[Sorcerer] In A House of Madness

[jburneko]

So character creation plus the first actual play session for my Socerer game set in an asylum has come and gone.  And the results were.... unexpected.

A bit of background.

Humanity is creating and maintaining empathic ties in the real world.
At 0 Humanity you are permanently trapped in your delusions.
Sorcery is predicated on willful denial of reality.
Demons are entities born from the delusions of the insane.

That's sort of the one sheet I gave everybody grossly shortened.  Notice that I decoupled the Humanity and Sorcery definitions slightly.  I did this on purpose and had the films K-Pax and comic The Maxx in mind when I did this.  In those stories being insane, actually makes the characters BETTER at engaging the other characters as human beings.  The Premise as I saw it was: Are you simply hiding from reality or does your madness somehow empower (hence the demons) you to engage the world in ways the sane can not or dare not?

The Characters, Their Demons and Their Kickers

Okay, so after character creation I had this to work with:

Trevor (played by Christopher) is a guy whose more or less been insane from the beginning, obsessed with finding beauty.  His demon is more or less his Muse, a Passer with Cloak, so no one notices the beautiful naked woman walking around the asylum.  Her Desire is to be Worshiped.  Trevor's kicker is that another (real) woman has caught his attention.  At the top of the first play session it was decided that this was the head doctors daughter.

Louis (played by a long long long time friend of mine) is a CPA who has come to believe that he is really just the dream persona of his Possessor demon Lucille who is in fact the dream persona of Louis.  The demon's Need is to be acknowledged as real and confers many abilites on Louis to continue to delude him into thinking he is a just a dream.  His Kicker was that a job offer letter had arrived at the asylum for Lucille.

Jill (played by my fiancee) is a woman who believes she can see the world as it "really" is, a hellish wasteland where EVERYONE is a demon.  Except of course, the possessor demon she has placed in her own doctor and charged with looking after her children while she is confined.  Her Kicker was that it has been announced that her doctor is being transfered away.  Note: The demon doesn't have the Hop ability.

Gudykunst (played by the brand-new-to-roleplaying newbie) has been in the asylum all her life and is more or less obssessed with order and tidiness (and from the first session of play is also a pathelogical liar, although I'm not sure that was part of the initial concept).  Her demon is a large hulking and hairy Passer who she summoned to be her "savior."  Her Kicker was that she had been caught stealing pills to feed to her demon.

The First Session,

As I said, it was unexpected.  Even Christopher thought it was unexpected.  And sadly, I had made a horrible horrible horrible mistake during my prep work.  I had completely discounted the idea that anyone would try to LEAVE the asylum.  The kind of stuff I was thinking about was all about creeping horror and subtle, even depressing, drama.

So, my entire "bandolier of bangs" was just washed away when more or less as his FIRST MOVE OF THE GAME, the player playing Louis had his character lead an insurrection of patients in a mass escape attempt.  An escape that two of the other PCs decided to join in on.

I'm not so much complaining about this as I feel really bad because I feel I was so flustered by this VERY unexpected turn of events that I really really botched running it from a rules perspective.   I had players shouting all kinds of things at me as well as trying order NPCs to take action.  There was a lot of "I do this..."  "Oh yeah, and after I do that..."  "Oh and then I tell this NPC to do this..."

I KNOW perfectly well that the rules are DESIGNED to handle such a chaotic situation but I'm still not very good at applying them correctly.  In fact, I think there's some element of social organization that all of Ron's games take for granted.  Something that Ron himself is so good at doing that he's not mentioning it in the game texts because it comes naturally to him.

My botching of the complex conflict resolution system resulted in things like:

1) Me just handling all the IIEE stuff myself going from person to person to person, "Okay, what are you doing..."  roll dice, resolve, next person, "Okay, now what are you doing..."

2) People using the logistics of one conflict to justify getting out of their own role in it.  Me: "Okay what are you and you doing."  Player 1: "I'm taking on the orderlies blocking the door."  Player 2: "I'm waiting to see how that goes."  roll, resolve player 1's statement.  Player 2: "Now that the orderlies are busy with Player 1, I walk past them."

3) People getting delayed long enough they just seemed to give up on their original course of action.

It all got resolved eventually but I somehow feel that I let my panic get the better of me and it wasn't resolved legitemately.  Also, I couldn't help but wonder if this wasn't a manifestation of the "psycho" behavior discussed in the "learning the interface thread."

In the end it was all very entertaining in a funny kind of way and it sort of added this very interesting, absurd and comic backdrop to this very intemate moment that Christopher's character was having with the head doctor's daughter with both characters being kind of oblivious to the chaos around them.

Other points of interest.

Since the characters are all insane no one has vested interest in keeping their sorcerous nature or demons a secret.  I'm playing the rule that demons WANT their unnatural nature kept secret so at least one demon is a little peeved at the moment.  Another is that the players had their characters freely commenting on other character's telltales in full view of everyone else.

I think the Premise, at least as I initially concieved it, has been missed.  Christopher went so far as actually comment that he didn't like my decoupling of Humanity and Sorcerous rituals (although I don't think they are totally removed from each other, just not so directly diametrically opposed).  It's only been the FIRST session so I'm unwilling to say that Premise is now absent but, hmmm, it just wasn't what I was thinking about.  But I'm trying to go with the flow and see what happens.

So, I more or less have a lot to think about between now and the next session.

Jesse

[Valamir]

Hey...those are some fantastic characters and some really killer kickers.

I sympathize with your struggle to make the resolution work.  Free and Clear is a bitch of a paradigm shift to master.  My efforts to GM it fared no better.

The good news is...your characters are all insane.  That entire first session could just be written off as one massive shared delusion, starting the next session back at square one.  Not with the idea of avoiding a break out, but just with the idea of getting a "do over" to try it again.

And I'm not kidding about that either.  Such a thing would make perfect sense given your setting.  You can have all sorts of fun playing around the edges with the idea of "was that really a delusion, or did it actually happen".  I think its a great opportunity for some very surreal moments.

[clehrich]

You know, following up on Ralph's suggestion, you could hint that this delusion was in some way experimental.  For example, somebody notices that where everybody in the place was getting two blue pills before, now everyone's only getting one, and has a new red pill all of a sudden.  And it's not explained what happened in the breakout; it's as though nothing happened.  But is there evidence that there was an attempt?  I mean, if anything got broken, is it now fixed, or unbroken, or missing?

You need to think about whether you're going to be aboveboard with the players about what you're up to, and I'd suggest that you be so, but regardless it might be useful to focus the characters on discerning truth from reality by giving them suggestions that there may be seams in the apparent reality that faces them.  Such as, "Hey, that vase used to be green, now it's blue; and out by the trash cans, which I can see from this window in the back, I can see some broken bits of green porcelain...."

You might read "The Dumbwaiter," by Harold Pinter, incidentally.  The whole trapped, claustrophobic, are we totally insane sort of thing done by a brilliant modern playwright.

Chris Lehrich

[jburneko]

I COULD just suggest that we make the game some kind of shared dellusion and then maybe make reference points into other goings on.  But that somehow doesn't really feel right.  Basically, as a GM I've pretty much made it clear that I'm not going to intrude in on the character's perceptions of things.  Everything I say is communicated 100% as fact to the PLAYERS and they can decide how their character actually percieves or experiences it.

I can say, "Here comes Nurse Deveraux," and their free to say, "AGH Help!  Someone let a bear in here!"  But I don't want to say, "A big bear is charging you!", run some kind of scene, then say, "Oh wait, it was just Nurse Deveraux."

Besides, despite the chaos and the poorly run resolution on my part their were still a lot of Humanity checks and gains that I think would be sort of cheapened if it didn't really happen.  So, I think I'm going to just let the chips lie with a note to myself to do better next time.

Jesse

[Christopher Kubasik]

Jesse is correct.

You two -- what the hell did you sprinkle on your Wheatie's this morning!

Christopher

[newsalor]

I assume that you are going for the psychological horror thing in this game. I don't quite get how horror and narrativism mix. Maybe it's because so many horror games have been HC-simulationist with actor stance.

Maybe this is off-topic, but how are you going to formulate your premises? Maybe it's me, but I find making premises for horror games difficult. They always seem to end up describing if someone achieves something. . .

On the other hand, you could be running a life at the asylum game that has nothing to do with either horror or narrativism. Sorry. =)

[Christopher Kubasik]

Hi newsalor,

I'm one of the players in the game.  I'm not sure if Jesse was going for "horror."  I say that despite the fact that I'm sure horrible things will inevitably happen in this game.

I'm taking a guess here, but I think when you write "psychological horror" you mean, "The GM creeps out the players."  Which, in terms of Nar play is not really an vital agenda, so your question is completely valid.

I offer this in turn, though.  I've been thinking lately that most Sim games and Gamist games are the players vs. the world or something -- something outside of the players.  But the conflict of interest in Nar play is within the PC's.  Sure, the conflict within the PCs is reflected and revealed in the real world -- through the actions the PC takes -- but what matters is that inner battle.  Do I respect faith or family?  Do I choose violence over lost love?  Whatever.

And you see, once you've got a PC who wants something -- and needs to make choices from within -- and is screwed to the wall by the GM and needs sometimes to take a horrible, horrible (oh, god, I can't tell you) horrible action to reveal which side he came down on in the internal conflict -- you get get intense "psychological horror."  But it's not inflicted by the GM.  It's a result of the player making a choice for the PC that is an extraordinary, and somtimes horrific, action.  And trust me, just because I'm the one making the choice as the player doesn't mean I shudder any less.  (When J.K. Rowling talked about crying while writing the death of a character she was writing about in the last Harry Potter book -- it's right there.  You know you're making the right choice aesthetically -- but you can still react to it as if it's terrible.)  And everyone at the table usually shuders as well.

As far as the Premise goes, as Ron's at pains to point out these days, it doesn't have to be stated.  For me, the premise I'm playing is, "Is living in the real world worth the loss of supernatural inspiration and ability?"  I'm sure it will become more "moist" as the weeks go on, but that's good enough for me.

As a side note: For this reason (how I'm approaching my premise), Jesse's Humanity Matrix *doesn't* disconnect Humanity from Sorcerery.

He wrote:

"Humanity is creating and maintaining empathic ties in the real world."
"Sorcery is predicated on willful denial of reality."

As far as I'm concerned, destroying and losing empathic ties with the real word requires a willful denial of reality.  Jesses sees the Humanity as "what I'm doing for other people."  But for me (and my PC), given the set up, simply choosing to live in the real world and pay attention to real people is the vital human step.  After that, caring is there, a priori.

Now, Jesse's point is, if I use Sorcery (deny reality) to try to help someone because I'm, let's say, helping someone, that's a Humanity Gain check, since I'm maintaining "empathic ties to the real world."

However, Sorcerer is predicated on the possiblity to help someone either through sorcerery or mundane means.  As far as I'm concerned, that's the point.

So, if Trever tried to help somebody, but was busy denying reality trying to do it (that is, depending on the Unnatural Other instead of depending on himself), I'd happily make the Humanity Gain Check if Jesse offered it. But I'd then *insist* on the Humanity Loss Check because to live in fantasy is to come closer to the inability to be empathic (as far as I'm concerned).

And so, there I am.

Christopher

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

Jesse, for whatever it's worth, I think your decision not to do the "do-over" is a very good choice.

Keep in mind the whole "flashpoint" concept that I discussed in Zero at the Bone, and use the diagram notion from Sex & Sorcery. I think you'll find that complex conflicts are going to be a lot more fun - even to the point where you'll welcome all manner of unpredictable, interweaving, and unexpected actions on the players' parts.

Best,
Ron

[clehrich]

You two -- what the hell did you sprinkle on your Wheatie's this morning!

I refuse to answer, on grounds that it may incriminate me.

Pity about the purple cameleopard, though.

Chris Lehrich

[jburneko]

I don't quite get how horror and narrativism mix. Maybe it's because so many horror games have been HC-simulationist with actor stance.

Maybe this is off-topic, but how are you going to formulate your premises? Maybe it's me, but I find making premises for horror games difficult.

I find it interesting that you find Narrativism and Horror difficult to combine.  I've always found Horror and Narrativism to be the EASIEST to combine.  A bit of history...

So back in the day when I used to GM a lot of D&D my inspiration didn't come from the spells, or any specific character class, or any neat set of sub-rules that I wanted to try it.  My inspiration came from the monster manual.  I used to spend HOURS and HOURS just flipping through the monster manual.  It was actually a very frustrating experience because with every monster I found myself wondering, "What is this things purpose?"

What I didn't realize at the time was that I was asking "How does this creature support a Premise?"  Some years later I discovered the game Chill (Mayfair Edition) and I fell in love.  THESE monsters had purpose, especially the ghosts.  There was a creature that fed off the nightmares of abused children.  There was a ghost that took avenged jilted lovers.  Who can forget The Mean Old Neighbor Lady and all the childhood issues THAT invoked.  These monsters had MEANING.  They were incarnations of the worst aspects of humanity.  They embodied Premise.

If you look at my prepwork for my old Chill scenarios you'll notice that they have A LOT in common with the prep techniques suggested in Sorcerer and its supplements.  I had a complex backstory involving many NPCs, sometimes joined by relationships of sex or family, I usually went out of my way to create at least one NPC who had done something I felt was far more morally shady than anything the monster was up to.

What got in my way of making these fully Narrativist games were several factors.  1) Years of habit and assumption about what RPGs fundamentally were.  2) Mechanics that inhibited the players and myself from focusing on the Premise.  3) My lack of understanding and vocabulary to realize that 1 and 2 were a problem.  No, despite having a fairly Narrativist setup these games were some of the worst and most frustrating games of my gaming career, mainly because the players would try to engage the Premise but I would have to stop them because, "it wasn't time for that yet" according to the adventure outline I had imposed on top of the prep work.

So finally, I discovered Sorcerer and Ron's theories which called to me because I instantly recognized Narrativism as what I was trying to DO but pulling it off seemed to require completely destroying everything I thought I understood about RPGs and in some cases what I thought I knew about litterature and good storytelling.

I think Sorcerer continues to hold my attention because it derives its inspiration from the same place I've been drawing my inspiration: Monsters.  Specifically, monsters that are only real because they come from a real place, the worst parts of humanity.  So, I don't need a monster manual ennumerating a ghost or goblin for every moral failing, I can build my own, they're called Demons.

And not only do I bring all my Demons to the table but the players bring their Demons as well.  And there are all these Demons floating around out there of our own making and we're challenging ourselves to do something about them.  If that isn't a horrific propesition, I don't know what is.

Jesse