[Sorcerer, Dreamation] Refining Mu

[Judd]

I think, after about four or five runs of my Dictionary of Mu scenario with the pre-made kickers all around, I've got the hang of running this game.  Both games I ran are kind of blending together in their grim, apocolyptic glory.

There was one game where it was Thor, Mayuran, Lisa and Alexander

Thor was one of my favorite of the characters, named Kid with a Rock, who is a hungry, desperate, willfull with a demonic rock that hungers for young children's heads.  Thor kicked ass and killed the executioner who killed his father slowly and took her place by wearing her skin and summoning her demon.

Ew.

Mayuran played the Damsel Messiah, picture Jesus if he was a thirteen year old girl with a Serpent demon and an army of zealots.  For some reason it really appealed to me that he described her as wearing a sari.  Mayuran played her to the hilt.

Lisa was the Khan of Khans and she would slap the table and make grand proclomations.  She was all ready to take the Damsel Messiah as her bride...and what children they would have had.

Alexander made the Jarl of Spiders even creepier, if you can make a PC creepier who has microscopic spiders in his blood that are his parasitic demon.  Alexander added wonderful little tidbits, like his scuttling palanquin that were just wonderful.

In the end, the world was pretty much turned into glass by a demon satellite and the Jarl and the Kid road off in an arc fueled by blood so they could infect others on worlds abroad.

My favorite part was when Thor's kicker had a kind of resolution and we all talked about how to bring him into the fold.  Good stuff.

Once Thor was back in the groove of the adventure, it was he that suggested getting together with the Damsel Messiah and they devised this wonderful demon to summon, a computer called The Archives.  Since everyone had at least a passing knowledge of Sorcerer, we kind of made the demon at the table and once we were done, I added the brutal weapons systems that would eventually end the world...this is all directly out of the book.  Neat stuff.

I was pleased with the game and really wanted to hear what that group in particular thought of it.

Thanks, folks

[Iskander]

I had a load of fun. I enjoyed the setting a lot: what's not to like about nuking Atlantis first? Or having eight arms, six eyes, and still no-one figures out you're a sorcerer? A horde of willing minions is also useful.

If anything, I would have wished for more adversity, especially from my demon. 'Tis true, I fed - or attempted to feed - the Blood Spider Plague with every sorcerer I found, but I think they could have bitched me out for failing with the Khan of Khans. Or perhaps they would have objected to any action that resulted in the Damsel Messiah's death - she was, after all, prime sorcerous meat.

I have a theory about why everyone destroys Atlantis. Everyone reading this, at some point, thought Atlantis was the coolest thing ever (PM me your dissent, please, don't sully the thread with lies). Then came the Man From..., and countless other cheap and tawdry Atlantis pseudo-legends in every other fantasy or scifi setting right up to fucking Stargate Atlantis. We're embarrassed, and we want it to die. So we destroy it, and make the legend our own again, just a little bit, by being the ones who sank it beneath the waves (or turned it into a puddle of bone-stuck glass).

[Judd]

Alexander,

I have found that when I run Sorcerer, I often look back on a session and wish I had been tougher with one of the Sorcerer's demons.  In a campaign, that is easily rectified the next session.

Regarding Atlantis, truth is, I have never seen Stargate: Atlantis but yeah, when I played with ideas that have been in the fantasy hive mind for a while, I tried to really pack in the cool.  Atlantis has had some harsh treatment in the games of Dictionary of Mu I have run.

Thanks for playing.

[Mayuran]

judd-

mechanically this game is solid. seems pretty straight sorceror. the world is colorful. the characters you brought are solid. i'm excited to see this printed and released, so that the floodgates of paka are opened wide and the other game ideas you have start pouring out.

on to the game:

it's extremely fun to play such demented characters.

one of the hardest parts about the scenario was the lack of bangs. both Thor and I resolved our kickers basically in the first scene.

you should probably bring a list of bangs for each of the characters in future demos, or put a few in the Dictionary alongside the sample characters.

if Thor hadn't come up with the Braniac Archives, we would have been floundering for a reason to be in the same scenes, and the direction we might have taken would have been simple (sorcerer vs. sorcerer for control of the city). his creation of the Archives was what brought Alexander, Thor, and I into the same scenes and the scenario to its most dramatic resolution.

demons could definitely have taken more prominence (mine did, since, as I am a "bad player" - my binding rolls were so weak) - they served mostly as color for the remaining characters. likewise, the computer demon while it was created and had mechanical abilities, served as color in every scene i used it in (and i should have been firmer in my intent to actually apply its power).

on to the GM:

you gave us the option of playing scenes separately or coming together... but i think the togetherness was where you really wanted to go (and we wanted to go there too).

i'd be interested to hear if Mu has been run with everyone off on their own and how it's come together, especially in a con setting. there is such a varied mix of characters available, so integrating them all is both challenging and an opportunity for the story to jump in more dramatic directions.

that said, the only yarn spinning that should happen at the game table should have been the tales we were spinning. Lisa's hobby was distracting to me, but i think it also reflected how distracted she was from the rest of the conflicts and characters.
i feel like our scenes with her would have had much more focus if you had nixed it from the table.

this is part of how we rely on the GM to monitor behavior and the table and probably something we dropped the ball on communicating to you.

anyway, best of luck with Mu. we'll see it at gencon (and icon, if you'll be there).

peace

mayuran

[Judd]

judd-
i'd be interested to hear if Mu has been run with everyone off on their own and how it's come together, especially in a con setting. there is such a varied mix of characters available, so integrating them all is both challenging and an opportunity for the story to jump in more dramatic directions.

that said, the only yarn spinning that should happen at the game table should have been the tales we were spinning. Lisa's hobby was distracting to me, but i think it also reflected how distracted she was from the rest of the conflicts and characters.
i feel like our scenes with her would have had much more focus if you had nixed it from the table.

Thanks for taking the time to make comments, Mayuran.  It is appreciated.

I have had games where the coming together was prolonged and not until the very end.  I have found that in con scenarios people are a little uncomfortable with being apart...or perhaps that is my projecting my discomfort.

The yarn spinning is something I should have nixed and I didn't.  My bad, seriously.  I'm not sure why that flew under my radar but it entirely did.

Yeah, we really needed to stop the game and get Thor back in the action but I was glad that we did.  I will re-think my bangs for those characters and come to the table with more prepared in the future.

Usually I do a bunch more weaving between plots but at that game it just didn't come together quite as easily.

[Thor Olavsrud]

It was a great game Judd. I know we enjoyed the hell out of it. I do think it could have been stronger with a bit more pressure from the demons. They sorta faded into the background for the most part. Definitely the executioner should have given me some serious grief once I made her a demon. I'd be pissed if some punk kid ate my brain and was walking around using my face as a mask.

Other than that, I think this thing's on fire.

[James_Nostack]

I'd be pissed if some punk kid ate my brain and was walking around using my face as a mask.

One of the best things about Narrativist games is that, once in a long while, you discover something ineffably true about the human condition.

Damn, I am so mad I couldn't make it to Dreamation.  I'd been looking forward to finally going, but some stuff came up and I couldn't arrange transportation.  Next year... next year.

[Judd]

It was a great game Judd. I know we enjoyed the hell out of it. I do think it could have been stronger with a bit more pressure from the demons. They sorta faded into the background for the most part. Definitely the executioner should have given me some serious grief once I made her a demon. I'd be pissed if some punk kid ate my brain and was walking around using my face as a mask.

Other than that, I think this thing's on fire.

Right on.  For some reason that demon as a fully charged battery of bangs just flew right under my radar.  Good call.

Whenever Sorcerer games go warm instead of white hot, it is because I didn't apply enough demonic pressure.  That's something to keep in mind for the future.

Thanks.  These comments are tremendously helpful.

[Lisa Padol]

Sorry about the spinning -- I figured someone would tell me if it were a problem, and meanwhile, it kept me from binging on the food.

Do you think we were too good at making space for each other? I mean, I'm not sure, but someone should've told me to can the spinning. I'd come to the conclusion that the Khan really should massacre the folks at the oasis, but we were all trying to get everyone together, and I didn't want to hold that up, so I quickly agreed to the idea of taking the Jarl as a hostage and leaving the oasis for later. Is that sort of thing a problem?

Also, I'm wondering if generating characters on the spot is actually a bad idea. Kat has folks generate PCs for Everway, and this means that it takes an hour or two, so the session is shorter, but, so what? Convention PTA runs don't skip the pitch or character gen. So, four players. Cut it down to 3, maybe. Take a heavier hand than usual with the creation of the first demon, since that is a potential slowdown, but other than that, would it be workable?

Oh yes, in the What Have We Learned category: A table is not a drum. Hitting it the same way one hits a doumbek hurts. A lot. "To the pain" should not have quite such a literal meaning.

-Lisa

[Judd]

Lisa,

I should've said something about the spinning.

I think you could've massacred everyone at the oasis and we could have made it work but I don't think holding the Jarl as a hostage was any real problem.

In a four hour game where I am trying to get across the vibe of the setting, making up characters just seems like a tremendous waste of time.  I'd rather just hand people characters who are hip deep in the muck and see what comes of it.  It has run lukewarm to hot four or five times now.

I don't skip the chargen and the pitch in PTA because that part is where everyone is invested.  I'd love to do a define Humanity, write up some descriptors, make a character and a kicker and go, Sorcerer session but I haven't worked up the guts to do so yet.

Yet.

[Lisa Padol]

I think you want to go either looser -- char gen on the spot -- or tighter, like "Ex Utero", where it's not just the PCs that are pregen. The situation is pregen.

On the other hand, maybe keeping it as is, and just adding a list of bangs would help.

I did love The Archives. Also, "It's always the same -- we get a new khan, and it's "We ride tonight!""

-Lisa

[Judd]

Lisa,

I appreciate your feedback but right now I see the only problems with this scenario were table-related and not scenario related.

I'd like to go in with more bangs and push demons harder, play them rougher, as Ron says, as if they were my favorite characters ever.

And i'd like less at the table distractions. 

Other than that, this is running tip-top as far as I can tell.

I might go back and tighten the kickers a bit.

Judd

[Iskander]

I liked the kickers.

I also really fucking loved getting my third or fourth choice of kicker, and turn out to be an unholy spider hybrid. The way you let folks choose characters works well, if you ask me. Particuarly when Mayuran got screwed on the binding. Sweet.