Managing Need as GM

[Bailywolf]

As a GM, how do you handle a demon's Need during play?  Ron has already well covered the off-screen-on-screen issue ("But I'm sure I would have fed Burdox his live chicken today...no I didn't actualy say I did...but I'm sure...").  

As a GM, how do you keep track of which demons are seriously in Need- in Need enough to become an active factor in the story as oposed to the constant, normal background greed they're all suposed to have.

Also, in terms of determining a "feeding schedule" for your player's demons, do you take into account a demon's power and the relative rarity/severity of the Need itself?

In the few one-shots I've run, it has come up both times.  The guy with the human livers demon was irritated that he had to acquire fresh organs as frequently as the guy who just had to play punishingly loud Boroque music.  

Eventualy I broke Needs down into three (very rough) catagories:

Paltry:  These needs are easy to meet and don't require a Sorcerer to much risk his humanity in doing so.  Going to the pat shop to get some feeder mice for your snake demon, playing thrash metal music for your headbanging troll demon, or feeding your little demon-child candy.  Demons with this order of need are in Need all the time, and their feeding interval is measured in hours to days.  Any real excercise of their power is going to require their Need be met fairly soon less they get cranky.

Normal:  These needs represent a fair complication in a Sorcerer's life.  They require several hours just to meet, require rare or expensive substances, or risky actions.  The need to defend the sorcerer (if combined with the Desire to Do Violence only in Defense).  To sip at the sorcerer's own blood.  To discover and consume secrets (by making them commonly known).  Normal needs have a feeding interval measured in days to weeks.

Dear:  Just trying to meet this need is going to tax a Sorcerer's humanity or put him in mortal danger, and will always represent a story event.  Fresh human organs.  Other demons.  The sorcerer's own flesh and blood.  The sorcerer's memories.  Dear needs have a feeding interval measured in Weeks to Months.  



So I let the liver demon be fairly satisfied for upwards on a month before requireing a new organ (and when his sorcerer broke into a hospital to steal a liver wiating for transpalnt...oh, what joy I felt as a GM).  Trying to meet his demon's need almost got him arested and complicated the hell out of his life.

The other guy had only a Paltry need to contend with, but it was a constant agravation...and when this weird floating squid-thing sucked the batteries in his Walkman dry, his demon went into need pretty damned fast (he had it kill the squid-thing) and he had rebellion on his hands before he could get to Wal-Mart for new bateries-  it was the afternoon, and All Things Considered was on NPR instead of classical music.  




But this is the solution I worked out in play mode.  Anyone deal with a similar situation, or do you simply encourage players to develop demon needs which don't torpedo or dominate the story?

[joshua neff]

I take it purely on a scene-by-scene, story-based basis. If a PC hasn't attended to his/her demon's Need in a while (either on-screen or with a sentence about off-screen actions), I'll bring it up ("Wormwood, I need you to follow that guy."--"Well...what's in it for me?"). Sometimes my Players bring it up themselves (such as when Gregg emailed my & said, "Nathan hasn't taken care of Tabitha's Need in a while, so I see some good story complications coming up when...").

Since the "on-screen" narrative jumps through time ("This session takes place a few weeks after last session."), & I don't get dead-on specific about exactly how much time has passed (because this particular session is simulating a TV show, & TV shows rarely get that specific--& I can't stand that kind of second-by-second bean-counting anyway), keeping track of meeting Needs, as if we were accountants, is problematic. So...it's all narrative-based. There's no "feeding schedule".

[Bailywolf]

joshua

I see what you mean.  How do you maintain internal consistency though?  I'm not going for a literal feeding schedule... "8:00, 6oz of fresh calves blood...9:00 walk...12:00 half a pear covered in pureed eyes...1:30 nap time..."  but how do you keep Need from becoming the GM's Big Anoying Stick?  My group tends to get fairly old-school about things like this- they tend to view rules as impartial mediators which keep GM's from taking advantage and railroading them (how they developed this defense reaction is owed entirely to the last guy who GM'd for us).  If they start to feel like I'm just using the Need thing to bitch slap them around...they get cranky.  As I've said before, they tend to the Gamest side of things.

Frankly, I actualy perfer being able to just assume need gets taken care of.  I feel like a dick if I say, "oh, I'm sorry pal, you didn't specificaly say you were tending to your demon's need now did you...and he didn't remind you I'm sure...".  I actualy find the idea that you could somehow FORGET to FEED YOUR FRIGGIN MONSTER FROMT THE PITS OF HELL kind of crazy.  I feed my fish automaticaly every morning...If my fish would creep up and suck out my eyes while I sletp if I didn't feed them, well christ do the math!  

Anyway, I sort of tangeted there...

Oh yar, Joshua, how do you ballance off the anoying Needs with the seriously F-ed up ones?

[Bailywolf]

Oh Joshua, one more thing.  Your example is for your Hellfire campiagn right?  How aobut an upate on that.  I'd like to hear the current state of the game.

[joshua neff]

I think that's one of the differences in the relationship between Players & GM in my group. My group trusts me not to do anything to hose them. So if I suddenly bring up "Hey, your demon is being uncooperative because you haven't seen to its need in a while", they don't take that as a slap or a stick but as a point of drama to work with. Also, my Players do what they can to hose their own characters. They want to put them into trouble, because that's what defines them as protagonists. Which is why they bring up "Hey, I haven't attended to my demon's Need in a while". The whole question of "hey, GM, are you just doing this to keep me in line?" doesn't even come up. I'm sure that's not much help to you, but that's how my group operates.

As for "balancing" the "easy" Needs with the "hard" ones...to be honest, I've never even thought about it. All of the PCs' demons' Needs are designed for story impact. Nathan has to fix up Tabitha with his friends so that she can break their hearts (& so far it's only been NPC friends). Lupe has to steal little things for Wormwood, which conflicts with her desire to be a successful Mexican-American who goes against the stereotypes of her heritage. Kevin has to expose his ring to blood in a fight, which pushes him to be more violent that he would normally be as a Hero. And Ernie's new demon, Tiburath, requires him to smoke, so Ernie has taken up smoking, a symbol of his new-found courage & guts. I haven't had to really do much as a GM about these. Chris takes it upon himself to constantly make reference to Ernie chain-smoking. Colin describes little scenes in which Lupe shoplifts something for Wormwood. Gregg has Nathan take Tabitha out for dinner & fix her up with someone. Barry has Kevin push himself in fights. I just sit back & watch it all (& throw more complications at them). Nobody's even thought about what Needs were more complicated than others, even though Wormwood's can potentially get Lupe arrested, while the worst that will happen to Ernie is he'll eventually get lung cancer (which obviously won't happen in gameplay).

So, I'm not really sure what to tell you. I think if I were in your shoes, I'd just let my Players know (over & over again, until they're cool with it) that the point of the Need is for drama & that's all. It's not a GM stick (or carrot), it's not a "dumb thing I have to do in order to keep my cool powers", it's just another point for the drama to work off of.

As for an update...I'm sort of waiting for the narrative to wrap up. Due to real life commitments, we've been playing on & off, with somewhat-lengthy haitus ("Hellfire" was in reruns...synchronistically at the same time Buffy was). While quite a bit happens in each session, I don't really want to write an update until the narrative has finished.

[Bailywolf]

Thanks man.  I think if sacrificing the odd goat would give me the power to induce a sense of drama into my players...oh well.  Careful what you wish for and all.

My players can't get past the idea that there isn't a bigger payoff for taking the really heavy-duty Needs...they get into their characters when I arm-twist enough to make Sorcerer the game-o-the-week, but as old school Champs and D&D players, they still tend to think about the numbers game...latent power-monger tendencies, though they do dig the cool description = more dice rule.  

I was hoping for a Hellfire update because I know I could induce some serious Sorcerer mojo with a very Buffy derivitive campaign...when you get the chance, I'd love to hear how it plays out.

[Ron Edwards]

Hey,

Seems to me like this issue is related to the whole thing about "limitations" that you wrote about a few days ago. As a Champions-vet, I know how that design feature can burn itself into a gamer's mind so that any "limitation" on X just naturally, totally, automatically translates to some necessary advantage to X (or by extension to the whole character) ... right? And if it's not, then - oh God, shock! - it's unbalanced!! Harv could "get more" out of his character than I might? Oh, fuck! This game sucks!

Sigh. I suggest just feeding it to them straight. No, being a "bum" for your Cover instead of "rich guy" does not mean you get "more points" for demons' Power scores or some such stupid thing. And no, no such elements are part of character design at all.

I've played a lot of Sorcerer with folks from this background, and every time, their faces fall when they realize that (unlike every other game they've played), no, it ain't gonna work this way, this time. Some back out. Frankly, I don't miss them at all.

Best,
Ron

[Bailywolf]

Yup.  The situation is grim.  But not all bad.  They yummed up my other favorite- Godlike- to I can't entirely complain.  The hook I tried most recently is based on the observation that the most intresting, setting-intigated character always gets the most screen-time...even in the majority of genera fiction.  It isn't King Badass who hogs all the word space, its the little guy who's adventure everyone follows, with little crumbs of Bad Ass along the way for color and 'gosh wow!' value.  I tried to get them to understand that it was their characters that the story was about, and them more quirks and hooks they came equiped with, the more heavily the story would revolve around them.  

The looked dubious.

Then I suggested that for next time, I'd introduce the Donjon Krawl fact winning mechanic...allowing them to esential win authorial control in measurable chunks.  They seemed to buy this...and even sort of dig it.  I figure at the least it introduces an alternate gm/player relationship scheme.  


But Ron, I'll bet you play the Need thing just like Joshua- as part of the narative developed through play.  Any suggestions for active play-ballancing the minor from the story-shaping need (instead of pre-play balancing mechanics)?

[joshua neff]

I'm not surprised the glommed onto Godlike, really. With that system when you're building your superpowers, you can take disadvantages that reduce the cost of the powers, thereby giving you more points. It's one of the things that pissed me off about Godlike when I read it.

My suggestion, BW, is to help them see that the demons' Needs mean something. They're not "limitations" you have to take but more meat for the narrative, like PC secrets in Over the Edge. Give them lots of meaty story stuff to chew on. If they still don't "get it"...well, I don't really know what to tell you. Some folks just don't get it, or they don't want to play that way. Not every game is for every person.

[Ron Edwards]

Hey BW,

You wrote,
"Any suggestions for active play-ballancing the minor from the story-shaping need (instead of pre-play balancing mechanics)?"

There's that friggin' "balancing" concept again. If you'd just jettison that, you'd sure be saving yourself a lot of trouble. Right now, it seems like you're trying to avoid "balance problems" by making sure everything is perfectly balanced, which is kind of like trying to solve "gravity problems" by stepping off a rooftop and flapping your arms really, really hard.

Follow Josh's lead. If the players get imaginatively interested in their demons' Needs, then the Needs will come into play without your help. In my experience, the best way to generate this interest is to role-play the demons wanting their Needs during the first session. They mention them. They show interest in the Needs even when they're "full," in a kind of lazy way. And after every session, do a "Need check" and see if you want to play any demon as a little more, well, Needy.

Love the demons, as I described in a recent thread. Did a PC fail to give them something nice? Awww! Play them accordingly. Get into demon-think, for prep purposes, and step back and get into co-author-think, for play purposes.

And for pity's sake, quit worrying. You can't guarantee Perfect Play. Go in with the plan of enjoying yourself.

Best,
Ron

[Jared A. Sorensen]

I'm not surprised the glommed onto Godlike, really. With that system when you're building your superpowers, you can take disadvantages that reduce the cost of the powers, thereby giving you more points. It's one of the things that pissed me off about Godlike when I read it.

Without turning this into a Godlike post, I gotta say that the limitations of your Talent is what really makes the game work. So rather than design a superpower, then try and hone it down (point-wise) with flaws, I've been coming up with a cool flaw then working that into a power.

I think it feeds back into the notion that despite everything, the characters in Godlike are human. I mean, if you call Godlike a superhero game, you're missing the point. It's about superheroes about as much as D&D is about medieval history.