I have a new game of Sorcerer going. Two sessions into the campaign, and my players are coming up with new and creative ways to drop their Humanity to zero.

The first game, we made the characters. Jen made Olviva, a down-on-her-luck actress in Hollywood who, in desperation, did a demon-summoning ritual she cobbled together from her (now-ex) roommate's New Age Wicca books. Since intent was more important (I decided) than actual practice, she summoned a whopper of a Hollywood demon---a little, adorable Yorkie named "Fluffy" that talks to her, gives her advice and gossip on who to work with, Boosts her acting ability, and in general is just the cutest, friendliest little thing...except he's actually a nasty, corruptive influence on her, moreso that she's even capable of suspecting. She has no idea how nasty the little shit is, and he's manipulating her in all sorts of unwholesome ways, only the most obvious of which she's aware of. Back to her in a bit.

Bouncing off of Jen's character, Joe made a book-bound demon summoner type who works in L.A. as a research assistant to scriptwriters. His demon, Aysil (pronounced "I-sill") is a set of spectacles perched on his nose, with the power of observation, stealth, Will-Boosting, and teleportation. Of course, this demon's got a nasty secret he's keeping from the player...for now. He's loosely aligned to a group of Watcher-types who observe the Sorcerers in this setting, but don't intervene, unless things look really bad. Of course, they watch him very carefully, because they know that bad things happen to sorcerers, even those with the best of intentions.

In the first game, Taylor (Joe's character) was sent by his group to investigate (read: neutralize) Olivia's demon, whom they became aware of in a roundabout way by through "Fluffy"'s former owner, an ultra-sleazy director named Anthony Harod who Banished Fluffy and who is now the focus of Fluffy's desire for revenge and torture. (Harod was a former member of the Watcher-group, but turned on them to pursue his dreams of directing movies in Hollywood. His 'farewell letter' to the group included the agent watching him, disassembled into gore-soaked pieces.) So, Taylor has to wean Olivia away from Fluffy *and* terminate Harod. Neither of them, currently, know of the connection between themselves vis-a-vis Harod, only that each one has a score to settle with him.

So, aware that Harod likes his tactics brutal and effective, Taylor looks through his records of demon-types, and summons a Shadow Archer, a bodyguard-assassin who vastly prefers the latter type of work. Inconspicuous, lethal ranged attack, and can follow it's ward/victim anywhere there are shadows, it's the perfect for Taylor's purposes. Only hitch: it requires human eyes as part of the sacrifice to summon it.

No ethical dilemma will halt this guy for long! He finds a homeless man with a bad cough, one who 'doesn't look like he'll live too long anyway.' He invites him indoors, gives him use of the shower, some warm clothes (a sacrificial robe), some good food (laced with lethal amounts of sedatives), and, while the body cools, yanks out the homeless guy's eyes and offers them to the demon.

The ritual is a resounding success, and Taylor now has a Shadow Archer eager to work with him. It's Inconspicuous, only manifesting as a chill nearby. For fun, I described how the demon (with it's breathy whisper) grabbed the eyes from Taylor. "You feel a horrid chilling sensation on your hands. The eyes disappear."

We rolled for Humanity loss, and I rolled a Total Victory for the forces of darkness. Taylor lost two Humanity (which fit the situation, I thought), and I played that out as follows: "You consider the matter of the demon's Binding done when it's awful whispery voice speaks again. 'Oh, sorceror! If you could only see the world through my new eyes!' As you turn around, you see the eyes of the homeless man staring back at you...surrounded by a face that closely resembles your own before it fades out."

Joe then informed me that, after he had disposed of the body and taken a bit of the sedative himself, he'd spend some downtime helping the homeless in California. Hee hee.

The players learned the value of accumulating dice from successes in other rolls. They also quicky picked up on the fact that, in order to function in this game, they'd have to detatch themselves a bit from their characters. So obviously, I'm doing something right.

More on how Jen's character summoned her second demon in a bit.

Hiya,

Ahhhhh! I like it: Sorcerer, Hollywood, and nasty little intrigues, punctuated by soaking gore.

Folks, Carl (Spooky Fanboy) was one of the first Sorcerer people, all the way back to when it was a shareware-style TXT file and a ten-person mailing list. It is a major pleasure to see his play get under way.

Best,
Ron

Ron Edwards wrote: Hiya,

Ahhhhh! I like it: Sorcerer, Hollywood, and nasty little intrigues, punctuated by soaking gore.

Folks, Carl (Spooky Fanboy) was one of the first Sorcerer people, all the way back to when it was a shareware-style TXT file and a ten-person mailing list. It is a major pleasure to see his play get under way.

Best,
Ron

The think I like a lot about a game like Sorcerer is that the whole GM-Player thing is really open with regard to secret, behild-the-scenes kinda stuff (the whole authorial stance thing). The players know a lot, the characters don't...nicely done.

Last we left Jen, she had gotten the idea that (because of Taylor's suprise visit) she needed a body guard. Fluffy, knowing that a well-summoned demon would corrupt her more easily, encouraged her to summon a demon bodyguard type, but to Contact first, so as to set up an 'interview process'. Going off of the book, Fluffy encouraged her to get a strong hallucinogen, go out of her skull, and advertise for a good bodyguard demon.

She contacted a friend of a friend of a friend, and got some high-strength, low-strychnine LSD. she took a little more than she should have, at Fluffy's urging, locked the door to her bedroom, and hallucinated.

She envisioned (with a good Will roll) that she was in a twisted landscape with a bullhorn, advertising her desire for a bodyguard demon, interviews to take place immediately, and would the ice cream truck please leave the area? She Contacted Arnok, a bodyguard demon who could Armor, Cloak, donate Vitality, and allow her to see the invisible. Since she wanted him fairly inconspicuous but always close by, she requested he turn up as a stylish toe ring. He agreed, but stated his Need as one human toe a week, as fresh as possible. He straightforwardly confessed his Desire was for Risk, so now Olivia has to learn to put herself in harm's way. (I made Arnok more honest than Fluffy, to underscore his role as a bodyguard demon and to distinguish him from Fluffy.)

Her Summoning roll turned out to be one victory to the demon. Thinking quickly, I had Arnok request a sacrifice to 'help' him all the way over. Jen suprised me by offering the toenail of Olivia's left small toe. So, Olivia grabbed a pair of tweezers from her medicine cabinet, got a towel, propped her left foot on the towel, and yanked. While still under the influence of LSD.

The Binding roll was almost a Total Victory for Olivia, who had a new, cool-looking toe ring, a bloody mess in her bedroom, and a concerned neighbor who called 9-1-1 after he heard the screams. She recovered enough to come up with a cover story to soothe the neighbor. (She lives in a classy apartment building.)

What really wowed me was the brainstorming session she had with Fluffy afterward. She proposed 1) working out some deal with the local morgue doctors, 2) working out a deal with the local Mafia so that they sent her the toes of every guy they whacked, and 3) of having the toe-acquiring party (whichever one) delivering the toes in fast-food type cartons, which she could leave in her refrigerator to give to Arnok as he requests. "after all, how many people look in fast-food cartons in someone else's apartment?" I could practically hear the Humanity drop (which it did after Arnok's Binding). I'm beginnning to wonder with this crew if Humanity 0 is coming too soon; maybe I should allow for negative numbers! ;-)

This is why I love my players. Why try to think of things to throw at them, when they give me so much material to work with?

Spooky Fanboy wrote: I'm beginnning to wonder with this crew if Humanity 0 is coming too soon;

Interesting quote from Joe, player of Taylor: "I pretty much figured out that in order to play this game, I have to divorce myself from my character. I don't like him very much, in fact. He's going to hell, and I don't really care." Yet, he still plays him well. Interesting.

Hmmm.

Playing Sorcerer has become a roller-coaster ride. I mean that in the sense of sharp ups and downs, with one player making noises that he wants to get off the ride while the other one is standing up in the seat tempting fate and not giving a damn.

The third and fourth sessions of play started with my players feeling the breath of Chaos on them. Olivia and Taylor both received at the same time a threatening call from Anthony Harod at the same time, telling them to back off or die horribly, in the process pissing them off.

Olivia got a chance to see how serious Harod was when a one-shot demon (Pacted) almost killed her, but missed due to the bodyguard demon she had partially Cloaking her, deflecting the worst of the blast. She ended up with two front flat tires and the word "BITCH" scrawled into her left front bumper. She took the opportunity to have her agent Lester set her up in a secret hideaway, so she could "recover." Lester took the opportunity to send some scripts with her. (The way she was talking about doing some actions movies so she could do her own stunts threw him off.) This allowed her to team up with Taylor for an assignment he'd picked up.

See, Taylor knew that Harod had bulked up on demons to counter the Fluffy threat. So he know that he had to get some more demons for himself and Olivia to balance it out. So he decided to ask around at the agency for any sorcerer-type problem cases that were geting out of hand, because he needed a suitable sacrifice to bring over some big guns.

So, on the spur of the moment, I came up with a case involving a 10-year-old sorcerer who started with an 'imaginary friend' and had spiraled out of control from there to Binding two Possessor Demons into Mommy and Daddy to make them more compliant, to summoning and Binding a Passer Demon bodyguard that looked like his eight-year-old sister (whom he'd sacrificed to get the Possessor demons), to Binding a Passer demon into the outside shrubs. This last one occurred because 'Mommy' and 'Daddy' were...'trying out' their new bodies in front of the open front window and were gaining an audience of neighborhood kids. This freaked out the kid, who Bound a Passer demon into the hedge, made it come alive and devour the nosy kids. Now, of course, the sorcerer had too many demons and was in way over his head.

Taylor thought the kid would make the perfect sacrifice, plus he'd get to righteously Banish a few demons, so he told Olivia about it and she agreed to come along. (Fluffy said it'd be a good experience for her.)

With rental car, "Scream" costumes in hand, and demons intow, they were off to kill a shrubbery.

Okay, so they're outside the house, using a demon to try and look in. They see a dead lawn with human bits near the shrubbery which has grown enough to nearly cover the house.

They try to Punish the demon. They fail, abysmally. They send in their assassin demon. It clears a path.

They nearly get bushwhacked by the invisible friend, who calls them hypocrites and useless, just like all the other adults in the young sorcerer's life. They team up and Banish him, having learned their lesson with the hedge.

They Banish the mother, who greets them at the basement. The basement is where the kid did his summoning, and apparently made a few messes. They were'nt happy with what they saw. There's gore and other bodily excretions all over the place, the house is sealed, the heat is turned up high, and it's spring/near summer out. The players said, "EWWWW!" I felt happy.

They Banish the father on the stairs leading up to the attic. Olivia, who's beginning to lose it, has a running argument with the father, referring to herself and Taylor as Social Service agents. The father rants at them about how he has the right to discipline his child as he sees fit, he's an American, dammit, and who the hell are they to barge into his home?

After Daddy-demon poofed, they heard a noise in the upstairs bathroom. They expected the sister-demon, but when they opened the door, they saw the sorceror.

WARNING: THIS NEXT PART GETS BAD. YOU MAY WANT TO SKIP THIS AND TRUST ME: IT GETS UGLY.

The sorceror (who remember is a ten-year-old kid) is tied to one of those old-fashioned bathtub with the clawed feet. He's tied and gagged pretty securely. Apparently, the parent-demons were 'disciplining' him for not taking care of their Needs, with some enthusiasm. How enthusiastic? Well, let's condense it...the kid had a curling iron shoved into a very uncomfortable place. Yes, the cord was still plugged in.

(I swear to the gods the image just popped into my head during play, and I ran with it. I'm actually a sane, lovable person in real life. I swear.)

When our lovable team of Taylor and Olivia see this, and hear the child yelling through the gag, they tell him to shut up, that this was all his fault to begin with. But they were nice enough to unplug the curling iron. Unfortunately, he was trying to warn them about the 'sister', who was on the ceiling poised to strike.

Fortunately, the bodyguard demon Taylor summoned was eager to collect some blood, so therefore was on guard when the demon sister made her move. She sliced Olivia with claws, but the bodyguard's shot and Olivia's bodyguard's bestowed Vitality kept her from being taken out. Taylor's watcher demon did the rest by feeding on her.

So, with that out of the way, they took the young sorcerer down the stairs to the summoning circle, still gagged and bound. They killed him, took off his toes (for Olivia's bodyguard demon), took out his eyes and blood (for Taylor's bodyguard/assassin), cut off his head and stuffed it full of shotgun shelves (to summon Olivia's new Object Demon, a shiny, creepy-looking handgun with Need for blood-soaked bullets), and scooped out his brain (to summon a mind-reading psionic demon Parasite). No moral qualms are big enough to stop our heroes!

(Actually, the both explained the reason they never untied/ungagged the kid, was told to me by Jen later: "Well we could have untied the kid and ungagged him, but then we would have had to listen to his pleas for mercy, and that would have reminded us that he was just a dumb kid, and then when we had to sacrifice him to summon our demons, we would have been bad people, and neither of us felt like dealing with that then. This way, we could feel somewhat justified.")

OKAY! WORST IS OVER, YOU CAN ALL COME BACK NOW!

They get their demons summoned, and go. In the process, Taylor's mind-reader demon whose Need is amphetamines and smart drinks, and whose Desire is new experiences, gets poorly Bound. (Hee hee!) They make the house blow up before disappearing/driving off.

The scary thing was that, for both characters, there was a net Humanity gain for that session. When they asked for a rationale, I told them that, at this point, they'd both probably seen enough horror to start questioning their blaseness toward what they were doing, with Olivia in particular probably having some second thoughts on whether or not a successful acting career was really worth it.

Rollercoaster part 3 will detail some of the questions and suggestions the players and myself had after the fourth game. Coming soon.

A net Gain? erk..... oh my.....

Thus the dice spaketh, my friend.

In an odd way, it makes sense. It means they both took home some lessons from the ten-year-old sorceror's messy fate. Plus, remember, they had to banish a few demons to get where they were going, which does offer a chance at Humanity gain.

Be fun to see where they go from here! (Claw their way back to the Light, or, crash and Burn)
Please keep posting, it's facinating to read!

And now we come to the after-discussion of the Sorcerer game. If you recall, it was a bit grotesque, and I began to get vibes that one of my two players was near the breakdown point.

Joe (Taylor, in the game) admitted he wasn't quite there, but this game was pushing a lot of uncomfortable buttons. Not a violent person by temperment, he had grown up in a violent area and occasionally had to do violent things just to keep functioning. He games to escape a lot of the ugliness in the world around him. He raised objections to the fact that successes to Summoning and Binding a demon were applied as penalties to Humanity rolls from Summoning and Binding.

Jen and I pointed out to him that her character had Summoned and Bound a demon with only a bit of self-sacrifice. However, I apologized for not making more explicit the difference between player knowledge (that the sacrifice added dice, but was not necessary) and color (that the organization he works for assumed that the sacrifices are necessary, since the sorcerers they monitored always used them.)

Joe then pointed out that it seems that Humanity has a definite downward spiral, and that makes it almost impossible for a ccharacter to be a hero in Sorcerer. I kinda agreed, but pointed out that that doesn't mean a character can't act heroically when it counts.

Jen agreed, and said that's what she loved about it. She was having a blast with that game, creating a naive little twit with about 56 ways to go to hell. She quoted Fight Club, saying "I wanted to destroy something beautiful." To which Joe replied, "That's what scares me."

Did I mention that Joe and Jen are roommates, in love, and want to get married someday? How's that for a heapin' helpin' of tension?

So Jen wants to continue the game, but Joe wants a break. And that's the game so far.

Hey,

I'm a bit confused about this:

the fact that successes to Summoning and Binding a demon were applied as penalties to Humanity rolls from Summoning and Binding.

Ron Edwards wrote:
And finally, are your players fully aware that low Humanity has no effect whatsoever on the character's actual moral/behavioral profile?

Hi Tom,

I'm seeing three issues in your post, a little bit mixed up together, it seems to me.

1. Humanity as behavior-changer

It's fundamental to playing Sorcerer that values of Humanity, high or low, have no in-game effect on character behavior whatsoever.

At Humanity 1, your character could be a saint. At Humanity 10, he could be a raving vicious psychopath. It's very common across games I've been in or heard about that a player will see a character drop sharply in Humanity, then change the character's behavior drastically, precipitating a rise upwards.

On a related note, the chance for Humanity to drop (for non-sorcerous acts) is not increased at lower Humanity levels. It's always 50%. Again, Carl, are you playing this differently in some way?

2. What happens at Humanity 0

I'm not aware of any mode or subset of Sorcerer play for which going to Humanity 0 has no specific consequences of some kind. To my thinking, that would constitute extremely radical Drift of some kind.

3. Humanity definition

Neither of the above two points is changed whatsoever, no matter how Humanity is defined. Aura, Soul, Honor, Love, whatever ...

So my question to Carl is strictly a matter of #1. Carl, I'm seeing, I think, a pretty strong assumption in your group that having lower Humanity means the character is psychologically or spiritually more prone to doing "lower-my-Humanity" type things. That's what a downward spiral is. My claim is that the Sorcerer rules say (and do) no such thing. Is my perception of your group's assumption accurate?

Best,
Ron

the fact that successes to Summoning and Binding a demon were applied as penalties to Humanity rolls from Summoning and Binding.

Can you explain what you mean?

Also, regarding Humanity as a downward spiral, the chance to lose a Humanity point based on non-sorcerous actions is always 50%, no matter what the current score is. Have you been playing this way?

And finally, are your players fully aware that low Humanity has no effect whatsoever on the character's actual moral/behavioral profile?

The game has ground to a halt. It appears it will be halted for quite awhile.

Simply put, Joe has been pushed beyond his comfort zone, and would prefer to try more relaxed, escapist fantasy games for awhile. Jen wants to play more, but doesn't want to push Joe in order to play. I can't say I blame her.

Too bad, because the game was only starting to get interesting. But this raises a valuable point: the Social Contract is a wonderful invention. Know how much your players can take. Know how much you can take. Try not to include Alien-esque scenes of creatures erupting from human chests if one of your players is pregnant, etc.

Also, in situations where there's a relationship between two or more party members, it's almost axiomatic that when one bows out, the other will as well.

Ah, well. It got accomplished one of the main things I wanted to accomplish: it gave me some familiarity with the system, so that I could properly begin writing a supplement for the game. Without that, I shudder to think what I might have ended up producing...

Spooky Fanboy wrote: Hmm. So, even if they sacrifice somebody, the victim's Humanity shouldn't be added on to the opposing side for a Humanity roll? Should it simply be rolled Humanity vs. Humanity, and if the player loses, his Humanity score goes down an amount equal to the victim's Humanity score? Because I've been playing the former way, not the latter. Oops.

Hi there,

Unless I made some horrible typo in the rules, Humanity is never dropped by more than one point at any time during play.

Best,
Ron

I meant to say that the total of the victim's Humanity was put, in dice, to the "opposing side" for the Humanity roll. If the other side wins, you lose a Humanity point. I swear it says that on p. 78.

(I did ask him to lose two Humanity points when he rolled a Total Loss onm his score. This was *after* he poisoned a homeless man and pulled out his eyes, mind you. It seemed appropriate.)

Hi Carl,

I meant to say that the total of the victim's Humanity was put, in dice, to the "opposing side" for the Humanity roll. If the other side wins, you lose a Humanity point. I swear it says that on p. 78.

Or, rather, was it a case of one player going in for such play, and the other player being nauseated by it? Another possible scenario.

Mike

Ron-- I think they were playing what they thought the game was prompting them to play. Joe recoiled, Jen loved it. Hence, my apologies to them for not stressing the Color (the Watchers wrote down which sacrifices went with which demons, because they saw the sorcerers use them successfully) vs. player knowledge (players should know that it's a quick bonus that isn't cost-effective versus roleplaying.)

However, I also maintain it isn't my fault entirely. Jen's character Summoned/Bound a demon by first successfully Contacting it (and roleplaying the fact that she was zonked on strong LSD in the process) and then sealed the deal (Binding) by ripping out her left toenail. Her bonuses to rolls through previous successes made her much stronger than Joe's sacrifing people. Joe was there while we roleplayed this, but still stuck to sacrificing people to summon the demons he felt were necessary to take on the producer. He kept in character, even though he was slowly getting repulsed by the game. He simply didn't see the character as redeemable, even though there was a perfect opportunity to set his character on that course by helping a struggling ingenue (Jen's character) out of a bad situation! And I explained Kicker resolution to him! I think the game just tread to far on the dark side for him, and he didn't want to play anymore.

Add to this the fact that he prefers games with crunchy rules and fairly in-depth worlds that come pre-packaged with minimal assembly required (Deadlands, pre-d20 for an example), and you could see the train wreck before it left the station. I should have known it was going to end badly when I saw how badly he reacted to octaNe. (Although maybe that's not the best example, either...)

Mike-- See above, and add to that the fact of Jen (his girlfriend, who he wants to marry) crowing about the gaming experience she was having with Sorcerer, gleefully creating a character she wanted to see get destroyed spiritually and probably physically as well. She was having the time of her life. I think that creeped him out completely.

So why did we play in the first place? One, I brought the game over for them so they could see what I was writing my little supplement for. Then Jen read it in a half-hour, and begged me to run a game. Joe read it in a day, thought it might be fun to try, and said he'd give it a go. I wanted to get more familiar with the game, so I agreed to run it. Based on the strength of Jen's character concept, Joe was able to define his character (who came off as a rather dry port of a Watcher from BtVS, honestly), and I got the setting and major plot movers for my campaign. It started off nicely.

Well, I gotta say that at least this is the first time I've heard of the girlfriend squicking the boyfriend and not the other way 'round. I'm not sure wether to applaud or boo her. :-)

Mike

Mike Holmes wrote: I don't even know the Humanity scores of any of the characters that mine have sacrificed. It's simply not in the mechanics at all, AFAIK. If you fail to roll your own Humanity vs your own Humanity, you lose one point of humanity no matter the number of successes. You can never lose more than one. Unless I've been playing wrong...

Mike

performing a sacrifice entails making another Humanity check. If it is a human sacrifice, this check as a penalty equal to the victim's Humanity instead of the usual single-die penalty

Hi there,

"Negative" dice pools in Sorcerer are always handled the same way.

Let's say I start with three dice and the other guy has, say, four. For whatever reason, I get hit with an eight-dice penalty.

What happens? How can I roll negative-five dice against his four?

Easy, actually. Take my dice pool down to one die (that's two dice of penalty). Then give the other six to his side for a bonus.

So I roll one die and he rolls ten.

I swear to God that I thought that this was incredibly obvious given the Rule of Currency, at the time of writing. It doesn't help that the combat example offered an opportunity to showcase it, but I didn't do so (see the Jonathan Tweet discussion for my lambasting about that).

Best,
Ron

This is why things have to be stated and shown in examples for me, Ron. Laying it out all math-like and obvious in text is nice, but I'm an English-major type of person. ;-)

I'd have never thought of the above without an example to wrap my head around. I just added the negative as a positive to the opposition and was done with it. Oh, well... now I know, and knowing is--Put down the gun, I'll stop.