Revisiting Relationship Between Humanity and Premise

[Gordon C. Landis]

...I disagree with Fang....  The Humanity definition doesn't seem like a clear moral answer to me.

Even if you reduce the possible 'answers' to the Edwardian Premise to 'yes' and 'no?'

Besides, I wasn't saying that it did; I was saying that perhaps too much abstraction was being employed.

Second part first - yeah, it was Mike who explictly said yes, Humanity directly answers the Premise, and he confesses to a bit of absurd reduction there.  And I agree there is such a thing as too much abstraction, but . . .

. . .  on the first part - I'm not exactly sure how to consider reducing the possible answers to 'yes' or 'no', as by my reading/understanding, Sorcerer does NOT do so - it CAN be limited that way, I guess, but it sure doesn't have to be.  I'm still behind the idea of a spectrum to the Premise, and my big post still makes sense to me.  But if all you're saying is that even a yes/no approach still leaves room for important "how" details, I agree.

As to which is more helpful to Jesse and others who share his concerns - yes/no with a "how" spectrum, or an inherent spectrum of nuances between yes/no  . . .  I'd guess that'll depend on a lot of individual details.  Hopefully, they're both useful.

Gordon

[Ian Charvill]

Within the frame of the Biliomancy thing.

The player character is one of a set of twins, both are researching the same thing.  David is less driven and has a wife and children; Damian has no ties to the world and is very driven.  High-humanity; low-humanity.

During the course of play, David steals Damian's research, causes Damian to suffer from amnesia and swaps identities with him so that the now the world treats Damian as David, and Damian himself thinks of himself as David.  Damian - by this point at zero humanity - commits suicide on the evening of 'his' academic triumph, having rescued his brother from his fate.

The player has authored the theme "emotional connections is more important than knowledge" given that his character's brother's life is more important to him than the character's own.  It is a tale of redemption on Damian's part (an NPC).  The player character ends with zero humanity.

In other words if the player characters humanity is a thing that can be sacrificed for the benefit of others - or for that matter preserved at the expense of others - then the Premise can be addressed contrary to the run of Humanity.

Unless I'm misreading things somewhere.