Sorcerer's demon rules

[Eero Tuovinen]

I happen to remember an issue with the build of Sorcerer I've held for quite some time, and being in front of a computer, will proceed to tell all about it. First some background.

When I first got Sorcerer a couple of years ago, I was struct mostly by the clarity of the vision and theoretical sharpness of the work. But I didn't like the game itself one bit. It felt clumsy and arbitrary with it's rules system, and information-inefficient with the dice mechanics.

After letting the game brew a little while in my head, it however started to grow on me. Especially after getting it explained here (the explicit premise encoded in humanity and demons) I happen to think it overall quite brilliant in it's execution of morality play. The game after all has the same analytic acuity that GSN is loved for.

Now, there is however still one major design point I find a stumbling block in my understanding of the whys of the design. For one reason or another I haven't caught any explanation for it in the numerous conversations, so I'll ask myself. Obviously I'd like Ron's answer best, but if anyone else has a theory I'll be glad to hear it.

The problem is this: why, when the game otherwise is quite economical in it's mechanics, does it have so many demon rules? There is rules for demon types and even a list of kewl powerz which I find especially hard to understand. The question: is this just a residue of the times (the game is quite old, after all), or is there a reason for it to be executed like that? Perhaps there is some thematic content encoded (like the infamous "no mind control" feature), or is it a pacing thing, or what? Especially as the whole system is a burden for the GM, and almost totally inconsequential for the players.

I myself would find it sensible to portray different demon powers by, for example, dice pools named on the spot when designing the demons. If you want a big demon that anyway resides in a thimble, why not just say it? Why agonize over whether the demon needs "Big" or "Alternative Form" or whatever? It seems quite many people, when playing the game, spend time wondering how to portray an effect they want. Do they know something I don't?

I find it perfectly understandable if this is just something that would be done differently today, but I'd like to make sure there isn't something I've missed. In the nineties this was, after all, the way you did kewl powerz (with a point buy from a list), so it's believable that this is just that.

[Christopher Weeks]

I think the rules for demon types are superfluous and somewhat awkward.  A few detailed exemplars showing how to build those types from the powers would have been, in my estimation, cleaner.  But I like some things about the powers.  

Foremost of these is the kinds of limits that are placed on what exactly a demon can do.  Obviously, any group can modify the rules in any way, but as a default based on Ron's extensive experience, I trust the limits that he found pleasing.

I also (90s or not) have a love/hate relationship with kewl powerz.  I really like some of the things that I've read here about combining demon powers in innovative ways.  I've been toying with building a table where the powers are listed along both axes and the cross-reference lists cool secondary effects that either I invent or seem to be commonly accepted.  But I'd hate for demon powers to be as crunchy as building powers in Champions!

The fact that there have been very few (anyone keeping a list?) instances of powers that a demon ought to be able to have being suggested that the system won't accommodate is a testament to effectiveness.

I imagine that you could devise a system of more open-ended powers based on flexible definition and dice-pools at demon creation, as you suggest, and still tie it into the Demon Power mechanic so that not much else would have to be modified.  How would you limit demons?  If you try it out, I'd be keen to read about the results.  And I think Ron's answer will be enlightening too.

Chris

[colin roald]

I myself would find it sensible to portray different demon powers by, for example, dice pools named on the spot when designing the demons. If you want a big demon that anyway resides in a thimble, why not just say it?

I'd guess it's for the same reason that the list of stat descriptors ("Natural Vigor" and whatnot) are officially fixed -- Ron wanted to constrain the game within one reasonably coherent vision of How Things Work.  I'm not sure I entirely buy the reasoning, but hell, I haven't actually even played the game yet.

The fact that there have been very few (anyone keeping a list?) instances of powers that a demon ought to be able to have being suggested that the system won't accommodate is a testament to effectiveness.

On that note, I have a question going back to http://indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?p=7496&sid=e9f8277e57be56c087d07d1eabd1f8b7#7496">Art-Deco Melodrama:

The drug shipment is coming in - and the plane vanishes. Yup, it just never touches down.  ...
Note for future: have a big black evil void open up in the air and the plane come thundering out of it to crash somewhere. Of course, all the drugs it carried and all personnel are gone.

How would you implement this in the rules?   I suppose Travel(teleport), Transport, Perception(destination), and Big -- but taking the definitions strictly, I still don't see that it quite works.  Big is supposed to only get up to "mastodon-sized", which is still smaller than a plane, and Transport is supposed to only affect passengers with Stamina up to the demon's Power. (Of course, taken literally, and why not, that says nothing about the amount of inanimate material the demon can carry.)

I'm not saying I wouldn't just make something to handle this (cool scenes trump rules technicalities) but I'm curious if there *is* something there already that I'm missing.

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

This is a good thread topic, but my own response to it will probably be the least satisfying to anyone.

PART ONE
Basically, I had never seen any role-playing game accomplish the following:

1) Components-based design ...

2) ... for a limited set of game features (rather than "everything costs points") ...

3) ... without ratios in the math.

As I imagine Rick McCann to have thought when designing the initial magic system in The Riddle of Steel, I had no interest at all in envisioning what might be done with the system and considering limits upon that. It was pure engine: "if it works like X, then whatever X produces will work out all right."

Dice of effect are always dice of effect; scores are always scores; in-game aesthetics always apply as bonuses or penalties; in-game justifications are always irrelevant.

PART TWO
What puzzles me a bit in this thread is the hanging-the-picture problem. That problem goes like this:

"A little to the left. Just a bit ... uh-huh ... wait! Too far!

"Now further up ... no! You tilted it! Damn it!

"Why can't you hang a picture properly? OK, OK ... now leave it like that and then ... what? No, it's not tilted, it's fine, just do what I say, all right?

"What? I told you, or I was trying to, move it further up. But now it's all right. Bump it to the right. OK - perfect.

"Oh wait, let me look at it a while. Something's not right, but I'm not sure what."

Then another guy comes along and says, "Man, that picture is hung all wrong. Here, you stand there and do what I say, and it'll be perfect."

So, one demon ability that says, "Oh, do whatever?" More demon abilities to fill in the cracks? Same demon abilities, but lots more examples of customizing and combining them? These are three really different things and, frankly, almost incompatible.

PART THREE
Regarding the plane, I just see it as Transport. The demon who does it doesn't have to go anywhere; nor does demon itself have to be Big (Big does not apply to targets); nor does it have to see where the plane is going - in fact, it makes more sense just to send it anywhere-else and damn the consequences.

The only consideration is that a plane is a helluva lotta in-game-world "stuff," and so the demon's Power would have to be hefty.

Best,
Ron

[Eero Tuovinen]

Hello,
As I imagine Rick McCann to have thought when designing the initial magic system in The Riddle of Steel, I had no interest at all in envisioning what might be done with the system and considering limits upon that. It was pure engine: "if it works like X, then whatever X produces will work out all right."

Dice of effect are always dice of effect; scores are always scores; in-game aesthetics always apply as bonuses or penalties; in-game justifications are always irrelevant.

So you see all these listed powers as fundamentally different from each other, and therefore they need different names and mechanics? Would you say that this is a "elegant simulation" kind of thing, going back to Hero and it's idea of "effect matters, not the color"? And how does this synch with all the other rules in their minimalism and avowed moral focus?

What I'm getting at is, isn't there really any reason other than familiarity and exactness to use the list-of-powers-method? I'm thinking that I'd much rather play and especially gm the game with a simpler demon creation, something more akin to the character rules. If there's no hidden ties to other rules, I might as well adapt a little something from my own superhero game, for example, as the subject matter of superpowers is essentially the same.

There is some problems with information loss, but those could be largely alleviated by analysing the limits the listed powers enforce - it's mostly a Situation thing, it seems to me, to define what demons overall are able to do in the game. There's some limits that affect the fundamental questions, like the lack of mind control, but those should be easy to just note and avoid. It seems to me, you see, that there is more things demons are able to do than what they cannot.

There's quite many ways to go about this. I wouldn't think it unreasonable for the exploration minded to just assume that every demon is one of a type of demon, and that type to be essentially similar to Cover, represented by Power. Then it's just a matter of defining by GM fiat what a given type of demon is capable of. "Hey, I want to summon a Tzapanesca, one of those pescy bodyhoppers. Gimme power five or above!", that kind of thing. Then just roll roll away the Power against appropriate resistance when the demon tries something that it can do. What more does one need, when it's the GM anyway who decides what a given demon does?

If one needs some more definition (which I largely don't; a bodyhopper is a bodyhopper after all), it's conceivably possible to just list what the demon is capable of: one clause per point of lore. One would imagine that these would standardize relatively quickly amongst a play group, but that would be less jarring than the abstract system game uses now.

Is there some hidden problem here I don't perceive? Differences between the strength of different powers can conceivably be compensated for by demanding more lore, defining more narrow/wide powers or any other way freeform skill lists are compensated in games like Heroquest and such.

I've felt that the mechanical aspect of demon creation is especially hard to keep apart from the scary unknown aspect of them, for some reason. I do it in other games, but here the contrast between how the demon is built and how it is perceived is jarring. I as a GM rarely know what a demon is capable of before it seems either logical or necessary for it to be.

It comes to mind that maybe my reluctance conserning the system stems from a deeply rooted habit of ignoring or bending rules in the way of the old simulationist paradigm. Maybe I'm looking for something that allows me to say in the middle of the game something along the lines of "hmm... apparently the Tzapanesca never told about it's command over deva of the air. What a surprise!" This would be a bad thing, as it'd easily remove pressure from the player characters, what with a GM messing with established situation to favor his own resolution. I'll have think if this is really behind my wish for a more lightweight system, or if there is a genuine possibility and need for lightening it up.

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Eero,

You wrote,

So you see all these listed powers as fundamentally different from each other, and therefore they need different names and mechanics? Would you say that this is a "elegant simulation" kind of thing, going back to Hero and it's idea of "effect matters, not the color"?

... and both of these confuse me badly. The section of my post that you quoted seems fundamentally opposed to the first issue - the listed abilities do not differ in mechanics, is part of my point. The different names are spheres of influence which the same (or same variants on) mechanics are applied over and over.

The second issue is more complicated and perhaps it should wait for my Ode to Champions essay (currently in draft form). I suggest that the original Champions was not used by many people as "elegant simulation" at all but rather as Narrativist engine, although the eventual Hero System and Champions 4th edition were indeed built on that principle. And yes, the "effect matters" principle is what I used, but not in any way according to Simulationist priorities.

However - let's not dig deep into the details of this exchange. The second half of your post interests me far, far more.

As I've written about a few times, I consider most freeform or "oh, just make it up" mechanics to be badly flawed for nearly any approach to role-playing, and most especially for Gamist and Narrativist play. I think improvisational features of play can be great - but they are not the same thing as "vague" or "system-less."

Perhaps I would understand better if you were to re-write the demon abilities rules in a way which you perceive to be consistent with the rest of the game. As I see them, they are consistent, so it's hard for me to understand where you're coming from.

Finally, I think your final paragraphs are extremely important, and your self-analysis sounds very likely to me.

Best,
Ron

[Valamir]

If I'm following the idea right...the change doesn't seem to be a very major one that being suggested.

Currently a Demon has Power, Lore, and Stamina with Lore defining how many powers from the very precise list the demon has access to.

It sounds to me (correct me if I'm wrong here) that all that is being proposed is losing the precise list in favor of player/GM defined HeroQuest-esque keywords.

Mechanically you'd still be worried about slinging the demon's power in dice around and tracking useage vs Stamina, but now instead of stressing over whether a demon who can transform into a monster twice the size of a Mastadon needs to take Big twice...you just have a keyword/phrase "Transforms into ferocious 50 ton beast" with some color notes and call it a day.

I think some of Eero's questions were thus based around the worry that there was some secret hidden balancing act or design agenda going on with the precise list of powers that would be upset by ditching them for a more openly defined list.

Is that about right?

[Eero Tuovinen]

So you see all these listed powers as fundamentally different from each other, and therefore they need different names and mechanics? Would you say that this is a "elegant simulation" kind of thing, going back to Hero and it's idea of "effect matters, not the color"?

... and both of these confuse me badly. The section of my post that you quoted seems fundamentally opposed to the first issue - the listed abilities do not differ in mechanics, is part of my point. The different names are spheres of influence which the same (or same variants on) mechanics are applied over and over.

OK, the different powers actually use the same mechanics with slight variations, I used the word inexactly. The differing principle seems to be the need to give guidelines for different "modalities", to use a continental philosophical term; one power for movement, one for perception, one for shapechange and so on. Would the need for different powers spring from the need to give quantifiable numbers for different modalities? Like, the need for a separate shapechange power springing from a wish to tell players of the game that shapechanging happens for minutes at once.

Just pondering the rationale, no need to understand.

Perhaps I would understand better if you were to re-write the demon abilities rules in a way which you perceive to be consistent with the rest of the game. As I see them, they are consistent, so it's hard for me to understand where you're coming from.

The lack of consistency I perceive is largely in the sheer bulk; the demon powers are a list five pages long, with the types taking a page more. That's a lot to my mind. Lists of powers are a dull part of most games, to boot. I was just wondering whether it could be done in a more lightweight manner, with intuitive rules that generate necessary powers on the spot.

One way would indeed be to copy Heroquest: just trust in the genre convention and let the builder of the demon invent the powers. One power per lore, or even two or three lore for some extra-powerful and disruptive powers. It'd be much easier to parse the game if a demon had "hellish insight" instead of "Boost lore". It would perchance be more interesting mechanically too, as the type of insight could make it useful for a range of tasks not corresponding to the basic attributes, just like in HQ.

Another possibility would of course be keeping the list, but making it so small it becomes a thematic statement in itself, instead of reminding one of simulationist completionist desires. Like dividing the powers into 'coincidental' and 'vulgar' based on straightforwardness, to coin an example. Then you just have to deside if your effect is one or the other, and use the rules for that effect.

Finally, I think your final paragraphs are extremely important, and your self-analysis sounds very likely to me.

Could well be. I have the habit of inventing things during the game in most games I gm, but I haven't before thought that it'd be any subconsicious desire to control the game flow. Rather it's been a part of the improvisational method: game has actually more detail when one is free to invent it on the spot.

But setting that aside (as it's in my head and not in anybody else's), one could assume that I have a legitimate preference for a system of rules that wouldn't keep count of how far in meters a demon can attack or how many minutes a given effect lasts.

It sounds to me (correct me if I'm wrong here) that all that is being proposed is losing the precise list in favor of player/GM defined HeroQuest-esque keywords.

That's one possibility, yes. And your interpretation of the thrust of the question is also correct:

I think some of Eero's questions were thus based around the worry that there was some secret hidden balancing act or design agenda going on with the precise list of powers that would be upset by ditching them for a more openly defined list.

That's it. Assuming I can keep my hypotethical control mania under control, what would be ruined if I simplified the system a little, at least getting rid of the meters and minutes and so? A lighter system is in order, even if one kept to the ideal of building the demons ahead of time to prevent "Well, well, mister Holmes, seems you underestimated the uncountable powers of sir big-unkillable-demon." and other interference by a pushy gm.

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Eero,

For whatever it's worth, you have my blessing to re-define and run the demon abilities however you'd like. I'd be interested in the results.

However, and this is probably something you can bet on hearing from any game author in a conversation like this, I recommend that you try it the way it's written, at least once. There is an elegance to the demon abilities that's hard to see until another person presents you with it, as an NPC that you now have to know and love and play.

Best,
Ron

[ejh]

Having just played some Ars Magica recently, I have to chuckle at a post which refers to "over five pages" as "sheer bulk."

This thread is interesting to me because I just recently was toying with Sorcerer and I kind of stumbled on the demon powers.  It feels from reading the list that they're kind of weak.  This isn't a considered opinion based on intense study -- I find Sorcerer very slow going to read, and so I haven't read it that often or much.  It's also a little while ago that I had this reaction so it's a bit fuzzy in my mind.  But I remember thinking "huh... powers that give you bonuses to perception rolls?  This feels like GURPS."

This thread convinces me I'm missing something important and need to re-read it.

I have to say, Ron, I don't want to sound like a parrot of Valamir, but I found it really hard to grasp the Sorcerer rules reading it through -- it seems like a lot of important stuff gets left till well well into the book, leaving you flailing on your way into it.

Anyway, glad I saw this thread.  I will check it out again.

[Eero Tuovinen]

Having just played some Ars Magica recently, I have to chuckle at a post which refers to "over five pages" as "sheer bulk."

Well, it is much for a game in which most of the rules consist of an analysis of the three or four primary attributes. There is more rules for demonic powers than there is for other things combined, if you count occasions of technical terms. There is just as much fictive variety between different human pursuits than there is between demons, but they all are represented by Cover.

This thread is interesting to me because I just recently was toying with Sorcerer and I kind of stumbled on the demon powers.  It feels from reading the list that they're kind of weak.  This isn't a considered opinion based on intense study -- I find Sorcerer very slow going to read, and so I haven't read it that often or much.  It's also a little while ago that I had this reaction so it's a bit fuzzy in my mind.  But I remember thinking "huh... powers that give you bonuses to perception rolls?  This feels like GURPS."

I think I understand this one. The idea with the strictly tactical demon powers is to focus the play to the concrete details of supermonkeying - all part of the movie aesthetics of the game. If we had plot engine demons like they had before twentieth century, the game would very quickly move to a very abstract or absurd type. Like Goethe's Faust or something by E.T.A. Hoffman. I cannot say that most people would think the game better if the main question is "will the demon wave his hands around and rearrange the world for me, and if it will, what is the cost?" Much better to play "I think that the demon is capable of bettering my life, and I'm pondering the cost, but in truth all it can do is make me invisible."

Compare old demonic fiction with it's superior demons to Sorcerer, where the best you can hope for is a combat machine or local scale illusionist. Actually, it is notable that the demon powers are in all truth almost entirely useless for a moderately wise player character - they are just about changing form or growing big or violent applications. I could imagine bargaining for supreme artistic skill from Boost Cover, but otherwise the demons are relatively useless. I'm thinking this is intentional, but Ron would have to tell.

Anyway, looking at it this way, my original theory about the list of powers encoding some thematic limits seems not so crazy. It would be relatively easy to grow fat and powerful as a gm with something more freeform (like already discussed), and the demons could easily become much more useful than they are. So from this viewpoint the list of powers method doesn't look so useless - the other option would be offering an indepth analysis of what exactly demons should be capable of and what their role is in the story. This way leaves that research for the players.

Any truth there conserning the reason for the weakness of the demonic powers?

Anyway, assuming I get a change at playing Sorcerer, I'll try to grit my teeth and wade through making demons by the rules, as recommended. Wouldn't be a problem if it weren't a hundred percent surety that I have to gm it myself. On the other hand, that means that we get a class A preparation - I've been thinking of Friends meets Sorcerer in Amsterdam.

[Michael S. Miller]

Especially as the whole system is a burden for the GM, and almost totally inconsequential for the players.

Um. Not so. The players are supposed to be building all their own demons. To reduce this from having five pages to juggle, I usually suggest that the players use a simplified list that I provide. It looks something like this (I haven't finished all the powers yet):

Armor; lessens damage from edged or projectile weapons
Boost; increases one score for one action
Cloak; makes user harder to perceive
Command; can control one general sort of nonhuman animal
Confuse; may cause target to lose next action
Cover; confers Cover upon target or self
Daze; decreases target's ability to perceive
Fast; increases dice used to determine actions in a combat
Hold; limit a target's ability to move
Mark; places a mark perceptible by any Sorcerer or Demon
Perception; allows one exceptional sort of perception
Psychic Force; may do a Fists attack at range
Shadow; can increase/decrease illumination in immediate, semi-enclosed area
Special Damage; attack form that uses the Special Damage Table [/list:u]

What I'm getting at is, isn't there really any reason other than familiarity and exactness to use the list-of-powers-method?

In preparing for my own game, I was pondering the rationale for "why these powers" as well. And also the no-mind-control thing. And then it hit me. The powers in Sorcerer only achieve things that a normal, human person could achieve given enough time, dedication and resources. Animals could be trained (Command); all the types of damage could be done with various weapons; Covers could be earned the old-fashioned way; etc.

So, the list is already a thematic statement. Demons are deceptive in their gifts because they never give you anything that you couldn't get on your own. They just make it easier. And easier ain't always better.

Just a thought. Back to my one-sheet...

[Fabrice G.]

Hi Eero,

Compare old demonic fiction with it's superior demons to Sorcerer, where the best you can hope for is a combat machine or local scale illusionist. Actually, it is notable that the demon powers are in all truth almost entirely useless for a moderately wise player character - they are just about changing form or growing big or violent applications.

I can see where you come from with this statement, as it's not explicitly written in the rules that the powers definitions can/are to be interpreted and locally adapted as well. I think Ron said somewhere in the forum that he would rewrite the definition so that they only give technical informations and no color. So you could take the possibility and restriction of the powers as written but describing how it take effect as you want.

Does it mean that you can do anything with it ? No. But the definitions give you a reference as how powerfull the effect are going to be in-game.
That, and remember that the power are going to be "dressed up" by special effects according to your vision of Sorcerer.

This way, the demonic powers can be used as rules to see how much the player character can influence his surrondings.


Lets use some exemples: Special Damage (lethal):

Version 1 - "Requiem" -- a song/ that drive the listener mad, deeply depressed so he'll try to kill himself.(apply victories as per the special damage table to see how bad he hurt himself)

Version 2 - "The evil eye" -- a curse that make sure that the target will be hurt by "strange incidents" (may require Mark, Veil, and/or ranged)

Well, that's streching the rules, sure, but it's also using the technical definition of demonic powers (their effect) in other ways -- after all, nowhere is it said that you have to use them during combat only.


Fabrice -- who well may be off base with this one.