[Sorc] Contact and Summon Rituals

[gorckat]

I was wondering if the following might be a doable method to resolve Contacts and Summons, or if I've misread the rules somehow negating these thoughts:

When a Player attempts a Contact or Summon, allow them to always succeed (similar to the Binding) but allow the Demon's successes to carry over to the next Ritual in the same way the Player can roll them over if he does well. Basically, I think this will create some really unabalanced bindings if a Player wnats to bite off more than they can chew without proper preperation (drugs, sacrifice, group thera- err, help).

Or is that implied or explicitly stated somehwere? I checked here and the wiki, but didn't see this hit on. I read the rules to say if you fail the Contact, you can retry with significant and cumulative penalties.

Could this be something that needs to be addressed in pre-play setup? Either Demons want to be Contacted, Summoned and Bound (using my above resolution) or they only want to be Bound if they get caught up in some meatbag's Contact and Summon and might as well make the best of it (as I read the rules at face value)...

[Ron Edwards]

Hi there,

Seems to me that you have two issues wrapped up in a kind of pretzel.

Issue #1 is whether Contacts and Summons can be automatically successful in the same sense of Binding.

Issue #2 is whether victories from earlier rolls can be applied to later rolls, in the context of a Contact-Summon-Bind sequence.

I'll do the easier one first: for #2, yes they can. Victories from a successful Contact can indeed be utilized as bonus dice for the Summoning roll, for example. You should use the same logic and procedures as with any other pair of related actions.

Issue #1 is a bit trickier for me to answer, when #2 is pulled away from it. I have a few thoughts to present, but without quite being sure of what you're asking, I can't organize them into an argument. Let me know if they help.

They are: Don't think of demons as resisting being Contacted or Summoned. Think of reality resisting the sorcerer's attempt to do so. The demon's Power is the degree to which it ruins or disrupts reality. These actions represent a conflict in game terms, make no mistake. The conflict is with God, the space-time continuum, the morality of reality, fate, or whatever you want to call it. The conflict doesn't have anything to do with what the demon "wants."

Best, Ron

[gorckat]

They are: Don't think of demons as resisting being Contacted or Summoned. Think of reality resisting the sorcerer's attempt to do so. The demon's Power is the degree to which it ruins or disrupts reality. These actions represent a conflict in game terms, make no mistake. The conflict is with God, the space-time continuum, the morality of reality, fate, or whatever you want to call it. The conflict doesn't have anything to do with what the demon "wants."

Nailed it. The carryover of successes I knew was possible, but stated just to think it out as I was posting.

Since it was Sorcerer's Lore v Demon's Power, I simply assumed it was the Demon that didn't want to come.

Thanks for the clarification!

[Ron Edwards]

Glad to help, Brian!

It occurs to me that this is good place to point out to general readers that Power and Will aren't the same things, even though they are very often quantitatively the same. I like the idea that demons' Will "hits the ceiling" of their Power; a demon can't be stronger-of-will than its basic overall violation-of-reality. Also, it works for me, conceptually, that latter can be stronger than the former, but that typically it's not.

Best, Ron