Sorcerer - first session

[Lamorak33]

Hi

Here is a post of how our first session went.

I have two players for this game, James and Josh - both good guys well up for the game. I explained that in this game they are creating characters with a finite span of play, like 1 story, which may be up to 5 sessions long. I have been sending various emails to them (about 3) giving tasters about what the game is about. This is basically a lot of the stuff from chapter one. josh came to the table with a heap of questions. He is an old time V:TM player and I think Sorcerer is right up his street.

The game is set in London

The characters

Professor Richard Haverbrook, played by Josh

Cover: University Professor, Renaissance History

Price: Arrogant

Telltale: Has a long , sinister looking disfigured fingernail on his left hand little finger.

Kicker: The sorcery that the Professor practices hinges on knowing the true name of the demon. He has learnt that an old manuscript/tablet that was thought lost but which contains the name of a truly powerful demon has just come up at auction.

Demon - I asked Josh to choose the type of demon, its desire and its need. He chose an object demon (It is in a fine miniature portrait that the Professor keeps in a little silver cigarette case. The telltale is that the figure in the picture is never the same position, always moving slightly - though not when viewed. The powers I was at a loss for so I based them on the sample object demon in the Sorcerer rule book, Monicus. I am now thinking that this demon is too powerful?


Reginald Pin

Cover: Multi-lingual Anti Terrorist Secret Agent

Price: Overenthusiastic

Telltale: On his right hand his knuckles are completely double jointed so that he can make a fist both ways!!!

Kicker: During his current mission he was asked to go undercover to a meeting of some powerful businessmen. The people there actually know his real name. Then some of them start arguing and Reginald cannot follow whats going on. The they all stand up, pull out guns and start shooting. When the shooting stops, Reg stands up to find that they are all dead.

Demon - I asked James to choose the type of demon, its desire and its need. He chose an possessor demon. When meeting a terrorist subject while undercover he discovered that the person was possessed by a possessor demon. He managed to remove the demon, killing the target, and binding the possessor into the body of his PA/Secretary. The telltale is that when she talks, her voice is a strange radio static sound. She has a set of abilities Hint, Boost Lore, Protection. Again, not sure I quite got the hang of creating demons, will read up.

For humanity they both said that they would want it to represent some sort of grip on reality and sanity. This I think is like P.15 - 'Faced with madness, armed with madness, how do you hold onto your humanity.

I got them to talk about their jobs and their families, giving me some names of significant people from work and their families. I intend to develop this over the next week via email, getting them to explain what these people mean to their characters.

Then I plan to write up relationship maps based on who they know and link them.

Then I will think up a story based on their kickers, write a relationship map for that and link it possibly to their personal r-maps.

So, any ideas/suggestions/criticisms

Regards
Rob

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

Here are my points of advice.

1. Players make up their demons in full. It sounds to me as if you took specific information from them (type, desire, need) and built the demons yourself. This is explicitly against the rules. Players need to make up their characters' starting demons.

2. Do not "make up a story" based on the Kickers. Instead, come up with a back-story (a very different thing) in which the Kickers may play a minor or major part, as you see fit. I strongly recommend that you do not make every last detail of each character's Kicker fit with one another and also with every last detail of your own contributions. You are not building a Swiss watch. Similarly, do not work hard to connect the player-characters into the relationship map. If one or the other fits in in an obvious way, that's great, but making it happen is a very bad idea.

3. Haverbrook's Kicker needs spiking. Make sure to do that in the first session. The other Kicker looks like lots of fun for everyone.

4. White Wolf veterans are often the very worst Sorcerer players. Beware of all the pitfalls I describe in the Narrativism essay; see the section on dysfunctional Narrativism toward the end of the essay. Especially beware of your willingness to play toward those pitfalls as a GM.

5. Do not have them provide the kind of detail about their characters' friends and families in the way you describe. You are wasting your time and setting up non-play. Instead, get together in person and work on getting the diagrams on the backs of the character sheets filled out correctly. It does not matter whether every NPC has a definite and concrete identity and role in the scenario. It does matter, greatly, that you and the player are comfortable with who the NPCs are at a superficial level.

Best,
Ron

[Lamorak33]

Hi Ron

Thank you for your feedback.

I am a little unclear about creating demons, I may be just being dumb, but I will read up in more detail and its something we can do before next weeks game, together with writing up the back of their character sheets.

3. Haverbrook's Kicker needs spiking. Make sure to do that in the first session.

I'm not sure you can spike Haverbrooks kicker, maybe he needs a new one. It is possible for him to ignore it. I'm not sure what I could do to have it affect him in any meanigfull way.

Regards
Rob

[Ben Lehman]

I'm not sure you can spike Haverbrooks kicker, maybe he needs a new one. It is possible for him to ignore it. I'm not sure what I could do to have it affect him in any meanigfull way.

No kicker in the world is unspikeable.  Try this on for size: It's his demon's name.

yrs--
--Ben

[Eero Tuovinen]

No kicker in the world is unspikeable.  Try this on for size: It's his demon's name.

Or the manuscript has some special meaning to somebody close to him. It's his mother's diary, for instance. WTF? His mother was a sorceress? Find out...

Or the manuscript auction is actually a trap set by a secret sorcerous cabal with the intent of capturing a bunch of sorcerers (of course everybody going to the auction is a sorcerer) for their nefarious purposes. And Havenbrook finds this out before the auction. Also, his girlfriend is going there.

Or, for the sake of sensory overload, all three at once. His mother set him up years ago, the demon is actually bound to her, the only way to control it is to get the diary, but it's owned by the Bajarian Illuminati who hold his girlfriend captive. Or let's make it IRA, so's you get the other character weaved in, too.

[Lamorak33]

No kicker in the world is unspikeable.  Try this on for size: It's his demon's name.

Thanks Eero & Ben. Thing is, I have to get the player to spike his kicker yes? GM should not write part of the kicker should he/I?

Regards
Rob

[Judd]

Thanks Eero & Ben. Thing is, I have to get the player to spike his kicker yes? GM should not write part of the kicker should he/I?

Regards
Rob

Right.  The player kicks and you bang.

[Eero Tuovinen]

But spiking is different, is it not? The word means that the GM takes a weak kicker and develops it's situation further, adding what's necessary to really make it hit. So the player picks the kicker, but the GM spikes it. Ron frequently tells us that a player with a weak kicker is all but asking the GM to think up something to really hook him. And that's right, isn't it? Why would somebody go for a weak kicker otherwise?

[Lamorak33]

But spiking is different, is it not? The word means that the GM takes a weak kicker and develops it's situation further, adding what's necessary to really make it hit. So the player picks the kicker, but the GM spikes it. Ron frequently tells us that a player with a weak kicker is all but asking the GM to think up something to really hook him. And that's right, isn't it? Why would somebody go for a weak kicker otherwise?

Umm...The book is pretty definate about kickers though. I have written to him 'suggesting' he rewrite it making it so that he 'has' to act on it. The other guys kicker is a good model, but I told him that he doesn't have to have something as explosive, just so that he cannot just ignore it.

Regards
Rob

[Ron Edwards]

Arrrrghhhh! You guys! Pay attention!!

Spiking the Kicker is a GM duty. Many players who turn in a sub-par Kicker are unable to improve it; they lack the skills and the perspectives to build the skills. This is a hundred times more true for White Wolf veterans than for anyone else.

In those circumstances, the GM goes ahead and accepts the bland Kicker, and does not re-write it, but rather gives it more content through his back-story and through playing the NPCs involved.

Rob, bluntly, it sounds like you guys are waffling around and will end up with obnoxious twenty-page back-stories for each character instead of play. You need to get your relationship map ready, spike that Kicker, and play. The only thing to do before that is to have the players make their demons and fill out those diagrams. Anything else is adding to everyone's confusion and not helping your chances for fun play.

Also, do I understand correctly that none of the prep is being carried out face to face? That is against the rules. I'm not kidding, it's right there in Chapter 4, which isn't "advice" - if you don't do that, then I have a blanket response for any of the problems you'll post about later: "You didn't follow the rules."

Best,
Ron

[Lamorak33]

Rob, bluntly, it sounds like you guys are waffling around and will end up with obnoxious twenty-page back-stories for each character instead of play. You need to get your relationship map ready, spike that Kicker, and play. The only thing to do before that is to have the players make their demons and fill out those diagrams. Anything else is adding to everyone's confusion and not helping your chances for fun play.

Also, do I understand correctly that none of the prep is being carried out face to face? That is against the rules. I'm not kidding, it's right there in Chapter 4, which isn't "advice" - if you don't do that, then I have a blanket response for any of the problems you'll post about later: "You didn't follow the rules."

Best,
Ron

Hi Ron

We met on monday and used that session to discuss what kind of game people wanted in terms of when and where, the meaning of humanity, some basic mechanics and the creation of their characters and what the game expects of the players in terms of narratavism, but avoiding any references to the theory. For example, they should not feel picked on when presented with character conflicts. That I will be hitting them with conflicts that come from their character sheet, and they should engage with that positively.

My enquiry about spiking was based on my reticence about writing part of, or re-writing one of the players kicker before next monday when play will begin. I have actually written to the player to have a look at his kicker with the view of making it more of a situation where he cannot just ignore it. If it comes back unchanged or similarly unchallenging I will indeeed spike it!!

We are not going to be coming up with backstory for the player character and their related NPC's based on your first response.

What I now want to do is build a relationship map that they can encounter and interact with.

The hard thing I am having at the moment is generating humanity loss for the 'humanity-madness paradigm'. Having said that I suspect all will be resolved when play begins and we will intuitively find humanity rolls.

I have Sorcerers Soul, which is a great help.

Regards
Rob

[Tim Alexander]

Hey Rob,

Something stood out for me here:

The hard thing I am having at the moment is generating humanity loss for the 'humanity-madness paradigm'. Having said that I suspect all will be resolved when play begins and we will intuitively find humanity rolls.

If I'm reading this right you may be creating a tough road ahead for yourself. Having everyone on board with what humanity is all about is a really big deal. If everyone isn't on the same page with respect to how humanity functions you end up with situations where you're calling for humanity checks that take the players by surprise. At best this means some discussion in play to reset folks viewpoints and dovetail the disparate ideas, at worst you run into a blockade that breaks the game when someone realizes the focus of the game isn't something they're interested in exploring. Moreover, if you're unclear on how humanity works in your world it's going to be difficult to push players into making decisions relevent to it, and that's what the game is all about.

This isn't to say that humanity isn't going to evolve through play, or that you somehow have to have a comprehensive list of humanity check situations. It's pretty much impossible to do that anyway, since you're going to be surprised by what happens in play if you're doing things right. I just want to highlight how important it is that everyone is on the same page with regards to how humanity functions in the world and the type of things that tend to produce humanity loss and or gain.

-Tim

[Lamorak33]

Hi

How many abilities do starting player character demons get? Harry Scarborough's demon has three abilities. The other sample characters demons have 4. I feel a bit silly asking this. Has anyone got a page number?

Regards
Rob

[Eero Tuovinen]

You create them (or rather, the player does) exactly like any other demon. Generally that means you just list things you want the demon to be able to do, figure out which ability does it, and count your list. The result of this count is the demon's minimum (and usually exactly) Lore. The higher of Lore and Stamina is the demon's minimum Will. Will is the minimum Power. The player is free to make his demon within these limitations a meek 1-Power, one ability thing, or a huge 10-power thing with lots of abilities, or perhaps a high Stamina, low Lore powerhouse with just one or two abilities. Where ever would you get the idea that there were limitations on the process?

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

Check out Chapter 3 from the beginning. It walks you through demon creation step by step, with the order fixed in stone (unlike character creation). Remember that the abilities are mainly not described in fictional (SIS) terms, but rather in rules terms, with a couple of lapses on my part. So don't think of them as White Wolf type abilities, but rather rules-options, which you can hook together or locally limit, in fictional terms, as you see fit.

Best,
Ron