The Dead Are Too Much With Us...

[Nev the Deranged]

Alright.  I was stoked to be playing in this campaign, until our chargen session last night.

Now I'm on fire.  Next weekend can't get here fast enough.  Even though I'm convinced I will crash and burn, roleplaying wise (I've been mundane far too long), I can't wait to get into this game!

I was thinking about the phrase I tossed out for Craig's (my character) description that Frank and Liz (it was Liz, right?  I suck with names, my apologies) seemed to like; "he looks like he was beaten from a block of iron".  

The more I think about it, the more I like it.  If this character were to be summed up in one word, it would be HARD.  This is a guy who likes to test his body against other things to see which will break first.  His dojo doesn't have a punching bag- it has a plate of sheet-steel with knuckle dents in it.  The clearing in the woods he trains in is ringed with naked trees from where he's kicked the bark off of them.  He holds four international speed-breaking titles, and they're meaningless to him, because he practices his speed breaking with two by fours and paving blocks.

This man is not subtle, flashy, or especially cunning (although he does have good instincts and can think on his feet).  He's all go and no show.  He's skilled, sure (although I think of him now as more of a brawler than a technical-minded martial artist) and strong.. but his real power comes from the simple fact that he's beaten his body so much and worked it so relentlessly that pain, fatigue, and injury are as much a part of his lifestyle as breathing and eating.  He causes them and accepts them without really thinking about it.

Of course, a hail of bullets will put him down as easily as the quadruplegic or the old newsstand guy =>

On another note, I wonder how much it would f*ck with his sensibilities if it turns out that the secret to his father's stellar career as a badass (and perhaps part of the motivations behind his decline into substance abuse and murder-by-victory) is because Corbet had a demon of his own... ?

Also, I'm considering the more modern setting... although Corbet was involved in the kumite and dealings with the yakuza (both, as Ron pointed out, very 80's), I wonder if Craig's similar career is in a similar realm (IE shadowy, quasi-illegal) or if he's gone the more public route, EG the UFC or some similar organization.

Although as I recall, the climax of Corbet's story was that his career ended with the very public (possibly even televised?) death of his opponent in an official match... which doesn't go with the kumite thing at all, but whatever.  Those details can be worked out in play if they become meaningful, or Ron can do his magic with them.

Another thing I realized is that Sorcerer would suck with anything less than a very good GM.  The openness of the system demands a LOT from the GM in a much more creative fashion than, say, creating a dungeon crawl for D&D.   (Which, I guess makes the three of us pretty damn lucky!)  With that in mind, I don't know if I'd ever be up to it myself... which is fine because I'd really like to relax somewhat and let someone else do most of the work for a while.  I've been beating my head against creative walls for so long, it's nice to have a breather.

Anyway, I'm really looking forward to the game, I think we've got the makings of something pretty damned awesome, and I can't wait to see what mayhem Ron has in store and what kind of dynamics we will work out in response to it.  

peace out , Game ON!!

[Nev the Deranged]

PS. if this belongs in Actual Play, my apologies and feel free to move it.

[Ron Edwards]

Hiya,

Nah, we can talk about it right here too.

I'm also stoked about this game. What's kind of neat is that although you might perceive the process as being heavy-GM, I actually perceive it as being heavy-player. Think of all the amazing back-story and NPC stuff that came out of last night's get-together - none of which I made up. All I provided was a context for sorcery, and you guys were off to the races.

I especially liked the sequence of ...

1. sorcerer descriptors
2. price and cover
3. demon concept, including the binding context
4. kicker creation

It's quite a layered process. One player, for instance, after #1 and #2, had a bit of a "neutral" character, whose main conflict concept at the moment was simply trying to recover his memory. I didn't object to this, because I knew #3 and #4 were coming. Halfway through #3, he said, "You know, that whole memory thing is unnecessary; this guy's already in all kinds of trouble," and we were then all set to see a real Kicker get created.

Dave's (Nev's) character: bad-ass martial arts with parents issues
Beth's character: almost-completely paralzyed political mover and shaker
Frank's character: best described as a recovering cannibal

... and all of them are good people, that's the best part about it. We are all really into seeing them come out OK, and all the players seem pretty doubtful that they will.

Best,
Ron

[Nev the Deranged]

I'm also stoked about this game. What's kind of neat is that although you might perceive the process as being heavy-GM, I actually perceive it as being heavy-player. Think of all the amazing back-story and NPC stuff that came out of last night's get-together - none of which I made up. All I provided was a context for sorcery, and you guys were off to the races.

Yeah, but now you have to do all the work of weaving our stories into the background you've already got, (or making one up from scratch), which is, yeah, the fun part.

But then, DURING PLAY, you'll have to riff off of our actions and keep all that sh!t straight in your head, the relationships, the ideas, etc...  Less prep work perhaps than a dungeon crawl, but during the game you don't have encounter matrices and all that crap to draw from.

That's not a bad thing, I'm just saying it's a lot of on the fly creativity.  It's cool, and I'm really looking forward to seeing us pull it together =>  Sorcerer is as close to "freeforming with dice" as I can think of.

[Mike Holmes]

It's funny, Nev, because I find this sort of GMing to be waaaay easier than anything where I have to refer to notes during play. Basically, and you'll see this, there's not much time for "making things up", it all just sorta happens. The players will be so busy, that Ron will be just, "OK, where is this happening?" Almost more audience than GM. Just prodding things together when neccessary.

Pretty easy.

Mike

[Ron Edwards]

Hi there,

I agree with Mike. Most role-players assume that this mode of GMing must be agonizingly difficult, because they have, just as you describe, Dave, some kind of "reaction matrix" in their minds. Nope. It's only a matter of playing NPCs and staying emotionally in tune with everyone's creative efforts as I play bass.

I'm not sure "easy" is quite the right word, but it's definitely not the overwhelming labor that it might look like based on much role-playing during the late 80s through the 90s, especially the texts of that time.

Best,
Ron