Sorry about all the confusion, folks. I accidentally caused a mess with my last series of posts on this game. I think I’ve got the hang of things now, so I’ll be as verbose as I like to, yet still focus on the matters which I’d like to discuss with you all.

Basically, I’m going to run down the first session of my homebrew game that uses the Sorcerer rules that I ran at a local gaming/SF convetion. I’ll talk a bit about my game, so you have an idea of the setting (and what the game is “about”, so you can help judge how the rules affect the focus of the game). Then I’ll brief you all with the basic events of the adventure. Finally, I’ll go back and bring up some bits of the adventure for discussion, namely the parts where the Sorcerer system really worked, and others where it didn’t as much.

PART 1: INTRO

Without going too deep into things, my game is called Kyuseisha, and it’s a game of high cinematic action and moral issues set in a Post-Apocalyptic (here on referred to it as “PA”) future. The game is heavily influenced on the Fist of the North Star comic series (heh- the “good parts”, as I gleamed from it), and tries to combine the genres of martial arts action and PA’s ‘stage’ and attitude of ‘general seriousness’. I’ve had this game on the back burner for a few years now, only recently (after reading Sorcerer and Sword) inspired to dig it back up and (Eench Allah) Make It Work.

The main reasons I chose the Sorcerer system were:
*Simplicity and Dramatic Focus
*Nifty powers are a given in the game
*Morality (“Humanity”) at the core of the game, and the rules (this would also be a drawback- see the last section for details)
*The struggle of power vs humanity as one of the central ideas

The background of the game is pretty simple: A PA event occurs, in this case an asteroid impacting the Earth (no nuclear fire, no sentient plants or animals, no gills or wings). Due to technical advances and dumb luck, humanity isn’t destroyed (well, at least 10% of it isn’t destroyed). 2-3 generations of hell and animal-like survival later, humanity’s more or less back on its feet, and starting to rebuild. The landscape is mostly desert and scrub (think of an endless Nevada), and people have a hard time with farming and the like. On top of that, enough old-school weapons linger around to make the place look like the bandit-king version of pre-Taliban Afghanistan. Toss in a handful of high-powered (but remote and aloof) martial arts dojos and other secret (and not-so-secret) groups vying for control of what’s left, and that’s the setting in a nutshell.

Oh, BTW, Kyuseisha comes from the Japanese reading of some Chinese characters (it comes into play in the background of the game)- It’s a play off the word “Kyuseishu”, which means “Messiah” or “Savior”. The “sha” at the end changes it to a lesser impacting plural meaning- Implying that it wasn’t one dude who turned everything around and saved humanity, it was a group of special, virtuous people (including the PCs) who made the world better. I use past tense here because, in my game (and this is gonna get a little weird), I’m going to narrate the first passage or so to make it look like the PCs events happened a long time ago. I did this because most PA settings are depressing and bleak, and some will get worse no matter what happens in the storyline (“Earth Abides” and “A Canticle for Liebewitz” are good examples of this). This game isn’t meant to be so- The players will be told up front that, although things look bad, and though they may die, things will get better in the long run- And probably because of something they did.

The main crunchy bits are the martial arts and stealth abilities (there’s more, but they didn’t appear in the adventure so I won’t talk about them here) that anyone can tap into if they train enough. This, in sorcerer terms, is the Lore: Intense training in physical and mental arts to the point that you can actualize your virtually limitless human potential: Adrenaline, awareness, empathy, neurocardiological energy fields, biofeedback, luck (subconscious probability manipulation), and the like.

Here’s how it works out in Sorcerer terms:
HUMANITY is the part of you that still adhere to humanlike virtues: Honesty, Balance, Sacrifice, Compassion, Honor, Humility and some others (I have a list of 10 at the moment). I basically ripped off the Ultima CRPG series (and sprinkled in a little Exalted).
*You choose 1 Primary Virtue and 2 Tertiary Virtues. Any time an action comes up where you can roleplay your primary virtue, you toss in an extra die. For tertiary virtues, you can add 2 dice to an action, but only ONCE per game session.
* When your humanity gets low, your virtues begin to become their antithesis. For example, if you were Compassionate you start to become Cruel (while still thinking/justifying to yourself that you are the former and not the latter). Balanced characters become Obsessive, characters who believed in Sacrifice are now just plain Suicidal, etc.

DEMONS don’t exist in Kyuseisha. These are instead the crunchy bits of the game- Martial arts power(z), stealth, healing, “mind reading” (superior empathy), etc. The more powerful a character, the harder it is to stay human- In the very process of becoming superhuman you begin to become something Other than Human (think Aberrant).

Here is a copy of the character sheet, originally printed out on legal-sized paper. It’s kinda small, but you can make it out easily if you’ve seen Sorcerer.

http://www.z-builder.com/rpg/kyuseishasheet.jpg

Hopefully, that’s sufficient background for the game and how I’m using Sorcerer with it.

PART 2: THE ADVENTURE

The game took place at a small local convention, and there were four players- I played in a game with two of the guys (not the same game), and the other guy and girl had played in a game together earlier, but not with me. In other words, we were all pretty much strangers. None had heard of the Sorcerer game before the convention (aside: Interestingly enough, I met at least 8 people at the convention who said something to the extent of, “*Looking at my Name-Badge* Hey, you’re running that Sorcerer game! I never heard of it before, but after reading the convention programme, I looked into it on the Net. Interesting game…” So even though they didn’t join my Sorcerer games, just the fact that I was running one got the word out that much more. Yay!).
I was originally planning on writing up some pre-gen characters, but since we had a lot of time, and to give them a better feel of the game and its Mad Flava, I had everyone cook up some characters based on a 5 minute introduction to the game world. Interestingly enough, there were no straightforward martial artists (and only one with any strong “kewl powerz”, that being the Ninja):

Jett- A rough and tumble sentry/guard/general type who left her old city to explore, help those in need, etc. Telltale: Extremely muscular and a very scarred, rough body- Think Sarah Connor from T2 on steroids. Price: As a woman, she was quite headstrong and gruff, and this throws people off (bad first impression)

Wiley- A scavenger who’s spent just a little too much time hunting out and collecting artifacts and not enough time with other people. Telltale: Constant mumbling (played out phenomenally by the player- Convincing, added to the scenes but not too annoying). Price: He comes off to others as something between “odd” and “totally batsh**t insane”, which is a stigma to social actions.

Randy the Handyman- A colossally large man who does the fixin’ when things break, and is very interested in the culture of the Days Before (he is trying to spread interest in his own unique version of baseball). Telltale: Huge physical frame. Price: Prolonged actions cause him pain (because of his slightly warped skeletal/muscular system).

Robert (Bob) the Ninja- Sequestered and trained in a remote monastery, he’s completely aloof to normal human civilization and customs, but powerful in his own unique ways. Telltale: His monastery taught its students how the “normal folk” speak through ancient recordings of Kid Rock, Eminem, and Gangsta Rap recordings. Price: His archaic, confusing speech patterns are hard for people to get used to in social situations.

This is my third write-up of the adventure itself. The first two writeups were Far Too Long and Eaten by a Windows Freeze, respectively. So I’m rewriting and making this one Superbrief. I’m just gonna toss out the major events plainly and withhold the drama.

Day 1: The PCs, traveling by solar-powered land barge along a highway, make their way towards Red City, some 30 miles away. On the way, they encounter some travelers from the other direction and get caught in a fierce sandstorm. They make it through and camp for the night.

Day 2: Morning: They continue towards Red City. About 10 miles away, they see a deserted hamlet (called “Home”, like many settlements in this world). The citizens are in the desert about a half-mile away from the town preparing for a siege. The residents of Red City are going to attack them. Half the PCs investigate while the other half stay behind and build defenses and train them.

Afternoon: The citizens of Red City have been pushed out of their city and are forced to take Home to survive. They have left the city rather than face the hordes of the Army of the Sun, a fearsome group which now occupies Red City. One PC convinces their leader not to attack for three days (while they assist in the situation), and the other investigates Red City- sure enough, it’s a heavily disciplined group of about 100 men with superior weapons (compound bows, a few vehicles, and two vehicle-mounted machine guns). After talking to the people of Home (who barely have enough water and land for themselves, and can’t give any without dying themselves), they convince the citizens of Home and Red City to fight back- but they could never stand up to the guns nor the mysterious “leaders” of the Army of the Sun, so the PCs make arrangements to deal with those obstacles.

Night: Bob and Wiley make their way to the city. Wiley sabotages their vehicles and guns while Bob kills some of the soldiers, leaving “calling cards”.

Day Three: The citizens of Red City make their way to Home, and make camp together preparing for a conflict with the Army of the Sun. Jett and Randy decide to lead the army to them, so they set up defenses, make traps, plan brilliant stratagems and even help train the citizens to fight a little. Bob and Wiley sleep the day, and at night head out to cause more mayhem. Wiley notices that the guards are on to them, so he backs off. Bob manages to kill another guard, but gets caught in a trap by one of the leaders of the Army. A one-on-one fight ensues. Bob ends up killing the leader, sending a message that they will be waiting for the Army at Home tomorrow.

Day Four: the Army of the Sun advances. Over half their vehicles break down on the way. The leader of the Army, General Jeff, walks up to the PCs and offers an ultimatum. They refuse, goad him into a fight. Jeff, an “evil” martial artist, begins to smack them around as the Army charges. Because of the PCs superior planning and strategizing, half the Army goes down (dead or wounded) in the first few minutes. The machine gun on the remaining barge explodes, the Army retreats, and in the confusion General Jeff flees with the rest of the army.

Epilogue: The Army left Red City deserted, but vandalized what they could and unsuccessfully attempted to poison the large city well. The PCs help rebuild the city over the next few days, and are praised by the citizens of Home and Red City. Many of the citizens of Home come to settle Red City, and they begin to train and prepare, just in case the Army of the Sun returns.

In the end, the players had a lot of fun. They stopped me a couple times to tell me that they thought some idea or presentation was particularly cool, and they expressed a lot of interest in the setting/feel of the game. I consider it a total success. I guess that means I’ll have to get off my ass and write the damn game!

PART 3: REFLECTIONS

This was my first attempt at running a large con game with complete strangers. It was also my second game of Sorcerer, the first that would feature actual combat. It was my first attempt to actually run this “Kyuseisha Thang” with people.

I’m VERY glad I did it, though. There were a lot of successes, some hang-ups, and, more than anything, I came back with my brain full of potential fixes and the energy to try again. When I think about how much time I spent over the previous 2-3 years, writing down eclectic dice techniques and other bits that I never playtested with a live group… Man, I could have cut my game development time in a third if I had actually ran the game, even as broken as it was at the time (that was my real fear, I guess, that it was “not complete”), with live folks. Oh well, now I know (and knowing is half the battle).

Looking back on the adventure:

1) In the sandstorm scene, Randy tried to make the barge and tarps they had into a makeshift tent. His player got a Complete Success (the first and only one in the game). This mechanic really worked for the game, I thought: The roll in itself was a pretty rare thing, and I hammed it up enough that the player really enjoyed that experience. This kind of mechanic really helped his enjoyment of the game, I thought- More than if he, say, “rolled a 20”.

2) I actually pulled this more from Dread, but it takes place in Sorcerer as well: “The Cool Rule” (describe it cool, get an extra die). This really works for the style of play I want to cultivate in this game- Cinematic in the literal sense. And not just action, either- Describe anything that requires a roll in a “cool” way, and you get a die. This really got the players involved. There was only one major combat between a single player and an NPC, but the players who didn’t engage in combat had fun, too, because they really got into the planning, strategizing and describing the work they did to set up the battlefield. I was a little worried that I needed more combat (given the setting), but even though the combat-oriented character, Jett, as well as Wiley and Randy each only made one “attack roll”, they got into the excitement of describing their other actions so much that it didn’t matter.

3) Virtues. This worked out… uh… sorta well. I had hoped that the characters would find more opportunities to engage in their virtues, but it was a little hard. Some are obviously more “useful” than others. It got me thinking back to the White Wolf games and their “Nature” mechanic- Engage in your Nature, get a Willpower point: Some Natures are totally easy to use, like “engage in a dangerous action”, “strive to improve your abilities”, etc, while some will rarely pay off: “see a long-range plan eventually come to fruition”. I have to add and change the virtues a little. I think the mechanics as is work well, though.

Also, with Emporer Jeff: Like the heroes, he was a “low humanity” NPC where his virtues flipped. Jett’s player (who told the others) caught on to the fact that, in the pursuit of Justice (to make the world a safe place) he had become utterly Unjust (spread out, kill the leaders of a town, instill his own leaders, and control it like a totalitarian state). I really dug this, the players picked up on it, and I think that it worked.

4) Ninja: The ninja had a 2 in Stamina, 2 in Willpower, and 6 in Zone (“Lore”). If I were thinking clearly (it was the last day, 9:00AM), I’d have told him that he’d be like a “weak old master who tears sh*t up” Archetype. Instead, I somehow came to the notion that it’d be better in this situation, since he was a mystical type whose personality and being were shaped by his Lore, that his “Past” (“Cover”) could be based on his Lore. Bad move on my part. The player had a character who was obviously too powerful and had no need to rely on his Stamina or Willpower. Oops. Anyway, it wasn’t too bad, as the player later also began to realize that he was just a liiiittle too powerful, and luckily didn’t go balls-out on being the Coolest Badass on the Earth, upstaging all the other characters or something. Thank God. Lesson learned: Don’t do that again. No Cover based on Lore.

5) Crunchy Bits (Kewl Powerz): They worked out pretty well. I based them off of some stuff I pulled out of Urge (just to have a foundation of something to begin with), and added my own bits. Some were useful, others not so useful, but none seemed to be too-too powerful. The players got one power per Zone rating, and could use them a number of times per day equal to their Zone rating.
Here was my list at the time:
Mantra of Possibility: Make a number of actions of 1+ zone in a round. You can hold these to reroll blocks/dodges.
Mantra of Speed: Double your Zone, add it to your roll for a speed-based action (or series of linked actions)
Mantra of Strength: Double your Zone, add it to your roll for a strength or physical endurance-based action (or series of linked actions).
Mantra of Movement: Scale walls, fall from any distance, or Immidiately Be There once per Zone spent.
Mantra of Vitality: All physical wounds are removed (up to Zone score)
Mantra of True Sight: Double your Zone, add it to rolls based on perception or detection.
Mantra of Stealth: Double your Zone, add it to your roll for a stealth-based action (or series of linked actions).
Mantra of Empathy: You immediately get a feel for a person, and can understand their motivations and secrets. Difficulty is Will+Zone vs opponent’s willpower.
Mantra of Dominance: Double your Zone, add it to a roll to intimidate or influence someone or a group of people.
Mantra of Past Knowledge: Roll Zone vs 5 dice, your perception of a situation is such that you can recreate past events in your mind while in a trancelike state.
Mantra of Results: The same as the above, but of possible future events based on the information that you have.
Knowledge of Body: Your knowledge of chi, psychic flow, pressure points and medicine is enough to allow you to quickly heal your own or another’s physical body quickly. Can only be used once per person per day. Difficulty is the amount of permanent health damage (in dice)

One thing is, given the nature of the origin of the powers, I would describe the results for the characters when they activated their powers. I didn’t just want to make it seem like “they run faster” or “they hide better”- A lot of the background of the game is revealed in the flashy effects of their powers. So I realized that, when I eventually write out the powers in this game, I’m going to have to be particularly verbose in my descriptions of the effects of the powers. I won’t get into those here, as it would take too long. Suffice to say, They’re Nifty.

6) Amping rolls: This is the Sorcerer-practice of having one ability influence another- Rolling successes on one score adds to the successes on another roll, and so on. This was the hardest point for the players to understand, as it’s different than most games out there. I found that they didn’t use it very often. To encourage them, I had major NPCs use amping against them to show them how it works, and in situations where the player would be in serious trouble if they didn’t succeed at a roll, I let them re-describe the action and roll again, but only if they used an ability amp. The most telling example was when Wiley, the crazy scavenger, was in the middle of sabotaging a land barge when a guard walked by near him. He didn’t have the Mantra of Stealth (used it that day already), and he blew his stealth roll. He would have been chewed up if I didn’t offer him an opportunity, so I told him that he’ll get a reroll, but only if he plays one ability off another. Looking at his sheet, he had a high willpower (which influenced his Cover).He played that off his Cover, saying that, even though it hurts and he’s in a bizarre position, he’s willing himself to bend lower, to stop his breathing, and to keep his limbs from shaking with the exertion of holding such an odd position. He rolled some successes, then rolled his stealth (based on his Cover, as he needs it to navigate old ruins and the like, avoiding hostiles), and barely made the roll this time.

Even though it was really hard for the players to get their brains around this idea, I really like the mechanic. I think that, even if I go away from Sorcerer and use some homebrew system, that I’ll end up including some sort of ability amp effect like this.

7) Combat: The Big Finale combat was played out more dramatically than tactically- Only a few die rolls were made. I figure the preparation and planning that the PCs did, plus the die rolls associated with their planning, warranted the results that occurred. The only major combat in the game was between Bob the Ninja and the leader at Red City. Actually, I intended for the leader (stats of ALL 5s) to wipe the floor with him, and to use him as a hostage the next day. Due to my screw-up with making the Ninja too powerful, coupled with his powers, EXCELLENT descriptions on the player’s part, and my lousy dice rolls, I decided to concede the fight (that is, to Not Fudge It So That I’d Win to Further My Sneaky Plot).

That fight was f**king fantastic, let me tell you. Best cinematic fight I’ve played in years. The other players basically just sat back and “watched” me and the ninja’s player describe the action and throw dice at each other until one of us fell. I felt really bad about that, because it was about 5 minutes of watching two badasses… er… Be Badass. Turns out, the players were floored- they really liked the battle, were immensely entertained, and were on the edge of their seats (they said so after I apologized for dragging that combat out). I wouldn’t have believed them myself were it not for their sincerety.

I came away from that with two major thoughts for this game:
* Make a mechanic for one-on-one fights. The reason this fight worked so well, aside from the fact that the player liked Hong Kong flicks, is because we built off each other’s actions: He’d kick at me; I’d grab at his foot and try to run him through with a spear; he’d duck back, grab the shaft of the spear, pull me over him; I’d launch the spear down as I leapt over him; he’d roll out and slash his sword up as I passed overhead. Basically a kind of “feint within a feint within a feint” combat where there were only three actual hits done in about 12 action-packed “rounds”. Were this a fight between two people going on while other players were also fighting with other folks each round, it totally wouldn’t have worked- You can’t remember what happened that long to build off each other’s actions like you can in a 1-on-1 combat. So, I’m thinking about adding some sort of 1-on-1 combat mechanic; Two players can become engaged in combat over a space of time, relatively oblivious to the events around them, and tick off the rounds. When the combat is “done”, or when a “breathing point” has been reached, combat returns to the other players, and they tick off a number of rounds until they catch up. Something like that.

* Sorcerer’s Dice Pool system may be a little too much for this game. I’m definitely going for cinematic, high action. The clattering and comparing of dice at every clash is a little jarring, and in this adventure it took a little away from the “beauty” of the descriptive elements that I want to emphasize in combat. I’m thinking of ways to fix this within the combat system of Sorcerer (play out a few actions/rounds per die roll, not just one), and also thinking of new die/combat systems that would make this kind of play faster. This was the secondary point that’s making me think of leaving Sorcerer behind to make my own rules.

8) Humanity/Price

This was the main point that got me thinking that maybe making a system heavily influenced by Sorcerer might be a better route than using Sorcerer itself.

Basically, in Kyuseisha, it’s entirely possible for people to become twisted by power until they lose their humanity. However, looking at how I want to set the tone of the game, this humanity element isn’t as core to the heart of the game in my mind as it is in Sorcerer. While I want to focus on morality in a sort of “Passion play” sense, I don’t think that the power-humanity playout of Sorcerer is, in the end, what I’m looking for. I’d have to play around with the system a lot to make it reflect what I had in mind (as it is, humanity seems almost a cosmetic addition to the character sheet, as the players won’t be fighting against their own humanity so much as making the world around them a little more human). It’s looking like I might as well move to a system of my own design, again heavily influenced by Sorcerer, than to use Sorcerer even as a base.

After all, Clint could have used Sorcerer to write Paladin, but in the end the core struggle of the characters was off the focus of Sorcerer enough to warrant a new system. I feel that this might be the case with my game. I spent a bit of time thinking how I could bend my world to match the Sorcerer-lens, and I really should bend Sorcerer a little more to make it match what I had in mind for the world.

Also, while the Price factor helped the players create interesting, rounded characters, I also don’t think that it has a place in the cosmology of my game. In Sorcerer, as well as Urge (which I also drew heavily from), the Demon (“Inner Demon”) is a terrible force that twists people and threatens to undo them. In my game, this kind of thing may happen, but at their core my ‘crunchy bits’ are “good”, not “evil”. If anything, I should be making an anti-price: How the characters shine and positively influence the world around them through the use of their powers. I could achieve that effect by simply redescribing the Price, but if I redescribe or rework nearly every element of the game I might be better off just making up a new rules system of my own…

EPILOGUE

Anyway, those were my thoughts on this game. I’d really like people’s feedback. If you have any further questions about what happened in the adventure, or more on the background of the game (“What it’s about”, what I want to do with it), please let me know!

Hi Andy,

Wonderful. Thanks for taking the time to set this up, to run it, and to post about it here.

So, basically, two choices, right? (1) Sorcerer mini-supplement (which would be welcome, including major rules tweaks), or (2) a bona fide Kitkowski Special new game, with "thanks to Sorcerer" in small print somewhere. Either would be a great thing.

Credit where it's due (he said): Sorcerer is the first game ever whose text explicitly includes the Cool Rule. (Correct me if I'm wrong, anyone.)

I'm curious whether the players agreed that the dice/clatter was distracting or detracting from the combat scenes. On the one hand, you describe the system as incredibly smooth and cinematic, and yet on the other, the physicality of it seemed "off" to you ... but I'm wondering whether this is a matter of what you're used to or what you idealize, rather than what does or does not work.

Best,
Ron

9) Martial Artists and Non Martial Artists.

Basically, in my first two incarnations of this game (d6 and Fudge) I ended up giving phenomenal amounts of power to the martial artists. In the background of the game and cosmology of the kewl powerz, the people with martial arts skills end up amping almost every conceivable roll, since I had this idea of them actualizing their human potential at every turn.

Anyway, one of my struggles was figuring out why the players would want to play normal folks when the martial artist were obviously so much more powerful. I was thinking that I'd have to resort to an "Ars Magica" style of play where the players would have to be satisfied playing Grogs to a Mage. Another thought was to make the regular players somehow more powerful than the martial artists, but that would undermine the whole concept of their power.

However, the Sorcerer system actually worked out well: Since you split 10 points between other abilities and Lore, and since I based the powers on lore, it worked out this way:

Martial Artists (Ninjas, etc) are slightly above average when it comes to their abilities. However, they are capable of incredible human feats that normal people could never accomplish.

Their companions are individuals hardened by their experiences and trials in the world. While, on average, they have more potential than anyone around them in their day-to-day actions, they will never be able to attain the highs of human perfection that the martial artists can.

It works out pretty well this way.

Ron Edwards wrote:
So, basically, two choices, right? (1) Sorcerer mini-supplement (which would be welcome, including major rules tweaks), or (2) a bona fide Kitkowski Special new game, with "thanks to Sorcerer" in small print somewhere.

Ron Edwards wrote:
I'm curious whether the players agreed that the dice/clatter was distracting or detracting from the combat scenes. On the one hand, you describe the system as incredibly smooth and cinematic, and yet on the other, the physicality of it seemed "off" to you ... but I'm wondering whether this is a matter of what you're used to or what you idealize, rather than what does or does not work.

The whole game sounds great, but this part really jumped out at me:

I’m thinking about adding some sort of 1-on-1 combat mechanic; Two players can become engaged in combat over a space of time, relatively oblivious to the events around them, and tick off the rounds. When the combat is “done”, or when a “breathing point” has been reached, combat returns to the other players, and they tick off a number of rounds until they catch up.

Ron Edwards wrote: Sorcerer is the first game ever whose text explicitly includes the Cool Rule.

Andy Kitkowski wrote: and plan from there than to wait for his count) and deciding the action from there, it went much faster:
Player: "I leap over the table sideways, kicking up the stack of magazines as I fire both my pistols at him."
*clatter*
::two seconds later::
Player: "11"
GM: "8"
GM: "He staggers back, shocked, and .... etc"

In a normal Sorcerer game, where combat is a little less cinematic and more deadly, I think the Sorcerer system really works. However, in a more fast paced 1-on-1 style game where players throw dice at each other while the rest cheer on, as I'm going for, it's a little slow.

Who knows, I might be just aiming for a sysetem exactly like Sorcerer where, instead of comparing successes, I just take the high roll...