[Sorcerer] First Campaign (SPOILER)

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Bill,

Whoa Nelly. Something's gone off the rails here. I gotta do some theory with you ...

I've read in a number of threads that Nar is about letting the player tell their story. TROS, for example, is described as a player-driven system. So that's where my concern is coming from. But if it's for me to decide, decide I will.

I tend to break "story" up into many different processes when it comes to role-playing. Two of these processes might best be called "proposing" and "disposing." It's a play on the old adage that God Proposes, Man Disposes, or vice versa. In other words, someone sets the conditions or brings in a "thing to consider," and another someone gets to resolve, judge, or otherwise act in such a way that there's an identifiable outcome.

One way to role-play is that the GM sets the basic parameters, then Players Propose (announce actions) and then the GM Disposes (says what happens). In many such games, the GM really gets to "tell the story," because his or her power over the Disposing is so vast. In some cases, the players can Propose practically anything and the GM's Disposing is so skilled he'll "slip'em the story despite themselves." Interestingly, the necessary skills are even considered the very height of the role of GM, hence the book Secrets of Good Gamemastering, which is essentially a manual for the approach outlined in this paragraph.

However, Sorcerer and TROS are nearly identical in an almost-diametrically opposed approach, which might be described as GM Proposes, Player Disposes. Now, the very first set of conditions is pretty mutual, especially in Sorcerer (demons, Kickers, are player-authored, e.g.). But when actual play begins, the GM is the Big Proposer. The Kickers are his tools now (once they're written), along with whatever other NPCs and opening-scene concepts he has in mind. And when play begins, the players really Dispose. The GM cannot anticipate dice outcomes; no one can. The GM cannot anticipate the sides the players will take, the thematic concerns they'll viscerally choose to emphasize, or the ways their Humanity will change.

What the GM has is what he Proposed: NPCs in action, mainly. Hence the more NPCs with grabby (i.e. engaging) content, who show up and do important stuff, the better - because it gives all the more meat for the players to Dispose.

It seems to me that everything I discussed in my previous post was very strictly limited to Proposing, leaving Disposing wide open to the choices that your players will make during play. However, it also seems to me that you read my post as if I were talking about Disposing, i.e., how stuff turns out ("the story").

Does that help, or make any more sense? Again, think about how detailed prep works well in TROS: not outcomes, but intense NPCs and situations in which outcomes will be revealed through player-decisions for their characters. It's exactly the same for Sorcerer.

Best,
Ron

[Bill Cook]

I think I follow you.  One of the things I noted from the Art Deco Melodrama threads was that you completed your back-story, exclusively involving NPC's, rolled back the events and started play.  When I said, "decide I will," I didn't mean what the players will do.  I just meant aspects of the back-story.  For instance, who killed Amanda?  See, we've got two issues:

[list=1]
[*]It's the GM's job to provide motivation, intensity.
[*]The player disposes.
[/list:o]

I think I've got the dichotomy oriented correctly.  I let the players do what they will.  I try to put them in situations that require decisions that will develop their Kicker.  I'm just a little unsure sometimes how to do that.  But this thread has offered a number of good ideas, for which I am grateful.

".. slip 'em the story despite themselves."  Well, the story's got to come from somewhere.  If their Kickers are thin and their choices are to "be safe," it's gonna be a yawn fest.  Worse, they blame the GM.  Don't get me wrong: I understand the difference in the approaches you illustrate.  I'm just making the point that there's a downside risk either way.

To be clear, it's not as though I've composed the narrative, scene by scene, and I'm tugging by the nosering.  Deciding an NPC's plans is not the same thing as deciding how the narritive has to unfold.

If I understand correctly, (1) deciding what NPC's there are, what they want and what they're going to do to get it and (2) dropping the PC's into a situation that involves all that is precisely the proposing that a Sorcerer GM should be doing.  Aside from the uncertainty with improvised vs high prep (which is now crystal), I'm comfortable with my position.  Though I am pleased to seek input for effective implementation.

[Ron Edwards]

You got it, Bill.

The "downside" you mention is indeed that, at least going by the aesthetic outlook underlying all the Sorcerer rules, the players might just sit there and gape at one another and the GM.

And what happens then? Play stops, that's what happens - as I see it, anyway. If I'm the bass player, and we get together to jam, and the other players all gape at one another and me ... am I to run around and play their instruments as well as my own, holding (e.g.) the drummer's wrists as he holds the sticks?

Nope. Playing Sorcerer pre-supposes that they are capable of soloing as well as hitting a rhythmic groove with everyone else. If not, well then, it isn't for them.

"Story has to come from somewhere." Yes it does. And as I see it, it's the players of the sorcerer characters - nowhere else. The entire Humanity mechanic, in all of its applications, as well as the Binding and demon interaction rules, make any GM-driven method of story-outcomes in Sorcerer into an obviously tautological exercise.

Sorcerer is way more like playing basketball than it is like running a Shadowrun or Call of Cthulhu scenario - if people didn't come to play, then play doesn't happen.

Best,
Ron