Sorceror freaked us out …

[hix]

This was our group's first time with Sorceror.  Using a setting I've been keen on trying for a while (Who Framed Roger Rabbit meets L.A. Confidential) we agreed to play a 3 session story (the prep thread is here).

Character generation was great fun. After explaining the basic concepts, we followed the step-by-step process in the rulebook.  The pivotal moment came when someone (Jenni, I think) suggested that the cops would have a Toon Squad to deal with rogue Toons in Los Angeles. From that moment, everyone started getting into adding to the setting - leaving me desperately sketching down the relationship-map that was emerging. As a result, the players gave almost every plot element of the game to me (although I did insert one previously conceived NPC/threat into the setting).

Towards the end of that prep-session, when we reached the Kicker phase, the conversation went completely dead. I'm unsure of the reason we stalled because we were already familiar with Kickers from our Buffy game. Could be it was late and we were all tired from 2 or 3 hours of brainstorming. Or maybe (and I'm really speculating here) they had designed these rich, conflicted characters but were hesitant to commit to putting them in motion. Anyway, after what seemed like 10 minutes of silence we agreed to work the Kickers up over the 2 weeks between games

And it took all 2 weeks. Wayne suggested his Kicker moments after we left the character generation session, and his need of an ancient artefact tied in nicely with Gino's character's 'one last heist'. I made some suggestions to both of them to fine-tune it but by the day of the game 2 Kickers were still only provisionally sorted out. Jenni had had a complete block and was requesting help on her blog. Svend gave me three options, I told him which one inspired me the most and we went with that.

It's important to note that I went with it. I had wanted solidly locked down Kickers before starting this game. But I thought I could wing it and I felt some pressure to get gaming, so we went ahead and played. Mistake #1, but not the biggest one I'd make.

For Session 1, I introduced the world with a couple of intro scenes each, then played their Kickers. Here's what happened:

Calvin "Home Run" Hoswell, Ex-con Burglar (played by Gino)
KICKER: Has figured out his last heist before he retires - steal a collection of ancient Toon images from his old enemy, the Police Commissioner.
*The Police Commissioner threatens Home Run, warns him not to commit any crimes while in LA. This makes Home Run angry.
*It seems like everybody in town wants a cut of Home Run's big score.
*Home Run botches the burglary of a security company and gets photographed.[/color]

Det. Wes Ripley, Detective in the LAPD, (played by Jenni)
KICKER: A female detective has joined Toon Squad and is competing for Wes' upcoming promotion.
*The Police Commissioner assigns him to surveil Home Run and make sure the burglar doesn't commit any crimes while he's in the city.
*Wes learns that Home Run's toon is in lust with his toon.
*Meeting the female detective, Laura Pesci, who seems to want him to get in touch with his repressed emotional side, unsettles Wes.
*He receives incriminating photographs proving the Police Chief of Toon Town is working with criminals.[/color]

Danny O'Rourke, B-Grade actor & hired muscle for Toon Crime Lord, Boss Pig (played by Svend)
KICKER: Asked to return the Road Runner (currently bound to an 8-year old girl) to Toon Town. The easiest way to do this is to kill her.
*Loses a lot of money in poker to Wes' toon, Greystone.
*Threatens "Home Run", saying that the burglar has to give Boss Pig a cut of his score.
*Beats the former owner of his toon gun into a bloody pulp.[/color]

Keith Byrne, Socialite & Vigilante (played by Wayne)
KICKER: Wants to marry his Toon girlfriend, and has just discovered the whereabouts of an artefact that will turn her into a human – making the marriage socially acceptable.
*Keith's lawyer informs him that a condition of his inheritance is that he has 2 weeks to get married)
*He interrupts Home Run while he's planning the heist. Offers to protect him against Boss Pig during the robbery in exchange for getting the artefact.
*Boss Pig tries to intimidate him into dumping Stella, his Toon girlfriend. Keith Refuses.
*He prepares to drag-race the Road Runner.[/color]

A couple of really cool moments:

All the players were declaring really big actions and I waited till they had all finished so they all rolled at once. All of them failed. For me, this was a great emotional moment in the game where all the players seemed to bond about their characters.

It was also neat that Wayne (playing Keith) framed a scene where he (driving his Toon car) met the Road Runner on the streets of L.A. I rewarded him with extra dice in the next session for taking the initiative so dramatically.

Two things I realised retro-actively:

In LA Confidential, we have 3 characters who start in very different situations with very different wants. However, aside from the underlying case, they have a common background in the LAPD that allows the author to easily create connections or hand-over scenes between them. In our game, our 4 characters comes from: The Law, the Vigilante, the Lone Cat-Burglar and the Goon working for the Mob. For a start, that means they lack that common background. They're also spread out in such a way that not matter how I look at them, the actions and decisions that any 3 of them take seem to make an interesting story while the 4th person feels left out (or irrelevant).

The second retro-active realisation was from reading a Forge thread. Most of the Bangs I threw in were not based off their Kickers. They were just attempts to catch players' interests. As a result, I felt that the 'story' that emerged was a bit wandery, lacked focus.

The next session is where the freaking out happened. I'll post that as soon as I can but if anyone's got some comments on this stuff, rip on in.

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

Three observations from a lot of Sorcerer play.

1. People who are eager and excited about setting/atmosphere, then stall on Kickers, are still in "entertain me" mode. Sorcerer is like handing someone a loaded gun. The Kicker is like telling them to shoot whatever they want.

A lot of people will stare at you and stall out. They were fine contributing as long as it wasn't so close to home.

2. The GM habit of building hooks to capture player attention has to stop. You wrote already that they built conflicts into their contributions. Your responsibility is embrace those conflicts as if you had written them and play them hard. Very hard.

There is a huge difference between these two things:

a) "You notice that the dead man is holding a medallion. Oohh! It's a medallion from the ancient Assyrian artifacts collection at the musem!" "H'm, guess I'll go snoop around the museum."

b) "You're at work, right? OK, your boss comes by to see you - oh man, he's having an epileptic fit! What do you do?" "First aid!" "Roll!" [amidst the chaos] [more rolls; dealing with epilepsy, etc] "There's a weird medallion around his neck. It's levitating by itself and grafting itself to your chest! It's offering you a Binding" "Whaaat?" "And your demon screams! Tries to flee the room! What do you do?"

In (a), you're getting their attention. In (b), they're enmeshed in a crisis with multiple different interests in action at once. In (a), there's nothing to roll. In (b), the GM is eagerly rolling the boss' Stamina, the demon's Will, the medallion-demon's Will, and maybe a few other people besides. Will the player roll the character's Will vs. the medallion, Will vs. his own demon, Cover in an attempt to help the boss, or what? Go!

3. The first session of Sorcerer never yields a story. It does not correspond to the opening of a movie. It does not correspond to the opening of a novel. It is the beginning phase of a new creative medium, and we only figure out if we came in "late" or "early" after we've done it.

Best,
Ron

[Eero Tuovinen]

3. The first session of Sorcerer never yields a story. It does not correspond to the opening of a movie. It does not correspond to the opening of a novel. It is the beginning phase of a new creative medium, and we only figure out if we came in "late" or "early" after we've done it.

That's an especially great point. I've myself wrestled with this feature for who knows how long. It seems to be common to all roleplaying games relying on systemically anchored processes, not just Sorcerer. On the other hand, games like Universalis or Polaris give fast story but less commitment, I feel.

But Sorcerer is indeed an especially clear example of the feature. HeroQuest is another, in my experience. It seems to be nothing to worry about, as long as you really are going to have that second session, too.

[hix]

OK, (b) is pretty vivid. I agree it's a good Bang. Assuming the player cares about his character's dying boss and being threatened by this new demon (seems a reasonable assumption), it's more emotionally involving than simply 'finding a dead body'.

It also creates a crisis. Check. Some of my Bangs lacked this.

What it does that I didn't even think of is deliberately build in multiple tensions to create multiple possible outcomes. Is (b) the type of Bang Sorceror GMs are expected to generate on the fly – or is this more in the 'prepared earlier' category?

Your responsibility is embrace those conflicts as if you had written them and play them hard. Very hard.

That's why I wanted a couple of weeks between finalising the Kickers and playing the first session. To get that sense of ownership. But also, I under-estimated how much a game of Sorceror should be about what the players have brought to the table. It's not 70% or 80%. Maybe it's more in the 95-100% range?

I think because I was trying to figure out what would grab the players about these characters. That's why I took a scattershot approach to creating Bangs. But what would interest them is supposed to be decided by the Kickers, right? That's the player's responsibility. Their job is to say, "This." My job is to help them see where 'This' could go.

BTW, I was fully prepared for the first session to wander a bit. There's quite a few Sorceror AP threads round here that say things don't start gelling till Episode 2 or 3. And, in fact I think we actually got that at the end of Session 2 – which is why we kind of freaked out and postponed playing ...

We ended Session 2 with Wayne's character near death, Jenni and Svend in direct opposition (i.e. the pacing and resolution of their characters' conflict seems completely out of my control) and Gino's cat-burglar ready to do his heist.

It was intense.

In (b), the GM is eagerly rolling the boss' Stamina, the demon's Will, the medallion-demon's Will, and maybe a few other people besides.

Question: Would you roll these dice before the player has decided on their action, just to get an idea of turn-order, or would you wait until everyone's declared in free and clear and then roll everything as simultaneously as possible?

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Steve,

Wait a minute. Why in the world are you stopping? Your description of the endpoint of session two sounds like Perfect Sorcerer.

Or rather, since you guys ended up there, it sounds like Your Perfect Sorcerer. Come on, man! This is the first time in your entire gaming history that the players got their player-characters where they were always aiming! As opposed to all those other games! Why th'hell aren't you playing it further?

You've truly puzzled me with that one.

the pacing and resolution of their characters' conflict seems completely out of my control

Yup. And why would you want it under your control? Isn't that control nothin' but a severe pain in the ass anyway, because you're supposed (a) to have it and (b) to exert it just like everyone else will enjoy the most? Take that "control" and fuck it in the ear. Your only responsibility is to play all those neat NPCs, to introduce whatever confluences seem most interesting to everyone, and to turn up the flames in terms of Humanity.

The book does indeed say, on the back: "Can you handle it?" Not empty rhetoric.

Let's see, other stuff:

1. The percent of player-derived material to work with varies from group to group. I suggest that what matters is not who proposes a particular in-game element, but that the element is utilized by whoever has the responsibility to propose actions for it as enthusiastically as possible, during play.

2. I treat all complex conflict via the simultaneous-rolls method.

3. The complexity of a given Bang is totally independent of whether it's pre-arranged or recognized ("hey! better do this!") during play.

Best,
Ron

[jburneko]

I would like to add something about the pacing and resolution being out of control.  This is what Story Now refers to.  It's also what Ron refers to as the difference between the process of authoring a story and a completed story.

It's something I personally struggle with when playing Sorcerer and it's a problem one of my friends struggles with both in his personal writing and in our roleplaying.  The problem is this: throwing away your expectations on how the story "should" flow based on your experiences with past media.  Even if you've thrown away the railroaded adventure this is an "in the moment" gut level reaction that is hard to supress if you're used to discussing roleplaying and stories on a structural level.

It most happens to me with the Demon Need rules.  So something in the rulebook says, "when X happens the Demon goes immediately into Need."   And so during situation Y, X happens and I find myself self-editing, "No!  No!  The demon can't go into Need NOW that's all wrong.   That's totally not what this situation is all about."  That's not how it happens in the comics or that's not how it happens in the TV show or that's not how it happens in horror movies or that's not how it happens in detective stories or that's not how it happens <insert reference to your inspriation for the game in the first place.>

It can happen all the way back at the Kicker even if you and the player are in total agreement.  You can look at the Kicker and go, "Ah, a vengeance story" and the player can nod in total agreement that his Kicker is all about his character's pursuit of vengeance.  But as soon as you start thinking, "Hmmm, okay well vengeance stories go like *this*" and start GMing from that level (even without a lot of pre-play railroady prep) you've already lost sight of Story Now.

It can happen on the player's end of things too, especially with a player who truely is comitted to story like my friend.  I will get questions from him like, "Can I just choose to fail?" because at this point in the story his character needs to fail according to his pre-concieved ideas about how this kind of story flows or he'll get massively disappointed if he fails at a certain time even if that failure doesn't de-progtagonize his character at all and opens up all kinds of new oportunity.  "That's not how this kind of story goes."

I might be off base on where the "out of control" feeling is coming from but it's what imediately came to mind based on what you said.

Jesse

[TonyLB]

Word, Jesse.  People expect narrativist-friendly systems to give them the outcomes they would expect.  But all they promise (and all they should promise) is an outcome that drives the Story.

I think it's Joss Whedon who said "Give the audience what they want, but never what they're expecting."

[hix]

And why would you want it under your control? Isn't that control nothin' but a severe pain in the ass anyway ... ?

Ron & Jesse, I agree. Control is a pain in the arse. Being responsive and dropping preconceived notions – check. The games I run with this group, I really aspire to that Story Now style.

We haven't talked about it in those terms; I've just brought games to the table I think will facilitate it. And we have had at least one successful experience with it. In our Buffy game, the season finale involved one slayer having her heart broken by her first boyfriend while (for related reasons) a second slayer tried to kill said boyfriend. The Story Now was a little lumpy at times but none of us predicted an ending that gripping.

So, yeah: that interpretation of 'keeping control' is present in this Sorceror game as something I have to monitor in myself. But more importantly, I have no idea how to run the situation that's developed.

I said that Jenni and Svend were in direct opposition. Here's how it happened:

Jenni's character (Wes) needs to create an informant in Boss Pig's organisation. She's decided to try and turn Svend's character (Danny).

On the other hand, Danny is incredibly loyal to Boss Pig and is under orders frame someone for the murder of Wayne's character, Keith. Danny puts in motion a plan to frame Wes' toon, Greystone.

Now, I love that situation. It's very James Ellroy – American Tabloid is my primary inspiration for this game. Also, the PCs are really interesting characters. For them to go head-to-head seems like it'll create interesting results ...

... but I'm pretty sure the players will want to role-play this out as fully as possible. That means a huge conversation with no fixed end-point. I'm not sure what my input could be. There's no chance for me to do any scene framing here. I can't see how (or even if I should) bring them to a point of decision.

Basically, I could quite easily see this confrontation running for the whole session without a conclusion. Is this bad? I have no idea but we'd originally agreed to play and finish this game in 3 episodes. Part of my wanting to stop came from it seeming like a lot to wrap up both this and their two Kickers in one more session.

So that's one concern. Second, maybe the players will try to resolve the situation by using their Toons on each other - or try rolling Stamina vs. Will (which seems reasonable seeing as Wes is smart and Danny is a thug). I have no idea how Sorceror (or any other narrativism-promoting game) would deal with this situation.

In my experience, it's kind of a sacred cow that players reserve their decisions for themselves (aside from the occasional charm spell in D&D). So the second issue is: Can rolls affect role-playing?

And a final minor point: the stakes are so high for both Wes and Danny that it seems unlikely either of them will break off, change their minds. But I'm prepared to dismiss that as their players' 'problem', not mine. My job's just to watch and respond to what they do.

Aside from the reasons mentioned above, other reasons we stopped ...

*I needed to process what had happened and how I was going to run the next session. (hence this thread)
*The tone had turned quite dark and intense – and was making at least one of the players slightly uncomfortable.
* One of the PCs is near-death. Initially I couldn't figure a way out of the situation aside from killing him (it's what the assassin would do). I've always had a problem killing a PC and I certainly didn't want to bench the player for the final session. However, I may have figured out a way round this. Or maybe it would give the story more focus to kill him. I don't know.

And maybe the biggest reason for stopping (and this one's purely emotional): Despite binding a toon. Despite causing traffic accidents and carnage among innocent bystanders. I didn't make anyone roll a Humanity check for the whole session. I completely forgot the fundamental aspect of the game.

That shocked me so much, I was kicking myself. A true lowlight ...

Anyway, I'm going to re-draw all the players' attention to this thread. Hopefully it'll start some conversation about the game ... which I'm still keen to finish.

[petrova]

I'm gonna assume it was me who you said 'got uncomfortable' with the way the game was going. Since, I did in fact get highly uncomfortable.

Mostly my problem is simply being in conflict with another PC. I prefer fluffy bunny co-operative roleplaying as a rule, and I freak out a little at the thoughht of having this conversation.

That said I think it will be fantastic to roleplay since Wes has an iron will and the need to succeed. I do think dice rolls play a part though, because otherwise won't we just be butting heads?

[Ron Edwards]

Hiya,

Couple of System points to make about Sorcerer.

1. Nothing at all can "make" a player-character do anything. The player-character may fail a Will roll against another character who orders him to do something, and just go ahead and do it anyway.

How can this be? Because there are always roll-over consequences to consider. Let's say my character has Stamina 4 and Will 3. Let's say he's just arrived and is threatening to hit someone.

"Don't hit him!" says another character (NPC or PC) with Will 5. Roll! Let's say the guy with 5 wins, with (um) four victories. Good roll, huh?

Yeah, it was. Because my character goes ahead and strikes at his target ... with minus four dice, effectively Stamina 0. That means I roll one die and the target gets a bonus die.

If the player decides that's not good enough, then he goes ahead and has his character obey the command to stop. See? Works perfectly, either way.

2. As soon as a conflict of interest appears, roll the dice. Old-school role-playing provides absolutely nothing that permits players to know, when their characters disagree, how to proceed. It's a procedural clusterfuck, which is why players are exhorted to "play well" by having their characters always be on board with one another.

But in Sorcerer, just roll. You say X, she says Y? Roll! You want to do this, but she wants to tell you no? Roll! You try to stop her, but she tries to tell you to stop, and the other guy is pulling the trigger?

Roll!

The order will always be set by the dice. The abort-to-defend will always be an option. Double-dipping actions are not allowed. Ordering someone to do something and doing something else are not allowed (or rather, one is forced to be mere Color).

It is so, so, so easy, that once you try it, you will never fall into an IIEE trap again.

Nope, you won't be butting heads all session. Just do "free and clear" until everyone is ready to roll.

Best,
Ron

P.S. Sorcerer requires Humanity rolls. Do all of them in retrospect, before beginning the next run. If someone hits 1, then leave it at that for the beginning of the session.

[hix]

1)
Ron, I think your Point (1) clarifies a lot for me. If, for example, PC 1 wants to get a job and PC 2 wants to stop him, they roll. Say PC 2 gets 5 victories. That means in every instance of PC 1 trying to get a job or even getting a job and working, she's at a 5-dice penalty, right?

2)
Welcome to the Forge, Petrova! I didn't realise you were looking forward to the role-playing challenge. Cool.

That's not how it happens in the comics or that's not how it happens in the TV show or that's not how it happens in horror movies or that's not how it happens in detective stories or that's not how it happens <insert reference to your inspriation for the game in the first place.>

3)
Re-reading Jesse's comment, I now see that that really does apply here. In this particular game of Sorceror, maybe the Wes-Danny conversation does take the whole session. Maybe it is one scene. The only way to find out is to play it, right? And make sure all of the participants take responsibility for being interested and engaged in it.

It's just – like I say – outside my previous experience so I'm trying to get a handle on it.

4)
The Wes-Danny situation is interesting because Wes has so much more to lose if he fails. However, that evens out because - unlike Wes - Danny probably won't have access to his Toon (the cops will want to book his Gun and lock it away).

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Steve,

Not every instance following the conflict. The roll-over only applies to the very next roll that's relevant.

Now, if that roll is failed, it too might affect the next one, and so on. But roll-overs only last for one roll.

Best,
Ron

[GB Steve]

Old-school role-playing provides absolutely nothing that permits players to know, when their characters disagree, how to proceed. It's a procedural clusterfuck, which is why players are exhorted to "play well" by having their characters always be on board with one another.

Not at all. Some games, such as Dying Earth, which is still fundamentally old school, have such resolution mechanics. Most do, however, chicken out.

Given that PCs are on screen more than anyone else, it's only natural for conflict to emerge between them. In fact, in any medium other than (old-school) role-playing this would be the case. Generally some group external conflict pulls them together, they manage their differences and kick Big Bad butt. What I like about Sorcerer is that this covenient for a 50 minute TV show format doesn't have to apply. You can go all Short Cuts.

[Michael S. Miller]

Welcome to the Forge, Petrova.

Mostly my problem is simply being in conflict with another PC. I prefer fluffy bunny co-operative roleplaying as a rule, and I freak out a little at the thoughht of having this conversation.

As another fan of "fluffy bunny co-operative roleplaying as a rule" I also might suggest that a brief pre-game chat with the player of the opposing character. This is just to reaffirm that you both have similar expectations and remember that just because characters are in conflict doesn't mean that players are (one of those many clusterfucks Ron mentions). Just a brief "My character really hates your character and is going to do all sorts of horrible things this session. I think it'll be fun to see how it plays out. Don't you?"

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

Steve (GB), thanks for the input about Sorcerer. About The Dying Earth, you must be using another definition of "old school" than I am, because I consider it 100% a "new school" game. But let's not get bent out of shape over that.

Let's stick with the Sorcerer stuff - your Short Cuts analogy works perfectly. Steve (hix), have you seen this film (directed by Robert Altmann)? Or, similarly, any of the multi-protagonists films by John Sayles, like Lone Star?

Another way I like to look at it is that one could play a pretty meaty Sorcerer game, and then extract single-protagonist short stories from it if one wanted to do so. Where they begin and end relative to the played-material, and how much of each story was actually played, are highly variable.

Best,
Ron