[Sorcerer] The Unnecessary Mentor View

[Bret Gillan]

So, I have Sorcerer. I've gathered my players, and I've done some character creation. A problem that I keep encountering is that the players keep getting drawn to Solitary Adepts, even if it isn't realistic with their Lores.

The comments I get when I express dissatisfaction with the lack of a Mentor or a Coven is something like:

"I don't see how to get it fit with my character concept."
"A mentor would clutter up the story I'm trying to pursue with my character."
"I don't see why anyone would seek my character out as an apprentice."

The general idea seems to be that the mentor somehow detracts from the players' conceptualizations of their characters, or distracts from the main ideas that their trying to pursue with their characters.

And honestly, when I was trying to explain to them why they should have Mentors, I found myself having a hard time giving them reasons why they should have one besides "You need one to teach you Sorcery unless you're some kind of genius." Not that this isn't a valid reason, but my players' primary concerns were with their character concepts and themes. Any takes on these concerns as it relates to the necessity of having a mentor/coven?

[sirogit]

I think your reasons for them have mentors depends on why you want them to and why they don't want to. Here's my soloutions.

A) They don't like mentor characters/stories with mentors.

Well, I don't really think there's much to be done there. Either they play with mentor characters by your explicit request or you drop it.

B) They don't see why they would be apprenticed.

Do they have a reason to practice sorcery? Could someone else share this reason? That's a reason to apprentice them.

C) They don't want to be connected to people for typical gamer reasons.

This will take some talking and re-orienting.

If you don't like the idea of low Lore Adepts running about, how about telling them they choose another descriptor or lower their Lore to 1 for Naive?

[Bailywolf]

Much depends on the flavor of Sorcery itself in your implementation of the game.  Are you running with a fairly normal interpretation of the demon/ritual/humanity triad, or something more customized?

What kind of character concepts are your players coming up with?

-B

[Christopher Weeks]

I think if it's Sirogit's point 'C' then you have work ahead of you getting them to understand the whole point.  Otherwise, I agree with them, why should they have mentors?

Chris

[Ron Edwards]

Hiya,

Everyone's responses are spot on. There are really two basic possibilities for you.

1. You have some personal reason to want mentor NPCs in the game, and it's not compatible with their reasons for wanting to play. The clear job of the Sorcerer GM at this point is to back down - just lose the "mentor plans," whatever they are.

2. It's not a mentor-issue at all, but an NPC-connection issue. The solution then is not to focus on mentors, but rather on the diagram on the back of the sheet. I don't care what the Lore descriptions are; NPCs should be present in at least two of the four zones on the diagram, if not all of them. That's a reasonable expectation, and if they're dodging that, then you have a lot more to concern yourself with than any mentor-specific issues.

Best,
Ron