Sorcerer, 1st Game.

[Trevis Martin]

My group and I recently finished our first game of Sorcerer.  I will admit that I'm to blame being the Forge head among us.  This isn't the first Forge spawned game we have played (the first was Inspectres) but it was a great experience that we thoroughly enjoyed.

Prior to playing Sorcerer we were playing a game based on Games Workshops Inquisitor using Backstage Press' Theatrix rules set (Drifted with what I now realize is a lot more Author/Director power for players), which I have used off and on, alternating with (and sometimes combined with) a customized FUDGE rule set, for almost all my games since 1993. Most of those games, I admit, were Vampire which I had grown increasingly dissatisfied with. Because it usually degenerated into supers with fangs.  I came to the Forge in early January and read and read and read.  I became fascinated with the ideas advanced in System Does Matter and GNS and Other Matters of Role Playing Theory and read many many posts by certain long winded game designers who shall remain nameless. (But his initials are Ron Edwards.)   I purchased Sorcerer, and once I had read it, its supplements, and mini supplements.  (I believe I have the entire collection at this point.)  And I became unbearably anxious to see the system in Actual Play.

Well we played.  I was impressed.  The system delivers what it promises and that is intense, theme addressing, Story Now, role-play.  

First the group.  Just before I started this game we added a couple of players, both novices to role playing games.  The group consisted of four men and one woman  Three of the men who have been friends of mine since college (about ten years now.)  The last of which has only recently joined my game, being more of a tabletop wargamer.  The last two are my wargamer freind's older sister (also a friend of mine) and her son, who was our youngest player at 16.  The rest of us are in our late twenties, early thirties.

I was a little unsure about running Sorcerer for five (with three being the recommended number I found most often)  But I just wanted to play it so much I threw caution to the wind.  

I used the basic material for 'The Forbidden Tome' from Sorcerer and Soul because I had recently been reading a lot about r-maps and wanted to try the technique and didn't have immediate access to the novels mentioned.  We went with human empathy for the Humanity definition.

The Characters

Dennis played Herb Mullen, a computer programmer who was a hardcore atheist and skeptic.  A close friend of his committed suicide and Herb ended up with his stuff discovering some ancient books and his friends diaries in the process.  He realized that his friends death was from an attempt at a particular sorcererous ritual.  Unwilling to accept that his friend had been annihilated  he attempted one of the rituals but it seemed to fail.  Soon after he was in a horrendous car accident and  in a near death experience was offered a chance to come back by a demon.  (Herb's story inspired my Sorcerer, Embraced by the Dark thread).  Of course he accepted.  His demon was Teclis, an inconspicuous whose need was constant children's programming and who's desire was Corruption.

His kicker is that just after getting out of the hospital he returns home to find a pile of scrolls sealed with wax.  Each of them demand the return of an item that isn't named.  Each becoming increasingly threatening.  The last one is a final notice threatening a time limit of one week, which by the date on the scroll has just expired.

Karri played Dani Mirado a streetwise teenager who ran away from her foster parents a long time ago.  Her original family was murdered by gangsters years ago and, of course, she wanted revenge.  She is an apprentice to a Sorcerer who took care of her and taught her.  
Her demon is a passer, a dog she named Vandemar.  Its telltale is that it has retractable claws.  Its need is to start fights, its desire is Mayhem.
Her kicker is that she sees her long dead father on the street.

Rich played Bishop Etherlynk a.k.a. Brian Russell.  A goth rock musician just breaking out of the local scene into bigger things.  
He wants the rock and roll life and his new manager is really helping him with it.  He is on the cusp of signing a major record deal.   His demon is his manager, a passer named Thad who is helping him 'enhance' his songs. Thad's need is to be in the presence of intense emotion, his desire is corruption.  His skin shows as scales in the right light.  Bishops kicker is that a group of kids recently went on a violent shooting spree ending with their own suicides, and a lawsuit is being delivered.

Joey played John Podgurski, a newly hot comic book artist who does violent crime/gangster comics (ala Frank Miller.)  His demon is his pen, Bic. (I know, heh.) Its desire is to create, its need is fresh blood.  John's kicker is that the police have come to talk to him.  A series of murders they are investigating are matching the circumstances in his stories precisely.  The problem is the crimes are occurring just before the comic is published.

Mike played Simon Magus, the new head librarian at MIT (We set the game in the Boston/Cambridge area instead of Monterey), which has a large private collection of ancient manuscripts.  Simon is a classical sorcerer who recently conspired to and succeeded in murdering his master (the previous librarian.) with the help of his master's (now his) demon.  His demon is Mistopheles another inconspicuous.  Its desire is for corruption.  Its need is to snoop.  His kicker is that a woman claiming to be his master's daughter recently showed up looking for him and all but accused Simon of foul play and threatened exposure and revenge.  

The Game: Highlights and observations

I will say that Sorcerer seems to have zero Game Fat on it.  There is NOTHING in that book you can safely skip reading.  I've been through it several times now, or reading about some portion here on the Forge and then looking it up and I find myself saying 'How did I miss that the first ten times?' But that's neither here nor there.

Our game took about ten sessions averaging 3 hrs each.

Rich was determined that he was going to try to legitimately drive Bishop down to 1 humanity before turning him around.   We started with him being dropped by his new record company on account of the bad publicity but that didn't grab.  Not enough personal impact.  The answer was in Rich's relationships.  He had invented a little sister for himself.  Bishops little sister idolizes him and since Bishop had run away from a strict family to follow his rock and roll dreams.  I had her show up on his doorstep doing the same.  That grabbed him.  He was portraying Bishop completely into sex, drugs, alcohol, groupies, etc.  And suddenly he has his little sister, who idolizes him, and loves his music, and who he cares for, and this puts his dreams in conflict with her.  Plus Bishop was not acknowledging the consequences of his songs which were being spiked by his demon with Taint causing terrible riots and whatnot, with Bishops full knowledge.  Our reasoning was that taint caused the songs to have a real visceral impact on people.  

On top of all that  his sister is getting in with the wrong crowd.  Specifically Peter Greene, the pornographer, and his little cult. She becomes friends, through Greene, with Michelle.  When he comes down on her like a parent, she rebels.  It was great.  It played itself.  On top of that I had his parents show up looking for her.  Everyone at the table said 'oh my god!' It was even better when his demon, Thad, suggested to him that he summon another demon to act as her protection.  I saw Rich's eyes light up as he did it.   Also Michelle was obsessed with him romantically.  (As Ron says in Soul, Yikes!) I will say that through various terrible acts, Bishop had probably the highest body count in the game.   One of the best moments of the game came near the end.  Bishop had been driven down to 1 humanity and he came to a decision where he decided to have his demon  kill someone (the big badguy) which required the humanity roll.   We're rolling ten sided dice and I rolled a 5 for the humanity check.  Everyone held their breath on his roll.  He just made it.

Karri's character Dani discovered that her father was a sorcerer, and that her current master was in the coven with him and two others who were responsible for letting the big bad evil demon that haunts the piece (Celene) out of a contain and that Celene had been trying to knock them all off .  This brought about a great confrontation scene with her mentor about the past.  Also when Dani tracked her father down, they contained him in a room (on suspicion of being a demon.)  Her mentor thought he was a passer (doppleganger type) and her father stated that he had a possessor that had been bound to Killian (the sorcerer who had been killed in the backstory.) , but his life depended on it so it couldn't be banished without killing him (an idea which also made it to my other one sheet post.)
Her mentor stated that for her own good it should be banished and he would do so.  Dani ended up stewing over it for a while and decided finally, and amidst many other events,  that if he was possessed she didn't want him to continue.  She took a humanity roll for leaving her father to die.

I'm going to avoid going into all the characters as this is considerably long already but all of them had similar structure to their stories and the climax did kinda just suddenly condense.

For my own part I found a few things.  It was hard to get everyone to speak up at first about the humanity definition and other things and my own tenuous grasp on the issues didn't help it much.  Now, after playing it once, I have a much better idea of what I should prepare and what really needs to be worked out as a group.

I made a major error in not really defining the types of sorcery available.  We made it kinda general ritually stuff but it came across to me, and I think the others, as bland.  It was harder for the few rituals in the game, to get bonus dice because I think the players didn't have a good idea of what the sorcerery was like to improvise it.   I didn't realize how much of a help it would have been until the threads on Ron's necromancy threads (I know Ron, its right there in the book.  I don't read instructions well, hence my comments about Game Fat earlier.) Next time I run it (we've moved to Donjon for a bit) I will be much more explicit about all these things.  

When we got into this game I kept saying I was going to be aggressive about the scene framing because that was my input to the game as a player was to help drive the situation.  That was one of the techniques I learned about here that I really wanted to implement.   I did it a few times but by and large I fell on my old habits and basically chickened out.   When I did do it, it worked pretty well.  Its something I need to work on.

Another bit, on demons.  The ones they had were all pretty big monsters will wise.  I wondered if I should roll everytime a sorcerer commands his demon just get guidance on how the demon is feeling about the command.  Overall I kept track anyway and when the characters learned punish and started throwing it about, well, they had a lot of unhappy demons.

It took several sessions and a few hints for the other players to really get how much power they had as Sorcerers.  It also took a while for the bonus dice thing to catch on, although the players were amazingly lucky with most of their rolls.   I did the best I could about not making the whole backstory the most important thing, and putting the relationship map right out there.  I had one player (great guy, pretty old school role-player) who was determined to find my plot and really pursued the elements of backstory that came out.  I felt I made it clear that he didn't have to look for them in that way but after that I didn't argue with it too much, being the word of god and all.  His kicker stuff didn't work as well (which I think was my failing)  I ended up deprotagonizing  him a little at a point but I openly acknowledged it and we did it over.  Still, he's hard to read, and its difficult to tell when he feels strongly about anything.

One thing I would like to say.  I have all of the Sorcerer books and have read a great deal of the threads on the Forge and I wish the core book really matched the idea of Sorcerer as it seems to be played now, particularly in combat and action scenes.  The online support is great but I can't help but think of how much clearer an updated core would be.

But I really, really enjoyed this game.  There are so many things about it that really juice me and I am confident that  the next time we play it will be even more our own creation and will no doubt be even  better.

The best compliment came when we started our Donjon game last week and Karri said, "I miss Dani, I hope I can play her again."  How cool is that.

Regards,

Trevis

[Ron Edwards]

Wow!

I wish I could ask something insightful and all amazing-like, but you seem to have covered it all. Your request for an updated core book is duly noted (and stuffed into a canvas sack, which is then closed with twisted wire, and dropped into the river ...).

Um. Any thoughts on the Big Four Outcomes? How about any reinforcement across the players regarding scenes' contents and character actions? And which NPCs just kind of fell into your own role-playing as if they took over?

Best,
Ron

P.S. Don't look at me like that about the revised core book, Ralph. I can feel your look.

[Jeffrey Straszheim]

Trevis,

Sounds really cool man.  I'm interested in the part about the player, the "old shool" guy, whose kicker didn't work out well.  Which kicker was it?  What happened?

All also interested in more specifics regarding the sorcerer-demon relations.  Did you end up using a lot of Will rolls?  Was it hard to judge when demon's should enter the "brat" stage, or even get worse?  Sorcerer is very informal regarding these things.

Regarding too many players, boy I wish I had your problem :)

[Valamir]

Your request for an updated core book is duly noted (and stuffed into a canvas sack, which is then closed with twisted wire, and dropped into the river ...).

Heh, heh, heh.   Slowly Trevis, our collective force of will will cause it to happen.  All's I know is when he does finally issue a 2nd edition (and you will Ron...oh yes...you willll) I better be mentioned in the dedication ;-)

[J B Bell]

Awesome!

Just a quick note here on Relationship Maps.  Often when I explain the notion, people (well, rpg'ers) roll their eyes at the "soapiness" of it.  And yet, this really is it, man.

"So, you see, the Lich actually founded this whole civilization!!!"

Yawn . . .

"And as it turns out, the super-spy is really a deep Soviet agent!!!"

Zzzzz . . .

"Your kid sister is hanging out with you and wants to live just like you, and oh by the way, your mom and dad are at the door right now asking about her."

Holy shit!

I think a lot of frustrated narrativistically-inclined GMs have built really intricate backstories with those nifty revelations only to have them flop; I know I have.  It's so great when you give the players what they want, they light right up, and you find out that's where that satisfying feeling that's been eluding you really is.

Kudos to you & the rest of your play group, Trevis.

--JB

[Jeph]

I really have to get Sorcerer.

When the revised edition comes out. ;^)

I think a lot of frustrated narrativistically-inclined GMs have built really intricate backstories with those nifty revelations only to have them flop; I know I have.  It's so great when you give the players what they want, they light right up, and you find out that's where that satisfying feeling that's been eluding you really is.

I think the reason all the "The captain's been infected by the alien all along!" things don't evoke a HOLY FUCKING SHIT reaction is that they, to put it bluntly, don't matter a pinch. They don't affect the character; they're not tied in. However, when your kid sister gets drawn into things, that really has meaning to your portrayed persona.

Or something.
--Jeff

[Christopher Weeks]

Your request for an updated core book is duly noted (and stuffed into a canvas sack, which is then closed with twisted wire, and dropped into the river ...).

Heh, heh, heh.   Slowly Trevis, our collective force of will will cause it to happen.  All's I know is when he does finally issue a 2nd edition (and you will Ron...oh yes...you willll) I better be mentioned in the dedication ;-)

I've actually been thinking (having read the four Sorcerer books all since GenCon) that a revision might be in order too.  But the funny thing is that I'm not sure why.  Organization of key points, followed by specific examples might be the main issue, though certainly such rerendering would be oportune for fixing typo-grade errors.

Would it help if we lined up to prepay?  (Or is it an art thing?)

Chris

[Trevis Martin]

Hi Ron,

Um. Any thoughts on the Big Four Outcomes? How about any reinforcement across the players regarding scenes' contents and character actions? And which NPCs just kind of fell into your own role-playing as if they took over?

Rich(Bishop) was the one who was mainly driving towards one of the big four outcomes,  either the outlaw triumphant or renouncing sorcerery.  He stated this openly in perhaps the first or second session of play.  This caused everyone in the play group to be really interested in those decisions and often to make comments and suggestions about it.  

We definately had a lot of input flying around about characters during set up.  Across the scenes there were definitely opinions expressed about what should happen, when bonus dice were appropriate, and when a humanity roll should happen.   As far as NPC's the three that were most natural were Kim (Bishops (Rich) little sister), Xavier, Dani's (Karri) mentor, Dani's father, and, believe it or not, Michelle.  Michelle was interesting because I pretty much played her as a schitzoid, that is the vision of how things were in her head were how they were and people were little more than objects in what she wanted.  She decided she wanted to be a rock star's girlfriend, then that she was in love, then that she wanted to be a singer.  (She told Bishop that he proposed to her which he didn't remember  from chemical abuse.)  She got pretty violently upset when he wouldn't let her sing at one of his shows (another record company was going to watch the show.)  That's when he started to get the clue that she was plugged in a little differently.  

Finally, the demons were actually pretty fun to play.

The NPC's in general were easier than usual to play because I followed a bit of advice I found here somewhere in that all these people were active in the situation and not merely static, that they wanted something out of it.  It was an R-Map thread I believe.

Jeff,

I'm interested in the part about the player, the "old shool" guy, whose kicker didn't work out well. Which kicker was it? What happened?

He was the librarian who killed his master and the daughter came along and accused him of it.  He really went after the whole 'big bad book' thing and spent a lot of time doing research various places as well as having his demon spy on stuff.  

I put it down to a few things.  Mike tends to play pretty hyper competent characters.  I'm not sure if this is a defensive reaction or no.  In any case he had the highest lore (5) of everyone.  He provided some relationships but nothing that really was a soft underbelly for him. After we played his kicker scene he wasn't supposed to casually ignore it but that's pretty much what happened, he didn't take any direct action, he just scoffed at her.  I kept planning to introduce a scene that spiked it and I did when another woman making the same claim came in for her father's stuff which caused him to wonder who the first one was.   Still it remained a minor theme at best.
  Of all the people that the lack of sorcery definition hurt, it was probably Simon(Mike), because he was the one with the most sorcerous knowledge.  He did discover important info about the book and snooped in the Hawthorne's mansion etc.  As I said, he was looking for my plot and went into what I understand to be Call of Cthulu? mode.  I really wasn't sure how to handle it.  
 Also the initial set up meeting were a little fragmented.  It started with just Dennis and Mike.  Then suddenly Rich came back and Karri and Joey wanted to try it.  So we went through at least two set up sessions.  Dennis rethought his character in the second set up session to fit more closely with what else was happening, and he generally responded to other people's suggestions.   By contrast Mike didn't really change from the first set up to the second, and the links between him and the others weren't very strong.  
 He tended to not cross with the other characters too much which means most of his scenes were solo with me.  In the final analysis though I think I failed him t as a GM by not really getting his character the way he did and by not finding a better way to up the pressure on his kicker.

All also interested in more specifics regarding the sorcerer-demon relations. Did you end up using a lot of Will rolls? Was it hard to judge when demon's should enter the "brat" stage, or even get worse? Sorcerer is very informal regarding these things.

It was really pretty easy to judge.  I kept track of their needs and their sorcerer's attitude towards them and since most of them were interested in corruption it was pretty easy for me to decide when to be compliant and when not to be.  (Mikes demon was very trecherous.  It was discovered that he was feeding information to the bad guy) I did use will rolls in combat situations.  When they started punishing their demons none of the demons liked it.

Regarding too many players, boy I wish I had your problem :)

Indeed.  :)   Part of the reason it lasted ten sessions is that I had to bounce around to five people.  Three to four hours of this turned out to be pretty exhausting.  

regards,

Trevis

[Jeffrey Straszheim]

Hey Trevis,

In the final analysis though I think I failed him as a GM by not really getting his character the way he did and by not finding a better way to up the pressure on his kicker.

I'm just curious, how does Mike feel about what happened?  Did he have fun?  Does he wish that he'd discovered more of a CoC style mystery waiting for him?  It sounds to me as if he was playing a bit of a turtle, and you can hardly blame yourself for that.

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Trevis,

Great post.

Rich(Bishop) was the one who was mainly driving towards one of the big four outcomes, either the outlaw triumphant or renouncing sorcerery. He stated this openly in perhaps the first or second session of play. This caused everyone in the play group to be really interested in those decisions and often to make comments and suggestions about it.

We definately had a lot of input flying around about characters during set up. Across the scenes there were definitely opinions expressed about what should happen, when bonus dice were appropriate, and when a humanity roll should happen.

I'm quoting all of the above because both points highlight a crucial issue during Sorcerer sessions - full-group engagement. Now, I'm not talking about "immersion" in the sense of staying in-character or whatever. I'm talking about social engagement, and emotional commitment to everyone's shared enjoyment.

... believe it or not, Michelle. Michelle was interesting because I pretty much played her as a schitzoid, that is the vision of how things were in her head were how they were and people were little more than objects in what she wanted. She decided she wanted to be a rock star's girlfriend, then that she was in love, then that she wanted to be a singer. (She told Bishop that he proposed to her which he didn't remember from chemical abuse.) She got pretty violently upset when he wouldn't let her sing at one of his shows (another record company was going to watch the show.) That's when he started to get the clue that she was plugged in a little differently.

Have you ever seen the animated Batman series? The Joker was featured frequently (voice actor: Mark Hamill, who was amazing), and although not all of those episodes were well-written, some of them were flawless, as was the movie associated with the series, Mask of the Phantasm. I bring it up because the Joker was characterized by these totally wild mood swings. I mean, bonkers. He'd be happy and imaginative and theatrical, and then he'd be utterly lethal, and then sentimental and soppy. It's really terrifying, and yet also fascinating to watch. You can understand the specific mood or goal at any one moment, but also recognize how totally wrong it is relative to what just came before.

I like playing the occasional NPC in this way. People sometimes play psychos as one-note-Johnnys, which is too bad. I play them as perfectly understandable within each instance, but the instances themselves don't add up.

Finally, the demons were actually pretty fun to play.

In my necromancy game, I enjoyed the players' occasional cry of "Demon logic!" that began to arise after a couple of sessions. They knew these things were whacked. They knew they were totally sincere, and that whatever the demon was up to made perfect sense relative to its Need and Desire. It was a good affirmation of play for me.

I really like your analysis and breakdown of Mike's experience with and approach to play. Both the GM-side (making sure a good solid unifying aesthetic is going on regarding sorcery, not Crossing) and the player-side (similarly not Crossing, focusing on "poke around" play, and not connecting with others' character generation) are crucial issues.

Best,
Ron