Steel Cage Death-Match Tournament Sorcerer

[J B Bell]

If you haven't fled in Narrativist horror at the seeming blatant Gamism in the title, imagine with me for a moment:

SUNDAY, SUNDAY, SUNDAY, in the Venerable Grant Myers' private coliseum, after the blood, the tears, the unholy ichor and mighty test of sorcerous will, four demons are gonna face off in the final years' STEEL CAGE DEATH MATCH!  It's the Pay-Per-View event you've been waiting for!

Aeons ago, in the mists of the Archive, there was a brief discussion about demons as player characters, in a game where the sorcerers are also player characters, possibly as a tournament setting for conventions.  My acute apologies if I've missed any similar thread here in the bboard.

The Conceit

Some unusually degenerate bunch of Sorcerers, or all Sorcerers, if you think they lean this way (or are, somehow, required to) like to have their demons compete to see who wins.  Since they're very powerful people, and since the demons wouldn't consent at all to this kind of tomfoolery if it was likely to expose them (not that they like the main idea either), the audience is of course just other Sorcerers.

The Set-Up

A great big steel cage.  Of course, that's just for show, many demons could become mist and get out of it, or teleport, or whatever.  It's a great big steel cage (I like a big cube, but hey, how about a cool Thunderdome kinda thing, for that matter?) with a powerful Contain on it.

The Players (in a literary sense)

Four Demons.  Two Sorcerers.  Or, maybe four Sorcerers.  I think it sounds like more fun with fewer Sorcerers, but that's me.

The Goal(s)

If you're a Sorcerer, of course, the goal is to beat the crap out of the other Demons with your own Demons.

If you're a Demon, you have two goals:  1) stay alive, and 2) beat the crap out of the other Demons.

Simple, eh?  Well . . .

Wrinkles

This could be fun fodder for a Relationship Map.  Think of all those stories about crooked boxing managers and noble, but not very smart, boxers.  For that matter, pick up a copy of The Nation from a couple months ago and read up on how amazingly, horribly crooked boxing was and still is.  Now think about how extra-vile Sorcerous boxing is going to be.  All that pro-wrestling glamour in a nasty incestuous little society, only the stakes are totally for real.  Humanity can plunge in a single night.  (Or not, exposing a pretty crummy ethical system, IMO, if your definition of Humanity says torturing Demons for kicks is OK.  Shades of Spawn and other comics of the last decade showing a questionable war between Heaven and Hell.)

Maybe a Sorcerer is likely to find ways to screw up an opponent outside the ring.  After all, you still want to be able to command your Demons, and you can't do that if you're speechless, for some reason.

Maybe, and this is how I envision giving Demon players an extra-fun goal, maybe the Demons are sick enough of this crap to try to break the Contain and suddenly change the parameters of the game.

And maybe the crooked fight managers didn't work as hard on that Contain as they should have. . . .

--TQuid

P.S.  I thought of this is a possible down-and-dirty intro. for my spanking-new to role-playing players, but decided against it.  However, this ridiculous idea wouldn't leave me alone.  Comments welcome!

[Zak Arntson]

You do realize you've just brought Pokemon into Sorcerer, right?

[mahoux]

Blood demon, I choose you.

WHew, at least I know i wasn't the only person who had this vision of cute little demons beating the living crap out of each other.

[Mike Holmes]

What's that? Somebdy is writing a Pokethulhu Sorcerer supplement? Sign me up!

But seriously, folks, what you could do with this idea is to make it a regular sorcerer adventure. Work up the relationship map, and then include lots of ways to link player sorcerers to the fight. Fr example, if the player Kicker is that their sister has just been kidnapped, it turns out to be by the fight promoters who wish to force the sorcerer to make his demons fight. That sort of thing. You really don't need to have the Demons as PCs at all. There are several obvious Bangs, the climactic one being the fight itself.

Are published "adventures" or RMs (I'm starting to think that might be a reat idea) or the like something that you are interested in Ron? Or do you see them as superfluous, or counter to Sorcerer's Narrativist concept.

Mike

[Ron Edwards]

Mike,

I have no idea what you mean by published adventures or RM's. (What's an RM?)

TQuid and all,

I love the death-match PokeSorcerer concept thing. I think it's hilarious and engaging. Keep the demon vs. demon and demon vs. Binder issues boiling hot, and maybe tweak things a little to keep the play focused, and I see a mini-supplement.

Best,
Ron

[Zak Arntson]

The best part about going the PokeSorcerer route (okay two best parts) is
a) it sounds like an awesome afternoon of gaming
b) There's such an established format for the "collectible demon" type game. Just watch the jellyvision on Saturday morning, and you'll see that it's always the variation on a theme:

1) Peace - Everything seems fine, some simple goal is to be reached (let's get to the Dreaming City!)
2) Tension - Enemies show up, some bizarre Demon appears, something blocks the path
3) Middle Part - Tension causes people's frienships to be tested, self-worth to be questioned, and of course a buncha fights.
4) Climax - Usually a climactic battle. And at least one lesson is learned.
5) End - Everyone laughs.

I mean, heck, not only do you have fuel to pull the Relationship Map's strings, the format encourages a new weekly Demon (and everyone can consult their Demodexes), constant Demon battling, and always there's the Kicker! Not to mention each session could fit in an afternoon or two.

So Ron, did Sorcerer really begin as your homebrew Pokemon game?

[Ron Edwards]

Zak,

No, no, Sorcerer began as phantasmagorical Howard-style fantasy. It got modernized because no one cared about fantasy RPGs in the mid-90s. Then, when Pokemon came out (in the States, that is), I said, "Hey, cute Sorc!"

Best,
Ron

[Mike Holmes]

I have no idea what you mean by published adventures or RM's. (What's an RM?)

Not keeping up on the jargon for your own game? Relationship Map = RM. Just a little shorthand.

And you know what I mean by published adventures. Scenarios, whatever; like the sample one in Sorcerer. So, to restate, would you like to see mini-supplements for Sorcerer that had another supplement as the main background, and just provided details like RMs, Bangs, and similar stuff to what you find in published adventures?

As I said, such could revolutionize the "module" (god I hate that term).

Mike

[Ron Edwards]

Hey Mike,

If you look at my calls for mini-supplements, you'll see that I'm very, very inclusive about what might be in them. What you describe is already permitted - a whole book of scenarios is peachy-keen with me. Or short stories (with some game talk at the end). Or hell, even a frigging of art would be fine, with again some game talk to round it out.

The only sticking point is using another mini-supplement for the basis (as opposed to Sorcerer or the two book supplements). And it seems to me that as long as the advertising text for the new mini-supplement says so, and as long as the first mini-supplement's author gets consulted at one point or another, that the option is legitimate.

Best,
Ron