I was hoping I could toss my Sorcerer game ideas, inchoate as they are, into the community here and take advantage of the creativity I’ve seen in other posts. Any ideas and comments would be welcome.

Thematically, I have been thinking about “secrets”. Horrible secrets being kept, self-deception, whole towns in denial, etc. I could even play with this concept in some of the runs, making some revealed secrets better left unrevealed. Maybe I could somehow tie Lore and Humanity somehow to this concept: rituals require hidden transgressions and secrets that must be kept. I’m not sure what concept of Demon fits best with this -- perhaps the remains of spirits of the dead with something hidden to reveal.

Along that line, making deamons unhappy spirts allows all sorts of nifty direction. What if they aren’t really dead souls, but something more horrific masking that way? If binding involves keeping them from going on to their reward or something, you have an explanaition right there for a humanity drop. It would also explain their eagerness to posess/parasite.

In terms of setting, I was thinking New England: the New England of Lovecraft and King. Play would run through a single year, with stories set appropriate to the season. For example, we could start out with “Indian Summer,” this pseudo-summer that shows up in New England in September, with a matching story about a good thing backed by a deception. I admit a bit of lazyness here. I’m from New England and it’s pretty spooky even without a GM’s help.

To bring the characters together and tie them to the theme, I was thinking of a sort of IT / Big Chill combination. The characters are all middle-aged, having lead fairly successful lives mostly due to their Sorcerous abilities. All close friends in the way that only children can be, who have since drifted apart. A death of one of them brings them back. A shadowy back-story ties their Lore ability together, with some secrets kept hidden from them, and from each other. I was thinking of cutting some of the runs with some Watchmen-style foreshadowing (“I’m killing someone in the snow…”) and maybe alternate perspectives of characters in the past.

Look forward to hearing from y’all.

Great stuff, Gary. Of course, I'd say that, as it's very much in the "visit America's microcultures with a twist" vein that I like to play.

Your demon concept parallels that of Raven's as expressed on the old mailing list; check out the Archives on the Sorcerer website ("What is a demon?" "Demon motives") for some of his thoughts in that direction. It is PERFECT for the kind of scenario construction presented in The Sorcerer's Soul.

Set up a game and play!

Best,
Ron

Thanks Ron.

Oddly enough, there are some writers who write the way you describe in Sorcerer' soul. In Stephen King's biography, he basically says that he starts by investing heavily in the backstory and characters. At that point, the story kind of writes itself, since everything's "in motion" without any "plotting" required. He says its even easier for him because, as a Horror writer, he's fine with whatever (horrible) thing happens to his character.

G

I haven't read Raven's stuff, but here's my take. The demons are what you traded for, the reason you have the secret. Make them totally mundane. I think this would be really cool.

For example, John Baxter is a high powered attorney with all that comes with that. Success, fortune, power. Give all that a power rating, and all the other trappings of a demon, and have the player roll those stats to be able to do anything a high-powered attorney could do.

What is his secret? He sandbagged a partner who was standing in his way to get the job. He planted false information to get the guy fired. His telltale is that he gets a guilty look on his face now when people mention that fortunate promotion.

Like the show "Six Feet Under" the ghosts are metaphorical. For John, his ghost is the face of the guy he got fired after it happened. John wonders now what has become of the guy.

In this version, there would be no humanity rolls for contacting, summoning, etc. Instead just the normal rolls for doing bad stuff to people to get what you want. I've always thought that Sorcerer was just an extended metaphor for this anyhow. In this case you are playing with the metaphor in the background instead of manifest as actual demons. Instead you just have demons of the mind.

Mike Holmes