Boiscastel Sorcerer game.

[Fabrice G.]

Hi,

The last Two Sunday I finaly had the chance to run a Sorcerer game.

The preparation phase

Inspired by Jesse's Gothic Fantasy game, I was seduced at the idea of running a Gothic game of Sorcerer. I proposed to my player either that or some "Mythologic Scandinavia" story, they choose the gothic one.

I already had some prep done for another Sorcerer game that never get to be played out, so I used the relation map. It's taken from James Ellroy's The Big Nowhere. I centered myself around the story of the Loftis "familly".

After that I felt stuck. I mean...there's so much possibility with Sorcerer. I could go in many directions from here, but felt it would rob my players their share of the creative process, so I stopped prepping at that point and waited for the creation of their characters.


Discussion phase

As we only had one, maybe two session to play, we had to make the characters just before the session. First, I introduced my players to the game as they didn't know anything of Sorcerer (well, one did from the previous avorted attempt). Here, I presented the goals of Sorcerer, and some of its technics: narativism, protagonism, demons, humanity, kickers, bangs and scene framing.

We began by discussion the setting. I just told them to think gothic tales, and that I hadn't something specific in mind nor something already done. One of them was some weeks ago in a perfect "gothic" location somewhere in the Luxenbourg area. It was a small town, down the Rhine river, at the feet ot a rocky hill on witch rested a medieval castle. In the evening the fog would come out and the dark surronding forest seemed a black, unholly place ... It really was the perfect setting, so we took it. I could never had come with something that cool.

Humanity was defined as following the christian morality. For clarity we dicided to note down the seven deadly sin, the cardinal virues and the pagan virtues as a gide.

Demons could be of christian origin, or some elder pagan god demonized by the christians.


We then proceed to the characters.

Characters's cration phase

Jean-Pierre decided to play Karl Yvan, the son of the mayor of the village. He is the chief of the city guards, and his to be engaged to Iseult, the baron's daughter. He 's in love with two "women". The first one is Iseult, and that love is pure and platonic ; the second one is Hamadrya, and old pagan goddess and his demon, and it's a very carnal love.

The kicker: Iseult is ill, another pretendant has come to the casttle and has asked for the right to marry her. The baron decided to give his daughter to the one who will find her a cure.



Gilles decided he wanted to play Maître Antonin, some kind of herborist/alchimist, who fled another village as he was accused of practicing sorcery, and who wanted to be accepted and respected in this new village. His demon was some kind of humanoïd rat-thing.

The kicker: (I had to help him come with something he had to act upon) A voyager from his old village had just arrived in the new one. That person was here when he was chased the first time.


Creating the demons

I gave my players a list of the demonic powers and explained how the demon could have some abilities for himself or confer them.

For Gilles there was no problem. He created his rat-thing, and ended with a pretty tought demon (power 9).

For Jean-Pierre, I had to improvise...he wanted his demon to be capable of thing in a particular place, and to be significantly weeker when in enclosed places or underground. It was perfectly in accordance with the nature of his demon (some old air-spirit). So I decided that he list each power available at each location, and I ruled that the demon had three power scores. One in it's lair, one everywher else except indoor or underground, and the last one for the latter case. (at it most, that was a real baddy thing with a power of 13 !!!!)


The play

note: I didn't use a thing from my preparation ! All I had to do was using what the players came up with.

I was heavely focused on scene framing. For me, that was what I wented to do right. So I framed scenes like a maniac...it was great.
For exemple, the first scene of Maître Antonin was to meet the voyager from his kicker at the marketplace. For Karl Yvan, it was to meet the baron and the pretendant.

I used bangs. A lot. That was wonderfull for two reasons: 1) it was surprising for the players, as they found themselves in very interesting situation ,and 2) it was a surprise to me to see what the player would decide to do from here.

My goal in using them was to cause some choice based scene. Again it worked perfectly. For exemple, the pretendant defied Karl Yvan after being insulted. There I hoped that the player will make a choice that will reveal more of the character: will he fought honestly and with honor, or will he cheat (one way or an other) ? You guessed well, he cheated...badly. He asked his demon ti immobilize the man, then murdrerd him....all this during the duel. Man, that was the best scene of the evening.

I will spare you of "they did that, and this..." thing, but I felt that the game was going somewhere. There was really a story happening "now". Neither me nor the players new where we were going but it was actually working.

We had two sessions. They were exceptionaly short for us: two hour and a half each. But they were full of meaningfull action (just like in good movies), no down time. After each one, we were tired, like we needed to rest a little before playing again. Strange feeling, but sweet.

In conclusion

I have a couple of remarks.

1-did Sorcerer revolutioned the way I gm and the kind of story we had ? No. But it was the first comercial game facilitating such kind of play.


2-did sorcerer helped me ? Hell, yes !!! All the focus, through the rules and the fora, on how to drive with bangs, how to have good kickers, thinking about story now, etc. really helped me to focus on such and to be aware of those technics as I GMed.

3-I really was amazed to see how the sorcerer-demon relationship came ti life trough play. It's absolutly nothing compared to what I had envisioned from reading the book

4-as I said earlier, I didn't use anything except what the players gave me (and my twists of it). So it was like an improvisational game, and a great one at that.

In other words, good works Mr Edwards. :)

Fabrice.

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Fabrice,

Many thanks to you and your players! I appreciate your taking the time to play the game.

Your comments parallel some others I've received, especially in terms of improvisation. Over and over, people say, "It was like improvising, but that's not really right ... not 'winging it' exactly, more like making things happen and having things happen."

Best,
Ron

[Fabrice G.]

Hi Ron,

I would like to elaborate a bit on some points and ask you one question or two.

First, I was simply amazed how fast and how effective relationships were between the sorcerer and his demon. I think its one of the best game I've played in this regard, as from the begining of play there's that one powerfull and meaningfull bond uniting the PC and one important NPC.

lesson #1 Treat each demon as one of the major NPC.


Second, I wasn't convinced at first about your claim that you could have a powerfull and meaningfull story emerge directly through play. During that fisrt story I GMed, I was proved wrong as each kicker had to do with "what would you do for the love of orthers ?" and as each came to a resolution, we had a great story adressing this Premise.

lesson #2 A well defined Premise and kickers that adress it will allow for a meaningfull story to emerge from play ( without preplanned events or turnarounds).


Third, Bangs and scene framing. I was using them before reading about them here or in the Sorcerer books  But it was more of a feeling thing than a conscious choice. The fact of consciensiously looking for them was a great leap in my GMing skill. I'm now aware of the tools I may use to enhance my rpging experience.

lesson #3 Always try to frame a scene as sharply as possible, and have a bandolier of bang ready (that one is a classic now, I *know* )


Fourth, Task resolution. That is so powerfull !!! During the climax, one of the player attempted to Contain his demon to save the woman he loved. The roll failled horribly...but instead of simply describing a faillure, I decided that his containment would be temporary. So, as the demon was begining to be imprisoned in the short sword it gave to his master as a sign of the binding, the second player tried too to contain it...and was successfull. Finally, task resolution allowed for more suspense and a more meaningfull ending (the need of help of the fisrt sorcerer allowed for a great resolution of the second sorcerer's kicker)

lesson #4 Allways use task resolution to allow a bad roll to take a more meaningfull role in the story.


Last, I've this question. What about the multi Power leveled demon ?  To precise things, in some place it had a Power of 13, in other 8 and underground it was reduced to a mere 2.

Is it a twist of the rules or is it clearely okay by them ?

As a conclusion, I would say that you have to play in a narativist game to understand it. Reading it is simply not the same experience.

Fabrice.