I have a somewhat similar problem to hyphz's, though hopefully less intense.

I think most of this is due to being new to classically-Narrativist techniques and especially to sharing more power as the GM. While Sorcerer has made for a series of revelations in my gaming life that revitalized it from nearly dead, by identifying for me many mistakes and illusions I was carrying around and blaming myself for, I now find myself a bit adrift in terms of using these cool tools--some of which are familiar, just that I never allowed myself to use them fully. (This worked fine when I was doing implicit Illusionism with my old, 10-years familiar crowd, but running the same system--FUDGE--with newbies, I was shocked at how much sand was in the gears.)

Anyway, long story short, we had an absolutely smashing character generation and contract negotiation session. I have four players, three of whom are very sharp communicators and all-round grown-ups, one of whom has, um, munchkinish tendencies, but not so as to bust the whole game, I think.

The first session was much better than the previous, abandoned game that relied on far too exotic a setting, combined with a lot of whiffing and flopping about by PCs played all-too realistically to avoid each other. In fact, after that experience, the players bound their PCs rather more tightly than strictly necessary, but this hasn't caused any problems--they got together in record time.

OK, this is Actual Play, so let me describe events:

As foreshadowing, and following the text of Sorcerer's suggestion about having a brush with the Main Bad Guy right at the start, I had him, Marcus Devereaux, cut off Louis Gauthier, a PC on his way to meet another for a DJ gig, in his limo. Well, as we all know, no plan survives contact with players. :) For this minor offense, Louis sent his demon to try to screw up the limo's driver.

At this point, I had to wing it a bit. Unfortunately, it tended, I think, to de-protagonize the player, Eli. The limo pulled over and Louis followed (this was late at night in a slightly out-of-the way part of downtown Vancouver--Gastown, for those who know it). Louis' demon got spanked by the chauffeur, actually a rather physical demon himself, and Marcus, after a little dialogue, shot Louis. Rather than make a lot more rolls, I did some scene framing and told Eli that Louis escaped--it was not a serious wound, though now he was all bloody.

The whole rest of the game was played out in the bar. The owner, another PC and a pretty chilly customer, was wildly unimpressed with the blooad-soaked DJ. He didn't hit it off very well with the bartender either, another PC; but, eventually he was able to get himself cleaned up and convince the bartender to get the owner to let him play, something he happened to roll extremely well at, so he got a few moments in the spotlight.

Meanwhile, Lucas Shepard, sent by his benefactor (he was rescued from a nasty cult that did non-consensual body-part Parasite demons) to deliver a big block of heroin to the owner, Catherine Earnshaw, was received fairly graciously in her office because, well, this woman's Parasite has a serious Need for junk.

And around this time, Marcus, the Bad Guy, showed up again, behaving like the sleazy recording mogul he is to the bartender (who hates men), Morgan, and she "made" him and his chauffeur as Not Quite Right. Marcus went to make a phone call (he believes cellphones give you cancer) and was overheard by Lucas talking about being in Vancouver to get someone or something.

Whew. And that was more or less it. You know, writing it all out, considering our run was less than 3 hours, quite a bit happened. This is getting rather long, and I'll continue momentarily in another post.

--TQuid

So, I have a not very big, but rather tangly r-map running the clockwork behind the scenes. Marcus is in town to "harvest" the mostly mindless Lester Hale, a Sorcerer that Marcus trained with the knowledge that he would quickly burn himself out with his low Will and intense passions. (Thanks to & Sword, I think I've figured out that Marcus is a very rare, modern Necromancer; he fuels his ugly powers with Sorcerer "husks".) Mr. Hale is stuck, Howard-Hughes style, in a squalid apartment. His main Demon, a Passer going by Melinda Cheney, has convinced him that the Earth has been destroyed in a universal disaster, nuclear war, or something. She really does love him, in her twisted, jealous, Demonic way. Jaime Quintana, another of Hale's lovers, was killed by Melinda when he attacked her trying to free Hale from his psychological imprisonment (also, he was rather jealous of her). His brother, Josue, is looking for him and will contact the PCs somehow. (Hale got around--he was a small-time producer of shoddy near-porn, considering himself a misunderstood artiste. He was mainly interested in the "Hollywood North" party & sex lifestyle, though.)

Oh, and the chauffeur, "Archie" (not his real name--demon's names are all Greekish in this game), was once a Demon of Catherine's, a couple of centuries ago. I went a little nuts on the whole R-map thing.

Whew! So, I hope all that is moderately interesting. I am interested in getting some help:

Catherine Earnshaw's connection to the game is weak. The player is going with the antithesis of herself--a nasty ice queen. Her Kicker was rather weak, the idea being that she requires a re-Humanizing ritual every quarter-century involving the DNA of a blood relation; this may or may not actually be Louis. I think not, that just makes it all too incestuous. How can I get more commitment to the story from the player?

Eli, Louis Gauthier's player, lobbied many times for what amounts to & Sword's Hypnotism power. He wants direct mind-control powers, not provided for in the main rules, and I'm not eager to give them to him; I've made this clear but his ambition is obviously still there. I'm considering handing him 50' of rope in the form of the ability to do some Necromancy to, classically "bring back your dead girlfriend". (In fact, I think Marcus, the evil master who tricked Louis into a Summoning that did involve the sacrifice of his only love, may have already done this. We could have a pretty gnarly attempt at re-Binding. Ick.) Anyway, I would like to protagonize him some without it being all about combat. I've made it clear that if he wants more power, all he has to do is Summon another Demon. He seems to have decided to do that.

Well, I could add more notes about the other players, but suffice to say I'm rather nervous about "what happens next". I have a hell of a kinky R-map going, but I'm just not too sure where to take it from here--aha! I lack Bangs. Help! How do I bring in Josue? How do I draw the players into Hale's mysterious disappearance? I have some vague plans with newspaper headlines and hints dropped at the bar, but little else. I think I know what'll happen if the PCs do nothing, but not much besides that.

OK, see, there's the flailing I'm having problems with. Any suggestions are most welcome, and I will try to keep posting on this thread as the game continues.

--TQuid

[Edit: Oh, yeah, and Marcus is involved in the Mob as well as the music industry--Lester Hale owes the Mob considerable cash, so they asked Marcus to do them a favor and get it; of course, he doesn't care about that, but if he can't find it, he'll risk their non-Sorcerous, but non-trivial wrath. And his occult masters, the Sons as they're called, don't know about his harvesting operation and would be none too happy about it. So he's sweating too, and there's some Bangs possible that would confuse the crap out of the players.]