Small/Tiny

[iago]

I have an Inconspicuous demon that I'm thinking is fist-sized.  In the 'Big' ability, there's this note: "Without this ability, Passing or Inconspicuous demons may be dwarf-sized to largish-human-sized."  But there's no 'Tiny' or 'Small' ability to complement this one listed.  I feel like this is an oversight, but it may have been a design decision (since a Tiny or Small demon might technically be inconspicuous even if that's not the type). 

Am I missing something, or is something missing? :)

[iago]

Observation: The description in Big seems to contradict the description of the Demon Type of Inconspicuous, which suggests that the Type may indeed indicate that the demon's small enough to fit in a pocket.  This leaves me feeling I should rely on the most permissive statement and discard those statements which appear to contradict it.

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Fred,

I'm going to ask for a do-over, because those posts aren't a good start for the way my mind works.

You say, "I feel like this is an oversight," in that although there's a Big, there's no Small. But I don't see that to be an oversight. Can you be more specific about what you're asking?

As far as Big and Inconspicuous are concerned, I don't see a contradiction between those rules-sets. An Inconspicuous demon could have the Big ability, for instance. Again, I really am not understanding what you're asking, or if there's a question there, so let me know.

Best, Ron

[Doyce]

((Man the internets are tangled this morning!))

Hi Fred,

I'm going to take a stab at this.  Let me state some facts and see if that sorts everything out.

1. If you want your demon to be inconspicuous, you can either make them an Inconspicuous Demon, or make them something else and buy them 'Cloak.' 

1a. Howzzat work? Functionally, Inconspicuous Demons have a 'innate' PASSIVE Cloak ability for 'free' -- by 'passive', I mean "It works as long as the Demon isn't doing anything obvious like... beating someone up or using a power or whatever.  If they ARE doing that, they have no Cloak "protection" whatsoever, and are totally noticeable.  You can describe this however you like, whether the demon is really small (like yours) or incorporeal until he 'manifests' to kick some ass, or whatever.

1b. Demons with the 'full Cloak' ability can still do stuff and remain Cloaked.  Inconspicuous Demons can get the 'full' kind to layer on top their passive version.

2. The "Big" text has been clarified -- in essense, it has nothing to do with physical size, at all.  I quote:

The large size of an object (car, house, whatever) is a function of the object itself and not fundamentally related to the ability Big. Technically, such demons don't have to have 'Big'.

In short, Big allows the target to tolerate greater damage; that's it. The text about the target getting bigger is just color.

(From here: http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=10783)

I tend to just tell people to think of 'Big' as "Durable" or something.

So... really, there is no 'big' ability, in terms of 'a power that lets my demon be really big', so there is no 'tiny' power that does the reverse.

3. How did I find that clarifying passage so fast?  I refer you to the Sorcerer Wiki: http://random.average-bear.com/Sorcerer/HomePage 

As far as I know, the wiki has pretty much every Sorcerer rules clarification that's ever been posted on the Forge.  The only powers that have no extra info are Command, Shadow, and Shapeshift, and the only other topics that are 'empty' are the Bind, Contact, and Summon rituals... and the & Sword "Price".

((Now, to quote someone over on Story-games, telling someone 'go look it up on this Wiki' is not socially different than telling them to fuck off, so please don't think I'm doing that: it is my estimation that you'll find it pretty useful during your new game.))

[Ron Edwards]

Hiya,

One correction: that interpretation of Cloak is a bit off, Doyce. Cloak of any kind works like this:

1. If the user is just "around," which is to say present in the scene but not doing anything, it's treated as unnoticed by anyone.

2. Unless they're looking for it or something like it (e.g. a security guard), which fits into the next possibility: if the user is doing something that isn't really in-your-face, but is nonetheless quite likely objectionable (i.e. conflict-of-interest), then it's a usual conflict roll, based on whether it gets spotted or not. This is treated as a normal conflict roll except the spottee gets the Cloak's Power in bonus dice (usually very effective). This is what Cloak is good for - lots of help doing something that's already sneaky.

3. If the user attacks or does anything else remarkably obvious and unwanted, then the Cloak does not count in any way.

The only difference between the Inconspicuous demon's passive Cloak and any other demon's paid-for Cloak, in game terms, is that the former usually doesn't get counted against demon's Stamina as an ability-use. That's the only meaning of "passive."

Also, on the subject of Big, I don't think I ever said it has nothing to do with in-game-meaning of "being large." When a demon uses the Big ability, in-SIS bigness of some kind ought to be involved.

I do describe it as "just Color" in the referenced thread, but that does not mean "unnecessary in the SIS" or "doesn't count" - rather the opposite, in fact. It is Color.

Best, Ron

[iago]

I think I have my answers already, honestly, but in the interests of clarifying, here's  the contradiction that I feel was laid out in my original post:

1) The description of an Inconspicuous demon says "Could be small enough to fit in a pocket"

2) The description of the Big ability essentially says "Inconspicuous demons can only be as small as a dwarf".  It's not *about* the Big ability at all, it's about what the Big ability says about the smallest an Inconspicuous demon can be.

My problem: I don't think I can fit a dwarf in my pocket.  Therefore, there's a contradiction.

My solution: The inconspicuous demon type description trumps the contradictory implication of the default range of sizes for Inconspicuous demons in dicated in the Big ability description.

[Ron Edwards]

Hiya,

I appreciate the clarification and understand the source of the confusion.

If you are interested, my writing of all those rules is as follows:

A demon which is not defined as small (via applying its Type of Inconspicuous) nor has/uses Big, should stay in the realm of just below to just above commonly-observed human size. Hence dwarf to (small) bear, perhaps. Think of this as the baseline.

The Type Inconspicuous overrides that, by permitting any number of ways for the demon to be Inconspicuous, including being small enough to fit into one's pocket (as opposed to say, atom-sized, which is silly). It also adds the passive Cloak to reinforce or express this in the SIS.

The ability Big overrides that as well, by permitting the SIS-interpretation of the demon to be much bigger and also adding the mechanics of damage/durable to reinforce it.

I'd appreciate as charitable a reading as possible; Sorcerer did not have the modern benefit of a dozen-plus excellent Narrativist RPG texts to serve as a model or lessons. The statement "your text is contradictory" has pushed my buttons, and I would greatly appreciate you asking such questions in the sense of "what sense does this make." I recognize that this may have been implicit in your phrasing of what you might be missing. Psychologically, I apparently need a little more than that in the question phrase, so I'm asking this as a favor rather than blaming you for doing anything wrong or rude here. You haven't done that.

Best, Ron

[Doyce]

2) The description of the Big ability essentially says "Inconspicuous demons can only be as small as a dwarf".  It's not *about* the Big ability at all, it's about what the Big ability says about the smallest an Inconspicuous demon can be.

Fred, I think maybe you're reading the 'big' text backwards from the writer's original intent.

"Without this ability, Passing or Inconspicuous demons may be dwarf-sized to largish-human-sized."

Lemme propose a rephrase that seems to fall in line with what Ron's saying.

"Without this ability, Passing or Inconspicuous demons should be no larger than dwarf- to large-human-sized."

[Doyce]

Also, Ron: thanks for the clarification on Cloak. I'll add that to the wiki-stuff.

[iago]

Hey, no problem.  Allow me to point at the phrases where I felt I was already giving careful consideration to how I worded things in the first two posts of this thread:

I feel like this is an oversight, but it may have been a design decision (since a Tiny or Small demon might technically be inconspicuous even if that's not the type).

Am I missing something, or is something missing? :)

Observation: The description in Big seems to contradict the description of the Demon Type of Inconspicuous, which suggests that the Type may indeed indicate that the demon's small enough to fit in a pocket.  This leaves me feeling I should rely on the most permissive statement and discard those statements which appear to contradict it.

If I was being thoughtless, I would have probably ended up saying something that could be taken more as a punch to the nose: "This is an oversight." "Something is missing here." "The description contradicts..." "I'm just going to ignore..." etc

I tried to be careful with my words so as to allow for exactly what I thought could be the case: I wasn't bringing the intended perspective to the text I was reading.  All that stuff I've boldfaced in the above?  That's me saying "Hey, this is probably me, but..." in the spaces between the words.

[Ron Edwards]

I getcha and trusted that something like that was being implied.

For future purposes of best communication with me - I don't do spaces-between-words well. I'm much better with the actual words.

Thanks for asking the questions and I hope this thread was able to answer them.

Best, Ron