Oh no, a new Vampyr iteration of Sorcerer

[Lamorak33]

Hi

I have been asked to run a World of Darkness Vampire game. Clearly I don't want to use the WoD system as others have said, it 'does not do what it says on the tin'. I said that I will run a vampire game, using the setting but using a different system. I tried to get a Sorcerer game going before but due to changing commitments never got it off the ground. I love the Sorcerer system hence my desire to use it for this game. My apologies for going over old ground but I have a couple of rules questions.

I have searched and read the old Vampire threads. Sorcerer is the right vehicle for exploring what do you do to get what you wnat when you have the powers of the night at your disposal. So far so good.

My take is that the demons are silent, but have to have their needs satisfied. Otherwise you lose your ability to use your vampiric powers. Now to the science bit, what happens when the vampire demon is banished? Torpor? How do you get it back? Any ideas? I am thinking something like a summoning ritual, but with lots (and I mean a lot) of blood. How am I doing? Does this sound 'right'?

Lore - any ideas on if and how this may be repackaged to fit the settting.

Thanks guys

Rob

[The_Tim]

For banishing, it depends on the look of sorcery in your game.  The look should help explain it.  Remember, the sorcerer's Telltale and descriptors can determine the vampirism angle.  Yes, it is the demons that provide the nifty stuff, but ultimately the sorcerer has done the blood drinking, participated in the black rites, and decided to come back out of the ground as what they are.  Banishing a demon won't take that away from them.

So.  What sort of stuff are you going to be looking at in the game?  What are you thinking about for Humanity?  How much of the color are you going to silly putty off of the World of Darkness?  Think about these things first and do it all up one-sheet style.  If you have Sorcerer and Sword there is a lot of awesome stuff in there to poach for this.  Past instead of Cover for vampires (though for a modern game Cover will work, it just has a different feel), Humanity trading and caps, and Necromancy (murdering by feeding as a Token) could all have a place in this game, depending on what you and your players want out of it.

I like fusing settings onto Sorcerer, mostly because it requires boiling down the setting to the stuff that makes people give a shit about stories set there.

[James_Nostack]

Rob, you might also want to consider using The Shadow of Yesterday for this; it might be a little more intuitive, and I'd be happy to share my rudimentary thoughts about it.  Setting up vampires in Sorcerer is a little bit like forcing an ellipsoidal peg into a circular hole: you can probably do it, but you've got to skew some things.

I'd say that vampirism is a possessor demon, with a Need of blood, and a Desire related to whatever you were doing when you got embraced.  Humanity would be Responsibility.  Ghouls would be passer demons, probably with low Power.  Punishing a vampire would involve forcing it to drink your tainted blood; banishing a vampire would involve diablerie.  Containing a vampire would likely involve the classic defenses: specially prepared garlic, a forceful presentation of a crucifix, etc.  Contacting a vampire would probably involve going to the right night clubs/places where vampires have fun, and Summoning one would involve knowing the right things to say to get yourself alone with one in a situation permitting proper sorcery.

Torpor's easy enough: in Sorcerer, there's no rule saying, "Gee, you're dead now."  You just get really banged up.  Simple enough to say, "Oh, okay, instead of dying you go into torpor."

At least, that's my best guess at how to do it.

[Trevis Martin]

Hey Rob,

Check out the one sheet I'm using for my group's current game of Sorcerer here.  http://wiki.trevismartin.org/pmwiki.php/Undead/OneSheet   It doesn't relate precisely but it would be a snap to make a vampire type by giving the demon the need for blood.  In particular I want you to notice the parasite, posessor, passer cycle as the progress of the beast.

The other thing I would do is keep the whole, "banish the demon and it kills you" bit from that one sheet.  I kinda like the idea of a Vampirish sorcerer game.  I have since, well forever. 

Trevis

[The_Tim]

I dunno.  I suppose after a certain point vampires would die from Banishment, what with requiring the demon's use of Vitality.  On the other hand giving younger vamps a slight edge in that they can survive without their demon for a little bit might make things very interesting.

Also, it occurs to me that if you want to absorb the World of Darkness setting the first demon of a vampire should Need blood.  Other demons Summoned and Bound by vampires should Need specific examples of the seven deadly sins, which can highlight certain aspects of vampirism.  For instance: rape, theft, humiliation of rivals, long stretches of sleep/dorminancy, praise/worship, violent confrontation, and blood again.  For that last one each demon with the Need of blood requires a different feeding and perhaps in different amounts.

If you want to keep other supernatural beings as shadowy antagonists you can make them Immanent demons as per Sorcery and Sword.  While they are a threat to vampires, vampires can Pact with them.

[Blake Hutchins]

If you're grabbing the WoD clans, you might also have Demons specific to those clans with individualized grants, desires, and needs.  Tellales could stack with the character and could be likewise individualized.

I would give serious thought to how you're handling Humanity, possibly setting up a dual scale with poles such as Temperance and perhaps Mercy, though having a bit more tension between the definitions would be more fruitful.

Best,

Blake

[Lamorak33]

Hi

For banishing, it depends on the look of sorcery in your game.  The look should help explain it.  Remember, the sorcerer's Telltale and descriptors can determine the vampirism angle.  Yes, it is the demons that provide the nifty stuff, but ultimately the sorcerer has done the blood drinking, participated in the black rites, and decided to come back out of the ground as what they are.  Banishing a demon won't take that away from them.

So.  What sort of stuff are you going to be looking at in the game?  What are you thinking about for Humanity?  How much of the color are you going to silly putty off of the World of Darkness?  Think about these things first and do it all up one-sheet style.  If you have Sorcerer and Sword there is a lot of awesome stuff in there to poach for this.  Past instead of Cover for vampires (though for a modern game Cover will work, it just has a different feel), Humanity trading and caps, and Necromancy (murdering by feeding as a Token) could all have a place in this game, depending on what you and your players want out of it.

I like fusing settings onto Sorcerer, mostly because it requires boiling down the setting to the stuff that makes people give a shit about stories set there.

Lots of good stuf here, but I don't have S Sword, but I do have S Soul. To be honest when we meet we are going to be reviewing what the guys want and things like kickers when we meet for the next session.

Regards
Rob

[Lamorak33]

Hi

If you're grabbing the WoD clans, you might also have Demons specific to those clans with individualized grants, desires, and needs.  Tellales could stack with the character and could be likewise individualized.

I would give serious thought to how you're handling Humanity, possibly setting up a dual scale with poles such as Temperance and perhaps Mercy, though having a bit more tension between the definitions would be more fruitful.

Best,

Blake

I was very excited about The_Tims seven deadly sins suggestion, I thought about itmost of yesterday! However, for familiarity I think I will follow your model Blake. I believe thats very do-able and maintain the WoD flavour, which I guess will be important to these girls.

Humanity will be classic Sorcerer - when you lose it, you lose it, not the heirarchy of  sins like in the original game. I have seen play when players feel they have humanity to burn. We only bothered about it once we got to Humanity 4. To be honest you have to be a fairly sick fuck to get to zero humanity in that game. The humanity in Sorcerer is one of the things that turns meon to the game.

Regards
Rob

[Blake Hutchins]

Howdy,

Just to clarify: I meant Sorcerer Humanity, which is far more interesting & robust than WoD;s version.  You can set up multiple definitions running simultaneously.

Best,

Blake

[charles ferguson]

Hi Rob,

Sounds interesting. How do you plan to handle the Sorcerer premise that there are fewer than 100 sorcerers in the world at any one time, vs the WoD model where there are thousands of supernatural creatures?

cheers, charles

[James_Nostack]

The impression I always got with that "100 Sorcerers at any given time" line is that, it's more illustrative than prescriptive.  Sorcerers are few & far between; their actions are important; it's a small community; the birth or death of a sorcerer is a tremendous event.  What it suggests to me is that in any given game, there shouldn't be sorcerers popping out of the woodwork for no good reason.  If it were me, I wouldn't take it too literally.

[The_Tim]

Also, with the way that sorcerers and demons work, you can have plenty of vampires that are demons instead of sorcerers.  If you are using Sorcerer's Soul it can be quite fuzzy.

In another thread someone mentioned the idea of using the sacrifice rules to model turning people into demons—after all from a rules point of view the balance is the same, one less person in the world in exchange for one more demon.  So, to create another vampire involves a whole lot of potential Humanity loss.  It also ruins the decency of the victim.  Either you can play it very Kindred of the East, where all vampires have to crawl their way up from demon to human, or where some vampires either take charge of the process themselves—becoming Sorcerers instead of demons.

[Lamorak33]

Hi

Hi Rob,

Sounds interesting. How do you plan to handle the Sorcerer premise that there are fewer than 100 sorcerers in the world at any one time, vs the WoD model where there are thousands of supernatural creatures?

cheers, charles

Oh I don't think thats such a problem. My WoD will vary a deal from the canon. Vampires running around is onething, but how the hell could the masquerade be maintained with the Sabbat running around? (Thats rhetorical, no answers please).

There are good stories to be had with humanity v power/ desires. Of course I wont be doing char gen till next tuesday. I'll likely post char gen in actual play or something.

Regards
Rob

[charles ferguson]

Heya

My take is that the scarcity of sorcerers or otherwise is far more than a technical conversion issue, ie "how could we make more than 100 vampires using the Sorcerer mechanics". That's not really what I mean.

I mean that WoD & Sorc use diametrically opposed paradigms in this regard, & I think that it dramatically changes what your game will be about. Demons, in sorcerer, are transgressive. That's (IMO) fundamental to the whole game. If you drink blood & have dark supernatural powers, and all your in-game friends, associates, enemies & so on also drink blood (or worse) & have dark supernatural powers, it relegates normal people to something quite different to the Sorc definition of Just Folks (core book p45). And I think that's a significant difference.

Not trying to lay down any judgements, just curious how you would (or do) handle it in your own game, Rob.

But I guess this is pretty far from the original topic, so I won't pursue it.

cheers, charles

[Anthony Herring]

Howdy,

I recommend the Trollbabe mechanics. We're playing a vampire game set in the 1920's that we call Jazz Age by Night: Vampires and Gangsters of the Roaring Twenties. It's a sort of Humphrey Bogart meets the WoD. We're not into a lot of vampire/goth angst, so it's not very true to WoD in that sense.

The mechanics are working nicely so far. It's a sort of mashup of Trollbabe, Sorcerer, and info I've gathered about setting stakes, using flags and kickers and bangs, etc. With regard to Trollbabe mechanics, instead of Fighting, Social, and Magic, we're using Fighting, Intrigue, and Powers. Conflicts are resolved just as in Trollbabe.

The players have given me plenty of flags and I've come up with some kickers and bangs for them. I just have some vague ideas of metaplot to tie it all together, then start in the middle of a scene for each PC and let the players roll with it. The trick as GM is to let loose the reins and let the players drive the stories. I love it. No NPC stats; minimal prep; and it's friggin fun.

I'm sorry if this is getting away from your original question.

-Tony