The Mechanics of Hellraiser....

[TickTock Man]

Greetings!

In general, when I play sorcerer the demons are actually demons of some kind.  I think I have heard it called "Naked Sorcerer", so in this post, that is context in which I am asking my Hellraiser question.  Also, I am not by any means looking for an absolute answer, just tossing around an idea.

I was watching Hellraiser the other day, and I started wondering what type of demon the Cenobites are.  It seems that the obvious answer is that the Cenobites are demons, maybe inconspicuous, or imminent, and the box is merely an occult way to contact the demons. But.... could we turn this on its head?

What if the box is the demon, a very powerful object demon, and the Cenobites are its spawn, commensurately powerful as well.  Who would expect the box is a demon, THE demon, especially with such nasty spawn to distract the would-be occultist from the "insignificant" prop of a box?
What night some other combinations of mechanics be?


This brought me to another question.  Could a powerful demon with the spawn ability, create spawn to fulfil its need and desire if no sorcerer is handy, even for a short while?  If, for example, the box is the demon whose need is to witness violent murder, and the Cenobites are spawn, notice that the Cenobites usually show up when the would-be occult bad ass realizes they are in WAY over their head and starts to make a run for the exit.  If the boxes need is violent murder, while the holder of the box is busy killing people, then the box is fine.  But when the occultist tries to back out, in come the cenobites to generate some more hellish violence, and the box is sated.

Of course, this violates the very important rule that demons need people to keep their needs and desires attended to, but it is an interesting thought excercise either way.  It might not hurt to let a player think its possible, though....

-Angelo

[Yokiboy]

Hi TickTockMan,

I like your ideas so much that I might even consider watching Hellraiser again.  ;)

TTFN,

Yokiboy

[Ron Edwards]

Hi there,

TOPIC ONE
I like to consider Hellraiser through the first movie only, partly because it's the only one I've seen, partly because I really like the original short story (The Hellbound Heart, one of the extremely few Clive Barker stories I enjoy).

So going by that alone, sure, the demon could be the box, or the box could be a Telltale, or the box could be Color for the Contact ritual. Whatever. The tools in Sorcerer are not meant to represent, but rather to assemble. Different avenues of assembly result in different dynamics during play.

TOPIC TWO
I think we have to talk about Needs and Desires some more.

1. A need is an addiction and there is only one source for the fix: human effort.

A demon may receive what seems to fulfill its Need, but if no person has done anything to provide it (even something so simple as "letting it out to hunt"), then it doesn't count.

Always look for human agency in fulfilling a demon's Need, even if it's indirect. If there is none, then no, a demon cannot send Spawn to go get its Need, or rather, even if it does, the Need-based penalties will still apply.

In the introductory scenario in the book, you can see a demon who's Bound to a dead sorcerer - and still making use of the sorcerer's resources and reputation to get its Need. It won't last forever, and the demon knows it, but it hasn't yet started to get penalties.

2. Desires cannot be fulfilled. Let me say that again: Desires cannot be fulfilled. They are ideas, perspectives, ideologies, and preferences. A demon whose Desire is Mayhem likes mayhem, wants to be around it, may instigate it, may participate it, and thinks the world just needs more mayhem. It favors individuals who seem oriented in the same direction, it favors actions which get mayhem into existence.

But it does not need Mayhem; it gets no penalties from lacking it. If the sorcerer who Binds this demon provides no mayhem, it may grouse a bit, but the Binding is not threatened and the demon does not become rebellious. It'll probably just do some independent scheming or actions to see some mayhem.

Best,
Ron

[TickTock Man]

The reponses is very clear, and it makes a lot of sense.  It does make me ask, though, if a demon really needs human effort disguised or clothed in some form, then how do you choose what form that effort will take?

I am not asking for "the" answer, but rather for some ideas of quality versus quantity of need.  When you all play Sorcerer, how do you select and scale your demons' needs?  Do more powerful demons have more extreme and obscure needs, requiring more effort on the part of the sorcerer, thus they are qualititatively different?  Is the selection more thematic (i.e. my demon is sexy, and so my demon needs willing sex partners), with more powerful demons requiring greater quantities to fulfil their needs, thus being quantitatively different?

Just curious.

-Angelo

[erithromycin]

A demons needs should generate a games needs, is my sudden realisation of my thinking on this. This is personal preference and sleep deprivation talking, but, nonetheless:

Needs drive story by presenting opportunity for conflict of some description - no needs should be easy, and all should present scope for moral choice. Furthermore, Needs must be flexible enough to allow for different processes of satiation, and, indeed, different degrees - again, though, this is customisable in a given campaign - you might wish to suggest that a Need is best met in one specific fashion, and the degree to which that archetypal Need is matched suggests how soon an attempt will need to be made - this could be process, or 'quality' - just as there is a difference between a fine port and thunderbird, there can be a difference between the provision of 'suffering' or 'depravity'.

I think that, from Sorcerer itself, the one jarring thing is that demons are in a position to lie about their Needs - the example of the demon whose Need is, um, detritus from the human body (dandruff, etc.) who has his sorcerer doing all sorts of stuff and producing it by accident seems a little rubbish to me.

The other thing is that I'm not sure the component is 'effort', but choice, specifically moral. Though I'm intrigued by the sudden notion of a demon whose Need is isolation (including from its Sorcerer) or a demon that Needs to commit violent acts against its Sorcerer, but can only do so when explicitly commanded to do so [which may lead back to your Hellraiser query].

[DannyK]

I am not asking for "the" answer, but rather for some ideas of quality versus quantity of need.  When you all play Sorcerer, how do you select and scale your demons' needs?  Do more powerful demons have more extreme and obscure needs, requiring more effort on the part of the sorcerer, thus they are qualititatively different?  Is the selection more thematic (i.e. my demon is sexy, and so my demon needs willing sex partners), with more powerful demons requiring greater quantities to fulfil their needs, thus being quantitatively different?

My thought on this is that one should be careful with defining "extreme and obscure".  This could be a great story-mover, if the Need involves something which is both difficult and morally challenging to get. On the other hand, if it's just something rare and exotic, then it might turn out a bit like the hunt for spell components in D&D, which tends to get abstracted or simplified to "shopping at the magic store" because it's just not that interesting to play out the character's search for a perfect black pearl.  

I think it's interesting that Charnel Gods, which really puts the Fell Weapons and their wielders on center stage, uses Needs which are mostly easy to satisfy.

[TickTock Man]

Good point, DannyK.  I think the "spell components" mentality is a real danger.  Moral challenge and palin old weirdness are what I intend.

-Angelo

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

It might seem counter-intuitive at first, but demon Needs which require transgressions on the part of the sorcerer, specifically transgressions which play straight into the Humanity definition of the game, require extreme care and in many cases are counter-productive for the player's real authorship.

Why? Because they eclipse the Kicker. It is the Kicker which upsets the applecart of the sorcerer's life, and if his or her life is already a daily brush with Humanity loss, then the Kicker can add or change nothing. An overly-transgressive, Humanity-threatening Need to fulfill is not a stable applecart.

I don't suggest disallowing such things, but I do think their risks and consequences in a Sorcerer story should be understood. If you do want such a thing for a character, then consider what that means carefully. This may also surprise people: I'd rather see a "spell component" Need over a "threaten Humanity" Need, if we're assuming that the people are not considering their choices as carefully as I'd hope. The spell-component Need is at least reliably compatible with a solid Kicker, and the threaten-Humanity need is equally reliably not compatible with it.

There is such a thing as playing Sorcerer too tight. This would be something like ...

Character history = terrible traumatic experiences about X. Descriptors = all derived from or related to X. Demon = embodiment of X. Need = the sorcerer must do the "wrong side" of X. Kicker = ... well, there isn't any. Because nothing's here except X and the guy's whole fuckin' life is already X'd to the gills. No Kicker is possible.

Best,
Ron