[Sorcerer] Advice wanted on one-shot and running at cons

[The Magus]

Hello all - my first post in a few months.

There have been some changes in my RPG activity of late (which I won't bore you with) and consequently I'm going to try to attend a few more cons this year.  I'm thinking on offering to run a Sorcerer one-shot, initially for some friends and then, all going well, at a con.  I've got more confident with the system since reading posts and blogs by Jesse Burneko and Christopher Kubasik and learning from my own mistakes and those of others.  I appreciate that Sorcerer is designed to run for much longer than a four hour slot but I was wondering are there any ways that this could be used advantageously?

I thought about creating some pre-generated characters (with kickers) and demons and a relationship map and pretty much leaving it at that.  I was thinking of setting it in the British Parliament - there has been a recent scandal over MP expense and I thought about having this strand running through the play, although I'm not entirely set on it.  Oh yes, I need to define Humanity.

I'm going to try and draw up a couple of one sheets.  I'm more keen on social conflicts initially and I think the settings will reflect that, although ultimately if the players want to get into a 'knock the shit out of each other' fight I certainly won't stand in the way.  Any key points that I need to bear in mind?

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Piers,

Sorcerer Con Games leads back to this older thread, [Sorcerer] Convention scenario. More recently, Tony conducted some interesting con activities, described in [Sorcerer] Convention Workshops and Character Creation... and [Sorcerer] Convention Workshops: Definitions (if I missed one of those, let me know).

Anyway, although I won't go so far as to say "Sorcerer is not a convention game," it certainly doesn't lend itself to many of the expectations or commonly-held goals of convention play. I think that I'd be most inclined to do it, these days, only with people who were absolutely dedicated to playing, with this particular group, at this particular time. In other words, I don't really want to introduce Sorcerer to people through con play (as opposed to demos, which I do). H'mmm ... that still doesn't quite express what I mean. I'm happy to play with people who haven't played before. But I don't want to play this game with people who are there to role-play anything and are not especially interested in Sorcerer as such.

I only present that as where my own head is at, these days.

Best, Ron

[The Magus]

Hi Ron

Thanks for this.  I found this useful to my thinking:

One method I've enjoyed at cons is to have a prep and character creation session at one sitting, and then to reconvene for play the next day. That gives me time actually to prep, and to be ready to play the demons as well as at least a couple of decent NPCs. Without doing that, I find that my back-stories are too weird and iffy - which at times turned out to be fun, but not at other times. The break between prep and play is a good thing.

I strongly recommend limiting things to two players, period. Every time I've broken that limit, at cons, I've regretted it. Three can work, and I have some good memories of good games at cons with three - but they also go south. And four simply doesn't work out for me, or rather, it doesn't work out for everyone at the table. I'm not saying the same limit would be the breakpoint for everyone, but that's the take-home as far as my own efforts are concerned.

I was also curious to know how you demo the game?  What is the main aspect of the system you try to get across?  Is it the whole process of conflict resolution and roll-overs or something else?

Cheers
Piers

[The Magus]

Actually having read my last post I think it's a little "tell me what to do" rather than "Here's what I'm going to do - please critique."

I'll post something in the vein of the latter in the next day or two.