This is another AP thread from the Spione weekend in Berlin. After dinner, I reminded Ron of his promise, and so it was time for some Sorcerer. Ron wanted to limit it to two players, and Georgios joined us.
Ron introduced the setting to us, inviting us to add stuff. Reminding himself, as he said, of whom he had before him, he made up some very primal setting: Virgin forests in the mists, brawny guys with tooth necklaces, tribal wars and such. He made up the following descriptors:

Stamina: wild raised, ancient blood, dark rites
Will: ambitious, lover, learned
Lore: beast soul, medicine man, deep secrets

Humanity was The Primal Law.

Needless to say, I liked it. I made up an ancient blooded loner guy, 1st warrior of the tribe, with a passer demon coming as his dinosaur mount. Georgios was the medicine man of the seven tribes, with an object demon that was his book. Both of us were ambitious conquerer-types.

My kicker was that the chieftain of another tribe, ancient blooded like me, offered me to marry his only daughter and thus become his heir--if I betray my tribe to him. Georgios' kicker was that he was being challenged by a new rival.

We did some talk in advance, and Ron stressed some points about the game, like the none-existence of demons in the game world, and the importance of kickers. Then Ron framed a double scene in which Georgios was being attacked by his rival's bat-like demon and I had to fight a challenger. We had lots of dice and little pieces of paper on the table, and Ron used the dice to determine when to cut from one scene to the other. It was pretty cool.

Georgios seized control over his rival's demon and walked it to the tribes, for them to witness his power. I fought my challenger, who was somehow wrong, turning out to be a possessed youth fighting in his sleep. I managed to overwhelm the boy without harming him, even though he tried to kill himself in the process, which let me roll for humanity gain. When the boy's mother accused me for fighting with her boy in the first place, I just slapped her. I was in trouble, however: I had no idea what had been wrong with the boy--I would have to go see the medicine man. Also, my demon was pissed because its need was challenge and the boy had been insufficient.

As Georgios returned to his tower, he found a half-naked woman with black and white body painting sitting in his chair. She turned out to be his rival, come to a change of mind and asking him for help. Because, you see, her father was going to marry her to this brutish warrior whom she loathed.

This was were we quit play. It was a real good demo of how the game works, and it was also fun to play. I really enjoyed the grabby imagery of the setting. I was instantly getting a feel for the atmosphere of it all, me and Ron adding little details as we went along. Georgios didn't get into that as much, if I recall correctly. The "spiking" of my kicker was also pretty cool. You could see the conflicts emerging right there. I think I would have tried to defeat the father and take his daughter and tribe by force.

We were really eager to continue, but we couldn't have done more than a few scenes, and I guess Ron was also eager to talk a bit more to the people around. I'll just have to play Sorcerer myself. Thanks again, Ron, it was really good.

- Frank

Frank,

Frank wrote:
We did some talk in advance, and Ron stressed some points about the game, like the none-existence of demons in the game world, and the importance of kickers. Then Ron framed a double scene in which Georgios was being attacked by his rival's bat-like demon and I had to fight a challenger. We had lots of dice and little pieces of paper on the table, and Ron used the dice to determine when to cut from one scene to the other. It was pretty cool.

Hello,

I'll try, Paul! First, yes, this is in the Sorcerer rules, in the sense that it requires no new rules. But it's not described explicitly.

Simply, you run two conflicts simultaneously. Everyone rolls at once, just as in the rules, and you go in order of the rolls, just as in the rules.

If you think about it, you can do this with nearly any game. Characters X and Y are fighting the goblins over here, and characters Z and Q are fighting the evil guy with the hat over there. (Imagine a typical 80s game) Roll initiative for everyone, proceed in order, handle defenses and reactive actions as per the system. It's easy as pie.

I didn't invent this technique or use it much before Sorcerer was published. But the more I played Sorcerer, the more the technique seemed to fit in naturally and easily, without stress and with maximum payoff.

Frank, I really enjoyed that game too, and was sorry it had to end. I plead fatigue, more than a desire for socializing, as my reason to stop.

To clarify, my concept for Humanity in that game would be, in English, "the rule of law," meaning that a society's members are subject to a system of judgment, and principles-based laws with some flexibility built in, rather than merely the rule of the fist at any given moment. As I saw it, the tribes were mainly run by might and deception, and thus true law was just struggling into existence for our story.

Regarding Georgios and his experience of play, I think that he was really enjoying his character's persona, and the way he described the character's movements and decisions made it very vivid for me. So he added to the imaginative experience of play as well, as I saw it, but in a different way.

Best, Ron

Hey Ron,

thus true law was just struggling into existence

Thanks, Ron.

Just one question:

Ron wrote:
Simply, you run two conflicts simultaneously. Everyone rolls at once, just as in the rules, and you go in order of the rolls, just as in the rules.

If you think about it, you can do this with nearly any game. Characters X and Y are fighting the goblins over here, and characters Z and Q are fighting the evil guy with the hat over there. (Imagine a typical 80s game) Roll initiative for everyone, proceed in order, handle defenses and reactive actions as per the system. It's easy as pie.

I didn't invent this technique or use it much before Sorcerer was published. But the more I played Sorcerer, the more the technique seemed to fit in naturally and easily, without stress and with maximum payoff.

Hey Paul.  If you do a search on "Flashpoints" by message, the first half dozen or so hits are all various examples of this technique in practice.

Hi everyone,

Frank, you rightly reminded me:

But you were going to say a bit about your GM'ing decisions, how and why they were made.

Hi Ron,

Thanks for the clarification. No, I did not perceive any GM fiat. I have overcome GM fiat. I do see how this relates to some of my previous posts, though. I may not be planning ahead, as I would have done in my old railroaded Star Wars d6 adventures. But as a person with scene framing power, I am indeed often thinking back and ahead.

“Is this consistent with what happened three scenes ago?”
“Will this lead to a good build-up?”
“How do we include that Next Week On?”

Thinking ahead gets even more difficult when you can’t plan ahead (e.g. because other persons can frame scenes and narrate outcomes as well). Interestingly, I have less trouble with (not) thinking ahead when I’m “just GM’ing”, because I can just play my NPCs and rest assured that the fiction will be consistent. In games with distributed authoring, where NPCs might be played by different persons or framed into scenes by different persons, where different persons share control over setting elements, I’m having much more trouble holding it together in my head.

Here’s why I think this is so: Because I’m a consistency fetishist. I just care much more about consistency than most other role-players. As a “normal” GM, that actually helps me to do what you described above. But in a game with distributed authoring, people dash every direction and never mind what has been established, and that is a constant pain in the arse to me. Come to think about it, that has a lot to do with prep and back-story also.

That helped me to get some things straight in my head. Thank you!

- Frank

Valamir,

All the posts I get as a result of a search on "Flashpoints" just kind of mention them but don't really answer my question. Can anyone help me out?

Frank and Ron,

I'm just reading over this thread, and getting very curious about the whole "lovingly crafted backstory" or situation (with the Stakes in Trollbabe), and trying to see where player interest intercets with that.

How do you balance a carefully crafted back-story with Story Now and letting the players drive the boat? I mean, for instance, if you have a story where NPC A is involved in the mafia, and this is causing all sorts of problems, but no one knows who exactly is part of the mafia... how do you deal with a situation where more people are involved than your relationship map can handle?

For instance, if the game is taking place in a city, and you just improvised a store clerk or another NPC that was necessary for a particular scene, the players suddenly take total avid interest in the clerk. Your backstory makes it clear that there were three people, and only three (say), involved in some Important Event. The clerk was not one of them. However, given the players' interest in the clerk, it seems really dramatically appropriate that the clerk have some kind of involvement in the backstory.

I may not be expressing myself very clearly. What I'm trying to get at is that the "lovingly crafted backstory" can come into conflict with what the players seem to be driving towards. I had this problem recently (I just posted the actual play account) and can't quite figure out how those two things co-exist (especially in a system where the players can have some narrative control).

I feel like I'm missing something important here. Would you care to share your methods, or explain what I'm missing?

Thanks,

Paul

Hi Paul,

With respect, it sounds like you're missing quite a lot, actually. I'm not really sure where to begin.

Are you familiar with the Art Deco Melodrama threads from a few years back? Check out the very bottom of the Sorcerer actual play for the links. I suggest then, if you want follow up, we should adjourn to the Adept Press forum.

Best, Ron

Ron,

I've made a bit of a mistake. I was _posting_ to this thread, but I was _thinking_ about another one (the Trollbabe thread).

I can see how in Sorcerer, since the Kickers are written by the players, this may never be an issue at all. I can see that discussing this issue in the context of other games might not be on-topic for this thread.

I'll go read some Actual Play and get back to this thread if it doesn't answer my questions.

All the best,

Paul

Ron,

I've read the Art-Deco threads. I withdraw my original question, since it isn't pertinent to this thread. Instead, do you think you could explain what you meant by the last bit in this quote ("...and let the latter be what it is, when we get there, and use a system that makes what happens, really happen")? I feel like there's a lot packed into that phrase.

Ron wrote:
And here, at this moment of realization, I found that maximal, even loving back-story prep was consistent with "Story Now." One merely has to distinguish between back-story and here-we-are-this-minute story, and let the latter be what it is, when we get there, and use a system that makes what happens, really happen.

Hi Paul,

I'm not Ron, but let me have a go at this:

There is no conflict. How could there be? The players are - through their characters - interacting with your back-story. Whatever comes of that, comes of that. Thus, the back-story automatically interweaves with the right-here-right-now story. Note that back-story is just what happened before, and possibly what would happen if the player characters never show up. It stops at the moment the action begins. When the players act, that has consequences. All you have to do is accept those consequences, instead of negating them because they conflict with how you intended your back-story to eventually turn out. If you leave your idea of how the back-story should continue behind, there can be no conflict.

- Frank

Frank nails it in one!

Best, Ron