The Lighthouse Campaign – a Sorcerous BtVS Riff

[Eric]

FWIW, here is the one sheet for the one on one campaign I'm going to try.  My wife is going to play the watcher/lighthouse keeper and she's going to be training a proto-slayer and trying to keep the merpeople out of trouble.  If it goes well, I may try to interest my regular group in it.  If it sucks on toast . . .  

Comments are welcome.

The Lighthouse Campaign – a Sorcerous BtVS Riff.

Background

The campaign is set in the universe of Buffy the Vampire Slayer at about the time of the second season.  The action takes place on the island of St. Martins in Maine.  The island is connected to the mainland by a bridge. It is north of the Pemaquid area. There are no big cities in a day's drive (except perhaps Augusta).

The focus of the campaign is the St. Martins lighthouse.  The keeper of the lighthouse is traditionally from the St. Martins family, a member of the English Council of Watchers, and the human protector of the local mermaid colony.  

Mood:

More Buffy the TV show, less H.P. Lovecraft.  There are immanents and old ones and undead, but they tend to knowable and adapted rather than alien and mind shattering.  Elder powers maybe dark and bloodthirsty while at same time being served by three-headed lions named Mel.  The balance point is enough horror to make it involving, enough humor to make it fun.  

Lore:

Lore in this game represents knowledge of just how much supernatural goings on there actually are in the world.  Thus it is possible to have a very high lore skill and yet not be a practiced sorcerer.  On the flip side, it is possible to have no lore score at all and still be able to work magical effects with the aid of books or charms.

The most common form of sorcery is reciting and enacting formulas, often from books or ancient tradition.  What many (most?) of the people and things working these formulas don't realize is that in fact they are being led through the process of contacting, summoning, and pacting with specific demons to perform specific acts.  Sorcerers who understand the true role of demons are able create new "spells" and/or produce apparently spontaneous effects by commanding bound demons.

Humanity:

Humanity in game represents the sorcerer's concern for the health and well-being of others.  A friend once described the vampires on Buffy as "having the social instincts of sharks."  This is a good description of 0 humanity beings in the game.  0 humanity beings will use others for their own means and desires without any thought to the how the others might want to be treated.

Humanity checks can be used to judge other people's needs and wants.  Humanity gain checks are made for acts of sacrifice and humanity loss checks are made for acts of selfishness.  

The central question the campaign asks that humanity portrays is, "How much of yourself will you give?"  How often can the characters put themselves between humanity and the evil that feeds on it?  How much of their own happiness will they forgo to serve the greater good.

[Bailywolf]

This sound like a lot of fun- and perfect for a one-on-one style game.  I'd love to hear the Actual Play on this one.

[Clay]

I like the concept a lot.  I also think that the Buffy angle has good potential for getting my own wife interested. Given that the tone has been lightened a bit, we might even rope in a kid or two, since they love Buffy too.

[Bailywolf]

Buffy-as-sorcerer has been one of my favorite riffs and mind games.  Making the most out of this kind of game really demands defining Sorcery well.  After chewing on it a while, I found it is entirely and easily possible to treat "spells" as demons, complete with need and desire.  For many spells, Need is the ritual elements required to invoke it (or in abreviated form for Bound/Mastered spells) to keep it working.  After chewing on it, I find a very simple "to be used" desire works brilliantly... magic that "goes off on its on" is a common theme in the series.

Alternatly, conjuring up a big knotty mass of muscle to crack skulls is also well within the scope of the game.  

If you haven't snagged it yet, Sorcerer and Sword has some very good expansions to basic sorcerer combat, and the pacting and necromancy rules would work just great in a Buffyverse game.

[Clay]

If you haven't snagged it yet, Sorcerer and Sword has some very good expansions to basic sorcerer combat, and the pacting and necromancy rules would work just great in a Buffyverse game.

I'm such a slavish devotee that I actually owned both supplements when they were still PDF products.  &Sword is great for a multitude of things. I'm still learning to really use &Soul and all of its subtle nuances.

[Bailywolf]

Yeah... I just gave S&S a fairly studied going-over as it relates to the dramlands thing I've been toying with (and my now abandoned attempts to use the Donjon initiative system with sorcerer).  There is significantly more going on in Sorcerer & Sword combat than initially seems... I recomend any GM using the rules to really look over them hard and work though their implications.

[Eric]

I have all three books too.  I'm not sure how much of the Sword combat, if any, I'm going to use.  My wife has never gamed before and I've never run a Sorcerer combat, so I think we'll start with the basics before we add-on.

As for actual play, very little yet.  I'm still working on NPCs and bangs, but I have taken her description and statted the character up for her.  I've talked her through the character sheet without actually letting her see it yet.  And last night we had a talk, apropos of Firefly, that the difference between gaming and fiction is that gaming requires the limits on a character's abilities be set before the story starts.

Thea is the PC.  NPCs so far are Cully Sommerville, the proto slayer, and Dryan St. Martins, Thea's cousin who thought he was going to be the keeper.  Still to do are Cully's mom, the merman romantic lead, the mermaid friend, Dryan's girl friend, the demon that is manupulating her, and the local rich guy who not only is the demon's target, but also friends with Cully's estranged dad.  Plus a couple local color people.

Frankly, in 20 years of GMing this and that, I've never had less idea of how a game is going to go.  I'm trying to see this as fun fact rather than a terrifying one.  8)

[Bailywolf]

Perhaps, since your wife is familiar with episodic TV and not so familiar with role playing, then delibretly structuring the game to mimic a TV episode will make it more predictable for you and more approachable for your player.  In Sorcerer terms, this can mean creating each 'episode' around a bang or a particuar kink in a relatioship map (typicaly with both in some proportion).  Resolution of Kickers can come with the Season Finale, and in some ways (either literal or metaphorcal) dealing with the season's big bad.

I'd say establishing a solid- and convoluted- relationship map for this kind of game is paramount.  BtVS is all about the characters and their relationships, and in most cases the supernatural and extremis serves to throw these relationships into sharp relief or to make them manifest more literaly.  A pair of mortal enemies might find themselves body-swaped.  Lovers will be cursed never to touch.  The roles of parent, child, and sibling will be inverted, reversed, remade.  

I'd love to hear more details on your setting when you get them worked out.  Out of curiosity, is this location a real place, or something you have created?


Thanks

-Ben

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Eric,

I'm enthusiastic about all of this. I also suggest that most of the text of The Sorcerer's Soul can be helpful for a setting/premise like you're describing, because, in my view, the emotions behind the decisions in this sort of story are more important than whether the bullet hits the guy or not.

I strongly agree with Ben (Bailywolf) about mimicking the structure and scope of a TV episode.

Best,
Ron

[Eric]

Yes, episodic is what I have in mind.  We'll get through this first one and see if we're going to carry on.  If things are going to continue, then I'll think about a big bad, etc.

And yes, I'm putting Soul to work.  The relationship map is currently limited to the characters above because this one episode maybe all I do.  If it isn't, I'll take a look at the survivors and make one good for short season of episodes.

St. Martins is made up.  We'll port in the Pemaquid area of Maine which we're both familiar with, particularly the lighthouse there and area around it.  Mostly a matter of keeping the terrain and cutting the number of tourists by, oh, 80% or so.  8)

Thanks for the comments.