Helping Sorcerer Thrive

[TickTock Man]

I think Sorcerer is a very interesting game for many reasons.  I am not a One-true-way'er when it comes to roleplaying, though I definitely believe that system matters.  Sorcerer is a game that seems to find its players as much as they find it.  People looking for 300 pages of rules can tell just by looking at it that they have not found what they want.  The same is true for people looking for 300 pages of background and story material.  In a way, it seems like the game "protects" itself from players who wouldn't really appreciate it.  And I think Sorcerer has really grown since its inception.

While all that is well and good, I think that Sorcerer has a wide potential audience who have never experienced all it offers.  I think roleplaying lends itself naturally to being spread about in a sort of missionary fashion, and passionate gamers really want to share the games they love (and sometimes cram them down your throat).  What do you do, if anything, to promote the game and help it thrive?  I wonder what Ron would like us to do?

I know I have bought copies for people I thought would like it, and a few for people I thought might not!  I have considered offering free demos of the game at a FLGS, but that got a lukewarm reception at said FLGS.  I wnat to keep the game going strong, as much for selfish enjoyment as anything else, and I wonder if any of you had luck growing the game where you live.

I have debated with some whether or not promoting the game would dilute its intensity.  They point to commercialization of D&D and White Wolf as evidence that a game too widely promoted will be robbed of what made it special in the first place.  Imagine, they say, how special Starbucks was when it was just one place, and look at it now!

In response, I say I am not sure sorcerer is the type of game that can even allow that to happen.  It has creator control, and the game does not really lend itself to commercialization.  That tends to occur more with Gamist and Simulationist games than Narrativist.  I do not believe that the game will be damaged by encouraging others to try it.  And sorcerer lends itself well to so many possibilities, the game would have to be
GURPS-esque to even begin to test its limits.  What are your 2 cents?

Thanks

-Angelo

[Judd]

Play.

Play hard.

Play loud.

[TickTock Man]

I can not tell if that is more Zen or Nike!

-Angelo

[Ben Lehman]

Play.

Play hard.

Play loud.

BL>  I cannot say anything but "Listen to this Man."  His actual play posts on RPG.net have probably done more to help Sorcerer and other games than anything in a while.

yrs--
--Ben

[TickTock Man]

I know, I have read most Paka's threads on RPG.net.  I thought it was great answer.

I write three paragraphs, he answers in three lines.

I just see myself getting this answer in a bamboo forest at the foot of a mountain in Japan.

-Angelo

[TickTock Man]

Besides, I stole Paka's entire gun-fu campaign idea, little plagiarizer that I am.  

-Angelo

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

What a nice thread topic. Here's my wish-list for people who'd like to promote Sorcerer.

1. Play it. Let the people in the game touch and use the book(s). Loan them, open them, read from them.

2. Refer to the books when you use something that you learned from them or value in them. "Learned that in The Sorcerer's Soul," e.g., when you're playing something else. Honesty is all you need, no point in interjecting false references.

3. Post about playing, here or at RPG.net. Post a review at a public site, or at your website. Ask questions, or help answer them.

4. Congratulate your retailer on carrying the game, or if it disappears off the shelves, suggest that he re-order it. If one of your friends buys the game from the store, point that out to the retailer - "Look, it sold again. Funny, it just keeps going."

Sorcerer has a remarkable sell rate in terms of the long haul, but it doesn't grab the retailer's eye because they tend to think in one-month or six-week terms, focusing on market share within that short period.

5. Keep an eye out for people who kind of like role-playing, but haven't necessarily enjoyed it immensely. Spouses and romantic partners of avid gamers are perfect; so are people who played a little back in high school but didn't get into gamer culture. There are a lot of these people around, far more than most role-players think. Loan them a copy of the game to paw through.

6. Buy Raven's t-shirt from Cafe Press and wear it.

7. When concepts in the books are relevant to an on-line discussion somewhere, articulate them and reference them. No need to divert the topic to a Sorcerer thing, but cite where the idea comes from and apply to the topic that the other people are interested in.

8. Get interested in others' games. Talk about their experiences, ask questions, and learn who people are as practitioners. Expand the social horizons within the role-player culture you're part of.

Those are what come to mind first, anyway.

Best,
Ron

[Old_Scratch]

Ron's not going to like this, but I think the best thing for Sorcerer is a new edition.

I don't imagine I was the crowd he was preaching when he wrote it, but I really think that Sorcerer has a lot to offer people and that the game has transformed over time and through the various supplements that it really is time to revisit the material.

I bought Sorcerer half off at Wizards of the Coast when it went out of sale, and I breezed through it real quick and thought: I don't think I'll use this. I didn't get the concept at first, I suppose I was looking for some new fangled mechanics or some awesome setting material. So I took it back (I later repurchased it...)

Happened to buy Sorcerer and Sword since it was really cheap at Spitalfields Market and I read it. And as the months went by it started to grow on me. There is some stuff in that book that should be in the main rulebook. Same with relationship maps. The game itself has changed, and I find stuff written in the rulebook to be contradicted by the popular wisdom of today.

I've introduced at least six new gamers to Sorcerer, and none of them probably would have ever touched the game if I hadn't gotten them into it. If Sorcerer wants to reach out and share its techniques and concepts with those least familiar with its ideas, it needs to shift focus and draw them in.

--Garett

[Judd]

Ron's not going to like this, but I think the best thing for Sorcerer is a new edition.

If you were given a copy of D&D's text would you want to play it?

Or

Would you play it after seeing a game or hearing other people talk about their games and getting into a game?

I'm not sure a new edition is where its at.

[DannyK]

I think the slim, elegant books works as it is, but I'd love to see a Sorcerer's companion -- a book which, rather than trying to extend the rules in new and exciting ways as the supplements do, goes back and fills in the rules with lots of meaty examples and sample material.

[Old_Scratch]

Ron's not going to like this, but I think the best thing for Sorcerer is a new edition.

If you were given a copy of D&D's text would you want to play it?

Or

Would you play it after seeing a game or hearing other people talk about their games and getting into a game?

I'm not sure a new edition is where its at.

I believe that's where I started, reading D&D's text. Years, years, years ago. I believe the art helped a bit as well.

Truth of the matter is, is that its hard for many of us to get a handle on what Ron's saying in the book. What Ron is selling is not a new set of mechanics or settings (which is what most books offer) but a relatively new concept of how to role play in relation to the way most of us have been playing.

I bought Sorcerer. Simply put, I didn't *get* it the first time. It wasn't until I read and reread Sorcerer and Sword and someone said "Story First Mother Fucker!" or something to that effect that I finally realized that Ron had been much more ambitious than I thought he was.

In many ways, Sorcerer challenges much of the prevailing paradigms and assumptions of role playing, and for me and others, it could be pitched at helping people make that conceptual leap. I suspect that many readers don't manage it. But that's pure conjecture on my own part based upon my own anecdotal experience.

And ultimately, you're correct - the best way is to share the game with people. But speaking from experience, many of us pick up a book and run it that way to share with others without any previous hands-on experience. As great as Sorcerer is, I think it fails in some respects at allowing a conventional gamer, picking up Sorcerer, to pull it off. Or maybe I'm just not giving gamerdom sufficient credit. Shrug.

--Garett

[Ron Edwards]

Hi folks,

I'll say it again: that any percentage of "gamerdom" likes the book at all is gravy. That was never my design goal or intended audience, and it still isn't. You guys are the exception because you've made the effort to get closer, here in this forum. That's worth my time; the other folks ... well, they aren't.

I'm after people who want to role-play Narrativist and who can't see how to do it in the context of gamer culture and existing rules-sets. Most of those folks read the book with no trouble at all; these are the folks who send me enthusiastic emails but never participate here or at RPG.net. Why should they? They're just playing.

If I were to reach out to gamerdom assembled and try to push Narrativist play at them, I wouldn't use Sorcerer. Nor would I use Trollbabe, or my currently fast-developing Zero at the Bone. Hell, I don't think I'd be able to write that game.

Nah. You need someone else. I'm too underground, too rude, and too dope-slap oriented. It still astounds me that the game has any attractive value to anyone who's fairly well-entrenched in gamer culture. Why or how that is, is beyond me. I wouldn't even know what aspects of the current book to preserve and emphasize.

Best,
Ron

[The_Tim]

Part of the reason that entrenched gamers respond to Sorcerer is White Wolf.  The World of Darkness games made those hungry for a "story first" Narrativist game ravenous for one.

Add to this groups that are mixed entrenched gamers and creative types and Sorcerer had a base among those you seem to expect it to not have a base among.

Then again those are both just-so stories, which are pretty much bunk.  Popularity and movements are complex things and trying to chase them instead of quality and devotion to product is a fool's game.  Why do entrenched gamers like Sorcerer?  Because it is good.  Why are you surprised that entrenched gamers like Sorcerer?  Because your just-so stories give you a distorted perspective on gamers.  Why is this post sort of rambling?  Because it is two in the morning.

[Ron Edwards]

Hello Tim,

There's no current controversy over why it turned out that many entrenched gamers turned out to want something like Sorcerer.

My point is twofold:

1. Ten years ago, they were economically and culturally invisible. I thought I was all alone, with maybe a few other wandering souls out there.

2. Then and now, I am entirely unsympathetic to those folks who might kind of sort of be interested in Sorcerer if only I were to cater to their misconceptions and confusions a little, tiny bit more.

The core audience exists, and I usually only hear from those folks through isolated emails of praise or acknowledgment, which arrive pretty regularly. The secondary audience (most of the people who participate here) receives an immense amount of attention and effort from me to clear up their minor confusions.

The tertiary audience is, as I say, perfectly free either to transform into the secondary one or to flail about in a sea of "it's not written for me, waaah" until they drown, horribly.

Best,
Ron

[Yokiboy]

Hello guys,

I agree with Old_Scratch, and brought up the same thing in the posting of my campaign prep post (see the tail end of the thread), and received some cool comments from Valamir and Ron.

I also think Tim articulates his points very nicely, and I belive that Ron might be selling gamerdom short. Sorcerer is hard to get into, perhaps due to us being f'ed up by the "regular" non-NAR RPGs, but I had to read all four books and spend a months online at the forge and the wiki in order to understand it all.

Ron, would you let someone else sell a mini-supplement for Sorcerer that explains how to put it all together, without having to sift through numerous forge posts to get the picture? This supplement would then be geared towards gamerdom alone, as your in-crowd of people who "get it" could simply just not buy it.

TTFN,

Yokiboy


P.S. I have rarely made so many notes in preparing to play a new RPG as for Sorcerer. Normally this would entail system notes on specific rules and such, in this case it is regarding how to actually put a game together to get this NAR thing to work.