Sorcerer and WoD

[GreatWolf]

If, on the other hand,  you were going to have Wraiths as playable characters, would that make them Daemons, or could you somehow map the Wraithly existence onto Sorcerer?

This is (sorta) easy.  Wraith=sorcerer; Shadow=demon.  (I think that a Possessor demon would work quite well in the context.)

The problem with this (or any other mapping of Sorcerer to WoD) from where I sit is that it eliminates in-game sorcery.  Each wraith has only one Shadow.  Therefore, what are you Contacting, Summoning, etc.?

(Now, I haven't seen Schism, so Jared's interpretations of demons as powers might help.)

Seth Ben-Ezra
Great Wolf

[DevP]

As I found with MLwM (and I can start to see in Sorcerer), it's really important to lay down the whole 0 Humanity = No More Playing thing, right there, up front, bar none. They have to understand that this isn't just a limitation upon playing within the concept: this is CENTRALLY KEY. You can't play a cyborg sniper in D&D Forgotton Realms, and you can't play an entirely inhumane Sorcerer (or Vampire) in this emerging game.

(The MLwM analogue is the rule that there is no real rules for Player v. Player violence, and certainly players won't kill each other. When it came up as a rule, it seemed like I was unable to repond to PvP situations that came up but, in fact, my fault was not making it clear that this wasn't ont he table as a playable thing!)

If the players can grasp that limitation, and recenter their playing style (as Vampire gambling with Humanity, rather than Simming the Vampire), then they should be able to make it work.

[furashgf]

I'd love to see the mini-suppliment.  This was the first thing I thought of and posted when I bought sorcerer.
What BOTHERED me about actual VTM play was how much pre-defined scenario there was (and you're just a nobody in that world), and how they got quickly away from the humanity focus into "your character can get into these paths, etc. and do horrible things and no big deal."
Using Sorcerer I think resolves these things pretty well.

[greyorm]

Markus,

Your post makes me wonder if you're really grokking Sorcerer as a game...that you really want to play Sorcerer, as opposed to wanting to play Sorcerer.

In particular this quote from your response leaves me scratching my head and wondering what it is about Sorcerer that makes you want to play:

frankly, the question "what atrocities would you commit to stay alive" isn't particularly interesting to me, for one; and I'm not interested in having the game turn into a gore fest where I have to push stuff at my players that gets progressively ugly.

That's pretty much Sorcerer defined, though..."Will I be really, really bad? Or really, really good?" Dealing with icky moral questions, breaches of Humanity (whatever you define that as) is what Sorcerer is all about. Demons are the catalyst for those Humanity-depleting actions...dealing with them, using them, by the very nature of doing so, reduces one's Humanity because demons are (and desire and encourage) the opposite of whatever it is that Humanity entails.

Now note, my suggestions don't necessarily entail gore, although that traditionally goes with the whole vampire mythos. It isn't as though the vampire myths are about anything except blood, murder, and fiendish acts meant to prolong one's life and allow one to pursue one's goal(s). Gore and death are part and parcel of the package.

Off-stage blood-drinking (ie: murder) seems pretty tame and ultimately useless -- especially from the POV of a narrative as well as thematically -- and explicitly doesn't occur except in the "safe" versions of vampirism espoused by the modern goth subculture and lots of WoD play.

And, honestly in that case, why Vampires, even?
Why not mobsters, or evil bakers?

My point is, if vampirism isn't important, then why vampires?

You want vampires (ie: various supernatural powers with the price of drinking human blood) but you don't want to deal with the demon's Need (drinking blood)...dealing with the demon's Need and trying to maintain one's own Humanity in the process of doing so is central to Sorcerer play -- it's asking, Is the goal worth the price I'm paying? Otherwise it's just "running around with supernatural powers and, oh, there's this thing I have to do to keep them."

If renouncing the demon equals death, that also entails removing the character from the game, which makes the aforementioned tests impossible and brings in all sorts of "staying in game" and "my guy" issues.

Renouncing the demon-vampire means you die...well, that's a pretty potent choice for a player to make, and says a great deal about the issue the character represents.

Honestly, it sounds a bit like you're shy of Narrativism, or what Narrativist play, particularly Sorcerer play, entails.

Given all the above and the various posts in this thread, I'm not really sure what your goals for the game you're planning are? Could you give examples? A fake transcript of what you envision play will/should be like in this game of yours? What do the characters do?

[montag]

@greyorm
I think you post is taking us off topic, going to my personal views/preferences/abilities/CA. To keep this thread focussed I'd like to discuss this second issue via PM. As to actual play, that will depend a lot on what characters and kickers the players come up with, what bangs and R-map I'll come up with, all of which I can't yet tell, as I'm still working on the definition of humanity. Besides, given your last post, I'd simply refuse to cobble together a vague semblance of what I think play would be like, because I'm not interested in having that segment dissected to determine whether I have the right mindset or am approaching the issue correctly, and having to waste the thread and everybody's time on clarifications.
That IMHO is best left for a separate thread based on the one-sheet.
Thanks. :)

[greyorm]

Markus,

Sorry for derailing your thread, I was hoping to provide some useful insight into your forthcoming play. I'm not certain what sort of advice you're looking for specifically. Care to clarify?

[montag]

Markus,
Sorry for derailing your thread, I was hoping to provide some useful insight into your forthcoming play. I'm not certain what sort of advice you're looking for specifically. Care to clarify?

My original question was, whether the incompatibility I saw was a real concern or a non-issue. I think I've pretty much solved that problem on the first page of this thread. (FWIW, answering "Yes, it's a bug, but it can be made a feature by doing X") A corollary of my initial post was "what's _your_ idea on this, how would _you_ make this work" and I think people have been pretty productive in that respect, with lots of interesting ideas coming from everybody. IMHO the thread has turned more into a brainstorming session than a debate and I like that a lot. (I probably wouldn't if I was still agonising over my initial question ;). By all means, keep it coming, it gives me lots of ideas as to what stuff to present in the game.