Sorcerer and the Dicecapades

[bluegargantua]

Greetings,

 I'm working up a Sorcerer adventure to run as a one-shot in the next couple of weeks and I'm trying to head off a potential administrative problem:

 So as the GM, I want to hang onto the demon sheets.  Sure, the PCs will have some basic info on what it is the demons can actually do, but I and I alone will know the gory details about just what kind of bad-ass mofo they've Bound themselves to.  This seems important in pretty much any Sorcerer game.

 However, this means that I have to do all the die rolling for them.  Most of the time, this will be fine too, but during combat it's going to be a real pain in the butt.  Even if I decided to lump all the demons together and make one roll for them collectively, it doesn't take into account different power levels.  Ideally, I'd have a Palm or programmable calculator and just have it rattle off X number of d10 rolls.  Since I don't have any of that stuff (and dragging a laptop along seems like overkill), my current plan is to just roll from a pool of dice and record the results for the demons, then NPCs, etc.  But this seems like a real slowdown for the game as a whole.

 Do people have alternative plans, suggestions, stuff they've used in practice to handle this issue?

Thanks
Tom

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Tom,

Here's how I do it.

1) The players keep the demon sheets for their starting demons (they made them up, after all). I keep the sheets for all the others (I made them up, after all).

2) The GM always rolls dice for all demons in play. Exceptions might be made on occasion based on immediate logistics ("Hey, roll dice for Ignatz, thanks"). Bear in mind that in my games, all rolls are made openly; there's no GM-screen or anything similar.

Keeping track of who's who isn't very hard, although it is a task/skill to develop. Think of yourself as saving so much time on who-goes-when and no-wait-then-I discussions, which don't happen in Sorcerer, that you can afford a little mental effort on having a bunch of little pools sitting on the table and knowing which one is whose.

3) I usually talk it out during play. Each time someone, including me, states who's doing what during the "free and clear" phase of conflict, we put a little handful of dice down on the table. By the time everyone's satisfied with what the characters are doing, then the dice are already sitting there. All the bonuses get added along the way and at the end of this phase.

4) Then we all roll. Since everyone knows who's who, everyone can help the GM with which dice are whose as well. Share the logistic task among the group and it all becomes really easy.

Best,
Ron

[bluegargantua]

1) The players keep the demon sheets for their starting demons (they made them up, after all). I keep the sheets for all the others (I made them up, after all).

3) I usually talk it out during play. Each time someone, including me, states who's doing what during the "free and clear" phase of conflict, we put a little handful of dice down on the table. By the time everyone's satisfied with what the characters are doing, then the dice are already sitting there. All the bonuses get added along the way and at the end of this phase.

 ah, well those are the sticking points right there for me...

 First off, the PCs are tech geeks who've sorta stumbled onto the occult and don't have a clue about what they're getting into.  They've got a few high-tech gadgets that make it very easy for them to contact, summon and contain demons, but bindings aren't commonplace for them and without their gear they'd be lost (this all plays into some of the thematic bits of the scenario).  So I don't want them to know much about their demons.

 Second, and more prgamatically, the little pools of dice are fine -- if you've got enough dice.  I can't believe I'm saying this, but I don't have a very big collection of d10's and the players may not either.  So I was hoping to figure out a quick way to post up their scores quickly.

 Actually....I just figured it out.  On the demon sheet, I'll have the bottom half covered with random numbers from 1-10.  When I need a pool, I'll just circle the next X numbers for the roll.  Then cross them out at the end of the turn.  That'd probably fix things nicely.  For some reason the "list of numbers" trick always seems really stacked and fakey, but as long as it's random and I strictly march down the list, it should be just as good as rolling.

later
Tom

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Tom,

Forgot to say: welcome to the Forge! I'm glad you're here, and thanks for starting up with my game.

Your point #1 puzzles me a fair amount. I'm not sure at all why the player-characters' limited knowledge should be reflected in or constrain the actual players' knowledge of the demons. In a game like Sorcerer, the best way for someone to play an ignorant character is to know exactly what the character doesn't.

I agree with you that the list-of-numbers approach will do the trick. Tastes differ; I find it laborious compared with rolling the dice, personally, but if it works for you, go for it.

Best,
Ron

[bluegargantua]

Your point #1 puzzles me a fair amount. I'm not sure at all why the player-characters' limited knowledge should be reflected in or constrain the actual players' knowledge of the demons. In a game like Sorcerer, the best way for someone to play an ignorant character is to know exactly what the character doesn't.

I'm not sure if I'd buy that completely.  In fact, my impressions of Sorcerer is that the less the PCs know about any given NPCs "real" stats the better.  Even assuming a player won't meta-game their knowledge of a demon's true stats, I think that being in the dark about what it is they're dealing with adds a lot of genuine tension and uncertainty.

Here's a fun example:  I'm giving you a lunchbox.  Inside the lunchbox is a demon.  The process for dealing with demons is identical to the basic method described in the rulebook -- you'll even magically find the appropriate number of dice to roll in your pocket when you attempt something.  Therefore, you have perfect knowledge of how the system works and you can imagine a wide range of potential demons inside the lunchbox.

I tell you that the demon will confer Cloak, Perception (Sexy women who game) and Boost (Will).  The demon manifests as a stylish set of eyeglasses, it's Need is to Burn Anthills and I hint that it's Power level is low to middle-low (1-3 say).  I also tell you that the binding will be a Lore roll and when you check your pockets, you've got five dice to play with (with the descriptors Author and Gets Off On This Stuff).

Now, given what I've told you, and what you know, do you bind the demon?

On the one hand, yeah, this is a no-brainer.  You've got a bucket of dice without even trying and you're pretty sure you could get even more.  It's Need is trivial and the benefits are pretty sweet.

On the other hand -- what haven't I told you?  Where's the fly in this ointment?  Did I lie about the power levels?  Is it capable of more magical tricks?  What's its Desire?  

It's this doubt and uncertainty that I want to play upon.  I find that if players know an NPC's "stats" they consciously, or unconsciously let that knowlegde color their thinking.  But if they don't know, they don't know and their interactions with that NPC become a lot more interesting.

Amber is a great game for this.  You generally have a decent idea about which players are the "best" in a given attribute.  But it's never a sure thing and as time goes on, you become less and less sure.  Are you really still the strongest?  Has your Warfare gone up enough to take out your older sister?  Who's been pumping points into Psyche to unseat you?  Has anyone else walked the Logrus?  It's a mystery and part of the game is to find out as much about other people without revealing much about yourself.

In that respect, what the player's don't know (about NPCs) can only help the game as a whole.  

At least, that's what my two pennies gets me...
Tom

[Mike Holmes]

Hi Tom,

I think Ron overstates his ignorance.  :-)

Or, rather, I think that he is aware of (as am I and most players) play of the style that you are proposing. Where the players are as ignorant as possible regarding things of which the characters themselves are ignorant. Or at least ignorant of the kind of things that you state would proide tension. This is often seen by players and GMs as a way to some sort of feel that is often described as "Immersion" or such.

Ron's style of play is very different in that regard. That is, he does not believe in achiveing such a sense by such methods. He would rather the players know what's coming and have them make the characters act in more entertainning manners because of this (there is a lot of theory that goes behind all this, but I'd rather not get into the terminology just yet). If this sounds like a form of role-playing that cannot work, let me assure you that it can and does. And before you object that your players will not like said style, I'd ask if you'd actually tried it.

That said, you are certainly free to play the game any way you like.

The question is whether or not Sorcerer will work well using the style that you propose. Ron designed the game so that it would support his style of play. That said, these are not so far apart that you couldn't use your style. But you may find it a bit more difficult at least to play Sorcerer using the tactic you describe, and other tactics like it. Or, maybe more importantly, you might be missing out on some of what Sorcerer can do for you if you don't play the game more like Ron does.

Just so you are forwarned/informed.

Mike

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Tom,

Your viewpoint is certainly a valid one; it's the traditional GM/player knowledge distribution policy. However, and please don't read this as an attempt to change your mind, I think it best applies to all demons in Sorcerer except the one created by the player during character creation.

Speaking at least in terms of design goals, Sorcerer is built in many ways to confer some player power which doesn't exist in other games. The most obvious example is the player-written Kicker, which is emphatically not like (say) the Melodramatic Hook in Feng Shui or the typical "character hook" as described in many game texts. The starting demon is another good example - there's a reason why these demons are created by the players, already Bound to their characters. The reason is that the player has the power to define exactly what sort of messed-up relationship the character has already staked his or her life/soul/whatever on - and thus, as with the Kicker, to define exactly what this character's Problem is, as far as the game's events are concerned.

In many ways, these two rules and a few others like them are all about the GM becoming reactive to the players, such that Back-stories and Bangs are material to present rather than "the story" to discover. The story in Sorcerer is a matter of the player-characters' decisions, not a GM-controlled thing at all.

So what does a Sorcerer GM do? This story-to-be-told is prompted by the GM, but not controlled by him; the GM takes the Kickers and the starting demons as "cues" for what this story is all about, and gets to work on prompting it to occur - it only does occur when player-characters make decisions.

Also, lest I'm obscuring this point, the other demons in play do have exactly the black-box feature that you're described so well, so it's not as if the elements you're looking forward to enjoying are absent from play. They just don't apply (in the game as written) to the starting demons.

Best,
Ron

[bluegargantua]

Your viewpoint is certainly a valid one; it's the traditional GM/player knowledge distribution policy. However, and please don't read this as an attempt to change your mind, I think it best applies to all demons in Sorcerer except the one created by the player during character creation.

Speaking at least in terms of design goals, Sorcerer is built in many ways to confer some player power which doesn't exist in other games. The most obvious example is the player-written Kicker, which is emphatically not like (say) the Melodramatic Hook in Feng Shui or the typical "character hook" as described in many game texts. The starting demon is another good example - there's a reason why these demons are created by the players, already Bound to their characters. The reason is that the player has the power to define exactly what sort of messed-up relationship the character has already staked his or her life/soul/whatever on - and thus, as with the Kicker, to define exactly what this character's Problem is, as far as the game's events are concerned.

Yeah, I see where you're coming from on this point and in general.

I'm also deliberately screwing around with the game set-ups in this regard.  Because of the short, one-shot nature of the demo I'm running, I'm pre-generating characters to pick from.  More importantly, I'm providing characters who have yet to actually Bind a demon.  They have several demons "in storage" champing at the bit to be bound, but so far, the charcters haven't actually taken that final step.

But when the Kicker falls on their head, they've got to make a snap decision -- try to muscle through without miraculous help (an extremely tough option, but theoretically possible), or make a deal with a devil (and all the uncertainty that entails)?  I think there's a lot of potential for some tense, non-combat moments there.  Consider it a sort of prequel to a traditional Sorcerer game.  And it's this decision and the follow-on decisions that will really communicate the fundamental themes a Sorcerer game touches on.

But yes, I am taking away some creative control and yeah, the adventure itself will probably be a little more linear than it might otherwise be (although I've got some nifty relationship map stuff for them to butt up against).  However, the nature of the beast is that we're doing a one-off to try out a few different things in a short period of time.  If people really clamor for it, we'll sit down and draw out a more lengthy creation process and a whole new can of worms will open.  And I certainly think the game has enough in it to make additional revisitations fun.

later
Tom

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Tom,

Ah ... a one-shot demo deal is a whole 'nother kettle of fish. Having run several of these over the last six months, I agree that the usual heavy emphasis on player authorship isn't viable in that context, especially regarding Kickers. However, some does go a long way, and in my In Utero experiences, I found that full player knowledge of the starting Bound demon sheets is very helpful. Your call, though, certainly - and it sounds like you know what you're doing.

Going back to the point of this thread, however, I'm having a little trouble figuring out what you're asking for. It seems as if you have all the answers to the basic issues figured out for your goals.

(Mike overstates my preferred style of play slightly - I do not practice full, full player-knowledge of back-story, for instance.)

Best,
Ron

[bluegargantua]

Going back to the point of this thread, however, I'm having a little trouble figuring out what you're asking for. It seems as if you have all the answers to the basic issues figured out for your goals.

My question was more about what people do during play -- specifically, how to handle rolling lots of dice for lots of NPCs.  I think the random number sheet might be the best solution.  I'll give a post mortem in a few weeks when the shooting is over.

later
Tom

[Dotan Dimet]

To address the original issue for a moment, how about using a phone book?

When I ran the GODLIKE demo adventure Glazier at a con, there's a scene there where the PCs come up against an ambush of about 12 German soldiers, each of which gets to roll 6 dice.

So, using a suggestion from the Godlike mailing list, I pulled out my little black book, opened it at random, and read the last 6 digits of whatever phone number caught my eye.

Seemed to work pretty good, and let's you fudge too (to save PC lives; my phone book rolls much better than I do).

- Dotan