Sorcerer ?

[MacTele]

I am sure it is covered and written many times in many places, i checked rpg.net, sorcerers sites links and many others and still do not know what to think about Sorcerer RPG. My local store is tring to get the copy for me (from Esdevium) but i should get only Sex&Sorcery next week, so i cannot check the game myself in near future and have to ask. What Sorcerer rpg is about ? Off course i know that PCes are sorcerers binding demon (demons ?) and using its forces for themselves not without a price. I know that there is a technique called kicker but what it really kicks differ greatly in reviews and descriptions. Sometimes i get an impression (reading the reviews and so on) that it is an old narrativist headed game but without desription what does it mean and how to execute it with some old unpolished techniques and sometimes i get the feeling that it is Graal of narrativism and one of the best technique rpgs ever created. Some say it is an essey abaut narrativism, some that it is no CA oriented. And noone says, what is the kind of story Sorcerer RPG helps to produce and how it does it. So pls tell me, what about Sorcerer RPG is.

[James_Nostack]

Hi Maciej,

By coincidence, I have been trying to describe Sorcerer to some friends of mine lately.  This is my best description.  I'm sure Ron could do better, obviously.

"You and your friends will get together to tell stories about the occult, stories that are exciting, creepy, thrilling, sometimes touching, and often laced with lots of dark humor.  The protagonists of these stories are men and women who, compelled by lofty goals or ungovernable needs, can command demons.  Why would anyone sign a deal with the Devil?  What happens when you discover that what you thought you wanted and what you really wanted are two different things?  What happens when your new friends can do anything you ask—but, deep down, aren't your friends at all?  And when the fun and games are over and it's time to pay the ultimate price . . . Well, you tell me: what happens then?"

Sorcerer is actually a lot more than that, but that's the basic idea.  Really, the game is about people who have made a bad moral decision, and what happens to them after that.  The "demon" is a metaphor, a poetic image: it might be literally true (actually a demon), or you could play a game where "demon" is not literal (a dangerous idea; a drug addiction; a forbidden love affair).  The hero of the story has done something wrong, sometimes for a very good reason, and then faces danger or risk because of this.

[MacTele]

Is act of binding a demon the mistake or is it an attribute of PC given to him/her and leading to the mistake ?
All what You have written is very exciting and helpfull but "the fog" hiding the game has risen :) as my interest in the game.

[James_Nostack]

I know that there is a technique called kicker but what it really kicks differ greatly in reviews and descriptions.

A "kicker" is part of making a character.  The player, not the GM, says, "Here is something exciting, dangerous, or strange that has just happened to my character.  No matter what happens, my character cannot go back to the life he had, just moments ago."  It kicks you out of your comfortable routine, and pushes you into the adventure.  The kicker determines how the adventure begins, and the adventure ends when the kicker is solved.  So, the player is establishing the opening and, by implication, the ending of the game.

Sometimes i get an impression (reading the reviews and so on) that it is an old narrativist headed game but without desription what does it mean and how to execute it with some old unpolished techniques

Sorcerer is definitely a game for players who like Narrativism.  The entire point of the game is, "If you make a deal with the devil, sometimes ________________ happens," and you fill in the blank by playing the game. 

Sorcerer can be confusing to people.  It confuses me sometimes.  But Ron is extremely helpful and patient.

Sometimes i get the feeling that it is Graal of narrativism and one of the best technique rpgs ever created.

It's pretty good!  From your other thread, I think you would like it.

By the way--The Official Sorcerer RPG page, with lots of actual play examples

Some links to a game I played, with swords, pirates, and monsters

The Sorcerer Wiki Page

[James_Nostack]

Is act of binding a demon the mistake or is it an attribute of PC given to him/her and leading to the mistake ?

Exactly!  Sometimes one, sometimes the other, sometimes both.  What would make you want to summon a demon?  Presumably, you desire (or fear) something very much, and think you can control the situation.  It might be worth it, so long as you can stay in control.

In play, all "demons" are NPC's controlled by the GM.  The player creates his character's first demon.  Other demons are created by the GM with suggestions from the player. 

Regarding questions -- this is a pretty smart review, maybe a little too excited, but explains what the game is about

[Frank T]

an old narrativist headed game but without desription what does it mean and how to execute it with some old unpolished techniques and sometimes i get the feeling that it is Graal of narrativism and one of the best technique rpgs ever created. Some say it is an essey abaut narrativism, some that it is no CA oriented.

Ha! Yes, I've heard all of those as well. I guess it depends on what you want to see in it. If we were taking bets, I would bet that Ron will not tell you what he thinks it is. But we aren't, of course.

Let's start with what Sorcerer isn't: It's not a game with an extremely tight focus on specific fictional content, like for example The Mountain Witch, My Life with Master or Contenders. It's not a GM-less procedure game with exact rules as to who decides what when, like Capes, Polaris or The Shab-Al-Hiri Roach. Your style of description, acting, scene-cutting and the like will be pretty much like in your "traditional" gaming.

A very smart thing I once heard about Ron's designs is that he is not a hand-holder. That means that Sorcerer does not play by itself. It does not tell you what to play, exactly, and how. So how the kicker "kicks" depends on the player who makes it. I've seen players come up with lame kickers and I've seen kickers that gave me shivers. This has lead people to say that the techniques and rules, like kickers and bangs, like demons, desires, needs, bonus dice, humanity etc. are "old unpolished techniques", because newer games have introduced techniques and rules that are more fool-proof than those of Sorcerer. I do not believe that fool-proof is the primary measure for a rule's or technique's quality, however.

About the essay, yeah, people tend to complain about the "political" stuff in the Sorcerer books. But that's only a minor part of the text, most of it is strictly about the game.

- Frank

[MacTele]

I am starting to get it and want it more and more. Are the kick one for all campaign or maybe it changes from session to session (like the stakes in Trollbabe)? Are the bangs created by player or GM ? What do the other Sorcerer books give to the game?

[James_Nostack]

Are the kick one for all campaign or maybe it changes from session to session (like the stakes in Trollbabe)?

That's a good question; I don't know what the official answer is.  In practice, the kicker lasts for a story (4-8 sessions, usually), and then people make new characters for a new story, sometimes in a different world.  I've never heard of one story ending and then beginning a new story with the same characters, but in theory it is possible.

Are the bangs created by player or GM ?

By the GM.  And here's a tricky thing about how the game is written.  When Sorcerer was first published, the Forge didn't exist, and the American RPG market was very different.  So a lot of Sorcerer is written for a specific audience: people who were already playing Narrativist style unconsciously, and were using games that didn't fit that agenda.  So a lot of the core book is saying things like, "Hey, there's this other way to play, I am going to try my best to describe it but don't always have the right words." 

Bangs are an example.  In practice, a bang is: the GM creates a crazy situation with several possible solutions or outcomes--and then backs off, to let the players handle it however they like.  Once one bang ends, the GM tries to introduce a new crazy situation, and so on.

This is what I always did as a GM, even before reading Sorcerer--but when I read it, here's this strange new word, "bangs."  I thought Ron must have been talking about something else, because how could I have invented it on my own?   But I did.  I just didn't use a word for it.

In the game I linked to above, here's how it works:
Kicker - "My character, Hanno, goes into a dungeon to get a golden crown.  The dungeon gives him cancer: he'll die in a month, unless he keeps the golden crown close to him."

Bang 1 - The king demands that Hanno give him the crown, but cannot pay a reward.  (Resolution: Hanno uses his demon, kills another mercenary, and tries to take the crown away.)

Bang 2 - The player's demon, who is revered as a god by the kingdom, orders that they destroy the crown.  (Resolution - the crown is taken away from Hanno, and put into a vault for safe-keeping)

Bang 3 - The queen begs Hanno to kidnap her, and protect her daughter from the new king; then she goes insane.  (Resolution - Hanno runs away.  He fights a demon-baby while trying to think of what to do next.)

Bang 4 - After Hanno steals the crown from the vault, Hanno decides to rescue the queen's daughter, but she doesn't want to be rescued, and is having an incestuous relationship with her father.  (Resolution - we couldn't play any more.)

What do the other Sorcerer books give to the game?

Sorcerer & Sword contains advice for using the rules for a "pulp fantasy" game.  (I am not sure if Poland had a "pulp magainze" tradition.)  Sorcerer & Sword describes the traits of this type of fantasy story, has some good rules, and some very good advice about running adventures in a Narrativist way.  I think it is the best of the supplements.

Sorcerer's Soul is about "Humanity," an important part of the core rules.  It describes how Humanity works in the game, what it means.  It has rules for Angels, and some advice about creating adventures (the "relationship map").

Sex & Sorcery -- I don't know.  I don't own it.

[MacTele]

I am not sure about pulp here, too cause i am not understand the meaning. I just have a picture but not the sharp one. According to fantasy i think pulp means traditional stories about killing monsters, looting, rescuing princes and so on, everything "Shrek" was laughing of.

So Sorcerer is about getting hero into worse and worse situation in which he would have to make choice between his own worldly goals and morals ? Or more because as i see it, demon npces can be hard companions which gives another dimension to the story.

[James_Nostack]

During the 1930's in America there were dozens of short-story magazines, called "pulp magazines" or "pulps."  They were cheap and very popular.  They had many different styles of stories: detective stories (like the Maltese Falcon), adventure stories (like the Phantom), crime stories (like the Shadow), science-fiction (like Flash Gordon), horror stories (like Cthulhu) and fantasy (like Conan).  A lot of American popular culture comes from this time.

These stories were very popular because they had LOTS of violence, sex, betrayals, escapes, adventures, dangers, etc.  Something exciting happened on every page.  (The closest thing today is maybe blockbuster movies.)

The fantasy pulps were called "sword & sorcery" stories.  They were a mixture of European fantasy with horror stories.  The heroes were sly, brave, dangerous people who laughed at death and tried to enjoy every moment of life.  A little bit like Beowulf, the Viking sagas, or Greek myths, done in the American style: faster, louder, with more magic, blood and naked people.  (There's a lot more, but that's the quick version.)

Over the next 50 years, the American publishing industry changed completely.  No one publishes sword & sorcery stories anymore in America--fantasy books are all clones of "Lord of the Rings" or Dungeons & Dragons.  "Sorcerer & Sword" reminds American readers that there was this different type of fantasy story that was a lot of fun, and helps people play those kinds of stories with Sorcerer.

[DAudy]

I am starting to get it and want it more and more. Are the kick one for all campaign or maybe it changes from session to session (like the stakes in Trollbabe)? Are the bangs created by player or GM ? What do the other Sorcerer books give to the game?

Kickers have varying lifespans, largely based on the particular groups playstyle, however they will generally last for at least a handful of sessions.  Basically a kicker remains until that kicker is resolved, and since these are supposed to be events that can't be ignored and drive a character into action (see spiking the kicker for what to do when they aren't) it should take a while before one could call it resolved. 

Once the kicker is resolved then the player and group need to enter a examination and negotiation phase where they look at the character and decide if they still have interesting and compelling stories to tell with him.  If the determination is that the character is no longer a suitable protagonist then either they should look at ending the game, particularly if several characters were woven together and their kickers resolved simultaneously, or bringing in a new character.  If the determination is that the character is still a suitable protagonist with lots of potential stories left to tell, the character gets re-written including a new kicker.  Often with an ongoing game creating a new kicker is incredibly easy since you have all the events that have occurred to draw on.