Help with demons in The Clicking Sands

[Clinton R. Nixon]

My group and I got together last night to make characters for Sorcerer and Sword. We're jump-starting the game by using the Clicking Sands setting right out of the book, although we've made it a little more Dying Earth than it is so far.

(I'm on this weird kick to play in every Sorcerer setting that hasn't been done before. I want to get an Electric Ghosts game going soon, as well.)

The only problem we're having so far is that demons can be so many different things in this setting, yet none of those things are really "demonic." So far, some of the ideas for demons have been:

[*]Mutated animals with sentience (Contacting and Summoning are one roll using Lore to find the appropriate habitat and then going there; Binding or Pacting works; un-Bound ones obviously exist)
[*]Ancient technology (Again, Contacting and Summoning are one roll; Binding and Pacting depend on sentience. For example, an ancient laser-weapon isn't really intelligent, but can have a Need and powers, and a Binding roll is basically "figuring it out." It couldn't be Pacted with, as it only does what you make it do. An ancient computer running a military base could be Pacted with, though, as it would have the ability to take commands like "guard the base".)
[*]Weird parasitic creatures with alien intelligence, Desires, Needs, and powers. (These are bizarre because the host needn't be a sorcerer at all - if these are naturally occuring creatures, they may not even be subject to a sorcerer's power.)
[*]Intangible Parasite/Possessor demons. The actual example is: a character has wondered in the irradiated deserts for a year. When he finally makes his way back, he's different than before - he has supernatural mental powers, but hears voices in his head as well, and finds he has a Need. This really blurs the line between sorcerer and demon. (Contact and Summoning would be separate here, but would require a trip into the "Mystic Otherworlds.")
[*]James, one of my players, came up with this: his tribe has a "sacred pool" of water that none were supposed to drink of. He basically told them "all this superstitious hoo-ha is crap" and drank it, and they cast him out. He hears a voice now, though, which talks of days far past. The pool was a 43rd Century scientist that transformed his body into a silvery liquid and couldn't escape. James hasn't decided on powers yet, but I'm thinking Boost Lore, Cover, and maybe Hint would all be good here.
[/list:u]
My question's pretty open-ended: is there anything wrong with the ideas above, and what other cool demon ideas can people think of for this sort of setting?

[Jared A. Sorensen]

Passer demons: A tribe of monstrous, barbaric mutants (the Karr) who live out beyond the Rust Spine. If you best one in ritualistic hand-to-hand combat (inside the Circle of Pain), he becomes your "life-slave" until slain or released from service.

Yeah!

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Clinton,

All these ideas sound perfect to me. I confess I don't understand at all why you don't see them as "demonic." That's mainly a matter of interaction, codependency, and the in-play outcomes, isn't it?

Best,
Ron

[Clinton R. Nixon]

Jared: Awesome.

Ron: I get what you're saying. What I meant, re-stated, is: since these things don't necessarily follow the traditional ideas of demons - that is, most of them exist in the same world as the characters, and aren't Summoned - it's a bit harder to wrap my head around what makes a good demon.

- Clinton

[Gordon C. Landis]

"Normal" style demons just don't do much for me (which is why I didn't buy Sorcerer for a good while), so I've put a good bit of thought into reconfiguring 'em in my various (failed) efforts to get a Sorcerer & Sword game going.

My main insight so far was that despite advice and examples to the contrary, I kept thinking about the demonic qualities of Need/Desire/etc. as intrinsic properties of whatever "thing" the demon is, and the acts of Contact/Summoning/Pacting/etc. as literal actions.

I think that's a mistake.  The fundamental nature of these game constructions is to model story and thematic issues, not the "real, fundamental" nature of the demon or the literal  process of interacting with it.  I mean, they can be - sometimes it might be best that they are - but if you've decided you want to get away from "normal" demons, you better be ready to get away with this "normal" linkage as well.

Clinton, you're obviously well-aware of this in the examples you provide.  So I'm not sure why you're having trouble wrapping your brain around what makes a good demon here - in the same world or not, it's the opportunity for cool story that counts.  Looks like you've got it fine to me.

Oh, and an idea (building on the ancient scientist) - in the long, long history of this ancient world, there have been many who have tried to defeat Death.  Through magic (e.g., the classic necromancy, if that works for you), technology (e.g., human-to-AI conversion), and other methods too numerous - and disturbing - to mention, many of these "beings" find themselves in situations similar to the ancient scientist - trapped in a state not-dead, yet not alive.  PCs can, wittingly or not, Bind (and etc.) such beings.  Not "normal" demons, just "human" personalities altered (twisted?) by their attempts to escape Death, but . . . they *could* work pretty much like a normal demon conceptually AND mechanically.  

Hope that adds something,

Gordon

[Bailywolf]

> A lush valley hidden by jagged cliffs- within it the trees sprout pods inside which something moves...and trembes... If you touch one of these pods, a spine jabs your arm and sucks up some blood... the pod then convulses and regurgitates a creature geneticaly taylored to your unconscious needs and desires--- or that is what the ancient genitic designers had in mind... over the centuries, the trees have mutated... now a pod is as likely to give you a perfect companion as it is to grow a creature from the depths of your unconscious.


> Two silvery scarabs made of unknown metal.  One of the pair links to the back of your neck, sinking interface filaments into your spine and hindbrain.  The other does the same to another creature, but it dominates that creature's will.  (basicly a possessor with Link)

> A black spear which speaks- it is called Peemwu Lance (Projected Microwave Weapon Lance)- an intelligent weapon with its own AI, the ability to project beams of lethal heat energy and offer slurred advice on strategy and tactics in an ancient language- the weapon believes it is carried by a Knight of the Order of Fire in persuit of a lost relic.

>Out in the wastes, a crumbling temple.  Within it, a pool of black ink.  Beneath the surface, a Leviathan.  If you go there, make the proper rituals, and sacrifice something you love the creature will rise from the pool and swollow you whole.  You will then suffer an intense ordeal of psychic and physical purification- if you emerge, you will be Reborn and will forever carry a measure of the Leviathan within you.  

>You fall down a whole while scavenging in the open desert- into a cool camber filled with gleaming tech and articulated metal arms- they grab you!  A needle jabs your arm, and you fall unconscious.  When you awaken, you find your right arm has been replaced with an multi-jointed metal insectoid horror: a cybernetic limb for an insect man!  In your mind, you hear the clicking and chirping of the extinct insect-people...and in the back of your head, a device has been grafted into your skull!  The limb is powerful, frighteningly strong and lethal, it can unfold to a length of ten meters and strike like a mantis...but it twitches uncontrolably when you are agitated, reacts to your mamalian nervous system, and the clicking in your mind is slowly starting to make more and more sense... go to the <click> and <click> the sleepers, <click> the sleepers, the sleepers...  

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Clinton,

One of the difficulties with a high-Color setting like the Clicking Sands is that characters are often subjected to sudden external stimuli, often with a very definite goal, often with a lot of Color-derived "force" associated with them. Or to put it a different way, Bangs in such a setting tend to have the brute power of "Go here and do that."

I have experienced this myself recently, in playing Sorcerer & Sword. Right at the moment that a statue in a wall niche responded to a player-character's demon, then slid aside to reveal stairs going down into the darkness ... I realized that I was - in game terms - conforming to the classic "Go here and do that" mode of GMing.

Yet it's a fine line, when the material itself has a "get out there and grab" quality. I think the key is to recognize that such things will happen in Sorc&Sword play, and to make sure that emotional decision scenes do not have that quality, even if occasional logistic or set-up scenes do.

I think the mechanical and essentially opaque nature of the demons in the Clicking Sands setting (and similarly in my current Azk'Arn insectoid setting) have a lot of potential for tricky GMing, regarding this exact issue. I'm interested in how your play of the demons in the Blood Sun setting has had to cope with it.

Best,
Ron

[Clinton R. Nixon]

One of the difficulties with a high-Color setting like the Clicking Sands is that characters are often subjected to sudden external stimuli, often with a very definite goal, often with a lot of Color-derived "force" associated with them. Or to put it a different way, Bangs in such a setting tend to have the brute power of "Go here and do that."

I noticed the exact same thing when I ran my last session. The Bangs (that I remember) were:

- "Hey! That girl has a demon just like yours!"
- "Hey! That guy - the town Despot - has a bandit gang tattoo from the gang you were in 10 years ago, and you thought destroyed!"
- "Hey! You've just pissed off everyone!"

I tried to leave serious decisions for characters to make in all of these, but I felt that that were very forceful - the characters had little choice except: investigate demon, look for bandit gang, and run like hell, respectively.

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Clinton,

So, I'm thinking that perhaps recognizing this tendency in Sorc&Sword especially is a good thing. I don't think the trend itself is a bad one, if the GM and players recognize it as an almost-necessary part of play ... pulp adventure is famous for its frying-pan-to-fire scene transitions. I guess the really crucial thing is being open to surprising player input or actions regarding these scenes.

I'll be keeping an eye out for all these issues during my current Sorc&Sword game.

Best,
Ron

[Mike Holmes]

I've noted and mentioned a similar phenomenon, recently. That is, all Bangs have a quality to them that doesn't seem right at first. What I mean is that any Bang by definition requires a reaction to the events in question. They should not dictate a method of addressing them, but they should dictate that they must be addressed.

What this means is that when you unleash a bang, it's railroading in a certain fashion. By which I mean to say that the players are now constrained to responding to the bang. This sorta gave me a case of cognative dissonance at first because I felt that I had too much control of the story. But what I realize is that the only other alternative is to leave the GM with no story control at all and somehow force the players to create everything. This isn't practical for most styles of play, and unnecessary. In Narrativism the fun part is what a bang leaves open, namely making those decisions about what the bang does allow lattitude on.

That's my new definition for a Bang, railroading to a point at which the player is forced to make the character make a decision, a decision which he has a wide lattitude of responses to. And, always, one decisioon is to avoid the rails altogether and fail to decide. Which is a form of choice itself.

So, Clinton, your bangs don't seem so bad to me. They might just take another step to develop. Sure, I'll investigate that demon you railroaded me to, but the bang doesn't say how to respond to what I find. Sure I'll look for the brigands, but that doesn't dictate how we'll interact. Sure, running away seems like the best option, but maybe a character will decide to stay behind and hold them off sacrificing themselves. Or maybe they'll all turn and win against titanic odds. And then what then?

Don't assume that just because your bang forces a response that it's a complete railroad. You're just leading to water; it's up to the players to decide how to drink it.

Mike

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Mike,

I agree with your points, but I have one quibble.

"Railroading," to me, means by definition that the GM is making decisions for the players. It seems to me that your statement/phrasing of Bangs doesn't include that at all - the water and drinking analogy seems apt.

(Minor rant) A lot of people wrongly think that I must be including, in the definition of railroading, any GM input at all, and hence "ideal play" must be some kind of freewheeling, player-creativity fest, with the GM kind of grinning and sitting there. (pant, pant)

OK, had to get that said.

Best,
Ron

[Clay]

Frankly I don't see railroading in what Clinton's described.  Whole village is screaming for your blood?  Running is one option. Taking a hostage or two is another. Leaping out of their reach, pulling a gun, and daring the first yellow-bellied coward among them to show that he's got enough balls to brace a man in single combat, instead of an angry mob.  Or try the classic Blazing Saddles approach: put a gun to your head and warn everyone to get back or the auslander gets it.

[Ron Edwards]

Hey,

We seem to be doing some cross-posting about the Bang issue, between here and the Blood Sun thread in Actual Play. I just posted to support Clay's interpretation of Bangs there.

Best,
Ron

[Mike Holmes]

"Railroading," to me, means by definition that the GM is making decisions for the players. It seems to me that your statement/phrasing of Bangs doesn't include that at all - the water and drinking analogy seems apt.

The place where the player choice is taken away is when they are presented with a problem. You say, aha! you encounter a problem, which means that there is no way that the player could now avoid the problem. You take away the choice of avoiding problems altogether, but leave the player with the choice of how to address the problem. The former part is the part that I refer to as railroading. It's accomplished using the same techniques as used in most other railroading (sudden framing and the like). It's just that classic railroading never leads play to a point where the player has a choice. It just leads to further railroading. Unlike Bangs.

Note, of course, that a player who likes Narrativism won't mind this minor sort of railroading. Because he knows that it's getting him to conflict, and conflict where the player can make important decisions. Which is the point of Narrativist play, of course.

I'm just trying to make the point (by being blatant about it) that you do, Ron: that Bang-driven play implies that the GM is controling things in a particular way in certain circumstances. That just bacause a Bang may seem a bit railroady on the surface the only true criteria is whether or not it leads to a situation where at some point the player has the power to go in any direction of his choosing. It may just not be absolutely immediate (though it should come relatively soon).

Mike

[Valamir]

I agree completely with what Mike's trying to say.

Basically "Bangs" in the sense of cutting right to conflict at hand eliminates all of the 10 foot pole / checking for traps tedium that players could use to avoid the conflict altogether.  

I believe we've had this discussion before...something about a shower scene and "making assumptions that my character takes showers" comes to mind.

I don't know that "Rail Roaded" is the best term for it, as that implies a far greater degree of GM fiat than is associated with a good bang, but there is a tinge of it there.