Deep in the shadows of the Misty Forest..

[Petter Sandelin]

Ok. I'm finally getting around writing this. My first Sorcerer game has now finished its first chapter of six actual play sessions and I'll try to sum up some experiences. The group consists of me as a GM, two guys who have been around for ages and tried out a lot of unconventional systems with me, and this new girl whose only rpg experience is a single larp. We play once a week for about 4-5 hours.

The setting is the last village before the Misty Forest gets too dark to travel and it's surroundings. Its inspired by The Dark Forest setting in S&S and nordic folklore in general. Sorcery has a bit of more ”general horror” in it and I think this is because when someone (both me and players) gets an idea for sorcery from the rules we forget to check if it fits the setting or can't abandon it if it doesn't fit. I think this would have been easier to avoid if sorcery had been more strictly defined before play.

The game takes some inspiration from S&S but I don’t know if I can call it an S&S game. The characters aren’t really heroes in S&S sense, just protagonists and I think the game has more in common with regular Sorcerer. On the other hand we do have a mythic setting, which we have all became great fans of.

Most important to the game has been something I realized a long time ago. AS A GM, TAKE IT EASY. One can't go around waiting for the perfect session, not having fun while trying to get there and the perfect session can't occur every session. Session three, five and six were the most dramatic for this game.

So, what happened? The kickers proved to be very central to play, two of the players had kickers which highlighted parts of their characters personality. These parts were explored and developed. The last player had a kicker with high story potential, finding and the loosing a book he had searched for his entire life. This book played a big part in the story.

The r-map (very loosely based on the movie Suburbia) didn't really work as I thought it would. The basics of the map is four brothers, a evil hunter-sorcerer pissed at his hypocritical priest brother, a poor farmer a bit jealous at the same priest and the mute and stupid last brother who is under the protection of the priest. A lot of the interaction between parts of the map disappeared when the players killed the hunter at the start of the second session. From there on it was more the players interacted with the map. A lot of the players' actions took place in secret and this stopped interaction too. Next time I will take more care to track the reactions as I believe a lot could still have been done on my hand.

Playing demons was great fun. I took notes on how the players treated the demons during the first session and used that as a basis for the relationship. Interaction changed relationships. One character, a wandering priest, had a demon that he thought was an incarnation of god. On the paper it looked good, going around and burning witches but when he entered play the character started caring for people and in the last session the demon left the priest.

Humanity was defined as empathy. I had some problems with knowing when to make checks; sometimes I was dangerously close to ”you did evil thing, take humanity check”. Making checks we had forgotten at the start of next session worked great and gave some time for afterthought.

One last thing, I had some problems with pacing. At one point sessions went like this: dramatic session, build up session, dramatic session... Especially starting up sessions was difficult. I solved this by taking some time to think about which plots could come to a climax next session and which could be saved and tried to start each session with a good bang which involved all characters.

I'll stop now. There would be lots more to tell but you'll have to ask if anything is of intrest.

And to sum it all up: the drama was incredible, player participation in all areas high and I can say with no doubt this was the most entertaining game I have ever played.

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Petter,

Thanks for posting this! And especially thanks for your kind comments. Let's see what points I can tease out.

Although the relationship map didn't work as you thought it might, it sounds to me that it worked exactly perfectly. The shift from NPCs reacting among one another to the player-characters basically all mixed into the map and making waves is a wonderful thing.

It does change the whole concept of pacing and GM-prep, though, doesn't it?

You wrote,
"sometimes I was dangerously close to "you did evil thing, take humanity check"."

That's not such a terrible thing. Ultimately, moral judgments are just that: judgments. I like the idea that the "moral framework" for Sorcerer play develops out of GM/players interaction, rather than just the Uber-GM exerting his Uber-Morality, but in the first few sessions, the GM definitely has to set the tone and procedures for Humanity checks, as an example if nothing else.

For example, we played Demon Cops twice, and the first time, Humanity was almost exclusively my (the GM's) domain in terms of mechanics. But the second time, the players suggested checks and gain rolls, or otherwise commented on Humanity issues during play.

I'm interested in hearing more about the dramatic/moral content of the story so far. What choices have players had to make? Which particular events during play really got everyone going, especially in terms of what a fellow player did (as opposed to the GM)? Which NPCs had the most "protagonizing" effect on player-characters?

Best,
Ron

[Petter Sandelin]

Tossing out humanity rolls for player discussion, of course, so obvious.

Drama etc.:
A quite intresting plot was when the priest PC had to judge another PC accused of witchcraft. He knew the character was in fact a werewolf but owed her for saving his life. He didn't really press her at all and had reasons for that, but I can't think he wasn't hindered by not wanting to mess with another players character. What does the social contracts of other peoples groups say about messing with other characters?

I would say the most magical points happen when players improvise and just hit right on. The pc screaming to the npc priest to admit his guilt while he can and the priest then begging to be burned. Or at the very end of the game, when the werewolf is helped to escape from the village by a handsome male pc and suddenly asks if he will follow her.

As for moral content, the werewolf waded through blood but always helped people when she could. She put a lot of effort into getting a loving couple accepted. Cursed indeed. The PC searching for his book, crossed a lot of moral boundaries while chasing it. Among other things, he killed the last of the brothers central to the r-map, a fairly innocent bystander. The priest, well he rose up against his "god" and saved his friend from the fire.

One small problem we sometimes struck upon was "one dimensional PCs" e.g. the manipulative PC has a moral choice regarding manipulation but the player feels there is no choice because his character is manipulative. This was a minor problem though.