My friends Jason, Kelli and I played Urge last weekend, and we had a blast! Jason played the Urge-infested character, a Juggernaut/Protector with a vaguely Native-American mystical origin for his Urge. Stats: Will: 3 Stamina:3 Humanity:3 Urge: 4 (Dominance aspect, Needed to run and destroy anything in it's direct path.)
Kelli played two NPC's for me: a prostitute trying to earn money for her little sister's college fund who Jason saved, and a serial killer whose "operation" Jason stumbled upon and foiled.
Variations: 1) I changed the dice mechanic. Instead of the Sorcerer "match-up highest dice" method, I went for "roll your dice, evens are successes, compare with opposition roll, most successes wins."
2) I didn't make Jason roll Urge vs. Humanity to access his advanced Urge abilities. He wanted 'em, he got 'em, and lost the humanity point.
What went well for me as GM: Having a template to start from (Bang, complacency, shitstorm, and resolution) was wonderful. For the first time, I felt like the game had distinct and cohesive stages. It felt like we made a story!
Regaining humanity: It was easy to give Jason humanity for counteracting his Urge. I gave him points when he submitted (the opposite of his dominance aspect). I need to pin down the other, more vague, reasons to award humanity.
I'll try to add more later. Feedback?

Chris,

1) Why'd you change the dice mechanic?

2) I notice you have two players, and one Urge-infested character. What'd Kelli play? (And that's interesting, that you thought of that idea, of only one player having the Urge. Where'd that come from?)

3) To be honest, I wrote Urge when I was very young, and didn't know how to write RPGs well yet. (Some might argue I still don't. Anyway.) Did the GM advice in Urge hold up?

Thanks for the questions!

I really didn't need to change the dice mechanic, but I didn't see how the increased handling time (correct term?) of matching up dice would benefit my game.

Kelli expressed interest in playing Urge, but I envisioned only one Urge-infested character in the story. So I simply gave her a couple NPC's to play, which she did masterfully. It helped to have another creative mind in the mix. I was worried about a group of two running dry of ideas. And, by playing normal people, she emphasized the impact that the Urge character had on plain folks.

The GM advice did help a great deal. I must say again that the "running Urge" template and it's four stages was a wonderful help. The session felt so seamless without (I hope) any railroading.
thanks for a great game! any revisions in the werks? chris moore

Hi Chris,

I'm not sure ... but sometimes, people mis-read the Sorcerer rules and what they usually say when they do it is "matching up the dice." Again, I don't know if you're mis-reading them or not, but your choice of terms is at least the same as those who have done so.

There isn't any literal dice-matching in the Sorcerer resolution system. All you do is look for the highest values and compare them. Now, if that's what you meant by "matching," then it's cool and I accept that you simply didn't want to do it.

But in practice, I've found that the Sorcerer system typically means we only have to look at one die apiece across the two rolls (the high ones), and when we need more (ties, degrees of victory) it's almost never the whole pool. Whereas if you're counting odds and evens in both rolls, you have to examine the entire pool every time - slightly slower, as least as I've experienced it.

Best,
Ron

It seems to me that you almost always need to find degrees of success in Sorcerer. Could you give me an example where you can just look at the highest die? I could be missing something...chris