Back of the Character Sheet

[nyhteg]

At last I've found someone to try out a real, live Sorcerer session with. Hurrah.
Going through character/setting/demon generation last night and we came to the lovely crosshairs on the back of the character sheet.
I explain how useful and super that diagram is, then my friend says "so what do I put in the Price section?"

And I had absolutely no idea.

His Price was "social ineptitude". I couldn't quite see what people places and things would go in there. People he's been particularly socially inept with or something?

?

Gethyn

[Ron Edwards]

Interesting question, and interesting response you had.

People, places, and things associated with one's social ineptitude.

- mean kid from school, grown up now and interested in being friends
- girl who's interested in you
- hard-ass boss

You could put the first out toward the edge of the sheet, the girl near the border of the Kicker, and the boss of course goes near Cover, or is in the Cover zone but near the Price (i.e. at the center).*

See? Both positive and negative people, involved with your character, at this time. I think it's interesting that you and your friend seem to have associated "social ineptitude" with isolation and a lack of key events.

As a general rule, if a given concept or phrase is good enough to be a Price, Cover, Lore, or Kicker, then it must inspire interest in how it's affected the character's life, concretely, in both past and present. Hence, significant people, objects, and places.

If you guys don't get that inspiration from "social ineptitude" (i.e. don't instantly see that a potential romantic partner is called for), then that's your sign that this phrase is not working for this character. You'll need a new Price. If, on the other hand, this post has kicked off some inspirations of that kind, then cool.

Best,
Ron

* Note that if something or someone is associated with both Price and Cover, it's dragged toward the center. Same goes for Lore and Kicker. These effects (i.e. which order I put the four terms around the diagram) are intentional.

[nyhteg]

Hmm...what's the emoticon for slapping oneself on the forehead..? :)

As it happens, my friend and I both feel this Price is just perfect for his character.
The character's a bit of an over-intellectual Systems Analyst, with a starting Demon with a Need for "volunteered personal information from strangers", in a setting where Humanity is about retaining compassion and empathy for others in the face of cyber-punk style augmentation, so it all layers in very nicely indeed.

Why I didn't see what you're decribing before, I have no idea. This is the first time I've gone through character design 'for real' so I'm still getting into the right frame of mind, maybe.

I must say our experience using the Sorcerer system so far has been utterly inspirational - and we haven't even finished building the character yet.

G