Hiya, :)

So, my "indie RPG group" finally got finished with PtA. (Heritage, about five weeks ago, and yes, eventually, I'll write that up on here...) We decided we'd try Sorcerer next, and three weeks ago was the chargen session. A week ago, we were supposed to have our first play session, but the GM felt unprepared, so we skipped play and started last Friday.

And it was very... hmm, how do I put this... empty.

I don't know if any of you recall, but we had an aborted try with the game a looong time ago, and it didn't really go anywhere. At the time, I built a character that was a cool cat politician, with a Humanity of six, and found out very quickly that high-humanity characters aren't relly all that interesting to play, as they can burn up a lot of it conjuring up a taylor-made bitchy demon, ready to deal with the situation, and the kicker will end up resolved pretty quickly.

So, this time I went for a more on-the-edge type thing, and built a character with a Humanity of three. Well, I saw it reduced to two before play even began, in the binding of my first demon, and then down to one during a now-aborted attempt to conjure up a weakly demon thingie to deal with a very specific situation.

Well, now I'm walking around with a character that's on the very tip of getting away from me, and I didn't even get started on my kicker yet, not really. I'm thinking, this doesn't look all that interesting either.

So... I guess I don't really know what it is I'm supposed to be doing with this game... I guess I'm supposed to find a story that would be interesting to me, but I really don't know how to go about it. Before any of you are tempted to blame the GM for not placing the right bangs in front of me, don't go there. He really didn't have any time to do anything before I squandered off all of my humanity.

I've seen a lot of threads here asking for help with Sorcerer, but they have been mostly from the point of view of the GM. I'm pretty sure I'd know what to do if I were behind the screen, but as a player, I'm totally lost. Help!

Feel free to ask questions about specifics, if you think that'll help in providing advice.

Cheers,

J.

This is a very interesting perspective on the game. I don't think that I have any specific advice, but I find it interesting that you're finding it trivial to deal with things when a character has a high Humanity, while it all becomes almost impossible with a low one. I always found Humanity only one part of the matrix of challenges, with demon relationships, NPC relationships and actual character goals filling the rest.

One thing you could try would be to play the system somewhat agressively. Forget your in-game plans for now, and concentrate on your fear of losing the character. The way to stop that from happening is to find your way into humanity gain situations while avoiding further losses. Is there any conflicts on the table right now for your character, or somebody else's? Take the high road as regards those conflicts (what that means depends on your Humanity definition, of course). Start banishing demons, too. Ideally your GM will cooperate in co-creating situations that let you make the decision to embrace humanity or demonity in turns. How much you want to keep the character, that should be the angle. Also, notice that there is no risk of "the character getting away" in Sorcerer through Humanity rolls, because it requires player choice to make the roll happen at all. When you're at Humanity one, it just means that you cannot take humanity-risking action without risking your whole character. But it's you that has to make that decision to risk the humanity, so I'd say that you're in no danger to lose the character, unless you want to. You will only lose the character when and if the GM manages to put you to a spot where you feel that the issue at hand is more important than the whole character. You feel, not the GM or somebody else.

Incidentally, I don't think that you should be trying to recognize a story in Sorcerer the way you said it. Rather, let the story be created from the chains of consequence between separate scenes. Just take it one situation, one objective at a time. Perhaps you could tell us what your character's goals and values are? Those I find usually the simplest way to direct my own characters.

I'm somewhat familiar with confusion from player point of view, and in my case it usually results from insufficient system/GM support, leaving me floundering in a simmy environment with nothing to do. The general way to solve the problem, I've found, is to methodically create your own premise. Just decide on something proactive to do with the character, and let it develop from there. Of course you need the other players to support it, but that's not usually the problem when you take the first step. Simply put, just decide that the recent crises have convinced your character that he has to do X, where X is something colorful and potentially interesting and what's most important, relevant to the other characters. If nothing else, start lusting after one of the other player characters, bringing gifts and making sexual demands. That should keep you in the game for a while ;D

Hi J,

I'm not sure what you mean by a high Humanity character having an easy time of it... Demons are like guns, they're powerful, but they can't solve all your problems- and then there's the fact that they also can disobey or get snotty at times. I'm not sure how that would relate to a Kicker being solved quicker either...

On the flip side of it, with a low humanity character, initially, yeah, you're not going to have a lot of options- you're going to almost HAVE to go for some Humanity boosting actions right off the bat... some of them you might "regret"(ever wonder why the hero spares the villain in a movie?), but you know that going in.

Some useful stuff to know- what is the Humanity definition? What are demons, what is Sorcery, what is your character's Kicker? How many Humanity rolls/checks did you have outside of just sorcery? What were they about?

Chris

Hello,

Quick detail question: has everyone with a player-character filled out the diagrams on the backs of the character sheets?

Best,
Ron

Go with wherever Ron leads you about the back of the character sheet. That's the one step I skipped when setting up our group's Sorcerer game, and I had a hell of a time providing meaningful Bangs until we went back and did it.

I have to admit that I never even thought of the problem you mentioned, though. We've got some characters in our game with weak little demons and some with big nasty ones, and none of them have an easy time getting what they want. In our play the real tension and conflict has been grounded in relationships (between PCs, and between the PCs and NPCs), and the sorcerers with high-Power demons don't get a free pass there. Sure you could use your combat monster to kill someone, but does that make your life easier? (It might, it might not, but either way you're bound to have something interesting happen.)

I guess what I'm saying is that in my experience, the demons matter more as additional (dysfunctional) relationships a PC has to deal with, and so I haven't seen any players take the attitude that "I have a big gun, so things are fine".

Hey, :)

First off, thanks for the replies.

Ron Edwards wrote: Quick detail question: has everyone with a player-character filled out the diagrams on the backs of the character sheets?

Bankuei wrote: Some useful stuff to know- what is the Humanity definition? What are demons, what is Sorcery, what is your character's Kicker? How many Humanity rolls/checks did you have outside of just sorcery? What were they about?

Hi Jay,

First, yeah. My PC got knocked down to 0 Humanity.

It's sort of hard to explain without the context, but he ended up going stark raving mad in his attempts to avenge himself against what he thought was his son's betrayal, arranging for his son's death and more... Lost his last point of humanity trying battle a demon... his own demon abandoned him... and the session ended.

In the recap posted at the Forge about that session where he went to 0, I wrote:

"What comes after that, I have no idea. But a major turn has come for Karl (has to, in fact, if I'm not going to just do this Humanity 0 thing again and again), and I think he has no memory of his sorcererous dealings with Brom, what he did to his son, and is actually a good guy now -- who's about to enter hell as he uncovers what he's done (both as himself and as himself possessed). Will he get his humanity up? Or fall into final oblivion? A couple of more sessions will tell."

So in the next session we played out Karl finding out what he's done all these years with his demon, and setting about to make things right.

*****

Now, I've got a question for you...

You wrote, "As for going out and finding humanity-boosting actions to do, that's just gonna feel very weird right now... in the current in-game situation, it'll be very out of context, as there's nothing immediate on the table, which means I'd have to go out and look for something, just for that purpose, when I should be looking for cocaine... It'll feel like I'm gaming humanity, which I'm sure isn't the point of Sorcerer."

But what about Bangs? Is the GM tossing Bangs at you? In a Sorcerer game, Bangs are almost always opportunities for Humanity Loss or Gain checks -- depending on which way your PC jumps when confronted with the Bang.

Your guy shouldn't have to go out looking for good deeds to do. The GM should be throwing crap at your PC to see which way the PC jumps. Is the GM doing this?

****

One more thing: What do you care about the Humanity issue on the table -- you J? I know your PC wants coke. But what do you think about him wanting coke. Or killing people to get coke. Or something. Because the only way the Bangs are actually going to matter is if you actually have a stake in what's going on in terms of the choices the PC is making.

If your PC is simply a pawn for you to do dasterdly deeds with, I can promise you it ain't going to work.

Christopher

Ahoy, :)

Christopher Kubasik wrote: My PC got knocked down to 0 Humanity. <...> So in the next session we played out Karl finding out what he's done all these years with his demon, and setting about to make things right.

Christopher Kubasik wrote: You wrote, "As for going out and finding humanity-boosting actions to do, that's just gonna feel very weird right now... in the current in-game situation, it'll be very out of context, as there's nothing immediate on the table, which means I'd have to go out and look for something, just for that purpose, when I should be looking for cocaine... It'll feel like I'm gaming humanity, which I'm sure isn't the point of Sorcerer."

But what about Bangs? Is the GM tossing Bangs at you?

Christopher Kubasik wrote: One more thing: What do you care about the Humanity issue on the table -- you J? I know your PC wants coke. But what do you think about him wanting coke. Or killing people to get coke. Or something. Because the only way the Bangs are actually going to matter is if you actually have a stake in what's going on in terms of the choices the PC is making.

Christopher Kubasik wrote: If your PC is simply a pawn for you to do dasterdly deeds with, I can promise you it ain't going to work.

Hiya,

J, let me describe my basic reaction to this whole thread.

GUY 1: I really want to paint this wall red, but it never seems to happen.

GUY 2: Do you have a bucket of paint and the paintbrush? Have you spread the newspapers on the floor?

GUY 1: Yeah, I got all that. And I also get that you're supposed to dip the paintbrush in the bucket and spread it all 'round. But ...

GUY 2: Good! So start spreading.

GUY 1: I don't know ... it just doesn't work. I can't really seem to get that paint onto the wall. It's that whole thing about, you know, getting that paint onto the brush and then onto the wall.

GUY 2 (puzzled): ... you mean, um, dipping the paintbrush, and then moving the brush against the wall.

GUY 1: Right! That part's not working.

And right about there, I (guy 2) just spread my hands in confusion.

J, when you say, "My guy just wants to get coke," and then you say, "And I can see the Humanity just going straight down the drain" ...

... that's exactly the same as saying "The paint won't go onto the wall." I mean, exactly. No fancy metaphor.

Are you seriously telling me you made up a character who only wants to get more coke? And now can't understand why his Humanity is (as you see it) inevitably dropping?

Unless you get interested in this character making a decision, today, to care about something already-in-play besides getting more coke, then that is what will happen. And as far as I'm concerned, demonstrates the power of Sorcerer as a system in doing so.

Now, sometimes, it's perfectly fine to play a character as a "cautionary theme," which is to say, "Look at how this guy's rotten values drive him straight down the tubes." But that doesn't seem to be what you're doing. You seem to want the character to become a more viable heroic-style protagonist. But you don't seem to understand that this depends on you taking your eyes off the parts of the character sheet where presumably it says stuff like "drugs," and looking at other parts where fictional people are listed ... and most importantly, after that, take your eyes off the sheet entirely, and look at the other real people at the table. Your character does whatever you want while you look at them, not what some cue-sheet tells you.

I dunno. This is like dealing with White Wolf veterans in Sorcerer games - they can act-out "I'm on the edge, man!" like no one else ... but provide any number of possibilities for their character to behave decently, and they stare around aimlessly and mope. Then they whine about how there's nothing to "do" and keep interrogating NPCs for "clues" or looking for "fights."

Anyway, as in most such situations, I'm not the guy to help you. Listen to Christopher, to Eero, to Chris, and everyone else on this thread.

Best,
Ron

Hey, Ron, :)

Hm... We cross-posted...

Ron Edwards wrote: J, when you say, "My guy just wants to get coke," and then you say, "And I can see the Humanity just going straight down the drain" ...

... that's exactly the same as saying "The paint won't go onto the wall." I mean, exactly. No fancy metaphor.

Are you seriously telling me you made up a character who only wants to get more coke? And now can't understand why his Humanity is (as you see it) inevitably dropping?

Ron Edwards wrote: Unless you get interested in this character making a decision, today, to care about something already-in-play besides getting more coke, then that is what will happen. And as far as I'm concerned, demonstrates the power of Sorcerer as a system in doing so.

Now, sometimes, it's perfectly fine to play a character as a "cautionary theme," which is to say, "Look at how this guy's rotten values drive him straight down the tubes." But that doesn't seem to be what you're doing. You seem to want the character to become a more viable heroic-style protagonist.

Hello João,

I don't know if I can help either, since you're looking at the game in a way I can't quite understand.

But let me offer what I can.

Before that, some business: there are optional rules for continuing play with 0 Humanity Characters in The Sorcerer's Soul. You knock the PC's stats down, switch around the descriptors, add a Price or two, and take a Humanity of One.

But that's a whole seperate issue.

The real question is, you want to know why this game is fun.

And I can assure you, it is fun. But you're looking at the game all... Weird.

Your obsession with the Humanity ratings... in particular thinking the game is already over at a Humanity of 1 reveals your not quite grasping what's going on. I've played a PC at humanity 1 for hours. I mean... It's a PC with a Humanity of 1. You can play him. So play him!

Now, when Ron... jeez, this is not complicated, but I have no idea if you're going to buy this... When Ron asked about the back of the character sheet., and Ron asked if there was anything your PC cared about beside cocaine... you gave these brief, almost dismissive answers.

But he was getting at the nub of the problem you're having with the game. What you and your fellower players will need to re-focus your attention on if you're expecting the game to work.

You didn't bother actaully answering Ron's questions, so I'll provide a hypothetical. Let's say there's a kid on the back of your sheet. Right? You said your guy is a social worker who cares a lot about kids, so, under Cover there's probably a kid or two that's you've worked out with the GM. Right?

And the GM looks at the back of your character sheet, and says, "Oh, good. A Bang with kids. I love Bangs with kids."

And your guy is over trying to scrounge up drugs. On the street. And the exchange is just about to happen. And one of your PC's kids from the back of your sheet listed under your Cover (which you put there, because you created this guy and knows how much he cares about kids), is walking down the street. And sees you talking to a drug dealer. And your PC sees the kid watching him talk to the drug dealer. BANG!

And your guy has to decide: Do I complete this transaction? Do I show this kid that the the one person who fights most to protect him is just another half-assed loser like everyone else in his life. OR, do I walk away from this right now.

Walk away, and your PC gets to make a Humanity Gain roll.

Is that a goody two shoes? In your eyes? I don't know. I do know that this is what the game is about. Setting up a bunch of options on the back of that sheet for the GM to toss at you about moral choices.

And if you're guy does go through with the drug deal in front of the kid -- BAM -- Humanity Loss check. Which is cool, because you decided to have him to through with the deal. If you make the roll and he hits 0 at that moment, BAM... That's the moment he lost his humanity: Doing drug deals in front of one the kids he once swore to protect.

Sounds fucking excellent to me either way.

If you're not playing for moments like this, you're not playing the game. If you haven't set up these conflicting interests, if the GM isn't taking them and tossing them at your PC with hard choices, you're not playing the game.

Now, more problems.

You wrote: "My PC is a pawn for me to explore how far down it's possible to go in a quest for something that he isn't supposed to need in the first place."

Okay, I need you to keep that statement in mind while reading my newly minted Sorcerer Doesn't Scare Me. What's Wrong With Me? thread.

Right now you've created a need for your guy that you think is not nescesary (me too, by the way). As long as you sit outside your guy's needs for drugs, you're just judging him and he's a schmuck. You haven't given him a reason (no matter how misguided) to be doing the drugs.

How about this: Is he doing coke to work fifteen hour days to help the kids? Well, then, see, he's hooked back into the kids again. It's not some dumb as thing he's doing just so you can watch him spiral. (It is pathetic, but it's still born of something real, something we can connect to.)

So, really, read the thread. I think it's an important thread for understanding Sorcerer. Ron thinks so, too. And we're great guys.

Finally, you want more info about games from the Players POV.

Have you checked out the Actual Play Threads listed at the Sorcerer Web site? Some of them are written by (or commented on by) players in the games. In particular, dig through the Gothic Fantasy links about three quarters the way down. Both Jesse (the GM) and I write about the game. You certaily get my point of view on why it was fun to play.

Finally, I know you wanted to watch a guy spiral for a while. But guess what.. He's at the end. Sorcerer isn't a game where you get to decide where you're going to go independent of what's really happening. How the dice fall is reality. And everyone at the table has to adjust expectations and actions accordingly.

More signficanlty, there is not sprialing down in Sorcerer. This is a thick point -- but vital. One either has Humanity (anywhere on the scale from 1 to 10) or one does not (0). A Humanity of 2 really is the same as a Humanity of 8. One doesn't actually spiral in Sorcerer. One is always driving along a high mountain road, always at risk of slipping off and plummeting into the abyss. Sometimes your tires are right on the edge, sometimes you're hugging the mountain as tight as you can -- but until you fall, you're not falling. Check out this thread for more clues: Humanity as a Moral Guage?

Best of luck, dude. But really. You're missing the point of the game.

The Back of the Sheet. The Bangs. The Choices. The threads I linked.

Try that stuff first and see if it makes anymore sense.

Christopher

I'm kind of wondering where the disconnect is.

You wanted a character to be on-the-edge right? Well, doesn't on-the-edge mean that he's already reached this point where he has to decide between redemption and damnation -right now-? Isn't it pretty reasonable that he's at that point after killing someone and trying to summon a -demon-? What did you want to happen before it became a problem?

I look at Sorcery in Sorcerer as a roulette wheel, bid what you have and the the pretty thing in the blue dress, the flashy cars and everything else could be yours. A high Humanity character is cool and just throwing out pocket change when he loses, a low Humanity character is throwing his kids out on the streets. But every time a high Humanity character loses, he's getting closer to that miserable bum where the spin of the wheel decides his whole life.

Now, did that analogy turn you on? If it did, than playing the high Humanity character who walked away with the building or the low Humanity character who has to scrimp and save what he has left should both be very satisfying. Concerns like "game balance" and "having the right amount of demon power." should be flying out the window.

If that analogy didn't turn you on, then I really think its just not the game for you, just as Riddle of Steel would be a crappy game for someone who thinks fighting is lame.

Hi J,

1) You wanted to play a character spiraling down. You got it. But it's not interesting, right?

I'd say go watch some Requiem for a Dream. You get to watch EVERYONE spiral down, all in their own special fashion. Check out how they do get Humanity upping things, like love, friendships, family, and turn their back on them several times in the movie, not always, but more and more as their humanity wears down going for their high. A character doing the same thing, all the time, isn't interesting. It's where they make exceptions that you learn the most important things.

So for example, with your coke-head character, you could start with him doing a whole lot of humanity upping things, until his need gets too great, and he starts getting really, really desperate. Or, maybe, its an off and on thing, where he keeps wavering back and forth. Or maybe, you do some upping things, and as issues come to a head, you drive him all the way to oblivion. Yeah- this is exactly how stories model escalation, climax and resolution, and Humanity models just that.

So it may help to step out of Actor stance and into Author stance and think about what kind of story you could see happening that's going to be interesting for you.

2)Bangs & Humanity checks/gain rolls.

This needs to be the focus of play. Those Humanity rolls are the SA's of Sorcerer, the Sins of Dogs, and the Issues of PTA- it's the focal point. Your character rides down his humanity doing sorcery? Bah, we expect that, you're a sorcerer. What else does he run it down for? What does he push it up for? You see, humanity gains are what make the character MORE than a 2 dimensional villain going down the drain.

If we're watching Lord of the Rings, it's the scenes where you see Gollum TRY to fight his inner demons, and gain a modicum of self respect and something to live for besides the damn ring that makes him all the more tragic and more than a nameless orc. Seeing him fight, even if for a little, that makes interesting.

Getting this to happen, though, requires that both you AND the GM work with it to happen. As a player, you need to input clearly what the nature of the issue is- is it that your character is trying to escape, trying to do good before he loses it, or is he making a choice between, WHAT? Coke OR ? What's the other option? Saving a PARTICULAR kid? I mean, imagine if you took Sin City's Hartigan and made him a coke-head. Whoa, now he has to choose between coke and saving the little girl.

And the GM has to help put those into play as well. So, if the GM isn't throwing humanity gain chances your way, you're not going to get to really do them, are you? And when they come along, you gotta take some of them at some point... and those SOME are what make your character interesting.

Chris

Hiya,

Well, you guys are all saying great stuff, but I'm wondering whether it's really not all that big of a deal now.

Joao, work with me on this one - is all you're looking for a confirmation that "starting with low Humanity means you gotta turn around quick?"

If so, then the answer is "Yes." No problem, in terms of your actions the next time you play - either "this schmuck is going down," as a cautionary tale in comparison to other protagonists, or "turnaround time." Whichever you'd like. And no problem, in the bigger sense of the system in general, either, right?

Best,
Ron

As usual, I'm coming a little late to the party but I want to point out something that I think has been missed. Sorcerer is about Story Now. I wish people would start abadoning GNS because the new descriptive phrases capture the Creative Agends so much better.

Anyway, I was worried from the minute you said, "I wanted to create a story about a social worker spiraling down into darkness as he got involved in the criminal underworld." Alarm bells went off because you've already lost sight of Story Now. Before play has begun you've already got a destination, or maybe a set of destinations in mind. Worse, you already have in mind how things should flow and at what pace.

Story Now is not an empty description. It really does mean the Story is whatever is happening Now. It's not about realizing the story you had in mind at the beginning and it's not about following a pattern of behavior to a percieved inevitable conclusion.

This is the player version of trying to protect "the story." When GMs do it, it's called railroading. There isn't a term for when players do it but it usually results in player disappointment because the system resolves conflicts in ways that do not meet the player's pre-play expectations of what "the story" is.

One way of thinking about it is to envision a Story Now game as a graph. Each node is point of conflict and resolution. Behind your current node is a linear path of other nodes. Those nodes can and should inform the content (i.e. Conflict and Resolution) of the current node.

But infront of you lines a PLANE of pentontial nodes. That plane may or may not currently contain the destination (or set of destinations) you had in mind at the start of play. Players who are unfamiliar with Story Now tend to get caught up in a few things.

1) They recognize that the destination they wanted does not lie on the current plane and get frustrated. Either they give up or make a choice they are not happy with in an effort to shift the plane so that it inculdes the destination they want. In otherwise they sacrifice their own enjoyment of the Story Now in the hopes of a getting satisfaction from the story later.

2) In a more extreme case players don't see a plane at all and instead see a linear path before them that they consider inescapable due to some bizare conflagrance of situation and how they percieve the character. I have one such player in my group. It's so bizare because she refuses to take responsibility for anything in the game, even the good stuff. "Well, you know, given the situation and my character, I really didn't have any choice in the matter."

In either case the player has completely lost sight of Story Now. Instead of focusing on the current node and perhaps the potential spread of immediate future nodes the player has gotten wrapped up in where they thought the story should of gone or where they think it is locked into going now.

So, you're at Humanity 1 and some sorcery has gone bad. That's the Story Now. So go full bore and go off the deep end or find someway to recoup Humanity. That's not "gaming" Humanity that's playing the game. And Humanity gain need not be "goodey too shoes" either.

Humanity is empathy right? Your character's in to kids right? Humanity is at 1 because you failed some Sorcery right? And you, the player, think you're a little low too early so you want some Humanity back. Great. Just find away that doesn't compromize the "edginess" of the character. Here's a way I thought of: So, after failing your Sorcery, your character goes to a kids sheleter he works at looking for a quick place to crash. Tell the GM you want to encounter one of the kids there. Then do something like, "Kid, don't look at me like this. I've seen and been through darkness. Darkness I don't want you or anyone else ever to see."

See? Empathy. Acknowledgement of the problem and an attempt to reach out to someone else. Humanity gain. No loss of edge.

I'm reminded of a scene from a movie called "Way of the Gun." Ryan Phillipe and Benecio Del Toro kidnap this pregnant lady to ransom her. And at one point Phillipe's character is touching the woman's belly feeling the baby kick and Del Tror's character leans across and pulls Phillipe's hand away. He then says to the woman, "You don't want men like us touching your baby." Total Humanity Gain and I think it makes him look like MORE of a badass.

Figure out what you the player want NOW. Look at the playing field in front of you and MAKE IT HAPPEN. The story is the linear path of events left in your wake. It's kind of a shame because in hindsight this path can look awfully "inevitable." Which is true of ALL stories, across all mediums which is why so many roleplayers get tripped up when they try to focus on "the story."

That's not the kind of story I wanted.
That's not how this kind of story goes.
Nobody ends up like that in this kind of story.
It's too soon for that kind of event to happen in this kind of story.

All of these complaints are based on judging the current story by the standards of stories as a finished products, not as stories in mid-creation.

I hope that was helpful.

Jesse

Hey, all, :)

Hmmm... yes, some excellent insights on the part of just about everybody.

I have some objections to your specific situational suggestions, but voicing them now wouldn't do me or other readers any good. As for the more general advice, it's all good.

What this means is, I'll take everything you've all said, mix it in with the current situation, and go back to the table. Consider this just a general thank you note! :)

Alas, the next session isn't until the 28th, but I promise to come back to this thread (or open a new one) after it happens, and post an update.

So, again, thanks. :)

Cheers,

J.