Duelling Imperatives

[Lisa Padol]

Let me see if I can explain the confusion I have had with elements of Sorcerer. I've tried to explain before, in AP write ups and at Dreamation, but I think it may be clearer now that I have some actual examples.

I'm not losing sleep over any of this, you understand. I've been praised for being evil, and everyone, including me, seems to be enjoying the campaign.

There seem to be two imperatives in Sorcerer as written. On the one hand, there is the push to strive for cool and cinematic. This makes good sense to me. On the other, there is the push to play the game by the rules. While this does not come naturally to me, it makes sense that a) one should try to use the rules before deciding to tinker with them and b) tinkering voids the warranty.

One problem I thought I saw was this: It is amazingly difficult to contact, summon, and bind a demon after game start. Difficult, not dangerous -- I'm fine with dangerous. Yet, having someone risk sanity and soul to do the unspeakable and then have it go Poot is dissatisfying on a story level.

I also had what seemed another problem, but I am not sure whether it actually is a problem. It could be summed up as, "Why the heck would anyone want to summon a second demon, let alone a third, or fourth demon?" I'm ignoring lunatic NPC sorcerers. They don't count. If they exist, they are there for the PCs play with. But, if I understand the game correctly, a third imperative is to push the PCs hard enough that they do summon additional demons.

Only, the thing is, two PCs summoned up second demons. One did this for the reason Michael Miller told me PCs summon up second demons -- he was in a tight spot and was desperate. It was one of the cool This is Sorcerer, Accept No Imitation moments of the campaign. And, dramatically speaking, success or failure were both fine, as he was doing the summoning to avoid winding up with a nobleman's corpse on his hand.

The other PC, Sebastian, did it as an experiment. He had just learned that there were Possessor demons, and had previously known only of Passers. He decided to summon a Possessor into a mouse. I fudged no die rolls, but I think it would have been dramatically unsatisfying and dull for the experiment to fail.

Josh, who plays Sebastian, noted that if Sebastian's Humanity were one point higher (4 instead of 3), he'd have the PC try to summon up another demon. Sebastian is fascinated by all that he's been learning. But, trying to Contact, Summon, and Bind a demon means risking 3 points of Humanity. In other words, it means risking losing the character. Now, it isn't that Josh isn't willing to risk losing the character. But, he only wants to do this at the dramatically appropriate moment, which I think is correct. He's not going to do it for the sake of Sebastian's experiments. I'd probably make the same call in his place.

Working Hypothesis: This is not a flaw in Sorcerer nor in our play style. It just means that summoning up a demon at this juncture is not the way to go.

This seems to be supported by Julian's comments to me. His PC, Niccolo, has just learned about the existence of half a dozen or so very, very young kids with Possessor demons in them. Niccolo wants to get to Italy right away to deal with this. And, if that means summoning up a Passer horse with Travel, so be it. This fits what Michael said -- this next demon will be the last one I summon. Really. It will make all my problems go away. Okay, this may not be the exact line of thought Niccolo's following, but it's close enough to prove Michael's point. All good.

And, Julian said, he would have Niccolo contact, summon, and bind the demon regardless of how low Niccolo's Humanity was. Cool. Niccolo and Sebastian are at different points of different stories, and the system is big enough for both. (*)

I noted that this just left me with the problem of coming up with all the kiddie demons, but, hey, c'est la vie. Then, Julian said that the rules basically prevented him from carrying out Niccolo's desperate plan.

First, he starts at -1 die on the summoning (as in he'd roll one die and the demon would get an extra, what, 2 dice?), so the odds of success are low. I find that while I am okay with Niccolo losing all his Humanity to contacting, binding, and summoning this demon, it just feels plain sucky for him to try this ritual and fail. Yes, I know this is what bonus dice and rollovers are for, but the odds aren't good.

This is the sort of thing that the Cool Cinematic Imperative screams at me to fudge the die rolls, if necessary and let him succeed. At the same time, the Use the Rules Imperative says Must Not Fudge Die Roll.

Is there a way out of this apparent contradiction? That is, do I say, "Fine, Niccolo will contact, summon, and bind the demon no matter what, and we will creatively re-define What's At Stake"?

Now, let's say Niccolo succeeds. Julian calculates that Niccolo would need a Power 9 demon to carry him at 27 mph. (We're figuring normal human pace at about 3 mph.)

I'm no horse expert -- quite the contrary. But, I do believe that ordinary, non-demonic horses go a bit faster than that. Okay, that is covered by Cover: Horse.

But, Julian wants a demon horse that goes even faster than the fastest horse. This is cool. This is cinematic. A bit of web surfing tells me that the "king of speed" among horses is the American Quarter Horse, and gives me a figure of 50 mph. So, clearly, a demon horse with travel should go lots faster.

Going by the Rules Imperative, what formula do I use, as the 3 times Power rule makes no sense in this context? Or, do I go by the Cinematic Imperative and say, "Fuck it. The horse goes fast enough to carry Niccolo to Italy in a single night. That's really all we need to know. It's one power for Lore and Power calculations, and if the overall Power seems a bit low, say 3 or less, I can up it by a point or two."

The reason these questions come up, and I think part of the reason for some of my confusion, is that the game does have both imperatives, and I do not yet always know which should triumph in any given circumstance where they both come into conflict.

-Lisa

(*) And, Sebastian currently has a large heap of problems of his own to deal with. One demon linked with him revealing a) that it had wanted to kill Sebastian's brother without permission in an attempt to win praise from Sebastian, but b) said brother, whom Sebastian really doesn't like, has just been kidnapped, as has his daughter, Sebastian's niece, about whom Sebastian feels more ambivalent. The other demon linked with him an instant later to reveal that the head of his university is planting the corpse of Sebastian's chair in Sebastian's rooms. Everyone knows that a) Sebastian never got along with the chair, b) Sebastian expected to inherit the chair's position soon, as the chair was quite ill, and c) the chair has been doing all he could to dash Sebastian' hopes.

[Eric J-D]

Hi Lisa,

That's a pretty long post and I am a bit shattered at the moment, so I hope you'll forgive me for only responding to one thing you wrote.  (Also, please take what I have to say with the proverbial grain of salt as I am far from a Sorcerer master).

This is what caught my eye:

One problem I thought I saw was this: It is amazingly difficult to contact, summon, and bind a demon after game start. Difficult, not dangerous -- I'm fine with dangerous. Yet, having someone risk sanity and soul to do the unspeakable and then have it go Poot is dissatisfying on a story level.

Is it possible that this strikes you as unsatisfying because you are thinking in "Whiff" mode?  What I mean is, why interpret a failure as "Demon fails to show, sorry." 

I say just extend what Ron has said elsewhere (especially in S&S) about failed dice rolls not automatically meaning that the *task* fails and you are good to go.

Cheers,

Eric

[Lisa Padol]

Is it possible that this strikes you as unsatisfying because you are thinking in "Whiff" mode?  What I mean is, why interpret a failure as "Demon fails to show, sorry." 

I say just extend what Ron has said elsewhere (especially in S&S) about failed dice rolls not automatically meaning that the *task* fails and you are good to go.

This sounds good to me. I hope you feel better.

-Lisa

[Trevis Martin]

Yeah, thinking non-whiff is definately important.  If they summon a demon and fail, it doesn't mean they failed summoning a demon, it means they failed in summoning THAT demon.  Even better, the demon they summoned may be much more powerful and masqerading as the original demon they intended to summon.  Such is the life of the Cosmic Outlaw.  Another good consequence, fail a summoning roll?  Sure the demon is here, and the person you least wanted to know about your questionable profession walks into your ritual space.

Trevis

[joshua neff]

What Eric and Trevis said. Here's another thing to think about: demons want to be contacted, summoned and bound. So, a player rolls to Contact and fails? The demon is successfully contacted, but number of dice failed by carries over to be a negative to the Summon roll. That roll fails, too? The demon is successfully summoned, but again, the number of dice failed by carries over as a negative to the Binding roll. That fails, too? The demon is successfully bound, but the sorcerer is at a minus to the demon in all other rolls to control or dominate the demon (just like with the initial Binding roll, if that's a failure).

(Isn't this in the text of the game? This is how I've always played Sorcerer.)

[Eric J-D]

Joshua Neff wrote:

The demon is successfully summoned, but again, the number of dice failed by carries over as a negative to the Binding roll. That fails, too? The demon is successfully bound, but the sorcerer is at a minus to the demon in all other rolls to control or dominate the demon (just like with the initial Binding roll, if that's a failure).

(Isn't this in the text of the game? This is how I've always played Sorcerer.)

Page 68 of S&S says "The especially perspicacious SORCERER reader will notice, of course, that this approach to interpreting failed rolls is precisley the basis for the Binding rolls, which are of course among the most important dice-driven events in the game."


Josh, you little especially perspicacious reader you. <wink>  Good call.

Eric

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

Actually, regarding the rituals, the text does not offer any guide to how to handle failed rolls. Josh, you're probably thinking of the non-whiff text in Sorcerer & Sword, but the examples there only concern social and physical actions.

(I posted this practically the same second as Eric ...)

I tend not to interpret failed ritual rolls as "it works but not your way." As conceived (although not definitive for rules-purposes), sorcerous rituals may well end up as just a bunch of junk strewn around the room, and irritated neighbors banging on the wall.

... so how do I avoid the whiff factor, playing like that?

By focusing on the consequences of whatever the ritual entailed in the non-sorcerous sense. I hinted at it above with the reference to neighbors, but in practice, it's a major aspect of our fictional content. A person who digs up a corpse for a sorcerous ritual has to deal with exactly that, digging up a corpse, whether they succeed in the ritual or not.

In a long-ago Demon Cops game, a failed Summons roll provided more power to the game than anything else in the session, as attempting the ritual in the first place fuelled consequential scenes between the player-character and his daughter. These weren't just histrionic "trade a few lines" scenes, but as I said, consequential. They affected every following scene in that session, with whatever character was involved.

Now, don't get me wrong. I am not saying this "yes, you failed" is the only legitimate use of the rules. Josh, your application of the avoid-whiff text in Sorcerer & Sword to the rituals rules is perfectly valid. However, it's a customizing/tuning issue that a group ought to consider, rather than a flat-out "this way" ruling.

Lisa, as I see it, what I'm saying resolves your duelling parameters. Rituals are typically considered conflicts in Sorcerer, and you might give some thought as to how that might be reinforced in play - whose interests are in conflict, per roll. It might be sorcerer vs. demon, but in most cases, it's not. As I saw it, the player-character's attempt to summon the demon was really a potential conflict with his daughter's interest, given a variety of content and details that were operating in play at that moment.

Once you have that down, then consequences of a failed roll become relevant to the conflict - and the failure of the task, although significant (after all, you have a demon or you don't) is really just a detail within that, like the fence I mentioned within my recent Actual Play example.

Best,
Ron

[joshua neff]

Ah, okay. I think I was thinking of the "Binding an unbound demon always works" in the main book and combining that with the S&S non-whiff text.

Carry on.

[Julian]

What Eric and Trevis said. Here's another thing to think about: demons want to be contacted, summoned and bound. So, a player rolls to Contact and fails? The demon is successfully contacted, but number of dice failed by carries over to be a negative to the Summon roll. That roll fails, too? The demon is successfully summoned, but again, the number of dice failed by carries over as a negative to the Binding roll. That fails, too? The demon is successfully bound, but the sorcerer is at a minus to the demon in all other rolls to control or dominate the demon (just like with the initial Binding roll, if that's a failure).

(Isn't this in the text of the game? This is how I've always played Sorcerer.)

None of this is in the text of the game. It doesn't actually spell out explicitly what failure on Contact and Summoning mean, but there are explicit rules about accumulating penalties when trying again after failure, and it seems pretty clear from reading the examples and the section on contact and summoning during play that failure is supposed to mean failure.

When talking about Binding, however, the game is very explicit that it always works, but sometimes the demon pwnz0rs j00.

Also, Sorcerer is pretty much a task-resolution system, so this interpretation makes sense. (I get the impression that the supplements have drifted it toward conflict resolution, but I've only read Sex & Sorcery, which has nothing to say about the matter.)

[Eric J-D]

Also, Sorcerer is pretty much a task-resolution system, so this interpretation makes sense. (I get the impression that the supplements have drifted it toward conflict resolution, but I've only read Sex & Sorcery, which has nothing to say about the matter.)

I don't think the first sentence is accurate.  That Sorcerer handles conflicts rather than tasks is, I believe, pretty clear in the original book.  I think it gained strength and prominence in the supplements, but it has always seemed to me a conflict-resolution system from my initial reading of it (and that was along time ago).  That the task of summoning might, for lack of better words, "not happen" does not mean that the system itself is not a conflict-resolution system.  As Ron's post makes clear, failing the *task* of summoning a demon need not result in "whiff-thinking" nor is it really the point.  The demon is just an instrument in this case to help the sorcerer achieve something she wants.  What summoning is all about is the underlying conflict that has led to the sorcerer resorting to these means.

That, at least, has always been my understanding.

Cheers,

Eric

[Lisa Padol]

I tend not to interpret failed ritual rolls as "it works but not your way." As conceived (although not definitive for rules-purposes), sorcerous rituals may well end up as just a bunch of junk strewn around the room, and irritated neighbors banging on the wall.

... so how do I avoid the whiff factor, playing like that?

Yes, exactly. That was my question, only I was wordier.

Now, don't get me wrong. I am not saying this "yes, you failed" is the only legitimate use of the rules. Josh, your application of the avoid-whiff text in Sorcerer & Sword to the rituals rules is perfectly valid. However, it's a customizing/tuning issue that a group ought to consider, rather than a flat-out "this way" ruling.

Lisa, as I see it, what I'm saying resolves your duelling parameters. Rituals are typically considered conflicts in Sorcerer, and you might give some thought as to how that might be reinforced in play - whose interests are in conflict, per roll. It might be sorcerer vs. demon, but in most cases, it's not. As I saw it, the player-character's attempt to summon the demon was really a potential conflict with his daughter's interest, given a variety of content and details that were operating in play at that moment.

Once you have that down, then consequences of a failed roll become relevant to the conflict - and the failure of the task, although significant (after all, you have a demon or you don't) is really just a detail within that, like the fence I mentioned within my recent Actual Play example.

Thanks, this helps. In Andreas' case, a failure would have been as cool as a success -- the character would have a nobleman's corpse on his hands. For the case of a mad race to Italy, well, I probably do want to redefine failure to avoid the Whiff.

Heading out to help run da larps tomorrow and to play a ship's avatar and brainless undead Harmony.

-Lisa

[Julian]

Also, Sorcerer is pretty much a task-resolution system, so this interpretation makes sense. (I get the impression that the supplements have drifted it toward conflict resolution, but I've only read Sex & Sorcery, which has nothing to say about the matter.)

I don't think the first sentence is accurate.  That Sorcerer handles conflicts rather than tasks is, I believe, pretty clear in the original book.  I think it gained strength and prominence in the supplements, but it has always seemed to me a conflict-resolution system from my initial reading of it (and that was along time ago). 

I don't see it.

Sorcery is pretty clearly written as task resolution. (The Contact, Summon, Bind breakdown, with each step dependent on the success of the prior ones. You Punish or you do not. Your Contain works or it does not. You Banish or you don't.)

Combat is also straight task resolution. Roll to hit, roll to defend, take damage, repeat.

I just reread the "rules for everything else but combat" section, and see not a hint of conflict resolution.

Now, there's nothing stopping you from running it as conflict resolution. Heck, I'm pretty sure I could run GURPS as a conflict-resolution system whilst still remaining recognizably GURPS.

But I don't see any support for it in the rulebook, and lots of evidence of task resolution.

That the task of summoning might, for lack of better words, "not happen" does not mean that the system itself is not a conflict-resolution system.  As Ron's post makes clear, failing the *task* of summoning a demon need not result in "whiff-thinking" nor is it really the point.  The demon is just an instrument in this case to help the sorcerer achieve something she wants.  What summoning is all about is the underlying conflict that has led to the sorcerer resorting to these means.

In this case, the demon is a tool, without which the sorcerer cannot act. If the summon fails, it is a whiff. The consequences of failing to act would be interesting. The consequences of acting are interesting. The consequences of trying to act, and running smack into the wall of mechanics - not so interesting.

And the rules are set up such that what ought to be a fairly basic summon (Demon horse to carry sorcerer and his other demon a long way quickly.) is instead really hard, and requires an insanely powerful demon. Bonus dice may be all well and good, but justifying digging up 8-10 of them is a bit silly.

[Ron Edwards]

Hiya,

Julian, bear in mind that when I wrote the bulk of the Sorcerer text (1996) the term conflict resolution hadn't even been invented yet. It existed only as a technique that a variety of role-players had discovered only by fumbling in the dark.

Folks posting here understand that; it's one of the reasons we have dialogues about it.

Check out my post earlier in the thread, which you might have missed. It also might be helpful to see the recent Actual Play thread by Frank T, in which I describe conflict resolution about as clearly as I've ever managed.

Best,
Ron

[Julian]

I get conflict resolution.

I get the rules of Sorcerer. (The main book. I have not read the supplements.)

I cannot find any evidence for the one within the other. In fact, I find plenty of evidence to the contrary.

You say above "Rituals are typically considered conflicts in Sorcerer". But the rules don't express them in terms of conflicts in any way, shape or form.

Of course there's an answer to the problem - don't follow the rules in the book. And I'm fine with that.

But I often see you saying (paraphrased) "the mechanics are the way they are for a reason. Don't mess with them."

And I'm also seeing you advocating playing them completely different from what they appear to be.

I see a fundamental contradiction.

[Ron Edwards]

That's funny, I could have sworn I answered your post the day you wrote it, Julian.

Today's answer: see my above post. Your perceived contradiction is a function of history. I don't see much insight or merit to criticizing a text for failing to account for future terminology.

Best,
Ron