Getting up to speed

[David Howard]

Hello everyone!

I'm new to the forum, and new to Sorcerer.

Roleplaying, that I am *not* new to... I remember at the age of 14 going to a friend's house to see this cool new game, Dungeons and Dragons, came in a little box with three paperback books with really awful pen-and-ink drawings... ;P

I played regularly, heavily, for about 5 years, then sporadically through college, and then regularly again in my late 20's, in a Classic Traveller campaign. Then I quit, in disgust, about ten years ago. Haven't played since. Occasionally I would cruise over to my closest game shop, Adventure Games Plus, here in Milwaukee, to see what was available and popular... and left, disappointed, every time.

And then a few weeks back, I saw a copy of Sorcerer.

A few days later, went back for S & Sword.

And now think I'm going to go back to roleplaying. Thanks, Ron.

****

And now to the point of this ramble. I find I'm walking in on a lot of conversations here, and I have just a few questions:

1) What is the Relationship Map? Where is it discussed?

2) What is a Sorcerer One Sheet?

3) Is there anyone else who has returned to RPG after many years absence? How did you get a group going? How did you start a Sorcerer group, specifically? I remember long hours of drawing maps and rolling up NPCs in my old GMing days... but I sense this is less the case with Sorcerer.

Thanks for any and all help... I'm swimming in the deep end here!

Dave Howard

[hardcoremoose]

Hey Dave,

Being that you're in the Milwaukee area, I can't imagine you having much trouble finding people to play Sorcerer with.  Several other prominent Forgites live in the immediate Wussconsin - err, I mean Wisconsin - area.

The definitive explanation of Relationship Maps can be found in Sorcerer's Soul, the second supplement for Sorcerer, although barring that, you should be able to figure it out by doing a search here, perhaps with a follow-up search at the Gaming Outpost.

You can see a good example of a Sorcerer one-sheet in Christopher's post in this same forum.  It's basically a short write-up detailing the salient features of the setting, including definitions of Demons, Humanity, and how Sorcery works.  You might include some discussion about the premise you wish to explore (and the iea of Premise is a whole 'nother ball of wax).

Good to see you here at The Forge.  Any chance we'll see you at GenCon?

- Scott

[Clinton R. Nixon]

1) What is the Relationship Map? Where is it discussed?

2) What is a Sorcerer One Sheet?

3) Is there anyone else who has returned to RPG after many years absence? How did you get a group going? How did you start a Sorcerer group, specifically? I remember long hours of drawing maps and rolling up NPCs in my old GMing days... but I sense this is less the case with Sorcerer.

David,

Good to have you here!

The Relationship Map is discussed in the last book in the series, The Sorcerer's Soul. It's also discussed in many threads here, which others will point you to, I'm certain. (I would, but my browser at work keeps locking up. I can read about three threads before I have to kill it, and restart.)

A Sorcerer One-Sheet is just a sheet you sit down with and record:
- What demons are in your game
- What sorcerers are in your game
- What Humanity is in your game
- What your game's about.

I'll post another one soon.

As for your last question - I've just started role-playing again after a start-and-stop halting period of about 3 years. (I haven't really GMed, well, ever.) How I got back into it was by slowly playing a few games, stopping again, trying to run some games, realizing I sucked at it, writing a game I knew I could GM, and I'd like to GM, and then running it until I felt comfortable again. Not the best, easiest, or most healthy way, but it worked.

[joshua neff]

David--

1) Yeah, I took a pretty heavy break from gaming, 3-5 years. Not out of disgust but because I'd become really picky about who I played with & what I played, after some fabulous college gaming experiences contrasted with some dreadful college gaming experiences. But I had becomes frustrated with gaming in general until I discovered Christopher Kubasik's "Interactive Toolkit" essays, then reading Ron's posts on Gaming Outpost, & then buying & reading Sorcerer, Story Engine, & a bunch of other good games. I'm more enthusiastic about gaming than I've been since I first discovered the hobby, way back when I was 10.

2) I'm moving to Milwaukee in a few months (I'm planning on the end of May/beginning of June) & would love to meet fellow gamers (I already know the infamous, calculating Mike Holmes), especially ones who are interested in playing stuff like Sorcerer.

Welcome to the Forge!

[Christopher Kubasik]

David,

And welcome again.

I took time off from gaming right around the time I wrote The Interactive Toolkit.  I'm in the same boat as you -- finding these games and this site and saying, "Hey!  This is what I actually want!"

I haven't started playing again yet... But I'm on my way.  About two months ago (before even bumped into Sorcerer), I posted a desperate message on RPG.net "It's Sunday.  I want to play a game.  I live in L.A.  Anyone?"  

Ian responded...  He could play that day, but we chatted on line.  Met for coffee.  Played a few games at a local con.  And then he invited me to a game with his group.  I'll offer my game up, see if anyone wants to play.  Also, of course, I bumped into Jesse from RPG.net last year (though his group seemed in many ways the kind of group that encouraged me to leave gaming).  And there are some folks I just might ask out of the blue.

(The "asks artists, writers and musicians" theory, without concern for whether or not they've played RPGs before holds strong sway in my heart.)

*****

As mentinoned above, do a search for "Relationship Map" on the Sorcerer board and you'll find more than you need.  I really recomened getting S's Soul, though.  The threads here on the matter are less a clear explanation of the R-map than a debate about whether it's valid at all.

***

As for the One Sheet -- I got confused about that as well.  It actually isn't mentioned in the books.  I'm taking a stab at building a format for one on my little thread.  Basically, by picking a Premise for exploration, you start filling in the "open descriptors" of Sorcerer.

Essentially, Sorcer has a lot of interlocking blocks that are undefined until you start making some choices.  (What are demons?  In the setting of Sorcerer and Sword, they're one kind of critter or god or whatever, in my Plymouth Rock game, they're something else.)  Once you start filling in some of the blanks, you'll start getting answer for other blanks.

If the Premise is A, and Humanity is B:
Then, what are demons, lore, what are the descriptions for Stamina, Lore, Will and Cover (to help better tailor the "feel" of the characters to the world -- Ron doesn't mention this in the rules, but it's done in Sorcerer and Sword to give that setting it's own feel, and seems like a good idea tome.)

Part of my One Sheet Thread is actually to have some input on building a one sheet form of some kind, so you can see, and your players can see, on a single sheet of paper the Thematic and Descriptive game you're all going into.  You'll need a lot more of course (and other have done a lot more in their games), but I think it'll be a great tool to have to organize thoughts for new games.

For some info on the Premise, check this threat out:

http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1531&highlight=premise

Take care,

Christopher

[Jared A. Sorensen]

Dave, dude.

Just wanted to pipe in and say that the mini-supplements mentioned in Sorcerer are just extended Sorcerer One-Sheets with added rules and stuff. For the record, I own all of them and they're all quite good (I especially liked Ron's own mini-supplement, Demon Cops).

And I don't

[Christopher Kubasik]

David,

In case you haven't spotted it yet, Clinton and I are hashing out his new Sorcerer One Sheet up in Actual Play.  Here's the link:

http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=15360#15360

Christopher

[Clay]

Is an excellent example for setup of a game session.  It looks like it will be a very impressive game, although I'd probably avoid it because I'm not sure that I'll like the answer to the premise.

I also include a rules overview in my onesheets, because my players aren't always familiar with the game.  An example of this portion can be seen at http://www.story-game.com/docs/onesheet.html.  Ultimately a complete introduction to my specific game will be visible on that site.