I have had some trouble to date with the question of the GM's role in Sorcerer. There was some useful clarification of this in some postings on my last thread, "My Sorcerer Game is Flagging", but I still have some further questions on this score.

In that previous thread, Ralph noted that a GM must take control of a game, but must do so by creating a "situation" for the players, and that involves drawing up a Relationship Map, but not pre-determining a branching plotline. Bill said that "all you need is Bangs", and that instead of thinking (plotwise) in terms of A leading to B which may lead to C or D, a GM should simply give the players A, but make A pregnant with the possibility of B, C, D etc (if I am reading Bill correctly). As best I understand, Bangs are the most dramatic points in a game in which the players get to make important choices that help define their characters and make up the story.

Now, as I understand, four major factors that are driving play in Sorcerer (not exclusively, as obviously other matters such as Demon Need and Desire are also of significance) are:

1. The Kickers (created by the players);
2. The Relationship Map, which describes the interrelationship of NPCs and their various hopes and plans (created by the GM);
3. The Bangs (created by the GM); and
4. The players' choices for how their characters act during the Bangs.

My enquiry in this thread is directed to the matter of Bangs. I assume that Bangs are, at least to some extent, pre-prepared by the GM, as even a highly mentally agile GM may consider that these crucial episodes need a little advance thought for optimal impact. If that assumption is correct, how can this be unless the GM has some sort of a branching plotline structure in mind beforehand, which is apparently a no-no? Surely the GM must anticipate the most likely possible reactions of the players in advance so he or she knows what Bangs are likely to be required, or what Bangs the GM can "get" the players to (adopting the maxim in the Sorcerer rules "get to the Bangs")? Or is it a case of only one pre-prepared Bang per player per session- a cunningly contrived "A" at the outset of the session, with everything else hastily improvised from that point as need arises.

Also, what is supposed to primarily influence the subject matter of the Bangs- Kickers, Relationship Map, or a mixture of both? In case this question is unclear, should the GM be trying as hard as possible with Bangs to get the players to engage with the issues raised by their Kickers, to engage with the NPC-centred situation unfolding around them, or should it be a bit of both?

I should note that I am assuming for the purposes of the above question that the Kickers and the Relationship Map are, at the start of the game, pretty well disconnected. I make that assumption because as I understand the Relationship Map creation process, it is quite possible (and, indeed, positively encouraged) to simply plagarise shamlessly a relationship map out of one's favorite work of fiction, and so any congruence between it and the subjects of the Kickers will be purely coincidental (if this were not the case, then I cannot see how the Relationship Maps in Sorcerer's Soul could be usable in actual play). By way of example, if one character has a Kicker relating to his long lost brother returning and asking for the character's kidney, it would be no more than a coincidence if two NPCs in the Relationship Map happen to be dealers in human body parts, would it not?

Marcus

1. I pitch the game to the players and if the response is excited, we got with it.

2. We gather for a session of just character creation about a week or so before the first game. During this time the players are told what Demons, Lore and Humanity represent, I show 'em the one-sheet, the players pour over the desciptors, make their characters with the Kickers coming last.

Making the characters and kickers in a group is really important.

3. I go home, read over the characters, look at where descriptors overlap, think about how I want to play out the Kickers and begin to plan my bangs.

If I post anything on the Forge or RPG.net it is now, while things are fresh and people posting ideas can still help me out while ideas formulate. Old Scratch has posted some great, great shit at this point in various games.

4. I like to marinate my brain in the kickers for a few days before going back to the Kickers and writing up the definitive bangs list. The list will be written and re-written, to be printed out on game night.

I also want to think about how bangs are going to weave together and if or how the PC's will cross paths.

5. GAME! Throw the bangs onto the table and see what the players will do with 'em.



Bangs, something I always used but never named, have become a big part of my game. I have come to realize that my favorite type of gaming is when I throw out a situation and allow the players to deal with it in any manner they want to, letting the consequences build and the tension to rise until the game comes to a crashing conclusion.

Hope this helped.

Thnks for your quick response, Judd. Unfortunately, however, I don't think it addressed any of my specific questions, but rather dealt with other aspects of GM preparation (although these were interesting in themselves).

Part of your posting does, however, underscore one of my main questions. You say that you drew up a "definitive Bangs list" before the first gaming session (although after character crestion), which list you in fact had in printed form as play commenced. How is it possible to do such a thing, however, unless you are anticipating where play is going to go in the course of that play session? You must surely be assuming that at least a good number of the Bangs you have on that printed page are going to be utilised in some fashion and are not just going to be wasted ink. How can this be without having a fair idea in advance of the ways in which the plot is likely to be taken?

Marcus

There is one more element which the Sorcerer book mentions and that is the back-story, which is usually the story of a crisis central to the NPC's you've created and is instrumental in putting stress on the relationships that you've mapped out in the Relationship Map.

Bangs are not quite plot devices as you seem to be used to. They are situations that explode and demand a decision from the player, and which reveal the nature of the character no matter what he decides to do about it. That said, some bangs will just be pops, i.e. the player characters won't respond to them. Fine, drop them and move on to a different one, and perhaps bring them back later when they've become something impossible to ignore. Some you won't even get to throw out without some revision because of changes in the characters situation during the game. Those are okay, revise them between sessions taking into account those changes.

This is how you have fun as a GM. You throw the characters a hot potato (bang) and see what they do with it, without any concern yourself about how YOU would want them to handle it. When you throw out that bang, I find that you end up playing your NPC's more like player characters playing them up to your elbows with their desires in mind and not just as stage dressing for how the story should go.

You bring up the question of how do you do thing without anticipating a plot. Well you draw your bangs out of the issues inherent in the characters themselves, (They've told you what they want through the kickers, and background), the background of the situation that you came up with (and tied the PC's into, through their kickers), and the relationships between all the NPC's and PC's. If both the PC's and NPC's are really active characters there should be issues boiling over at every turn, all wonderful potential for bangs (and demons are always active.)
Bangs and the decisions from the PC's over them also generate more potential for bangs.

Its very zen. And, as Ron has often said, very like playing music. Sorcerer is story now. You don't worry about where things are going, you worry about where you are RIGHT NOW. The future takes care of itself. You end up looking around one session and going, "Damn... I think thats the end! Where did that come from?" But you will know.

Its hard. I want things to turn out well. I do. And in the past I've tried to guide my games so that they do turn out well. In other words, I had the answer. Its much more satisfying this way. In Sorcerer I just come up with the question. It can be a devilish, difficult, confused and fucked up question, and its more fun if it is. But I don't want to know the end, my job is just to hammer that question as situation with as much oomph as I can muster so that the end can emerge by itself.

You do anticipate from session to session, but not in the sense of leading a plot. You simply look at the situation in your game as it stands and ask yourself what interesting crises can I drop into the mix, that is inherent in this situation? What's the next question-or-subquestion-in-the-form-of-situation I'd like to see answered by these players with these characters?

I hope that's helpful.

best,

Trevis

Hi Marcus,

It's a good idea to create the relationship map so it connects to the player's kickers. The history behind the relationship map, plus the map, plus the player character's kickers is the situation Ralph talked about. Once this is set up, you have a framework that suggests how each NPC will react in response to a player action. Think of the situation as the nervous system of a living thing.

Once you have the situation, you can look at how various NPC might respond to get ideas for bangs. You can also just ask "given this stuff, what would require the player to make a meaningful choice?" for other bangs.

The "bandolier of bangs" is really just a collection of ideas for such challenges. These ideas are best kept sketchy, so you can adapt them to actual play when the opportunity presents - and none should be _required_ for play to progress. Some of the best bangs will occur out of the blue, without preparation - and once player's get the hang of things, they may start manufacturing or suggesting their own.

Hi Marcus,

Perhaps this topic runs the risk of becoming a little bit to theoretical. So here are some actual play accounts that really helped me out. While it is about HeroQuest, not Sorcerer, you will find that it deals with exactly the kind of things you are adressing here. It does not discuss Kickers since that is very specific to Sorcerer, but pretty much everything else is covered, I think. It is a lot to read, but it may be helpful.

The actual play threads:

http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?p=79101
http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=8059
http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=8353
http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=9286

You can download a pdf of the scenario here.

EDIT: Especially note all the mistakes I am making. (You need only skim my first attempts at creating Bangs, for example, it was a mess) This game was far from perfect, but it taught me a lot.

All the best,

marcus wrote: Part of your posting does, however, underscore one of my main questions. You say that you drew up a "definitive Bangs list" before the first gaming session (although after character crestion), which list you in fact had in printed form as play commenced. How is it possible to do such a thing, however, unless you are anticipating where play is going to go in the course of that play session? You must surely be assuming that at least a good number of the Bangs you have on that printed page are going to be utilised in some fashion and are not just going to be wasted ink. How can this be without having a fair idea in advance of the ways in which the plot is likely to be taken?

Hello,

Marcus, you dug a pit for yourself in your first paragraph: "the GM must take control of the game."

You gotta lose that. The whole notion of control - there is no control in a Sorcerer game. No one has any. Or to look at it a different way

I think you're really stuck, if you don't mind my harshness in saying so, in a black-and-white picture:

a) the players somehow invent the story
b) GM makes sure the story happens

This dichotomy is false. Think instead of four players together. Three of them are primarily responsible for the actions of the three protagonists, and the fourth is primarily responsible for NPCs' actions. Sounds normal, doesn't it?

It's not, or it's certainly not normal for most groups today. Almost everyone in role-playing is convinced that someone must be in charge of the outcomes of scenes in order for those scenes to be any good, or to lead from one to the other. Your whole focus on "branching" represents this viewpoint.

The fourth player is just as responsive and open-ended in his or her characters' actions (the NPCs) as the three players are with theirs. That's the point.

Yes to back-story, with full use of the elements on the backs of the character sheets. (You guys didn't even fill those out, did you? I bet not.)

Yes to active, intense, pushy NPCs, including the demons.

No to planned, branching outcomes.

No to designated villains and designated arenas of conflict.

Unlike others, I do not think there's anything zen about it at all. It's quite straightforward. As noted many times, the only people who have trouble with it are those who've role-played other games extensively and identified whatever it was they did as role-playing.

Best,
Ron

Hello Marcus,

sirogits excellent comments on the versatility of Sorcerer prep work will probably be of help to you.

TTFN,

Yokiboy

Hi, Marcus.

I know that the last thing you probably want right now is more links to follow, but there was a very similar discussion to this back in January: Sorcerer campaign web pages?. I'm tempted to copy & paste my comments at the bottom of the first page to address your concerns.


EDITED to fix bad BB code

Yeah, I tried to be very careful and say the GM needed to be "in charge" which means something very different to me than "in control".

But to more specifically address your question on bangs and how they can be created without a plot you have to step back and realize that the relationship map is just a snap shot of plot. The backstory is the plot up to the point of the beginning of play. The Relationship Map is the relationship between key characters as they exist at that moment subsequent to all of the previous backstory history.

But the relationships are in motion, and the PCs are going to affect that motion. The key difference between being in charge and being in control is that in Sorcerer as a GM you must NOT have any predetermined ideas, prediliction for, or vested interest in the PCs affecting the motion in any particular way.

Perhaps an illustration.


Lets start with a simple situation. NPC A is trying to do something to NPC B who is trying to get something from NPC C who is trying to do something to NPC A. A little circle with letters and clockwise arrows if you will.

What you want to avoid is couching NPC A as the villain, NPC B as the victim and NPC B as a potential ally. If you do this than YOU'VE made one of the most important decisions in the game for your players.

Instead take a look at the player's kickers and that diagram on the back of their sheet. Those kickers and those diagrams should give you a good couple of handfuls of characters. Can some of those characters be NPC A B or C? Can some of those characters be related to, working with, lovers of, NPC A B or C?

What if Player #1's wife is the sister of NPC A? What if Player #2's mentor was betrayed by NPC C? What if Player #3 was taught by the same sorcererous master as NPC B and was a former lover of NPC C?

Now you have a complicated web of circumstances. You didn't invent any of these relationships or wifes, or former lovers. You just plucked them off of the player's sheets and merged them into your relationship map.

Now you can start to think about bangs. What do these people want?Dogs in the Vineyard has a great mechanism for forcing this kind of thinking. For every NPC you have to write one sentence that answers the question "what does this person want from the Dogs".

From there you can start to envision moments, scenes, events, that put the player in the position of having to choose. You write these down as little "what ifs" to yourself that maybe you'll have the opportunity to use.

Frex you might note: in a scene where both Player 3 and NPC C are together and recognize each other that goons from NPC A will arrive looking to haul off NPC C. You'd make some notes on the goons, any demon backup they might have from NPC A, and possibly some good dramatic locations where such a scene might happen.

But you don't start with the expectation that Player 3 will help NPC C against the goons and try to steer the game that way. The game will be every bit as good if Player 3 decides to help the goons get NPC C as a way of getting in good with NPC A, because maybe Player 3 has decided that the power NPC A has to offer is worth more than an old flame.

I think of Bangs as being like the tennis balls in a tennis lesson; when the student is starting to get the hang of things, or is getting bored, the pro goes WHAM! and fires another one over the net. Some Bangs will fizzle and end up not being followed to their ultimate conclusion, but that's OK; as other folks have mentioned, the GM can scoop some of these Bangs up and re-use them with a little modification.

Marcus,

So many valid questions.

First off, I'm going to be lame and link to some posts of my first Sorcerer game -- you'll see some mistakes in the first couple sessions of play, but one helpful thing is that I flagged BANGS that I played during the sessions, so you can see (at least) what I thought of as Bangs, and how they played out.

* http://random.average-bear.com/archive/004154.html Character Generation
* http://indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=10429 Session One: An Unexpected Party (basically the scenario from the main rule book)
* http://indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=10737 Session Two: The Things on the Doorstep
* http://indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=10952 Session Three: Sex, Lies, and Videotape
* http://indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=11151 Session Four: Lexigrams
* http://indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=11323 Session Five: Complex Conflicts
* http://indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=11506 Session Six: The Big Chill
* http://indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=11906 Session Seven: Whiteout
* http://indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=12237 Session Eight: Aristeia

Okay, done pimping my old game. On to some questions.

marcus wrote: I have had some trouble to date with the question of the GM's role in Sorcerer.

marcus wrote:
Now, as I understand, four major factors that are driving play in Sorcerer (not exclusively, as obviously other matters such as Demon Need and Desire are also of significance) are:

1. The Kickers (created by the players);
2. The Relationship Map, which describes the interrelationship of NPCs and their various hopes and plans (created by the GM);
3. The Bangs (created by the GM); and
4. The players' choices for how their characters act during the Bangs.

marcus wrote:
My enquiry in this thread is directed to the matter of Bangs. I assume that Bangs are, at least to some extent, pre-prepared by the GM, as even a highly mentally agile GM may consider that these crucial episodes need a little advance thought for optimal impact. If that assumption is correct, how can this be unless the GM has some sort of a branching plotline structure in mind beforehand, which is apparently a no-no?

marcus wrote:
Surely the GM must anticipate the most likely possible reactions of the players in advance so he or she knows what Bangs are likely to be required, or what Bangs the GM can "get" the players to (adopting the maxim in the Sorcerer rules "get to the Bangs")?

marcus wrote:
Or is it a case of only one pre-prepared Bang per player per session- a cunningly contrived "A" at the outset of the session, with everything else hastily improvised from that point as need arises.

marcus wrote:
Also, what is supposed to primarily influence the subject matter of the Bangs- Kickers, Relationship Map, or a mixture of both?

It might be useful to give the analytical viewpoint on a Bang, in case Marcus missed it in the book: a good Bang is a situation the player cannot ignore, in the sense that whatever the character does, it results not in a fizzle, but in fireworks. This is genuine player freedom; either choice is valid in a meta-game kind of way, because the player is not pressured to take one particular choice out of fear of ruining the game. It's foolproof too: some players tend to pick the "secure" choice out of turtle-mentality, but a good Bang won't fizzle just for that: to the contrary, the very choice of ignoring the situation is loaded with theme.

Note that analytically, the above speaks not of results or choices, just about situations that cannot be ignored. Your job as the GM is not to fake it, but to manage to create the genuine Bang situation with any means necessary. This is why a somewhat vague plan is good: despite the game going wherever, the Bang will be good at some stage. Likewise thinking fast on your feet is also good, as it allows you to customize Bangs as the situation develops. Either way, or any other way, is good, as long as the fundamental nature of what comes out of your mouth is a Bang, not a premade choice.

It's been said already, but I'll say it again: create Bangs out of vague sense of the elements you have at hand. Don't depend on the events, but on the elements you have. The events will be built during the game, but the elements are there already. An example:

You have the femme fatale, her husband and the player character. A classic scenario would say something like: "The femme comes to the PC and convinces him to help him against a violent husband. She'll offer up to 1000gp, all she has." Note how the outcome is predetermined; accept it or there's no adventure. The above is a description of an event, while the scenario really should only offer elements.

On the other hand, there are many Bangs you could build out of the above. Here's some examples:
"The femme tries to convince the PC, who spots the husband down on the street, coming in."
"The husband approaches the PC, convinced that he's taken femme from him."
"The PC comes in on the scene with the husband beating on his wife."
"The husband comes to ask the PC for help, to find his wife."
Notice how all of the above are such situations that whatever choice the player makes, it will have meaning. They cannot be ignored, especially if there are some earlier relations between the PC and the other characters. (How will the player act if the husband is PC's brother? Or if the femme is his old lover?) Notice also how the above are context free: as long as the characters are not outright killed, they can be used in almost any situation (assuming that the game is such that these fit, and that's why the GM is needed to pick suitable Bangs). What's best, they can be used in any order, and on any characters to boot. Those are all useful qualities in a proto-Bang.

I say proto because the Bang is not a Bang unless it's sprung on the player. The above examples are only necessary preparation the GM does before the game, the details he will create when needed. By what means will the femme try to convince the PC? Will the husband resort to a gun? Will you use some entirely different Bang, when the situation opens up for it?

So the answer to your original question, Marcus, is indeed that there is no plot, and the Bangs are not built on one. Rather, they are something that will spring a plot from the elements you have. Look at the examples offered in this and previous threads, and compare them to your notion of branching plots. If there were such a plot tree, where on it would the Bangs go? Do you see that they will frequently go wherever, and always to more than one place? Bangs are only elements in conflict, not events that need be placed into a plot structure.

Others have already explained how the Kickers and Relationship map are connected actively by the GM. When you have done this, you'll just need to start picking the elements from the whole mess and fitting them together to get the Bangs.

Marcus, re: the first of your three questions:

I assume that Bangs are, at least to some extent, pre-prepared by the GM.... Surely the GM must anticipate the most likely possible reactions of the players in advance so he or she knows what Bangs are likely to be required...

Thank you all for a particularly helpful and complete set of responses. All my questions have been answered most fully, and that is even before I have started working my way through the various links (which I will do shortly).

Marcus, take a commendation on being so patient. Me, I hate receiving a barrage of advice, even when it's good.

Best,
Ron