Sorcerer and WoD

[montag]

sorry, I apologize for bringing this up, but I need some advice with this, so here goes:
I'd like to play a game of sorcerer in WhiteWolfs WoD because I like the setting, but even more importantly, my fellow players _love_ the setting. Our favourite variants are Demon and Vampire, though Orpheus is also popular.
My problem is, I can't see how to make Sorcerer work for these settings.
Although Sorcerer and Soul provides rules for playing demons and angels, to me playing anything other than a human seems like a cop-out, because you're always detached by an additional degree from the choices you have your character make. And that – to me – would seem to take away the point of playing Sorcerer in the first place.
If I got it right, Sorcerer is always about a human in a strange relationship and the choices the human makes, and the WoD (with the possible exception of Mage:tA) is always about a non-human being with superpowers, possibly also making important choices ;)  (e.g. in D:tF you're playing a fallen angel returning to this world from hell and taking over the body of a recently deceased human. You can use the human's abilities etc., but you _are_ playing a demon.)

So, is this a real incompatibility or is this a major case of poor understanding and faulty reasoning on my part? Any ideas?

[jburneko]

Nope, not incompatible at all.  I believe Jared Sorensen once said that every single WoD line can be done using Sorcerer.  He's right.  Here's a few examples based on my (limited) knowledge of the WoD.

Vampire:  It's a parasite or possessor demon living inside it's host.  It's need is for Blood, Desire may very.  Most abilities confer to the host.

Werewolf: Another possessor or parasite demon that confers the ability Shapeshift

And so forth...

What's neat about this is that it unifies all the "monsters" under a single definition of Humanity.  Scrap the Vampire definition for Humanity and forget the Werewolf mechanics of Rage and Gnosis (these can be handled through demon needs and desires and setting stuff).

Then it's a matter of how you want to handle Sorcery.  Werewolves certainly summon things out of the Umbra all the time.  But what about the creatures individual demons?  Can you banish the entity that makes a vampire, a vampire.? That can be left up to the individual play group.

I think you're going to have to change your thinking about how stuff works in the WoD.  It's not going to be a strict 1:1 rule matching exercise.  In fact I wouldn't worry about stuff like How do a handle a Gift vs a Discipline vs a Sphere vs Fetish at all.  That's all just SORCERY and can get worked out on a need by need basis.

So, yes, playing WoD is possible with Sorcerer but a change in viewpoint on what it's all about I think is necessary.

Jesse

[Valamir]

Gives an interesting justification for diablerie too.  I'm a sorcerer hosting a vampiric demon.  You're a sorcerer hosting a vampiric demon.  

I kill you and bind your vampiric demon.

The definitions of demons are so flexible that you could easily have different "species" of vampiric demons that give slightly different powers based along Vampire Clan lines.  While Werewolf Demons would be a whole different genus...actually probably a whole different family...Eastern Vampires would probably be same family different genus.

Pretty easy actually.


Of course...starting from a WoD setting and what each of these beings believe to be true about their origins, and then discovering that all of those are just so many creation myths and the real story is that they're all possessed by demons would be the WoD equivelent of discovering that the Force is caused by Midichloreans...which actually seems like kind of a fun kick in the teeth to play...

[montag]

*sigh* could the entity that nicked my ability to communicate (or was it my ability to reason) sometime this week _please_ return it? No questions asked. Thank you.

Thanks for your suggestions, I'll certainly use them if we're going to play this crossover. But, see, I wasn't worried about how to convert this or that power, as jesse said, that's all sorcery and stuff and Sorcerer is flexible enough to handle most of weird powers. (and I like Ralph's take on diablerie) But that's not was I was and am worried about.

What I am worried about is that the WoD is all about the demon.
Or at least it will be, if I use the human + superpowers(=demon) approach. And that, to borrow a phrase from Ralph, is a kick in the teeth of my understanding of Sorcerer. The way I see it (and correct me if I'm wrong here, 'cause this is the crucial part) the demon in sorcerer is an "interesting" NPC, a pain in the butt, a seductive force, whatever else, but ultimately irrelevant. I don't care what happens to the demon or what he does or what group he belongs to or what particular powers he has. I only care about this in so far as it concerns the human who's "controlling" that demon.
Flipping through Schism (Jared's supplement), which already does the job of redefining demons as "inner powers", and which would be pretty useful (not to mention interesting in itself) – to me – it's again all about the human. Sure, there are cabals the PC belongs to, but again, it's the PC who decides to join or betray an organisation, and they're not tied to the demons. When I read a WoD book OTOH, I only hear "you're a demonic entity, this is your world". And the attraction of the WoD setting IMHO does come from the fact that it is a different world the PC belongs to. But if I go with the above concept, that different world does become an ultimately trivial and arbitrary backdrop. Which would mean the point of using the WoD setting gets lost.

...mmmh
Is it possible that I'm just saying Sim:Exploration of Setting and Narr: character driven premise don't mix well?

[Valamir]

In WoD you have essentially a monster.  A Vampire.  The Vampire is not human.  Maybe they once were if the legend of Cain is to be believed, but they aren't now.

To make WoD into Sorcerer, this is what you have to change.  

In Sorcerer, the Vampire is most definitely human.  They are possessed (or parasited) by a demon...the demon grants them vampiric powers, but the sorcerer is still human.  Its still quintessentially a human story.

What I meant by the kick in the teeth line is exactly what you point out towards the end, that this is very much different from the typical WoD schtick.  But see...where you seem to think that makes it pointless, I see that as the great attraction.

WoD gives you an out.  It gives you a cover.  It gives you a safe place to run.  In the classic line from Who Framed Roger Rabbit Jessica Rabbit quips "I'm not bad, I'm just drawn that way".  This to me is the WoD approach too.  Vampires aren't bad...they just don't have a choice, they need to feed to survive.  Whatever evil they do...whatever horrible crimes they commit, WoD gives the players a saftey net...its not their fault...its their nature to be that way.

Convert this over to the Sorcerer premise, where the vampire/sorcerer is most certainly a human.  Now the saftey net is gone.  It is the players who are choosing to do the evil and commit the horrors.  They don't have the fall back of blaming it on just being monsters.  They CHOSE to be the monster.

That's the kick in the teeth...to me that says...come on you World of Darkness players.  Lets see if you have the stones to play a Vampire when you don't have an excuse to fall back on.  Lets see you be evil...when its all you.

I don't know.  That sounds pretty interesting to me.

[Bankuei]

Hi guys,

Even if you take out the "No accidental Sorcerers" rule, you still have a strong engine for meaningful decision.  And it's been pointed out before, that the key point is commitment on the role of the player, not the character, towards playing to the "monster" theme.  As long as Humanity is the key element against which everything is measured, you still have strong push for addressing Premise.  

So, regardless of whether a character commits vampirism deliberately, reluctantly, or fights it every step of the way, the player, in control, is making some serious statements about that character(and, also his or herself as well).

Chris

[montag]

Thanks for giving it back, much nicer this way. As promised, no questions asked

Thanks Ralph, seems I finally got my point across. I was trying to say exactly this before, when I wrote

... to me playing anything other than a human seems like a cop-out, because you're always detached by an additional degree from the choices you have your character make. And that – to me – would seem to take away the point of playing Sorcerer in the first place.

So the only problem I have at this point, is this: does taking the safety-net away remove the point/charm/attraction of the WoD setting?
I'd tend to say it does to a certain degree, for reasons given above.
But your final paragraph just gave me an idea how "taking away the point of the WoD setting" could be made a feature instead of a bug: what about making humanity = taking responsibility for your own actions? Stay in the WoD-Matrix or enter the desert of the real? Shrug, say "Ok, I'm evil" and do monster stuff or fight for your freedom of choice?
The more I think about it, the more this sounds like "The Addiction", my favourite vampire movie. I'm beginning to like this ...

(though, as a side note: I don't share your desire to "kick" some V:tM players, I like these people. And I definitively don't want to run a game designed to show them the "real WoD", "real" storytelling or whatever. And I don't want to push "you've been playing with a safety-net" into their faces every step of the way. Pushing the question "would you like a safety-net" their way OTOH seems ok, provided "yes" is a legitimate answer. ;)

[xiombarg]

I can't help but feel y'all aren't missing the point. It's easy enough to simulate the WoD using the Sorcerer rules.

The trick is, however, to decide what Humanity is. Again, ignoring the definition in Vampire, and instead focusing on the idea: What is this WoD game about? What do the PCs lose, and/or gain, by indulging in their powers?

Now, a game of Sorcerer where the PCs are Sorcerers (i.e. humans who summon and bind Demons voluntarily and by choice) and not Vampires/Projectors/etc. is easy. Treat every WoD supernatural being, every splat as a Demon. Throw in Wyrm-spirits and actual "demons"in terms of the setting, and you have a wide variety of Needs, Desires, and potential demon types for the PCs to deal with.

Humanity, in this case, might just be a Call of Cthulhu style Sanity thing. The more you learn, as a human, about all the supernatural beasties in the WoD, the more likely you are to go insane...

[Spooky Fanboy]

I'm thinking of a two-tier Humanity system for the Vampire-Sorcerer hybrid:

Humanity = proactive response to crisis vs. running and hiding, ignoring the problem until it 'goes away.'

Humanity (2) = 'vanilla' Humanity; trying to do 'the right thing' at possible cost to yourself versus using your powers to exploit others with no other end but yourself.

Proactivity and 'doing good' allow for Humanity gains, while fear, willful ignorance, power-lust, and giving in to hungers without thought of consequence cause Humanity checks.

[erithromycin]

You can easily get around the 'no accidental sorcerers' thing by remembering that most species in WoD manifest either at death or in near death experiences.

Frex - there you are, drained of blood, going into shock, and a voice says - "I can keep you alive" - bang. You're a vampire. Your demon is going to want you to keep repaying the blood it gave you though.

Or, there you are, suddenly surrounded by a gang of toughs, and a voice growls "I can help you" - bang. You're a werewolf. Your demon's probably going to want to help you more times with the violence.

Or, you know, there you are, going towards the light, and a voice says "Wait. I can help you stay..." - bang. You're a wraith. This one entertains me, because the demon's likely an object (fetter!) and will almost always be hitting you with cloak.

Anyway, there's no accidents - you just put the choice there for them. A little voice - "I can help you..."

Edit:

Then, of course, the premise is the ever popular - "What will you do to survive", and Humanity can be cosily determined as some sort of acceptance of the right of things to exist unmolested, or some such.

[greyorm]

It's not about the powers at all...it's about the choices one makes with those powers. Screw making "Vampiricism" or "Wereness" a demon, just list it as a trait, as the character's Cover.

The demon is the personal, nasty stuff the character has to deal with. Drinking, drugs, addiction, murder...things he believes give him some control over his life, but for which the price is something to think about.

Vampire (and vampire myths in general) seems uniquely suited to the question, "What is my own survival worth?" Because, let's face it, sucking blood and

Obviously, the Vampire wants something outside of just "living forever"...there has to be a reason, a goal, a desire, pushing him to live forever. Even something as simple as "Fear of Death and Oblivion" or for the religiously-minded Vampire, "Fear of Hell" (with Vampirism as the way to say "FUCK YOU!" to God and weasel out of punishment...doing ever more dastardly things to keep avoiding punishment).

Rule a business empire? Watch history unfold (perhaps meddle)? (Secretly) Rule the world?  Protect his people (Vlad Drakov, anyone)?

"What does your character want with immortality?" is the question. And is that goal worth the deeds required of vampiricism?

What about Werewolf? Same thing.
You're a were-creature. It's supposedly an inborn genetic thing -- a gift from Luna (which is back into the "Do you want it?" question, though). So it's a cover.

What's your motivation, though?
What is your goal, and what are you going to do to get there?
Your demon is the source of your strength, your will, your push forward...the question still is, however, at what price?

It NEEDS, it WANTS to destroy industry, civilization, humanity in order to protect Gaia -- or it NEEDS and WANTS to rule the Were-clan. What sort of things will you do to get there?

In this way, the "demons" aren't about supernatural creatures granting supernatural powers at all...they're purely psychological aspects of the character pushing him forward.

Remember, "Sorcerers" are crazy, maddened, powerfully willful SOBs -- they aren't Joe Average, whether Joe's a human, werewolf, or vampire...which, in the main, is the problem with WOD. All the supernaturals are just Joe Average Supernatural...there's no literature-worthy grip to their individual existance, and thus you might as well be playing "humans, with funny hats."

I'd avoid that completely in a conversion and not do the 1:1 mapping of supernatural powers to the human, rather I'd focus on what's important in the stories about such creatures: what it is they want, of which their powers are just an exaggerated reflection for purposes of literary exploration and examination.

[Henri]

I find this discussion very interesting, but I disagree with the idea that in V:tM Vampires aren't human.  No, technically they are inhuman, but they retain their humanity.  When I first picked up Vampire in high school, that was the thing that really did it for me.  I was used to the idea that when someone was made a vampire, they were no longer really that person, but were made purely evil.  For example, this is the way it works in Buffy, unless the vampire retains his soul (read: humanity).  But in V:tM, after the embrace, you are still you.  The difference is that you now have to share yourself with The BEAST, a powerful destructive force that urges you to commit base acts (Need for blood).  Furthermore, you now have the power to do them.  But there is also Humanity, and vampires have to cling to their humanity or they risk becomming feral.

I think at heart, Vampire and Sorcerer are about the same thing, the theme of the choice that a character must make between power and humanity and the price that the choice entails.  I think this choice is made all the more interesting by a character who WANTS to be a good guy, but that doesn't let him pay any less of a price for his power than the bad guy.  This is why I always thought the Sabat was boring and I like Toreador.

That said, even though they have the same theme, Sorcerer does a better job of focusing the game on the central theme.  I had a conversation with Jared in which he said that he though if you wanted to play Vampire, you should throw out everything at the top of the character sheet.  In all the White Wolf games, the IMPORTANT stuff is all at the bottom of the page, after all the generic stuff like skills, which are totally irrelevant to the theme.  The problem with Vampire is that people are really drawn in by the theme and want to play it, but then in actual play the theme is completely ignored and it becomes a traditional rpg about survival, solving mysteries, and overcomming obstacles.  The rhetoric in Vampire is all very Narativist, but then it doesn't deliver.  Sorcerer takes all your skills (half the character sheet) and dumps them into "Cover."  Then it takes all your attributes and dumps them into "Stamina" and "Will."  With that stuff taken care of, then you can focus on the things that matter, Humanity and Lore, but especially Humanity.  

So, that said, I think adapting Sorcerer to the Vampire setting is a great idea if you really like that setting.  I don't really see that there is a thematic conflict, and I think the in-you-face Naratavism of Sorcerer will make for a better vampire game than Vampire (assuming that your CA is Naratavist, otherwise you would never do this!).

Hmmm... someone could totally do a mini-supplement of this, although you couldn't make it too much like V:tM or you'd have a copywrite suit.  Maybe better to have it be unofficial.

[Mike Holmes]

I agree strongly with Henri about a lot of things. I think that WOD games are intended to have precisely the same sort of characters that Sorcerer delivers...the rules just don't do it right. That is, the "out" that Ralph mentions is a mistake in the WOD design, and Sorcerer does it right.

Whether that's true or not, I think that the WOD definition of Humanity ports over perfectly well. Humanity in the Sorcerer version of any WOD game is "not being a monster". So, to play a vampire you have a demon who's need is human blood. To play a werewolf your demon's need is to protect nature no matter how many humans have to die to see it done. Etc, etc.

This seems so straightforward that I'm having trouble seeing where people are having trouble with it.

The supposed premise of Vampire is that you're still human until you allow the beast to take over. The mechanic just doesn't make it a player option, so it doesn't work in a narrativist fashion. Just applying the Sorcerer mechanics fixes this perfectly.

Mike

[DannyK]

So, everybody thinks it's possible.  How about a writeup of how you would make this work?  

I'd love to see this as a mini-supplement, by the way.  I don't think "Vampire PC's struggling against the inner Beast" is a concept that can be copywrighted, by the way.  (Not to start a legal discussion, God forbid.)  

Actually, it's really struck me that the Daemons in Sorcerer map very nicely onto WoD Wraiths.  I could see using the Sorcerer rules to make a game of Necromancers, like the Giovanni in Vampire.  Since the Revised Clanbook Giovanni is my fave WoD book and describes very Sorcerer-like ways of interacting with the dead (bribes and punishments, basically), this would be easy.  If I wrote this up as a "netbook" type of unofficial supplement, would there be a website to post it on?  I wonder, because it seems harder to adapt "Italian clans of necromancers" without stepping on White Wolf's toes.  

If, on the other hand,  you were going to have Wraiths as playable characters, would that make them Daemons, or could you somehow map the Wraithly existence onto Sorcerer?  Orpheus seems like great source material for this kind of game.  

DannyL

[montag]

did I mention that I love this community? Well, I do.

thanks everyone for their input (though don't hesitate to keep it coming). Personally, I'm still partial to the human + X approach, simply because I want to make sure the players understand it's about their choices. Having the character be vampires to me has two major drawbacks (a) the risk of having the player slip into a "what would a vampire do" mode of thought, which turns what is supposed to be a choice into an intelligent guess about another entities preferences and (b) the problem of "well I'm already dead anyway": frankly, the question "what atrocities would you commit to stay alive" isn't particularly interesting to me, for one; and I'm not interested in having the game turn into a gore fest where I have to push stuff at my players that gets progressively ugly. A nice way to figure out how to make your players sick, but not the game I want to play or run. I also very much like the option of having the player renounce the demon, since I can imagine some very interesting tests of that decision. If renouncing the demon equals death, that also entails removing the character from the game, which makes the aforementioned tests impossible and brings in all sorts of "staying in game" and "my guy" issues. And even if those were overcome, the "ultimate sacrifice" concept just isn't my thing. Much more interesting to have the player decide "yes, the char is gonna walk away and live with it" than having them decide to "sacrifice" the character.

As to the supplement idea: well, as long as it's for free and sufficiently different I don't see a problem. People put their house-rules and campaigns on the web all the time. Since I'd have to write up the system tweaks, one sheet and stuff anyway and would probably produce an actual play report as well that should be enough to give anyone else interested in doing this a rough guide.