The Problem With Sorcerer Is...

[Judd]

I like the lack of a definite setting.  I like being given lego pieces and shown how one might use them and being told, "Put them together with your players and have fun.  Let me know what you come up with."

But I felt when I read this book that it was written at me.  My friends and I who have talked about the how's and why's of gaming for years had a peer somewhere who was thinking along similiar lines but had taken it all one step further and rather than waiting for that game to happen, began to design his own.

I guess the point of this post is to say what's bad about Sorcerer to some is exactly the selling point to others.

[Valamir]

This is such a hard concept for myself and even my players to grasp. Even if my prep is completely "story expectation free" a player will do something in the first session and my mind will latch onto it and suddenly I can't let go of this idea that, "oh my god, this character's story has to end like THIS!" On the player's end I'm constantly dealing with cries of, "But my character can't fail now! That's not the kind of story I'm trying to tell!"

Interestingly (and somewhat immodestly perhaps) the best training I've found for that has been playing Universalis.

The hard smack in the face you get when some other player latches on to a character whose story you were certain needed to go a certain way and takes it in some different direction entirely is exactly the sentiment, I think, that many struggle with.

In Uni, the game is completely devoid of the baggage of "my guy" vs "GM story" so all of the traditional places to "hide" or the traditional weapons to wield are entirely absent.  You either have the Coins and the Control, or you don't.  You learn to really prioritize what you want because you quickly learn you can't afford everything.  So you start to look for those moments that are worth staking a claim to, and learn to riff off of moments that others stake a claim to, because if you fight for everything you rapidly go broke and lose control of everything.

Wasn't one of the design goals, but it turned out to be a good way to practice letting go of preconceived notions of story/development.

[joshua neff]

The problem, Ross, is I don't even see how you could write up a useful "campaign" (a la "Masks of Nyarlathotep") for Sorcerer. First of all, no pre-published "campaign" could take PC Kickers into account. Beyond that, you could get away with pre-planning a certain amount of stuff for the first session, and maybe the second, but after that, the PC drives will total take over. It's the whole flip-flop of Bangs--the GM comes to the table with a fair amount of them for the first session or two, & then the PCs take off. Suddenly, the GM is running to keep up with the players, & the Bangs are now reactions to the Players, rather than Players reacting to GM.

Getting past that, I'm at a loss as to how the sample sorcerous traditions in the main book (or even the whole "How I Did It" chapter), the sample PCs are the beginning, the sample settings in Sorcerer & Sword, & the sample scenarios in Sorcerer's Soul and Sex & Sorcery--not to mention the mini-sups, aren't enough to clue somebody in on how to play the game. Especially since, while Sorcerer does have some pretty distinctive effects that come out in play, I think Ron will be the first to admit, it's not a hugely revolutionary game. It's an RPG, like most other RPGs. You make characters, the GM throws a bunch of complications at the PCs, dice are rolled, & hopefully everyone leaves the table happy. I'm no Einstein, and it took only one reading of the rules to think, "Wow! I want to run something like such-n-such!" The samples in Sorcerer's Soul (the original PDF--I don't have the hardcopy book) cemented things even more. The first few chapters of Sorcerer & Sword were a revelation to me. And I've been playing RPGs for a long, long time.

I guess I'd have to disagree with your statement that Sorcerer has a "lack of focus." I think the game is very focused. What it may lack is a lot of hand-holding, but I don't see that as a problem. Ron mentioned this, too, but in my experience, too much hand-holding has a negative effect. (A personal example is both editions of Changeling: the Dreaming. All through the book, my brain was going, "Yeah! Yeah! I know what to do with this!" And then I read the Storytelling chapter, & I felt my brain deflate. All the enthusiasm I had to run the game just fizzled. I've had to avoid that chapter ever since to even think about running the game--and I've never actually run it. The "how-to" stuff just utterly killed it for me.)

[Roy]

Sorcerer isn't something you can read and understand.  It's like ancient wisdom; you just don't "get it" until you experience it.  

When I first received my copy of Sorcerer, I read it and thought "well, there's a couple of interesting ideas in there."  I really didn't think I'd find anyone interested in trying it out, so I set it down and tried to go do something else.

But Sorcerer called to me.  So I picked it up and read it again.  And again.  And again.  I read it over and over, slowly absorbing little pieces of gaming goodness.  But I didn't really "get it" yet.

Eventually, I talked some people into giving Sorcerer a shot and we started prepping for play.  But I still didn't quite "get it" yet.

But then we played.  Somewhere during our very first scene I had my roleplaying epiphany and it clicked -- I finally "got it".  And so did everyone else.  We all just set back in our chairs and said "woah".    

Will Sorcerer give you that kind of experience?  I don't know and you won't either until you've actually played it.  It may not be your path to roleplaying enlightenment, but it helped me start down my own path.  Thanks Ron.  

Roy

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Roy,

I appreciate that! But I still think I merely failed to write the core book as well as it could have been. My only defense is that if I'd waited until I could write it perfectly, it would never have been published even as a PDF.

Oh well. I'm proud of my game as an engine, and I'm proud of the supplements as game texts.

Best,
Ron

[marcus]

Rather earlier in this thread, Ron wrote:

So Marcus, you're clearly on this wavelength, and I suggest that your option #1 is probably the most useful for your current purposes. ... But you know what I'm not seeing in any of your descriptions? A Premise. A directly and intuitively-understood issue that "sorcery" or just plain "everything" about your idea raises for people who encounter your presentation. I strongly suspect that's why this option looks a little bland to you, and also why your other ideas strike me, anyway, as being over-tweaked and self-referential, as well as too reliant on simulating already-known settings/stories.

I must admit I don't understand the fuss about "premise" as it is defined in the Forge glossary. I know it is said to be integral to roleplaying (or, at the very least, Narrativist role-playing), but don't really see how it is supposed to work. I think I might seek clarification of this matter, however, in a new thread.

Marcus