Sorcerer and Sword - Under the Blood Sun

[Clinton R. Nixon]

I'm starting a new game of Sorcerer and Sword tonight, called "Under the Blood Sun." It's loosely based on the Clicking Sands setting from S&S, with a few bizarre changes.

I'm going to post about it tomorrow, but I thought I'd throw up a link now to my notes and resources for it. (http://www.anvilwerks.com/docs/bloodsun). I'm planning on putting all my NPCs, creatures, maps, and other stuff there so other people can use them as resources. If your name happens to be Dan Root or James Cunningham, you may or may not want to follow the link, depending on how well you can separate player and character knowledge.

[Bankuei]

At least I can see all I'm missing :P

I'm moving out this week, sorry to hear you're not making it to GenCon, but I'll be very interested to see what comes of it.

Chris

[Clinton R. Nixon]

Week 1: Alleys and Shadows

(I know the below is a little of "we did this, then we did that." I'm gushing because I had so much fun, and there's good "we learned this" stuff in there, too, I promise.)

We started our game last night, and it went off much, much better than I expected. We've decided to do some "jumping through time" in terms of the story, which I've broken into three parts:

(note - this will make more sense if you go to the above link and find out more about the PC's. I don't see the need to re-type it all.)

A. In The Beginning - the story of how Noom and Denn came to travel together and depend on each other's strengths. We actually have no idea how this is going to happen yet.

B. Secrets and Lies - Denn re-visits his past in Esarham and determines what course his life will take, and Noom finds out the truth about Doktor Gilton, the "demon" inside him.

C. Ascension - Noom tries to bring a new god to his homeland, the Northern Veldt, and Denn faces his biggest challenge yet in Darwin's Horde.

We're starting with Part B, and plan to jump back to A, then C.

The game started with the PC's in the city of Esarham. Denn had been part of a bandit group that razed the city 10 years previously, so it was a bit of a homecoming. The town had been rebuilt, but seemed to be quite anti-mutant, so both PC's had to be careful not to expose themselves.

What we noticed most about Sorcerer is how fast the story flies. We got right to the meat in no time. We started with Noom's Kicker - he saw a girl out of the corner of his eye that appeared to be made of silver - the same Telltale he has, indicating a scientist from the 43rd Century was inside her, too.

Noom and Denn quickly found out that the girl, Oralee, was the daughter of the town's High Despot, Boris Baadsgaard. The town had a moisture collector, a piece of high-technology machinery that Doktor Gilton, Noom's possessor demon/scientist, knew how to work, so Noom sought employment with the Despot in order to get a chance to speak with his daughter.

Unfortunately, Noom's very open about what he wants and he told the Despot flat out that he needed to talk about science with his daughter. The Despot didn't react well, but James, Noom's player, rolled really well, and managed to convince the Despot to let him. Denn also noticed a distinctive tattoo on the Despot's hand - he was at one time, at least, a member of the same bandit gang as Denn had been when he razed Esarham.

The next scene was in the Despot's house at dinner. Denn and Noom fixed the moisture collector to work much better than it was, so the Despot asked them to dinner and gave Noom a chance to speak to Oralee - in front of the Despot. The Despot was also brandishing a piece of ancient technology, a laser rifle.

Doktor Gilton spoke through Noom's mouth, and scared Oralee enough that her own demon/scientist, Professor Winfred Zeborski, took control. Boris, the Despot, got angry and pulled his laser rifle on Noom, which led into combat.

Combat in Sorcerer is awesome. I really wasn't sure - I'd never run a real combat scene in the game before. I'd run a few small modern-day skirmishes, but nothing with real life or death consquences. Denn, who has a Stamina of 8, is as much of a monster as any of us expected. The bonus dice for cool actions also helped - he kicked his chair back into one guard and hit another one over his shoulder when they attacked him from behind, and floored them both, with some help from Noom swinging his spear like a baseball bat.. The really cool thing, though, was that he hit the table separating him from the Despot, knocked the laser rifle from his hands, caught it, and then flipped the table back on the Despot. All in all, it was a completely rocking combat.

The big thing that happened, though, was Professor Zeborski - Oralee's scientist - escaping with Noom when he got his scientist, Gilton, to Warp a hole in the wall. Noom, Denn, and Zeborski ran through the town and ended up hiding in a tiny room. It ended up that Zeborski had very little control over her host body, and wasn't even Bound to Oralee - she was Bound to the Despot. She only had about 10 minutes to convey information, and became upset that Gilton didn't know how to separate her from the host body.

When Oralee regained control, she was rightfully scared, but Noom and Denn managed to calm her enough to tell her what was really going on. The poor girl had no idea what was inside her - she knew it was there, but didn't understand it. It had apparently been in her since birth, and thus couldn't even manifest itself normally.

Noom and Denn promised to get information back to her about how to separate her and the demon/scientist when they found out, and escaped from town using an escape route she showed them.

-----

This leaves the characters with lots of stuff to do for the next game:

* Noom and Doktor Gilton have to find out how to separate a dimension-hopping scientist's consciousness from a host body, especially considering that the two are completely linked, unlike Noom and Gilton.
* Of course, this knowledge could completely threaten their sorcerer/demon relationship in that Noom could get rid of Gilton, or Gilton could get rid of Noom.
* Denn found out that Oralee was promised to be wed to Denver Gurkin, a man he was once in the bandit gang with. In addition, the Grand Despot was apparently in the bandit gang. He told Oralee he'd convey information back to her through Denver Gurkin, but he has to (a) meet Gurkin again, (b) convince Gurkin and his men not to kill him, and (c) convince them to cooperate, which is going to be hard considering the Despot kind of hates him and Noom now.
* Denn's demon martial arts nemesis is in the area somewhere. He's bound to show up.

What we did wrong

I don't think I used Bangs as much as I should have. There were some slow points early on in the game, but once it got going, it really got going.

I also think I focused more on Noom's story this game. I hope to focus on Denn's more for next to balance it.

What we did right

We sat down and figured out Sorcerer combat. Once you get it, it's not hard.

The players really remembered to use cool descriptions to get bonus dice.

The players, especially James, had no problem getting themselves in trouble to drive the story. He actually went much further than I expected, throwing me for a loop.

I didn't railroad, which was exciting. I fully expected the game to end differently, but managed to flow with it.

[Clinton R. Nixon]

Two things I forgot:

- I'm enjoying this game as much as any game I've ever played in the past.

- I now have a map of the game up at http://www.anvilwerks.com/docs/bloodsun.

- Clinton

[Paul Czege]

Clinton,

Somewhat off topic, but I've noticed that you and Pete Seckler both create pretty nice maps for your games. I haven't seen Campaign Cartographer for a couple of software releases. Is this what it's capable of now? Or are you using something else?

Paul

[Clinton R. Nixon]

Paul,

Actually, this was my first map I've created. I used a combination of Fractal Mapper and Paint Shop Pro (PSP only for the labels).

Peter actually does all of his in Paint Shop Pro, last time I checked with him. I think he does start by doing a lot of his freehand and then scanning them in. I, on the other hand, am a piss-poor artist, so I do them all in the software.

[Ron Edwards]

Clinton,

What can I say? This is stupendous. I think the game's website is brilliant and the game itself sounds better than most people even imagine role-playing sessions can be.

Over time, it would be vastly appreciated if you could post notes on what you all do, in terms of plain old play, using rules, and interactions. I'd very much like to point unhappy role-players to this page and say, "That's what we're talking about."

Best,
Ron

[Clinton R. Nixon]

Ron,

Don't worry - I definitely will be posting all of this. By the end of the campaign, I'll have notes on every NPC, every week of play, and all rules problems/fixes we had/did, all archived on the game's web page.

I have to admit that I'm crazy proud of the game's web page. Try hitting "Print Preview" on any of the pages - you'll see that it formats itself for easy printing for others' use.

- Clinton

[Matt Snyder]

First off, Clinton, this is very cool. I just bought S&Sword, and it's great to see how someone put it into action.

On maps, have you had lots of success w/ the mapping software? I generally draw freehand with  pencils, scan the paper (getting a nice texture out of the deal), the get my Photoshop schwerve on with varying success (check out the Akraia map, a setting not too far gone from Under the Blood Sun post-apoc thingy).

I have to admit that I'm crazy proud of the game's web page. Try hitting "Print Preview" on any of the pages - you'll see that it formats itself for easy printing for others' use.

- Clinton

Finally, one minor gripe. The navigation menu on your site is out of whack on my Mac Explorer browser. It overlaps the logo on the top left. No biggie, as we Mac freaks are just that and I can still see most everything.

[Clay]

I have to admit that I'm crazy proud of the game's web page. Try hitting "Print Preview" on any of the pages - you'll see that it formats itself for easy printing for others' use.

I have to admit that I'm wicked proud of Clinton's web site too. He's doing very cool things with the tools I built (and he modified).  The print preview thing is the best. That's all Clinton's doing, nothing of mine.  Clinton's the style sheet master; I steal all my cool tricks from him, and I hope to steal this one too.

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Clinton,

I don't know why everyone seems to be having such a tricky time with Bangs all of a sudden. Based on the accounts of play (you, Jesse, Jeffrey), it all seems to be going fine, but somehow everyone seems to have post-session stress syndrome about "I didn't do the Bangs right." What's up with that?

Best,
Ron

[Clinton R. Nixon]

I think we all expect two things:

a) That we'll know when we're throwing out Bangs. Personally, I didn't notice throwing any out during the game.

b) That everyone will jump back and slap their face whenever we throw out a Bang.

I think we're all expecting a revelation when Bangs really mean "whenever things get boring, fix that."

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Clinton,

That's really well put, and it helps me figure out what to say about it.

Originally, my take on Bangs was that they already existed (ie were used) in general role-playing, but (a) we didn't have a word for it and (b) a lot of people felt odd "interfering" in play by using them, and they experienced cognitive dissonance because play couldn't proceed without them.

The result of (b) was a lot of "wander about" play, which most of us here are familiar with, to which the only viable solution was usually some form of Illusionism. My own experience led me to think that admitting the existence of Bangs (with metagame intent) were OK; the heavens wouldn't open and the deluge would not rain forth if the GM admitted, prior to play, that X and Y and Z might be tossed at the players explicitly. So I gave them a name.

Now, after many moons of Sorcerer play, I am realizing that people grasp what Bangs are pretty well, but they are a bit puzzled about ... for lack of a better term ... how to feel when they are employed. In some ways, we're back to the "transparency" issue. The GM says, "Bang!" and the players go "Spoo!" and play proceeds ... yet somehow, the GM says, that's funny, it worked and it was painless - could that be right?

Best,
Ron

[Clay]

Now, after many moons of Sorcerer play, I am realizing that people grasp what Bangs are pretty well, but they are a bit puzzled about ... for lack of a better term ... how to feel when they are employed.

My take on it is that bangs are the significant, story-moving encounters.  For any significant story event, we have the buildup that's leading us to the bang, the bang itself, and then the reaction to the bang.  Bang seems like an awkward term, since I first saw this formalized in the context of romance novels.

I think that by giving it a specific term, people are expecting something that leaps out and marks the bang as being different.  They aren't expecting something so pedestrian as editing.  Editing isn't particularly glamorous, but good editing is the difference between a dull story and an exciting one. It's also damned hard to do.

[Clinton R. Nixon]

Bang seems like an awkward term, since I first saw this formalized in the context of romance novels.

Best double entendre on this board ever.

- Clinton