Spaceships, Sixguns & Sorcery (Final Session)

[jburneko]

Hello All,

How Things Turned Out:

The Sherif teamed up with his outlaw father.  They made one last push in an attempt to pre-empt the planned bandit raid on the arriving Terran convoy.  It came down to a battle in one of the docking ports.  It was a three way fight between the Station's disarrayed security team, Gentleman Monte's gang, and the Sherif's father's outlaw gang.  The Sherif's father was killed and the Sherif was severly wounded and captured alive.  It was very Butch Casidy and The Sundance Kid.

The Station Manager was very pleased with how things were going.  The traitor in her midst had been apprehended.  A new "unauthorized" criminal element had been wipped out.  The Terran Government was out of her hair.  And best of all no one was any wiser that she had anything to do with any of it.  In the end, she decided to make a public example of The Sherif.  First she faked his public execution and then privately fed him to her demon.  She started the game with a Humanity of 6, she ended it with a Humanity of 2.

Finally, The Smugler managed to join up with Gentleman Monte's gang.  He had his possessor demon Hop from him into Gentleman's Monte's daughter and second in command Matilda.  He was on the raid of the Terran convoy and came back an accepted and trusted member of the gang.

Observations:

The battle in the space port was the first time I'd run a large scale Sorcerer combat.  At first I freaked out at the number of characters present and thought that I wouldn't have enough dice.  But then I suddenly remember that I wasn't playing D&D and that ONLY the characters with signifcant "audiance" impact mattered.  I just looked up from my notes and said, "Okay, faceless hordes are fighting faceless hordes, the only characters who matter are..."  The result was 2 PCs and about 3 NPCs.  Way more managable and it worked out incredibly well.

I've noted before that the guy playing The Sherif is new to the group.  He's eightteen, has no tabletop roleplaying experience and is coming off a steady diet of Everquest, Magic: The Gathering and a little bit of Warhammer.  I think Sorcerer left him a bit shocked and bewildered on both a gameplay level and a social level.  I think the poor guy was a little confused as to why A) we were cheering his character's demise and B) this meant we were praising, not riddiculing, his ability to play the game.  I think he may be reconsidering playing with us in the future, which I can absolutely understand.  No hard feelings.  I'm just glad I was able to give him some perspective on the hobby.

The player with The Smugler ended up in a place that he constantly ends up in my games and I'm not sure how to fix it.  It happened with his Werewolf character, it happend with his other Sorcerer character and now it's happened with this character.  He constantly builds these kinds of characters who start distanced and removed from everything but then quickly move into the environment with intent of establishing themselves in some way.  But that 'establishment' factor always seems WAY WAY WAY off in the future, such that when all the other PCs reach these great climax points, it seems this character has only completed a tiny leg of the journey he set out on.  That bugs me as I always feel like there's more to do with the character but the REST of the story is clearly over.  Drives me crazy.

As for the group as a whole, I think I finally nailed a sticking point.  I think the people who have been playing with me for a while are beginning to catch on how these games work, myself included.  I think we're all beginning to realize that this kind of game and style of play is indeed what we want but it comes with a price.  We're still reluctant to discuss things out loud, in play, at the metagame level.  Much, between play talking gets done but at the actual table everyone gets these really cool ideas in their head and then rather than saying something about it, they hold onto it, waiting for an opening to use the idea which may or may not come.  They do this because they don't want to ruin the "surprise" by revealing the idea before the idea gets acted out in game.  There is a serious lack of skill in terms of using the metagame to "set up" an opening for an idea they have, me included.  Something to work on in the future.

Hope that was interesting.

Jesse

Edited to clean up some mistakes.

[Christopher Kubasik]

Hi Jesse,

As always, it was interesting.

I especially appreciated your point about the combat.

Many games (included a few I worked on back in the day), tried to roll the faceless hordes into one combat force, but always did it with standard AD&D thinking.  To think in terms of, as you so beautifully put it, "audience impact," was brilliant.  One can try to pay homage to all the world that could be existing in any given moment of game play, or one can honor the other players at the table -- but probably not at the same time.  Me?  I go for the second.

I'm curious about the player with the story that "doesn't finish."  Could you remind me what his Kicker was this time around?  Is there a possible solution to be found there, with a stronger Kicker?

Thanks, as always, for sharing.

Christopher

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Jesse,

Yeah, I think the Kicker is the issue for that player ... although as we've talked about before, in many ways, possibly his intense commitment to an eventual Story/Protagonist character is actually a defense against too much bitter experiences of whiffing and railroading when he tries.

I'm interested in some Sorcerer stuff. What sort of rituals got carried out? Anything notable?

Also, don't be too sure that you're all done with this setting. Sometimes, I think you and your group have a tendency to bolt right when things get where I think they're strongest. After all, look at the station manager with her Humanity of 2. Wouldn't it be interesting to start her in a whole new situation, and see whether her response to new stresses (Kicker) bring her "back up" or lead her to destroy herself?

Sorcerer is a game for which the sequel has a great deal of potential to be better than the starter.

Best,
Ron

[jburneko]

Hello,

I thought the player's kicker was pretty good this time around.  He was being blackmailed into assassinating the Terran official who was overseeing the convoy's arival.  The problem this time I think came when I did something that I THOUGHT was only adding a complication but the player saw it as a resolution point because he had manipulated things such that he was so thickly involved in other goings on that the complication didn't matter.

The problem comes down to a conflict between how this player thinks about things and how I think about things.  I'm a very short term thinking GM.  I only really think about things in terms of the next bang and how it impacts the immediate character-to-character conflicts.  Where as the player in question thinks about things in terms of the big picture long term evolution of character goals across social and political influences.

It's litterally the difference between me all being into how this pawn is going to deal with this bishop that's threatening it and him not caring because he sees mate in twelve regardless of what happens to the pawn or bishop.

Another example, it is not uncommon for something like this to happen:  I have this NPC nobleman.  And to me this nobleman is all about wooing this particular girl he knows his family disapproves of.  For flavor let's say that one of the PCs is also in love with this woman.  So here I am all about this little complex love triangle and I'm GMing complications based on that romance.  After about two or three sessions the player in question will start doing some strange things I don't understand.  He'll say things to my NPC nobleman that, to me, make no sense given what's going on.  So finally, I just say, "Um... Look, just what are you driving at here."  And he'll say, "Oh, well it's obvious that your noble man is planning to take over the kingdom."  

*blink, blink*  

And when it's obvious that I was clearly NOT planning on having this nobleman take over the kingdom, the player will then launch into a lengthy explination, of why (based on everything I've done with the nobleman, plus other socio-political factors that I've either introduced deliberately or inadvertantly introduced in some off hand comment about the weather or some other trivia),  it makes perfect sense that this nobleman is clearly planning to take over the kingdom.  And his arguments often DO make a lot of sense, and I end up feeling really bad because he's been doing all this complex long term plotting for his character based on an assumption that's totally false.

This problem works in reverse.  When he was GMing the PCs were wandering around aimlessly because his "obvious" clues were going over our heads.  My personal favorite was when we were supposed to deduce several clues about the location of a major villain based on the architecture of his hechman's lair.  And it's funny because when pointed out it makes so much sense: Someone from X culture only has Y resources.  When you're used to only having Y resources, you design architecture that look like Z.  Thus if architecture looks like Z, obviously the person is from X.

Anyway, I'm kind of babbling on now.  But hopefully, I've given some insight into how this player works.

As for bolting too soon.  I think you're right.  The group has agreed to revisit this setting and these characters.  I'll let you know when that happens.

As for rituals.  I don't know.  My players tend to forget they have the rituals at their disposal, even when I remind them.  The most siginificant ritual was when The Smugler tried to banish is possessor demon and instead ended up possessed himself.

Jesse

[GreatWolf]

Got a thought, Jesse.  When your player says, "Well, obviously this nobleman is plotting to take over the kingdom", why can't you retrofit the NPC so that he is plotting to take over the kingdom?  Or, alternately, make him completely innocent but play up his apparent conspiratorial tendencies.

There's no reason that you can't steal blatantly and obviously from your players.  Think of it as allowing this player to exercise pseudo-Directorial power.  Alternately, think of it as looting your players for ideas.  There's really no reason that I can see to prevent you from doing this.

So you're a GM that thinks in the short term?  Great!  Take advantage of your player's tendency to think long term.  Don't fight it.  Use it.  I think that you'll find that both of you will be happier.

Seth Ben-Ezra
Great Wolf

[jburneko]

Seth,

Oh, often I do just that.  And this is partly what I meant earlier when I said, my group has trouble communicating at the metagame level.  By the time we figure out we're not on the same page so many other assumptions and actions have been taken that it's hard to sort stuff out so that the little miscommunication gets ironed out smoothly.  I just wish we could get on the same page faster, is all.

Jesse

[Mike Holmes]

Have you tried just being grossly blunt about things?

Jesse: "OK guys, I'm going to introduce a new Nobleman character, and, as you'll see from the bang that I'm about to reveal, he's all about this love triangle that I'm setting up. As such I'm hoping that we'll all be able to work through some themes having to do with such a situation.

How does that sound to everyone? Like something that you'd like to see? Or not?"

Do that, and see if the player mistakes the NPC for a covert politico.

But what we really have here, IMO, is a player who likes Gamist Puzzle play. He's willing to step out of character to discuss the Gamist aspects of discovering the plot or whatever. Seems like that incompatibility might strong. He's looking for the "solution" and you're not providing one.

But he's also probably one that can be converted, seeing as he hasn't complained yet. So, it seems to me that somebody has to start the metagame dialog. That's pretty much going to devlove to you to do. So are you going to start?

Mike

[Christopher Kubasik]

Wow.

All I can say is, "Wow.  That's really interesting."

Not good.  Not bad.  Just really interesting.

Thanks for laying out the situation so clearly Jesse.

The only thing that pops into my head is an extension of Ron's suggestion of fears of Railroading and Wiffing.  In short, he's acting on anticipation of what you've got going on, rather than acting on what he wants his character to be wanting and doing.

And now that I've typed that out, it's clear that's how most RPGers are trained to play.

My thought, if I were lucky enough to run a story for your group, would to be really nail down a Kicker that demands action on his part -- fast, hard and furious.  (Think of the Kicker of The Fugitive, for example.)  Yes, his mind will add layers of puzzling -- but as embroidery to his having to get soemthing down so fast he won't have time to worry about if he's doing the "right" thing with his character.

Take care,
Christopher

[jburneko]

Hello Again,

Mike,

I absolutely agree that the communication has to start with me.  As I said in my initial post the metagame communication that makes Narrativist play so smooth is totally lacking in my group as a skill, myself included.  This last game just pointed that out to me clearly and jotted it down as something to work on.

Christopher,

I'm not so sure Railroading and Whiffing are the primary reasons.  They might be, given his extensive history of Sim play, but I think it's more about the KINDS of characters he likes to play.  He even once had me watch a series of films to try and covey the idea to me.  

He's a HUGE HUGE HUGE fan of the Sergio Leone/Clint Eastwood Speghetti Western films.  And I think he's suffering from the condition Paul (I think) described when a player creates the same kind of character over and over and over again because they have something they want to express or experience and that expression keeps getting thwarted (hense why I think Railroading and Whiffing is related but not the whole issue).

He's particularly fond of the first film in the series, "A Fist Full of Dollars."  I think The Man With No Name is the kind of character he really wants to play.  He wants to be the outside objective stranger who wanders into a complex and corrupt political situation, plays one side against the other to personal benefit, and at the end of the day ends up cleaning up the corruption and coming off as a hero.

Only he wants to do it, very slowly carefully and over the long term to watch the careful plans and actions he's put into motion snowball and mature over the long haul.

At times I've almost thought that he's a Narrativist who prefers having the Premise come from the Setting who's been thwarted by a lot of Sim play.  But I can never really be sure because sometimes he makes me think that he's a Sim player who just really enjoys Character and Setting (And how they relate) as the focus of his exploration.

Jesse

[Christopher Kubasik]

Hi Jesse,

Well, you would know more about him that I, so I assume you're correct.

I only know he seemed a good guy and a fascinating player.  

It almost sounds like he needs to create his own computer game, as rich in detail as the programming will allow, then get his mind wiped of all the work he did, and then play his own game.

Dunno.

Take care,
Christopher

[GreatWolf]

Then here's a thought, Jesse.  Why don't you sit down with him and find out if this is the sort of character that he'd like to play?  Pick his brain a bit.  (This will also go towards your developing the art of metagame communication, BTW.)  Then build your next situation with him primarily in mind.  Make sure you know what he wants, and then give it to him.

One way to do this, as I believe Ron mentioned, is the sequel.  Run several Sorcerer games in succession, but let him carry his character over.  Just like the Man with No Name.  Let him see the long-term effects of his character's actions over time, both on himself and his situation.  However, there is no reason why the rest of you need to play the same characters.  Move onto new situations...but ones that would allow for the Masterless Man (UA term) to enter the situation.  Then, gather together the effects of these several games, and create one more, where this particular character's story is resolved.  Bring back old enemies from the past, or deliver the fallout in one fell swoop, or something like that.  (You're creative; you'll think of something.)

You said that it seems like this player's characters have cool story potential but that they take longer to resolve.  So give him more time.  Not only will you make him happy, but you are opening the possibility to create an awesome story arc over several diverse settings and situations, finally tying them together in one massive climactic finale.

It could be very memorable.  It would also (to be totally honest) be a test of a theory of mine regarding the marriage of intense Narrativist "Story Now" play with long-term campaign play.  I'd like to see if my thoughts actually play out in the real world.  :-)

I hope that these are useful suggestions, Jesse.  I'm not trying to come down on you.  I actually think that you have a player who has a lot of potential if given the proper tools.

Let's use the band analogy (because it works).  You have a power guitar band, with you on bass, and then this one guy with a trombone.  You could just kick him out, or you could experiment and maybe come up with a cool fusion sound that will rise to the top of the charts.  Don't miss the opportunity.

Seth Ben-Ezra
Great Wolf

[b_bankhead]

He's a HUGE HUGE HUGE fan of the Sergio Leone/Clint Eastwood Speghetti Western films.  And I think he's suffering from the condition Paul (I think) described when a player creates the same kind of character over and over and over again because they have something they want to express or experience and that expression keeps getting thwarted (hense why I think Railroading and Whiffing is related but not the whole issue).

He's particularly fond of the first film in the series, "A Fist Full of Dollars."  I think The Man With No Name is the kind of character he really wants to play.  He wants to be the outside objective stranger who wanders into a complex and corrupt political situation, plays one side against the other to personal benefit, and at the end of the day ends up cleaning up the corruption and coming off as a hero.

Only he wants to do it, very slowly carefully and over the long term to watch the careful plans and actions he's put into motion snowball and mature over the long haul.

  Good Lord! i'd be chewing at the bit to get a player like this. Sit down and enumerate the campaign elements that turn him on and see if you can design a campaign for it.   This sounds like a truly amazing opportuninity that I wish I had...