (by which I mean that they were good at portraying a role convincingly), the game was fun, but ran towards its goal slowly.

- I did, however, see the best ritual ever in Sorcerer. The aforementioned street poet had his demon "eaten" in the game. (This was amusing all on its own. Ms. Krogh, the demon from 15 years ago, was still around, hanging on to existence. It was disguised as an old classmate. The street poet's demon needed the touch of human skin, and it was hidden as a small rock, so he would always put it in his hand when he shook hands with someone. The poet shook the classmate's hand, the demon went poof, leaving just a rock, the poet drops the rock, and the classmate leans over, picks it up, and says, "Looks like you lost something." Anyway, I thought it rocked.)

The ritual: Sorcerer's about transgression, right? This guy steals chalk, a teacher's grade-book, and a python from the science lab. He sneaks into the teachers' bathroom, vandalizes it by drawing arcane symbols in chalk everywhere, burns the teacher's grade-book, sacrifices the snake and then - lights a cigarette in the teachers' bathroom. Awesome - he's just transgressed just about every law there is in high school.

- We did have a common Sorcerer problem. Since Sorcerer's very much about theme and premise, when played like a more traditional role-playing game, it does something interesting: it gets more and more exciting as players get tense to see what's going to happen, and then it drops dramatically at the end, leaving with an anticlimax. The reason, I think: the ending's really up to the players. When they get there, and they don't really know how they want things to end, they leave it in the hands of the GM, like most RPGs. It just doesn't work well. We did manage to pull off an interesting ending - and one that would be awesome for an extended game - but it felt a little dry.

[rabidchyld]

Yeah, Clinton...I'm in the same boat as you.  I plan on running the demo this weekend and it will be the second time running Sorcerer for me as well.  I'm worried about that learning curve.  

There is only one way to learn, and that is to just do it, so I will.  I believe that I will actually have 5 players in my game, though, so I wonder what difference that will make, if any.  

I would ask you if you had any really unexpected situations, and how you handled those, but there would be no point.  My players are the most bloody unpredictable people I have ever played with and whatever anyone says, they will pull something completely out of their asses that nobody has ever even dreamed of.  

They'll do it, too...

To help cut down on some confusion about the system, which was our biggest problem last time, I plan on meeting with the players before the game and really going over everything until they totally understand it.  I hope to have a really great game this time.  

My biggest fear is that I am going to do something wrong.

Oh, and let me say it first:

Relax, Melodie, you'll do just fine.  You worry too much, it's not like it's brain surgery....

[Clinton R. Nixon]

Melodie,

One thing I ran into that I talked about with Ron this morning is "off-the-cuff" rituals. In the Sorcerer rules, it states that rituals take half-an-hour to three hours to perform, but that characters can speed that up - like Banishing a demon right in the middle of combat - only using one die.

In the sort of time constrained situation that the scenario has, there'll be a lot of off-the-cuff rituals happening, probably. Without good roleplaying, the chance of succeeding is very low.

My fix: if a player describes a ritual well, load on those bonus dice. An example from my game:

One character, Kenneth Burke, tried to Contain Ms. Krogh, the demon, after knocking her to the ground. However, the player didn't role-play it out at all. I did give bonus dice for the successes on the character's roll to knock her to the ground, but that's all.

However, if the player'd said this: "Ok - I'm going to grab her by the hair and kick her into a locker, then slam the door and Contain her in there," I'd have given 2-3 more bonus dice. The action involves physical restraint - that's a physical manifestation of a Contain, so add a die there - plus it has a high school transgression thing going on - locking people in lockers always comes up in the movies at least, so there's another die - and it's just cool, so add one more die.

- Clinton

[Christopher Kubasik]

Hi Clinton,

Thanks for posting.  

I've got a question for you.  When you write about dificulties: "the unspoken one - how important is this task to the story?"  Where did this come from?  I'm not saying it's not a good idea... But are we all supposed to intuit this, does it just happen, or what?

And a thought: I won't be playing my first Sorcerer game till Monday, but thinking the implication of sliding difficulties, doesn't that mean that at the points of greatest import I'll add more and more bonuses through role play -- only to get the same odds I would have had a dull moment?

Wouldn't the GM want to keep the dificulties independent of circumstance, so that extra role playing increases the odds against typical difficulties, encouraging them to really frickin' pull out all the stop at the most important moments and just smack that challenge to the floor?

Thanks,
Christopher

[Ron Edwards]

Hi there,

After receiving a great deal of feedback on the demo over the last week or so, I've been revising and adding to its text. Nearly all of the additions center around the key issue: this story is about what the player-characters want to do with their lives. So far, they have made a certain choice and have gone a certain distance down the paths of their lives. Now it's time to review their lives, clarify those choices relative to their high school experiences, and decide what to do now.

Therefore Krogh, the demon, is intended to be nothing more than a catalyst for these choices to occur. Verbalizing this in the text of the demo is exceptionally hard - to my knowledge, no one has ever published a scenario whose actual text (a) describes, (b) explains, and (c) inspires this sort of play.

Best,
Ron

[Clinton R. Nixon]

Christopher,

I'm not sure we're not saying the same thing - players should get bonuses for taking actions that matter to the story, increasing their chances. Much like in Riddle of Steel, prosaic, non-story-oriented actions should be harder than meaningful ones.

Is that what you were saying, or did I get it wrong? That's what I was trying to say above, but kind of floundered over.

[Christopher Kubasik]

No, no, I'm the idiot.

I thought you were saying that you set the difficulty harder for the players by giving the GM more dice in story critical moments.  I see now you meant that the players would get more dice for playing the scene as a story critical moment -- and you didn't always award them enough dice.

(yes?)

Christopher

[rabidchyld]

Ron,

Since you've already gotten lots of feedback already and edited the demo, should I still run it?  Would it make much of a difference?

Melodie

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Melodie,

Yes, lots and LOTS more feedback would be greatly appreciated. I'll send you an updated version today anyway.

Best,
Ron

[rabidchyld]

Thanks Ron,

We'll play this weekend as planned..  

melodie

[Ron Edwards]

Hi there,

Here are some of the text additions I made to the demo. Again, it is incredibly difficult to articulate some of these things, at least in the sense that no existing RPG text provides a model for it. I have no reliable guide for inspiring people to prep and play in a particular way, even those who would be inclined to do so. Existing habits of play are very strong, even when they are patently unsuited for  returning satisfaction.

These excerpts are taken from separate sections of the demo.

*****
1) One of the key elements of the scenario is that interpersonal events during the entire reunion may be tied into the later interactions with Krogh. The demon is banking on the psychology of the characters as they were in high school; to be artsy about it for a second, it's the player-characters' inability to "let go" of their high-school identities that is permitting Krogh to re-integrate at all. Therefore the GM should apply the effects of any social or Humanity rolls during the scenario to rolls that are made during negotiations or confrontations with Krogh.

2) Ultimately, the story is about what the characters want to do with their lives. Whenever making "story choices" during play, the GM should consider this idea carefully. He or she should even say it out loud during play, whenever it seems appropriate.

3) Problem #2: Anti-climax. So it all comes down to the villainous Krogh trying to "get" the players, and so they all band together to "stop it." What happens if it's an even match, and no one seems to be able to get the upper hand? What happens if they're all in the old office, 1987 is manifesting all around them, and nothing seems to be happening?

Avoid this problem by playing Krogh with some flair, adjusting its decisions and its concerns to provide "story meat" for the players. Remember: the point of the scenario is to ask, "What will you do with your adult life?" The demon is not stupid and will understand that it may not be able to re-conduct the original ritual. It will change its tack to something that seems more possible. It will settle for less if necessary, perhaps re-integrating less than completely, or accepting one of the player-characters as a new master. It's not out to "defeat the characters" so much as simply to provide an arena and context for their life-decisions, relative to various NPCs and relative to one another.
*******

All comments or questions are very welcome.

Best,
Ron

[Christopher Kubasik]

Hi Ron,

I've got some comments and questions:

First, in the session you ran of the demo, did the players play out the "artsy" aspect of the scenario...

Second, if so, what did you do, before and during play, to encourage this (if anything)?

Third, could one tell the players about the artsy part of the game?  I'm thinking of a tool I use in my own work: The Story Sentence.

For example, Die Hard: A man wants to hold his marriage together. There is, of course, no mention of the terrorists.  I'm naming what's emotinally at stake for the guy... The terrorists are just in the way.

In Sorcerer terms, his "demonic" ability to perform just-this-side of James Bond feats are bought in exchange for feeding his demons Needs and Desires for "confrontation" or, say, "always needs to be right" or something.

Could one write on the character sheet, then, "[character name] is thirty years old, stuck in the past, and wants finally to grow up."  That is, just put it right on the table?

Would this be too much, derail things?  I have no idea.  Just thinking out loud.

Fourth, what is Humanity in this game?

I'm assuming (I have yet to get my grubby hands on a copy of it) that the Demon Needs and Desires, or rituals, reinforce habits and behavior that discourage the character from finally growing up.  (See Die Hard example above).  Is this the case?  If so, why not?  Would this somehow encourage people to play against this to protect their Humanity rating?



Okay, there are some thoughts and comments.

Take care,
Christopher

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

I seem to have missed Christopher's final post completely. Good questions.

I think that one thing I do during play that might surprise people is a fair amount of OOC discussion. I don't mind quips, commentary, chit-chat, or other dialogue. As long as it's related in some way to current play, it all adds. Some of it can be "what is this all about" talk, for instance, in which I or someone else might make a comment about the thematic content of play, which then serves as inspiration and focus for the subsequent scenes.

So yeah, a "story sentence" seems perfectly reasonable to me, whether delivered verbally, in a handout, or just brought up conversationally during play. It's not even railroading, not by a long shot - in Sorcerer, the next day really is the beginning of the rest of the character's life, and the demo is built to reinforce that concept.

Here's text from the current draft about Humanity:
What is Humanity? In this scenario, Humanity is defined as behaving toward others as real human beings, rather than as objects or means to particular ends. Just acting nicely or politely isn't enough, though – it's a matter of connecting to people emotionally and acting in accord with their needs.

Humanity rolls should be made whenever personal ties among people are involved, especially in regard to reflecting on one's own life. Ideally, rolls should be conducted there and then, but if you forget, just conduct them when you remember. Always announce that a Humanity check or gain is under way.

The consequences of 0 Humanity are that the character's demon takes over their body, and the character is effectively dead and gone. The GM will continue to play the character very much as the demon, except that the demon is now fully in accord with Krogh's Desire and Need, and therefore joins the attempt to re-integrate its parts.

In the demo, the demon Needs and Desires aren't tremendously oriented toward the characters violating Humanity standards, or not much anyway (they tend to be weird rather than vicious). However, Krogh, the composite demon entity, is totally about violating Humanity as written, in a very explicit way related to Innocence and to never growing up.

Best,
Ron