Spaceships, Sixguns and Sorcery

[jburneko]

Well, it finally happened, my weekday group collapsed under the weight of the clashing gaming styles and preferences it was trying to support.  Thankfully, we only lost two players.  So that leaves three surviving players plus myself enough for the group to persist.  We got together last night to decide what we were going to do next.

One player suggested we do a western.  Another player was cool with that but had been recently influenced by the new Fox show Firefly as well as the Sean Connery movie Outland and thought it might be cool to do a Space-Western.  The third player who's kind of new to the group and a bit shy thought all this was just fine.

So, I offered up three possible Systems to play a Space-Western in addition to my commentary on what I thought the effects of each on the actual game would be.

A) Story Engine, I put this on the table as sort of neutral ground and expalined that it was the generic choice.

B) Dust Devils, I noted how it was designed to be straight up western but since I felt there was nothing in the mechanics stoping us from adding sci-fi color to the heavy western themes it would be appropriate.

C) Sorcerer, I noted that this would add a surreal-horror twist and would shift the focus towards power issues concerning the frontier nature of space exploration.

Since, I'm posting this in the Adept Press Forum I'm pretty sure you can guess which they decided to go with.

The first thing we did was sketch out a setting.  First we had to decide on scope and the group felt that wide open space exploration was too Star Trekie but just a single colony ala Blue Planet was too limiting so we went with a compromise.  The game will take place on a single large space station that acts as a major point of trade and communication exchange.  We agree that this is functionally a railway hub from the old west.  The space station is orbiting a planet from which some resources are culled but otherwise the planet is uninhabited.  There is Faster Than Light travel which we all agreed wouldn't be an issue and is used only to say that it takes weeks to months to travel between space stations and planets.  Also, there are no other human level intelligence species but there are life supporting planets with exotic flora and fauna.

Now for the Sorcerous stuff.

When it came to the Humanity definition we felt that a Civilised verses Frontier Barbarism was close but not quite on the money.  I also asked what level of brutality we wanted and the group decided they liked grim and gritty so we borrowed much from the Sorcerer and Sword Humanity definition in that only family and close relationships matter in terms of Humanity and that Zero Humanity was indicative of a willingness to rape, murder and steal indescriminately to achieve one's own ends.

For demons we didn't want overtly supernatural.  This isn't Exorcist or Omen style monsters from beyond type stuff.  Instead we agreed that demons would be more surreal and possess an almost indescribable, "otherness" quality and couldn't be explained in any way shape or form scientifically.  One does not "study" Sorcery.  They aren't aliens per se but describing a possesor demon as some kind of intelligent space energy isn't out of the question.   But again, no "races" or species of creatures.  It also meant that a demon could easly be a Sentient A.I. but that not all Sentitent A.I's would be demons.  Demons are not in-your-face in this setting and most can be explained away as anomalies or even facets of the Sorcerer's own personality.

So from here we moved to character generation.

One player expressed an interest in being a Railway Baron figure.  So this raised the issue of who owns and operates the space station.  Everyone agred that this PC owned and operates the space station.  In fact, the entire space station is her demon!  This thing is SCARY!  It has a power of thirteen, a Desire for Entertainment and a Need to consume people by losing them within it's more obscure maze like passages.  The PC's Kicker is that an agent of the Terran goverment has come to the station and asked for her help in wiping out a particular band of space bandits who have been using her station as a safe haven.  However, she's very aware of two things, this is an obvious power play by the Terran government  to muscle in on her private poperty and that the band of space bandits happen to be a key part of an underground economy that helps keep the station running.

The second player decided he wanted to be a smugler figure with no qualms about dealing in genetically engineered slave trading and such.  There was much back and forth over this character because the player was definitely trying to avoid falling into the obvious Han Solo trap.  His demon hasn't been fully fleshed out yet but he knows that he wants it to be a Possessor with the Hop ability although his character is unaware of it.  As far as his character is concerned the demon is the current space critter the Possessor is inhabiting.  It's Desire is for Mischief and it's Need is to be stroked.  The player decided to tie his Kicker to the first player's Kicker.  Basically, there's a smaller frontier govenment that also wants to control the station but is much further away and has smaller resources the primary Terran Government.  This smaller government is using some dirt they have on the smugler to for him to take the Terran government official out of the picture, so to speak.

The third player decided he wanted to a Marshal figure.  His demon is a cup that his father used to poison his mother.  It's Desire is to kill it's master and it's need is for it's master to get drunk while drinking from it.  The PC's kicker is that his father is a rather well known and very wanted outlaw and he's just blown into town expecting special treatment from the local law enforcement.

So that's it for now.  The ball's in my court and I've got to flesh all this out a bit and make it gel with some kind of backstory for all this to hang together with (although it's almost entirely here for me).

Hope this was interesting.

Jesse

[Bailywolf]

The station demon is fantastic- love it.  What does its stats look like?

[jburneko]

The station demon is fantastic- love it.  What does its stats look like?

Well, as appropriate the thing is pretty monsterous.

Name: Space Station Quinn
Appearance: Metalic trading post orbiting an uninhabited planet.
Telltale: Strange faces form in the flares of its stabalizing rockets.
Stamina: 12
Will: 13
Lore: 12
Power 13
Abilities: Armor, Big, Confuse, Spawn, Special Lethal Damage (automated defense systems), Perception (security sensors), Travel, Transport, Daze, Hold, Link, Ranged (Special Lethal Damage)

I think one of my favorite bits is that Spawn manifests as little maintainace droids that can be found all over the thing.

Also as a bit of color and to add to the western flavor we agreed that it was capable of communicating through a hallographic projection which manifests as one of the 12 face cards from standard poker deck depending on the kind of information it was relaying and its "Mood"

Jesse

[Todd Bogenrief]

That idea of the station being a demon is awesome!  Sounds like a great set up for a game.

[Bailywolf]

Anyone ever read Lawrence Watt-Evans's The Cyborg and the Sorceress?  I read it when I was 16 or so...can't vouch for its quality as literature, but it had some cool ideas right in line with this post.

The Cyborg of the title was a leftover super soldier from a forgotten war linked via brain implants to his AI ship.  The ship was loaded with weapons, and could detonate a bomb in the Cyborg's head if he started getting disloyal to the long-dead cause (the ship was constrained by its programing- it could not recignize or accept that the war had ended).

This basic concept- the cyborg linked to an AI- would fit well into this setting you have brewing here... I can see a really cool Teran special operative with neurological implants which enhance his abilities and offer advice...

Control
Type: Parasite
Description: a series of interlinked neruo-optical processors, nerve taps, and artifical glands.  
Stamina 7; Will 8; Lore 7; Power 8
Abilities: Boost (Cover); Boost (Stamina); Cloak (hides itself from medical & security sensors); Fast; Vitality; Control (computer override); Perception (hypernet encrypted communication network)
Desire: Ensuring Loyalty to Teran Government
Need: Inteligence (requires constand absorption of new infor)

[Ron Edwards]

Oh, my God.

Jesse, you continue to amaze me. More posts, actual play ... everything. Feel free to sound off on every detail.

Best,
Ron

[greyorm]

Coooool, Jesse.
I mean, not just "cool" with a couple extra vowels, but honest-to-Tyr Coooool.

The PC's Kicker is that an agent of the Terran goverment has come to the station and asked for her help in wiping out a particular band of space bandits who have been using her station as a safe haven.  However, she's very aware of two things, this is an obvious power play by the Terran government  to muscle in on her private poperty and that the band of space bandits happen to be a key part of an underground economy that helps keep the station running.

My question, if I were playing in this game, would be: so what's keeping her from just saying, "No" or filling him (or her) with false assurances and sending the Terran agent packing?  What's the moral quandary involved in the Terran agent's presence on and demands for the station?

[jburneko]

Raven,

That's a good question and I'll have to consult with the player again (not hard since she lives with me. :) ) but I distinctly recall discussing this during character creation.  I think it came down to something like this.

The leader of the space bandits is wanted for something HUGE, like political assassination HUGE, so, the Terran Government official isn't just going to take reassurances.  He's going to stay until the fugitive is brought to justice.  By the same token this outlaw is somehow integral to the station, he may even have something on the PC, I don't quite remember.  I'll have to ask the player again.

On other matters...

So, I've been thinking about all of this and I keep coming back to the same thing.  Keep It Simple.  I don't feel like some really huge complex backstory serves this idea well.  I think I've got most of the NPCs right in the Kickers, they are the focus.  Just a few basic attachment NPCs, such as the Marshall's Father's gang, some understanding of how they inter-relate (What's the outlaw father's relationship to the head hancho space bandit?), plus a situation or McGuffin for people to get rilled up about should be sufficient.

The main problem I'm having is that I'm not finding much room (or need) for NPC Sorcerers or Demons.  Any attempt I've done to insert Sorcerery among the backstory or NPCs, feels contrived and out of place.  Is this a warning sign?  Or is it just a side effect of having such a subtle Sorcery definition?  Does anyone have any experience with running a scenario in which the PCs are the ONLY Sorcerers and source of demonic activity?

Thanks.

Jesse

[Valamir]

I think you're right on track with keeping it simple Jesse.  I don't know that I'd even bother to make the bandit's crime all that huge.  

What's keeping the player from just saying "no", should be the fact that the player chose it as her kicker (i.e. it wasn't a GM assigned hook for the player to "beat").  

So what's keeping her from saying "no", I presume would be the fact that she wants to say "yes".

[Bailywolf]

I could throw out a ton of possibly useful ideas, but I'm having trouble with your demon/sorcery definitions... so let me ask some basic questions first:

Are demons literally supernatural? -or are they more metaphorical or symbolic? Does the Marshal's cup possess genuine supernatural powers, or are its abilities simply a reflection of the character's inner drives and struggles? Is there ANY common underpinnings to what separates a demon from just any old AI or sentimental object or alien buddy? Or is there some ethereal 'demon-ness' which can imbue certain places/people/objects/creatures which make them subject to Sorcery?

if the latter is the case, then possession of a Telltale which someone with a Lore score can sense is the only overt sign of demonics... look at the stabilizing fins of all the stations you want, only this one's has the twisted faces staring back. And then how is this 'demon-ness' this otherness acquired? Is it like an infection...something which sets the object/person/place/creature outside the normal bounds of reality, making it subject to a symbolic science of ritual rather than a active-reactive science of physics?

I can foresee problems with a too-subtle definition for sorcery and demonics... it could lead to a loss of focus. It is hard to know what is at risk when what is won in the bet is so ethereal.

Dependent on the above, how do the sorcerous rituals manifest? Ron gave me some great advice a while back about making sure to define the rituals of sorcery- what does Contact actual mean and involve? Summon? Bind?

You don't have to say "demons are X" or "Demons come from Y" but a definite sense of how normal things are differentiated from demonic things would be helpful.


Another related question, do sorcerers knowingly use the rituals, bind demons, and peruse power through them, or are their demons acquired as a result of their unconscious use of ritual behavior? This calls into question Lore... Lore implies conscious knowledge of the occult (as defined by your setting)... does the owner of the Station KNOW it is unnaturally imbued with some kind of supernatural nature, or does he just use and control a quirky station AI...that happens to eat people

[jburneko]

I think the key here is that yes, demons are supernatural or more correctly not natural.  They do not belong here.  They represent something which is out of place and should not be.  Over on RPG.net I made the analogy that there could very well be a sister station to this one built from the same blue prints and running the same revision of the A.I. Software.  However, this sister station could very well not be a demon.  What makes the first station a demon and the second station not, is the existance of that "otherness", it doesn't come from any where per se and it isn't really scientifically definable.

Lore represents the ability to recognize, and indeed contact and summon forth this otherness.  So yes, the owner is fully aware that her space station possesses a quality of unnaturalness and indeed any Sorcerer who makes his Lore check will recognize the place as being "wrong."

Yeah, it's subtle and it could lose focus, but I think we're willing to let things lie loose for right now and let the nature of Sorcery develop a little slower over time.  If someone has an idea for a demon that they want to contact then we'll talk about it right then and there.  I'm fully convinced that things will gel more concretely as the game goes on.

Jesse

[Bailywolf]

Actualy, with that clarification it clicks well for me.  Can a sorcerer take something otherwise normal and then imbue it with otherness (through the contact/summon rituals)?  Or do demons arise entirely by chance (or whatever strange logic drives their manifestation)?

Say a sorcerer wishes a bodyguard-companion.  He purchases a J-series Companion Gynoid (a female-type android), and then creates a warped conception of it (contact) and ritualy imbues it with that conception (summon).  He decides to create dynamic tension within the gynoid by conflicting its artificial nature with its female apearance- he will treat it like a wife and mother rather than a sex-dol as it was intended to be...yet despite the fact that it is incapable of true love or reproduction.  His Summoning ritual is a perverse wedding ceremony, and the Binding a long honeymoon during which he treats the gynoid as his newlywed bride...making himself almost believe she is his new wife.  

The gynoid is fundamentaly changed by this process- made over with the otherness of a demon.  It possesses Abilities which blend its android form (armor, fast, special damage, boost: stamina) with its perverse role as mother (spawn)... its Telltale is that it always seems in one stage of pregnancy or other... and by fulfiling its Need for Sex & Affection it can Spawn little cyborg children which blend the sorcerer's biology with its artifice.  Its Desire might be something like "be a good wife" or "defend the family".  I get all sorts of Tetsuo:Body Hammer images here.

[jburneko]

Bingo!

Jesse

[greyorm]

What's keeping the player from just saying "no", should be the fact that the player chose it as her kicker (i.e. it wasn't a GM assigned hook for the player to "beat").

I have to completely disagree, Val.
There's absolutely no drive to the story...no reason for protagonism to exist if there's no conflict. I would (and have been) utterly bored and disgusted with stories that presume exactly this sort of thing: "Oh, the PCs just care, that's RPing...yeah, there's a conflict because they COULD choose either way."

That's not a conflict.  That's...barely interesting.
Do you know how many D&D games I've run or been a part of that presume exactly that (ie: choice = conflict)? I can't begin to count, but I can easily say ever single one has seriously suffered for it.

Let's say I choose this scenario as my Kicker: "I just left home and am wandering the world." Point being, just because a player chooses something as a Kicker does not make it a Kicker. A Kicker implies a meaningful moral choice, not only to its characters, but to the audience as well.

[Christopher Kubasik]

Hi everyone,

I posted a reply to Jesse about this over at RPG.net.  (He invited me to play, so I'm muscling my way in with my overly-long suggestions.)

Take care,

Christopher