[Sorcerer] First Campaign (SPOILER)

[Bill Cook]

Finished running the first session of my first Sorcerer campaign this night/morning.  My group created characters last week at the end of our second TROS campaign, run by Zazielsrephraim.  That went well enough.

There are six people in my group, including me.  (Includes Forge members: Zazielsrephraim, Ingenious, Mantis and myself.)  I worked off-and-on all week, creating a sorcerous concept and a whole cast of NPC's.  Didn't come up with a unified back story, but there are trends that arise from threads of character motivation, some related to that of the PC's, some not.

I wish I could scan the R Map and post a link to it.  Maybe later.  (Note: my R Map is not thy R Map.  But it was easily the most important piece of prep I did.)

More legistics: we meet twice a month from 11p - 3a on Saturdays.  No one's ever played Sorcerer before.  We're all warming up to Nar Agenda.  We just finished two TROS campaigns, but our experience is more 1st ed. AD&D.  Two guys are early thirties, the other four are early twenties.  Two are older and younger brothers.  We meet in the mother's home.  One guy brings his girlfriend to the sessions.  She has played before but did not tonight.  And won't be.

A new wrinkle was a member bringing a friend and expecting some pick-up play.  It was too last minute, too large of a group already and the thick prep didn't allow a simple entry, so I only allowed chargen and observation.

A big shift was having mostly separate threads per PC.  We did some weaving, but no partnering thereof.

The Good

[*]Had a robust thread with interplay, setting changes, range of NPC's, varied use of demon abilities, progress on Kicker and a mid-length, many-to-one combat scene at the tail of a thread weaving.
[*]For the majority, established the NPC's whose relationships to the PC's ground them to the setting and world.
[*]A couple of players have real talent for immersive play that I've come to appreciate.  And they were in good form tonight.
[*]Open, out-of-game dialogue is productive and continuous.
[/list:u]

The Bad

[*]Everyone had two or more wine coolers/beers and was conversing loudly to pass the time when it wasn't their thread.  The guy who came for pick-up play led a lot of it.  (Grumble.)
[*]A lot of the best Color was lost to all but those within the current thread.
[*]Some players offered less input during chargen.  I had a less clear sense of how to present conflict for their characters.  The respective narratives tended to plod.
[/list:u]

The Ugly

[*]I fail to consistently exceed clue dropping.  I need a reliable procedure for Bangs that (1) are based on conflict and (2) present a choice.  I think I grasp the principle -- what I seek is an explicit method.
[*]I feel unsure about how to stretch treatment of the Kicker material to fit across four sessions such that each arc peaks at the same moment.
[/list:u]

That's the main bit.  I can provide character/world details if requested.  And details of in-game player behavior/choices.

Thoughts?  Comments?  Suggestions?

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Bill,

I'm a little confused about one thing - is this an on-line game or face-to-face? Your use of "threads" and similar terms is throwing me, although if I know the answer, I can cope.

I also suggest that you put aside hopes of having all the character arcs peak at once. That kind of planning is essential in Force-based games, but not at all necessary in Narrativist ones. If the players want to have their characters peaking at once, they'll take plenty of steps to assure it, never fear. But if they don't, it's no big deal. Remember that resolution can be an extended process, and can continue for a while after the Kicker really peaks. So if the peaks don't happen at once, it's no big thing at all.

Best,
Ron

[Bill Cook]

It's face-to-face.  By thread I mean plot thread.  Not sure what else to call it.

I'm dubious as to how play can continue after the Kicker has peeked.  For example, I've got a guy whose wife was raped and murdered, allowing him to return home from the second Iraq war.  This is all in the game, of course!  His Kicker is to avenge her death.

She was a random target of a gang-banger in the employment of a very sick snuff film director.  So, you could go:

GM: BANG!  While you're sitting in a cafe, drinking coffee, this guy walks up to you and says, "It was I!  I killed your wife! A-ha, ha, ha!"
PC: I jump up and rapidly stab him in the kidneys.
GM: He's dead!
PC: I finish my coffee.

Right now, this player is frustrated.  He hasn't been able to make straight-forward progress on the issue.  I've involved him in some scenes with his sister-in-law, who's taken him to see a private detective.  He's gone by the crime scene at night and checked line-of-sight from the neighbor's backyard.  (The killer broke in from the rear.)

At one point, I had him find a copy of the snuff film in his cab.  (He's a cab-driver.  The cab is his demon.)  This was an advancement in the schedule as a reaction to perceived frustration.  I'd originally intended for another character to discover the film in a safe, buried in the rubble of their parents' home.  Hadn't worked out how to connect them after that.  (Anyway, how it got there is the only living relative of another character was called into town and brought her deceased brother's legal papers with her.  Among those, she had collected the tape, not having viewed it.  It slipped out before she exited his cab.)

I'm not sure if I'm doing this right.  I mean, is he supposed to be deciding what really happened to his wife?  If not, shouldn't I decide the matter and start dropping hints?  Is this a remedial approach, or will it support a Nar Agenda?  What else is there?

I feel like, at least with this character, the Bangs aren't banging.  It's more like following bread crumbs to the witch's house.

[TonyLB]

Would this be an appropriate time to ask what the definition of Humanity is for this game?

It's just sort of hard to figure out what a good Bang is without knowing what sort of Theme the character should be confronting.

[Bob McNamee]

Wouldn't the game continue  by the Player specifying a new Kicker?

My personal favorite in this situation would be for him to track down and discover who killed her...and get his revenge...only to find out the killer was hired or pointed at the wife.

Maybe even long distance by one of his solidier buddies who were wanting to get him out of there for some reason... or some such.

But thats my GM thought...if its the Players call on the Kicker, have him complicate his own character's life ;)

[Bob McNamee]

Here's a link to some thoughts on long term play of Sorceror

http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=6899&highlight=long

[Bill Cook]

Bob:

That's a good idea.  There's something special about him getting the guy who did it that I don't want to toy with.  And if I'd crossed the killer with the cabbie, then maybe he kills him, maybe not.  But only after he's dealt with, drop the bomb of the snuff.

Shit!  That's how I should have done it.

Will read link . . .

[hardcoremoose]

Bill,

Frankly, the murdered wife kicker seems a little uninspired to me.  In fact, I don't think it counts as a kicker at all.  It might have been okay if the player had stopped writing after his first couple sentences - he's entrenched in Baghdad and has just received a letter notifiying him that his wife has been brutally murdered, and bam!, start play right there.  As written, it doesn't allow for a range of interesting choices at all - before play even started the character's path was set and obvious to everyone, and now all that's left is for him to stumble along to its conclusion, you leading and the player following.

But it's too late for that criticism to be of any use to you, so here's my advice: Quit being coy and get waist-deep in the interesting stuff.  Think of the coolest, most dramatic thing that could happen to the sorcerer, have that happen, and then complicate the bejeezus out of it.  Make it non-stop, adrenaline pumping and real visceral, and if the player ends up resolving the kicker quickly (which isn't a certainty, in my mind), help guide him in writing a better one the second time around.

- Scott

[TonyLB]

Bob, I like your complication for some themes (particularly ones where the taking of even a guilty life is an important humanity issue).

At the same time, I can't help thinking about the issues in the guys life before his wife was killed.  He's off fighting in another country, which (no matter how worthy the goal) has a cost to his wife.

So if you've already got a latent conflict set up where he chose to hurt her because it was the only way to achieve his goals... well, why not cast that into extreme high relief?  Have the snuff film be, to all appearances, of the husband himself killing the wife.

Anyway, that's my two cents.  Still interested to hear what the Humanity definition is for the game.

[Bill Cook]

Still interested to hear what the Humanity definition is for the game.

This is not something I've given a lot of thought.  I explained it to them as losing your character when you hit zero.  And checks are called for when you do bad things.  I'm assuming vanilla morality, i.e. murder, rape and sorcery are bad.

The character of interest's cab has a need to feed on the margins of society, i.e. prostitutes, drug-users, street bums.  When it gets hungry, the gas gauge runs to empty.  It's even got idiot lights for what type of vagrant it wants.

Quit being coy and get waist-deep in the interesting stuff. Think of the coolest, most dramatic thing that could happen to the sorcerer, have that happen, and then complicate the bejeezus out of it.

How about this: BANG!  On your last run of the night, a mid-twenties, mixed race man walks to your window to pay the fare, drops his twenty and bends over to pick it up, revealling the very tattoo you saw in the snuff film on the man who raped and killed your wife.  He turns around and says, "Here you go," and walks down the middle of the street without looking back.

Although, after he runs him down, I'm not sure how it could become complicated.

[Trevis Martin]

My favorite kickers with dead people involve them showing back up again.

How about he comes back home one night and finds her there, unpacking her suitcase and saying she went to see her mom, and acting like everything is normal...

but in the film he saw some specific feature that can't be mistaken...

heh

Trevis

[hardcoremoose]

How about this: BANG! On your last run of the night, a mid-twenties, mixed race man walks to your window to pay the fare, drops his twenty and bends over to pick it up, revealling the very tattoo you saw in the snuff film on the man who raped and killed your wife. He turns around and says, "Here you go," and walks down the middle of the street without looking back.

Yeah, when I said "stop being coy", this is the sort of thing I was thinking about.  The coolest, most dramatic thing I could imagine would obviously be the perp getting into the character's cab, but you definitely want plumb the moment for as much drama as possible.  Maybe the perp isn't alone when he gets in the cab, and this second person reveals themself to be someone of interest (and maybe this second person isn't getting off at the same place as the perp).  Maybe the demon-cab itself acts up at the exact wrong moment, making the coup-de-grace impossible (or at least extremely difficult) to pull off.  Maybe after the perp is dead it's revealed that everyone in this particular snuff ring has an identical tattoo - a sort of branding, so to speak - widening the scope of who the killer might be.  Or maybe instead of it being the perp who gets in the car, its an unwitting actress-wannabe, on her way to her first - and last - starring role.

Maybe without even knowing it, your sorcerer-cabbie has become the unwitting chauffeur to the whole damn snuff production crew - an arrangement his demon is more than down with.

As you can see, brainstorming is hard, but you got too much cool stuff to work with - what with Taxi Driver and snuff film angles going on - to let it go by the wayside.  And I wouldn't overlook the fact that the women who get lulled into making snuff films are probably the exact same fringe types that the demon-cab lusts after.

- Scott

* Oh, and if at all possible, I'd try to juice the kicker in some way, so that the act of vengeance somehow seems less justified, or less appealing - anything that might make the player's choices more interesting again.  Maybe something is revealed about the wife that makes her a less sympathetic character, or (like another poster suggested) maybe it was her husband's absence that drove her to her unfortunate end.  Or, going along with a staple of revenge flicks, maybe a new love interest (one of his fares? one of the young starlets slated to be the next victim?)  shows up to come between the hero, his demon, and his need for revenge.

[Ron Edwards]

Hiya,

I have a minor thing and a major thing ...

MINOR
Bill, you wrote,

BANG! On your last run of the night, a mid-twenties, mixed race man walks to your window to pay the fare, drops his twenty and bends over to pick it up, revealling the very tattoo you saw in the snuff film on the man who raped and killed your wife. He turns around and says, "Here you go," and walks down the middle of the street without looking back.

I hate to tell you, this strikes me as merely a clue. It's still the old-school, bread-crumb trail, "go this way" kind of GM information. Oh, it's a Bang, but just ... well, not a Wow Bang.

I suggest considering stuff more like this: the guy shows up at the character's doorstep, desperate, terrified, and begging for help. The cab recognizes him (hey! forget the doorstep, have the cab pick the guy up by driving itself, while the PC is in it!). And then whatever's chasing him shows up, and boy is it a doozy.

I call this "spiking the Kicker." It makes it a stronger Kicker, you see, in exactly the same sense as spiking a drink. It's the opposite of a Mickey Finn, which makes a Kicker boring and off-putting.

MAJOR
But it also pre-supposes a great deal of effort, commitment, and depth to the GM's back-story. That's a big deal for me, in play - I love complex back-stories and decades' worth of betrayal and terror.

So what really puzzles me is this business about whether you're supposed to let the player make up who killed his wife and why! My reaction: Whaaat?? Dude, that's your job, as GM for Sorcerer. When he gives you a Kicker, that's your cue to introduce and develop as much motivation, intensity, extra characters, and whatnot as you possibly can!

Sorcerer isn't InSpectres. It is not an improvisational game, in terms of "what's going on."

So he meets the guy, kills him, moves on. Has he resolved the Kicker? No! What about the enormous network of interactions surrounding the killer and the wife? Are they siblings? Or perhaps the entire marriage was a scam to get the main character in some way, and the murder is a falling-out among the scammers. I mean, the PC is a sorcerer, for Pete's sake, not just some schmoe.

All that is your job as prep-guy and scene-guy. It's a big job. Sorcerer releases you from the responsibility of "make scenes turn out the way you want, which is to say, it provides you with all the time in world to make that back-story as meaty as you can possibly imagine. Kickers are like a boat overturning in a swamp. The swamp is the back-story. The story will always result in the character succeeding or failing in his efforts to escape from (or tame, or whatever) the swamp (i.e. the Kicker being resolved), but that swamp can include many things that the guy in the boat never saw at the outset.

Does that make any sense at all?

Best,
Ron

[Bill Cook]

Scott (hardcoremoose):

I'm reading that drama + complication = killer in your face + bullshit in the way of taking him out.

e.g. The snuff murder and your sister-in-law climb into the back of the cab.  "Oh, Vinnie!  I didn't know it was you!  I want you to meet my new boyfriend, Kilo."  "You mean lover!"  "Kilo!  I don't share everything with my brother-in-law!  Vinnie, can you take us back to my place?"  "That's right, baby.  I've got something special planned tonight."  You notice he's got a camcorder bag.

e.g. At the bar in a cafe, you spot the killer by his reflection in the booth behind you.  Sitting with him are two police officers.  They speak in hushed tones and are passing items beneath the table.

e.g.  Three street toughs pile into the back of the cab.  You can see handguns bulging from inside their jackets.  Suddenly, a bullet flies through the rear window and into the back of someone's head.  Glass, blood and brains spray everywhere.  One of the men yells, "Man, hit the gas!  Peel it, or I'll kill ya!" and sticks a gun in your face.  At that moment you realize: this is your wife's murder!

Yes?

Ron:

I'm all for spiking the Kicker.  I follow your suggestion to cross their paths.  And I think your further point is to have the killer engage the cabbie in a personal way, yes?  So maybe my second example above wouldn't meet this standard and maybe not my first, either.  But my third would, yes?

Grateful for clear feedback on design intent and GM duties.  I've read in a number of threads that Nar is about letting the player tell their story.  TROS, for example, is described as a player-driven system.  So that's where my concern is coming from.  But if it's for me to decide, decide I will.

**********

I've made a gaggle of extra characters.  Kilo, Amanda's killer, does side work for Nefero, an early-fifties, well-groomed psychiatrist who expresses his sadistic pathology by producing snuff films for high-paying clients.  Nefero is a high-Lore sorcerer with a band of truly aweful demons.

The tape Nefero made of Amanda's murder was commissioned by Joshua Neff, a wealthy real estate investor in San Diego.  He and his wife, Emily, perished six months ago when a gas leak sparked, leveling their home.  Their five-year old daughter, Mellisa, was never found.  That's because her demon teddy bear whisked her away to New York, where she walks the street, frequenting jewelry stores and pilfering their wares.  These she uses to decorate the room in her Pocket Dimension.

Mellisa's Aunt Rachel, who sabotaged her brother's estate, is after his fortune.  If she could ever get her hands on Mellisa, she'd do a little Huddsucker's by proxy.  Mellisa was recently picked up by the police.  A search on the national missing children's database found her a match, and the authorities notified her aunt, who immediately booked a flight to New York.  But Mellisa mysteriously vanished in the night.

It was Aunt Rachel who dropped the snuff film in Vinnie's cab.  She was frantically collecting legal documents the night before from her dead brother's safety deposit box and has not viewed the tape.

Vinnie dropped off a clean-cut man in the entertainment district the night before.  Right outside the Johnny Thomas, a women's club, full of male strippers.  That man was agent Dugan Styles, on the trail of a gang of notorious drug and gun smugglers, the High-Flying Eagles, of which, Kilo is a member.  Styles was to meet a longtime informant, Mildew Miles, and receive a tip-off as to the location of one of the Eagles' safe houses when he was compromised by Styles' eager new partner, Johnny Young.

What neither Johnny nor Miles could ever guess is that agent Styles was infected by a demonic parasite during a solo bust when he bagged Thadeus Thug.  Freddy the Freak, the reputed leader of the Eagles, got away that night.

After Styles stuffed Miles into Young's ride, he gave instructions to get Miles out of town.  Meanwhile, inside the club, a male stripper by the name of Karl Humongous was shaking his money maker.  The night before, he'd received a disturbing message on his answering machine: "Hey, fuck-o.  I hope you're proud of yourself.  Yeah, I know what you did.  Now I'm gonna chop off your dick and cram it down your throat.  Be seeing ya."  Even worse, someone had cleaned out his coke stash.  Or maybe he'd just inhaled it all.  He couldn't remember.  Karl's life had become so confusing after he'd boffed that strong-armed, high society blond at her white-pillared mansion.  Ever since then, he'd been having the wierdest dreams.  Karl was, in fact, infected by a new queen slug demon by the Matron of the Order of the Hive, Janis Whitmire.

The Hive wants to spawn a plague of drone demons and infect the world.  Only a sorcerer may control the more articulate warrior and queen slugs, but the drones provide obediance from the masses.  Vying for world domination in a new order but from another angle is the Order of Elemental Force, led by Helion, the mysterious and powerful.  They want to drive civilization back to the stone age in a disastrous cataclysm, after which they will be enthroned as masters to the cowering survivors.  Helion leads from his opera box in the temple below the downtown library.  In a secret chamber therein lies the Arcane Sanctum.  

Recently, a mortal cow stumbled onto it -- retired Professor Rufus Gerard, a 67-year-old man, none too enchanted with the prospect of eternal rest.  Ever since he found this queer section of books, he's been reading feverishly, trying to find some spirit to favor him with immortality.  It was his binding of Winston, the flame elemental, that brought him to the attention of Yvonne and Hershel, initiates of the Order of Elemental Force.  Helion has decreed that he must prove himself worthy and obediant by leading a raid on a fire station.

**********

So there's the swamp.

[Bill Cook]

Left out a couple parts.

The voice on Karl's answering machine was that of detective Jack Hartford.  His wife, Sheri, has been blowing his earnings on late night romps with Karl.  But he's wise to her, and he plans to use Karl's dealer, Mildew Miles, to give him some bad drugs.  Once Karl is helpless, Hartford plans to take him to a field by a grain mill, beat the Hell out of him, threaten to kill him if he ever goes near Sheri again and leave him for dead.  Hartford doesn't really want to kill him.

Another aspect of Nefero's operations: Glumly, a passer, is a janitor at the local orphanage.  He swaps children with look-alike spawn generated by Dumpy, the dumpster object demon.  With purchase in tow, Glumly uses "dumpster travel" to arrive at Nefero's lair, where the unfortunate child is greedily devoured by Razor Bear, truly the worst demon in the game, too terrible to even describe.

I was trying to write Mellisa forward to the orphanage where she could witness these machinations, but her player bristles at any direction I provide.  He keeps using his demon's Travel + Transport to exit out.  And then expresses disatisfaction because his character never gets to "do" anything and asks to be weaved into some of the other character's storylines so that at least something interesting would happen.