Chargen difficulties

[Overdrive]

Hei all,

Look, I'm ramping up my first Sorcerer game, cool! I've been reading the books enthusiastically and built an "advertisement" pdf to lure some players, which didn't quite work as I had imagined. Well, finally three guys were keen enough to gather to a character generation session, so here we go.

The demons are the lost and damned souls, who seek to damn others to free themselves. So Humanity is roughly defined as 'soul', but perhaps not in the biblical sense, so it can also be seen as empathy. I also thought a good place to set the game was the east coast US metropolis, with some Gothic elements.

The character generation proved very slow, to all our disappointment. A big part of this was my unfamiliarity with the rules. Especially the demon ability list was intimidating; I couldn't quite figure how to express some ideas in game terms, although I'd do much better now. The rules for the binding Humanity check eluded me entirely, so we left those for next time. Clearly the problem field was too open-ended; people had difficulties coming up with ideas, demon concepts, what the characters want, etc. I probably should have said more clearly that this game is about THIS and THIS. Instead, I posed pretty much the default questions and relied the players to come up with stronger ideas, which kinda failed.

Here are the characters as I remember them.

One character is the lead singer in a heavy-metal band called Borderline. He has studied occultism and is a coven member. His demon is an ancient book that most notably boosts his Cover ability. We tried to figure out other ways to "enhance" the music but then went on with this. It also spawns a shadowy cloud so it could boost on-stage, as the book would be too risky to bring along, and to protect itself. It has a need to hear the news, which have to be written on its pages (I figure the spawn cloud can see and hear things, but the book requires writing to fully satisfy). Maybe it desires to hear bad news, probably it's Corruption.

Another character is a badass slick filthy-rich businessman who went to the Caribbeans to buy himself an island to turn into a golf course. The local people protested, to no avail, and when he got home, he found a little pygmy from his suitcase. Now, the pygmy is pretty powerful a demon, it has cloak to conceal its presence, travel (teleport) with perception, and Big. It had a fifth ability but I can't remember it. Its need is to gnaw on human bones.

The last one poses as a TV evangelist, but is actually running a small coven. We figured he'd be an alcoholic ex-Reverend who sought faith in the wrong places. His lore descriptor is Mad, this should be fun. The demon is a real badass, an inconspicious flame demon. When it is around, any flames burn more intense. It can travel, mark, burn (special damage), protect (from flames), taint and has cloak to do these without seen. Its need is to burn things, and it probably has the desire Mayhem, although it could be more fun to have a different desire.

You see the demons got more attention than the sorcerers.. this is because we didn't have time for the once-overs and kickers. The players are probably still clueless about those, despite my efforts to describe them. Also, I'm a bit worried that the character motivations will not be very strong, that there will be pretty weak kickers. We'll see..

Any comments, suggestions?

Some rules questions. We found the dice mechanics a bit awkward. This when we did some practice rolls for the Bindings. If the sorcerer (S) rolls 9 8 4 2 and the demon (D) rolls 9 9 8 7 5 3 1, the demon wins with one success. What if S rolled 9 9 4 2 instead, seems better? Now D wins with three successes?! If S rolls only one die and gets 10, and D rolls 10 9 8 7 6 5 4, D wins with one success (as per the exception). If S rolls two dice for 10 5, D wins with four successes, even though the roll "seems" better...

BR,
Antti

[Per Fischer]

Quick reply, as I am in the middle of starting my Sorcerer game as well, but perhaps a little bit further into the process.

The Binding Humanity roll is straight forward. The player rolls his Humanity against itself. If he loses against his own Humanity, then go down a Humanity point. If he wins, Humanity stays the same. That's the least of your rules trouble, I'd say ;)

Is it possible that we could have a look at your PDF advert? That would be nice.

I am not sure why you expect the Kickers to be weak. You don't have to start play until your are satisfied with them. Two of my players found it very hard to write Kickers, but when they eventually came round and did it, they were both totally strong and useful IMO.

I am also not sure about your dice questions. I think you should avoid the "what if he rolled ... instead" questions. Simply look at the actual rolls when you are playing and take it from there. If something weird turns out in practical play, then post about it here, I think that's a much better strategy. But I was a bit intimidated by the Sorcerer dice rules in the beginning as well, until I realised how beatifully simple they are.

One die can beat 10 dice, yes. Seven dice can beat the crap out of two dice. Also true. But the dice are not competing, they help you decide conflicts in the game.

Per

[erithromycin]

I would also like to see the advertisement for the game, if only because you seem to have quite a disparate collection of characters here.

What is your group's definition of Humanity?

What is Sorcery? - How do they contact and bind demons?

These are important questions that I find are best answered before the creation of characters.

[edit: punctuation is the bane of my futile existence]

[Overdrive]

Hmm.. I don't have a website to put the PDF on, and it is in Finnish so it might be a bit difficult for some of you to read. :)

But anyway, we weren't looking for anything resembling a "party" when creating the characters. I figured there'd be enough links due to the rarity of sorcery itself -- put three sorcerers in the same city, gather a few demons, and there be some serious interaction. Two of the starting demons have Travel, and one has Mark, so they can't miss each other.

One reason the characters are so diverse is probably that I set no boundaries regarding back-stories or anything, and that the players probably had no particular clue on what they should expect from the game. This new to all of us.

But the dice are not competing, they help you decide conflicts in the game.

True enough. But some might say that e.g. in combat there is some competition: who gets to go unharmed, who gets to suck up damage and possibly die? This issue came up specifically when rolling for the initial Binding, and as we all are some sort of computer scientists, found the possible results quite weird.

Anyway, thanks guys

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

Antti, thanks for posting about your game. Have you taken a quick look at the Actual Play page at the Sorcerer website?

If the sorcerer (S) rolls 9 8 4 2 and the demon (D) rolls 9 9 8 7 5 3 1, the demon wins with one success. What if S rolled 9 9 4 2 instead, seems better? Now D wins with three successes?!

It only seems better because you're comparing the two rolls (9 8 4 2 vs. 9 9 4 2) to a 10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 absolute scale. instead of to the opposition roll. For purposes of a comparison of this kind, the opposition roll is fixed, all the way from highest to lowest value. Those two 9's are a "reality," if you will. Hence tying with them is less desireable.

It's tremendously non-awkward in actual play; just lose the absolute scale from your mind and all will be well.

If S rolls only one die and gets 10, and D rolls 10 9 8 7 6 5 4, D wins with one success (as per the exception). If S rolls two dice for 10 5, D wins with four successes, even though the roll "seems" better...

Again, it actually isn't better relative to D's roll. That 9-8-7-6 in D's roll is extremely powerful as a mathematical "entity," and in order for S's two-dice roll to be good, it has to be at the top of the range of D's roll: two 10's, a 10 and a 9, and so on.

Best,
Ron