Stormbringer redux

[Manu]

Hello all,

I had an idea but I thought first to use this forum to pick your brains before launching into a detailed analysis.

I suppose everyone is familiar with Chaosium's Stormbringer - It might even be the first time some of us summoned demons (boy I'm growing old).I was wondering: With our current 21st century state of RPG, the GNS model and especially Sorcerer to cast a new light on demon summoning, how would you play Stormbringer NOW ? what changes would you make to the background, to the demon capabilities, to their relationship to their master? It's obviously quite easy to explain the story and characters in Sorcerer terms,; but I'm looking for a broader approach, in terms of campaign house rules and GNS stance.

Thanks,

Manu

[furashgf]

I think you could cover most of this with "Sorcerer and Sword."  If I remember correctly, Elric's magic is more Ron Edwards Sorcerer than D&D.  Spells mostly involve deals (perhaps old pacts) with otherworldy entities (deamons) who do something.

[Uncle Dark]

The big difference for me would be in how demons and humans interact.  If I were to use the Stormbringer or Elric! rules (which I wouldn't - &Sword would work better), I would still wonder about the relationship of the demon's Desire and the player's goals, and probably impose a Need on demons, though I'm not sure if I'd make it a "must have or die" kind of thing.  More a personality thing, like an obssession.

Lon

[Ron Edwards]

Manu,

In many ways, the very existence of Sorcerer and Sword is my answer to your question. It's an answer I've been wanting to provide since the middle 1980s, when I sniffed the air and realized that the stink emanated from the corpse of fantasy-adventure literature.

Some of the forum folks know that my original intention was to write a sword & sorcery role-playing game that really captured - in design and content - what I found to be truly great in the relevant literature. Therefore Sword cannot really be considered an "add-on" so much as the ORIGINAL form of the game's content, which could not be expressed until the mechanics and motor (the system) were understood and utilized.

In many ways, Sorcerer and Sword provides the "who" and "when" that is missing in the main book, and The Sorcerer's Soul provides the "why." The main book only provides What (the demons) and How (the system).

If all this seems too abstract to answer your question, I apologize. I can only gesture feebly at the work itself and hope it's sufficient.

Best,
Ron