Sorcerer and Sword - Under the Blood Sun

[Mike Holmes]

Best double entendre on this board ever.

What, you don't think that Ron used the term intentionally because of that double meaning? I do. :-)

Mike

[Ron Edwards]

Hi there,

I took the term Bang and its definition from David Gerrold's book, The Trouble with Tribbles. I quoted the relevant phrase from that book in the text of Sorcerer, including the explicit sexual analogy.

To get back to the ... errr ... meat of the thread, I think Clay stated the matter so nicely that his post ought to be framed and put up on the wall.

Best,
Ron

[Yasha]

I'm one of the two players in this game, reporting late.  This was the second time that I've played Sorcerer, the first time being the high school reunion demo that Clinton ran several Sundays before.  This time I was more comfortable with the rules, both from the previous experience and from actually reading the mechanics sections of the books beforehand.  I was rather excited to play, since both Dan and I seemed to have had fun creating our characters.  We had started during the previous week's session but we went into much greater detail on our group's mailing list.  When Dan posted his character, I became instantly afraid of his PC's demon.  We still haven't seen his demon and I'm still terrified.

The evening began with a discussion of how we wanted to start: Would our characters start out knowing each other? Would our characters start out in the same location?  After our Riddle of Steel game, in which we had the enjoyable but nerve-wracking experience of our characters just missing each other several times, we decided that our characters would already knew each other and would begin together, at the same place.  Meeting each other would be good for a future episode, set in the past.

We started directly from my character's kicker, and since I often have problems taking action, I had to remind myself that the kicker was a call to action and that I better do something.  The game evolved from there.  We started with investigatory experiences that got us involved in the story, let us learn about the setting, have a chance to communicate as our characters and explore our characters' personalities a little more.

I think I was bothered at how last week's story centered so much on my character.  I was concerned about hogging the spotlight and felt somewhat responsible to get Dan's character's input so that he would be more involved in the situation.  I understand that it's normal for the focus of a game to shift from one character to another, but I was feeling guilty.  When Clinton had to play the roles of two demons talking to each other, we all felt somewhat awkward.  I'm glad that we will be moving out into Denn's tribal territories this Tuesday.

After we got ourselves into enough trouble (okay, my character got us into trouble), we had a chance to use the Sorcerer combat rules, which we all enjoyed.  Denn, Dan's character, was able to use his massive stamina to cause all sorts of brutality.  Noom, my character, had to be much more careful and I looked for every opportunity to use his demon's abilities.

There were some things that we found silly and had to contain our laughter about.  Clinton's voice for my demon was based on his Sean Connery impression, which at first was very hilarious but we learned to accept totally by the end of the session.  Just as we learned to totally accept the name of Denver Gurkin.  (In fact, I may name my first child Denver Gurkin.)

So far, I'm enjoying this a whole lot.  At the start of the session, I was unsure about the dice pools because the results seemed to vary so much, but during the session I was able to see the effect of added dice, so I have more faith in the rules.  The demon rules make me nervous, which I believe is part of their design.  We were supposed to be working on what direction we wanted to go this Tuesday, but we have done nothing on the mailing list  Still, with all the preparatory work that has been done, I have faith that we will have a fine session.  (Clinton, are we leaving you with too much of the work?)

Yasha "James" Cunningham

[Ron Edwards]

Hi James (Yasha),

One of the neat things about running Sorcerer in my experience is that pre-game prep can be quite heavy, but between-session prep is often quite light - to the point of a few minutes' "hmm hmm," and that's it. I don't know whether Clinton's experiencing the same thing, but that's how it usually goes for me.

Best,
Ron

[Clinton R. Nixon]

You know, I'm finding the same thing - and it happened with Riddle of Steel, too. The first week was a heinous amount of work, but after that, it was always about 30 minutes prep time.

- Clinton

[Clinton R. Nixon]

We continued our adventures last night (July 16). Here's a wrap-up.

Week 2: Broken Mirrors

Each week, I've been trying to focus another part of the Sorcerer and Sword rules in order to make sure that I'm really using them all to their full potential. Last week, I focused on Bangs. This week, I focused on failed rolls (p. 67). Characters in S&S should just fail - they should be spectacular and impressive even when not accomplishing their goals. I'll show what I did throughout the write-up.

Last week, we left Denn and Noom, our heroes, walking through some underground drainage pipes, escaping from the walled city of Esarham. They knew their way out of the tunnels into the Wastes, but upon hearing some noise down a side tunnel, decided to explore.

The noise was a group of slaves mining for fuel crystals, and two bandit guards watching over them. Denn seized the opportunity to demand to speak to their leader, but managed to confuse them more than anything else. The guards foolishly attacked him, and he wiped the floor with them, although they managed to run away and blow the tunnel, trapping Denn, Noom, and the slaves at the bottom of a mine shaft.

Noom had a great scene after this - he had his scientist/demon, Doktor Gilton, move him through the cave-in using his Travel power, but then got into an argument as Gilton started to demand that Noom pay more attention to him. Gilton felt cheated as he met one of his own (last week) and then promptly got run out of town. He tried to make Noom promise to cooperate in getting him back to town and re-establishing relations with the other scientist/demon, but Noom managed to overpower him.

In the meantime, Denn's demon finally showed up - Kunagi the Destroyer, a 10-foot hyper-rippled man-shaped martial arts master. He busted through the cave-in (while Noom was Traveling back through it, throwing him all around), laughed at Denn, and grabbed the remaining guard, beating him senseless until he found out where the bandit chief, Denver Gurkin, hid. Kunagi had been hunting all remaining initiates of his art in order to kill them all - he spared Denn only because Denn is the most proficient initiate, and Kunagi "wanted to work from the ground up."

Denn and Noom got what they needed, though - they were able to escape from the mine, they released the slaves (all tattooed with a big 'null' symbol on their head - I fully expect to use these guys again in about 5 years game time), and they found out where Gurkin hid. Of course, they weren't going to get there before Kunagi, but at least they had the information.

---

At this point, I, as GM, didn't want to jump straight into a big fight with the bandit chief. It felt rushed, and I really wanted to flesh out the story more. After pausing and talking with my players, we figured out a good course of action: provide a bit of a side-story full of weirdness, "like you'd find in a Fafrhd and Mouser story," according to one of my players, Dan Root. I took a few minutes to think, and then came up with this Canticle for Leibowitz-influenced bit.

---

As Denn and Noom followed Kunagi's trail of destruction across the Wastes, they came to a broken old stone building not far from the Cursed Lake. Upon entering the building, they discovered that it must be inhabited - there were books (books!) strewn about and dust had been cleaned off a wooden desk. They were surprised by a female voice, and spun around to see Rose, a beautiful dusky (Asian/Native American in appearance) woman, looking at them through a doorway. They talked for a moment, and then she said that she had to "wake her husband up." She stepped through the doorway and they saw that she was conjoined to a man with the same facial features and hair, his head lolling around. She woke the other head up, who introduced himself as Hong.

Rose and Hong were the last of their Order, which had been dedicated to preserving ancient knowledge. The rest of their Order, which had apparently all been conjoined couples, had died in raids or of old age. (Rose and Hong, unfortunately, could not conceive. As the GM, I really hope this turns into a whole side-plot.) Upon finding out that all their oxalo (cattle) had been stolen in raids, Denn went hunting to find them meat while Noom let Doktor Gilton talk to Hong about research. Gilton was somewhat happy with Noom for this chance to actually do some research. Most of the books here were of little use to him (most were on Dualist philosophy and Taoism), but there were some good 35th Century Mandarin texts on the nature of zero and the duality of numbers.

---

Denn's hunt was the first time I really remembered as a GM to let failed rolls mean something besides failure, which would be anti-climatic when a big Stamina 8 guy is hunting. Denn was hunting yotes - wild dogs - on the edge of the Cursed Lake and rolled a failure to sneak up on them and jump on one successfully. Instead of just failing, I had him jump at one, only to have 8 foot jaws attached to a 30-foot crocodile-thing come out of the lake, snatching up a yote and sending the rest scattering, with Denn stopped just short of the snarling thing's jaws. Amazingly, Denn jumped on the thing, which led to the coolest Sorcerer fight ever. He held the 'odile's jaws shut, and it tried to roll over (I watch a lot of Crocodile Hunter - this was totally appropriate) in order to get him off or hurt him. Denn used its mass and motion against it to get the animal on its back, then slit its soft underbelly, ripping out the heart with one hand and eating it. (Most badass move EVER.)

---

After earning Rose and Hong's eternal gratitude for hauling home three tons of lizard meat (and providing Hong with a bit of purpose - Noom/Gilton had been the first person in years he'd been able to share knowledge with), Denn and Noom went on their way to find Denver Gurkin and the bandits.

Making their way further across the Wastes, they found dead bandits strewn around. Kunagi had definitely been this way. They found the bandits' hideout only because it was on fire - it was well hidden. Entering the bandits' makeshift village, they found Kunagi and Gurkin fighting.

Denver Gurkin was an enormous man, and was marked with the same martial arts tattoos as Boris Baadsgaard and Denn. While Kunagi should have wiped the floor with him, a surviving bandit opened up on Kunagi's back with a makeshift flamethrower, and Gurkin used the distraction to slam a black rod - a piece of ancient technology called a neural disruptor - across Kunagi's shoulders.

Noom and Denn leaped into action, with Denn distracting the flamethrower guy and Noom firing arrows at him.

---

Again, I tried to use failed rolls to good effect here. Noom kept missing with arrows, but I had the first miss hit the guy's flamethrower tank, causing it to leak fuel. The second time he missed, I narrated it as, "You draw back your bow, about to fire an arrow into the bandit's heart, but see a blur over his shoulder - another bandit with a saber about to leap on Denn. You fire upwards, and drop the bandit with one hit." He missed his stated goal, but it still looked cool.

---

During the intense fight, Gurkin rolled 4 10's with his four dice, knocking Kunagi to the ground in muscle spasms from the neural disruptor. Denn helped Kunagi by attacking Gurkin, and Kunagi was able make a nerve strike on Gurkin (Hold), immoblizing him. Kunagi went in for the kill, but Denn stopped him, saying he needed to ask Gurkin some questions.

Kunagi laughed, and made a deal - he and Denn would fight, and if he lost, he wouldn't slay Gurkin. (This was an explicit Pacting, even though he was already bound to Denn. Denn had +2 on the Binding roll, so got to use those dice in the attack.) Amazingly, after a blistering fight, Denn and Kunagi both dropped to 0 Stamina at the same time. Denn, though, made his Will roll and stood up over Kunagi, realizing he had just beat his own master.

Unresolved issues for next week

- How will Gurkin cooperate? What are they even going to ask him?
- Given that Denn and Noon are responsible for the bandit gang being broken up, how will the town of Esarham survive? (They got their water from a moisture collector that ran on fuel crystals - crystals the slaves provided.)
- What will happen to the knowledge Rose and Hong have kept when they pass away? They are infertile.
- Will Doktor Gilton continue to cooperate with Noom? He's been more and more testy.

[Edit: fixing grammar.]

[Zak Arntson]

At this point, I, as GM, didn't want to jump straight into a big fight with the bandit chief. It felt rushed, and I really wanted to flesh out the story more. After pausing and talking with my players, we figured out a good course of action:

Our group had an OOC discussion as well (obligatory link here. Ours was on an appropriate level of realism for the situation. The Players seemed jarred, but the outcome and result was satisfying.

How would you weigh the jumping into (was it jarring?) OOC discussion against the result of the gaming experience? From your post I'd reckon it was well worth it, though I'd like to hear your own observations.

[Ron Edwards]

Golly.

Here are some impressions, just off-the-cuff.

1) I like the idea of a "failed" roll being more of a "ooh! distracted by sudden distraction! must deal!" I've never done that; it's more improv/Director than I usually play Sorcerer. But it works.

2) Boy, that Will roll, made once your penalties outweigh your Stamina, really matters, doesn't it? Really makes that Kunagi fight mean something.

3) Related to the above, I see the Denn/Kunagi relationship being inherently unstable. I could be wrong ... after all, it would be totally on-genre to have Kunagi be a somewhat muted and dependable minion for a long time after the fight ... but I think more meat might come from, basically, pushing the negative side of the demon hard, and culminating in the Final Battle sooner rather than later.

4) I really, really liked the literary reference being used as a touchpoint for constructive dialogue during play.

5) Gurkin is way too neat! Definitely an NPC to love and cherish.

Best,
Ron

[Clinton R. Nixon]

Zak,

It didn't upset things at all - it did cause about a 5 minute pause while I thought of something suitably weird, though. My players and I actually do this pretty often: I'll stop after a scene and ask them, "So, what do you want to happen next?" They tell me, and then we do it.

[Clinton R. Nixon]

1) I like the idea of a "failed" roll being more of a "ooh! distracted by sudden distraction! must deal!" I've never done that; it's more improv/Director than I usually play Sorcerer. But it works.

Ron,

Did you mean that I did this, or is there something you suggest trying?

- Clinton

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Zak,

Lots of metagame dialogue is a big thing in my games, as I've talked about before. I have never observed it to be jarring, except to people who have been brainwashed that it's somehow evil or antithetical to role-playing.

I'd change my phrasing about it, in comparison to Clinton's, that I'll ask what we'd all like to address next, rather than do next, in order to emphasize that actual resolution is a matter of play rather than setup. (I'm pretty sure that Clinton does that too, but I can see how people might mis-read it.)

Best,
Ron

[Uncle Dark]

Clinton,

I just wanted to say that I am loving this journal of your game.  This is some primo roleplaying.  Personally, I get a lot of milage (ideas-wise) from the "loose ends" questions, like you present at the end of the post.  They almost always give me ideas for later stories.

One question, though: The bit where Noom failed his roll with the arrow shot, and you ruled that he took an attack of opportunity (basically) against a different target instead of shooting Gurkin.  This seems to skate on the edge of making character-action choices for the player, or at least I can easily see one of my regular players shouting "But my guy wouldn't to that!  He'd trust Denn to handle it on his own, and still shoot Gurkin."

The question is, did you detract from the player's protagonism in making that judgement?  Would it have been better (from a player-makes-all-decisions stance) to have made it just a miss?  Or maybe something like, "Your arrow shoots straight at Gurkin's heart, but his hand moves faster than you can follow, snatching your shaft out of the air?"  The latter doesn't make a choice for the character, doesn't make him miss, and gives a chance to show what a badass a major NPC is.

I'm not meaning to second-guess here.  Your players seem to be having fun, so you must be doing something right.  I guess what I'm getting at is, does a player briefly lose protagonism on a blown roll, and get stuck with the GM's judgement?

Lon

[Clinton R. Nixon]

Here's more stuff about last night:

Things I really liked

I liked the continual reinforcement of a theme last night. I really wanted to focus on partnerships, and did, even with the side-story. We had a couple of dual partnerships that got explored:
- Noom and Gilton: dependent, but somewhat at odds
- Rose and Hong: in love, but somewhat irritable with each other, like most married couples. This was actually great comic relief - Hong called Rose lazy once, which about sent me into hysterics. Also - ultimately doomed, as they are the last of their kind.
- Denn and Kunagi: powerful forces deriving from the same source, but possibly with different endings
- Noom and Denn: the only real touchstones of humanity for each other at this point. They're both in such weird partnerships, that their own is the only "normal" one they have.

I loved the failed rolls - they worked for the story as well as anything else.

I also loved our out-of-game talk: I was able to serve up what the players wanted well.

Thing I didn't like

We haven't had a Humanity check yet. In fact, I should have given them Humanity last night: they saved the slaves at personal cost, helped out Rose and Hong, and didn't kill Gurkin. Argh.

These guys are too nice. I've got to figure out a way to start driving down their Humanity.

[Ron Edwards]

Wow, posts are arriving way too fast for me to keep track of them.

Clinton, regarding #1, I'm saying you did it, and that I think it was neat.

Lon, if I were to use such a tactic, it would handled just as I do scene framing, as a GM suggestion followed by consent or rejection by the player, with an allowed suggestion by the player instead.

That's how I handled all resolution in Hero Wars; Fortune-in-the-middle necessitates developing an excellent Social Contract about "what happens" dialogue. At this point, after a year and a half of HW, it's almost inconceivable to me that a conflict between player and GM, such as you describe, can happen. Although I remember it well from the old days.

In practice, the players give immediate consent nearly 100% of the time, in one group, and about 75% of the time, in the other group. I think this is because my stated actions "for the character" are never built to make the character look stupid or incompetent (although they may include bad luck).

Best,
Ron

[Clinton R. Nixon]

I'm not meaning to second-guess here.  Your players seem to be having fun, so you must be doing something right.  I guess what I'm getting at is, does a player briefly lose protagonism on a blown roll, and get stuck with the GM's judgement?

I'll admit I actually narrate the character's actions more than what is normally considered ok around here. I do ask them first. The actual conversation went basically like this:

Me: Ok, well, your roll failed. You miss - here's an idea. Another bandit leaps at Denn right before you got off your shot. You adjust and slam an arrow into him, dropping him to the ground. Does that sound ok?

James: That sounds great. That's really cool.

Me: All right! So that arrow drives the bandit to the ground.

(He was firing at a relatively minor NPC - a distraction. If he'd been firing at Gurkin - he wasn't - I'd probably have used something like your idea.)

(Also - James, correct me if I'm wrong in the above.)