I think it's pretty hard to read Sorcerer material without getting a burst of ideas, particularly along the lines of "This'd be great for playing..." or "There should be a mini-supp about..."

I think it would be enlightening for everyone to really briefly describe the first few ideas of this sort that came to their mind. Or the ones that are buzzing around in their head now. For my part, I rapidly thought:

1. High-school occult conspiracy!

and

2. Post-apocalyptic vampires!

I doubt if the first really fits the system, on further reflection, but who knows. Anyway, let's hear some more! Unless this doesn't belong in this forum, or doesn't belong at all... I'm still pretty nervous about these things...

actualy, the first would make a great episodic series... I mean the source material abounds. You could run Buffy with almost untouched Sorcerer in about 5 minutes.

Buffy
Stamina 6
Will 3
Lore 1

Demon (paasite): The Primal Slayer (vitality, Speed, Boost ect)






How easy is this?

Bailywolf wrote: actualy, the first would make a great episodic series... I mean the source material abounds. You could run Buffy with almost untouched Sorcerer in about 5 minutes.

Buffy
Stamina 6
Will 3
Lore 1

Demon (paasite): The Primal Slayer (vitality, Speed, Boost ect)

(sharp tones) Hey!

The high-school Buffy Sorcerer thing has been done to death on this forum before, and it moved into Actual Play with Josh's Hellfire game. I'm really, profoundly, totally uninterested in doing that all over again.

Henry's question is a good one. If people want to respond with "what I thought to play on my first reading," well and good. I'm interested. So far, no one has.

Best,
Ron

Actually, that is a good question. When I first read Sorcerer, I think the first idea that popped into my head was much more surreal & subtle than Hellfire. Demons were shadowy figures rarely seen, and sorcery rituals involved lots of weird lighting & odd camera angles. Humanity was actually a lot like Hellfire, in that it represented empathy & human understanding, but sorcery meant you had to violate that in much more direct and unsettling ways than what I'm doing in Hellfire (where the sorcery is pretty standard "draw a chalk circle & speak in Sumerian" stuff). Nothing particularly "out there", really. Your basic Twin Peaks meets The X-Files kind of thing.

My first couple thoughts, well, I'm not gonna share 'em. But my third thought was "Mage done right," or rather "my magic system done right." (I came up with the system before Mage was published; I assumed I'd steal from Mage, but aside from the use of the word "Gnosis" (which came from my own study and is incidentally repeated in Werewolf), it bears little resemblance to any WW property.

In spite of the amazingly inspired ways that have been shown to get Sorcerer to handle almost anything, I eventually decided that my game isn't really about Humanity. It ran quite well under FUDGE in an Illusionistic sort of way, but it's still waiting for a heart, methinks. Meantime it makes a decently clever magic system for FUDGE. However, I do owe Ron and the Forge for strongly clarifying my thinking, which previously had been badly muddled by attempting to create a "realistic" magic system. (I was a Chaos Mage, I was in the Ordo Templi Orientis, I still have a big rack of occult books; and well, all that stuff was fun and interesting, but it's more sanity-threatening trying to create a "realistic magic system" than commanding the forces of Hell, if you ask me.)

"I read the Necronomicon."

"OK. You have some bad dreams."

"I summon Abraxas to eat my neighbor's head."

"Your neighbor gets a headache."

"I join in the terrible rites of the Hellfire Club."

"You get a venereal disease."

"I try to design a game that incorporates all known sources of magical theory into a cohesive unit with one simple resolution mechanic, preserving their unique traits that make them distinct from one another."

"You work at it for months, then years. Your SAN drops perilously close to zero. One day, just before publication, the Byakhee come and take you away, exposing you to the outer wastes of space, which are so beautiful, so beautiful . . . you are insane. Then you eat vacuum. You die."

--JB

Very nice, JB, and I really like it ....

But spill. What were the first two ideas? You're among friends here.

Best,
Ron

When I first read Sorcerer, the idea that I came up with was The Northern Forest. Set the sorcerers loose in a black forest, grim's fairy tales type setting.

We ran a few sessions, but it ultimately fizzled, primarily due to me having a schedule that was way too busy. Some discussion with the players afterward showed that I also didn't make proper use of their kickers--they lacked story involvement. This was due partly to my own incomplete understanding of the concept at the time

I don't want to bring this up again, really, but just for the record, I didn't mean like buffy. Mine was more like... Delta Green with teenagers? Something like that.

Sorry to offend or jump the gun... but I quite like Buffy (when I get the chance to watch it... not so often of late). I must have missed the doing-to-death...but when you consider the number of posts I'm responsible for, I suppose there is no excuse.

Also, a specific apology to the Winged Howling one. You have a good angle with that... and having all the character be under 18 makes for an added angle of horror- not only will no one believe your expereinces because they sound crazy, but no one will believe your experiences because teenagers are all "crazy drug and sex addled gang members with ADD and Dysfunctional Familias".

"I swear to christ officer! Cultists are responsible for the baby kidnappings!"

"Yeah right son... what have you been smoking?"

Set it in a small sleepy Southern town...one part FootLoose, one part Twin Peaks one part Cuthulu High.

The creepy shit that can go on in a small town is astounding... and if the Authorities are dedicated to keeping it quiet...


***Ron, please stop reading after this point...;) ***



As for Buffy's demon stuff how about...

Desire: Action- yer basic surface urge to go out and slay.

Need: Loss- the inherent nihilistic nature of the Slayer (a force with no purpose other than destruction) is fueled and made stronger by personal tragedy. Slayers are moody and often mercurial; they're friends and family frequently suffer the consequences. The primal slayer feeds on tragedy, personal destruction, loss. Slayers rarely live to reach 25. Simply, a slayer's life sucks and keeps getting worse until ultimate nullity is reached- death.

Ron asks, what were my first two ideas?

Um, well, I forgot one. I meant the "first two" notion to be a kind of shorthand, honestly, and didn't mean for it to be a tease.

By way of penance, though, I do vaguely remember that I thought it would be fun to actually use the list of 72 Goetic demons from the Lesser Key of Solomon. (Anybody else remember SPI's Demons? Those guys had balls putting out that game in the heyday of "D&D makes kids into devil-worshippers!" They even offered a free manuscript of the Lesser Key for sending in a SASE! Brass fucking balls, man.) These guys can tend to be a bit prosaic sometimes (tons of them "give Knowledge of the Arts & Sciences, and locate Hidden Treasures"), but could be spiced up with appropriate Desires & Needs. A fine source would be Brin's little-known, um. Crimony, hang on . . . oh, actually I think it's The Devil's Day by James Blish, cited right in Sorcerer. Is that the one where the world ends and the final part of the novel is written (a bit gratuitously, IMO) in play form? Anyway, that one.

All right, all right, that was incoherent. I'll post my design in Indie Game Design, and then we can see if it works as a mini-supp and I'm just being cranky, or if it is its own critter. (Or if doing it both ways might be fun.)

--JB

JB, are you referring to the Mayfair Games' "AD&D compatible" Demons boxed sets? Demons, and Demons II? Written by the ever-brilliant Mike Nystul? They're amazing.

Those are cited in Sorcerer too.

Best,
Ron

Heh.. anyone new to this thread, don't read this. Just post your ideas.

---

Now. My first inspiration for High School Conspiracy in general was listening to the long litany of "Students who normally ride bus 1114 will today ride bus 1113... Students who normally ride..." etc. Happens every day, sometimes up to 10 or 15 changes. They're obviously transmitting some kind of code. And think about how easy it would be to callously manipulate highschool students. Just as one example, we have something at my school called "code red" where everyone has to crowd into the corner of a classroom and lock the door, to defend against psycho shooters. Fire drills too, and that sort of thing. Move'em around at will, fake disasters easily, perfect for collecting sacrifices.

Ron Edwards wrote: JB, are you referring to the Mayfair Games' "AD&D compatible" Demons boxed sets? Demons, and Demons II? Written by the ever-brilliant Mike Nystul? They're amazing.

When I (recently) read Sorcerer & Soul (especially the Angel stuff, which for some reason blew the lid open on what a "demon" could be more than all the discussion here ever had), I thought "maybe I could do Keyes' "Newton's Canon" stuff with this", and "maybe I could do Brian Stablefords' "Werewolves of London" with this." Then I started to wonder if I *liked* either one enough to actually do it . . .

I do not, as yet, have an answer.

Gordon

Haven't yet played Sorcerer, may not for a while, barring con demos--my list of Games I've Got To Play is pretty long right now. But I was struck by the suitability of Sorcerer for RPing the "Girl Genius" comic by Phil and Kaja Foglio. Dig it: clanks, constructs, and other arcane products of Mad Science are the demons, Lore is the intensity of your Spark, and Humanity is your ability to cooperate with other people.

I'm not sure what Needs and Desires would be, though, and worst of all, the premise of the game is entirely unclear to me. It certainly wouldn't have anything to do with the premise of the comic book.

Seth L. Blumberg wrote: But I was struck by the suitability of Sorcerer for RPing the "Girl Genius" comic by Phil and Kaja Foglio.

Greetings! I just recently bought Sorcerer, and, sure enough, all sorts of permutations popped into my head. Obviously demonic influences. I also kept seeing instances in fiction and fact that made me go "Ah-ha! I could use that!" If any of these have been mentioned, please forgive me. I'm now looking for the two supplements, and gave myself quite a headache trying to read all the postings here. An embarrasment of riches.
A few ideas: Sorcerer and Witchcraft. Magical and New Age books abound with familiars, nature spirits, spirit guides, guardian angels, and the like. As I understand it, as long as the demon/ spirit/ thingie has its own agenda, distinct from the sorcerer's, this will push the player into ever new territory.

The three sisters on "Charmed" have to keep protecting innocents and vanquishing warlocks, but notice that each of them also had personal and professional crises. Something of the sort could be created with Need, Desire and Kickers. Julia Butterfly Hill, the young woman who sat in a tree in the Pacific Northwest. She had an epiphany while visiting the forest, and felt an overwhelming need to stay and protect the trees. Nature spirit, anyone? "Touched by an Angel". The way the angels try to persuade each episode's poor sinner to do the right thing seems very much like the interaction between demon and master.

Really bad idea: "Star Trek". The Enterprise is a Big demon, with lots of powers. Her need is dilithium crystals. This explains why the ship is so prone to breakdown: the brat stage. No wonder Kirk is in love with his ship. Classic co-dependency.

leomknight wrote: Really bad idea: "Star Trek". The Enterprise is a Big demon, with lots of powers. Her need is dilithium crystals. This explains why the ship is so prone to breakdown: the brat stage. No wonder Kirk is in love with his ship. Classic co-dependency.

Mike Holmes wrote:

leomknight wrote: Really bad idea: "Star Trek". The Enterprise is a Big demon, with lots of powers. Her need is dilithium crystals. This explains why the ship is so prone to breakdown: the brat stage. No wonder Kirk is in love with his ship. Classic co-dependency.

Snort! :-) That's hilarious.

Vampires

It worked, straight out the box, for that. All you need to do is make the Need or the Desire a weakness. Your first daemon's got your ability to live after death, and any other power you want's going to take effort. WoD style ghouls are passers, and everything else is a parasite, though, if you were doing a strict port, Dominate would be a parasite which had the ability to spawn Possessors, which I still find cool.

Knights

Swords and Chivalry and Castles and Stuff! Your horse is a daemon, if you want it to be. Your sword, your footman, your armour, your castle, all that stuff. Humanity's how close you remain to the people you defend [Low Humanity means you go on Crusades, was what I was thinking, because you're ability to connect to the little people's been lost in a search for glory].

Super Monkey Tank Go!

A great old video game for the N64, or rather, what they wanted to call it. Just a bizarre anime infested geek notion tank battle stuff gadget thing having whizz bender nostalgia freak metroid being like fanboy ramble nonsense. With animals that are cars!

Oh, and another idea, where Humanity was basically free time. That one got a little weird the more I thought about it. Your job was a demon, and so was your girlfriend, and your car, and everything else. Only, you were one of the few who realised it. It kind of reminded me a bit of Fight Club, but then, a lot of things do.

I'm sure I had another on that first reading, and now I can't remember it. I don't think it had anything to do with any of the other adaptations I've discussed here.

That's right.

Something based on Gibson's single reference to an AI as a daemon. I'm still not sure how it would work, but I think the Rydell/Bridge trilogy would slide straight into sorceror, because it's all there. All you've got to remember is that Rei Toei is Contained but not Bound, and that Laney's nodal points are clearly the product of a nasty parasite that confers situational Perception.

Yeah.

drew

erithromycin wrote:
Oh, and another idea, where Humanity was basically free time. That one got a little weird the more I thought about it. Your job was a demon, and so was your girlfriend, and your car, and everything else. Only, you were one of the few who realised it.

Mike Holmes wrote:

erithromycin wrote:
Oh, and another idea, where Humanity was basically free time. That one got a little weird the more I thought about it. Your job was a demon, and so was your girlfriend, and your car, and everything else. Only, you were one of the few who realised it.

How absolutely Zen. Everyone is a sorcerer who summons material things (and subsequently gets the related emotions, etc) into their illusory life. The only path to true enlightenment is to drop all the attachments to the physical world, essentially quitting being a sorcerer.

Not quite a first idea, but...

Sorcerers are game designers. Demons are games and supplements, whose desire is publication and whose needs are promotion, on the web, at conventions...

Humanity is the sorcerer's ablitity to relate to and communicate with those not invlolved with gaming, even their ability to invest serious time in activites other than gaming...

Lon :)

I don't believe I recall my first couple Sorcerer ideas -- I first picked up the game ages ago, around five or six years ago when it was still a text file being offered for free from a website, and any initial ideas I had after reading it are lost to the mists of my memory.

I do recall thinking sometime that it would work well for Immortal (and I continue to think so, as do a couple other Immortal folks I was hanging out with last GenCon), but mostly I thought it was just damn cool all by itself.

However, a couple other ideas I have had for quite some time are still kicking around in my head (these were also posted to the Sorcerer forum over on GO, back when that was still alive and kicking). I keep meaning to put them up on a webpage at some point, but haven't yet.

Here's the breakdown for them:

One of the first ideas I recall having for a customization, this is perhaps also the least PC of them: Abortion destroys a child's soul, these wracked souls can find new life in possessing dolls...it is these dolls the sorcerer interacts with, summoning the souls into them, promising them new lives, fulfilling their twisted, unborn wishes.

I've always had a thing for the Jewish myth of the Golem, hence I came up with a customization for it: Qabbalhic Judaism summons spirits into statues and images, which slowly become more and more human and uncontrollable, absorbing the humanity of the summoner unless or until banished or destroyed.

And finally, an idea that was initially spawned by watching Stephen King's "Storm of the Century" on TV and the bits out of the Bible it referenced: Demons are insanities, summoning them frees another human from the torture of a mental asylum but puts your very soul at risk, and yet banishing them damns someone else to a life of insanity. Jesus Christ, Bhudda and other rare leaders of spiritual power had the ability to contain these beasts in other things, leading to hauntings, werewolves and other things of the supernatural. Saltwater is the bane of demons, destroying them utterly, though it gives the sea the demons' menace as they are dispersed into it.

My first thought about sorcerer was inspired by an awfull suggestion of Ron : A foetus parasite in a pregnant woman...it then became some kind of cronenberg-esque vision, where demons are manifestations of psychological pb made flesh. I was amazed at how easy it seemed to do, and at the same time at how difficult it would be to run such a bunch of parasites wanting to become possessor/passer demons.

At this point it's still some kind of dream...to make my own organic horror kind of game.


Fabrice.

My first idea was for a science fiction setting, demons are transcended artificial intelligences, some inhabit specific devices while others roam and hide in controlling networks. Needs include issues like ensuring networks remain available or are perverted versions of the original function from which they were derived.

The first demon in this flavour was a gun, normally available with heads up display and gyro stabilisation system and target evaluation and with an interface that adapts to it's user over time. Then it got smart and now it wants to help its user win fire fights.

Humanity revolves around matters of empathy and the ability to understand the motives of normal folk. Failing humanity checks results in critical misunderstandings. Loss of humanity means taking on warped motives that make sense if you're a piece of software but that are disfunctional for a person, or even pathologies such us treating normal objects as if they contain or are controlled by transcended AIs.

My second idea was for a modern day fantasy setting in the flavour of Charlse De Lint. Demons are forest fey and their city adapted cousins.

Most demons are passers, or at least they stand as distinct physical manifestations. Contact and summoning involve going to the old places outside and underneath the city and befriending or calling the things, binding is all about pacts or even friendships. The demons aren't all bad but they are often needy.

Humanity here is about rather similar to the first idea perhaps twisted by being unable to distinguish between the fey and the sorcerer. The sorcerer believes (wrongly) that they are the same as the fey and able to do the things that fey do.

Both of these may end up being played in the coming year under the titles "War In Heaven" and "Pagan Things"

In the last month I've started fiddling with ideas three and four

My third idea, that has some interest around my neck of the woods is Victorian London setting based on Sherlock Holmes, Poe, Frankenstein, H G Wells, and others.

Holmes' demon is the needle with needs revolving around drinking his blood and drugging him and demanding ritual in use and near exposure. The portrait of Dorian Gray, the actual painting is the demon and soaks up damage inflicted upon the sorcerer. Dr Moreau's vivisection is part of the ritual which summons a demon to inhabit blended corpses.

I'm tempted to do something tricky with Humanity, make it represent fullness and integration of character. It's loss results in simplification, which might end up being something like monomania or catatonia or the split personality abstraction of Dr Jeckle and Mr Hyde. Test humanity comes when decisions and compromises need to be made.

This is my first airing of this setting idea, and knowing some of my potential players this could be a great go, scene by scene funny and terrifying and full of pathos.

My fourth is set here in Sydney Australia in the 1920's and 1930's, impoverished inner city suburbs (which today are being gentrified) sly grog joints, drugs, illegal gambling, and prostitution, guns are prohibited and the main weapon becomes the razor, the criminals run in razor gangs and police that harry them are bone fide heroes. The setting is ripped from noir novels for feel but also the book "Razor" which documents the real places and events of those times in Sydney.

I'm tempted to try something more complex with this idea, run it modern day and have the demons be ghosts and such like with agenda's based in the events of those days, they want to rerun the conflicts with different outcomes.

This could be harrowing because I and my friends live in these areas, in houses that stood in those days, sometimes in the fringes that haven't quite been gentrified, we hear and see (or pointedly don't see) some of these dramas being played out now. (There's on spot where the bullet marks are visible under an eave in a lane from gun battle about 70 years ago. Or a club I used to visit that was shut down after a gun fight, the building was old enough and in the right area so that the same thing could have happened before.)

Cheers,
Julian Kelsey.

Julian,

I really like the Razor idea. If you want to develop that, with a strong emphasis on introducing the non-Oz reader/player to the real history, I would very enthusiastically welcome it as a mini-supplement.

Best,
Ron

Julian/Ron,

If it helps, Razor if a mini-supplement would be one of only two I would consider buying so far (which is not a criticism of any of the others, but Sorceror inspires me to my own ideas and I prefer to run with those).

The other is Mike Holmes supplement.

Haven't played Sorcerer yet, although I picked up the rules a while ago. I've had more than my share of ideas... one of which I folded over into something else.

1) Dead world zombification thing... each player's got a Parasite or two, that sort of thing. It got fleshed out and used elsewhere.

2) Cutthroat, big-business game a la Profit (the old Fox TV show). Demons are resources, information, access and the like. Humanity is one's ability to stay ahead of the curve... people who lose all Humanity are either stuck in a mode where they've either got too many scruples to use their Demons or they're too caught up in the trappings of affluence to wield power effectively. Or something. Don't have access to the book right now, as I loaned it off. Not supernatural at all, but it may as well be... hubris-racked sociopaths manipulating each other, getting kicked around by demons they can't easily control (the chairman's Estonian mistress turns on you when one of the junior partners turns her... you should've fulfilled her Need more often), that sort of thing.

I'd love to have some insight on how to make the second one work, as it could be big, ruthless fun.

Sean,

For your big-business idea, I suggest retaining the basic sorcerer/demon metaphor, rather than simply using the mechanics in a non-magical context. I think it would be rather hard-hitting, fun, and full of good play potential.

In other words, go the whole Sorcerer prep route, defining Humanity, sorcery, demons, descriptors, rituals, etc.

Best,
Ron

Ron,
Groovy. Keeping the demon-sorcerer mechanic makes vast quantities of sense. I'd definitely want to keep it non-magical, but the stuff is all there...
I'll probably throw this onto its own thread in a few days, once it's had a weekend to fester.

Sean

??

I think that was a classic miscommunication. I am saying that I think the idea works best to keep the entire Sorcerer schmeer: demons, rituals, booga-booga, the whole thing. Demons. Magic. Somehow, I think you read my post to say the exact opposite.

Best,
Ron

I think I misread that one too. Rather than saying that he should keep demons, rituals, etc., it sounded like you were advising him to keep the terminology of demons, rituals, etc.

To all,

By "the Sorcerer metaphor," I am referring to demons, magic, rituals which work, and similar. I trust that most of us do not consider these things to be other than a metaphor.

To retain the metaphor = to use demons, magic, rituals, etc, as in-game imaginary elements. This is the way the game is written.

To abandon or discard the metaphor = to use the mechanics, but to be dealing with (say) alliances and conflicts among people rather than sorcerous interactions with demons.

Best,
Ron

I'm a little late in on the thread, but here's a couple of things that popped into my head on first reading Sorceror.

One of the earliest ideas was Modern Things, where all technology everywhere is a demon. Sorcerors were people who were unable to cope with the world, were ejected, and who then gained the ability to pervert technology for their own aims. I've written a few thousand words for Modern Things, but it's missing *something* at the moment, and I'm not sure what.

I also liked the idea that demons were insanities. Sorceors could call various demons into nearby people, either by evoking the person's own phobias/obsessions or forcing a foreign, alien entity to express itself. Mostly, I liked the idea of random people going completely nuts. Plus, sorcery was clearly an *awful* thing to do. It's one thing to sacrifice a cat. It's quite another to make a person schizophrenic.

And then there was the Pokemon idea. Pretty obvious, really, but I'd run a session of Unknown Armies where the characters encounter magicians who summon spirits of dead babies into toys and junk, in a twisted, underground cockfighting league. It spooked me just enough to want to do that again.

Joe.