Hello all:

I've been a lurker here for a time, bought copies of the Sorcerer, Sorcerer & Sword, Sorcerer's Soul, Charnel Gods and Urge rules. I've played a couple of instances of Sorcerer & Sword, and I'm interested in running my own game, specifically as my thread title suggests, Charnel Gods.

I would like to play by post at the Roleplay Online (http://www.rpol.net) site, as I'm not near enough geographically to anybody who wants to play this game to do so face to face.

The prep I've done so far is limited to putting together several relationship maps that I think might be customizable to a variety of settings, and found a pretty cool blank fantasy map on the net (lacking any inherent artistic talent of my own) to use as a springboard for fleshing out the setting in play.

Question 1) I think that the game will work out just fine as Play by Post, but I'm not sure, and I've had a few people at RPOL tell me that it won't work, so I wondered if any of you have any experience playing Sorcerer play by post, and if so, are there any pitfalls that I need to watch out for?

Question 2) Does the minimal amount of prep I've done so far seem 'about right' for a starting campaign? I've got lots of ideas that I think would be cool to include/incorporate in the game, but I'm saving them for discussions with actual players, which sound like the right thing to do, but I'm not absolutely sure.

Question 3) I wasn't sure I was going to ask this, and I can't find anything definitive in the posting guidelines 'round here at The Forge, and I saw the other thread in this forum about a play by post game, so here goes: are there two or three people here that would be willing to join my game? I'd prefer to have players who have at least read the rules and are exicited to play. Based on some trial balloons at the general RPOL threads, I don't get the sense that too many of the general player base over there is much interested in player authorship/Narrativist leaning play.

Thanks in advance for you advice.

Regards,



Porter

All you weird on-line role-playing types, help him out!

Best,
Ron

http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=7481

That is a link to my recent discussion of a sorcerer game I'm running on RPOL - feel free to look over the discussion AND the game. You mentioned you saw a thread, which might have been mine, but have you poked at the game itself? Who at RPOL is telling you that it can't be done? I've only just started the game (been a few weeks) but I managed to do everything I wanted, and so far nobody's pointed out any major errors I've done or anything...

I even managed to plead/request/bully jase, the RPOL coder dude, into adding "Sorcerer" as an option in the dice-roller. I think it's working out fine for me, both the dice and the game. There are no pitfalls specific to Sorcerer that aren't general play-by-post pitfalls (how much narrative control do the PCs have over NPC's actions and thoughts? that's a good question to find an answer to... also, you should be aware of the pacing, and make sure not to go too quickly or too slowly).

My "prep" before the game start was very minimal - a writing up of what Lore and Humanity was, and a description of the setting. Most of my prep came after the "Pre-Game Roundtable" (a separate thread that I archived so people could look at it; I humbly suggest you take a look) - each of my players came up with a small relationship map for their individual characters, which I tied into the larger plot. Instead of taking a cue from Ron and plucking a relationship map out of a book, I just hammered together one of my own... I'm hoping it'll work out.

I think there ARE people at rpol interested in player-author/narrative play, they just (a) don't understand the terms and (b) mostly gravitate towards the many freeform games. I didn't bother to recruit from RPOL for this game - I found rpol only after I discovered people who said they'd be interested. It's worth a shot, popping an idea baloon into the Wanted - Players section.

Alexander:

Thanks. I saw your game pop up a few weeks back, and wished that you'd put out an open call for it, because I would have liked to play.

I will take a look at your pre-game roundtable thread.

I've done a fair amount of play-by-post, and the general issues of the medium are familiar to me.

You do bring up an interesting question about how much control players ought to have over NPC actions and thoughts.

I know that one of the big no-no's in Sorcerer is for the GM to get into ascribing emotions/feelings/thoughts/motivations to the PCs, and I'd assume that should work both ways, but it's a good point that as part of the pre-game discussions it should be addressed at a Social Contract level.

I put up a couple of sample posts in the writers critique forum several weeks ago, and got a lot of negative response. The people there, in my experience, who gravitate toward freeform can't be convinced that a game with (prejorative tone)rules(/prejorative tone) could possibly allow for player authorship. The people who gravitate toward all of the various and sundry 3EDnD games don't want to have to do any of that 'story' stuff (that's the GM's job), and the people who hang out in the Adult threads want to know how much kinky sex your game has.

Sure, all of the above are very judgemental and unreasonable generalizations, and I'm sure with enough digging over there I could find 2 or 3 acceptable players who were willing to play...but I'd have to teach them the rules and/or crib a bunch of rules from the game and the suppliments to make it work.

I'm really interested in concentrating my own efforts on driving the play from Bang to Bang, and helping facilitate the players achieving Story Now, then on teaching the rules to new players.

But perhaps I'll take your advice and give a general announcement invitation a try.

I certainly wouldn't want to take the first 3 people who signed up, and so I'd need to take 'applications'. The only way I can think of to judge these applications is to explain in brief the idea of the Kicker, and ask for sample character concepts and Kickers, and see if I can judge who 'groks' the whole concept from that. Does that seem like a reasonable yardstick to measure a player's suitability for the game?


Regards,



Porter

Also, announce your game on Indie Netgaming. See my sig. It's specifically designed to organize online play of games like Sorcerer. Ought to get some hits there.

Mike

Mike,

I'd love to do that. I've tried several times to get to Indie Net Gaming, but it's blocked from the only computers I have access to, and my hacking skills aren't up to the challenge of breaking a firewall...

But, if I can get one of my very old, very sick PC's at home up and running enough to slap a modem on it, I'll give the site a look, and adverstise the game there.

Thanks for the advice.

Regards,



Porter

Thoughts and feelings:

If they're not really plot-important, I find it's a bit more free-flow in both directions. I had no qualms about having one of the characters start her car, and be frustrated that it AGAIN wasn't working quite right. Of course, a lot of that has to do with pre-game discussion (I knew that's the kind of car she had) and just, well, how crucial it is. Her being frustrated at her car isn't (generally) anything crucial, so generally it can be let slide.

The other thing, of course, is that the GM can edit anyone's post on RPOL. So say she did have a problem with that, I could ask, "oops, what would the reaction be?" and go back and change it.

And I allow the players to do the same things with my NPCs (and if I have specific ideas, I'll try to hint, or occasionally - only once so far- outright say "hey, here's what I want this NPC to reveal to you...").

+-+-+-+-+-+

I put out an open call on the indie-netgaming email list (which Mike also pointed out), and got one person (Trevis), and found another in the rpg.net chatroom of all places (Delta1), the third was my gf, and the fourth is someone else who I've run pbem games before. Four was pretty much my limit, and half that was filled (gf and other online gamer friend) before I even put out a call.

(I also put out a call for people interested in the "ghosts of fallen earth" game that I might now turn into a mini-supplement, but Mike was the only respondent, so that game was put on hold... probably why I'm marching towards mini-supplement-ness.)

If I did a call on RPOL.NET (which I've considered for experimental purposes) I'd want to see how they reacted IN the player roundtable.

Btw, two of my players (maybe 3, I'm not entirely sure about Delta1, honestly) don't know anything about the rules apart from what I've told them. I spent some time typing up various Sorcerer rules (character creation, dice, etc.) and put them in a "hidden" thread so only the other players could glimpse them all (one of only two hidden threads, the other one a place to store my notes).

I think it has worked so far, for the most part, but YMMV.

Porter -> you're blocked from http://groups.yahoo.com ? Are you blocked from yahoo entirely, or just that one part of yahoo?

Hey there,

I've never done play-by-post, so I've got nothing useful to add, except to reiterate what others have said. I don't see anything in Sorcerer that would preclude it from being a good candidate for such play. Certain elements unique to Charnel Gods - like Contacting and Summoning - would work great in the medium.

I'm super interested in hearing about what you've prepped for this game. Please, feel free to post details about your play, or at least e-mail me when you get a chance. Bryant Durrell has talked about setting up a Charnel Gods fanpage/database, so I'd love to gather information about people's games, if that's cool with you.

- Scott

Alexander, Scott & Mike:

Thanks again for the input.

Alexander:

I agree that RPOL has many useful features that are condusive to ret-conning stuff that already happened in play in response to a players (or my as the GM) reaction to something I've posted.

I just think that given the dictates of Sorcerer, it would be better to work out the process before hand - lay out some guidelines for how each player, and the GM, can or cannot manipulate the other characters (player or not) in their posts.

I've had some touchy experiences on RPoL inviting players conditionally with the thought of culling a game's player base after some initial character/setting creation stuff. I've gotten some angry posts/email sent my way as a result, and while it's pretty easy to ignore, I don't like causing that much disappointment/vitrol in other people as a general rule.

I'd rather rule people out before it gets far enough that a player is hooked, even though they may not fit the game.

Finally, I'd prefer people who are familiar with the rules because this is my first time running Sorcerer, and I'm not sure that I can put the effort into both teaching the nuances of the game and the whole player authorship thing along with paying attention to properly portraying the demons, pacing the Bangs appropriately and so on.

Scott:

I'll be happy to share my development with you when/if it happens. As it stands right now, I've got no more than a blank geographic map and a couple of generalized relationship maps.

One of the R-maps comes out of a book that's tangentially a part of the cannon of American Detective Fiction, and the other is one completely of my own devising.

I have definite ideas about the setting: I'd like the general feel of it to be like the early Elric stories. However, I'm interested in exploring the idea that the appearance of the Fell Weapons represents the 'begginning of the end', so to speak. In other words, I'm interested in exploring the idea that the player characters are among the first, if not THE first people in their Epoch to discover the truth of the Myth and the Fell Weapons.

Other than that, I don't have any prep to speak of, and I don't think I should do more until I've interacted with some actual players.

Thanks again everyone for all the help. I'll see if I can't rig up a way to contact the Yahoo Group from home...

(Alexander: I can't see Yahoo! Groups - I suspect it's because my job doesn't want us worker bees to spend a lot of time posting to message boards, but of course, they haven't identified the Forge as one yet, thank the Gods...)

Regards,



Porter

Porter,

In other words, I'm interested in exploring the idea that the player characters are among the first, if not THE first people in their Epoch to discover the truth of the Myth and the Fell Weapons.

Porter wrote: Alexander:

I agree that RPOL has many useful features that are condusive to ret-conning stuff that already happened in play in response to a players (or my as the GM) reaction to something I've posted.

I just think that given the dictates of Sorcerer, it would be better to work out the process before hand - lay out some guidelines for how each player, and the GM, can or cannot manipulate the other characters (player or not) in their posts.

Alexander:

I'm sorry, I didn't mean to indicate that I didn't get the process you've agreed upon for you game...because I did, both from your post here and from the archived pregame roundtable you've got in your RPoL game.

I was just trying to say that I want to let the players for this game have a shot at providing input into the process, that's all...

I really appreciate all the help you've provided, and in particular taking a look at your pregame round table has helped immensely.

I've got two 'confirmed' yes players, and one 'maybe', who I've granted access to, but since one of those is a maybe, I'm considering accepting one more player.

I don't suppose you're interested, are you? 9;-) (Had to ask...given the opportunity...)

Regards,


Porter

All,

Here's an update on how the campaign setup discussions are going. By the way, I'd still like one or two more players, if anybody here is interested, drop me a PM here, or head on over to http://www.rpol.net and look for the "UNCONQUERED (Charnel Gods)" game.

Let me know if you have any questions. We're still discussing some of the setting stuff, and starting to work on players' characters.

Premise:
We have chosen to deal with two premises, interlinked: “Is this society worth saving?”, and “What do you do with the Power of a God in your hands?”

Imagery:
A decadent world past its glory days. At its center a humbled empire, its ancient provinces long since separated and escaped from its grasp. The citystates aren’t going forward, but are instead slowly being eaten by the encroaching wilderness and the terrors that it hides. Most of the cultures are isolated and xenophobic. There is both gothic bleakness and exotic decadence.

Geography:
The former empire is the Empire of Valesia. In their heyday, they were a race of conquerors with an appreciation for the finer things in life (think Greco-Roman). But their time is past and their former holdings are now independent city-states controlled by a variety of cultures. The relationships between the city-states are tenuous and the situation is about to explode.

Valesia started in the main central continent, but in it’s heyday spread across most of the known world.

As their empire waned, the Valesians retreated to their Imperial capital (as yet unnamed). Proud to a fault, the Valesians refused to acknowledge that their time was past and still referred to their leader as Emperor.

Ten years ago, the Atakari (Arabian/Egyptian culture) came and laid siege to the Valesians. The Atakari were a former small civilization that became a province of the Valesian Empire many centuries ago, but who escaped from the Valesian’s leash some hundred years ago, and have been eating up former Valesian territory every since, in a mad dash to become the next great Empire of the world. It’s important to not that in all the most important fundamental ways, the Atakari are just like the Valesians who went before, though neither culture would care to acknowledge this.

Ten years ago, the Atakari laid siege to, sacked and captured the Valesian Imperial Capital near the center of the central continent. Since then, the former Empire and the upstart conquerors have warily eyed one another across a rather large no-man’s border land that’s become known as Deadmens Cleft. This massive and foggy plain is, in actuality, the first Carrion Field to surface in this Epoch.

Most cultures live beside water -- the inlands have grown dangerous with unspeakable horrors.

The world spans most of the familiar climate zones in the familiar way. Northern most and Southern most landmasses are ice bound. The further north or south you go toward the poles, the colder the climate. The temperate zones are near the equator, and the central continent has the best weather and soil overall for farming.

The central continent is surrounded by mostly island-nations, with only two other landmasses that might be considered continents in their own right.


Politics:

Each political entity is ruled based on local flavor/practices and can be detailed during play. For now let's say they run the gamut from Feudal Aristocracy to Theocracy with perhaps one 'free' or 'medieval democratic' city-state that's relatively xenophobic.

The majority of the central Valesian Empire still stands as a unified front that is marshalling troops to retake their capital, although in perhaps a half-hearted way.

The Valesian Empire is still the equal of any two or three city-states combined, and that alliances between the city-states are in a constant state of upheaval, with lots of political backstabbing and double-crosses, and lots of petty border skirmishes and minor wars. The Empire largely stays above the fray, but occasionally weighs in on one side or another of a conflict in exchange for easing off on the acrimony or trade concessions or whatnot. Sort of the Elder state manipulating the Younger states to get its way. It sets up a nice old order/new order dichotomy.

The Atakari arer an up and coming city-state that used to sit on the very outskirts of the Empires former reach and glory, and for the last say hundred years or so, they've been gobbling up former Imperial territory between their location and the capital city of Valesia.

The third major political entity defined so far is the unfortunate city-state of Dundatvi caught in the middle of the Valesian-Atakari war (it is situated on the mountainous peninsula between the current Valesian and Atakari border):

In short, the Dundatvi are a deeply religious people, living in a lie and being choked by tradition. Their religion, led by a holy avatar, called Gitsi Dundatvi (the mother of the mountains, actually an ancient bygone from the previous epoch) whose every word is law as interpreted by the priests. This religion is ancient, and it teaches that eternal life is granted through the worship of the avatar. This, of course, is the lie.

Politically the Dundatvi used to enjoy a prosperous trade agreement with the Valesian capital, trading iron ore and indigenous herbs (some of which are highly intoxicating) for food. This all changed with the arrival of the Atakari.

Now the dundatvi are forgotten – the crumbling mountain keeps house a nation of drug-dazed wretches who are slowly starving to death and hiding from the Nameless creatures clawing at their walls. Nonetheless their lives continue in the ancient traditions of the Gitsi Dundatvi, who remains oblivious to the plight of his adopted people.

Belief:
This part seems to be citystate specific. The only thing that is already implied, is that the cultures are all old and in moral (and physical) decay.

There are myths and legends that the Gods once actually answered prayer, and cast miracles through the faithful (true or not) and that the fact that none of the Gods has done so in living memory has given rise to lots of fractured religions, new gods, cults and the like. Sort of like all of the people realize that things are getting bad, they hear that the Gods used to step in and handle this sort of thing, and the fact that they haven't has caused the spiritual equivalent of a drowning man flailing around in the cosmic sea, frantically searching for something solid to hang onto, but in reality only making his condition worse...


Conflicts:
These relate to the politics mostly. The wilderness is indeed home to the Nameless creatures, Bygones, Ancients and perhaps worse, which is one universal conflict that touches all city-states.

In fact, during the past fifty years or so, several prominent inland City-states have simply disappeared, with only a few straggling survivors trudging in out of the wild-lands to say that some horrible Bygone, Nameless One or Ancient Power stepped in an laid waste to the place...of course, most people don't believe such stories.

Humanity:
We are going with the default definition in Charnel Gods, which is to say that Humanity is defined as how well you act toward society, regardless of your internal motivations.

Sorcery:
Again, we are using the default setups as presented in Charnel Gods, granting the players all the freedom they want to describe how their individual character Contacts, Summons and Binds their Fell Weapon, bearing in mind that the Contact and Summoning are not in the traditional vein of the normal Sorcerer campaign.

Descriptors:
Have not yet been discussed, but probably need to be…

Regards,



Porter

I noticed, Porter, that you're having your players roleplay through the binding and giving them bonus dice for their binding rolls afterwards.

Wow.

You're being a lot nicer to them than I was to my players in my game. :D My interpretation of the rulebook seemed to suggest that the first-Binding-roll was simply rolled straight. Well, I guess they needed it.

And you're using ten-siders, right? I couldn't tell from the die rolls.

Lxndr:

Yes, I know that the rules read that the first dice roll is pretty much straight up with no roleplaying bonuses, but I wanted to give the players, none of whom (I think) have much play by post experience, a chance to get their feet wet.

I'm not sure if it will ultimately be a good thing. Christopher was actually hoping to be completely in the thrall of Kar, his Fell Weapon, and was somewhat disappointed I think that I gave him any bonus dice at all.

I don't think it will pose problems down the road - but it remains to be seen.

Thanks for checking in on the game. If you have any other comments, they are welome.

And yes, we are using the d10.

Regards,


Porter

As a player, I can say that it helped me get a better handle on Alethea and her character a bit. Her backstory got settled better into my brain than if we'd just started off.

Basically, it permitted a kind of 'subcreation' test of the character, kind of like the standard once-over for likeability, as well as providing me a much better understanding as to what she thought she was getting into.

I'm fairly sure she regrets her choice, and is well on her way to becoming a rather cynical, sardonic anti-hero.

:)

Yeah, I wanted to see how I could do "good" while still satisfying the needs of the Fell from a position of disadvantage. But that's still my subtheme, it's just not as strong. No problem.

Chris

Thanks for chiming in AnyaTheBlue and Christopher.

I was kind of hoping that the binding might work out as a roleplaying 'once over' for the character - and I'm still not sure that it worked that way for everyone.

I want to say that while we've gotten off to a slow start - I think we've gotten off to a good start.

All thanks to the hard creative work of the players. I couldn't ask for a better group, at least not so far.

I'm very excited to get started, and I hope that I can live up to the promise of Story Now! inherent in both the game, and the players good prep work.

Regards,



Porter

Hey, Porter, I'm really sorry to hear about your game suddenly having to be killed. :( It was looking good while it was going.